Genma's eyes lit up, a grin sparking over his stubbled face. "Dude, that's a brilliant idea. We can go blossom viewing. You don't even have to push me, I can totally walk."

The nurse gave him a look that would have withered the blooms right off the cherries Genma was proposing seeing. "You barely managed standing for one minute this morning, and that was with two of us holding you up."

"That was... That was just practice. And I hadn't eaten yet," Genma protested.

"You still haven't eaten," she retorted, showing Genma his picked-at breakfast tray.

"I ate some. Come on, Kaori-neechan, let me and Rai go for a walk. It's good for us. Fujita-sensei told Rai to walk, right?" He gave her his most winning smile, which was pretty damn good, even considering the fading bruises and pained creases around his eyes.

Raidou proved he'd learned a few tricks from his Eros-trained friend, adding his own big-eyed pleading-charming-hopeful look. "We'll be good. Promise," he said. He might as well have added Don't you want to make us happy? Look at us, poor sick guys cooped up in this miserable, airless hospital room.

The nurse threw her hands up, but she laughed. "You ANBU boys! Such children! Alright. You can go, but--" She held up her hand. "Youare riding. Got it, Genma? And you--" She turned to Raidou. "--are taking it slowly and carefully."

"Okay," Genma agreed with a small pout. He gripped the rail with his right hand, sitting up with slow, deliberate care. "You go get a wheelchair. But I could walk. Probably."

"Would you wait just a minute? Honestly," Kaori complained. "Let me get your arm in a sling. You have to keep it elevated."

The traction device that kept Genma's left hand suspended made a high metallic sound as it moved along the track, dragged along as Genma pulled himself up. Raidou gave it an anxious glance, eyes flickering from glowing seals to the cage of surgical steel surrounding Genma's hand and wrist, then wiped his expression clean before the nurse caught it. She didn't look worried. If anything, she seemed pleased under her exasperation, pressing the call button and then moving quickly around the room to gather everything she needed.

Another nurse stuck her head through the door, then vanished to fetch a wheelchair and shirt at Kaori's request.

Genma looked a little like he wanted to squirm impatiently as Kaori unhooked his left hand with delicate, careful precision and maneuvered it into the padded sling. But ANBU weren't known for their squirming, and there was too much wary fear behind amber-brown eyes as the nurse's hands brushed close to recently shattered bones...

Focus pinned entirely on his partner, Raidou almost startled straight off the bed when the second nurse reappeared in front of him and dropped a shirt on his lap. "Need a hand putting that on?" she asked, pushing the wheelchair towards Kaori and hooking a tendril of cheerful blond hair back into a disheveled bun. "Or can you manage?"

After nine days of not wearing one, Raidou had almost forgotten what a shirt was. He stared at it, then grabbed it, blunt-tipped fingers hooking into the hospital-blue cloth before anyone changed their mind and tried to take it away from him.

"I can manage." The words came out fast and distracted, but truthful. He yanked the shirt over his head, automatically tugging it around bandage-covered burns with the ease of a decade's worth of practice. Head through, right arm through, cloth falling down to his waist--

He couldn't get his left arm up high enough; bandages constricted the movement, and pain snarled at him. The blonde nurse waited patiently, watching him struggle for thirty long seconds, then helped him without a word. Over her shoulder, Raidou watched Kaori insist that Genma wear thick socks beneath his hospital gown, and found half a smile at his friend's protest that it was April, for god's sake, not deep winter.

"Socks," said Kaori firmly, pulling them over his feet. "And just be grateful I'm not strangling you with a scarf."

"I wouldn't," Raidou said, even as his eyes ticked briefly to the fading ligature marks around Genma's throat. "He might get ideas. Betcha he'd love some booties, though, right?"

You are dead as a friend to me, Genma's look suggested.

Raidou grinned crookedly, only one side of his mouth lifting, and plucked at his collar. "Think I'd be pushing it if I asked for a sweater, fearless?"

He wasn't cold, but the weight of cloth (finally) felt almost better than armour.

There was something profoundly relieving about seeing Raidou dressed. Maybe it was the expression on his face, even half-hidden under bandages--he looked just a little more at ease, a little less on high alert. Genma grinned. "You can get Rai a sweater, right? Or a sweatshirt?"

"So you two can go outside?" Kaori asked. She finished with the socks, and pushed the wheelchair closer. "I'd prefer it if you both had on sweaters."

"How about these?" the other nurse asked. She held up a pair of long-sleeved surgical smocks, tossed one to Kaori, and helped Raidou on with the other.

