Stand Your Ground [closed to Kakashi and Ryouma]
[[Set on March 22nd, around two weeks after The Safest Place You've Found and Straighten Up, Face the Day]]

Kakashi was late to the briefing.

It wouldn't have been so bad if the Intel agent shuffling his files behind the desk wasn't forty, greying, married, and male. Ryouma rearranged all his conversational gambits, tried the safe ones and then the more edgy options, and still got nothing more than grunted monosyllables and, once, a flicker of a scowl. He wouldn't have even known it was Kakashi they were waiting for if the Intel agent hadn't unwisely asked him, just after he entered the tiny briefing room, whether he'd seen Hatake in the hall.

In retrospect, Ryouma probably shouldn't have pounced with questions. (He's back from his mission? When'd he get back? How come they're sending him out again? Who're we killing? Sure you're not setting me up for another ambush this time?) The briefer shut up tighter than any bank vault, and Ryouma eventually shoved the chairs aside and started doing one-handed push-ups just to keep himself awake.

He was on twenty-three when the door opened, and he counted twenty-four and twenty-five out of sheer stubbornness before he looked up. "Welcome back, genius. Got tired of running?" He rolled into a crouch, chest heaving as he caught his breath. The view was better, from here; he could actually see a narrow slice of Kakashi's pale face and a single grey eye between the mask and hitai'ate.

"Or'd you just miss my scintillating conversation an' supernatural good looks? I gotta warn you, I'm going masked this time."