Haruichi was somewhat amazed with himself. He'd actually known Kakashi wouldn't sit still before he'd even thought about it - hence the glass of water. For the first time he had a sudden uneasy feeling he more than thought he knew what he was doing, he actually did know what he was doing. Pushing that away to focus on what was at hand, he gave Kakashi a look that expressed the purest malcontent in his white eyes and kept a hold on the glass with one hand. "The more pressing question is where's your common sense, Hatake," he said evenly, not making a move to stop him. If he managed to get off the table he was going to find walking... hm... problematic. "I told you to stay still, and not because I'm enjoying your sterling company."

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"And I told you to leave me the hell alone," Kakashi said, just as evenly. "For pretty much exactly the same reason." The floor looked a disturbingly long distance away. A two foot drop was nothing for a ninja that could fling himself a dozen times that distance to land neatly on a wire, but suddenly the gulf between metal table and grey carpet seemed a whole lot more difficult. Kakashi used the time spent steeling himself for the drop to pull the IV out of his hand with a little jerk. The rip of tape tearing free from skin was oddly loud in the small room, as was the clatter when he let the needle fall.

Now he just needed to stand up.

Kakashi eyed the Hyuuga, weighing the likelihood of an attempted braining with the glass he was holding, and pushed himself up with his right hand, lifting his hips to slide off the table. His feet hit the floor with a gentle slap of bruised skin against rug and Kakashi let out a sharp breath. That relief lasted right up until his knees buckled. He fell, twisted, caught the edge of the table with his elbow and added a nice bruise to his arm before he hit the floor.

Then the table tipped over.

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Haruichi's free hand shot out, catching the table before it could crush Kakashi flat and not moving it back as he looked down at the ANBU crumpled on the floor. Out of their fucking minds. There it was again. Proof positive of the motto for this abode of the damned; Haruichi was going to have it painted over the front door. Once he'd slept, which he was going to have to do at some point - but not until he'd seen to his first and only patient.

"Clearly I need to bolt this down and fit it with restraints," he remarked idly enough, glass of water undisturbed in his hand. He glanced to Kakashi, then to the water. Well, the straw had apparently been wishful thinking. Lucky thing Haruichi was a practical creature and knew more than one use for just about anything.

Kakashi was sprawled there on his back, looking utterly incensed and mournfully woebegotten. Haruichi shoved the table upright so there was no more danger of it squishing Kakashi, then removed the straw and quite deliberately tipped the contents of the glass right upon Kakashi's head.

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For shock value, nothing quite compared to an icy splash of water in the face you weren't expecting. Kakashi didn't yelp, he was too busy gathering his wits from the fall and twisting to one side to bother hissing like a startled cat. Most of the water caught him directly in the face, despite his--maddeningly slow, damn those sedatives--twist, and soaked his mask and hair both before dripping away to form a small, dirty puddle on the carpet.

There is a shinobi code that translates, in its roughest form, to: do not kill the medics, dumbass. But for an echoing moment of fury, Kakashi was sorely tempted. He did the next best thing by shoving himself around quick enough to hook Haruichi's--he was going to remember that name--right ankle with his healed hand, and yank the medic off his feet. The little push of chakra into his fingertips helped his grip, even if it made Kakashi's head ache fiercely. He considered it a fair trade off.

He made damn sure Haruichi landed in that puddle.

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Sure enough, Haruichi did land in that puddle. Mostly because he was too surprised by Kakashi's little counter-attack in the first moment, and spent the second moment tossing the glass across the room so he didn't smash it when he landed and take somebody's eye out. An ickly squelch sounded under the thud of Haruichi hitting the floor, knee, tailbone, shoulder, head - the last of those being the more problematic, given what had been done to his head since he'd last slept.

The impact of his skull on the carpet cracked around his temples to drive right into his forehead, where his seal gave a furious screech of pain at the disturbance. Haruichi bit the inside of his cheek to not let a sound out, trying to deaden the pain, and forced himself to sit up - because he was in the middle of something and he could be crippled with brain damage later once this little prick was seen to. It was with all that ferocity in mind that he forced himself to sit and glare at him, save that...

...well, his vision jarred and his expression was most certainly one of anger, but when Haruichi sat up and found himself looking at a half-dead ANBU, still clutching his ankle, glaring like fury, and having managed a feat like that - Haruichi wound up dizzily smirking. Impressed as all hell, and it must've been evident even though his hand was clutching hard at his throbbing forehead and he was having to look around his wrist at Kakashi's face.

"Damn, I'm good at my job," he observed, wavering slightly and soaking wet and utterly self-satisfied.