"How about pants?" Genma asked, eying his bare legs and their absurd socks.

"How about a blanket for your lap?" countered Kaori. "Come on, let's see if we can even get you from bed to wheelchair first."

"I'm fine," Genma insisted. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, wobbled a moment, and tried to catch himself. Kaori got there first, grabbing his right shoulder with surprisingly strong hands.

"Wait. And keep your eyes open. I know you're dizzy," she told him sternly.

Genma opened his eyes to roll them while she draped the gown around his shoulders, then helped him make the transition from bed to wheelchair. She hooked his IV to the chair's pole, flipped the foot rests out and put Genma's feet on them, and tucked a mint-green blanket over his lap.

"There, all ready," Genma said with a relieved sigh. "Let's get out of here before they decide to knit us stocking caps."

"Relax, I don't think they can make us look more ridiculous," Raidou said, eyeing his surgical smock. It was pastel blue, shapeless, and looked a little like a starved bathrobe. But it was an extra layer, and it covered him from neck to mid-calf. If he ignored the colour and the faintly rising scent of sterile chemicals, it was almost like wearing an ANBU cloak again.

He shrugged carefully, resettling the nothing-weight across his shoulders, and wished for a sword. Wheels creaked impatiently on the linoleum floor; Genma made an urgent let's get going noise. Bundled up in blue and green and stuffed into his wheelchair, he looked like a young, crippled doctor who'd fallen on hard times. Albeit, one with caring family members who'd decided to take him for a day trip.

Raidou bit the inside of his lip and stifled the rising urge to laugh. It was relief (they were getting out), or mad grief (crippled; and Raidou still couldn't stand for his own family to see him), or some exasperating tangle of emotions that came from breathing too much hospital air.

"I'm up, I'm up," he said, just a little hoarsely, and cleared his throat. "Moving and everything. Standing, even."

He managed it without the nurse's help, and didn't stagger once on the three quick steps it took to reach Genma's chair. His right hand was steady when it grasped one handle; his left hesitated only briefly by his side, then lifted and settled on the other. His burns barely pulled.

Raidou hitched half a grin. Then the nurse made a pointed coughing sound and nodded at the IV lines trailing behind him, still attached to the inside of his right elbow. "Forget something?" she asked cheerily.

"Oh for--just hook the bags to the chair. It's not like I plan to step away from it." He pulled a wry face, and leaned down a little, putting his mouth closer to Genma's ear. "Suppose I've been tied to you for the last week, anyway. Might as well do it properly."

Genma blinked up at Raidou, then grinned at him. "Oooh, kinky, Rai," he murmured, raising an eyebrow. The look he got back for that -- a look that suggested Raidou was not above hitting an injured man if he really deserved it -- was worth it. Genma sighed happily and leaned back against the pillow Kaori had insisted on wedging at his back. "So where are we going? Lunatic Moon? No, they're probably not open yet. How about--"

"How about you stay on hospital property, preferably on this floor," Kaori countered. "You're technically not cleared to leave the ward without escort, you know."

Genma gave her an exasperated sigh. "We've been debriefed. And look at us, it's not like we're dressed for clubbing. Can't we at least go outside?"

"So you can smoke?" the blonde nurse asked with a laugh. "Do you see the green canister attached to your chair, and the lovely tubing piping oxygen to your nose?"

"So we can go outside." Genma gave Raidou a pleading look: help me out here! "It's not like I have any cigs to smoke, even if I wanted them." Which he did, now that she'd mentioned it. Damnit. And Kaori'd said they weren't cleared without escort. That might mean they needed a medic with them, but...

But Genma didn't think so. Four years ago, when he'd come back from Iwa, he'd had an "escort" then, too. An ANBU agent trained to detect the barest hint of mental decompensation. To detect an incipient break. When Tsubaki Shunsuke was captured and escaped, when he came to Konoha's gates bloody from torture, he'd had an escort for the first several days back, too.

"You can be our escort," Genma told Kaori. A test. She failed.

"Why don't the two of you just stay on this floor," she repeated. "There's a patio you can go out on and get some air."

Raidou didn't have a phrase tucked away in his vocabulary that accurately expressed his mounting frustration. He borrowed one of Genma's. "Holy Buddha's snot, woman. What do you think we are? Rattled genin with an aim to play hooky? We've been cooped up in this room for a week and we still haven't killed anyone. Genma's fine. I'm fine. We just want to go sit out in the grass for an hour and remember what the sun looks like. Post a damn ANBU up in the trees if you have to, but let us go outside."