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That clinched it; Haruichi was insane. Which probably meant he was ANBU's new medic. "Good for you," Kakashi spat, releasing his ankle, and pushing himself stiffly back out of range, "Because you can't dodge or break-fall worth a damn." The Hyuuga looked like he was in pain. Pale--well, paler--and wincing around his smirk, holding his head with one hand. That either had something to do with the inflamed looking mark branded into his forehead, or the ugly sound his skull had made when it had connected with the floor. Or both.

Good. That gave Kakashi the opportunity to get the hell out of here. Once he sorted out this walking thing, anyway.

Standing up was the first--literal--step. And he needed to find his armour. He needed to hand his report in, too, which was half completed and stowed away in his armour. That had been his plan after sorting out his injuries, but the medic had apparently taken care of that for him. Kakashi felt his insides twist a little. That wasn't right. It was Rin's job--

She's dead, Kakashi told himself savagely, and pressed both palms flat against the floor. He locked his elbows, shifted most of his weight to his right hand--the left still felt miserably tender--and began to lever himself up.

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Slowly pushing himself up to his feet, Haruichi knocked his hair off his shoulder and watched Kakashi's struggling progress across the floor. "At least I can stand up," he remarked, turning his back on Kakashi as he reached up with one hand to fix the IV rig the idiot had so carelessly ruined. His other hand was still pressed against his aching forehead, but the pain was slowly dying back and Haruichi wondered if he should or shouldn't care so much about it since it was nowhere near as excruciating as having the seal activated.

For not the first time, and certainly not the last, he forced thoughts of his family and the seal away and threw himself into his work instead - once the IV rig was righted and the tubes capped, ready for new inserts to be fitted, he deigned to look back at Kakashi - who was guaranteed to spend the next few minutes flailing around like a moron either looking for his armour or an escape route while trying and failing to stand properly. He'd fail on all three counts, of course, because Haruichi had locked his armour in the closet and locked the door to the Infirmary, and standing was going to be a problem for a guy with bruises the size of coffee-rings on his heels. Haruichi might have fixed everything that the enemy had done to him, but there'd been no way in hell he was fixing the injuries Kakashi had inflicted upon himself. He had to draw the line somewhere

It was vaguely entertaining, though, watching him tire himself out even more - even if Haruichi was feeling an angry buzz at the way all his good work in making Kakashi healthy, healed and comfortable was being torn apart. He wondered if this idiot had learned a single thing from Rin-sensei in the years they'd been together, because he was most certainly disrespecting just about everything she'd ever have done with her life acting like this. Not that Haruichi would be bringing up her name, viewing it as a line ill-judged to cross. He wasn't going to kill himself with idiocy so long as he was in the Infirmary, Haruichi could be patient. To a point. The young Hyuuga sighed internally, glancing up to the clock on the wall (three a.m.? joy.) and then wringing water out his shirt before going back to sit and file the medical reports. "Once you've finished being a moron let me know," he called over a folder. "Should the day ever come, that is."

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The door was locked. Not something that would ordinarily prove much of a challenge for a ninja of Kakashi's level, but an ANBU lock tended to include seals, traps, and a whole host of other nasty surprises. None of which Kakashi could currently determine, because he was still on the damn floor, he didn't have his damn lock picks, and he possessed about enough chakra to fill a sneeze. A small sneeze. Haruichi could have blocked the door with a cardboard box and he still wouldn't have been able to get around it.

Well, maybe if it was a small cardboard box...

When he'd finally given up the fight against exhaustion, gravity, and common sense, Kakashi found himself propped with his back against the immovable door, both hands curled close and resting in his lap, and eyes that were too busy closing to be focused on glaring. Between the ugly headache still crouching behind his temples, the dull ache wrapped around his left arm, and the sickening cold that spoke of low chakra, he was starting to regret ripping out the IV. Just a little.

It was four flights of stairs up to his room. He'd run a hundred times that distance and more to get home, it was utterly infuriating not to be able to make it that last little bit...

Kakashi wrenched his eyes open again with a little full-body jerk, shocked to realize he'd fallen asleep. The room snapped back into focus, and Haruichi's face along with it. Kakashi gave him a dirty look on principle, trying to work out who the hell he was again.

Medic. Right. Just the wrong one.

"What do you want?" Kakashi rasped finally.

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The exact same thing as you, thought Haruichi. And neither of us is going to get them back so get up off the goddamned floor.

At least he didn't say it outloud, though he wondered where on earth he was getting this self-control. Instead Haruichi set the papers he'd been reading aside and got back up to his feet, padding barefoot across the floor and picking his way gracefully around the puddles and dirt without thinking about it. His forehead was still stinging, but it was manageable, so as he crouched down on the balls of his feet and tipped his head to examine Kakashi's masked, pallid face there wasn't a sign of pain on his own.