He wasn't quite shouting--his burned jaw and missing teeth didn't allow for it--but fierce vehemence made up for the lack of volume, and probably won him half a shaved brownie point. Shouting patients could be drugged down and ignored; insistent ones were harder to deal with, especially when they were coherent.

Seven days in hospital. The staff were lucky the walls were still intact. No one did stir crazy like a shinobi locked away--especially when half the prison was their own damn bodies.

Raidou aimed a dark-eyed glare at both nurses. "Don't make me play the almost-died-for-the-village card. I've got a deck full of them, but I don't like to waste them on asking for something as basic as a hall pass."

Kaori's jaw set like steel; her arms folded across her chest. "If the Hokage were here, he'd tell you Konoha values your sacrifices. But I'm leaning more towards a 'don't bloody push me, shinobi' angle. You aren't the only ANBU missing pieces on this floor."

The blonde nurse's smile faded like stricken sunlight.

Raidou took a colourless breath. "One hour," he said, forcing himself not to bite out the words. "We'll stay away from people."

Kaori's expression didn't waver.

Raidou swallowed half his pride. "Please."

"We promise," Genma added. He cocked his head to the side and looked up at Kaori, using skills Kaito had only begun to dream of mastering.

Kaori wasn't entirely immune, but she was made of much sterner stuff than most. She smiled wryly at Genma, but kept her arms crossed. "You're a charmer, Genma, but no. You two need to stay where you have medical supervision, and you need to stay on this ward. You can see the cherry blossoms along the canal from the balcony."

"That's not even close to the same," Genma protested. "How about half an hour?"

"Genma." Kaori sounded like she was talking to a five-year-old who really knew better.

"Well, with an escort, then. If you're so worried we need a babysitter."

"Genma. Medical supervision as well as an escort. Despite all the time Mai and I have spent on getting you ready for your trip to the patio, we do have other patients to look after. Go on out to the patio, and one of us will check on you in a half hour, alright?"

"Alright," Genma said reluctantly. A half hour on the patio was better than nothing. Maybe they could translocate...

"And no jutsu. From either of you. You're both wearing chakra monitors, so we'll know."

Genma tipped his head back to look up at Raidou, and tried to see face rather than bandages. "They hate us."

"It's mutual," Raidou said with a disgusted snort. His fingers flexed and re-gripped the wheelchair handles, leaving dents in the smooth plastic-cloth coating. Kaori's eyes ticked to him, amusement fading into a warning look.

"Balcony's down the hall on the right," Mai interjected quickly, before anyone could sling another argument. "Big flat shelf attached to the building. You can't miss it."

Three pairs of eyes blinked at her. Kaori snorted, Genma chuckled, and Raidou blew out a short breath. He managed to pull up a smile that was only mostly bitter. "Thanks. Better get to your other patients, sweetheart. They'll be missing that quick wit."

Mai just winked at him and ghosted out the door, graceful as a swan. Kaori followed in her wake, but paused to hold the door open. Her eyes followed them as Raidou figured out how to push the wheelchair without jostling Genma or hurting himself, and Genma wriggled a little to make himself more comfortable.

"No shenanigans," she delivered as a parting shot, and vanished into the next patient's room.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Raidou muttered. "Mostly on account of not being twelve."

Genma smothered a laugh in his surgeon's smock.

When they reached it, the balcony patio was much as advertised: a big flat shelf attached to the building. At four floors up, they had a view that showcased a decent chunk of Konoha's main throughway, shaded by hanging plants someone had spent time and effort lining the railing with. Flowering greenery framed the bustling village centre, frantic with people and market stalls and the general chaos that happened when lives were being led. The sun-dappled river cut a broad swathe through the centre, before winding off in a slow, lazy curve that took it straight through Genma's rioting cherry trees. The blossoms were violently pink, like nature's version of sweeter-smelling bubblegum.

"I think I'm getting a craving for candy floss," Raidou murmured, drinking in the sights. The wind touched cool fingers to his right cheek, whispering down the unbandaged side of his throat. Distantly, he could see a slice of the outer wall. And beyond that, the deeper, richer darkness of encroaching forest. Much closer, the Hokage's sculpted monument loomed; red-stone faces gave them wise, weathered looks.

He couldn't see the Hero's stone. But he could see part of the path that led to it.

Raidou inhaled, tasting home, and leaned his forearms carefully on the back of Genma's chair. Tilted his face towards the sun. "Kind of makes you want to go dancing barefoot, doesn't it?"

"Are you gonna dance with me?" Genma asked. He arched his back and stretched out his legs, bracing his sock-clad toes against the wheelchair footrests. He could feel every single bruise burn, every stitch pull, healing ribs protesting, bandages tightening. He took a deep, happy breath.

Seals flared, as chakra moved where it shouldn't yet. His hand... He wasn't thinking about his hand. It was fine, resting against his chest in its sling. He didn't have to think about it. Wasn't thinking about it.

The fresh air and sunshine felt like a visit to the hot springs. The air smelled of recent rain, cherry blossoms, and cooking fires. The sky was impossibly blue, with high, puffy clots of cloud. Raidou was right there, behind him. He grinned, and reached up with his right hand to touch Raidou's elbow.

"If you're gonna dance with me, I'll dance barefoot, naked, you name it. Whatever you want. And then we can go to the movies, and out to get curry and tofu. Then we can go to the park and I'll totally buy you cotton candy. And dango. We can go to the matsuri and cheat at darts. And then out for beers."

He leaned his head all the way back, against Raidou's forearms. "It will be glorious."

Raidou licked his lips and felt the breeze turn them cold. "Yeah," he murmured, trying not to dwell too hard on the mental view of Genma dancing naked. "Sounds like it."

Whatever you want.

It was deeply unfair, he decided with a sudden bite of sharp clarity, for Genma to say something like that when his head was tilted back, baring the length of his throat where bruises still rippled like a blue watermark, and his fingertips were resting lightly against Raidou's elbow. When they were both finally standing in reach of tentative happiness, and in the mindframe to do something stupid about it. Elation was a drug.

Relief was a worried man's heroin.

The wind ruffled Genma's hair, spilling sunlit strands across his face, and Raidou's fingers twitched, itching to brush them away. He almost linked both hands behind his back, but that would've meant straightening up and... he didn't want to.

Even battered and bruised and deathly pale in the way that spoke of recent blood loss, Genma was still the most attractive person Raidou knew. The only person Raidou knew, beyond three little brothers, who looked at him like he could carry the sun on his shoulders. And that was a thought to keep a person warm in the dark.

He flicked Genma's hair out of his face.

"Y'know," he said, in a voice that was slow and careful, "it just hit me. We actually made it out alive, kid. If you're talking to your god, tell him I said thanks."

The quiet way Raidou voiced his thought, as if the new born idea were as fragile as a premature infant, caught at Genma. Genma's eyes opened, his broad grin melted into something more contemplative. "Did you think we wouldn't?"

Raidou's answering grimace was as telling as his words. "I'm not sure I was thinking at all."

Genma nodded. "I know you're never supposed to go there. I know that. I mean, the whole time we were in that cell, all I was thinking about was getting us out of there. And the whole time we were running, all I was thinking of was how the hell to get us home. How to fight them if they caught up with us." He went silent a moment, studying Raidou's bandaged face. Studying warm brown eyes flecked with little specks of gold. It was a miracle. Everything about Raidou was a miracle. Everything about being here, in the spring sun, in the light. In safety...

"I know you're not supposed to think about it. I mean, we did it right. We stayed focused on the mission and on each other and on getting home. That's what you're supposed to do. That's how..." Genma swallowed and shut his eyes. Blocking out now and replacing it with darkness, terror, pain. Then he opened them again and there was Raidou, healing if not whole. There was enough light to keep the darkness at bay, at least for now.

"That's how I did it before." He licked dry lips and didn't think about his hand, aching in its sling. "I didn't... I tried not to think about before. Because this time was different, and I had you there and..." He should shut up now, he thought. Shut up because he could see wheels turning in Raidou's head.

"I never thought we wouldn't make it, not until we got to that outpost at last. And then that's the only thing I thought. That we'd got there too late." His hand on Raidou's elbow tightened.

Raidou's eyes flicked down to the battle-scarred fingers gripping his elbow and then back to Genma's face. He didn't remember reaching the outpost, but he wouldn't; he'd been long past unconscious. It was only because Genma had poured his last scrap of chakra into dragging them both through a final translocation that they hadn't died at the river's edge, smashed down by Sago's gleaming hammer.

He rolled his right shoulder, reflexively testing the healed bone. It barely twinged.

He'd woken up days after that, convinced Genma was dead. And Genma...

Had thought the same.

Why am I only just realizing that? Raidou thought, crushing the urge to smack himself over the head. The answer was an easy one. Because I haven't spent the last week being completely sane.

But he was sane now, or close enough to touch the edge of it, and even though Genma's expression had turned haunted on the inside, just for a second, he'd pulled himself back. They were both getting better at that. Healing, inside and out. Or at least getting good at not showing the damage.