"None of your business," he replied, taking in the state of his hands and the blood oozing quietly from the torn out IV before glancing back up to Kakashi's face. "Though I'd appreciate it if you came to your bloody senses, Hatake Kakashi. Fun as it is throwing water at you and watching you flounder pathetically in your own misery and misguided pride I have about a hundred other agents left alive to concern myself with as well - plus I need to find my own apartment in this cheery abode of the damned."

He rocked back slightly on his heels and raised an eyebrow slightly. "Are you ready to behave yourself? Because I'm dragging you back to the exam table by the hair this time if not."

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"You'd break something trying," Kakashi informed him levelly. Haruichi smelled like iron-water and stress. Anger and the lingering edge of whatever hurt he'd sustained, wrapped around the clinical, hard-edged scent of medical supplies. That particular cocktail was doing nothing to ease Kakashi's headache. Neither was the way Haruichi had closed in suddenly, getting right up in his face. Kakashi couldn't help tensing, forcing weary muscles to work.

"Now that we've established that I don't like you and you don't like me," he could sit up, he really, really could, "and neither one of us wants me to be here, can you give me my damn armour back so I can take a soldier pill and leave?" He could almost sit up. A soldier pill would be enough to get him up the stairs. More then enough. He could sleep off the crash in the privacy of his own room. "Then you can go apartment hunting. I recommend the first floor." He didn't want Haruichi anywhere near the third.

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Eyeing Kakashi, Haruichi had to agree with the first part of that - if he had to haul Kakashi back to the exam table he'd definitely break something trying, nominally Hatake's face. "If I could be shot of you, rest assured that you would have been out on your ear with a foot up your ass hours ago, idiot," Haruichi snapped - his minimal patience finally failing in the face of Kakashi's utter disrespect. "However my new job involves refraining from such behaviour in lieu of keeping you fit and healthy. You have to stay here with an IV in your arm for five more hours. You can spend the time on the floor or you can spend it on the table, I don't give a damn which, but you will spend it being treated."

Haruichi's white eyes were focussed furiously on Kakashi's, not backing down for hell nor high water. He had had it with this nonsense. Absolutely had it. As if Kakashi's need to bleed and screw around carelessly with his health was more important than his work as the medic. As if any medic's importance was to be pushed aside like that: Hinaji wouldn't have stood for it, Rin-sensei wouldn't have stood for it, and Haruichi wasn't going to stand for it.

The difference was Haruichi was in ANBU now, and ANBU were allowed to knock hell out of people who got in the way of completing their mission. Haruichi wondered if that was what it was going to take. That or a syringe of sedative... oh wait, that was right - he didn't have any yet. So knocking hell out of people it may just have to be. A fact he wasn't about to conceal as he glared at Kakashi and got up to his feet, temper clearly frayed and biting his tongue to keep from saying any of the hundred ugly things at his disposal.

"Think about it, Kakashi. Have you ever known a medic to take this shit from a patient?" he snapped, already having turned away.

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Definitely angry.

If Kakashi had been feeling better, he would have smiled. Anger was perfect. Anger was easy. You knew where you stood with anger, even if it was on the wrong side of a fist. Or a wit like a blade, which he could thoroughly appreciate. Haruichi had anger in spades, already colouring to rage, unless Kakashi missed his guess.

He spent an idle second wondering just how much it would take to push Haruichi far enough to snap.

Probably not much.

And then Haruichi said his last little piece and Kakashi found some anger of his own. It was riddled around the black hole in his chest, infested and rotten underneath his breastbone. He opened his mouth, furious enough to bite, and almost choked when nothing came out but laughter. Brittle and quiet, but definitely laughter. It felt like nausea given sound. "M-maybe you j-just need to work on your b-bedside manner," he managed, closing his eye so he didn't have to see the wrong person standing in front of him. "D-doorside manner. Whichever."

Suddenly he wanted Rin back so much it hurt, even while bitter humour tangled up in his mask.

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Haruichi managed not to roll his eyes or hurl something at Kakashi's backtalk, he was too busy focussing all the energy he had on cramming his temper back into a small box in the back of his head before he did something he'd regret. Tsunade-sensei always told Hinaji and the medical students that they had to keep their tempers no matter who they were dealing with or what was going on. But then, Haruichi had always thought that was rich coming from a woman who could and would punch down a building when somebody pissed her off.

Still, the trickle of hysteria he was hearing didn't sound like a good thing. Haruichi clenched his back teeth set about busying himself in getting the exam table braced up against the wall (lest Kakashi decide to try to crush himself with it during another escape attempt) and only deigned to answer after he'd managed that. "Manners are the preserve of people who give a damn what the patient thinks," Haruichi informed him, crossing back over and eyeing Kakashi with a view to hoisting him by the scruff of the neck and hauling him to the bed. "If I've learned anything from your glittering example it's most certainly not to take that into consideration." A pause, short and considering. "Which part of you hurts least so I can move you?"

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