That's how I did it before.

You and me both. Except Raidou had never been tortured before. Only Genma had faced down that particular katana and kept walking. But...

This time was different, and I had you there.

He probably wasn't supposed to get a hot tight feeling in his chest over that, warmth and pride and fierce protectiveness weaving together in a knot around his heart, but he didn't plan to question it. Or mention it, because this conversation was veering dangerously close to an edge. Instead, he touched Genma's scarred fingertips with his own, responding to everything with a single succinct gesture that meant I'm still not going anywhere, and wrapped his hand firmly around Genma's bony wrist. Pulse against palm.

"Think we could bribe a nurse to get us that beer now?" he said. "Because I'm feeling a definite urge to drown my sorrows. Or celebrate. I'm not quite sure which." He huffed a short, bare-bones laugh. "Or maybe I should ask your advice and shut up, because you're the guy who knows what to expect."

Genma held his breath just a little longer than necessary. His lips tightened into a thin line, then he smiled grimly. He wished he hadn't said anything. Wished Raidou weren't so damned perceptive. He shook his head and sighed, forcing his shoulders to slump, his body to relax. "It's... It's you know. It's what it is. You've had missions go bad before. I mean, the whole not allowed off the locked ANBU ward, the having little Intel shadows, that's one of the things, I guess. When you come back from... Since we've been in enemy hands. They want to make sure we aren't compromised." The word sounded like a curse.

He jiggled his ankles against the footrests, shrugged his shoulder, not quite pulling away from Raidou. And Raidou didn't let go. Genma's second sigh was more honest. More an expression of relief.

"They won't give us beer, that's for sure. Even if we weren't medicated sixteen ways to Sunday. Although the meds are part of it, too. They have this thing. This protocol. CTI Protocol. Captured-Tortured-Interrogated. Makes it sound so... so I don't know. So clean, you know?" He looked up at Raidou, searching for understanding.

"It's dirty. As dirty as it gets. I'm really sorry I--" He broke off, couldn't say the words. Sorry I let it happen to you.

As dirty as it gets. The words should have sounded corny. The kind of line a back-country lawman would have drawled out in a low budget movie while monochrome smoke wreathed around his head, heavy boots propped up on the desk. They should have been said to a tearful blonde woman, and ended with sweetheart. But in Genma's mouth they just came out flat, tangled with bitterness. Chased by an apology.

Raidou reflected briefly on the new shape of the universe, and then whacked his friend upside the head.

"If I catch another damn sorry coming out of your mouth," he said conversationally, "I'm going to strangle you with your oxygen line. You got it right earlier, you idiot, remember? We did it right. And we sure as hell includes you, so quit talking shit about my best friend. That's my job."

Genma ducked, startled, and freed his hand from Raidou's hold to rub his head. Then he reached back to grab Raidou's arm. A slow smile curved his mouth at the corners. "Yeah, alright," he said.

"Damn straight," Raidou muttered.

"Gaily forward," Genma agreed, smile broadening into a grin. Raidou gave him a I could hit you again look, and Genma returned it with a glance that said everything was right with the world.

CTI protocol. Captured-Tortured-Interrogated. It made sense, in an evil kind of way, like most of ANBU's acronyms did. They'd have a note on their folders, meds in their blood, and watchful eyes making sure they didn't misstep. Confirming that their stories matched on every point. Little bastards like Hyuuga Hiro hanging around on the fringes, shuffling paperwork. It was the job.

Raidou thought about this, thought about himself and Genma and everything that had happened to them, about the wind tugging at his bandages and the sunlight glinting on the metal cage surrounding Genma's hand, and reached a conclusion.

"Arse to the lot of 'em," he said firmly, and rested his chin on the top of Genma's head. "So what's the first thing you want to do when we get out of here, dinosaur movie or a bar?"

"I'm thinking we might enjoy the dinosaur movie better if we stopped by the bar first," Genma said with a laugh. "But I don't know, I mean, kind of depends on what you're up for. Whatever I do, I'm doing it with you. Maybe we should seriously go to the hot springs. We could probably get the docs to say it's therapeutic." He took another big, happy breath. Dangerous topics and dark fears slid away into the corners, banished at Raidou's command. Arse to them all indeed.

Raidou was leaning on him, close and comfortable. It was funny how easy it felt. New. But easy. ANBU and Intel, CTI Protocols and midnight debriefings, shadowy guards and locked hospital wards -- it all seemed to drift away, like the wisps of smoke rising from the yakiniku place down the street and disappearing into the sunwashed blue sky.

"You know what I really want?" Genma asked lazily. He pulled his hand from Raidou's grasp, reached into the recesses of his sling (and tried not to grit his teeth at the jostling), and produced one slender, filter-tipped, slightly bent cigarette. "This." He grinned at Raidou like he'd just produced a bar of gold. "Want to share?"

Raidou stared at him. "How did you--when did you--" He gave up, laughing at Genma's beaming pride in himself and his sticky finger skills, and plucked the battered little gift from his friend's fingers. "I hope you know how to turn off that oxygen canister, because I don't plan to spend my afternoon scraping your crispy-fried remains from the hospital shrubbery."

Already twisting to fiddle one-handed with the green canister fixed to his wheelchair, Genma barely paused to deliver a smug, well duh look. Raidou snorted another laugh and glanced at the chakra monitor around his own wrist. Its green LED light pulsed gently, registering a steady chakra flow.

"Guess it's too much to hope that you managed to steal a lighter, too," he said absently, already teasing out the barest thread of energy it would take to conjure a tiny flame. A spark glinted on his thumbnail. The monitor didn't stutter. Grinning, he started to put the cigarette between his own lips, then paused.

Bandages and naked flame. Burned flesh underneath.

Smoothly, he reached around to twitch Genma's nasal cannula down, fitted the cigarette into the corner of Genma's grinning mouth, and created a single dancing flame in the pinch between his index finger and thumb. Tobacco and paper caught in an instant, glowing cherry red, and cast a warm light over too-pale skin. Raidou pulled his hand away and closed his fist, extinguishing the tiny chakra fire. His monitor stuttered once, then steadied.

And nothing exploded.

He smiled at the thin, blue-metal stream of smoke streaming between Genma's lips, feeling a nostalgic tug, and eased his weight onto his other hip. Then back again. His legs were starting to ache. His burns were doing worse, but they always did. Prosaically, he moved around to Genma's side and folded his legs to sit stiffly down on the cold tile floor, reorganizing his IV lines so they remained untangled. The view wasn't quite so good, but at least he wouldn't fall over. He leaned his right shoulder against Genma's chair and held up his hand for the cigarette.

The first rush of nicotine made his head swim a little. His smile broadened, tugging up the right side of his mouth; the left side still didn't move. "Have I ever told you that you're my best friend and I love you? Because seriously. And if you have something decent to eat tucked away in that sling, I'll get you crowned Hokage."

"I wish," Genma agreed. "Rina said she'd bring chocolate when she comes to visit next time. I told her to get you the kind with coffee in it, but if you want another kind I can probably get a message to her through Ito-sensei." He let the taste of the tobacco roll around his mouth, soft and dense like a custard made of smoke. The nicotine washed over him, a delicious happy drowning of the senses in a rush. He could feel his heart beat just a little faster, a little stronger. Feel everything take on a sort of bright-edged intensity. Hell yeah, he'd missed that. And he needed another drag. He reached his hand out towards Raidou, who obligingly passed the cig over.

The first hit had been careful, coaxing the tobacco to light, easing the smoke in shallowly. This second one was the real one. He inhaled as deeply as sore ribs allowed. This time started as good as the last, but there was a catch when poison-damaged lungs tried to cope with the deeper draw. He stopped himself before it turned into a problem, coughing as carefully and delicately as he could manage. Raidou gave him a sharp look, but Genma shook his head. Smiled around watering eyes, and brought the cigarette back to his lips, sipping at it slowly. Just a little. Just enough to bring him... Yes. Bliss.

He grinned, passed it back to Raidou, and let the smoke curl thinly from his lips. "Just gotta take it a little slow," he said in a raspy but thoroughly satisfied voice.

Raidou sketched a lazy salute, leaving a little trail of smoke in the air. "I'll remember you said that," he murmured dryly. The cigarette fit nicely in the corner of his mouth, tilted carefully away from bandages and everything that hid beneath them. He drew on it slowly, warmth slipping through his blood and bones, dancing alongside the vapour trails left by half a dozen medications. He was already half-high anyway; a breath of nicotine was more than enough.

Though it didn't feel like it, he thought regretfully, passing the rapidly dwindling cigarette back to Genma.

"Y'know," he murmured, in that same slow, careful, I've-just-reached-a-strange-conclusion voice, "if you think about it, that little vice is the only thing we own between us right now. We need to steal more stuff." He shifted, leaning his shoulder more comfortably against Genma's chair. There were benches nearby, but his IV line only had so much stretch to it. Besides, it just felt right to sit cross-legged by Genma's side.

Faithful hound. He snorted softly. Hopeless hound, more like.

"And yeah, if your friend wants to bring us chocolate, the coffee-kind sounds good. Might as well grab some caffeine to go with our cancer."

"If we both live long enough to get cancer, I think we should have a cancer party. Cake, coffee, booze, drugs, cigs, sex... the whole works, you know? Except we'll have cancer, which will maybe make partying kind of suck." Genma inhaled again, letting the cocktail of chemicals in his bloodstream carry him aloft. His hand didn't even really hurt that much right now. Not that he was thinking about it. Which he wasn't. Thinking about it.

Raidou was looking up at him with a question in his eyes. What? Oh yeah. Party. Genma tapped the ash off the end and passed the shrinking butt back to Raidou. "Maybe we should have the party now, you know? While we can still enjoy it. Except then our friends would think we have cancer. We'll have to give it another name." He chuckled, carefully splinting his side with his hand, and shifted so that he was leaning towards Raidou.

"Or we could just have a private party. They're gonna make you do physical therapy soon, right? Me too, I'm pretty sure, and they always have something distracting going on down there, so as long as we don't have babysitters, we can probably steal everything we need. I'm pretty sure that respiratory therapist with the beard -- the one on night shift? -- has a bottle of gin somewhere. I think you were asleep when he came in last night to--"

Raidou was giving him another look.

"Oh you know," Genma said breezily. "'Cause I had surgery and that poison I used was a cytotoxin, so there's some... Don't give me that look."

"I'm not giving you a look," Raidou protested, midway through eyeballing Genma with an expression that would have put Arakaki to shame. "This is just my face."

Genma studied him for a moment, then shaped his features into an identical mirror. Only... more so. His eyes narrowed, his jaw hardened, his eyebrows drew down and somehow managed to look thicker without ever actually changing. Raidou blinked. It was like staring at his own face, written over a leaner, unscarred frame, without the benefit of a reflective surface.

Then Genma cracked up.

"Very funny," Raidou muttered grouchily, and smoked the last half-inch of cigarette. He flicked the butt over the railing, disposing of the evidence, and wished for another. One was only enough to give you a craving. Even two would only just about take the edge off.

And that way led straight back to addiction. It'd been hard enough to quit last time.

He stretched out a leg to kick Genma's still-laughing foot, ignoring the way his own lips wanted to twitch. It wasn't funny. People had been sneaking around in their room.

Okay, doctors. But still.

"Anything else you want to admit to, while you're in a confessing mood?" he said, lowering his voice to an exaggerated threatening rumble. "After-hours nurses? Seductionist buddies dropping by to throw tea-parties? Because there's a railing right here I can toss you over. It's no trouble."

Genma didn't stop giggling until it started to hurt. He eyed Raidou, tried to compose a serious face, and cracked himself up again. But that did hurt, sharp and pulling in his chakra-knitted ribs, and he gasped in one last laughing breath and quieted. "Dude, I don't think I've farted without you knowing about it since we got here."

Not since they got there, because there had been days where he'd lain comatose in ICU and Raidou had been in the burn unit. "OK," he amended, "not since we got here, but since they took their heads out of their asses and put us in the same room. And really, if you want to know about the ones you missed, I'm sure someone kept a record of my farts while I was knocked out."

Raidou's expressive face said that railing offer still stood. Genma's grin dropped into something more serious.

"There's nothing, Rai. Nothing you don't know about. And no way am I gonna let anyone fuck you over while you sleep. It's kind of hard to keep watch when they keep drugging us to the north damn pole, but I've got your back. The guy last night was there because I was coughing, and they wanted me to inhale some misty shit to heal my lungs up a little. I'm glad you slept through it."

Raidou dragged a hand through greasy spikes of hair that really needed a wash and cut. "Yeah," he said, with the shadow of a self-mocking smile. "Yeah, I know." And in another week or two he'd probably unwind enough to believe it. Genma had his back; that was a fact. But Raidou still wasn't happy with his friend--his teammate--doing anything more than focusing on healing. No matter that they both had about as much fight in them as a damp tissue.

Talent and back up. Someday he was going to learn to think outside the roles they'd carved for themselves. But it damn sure wasn't going to be today.

He dropped his hand, fingers catching briefly at the bridge of his nose in an old gesture he'd mostly shaken off. Stiff bandages rasped under calloused fingertips; he could feel the hard-edged ridge that marked the outskirt of the scar, where it began. Sago's rake hadn't reached that high. It was just old scar tissue, long healed. Four more years and he'd have carried it half his life.

He let the thought fall away, not liking where it led.

"I have a confession," he said, finding the words out of his mouth before they'd finished forming in his head. Two confessions really, he thought, remembering a drunken grab and slam and Genma's shoulders meeting a wall. Raidou's lips catching his. But there was a time and a place, and Raidou only had the courage for one secret at a time. Genma was sane enough, strong enough now, to hear at least one.

Raidou tipped his head back and sideways, finding amber-brown eyes watching him.

"When that Hyuuga interviewed us, I told you Sago was dead -- and that's true. But the others..." He hesitated, trying to find the right words. "I don't know. Two of them might have made it out. No one will tell me."

When Raidou touched his face like that, something was bothering him. Some clue he'd picked up on a trail was nagging at him. Or maybe he thought he should have managed to stop the kunai that had sliced his partner's scalp in a skirmish, and felt guilty about it. Or...

Or he'd lied.

"They're alive?" Genma tried to make sense of it. He couldn't. "But the debriefer said they were dead. He confirmed it. What do you mean two of them might be alive? I thought you said the clean up team found the bodies. And Hiro confirmed it. He confirmed it."

Sago was dead but the others? Weasel and that asshole of a medic? The greasy-haired bastard who had delighted in punching Raidou around? Which of them were alive? Genma's guts twisted on themselves, slow and cold, and he looked helplessly at Raidou, trying to divine the meaning to his words.

It was inconceivable that Raidou would lie. He must have just misunderstood. Or gotten new information. "Did you talk to another debriefer while I was in surgery yesterday? They found some kind of new evidence? Why would they tell us Sago's team was dead if they weren't? Fuck, Rai, are you sure?"

Having a slab of raw meat where half his face should have been helped Raidou in his efforts to not wince, but it was a close thing. Genma trusted him, had always trusted him, and that was exactly why he'd gotten away with it. Even now Genma was giving him ways to get out of it. All he had to do was agree. Yeah, fearless, Intel dicked us over...

But he already had a hard enough time facing himself in the mirror.

"I lied," he said, flat and decided, like a man stepping into the noose. "Hiro backed me up because -- I don't know. Because he wanted your side of the story, maybe, or just didn't want to deal with the fallout. And I would have snapped his neck otherwise. Or tried to, at least." He shoved himself up, twisting around to set his back against the railing bars, and sat again. Facing Genma directly without looming over him. "You'd just woken up, kid. I'd had four days to wrap my head around things, but you'd had five minutes and half a heart attack, what with all the yelling. You didn't -- you didn't need to know yet. And I didn't want to be the bastard who gave you more bad news."

Because Genma had been in enough pieces already, and Raidou hadn't been in any kind of shape to hold them together. Though he'd been determined to try.

And still was, dammit. Even if his heart was about ready to splash into his stomach at the look on Genma's face.

He hunched his shoulders, sending a long ripple of pain arcing down his left side, and welcomed the sensation like the strike Genma was in no position to deliver. An apology caught in his throat, but he couldn't say it and mean it. Even now, he'd do it all over again.

A wisp of cloud flitted past the sun, throwing the balcony into shadow, bringing a chill. Genma didn't move. When the sun came back, spilling across Raidou's bandaged face, it just illuminated the set jaw and unwavering gaze of his friend. It didn't make it any clearer at all what to do about the turmoil of emotion seething behind Genma's carefully blank face.

Part of him still couldn't quite believe what Raidou had said: that he had lied deliberately, that he would have forced the issue if their debriefer hadn't colluded with the lie. Which meant, not only had Raidou thought Genma couldn't handle the truth, but Hiro had agreed.

But what Raidou had said was true -- Genma'd been awake barely more than an hour, and so agitated by Hiro's arrival at first that he'd been sedated. In fact he'd been sedated before, when he'd woken up screaming for Raidou the first time. If Raidou and Intel thought him too broken to handle the truth, it was hardly surprising.

And there was this: I didn't want to be the bastard who gave you more bad news.

There was something almost painful about that admission.

Genma had no idea how to respond. He stared at Raidou, locking eyes, locking wills. Raidou looked like he was waiting for the first strike in a battle, expectant, wary, determined to see this through. Genma raked his teeth over his lower lip, hissing in a breath, trying to muster some response that made any kind of sense at all. He came up empty.

"I'm not some snot-nosed academy cadet who's never lost a battle before," he said at last. "I'm not broken, Raidou."