"'m fine," said Kakashi quietly, "Probably better then you, nothing broken." He pulled the blanket up awkwardly, covering most of his head, and brought his legs up just a little. Stiff. Ow. He was an odd mix of comfortable and uncomfortable; Kakashi only slept curled up in hospitals, everywhere else he liked to sprawl. "Don't call a nurse, they'll just want to jab me." In the eye most likely, that never got fun. "It's fine, I've done this enough times to know when I'm okay."

Hoshika's ears flattened as she laid her head reluctantly down. Kakashi had ordered her to stay, ordered her to guard, and she liked Ginta. He smelled good, smelled just a little like Kakashi underneath. Like something edged.

Kakashi listened to Ginta's list of reasons with something like mounting despair, too tired to be angry. Bad enough to have messed up. Worse that he was showing it enough to deserve getting lied at. "Yeah," he murmured blankly, when the man fell silent.

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"You sure you're alright?" Ginta asked. Kakashi didn't sound alright. And his dog was acting like he was not alright. "They'll poke you to make sure you're actually getting better. I'm ringing the nurse." He reached for the call button, then pushed himself back upright, looking hard at Kakashi, who was an unmoving and miserable-looking lump on his bed.

"Maybe you're, I don't know, having after effects or whatever." Kakashi didn't want him to call the medic, and he was pretty sure if he were in Kakashi's place, he wouldn't want the medic called, Plus the medic might just decide he needed more poking or prodding or another round of that annoying thing they did to his chest every few hours.

But Kakashi really didn't look so great, even if awake was a thousand times better than comatose. His hand hesitated over the button.

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Kotetsu had rationalised it as a need to find out whether they had died. By they, Kotetsu meant that... guy who was annoying as crap, and the other one. The blond one. The two senior ANBU agents whose almost-comatose bodies he'd helped escort back to Konoha, getting whacked upside the head by the head-medic along the way.

Honestly, it was a wonder he still had any brain cells left from that.

Anyway.

Go and visit recuperating comrades. They're comrades, right? They were all ANBU, which made them closer than blood siblings thanks to the blood oath they swore and all that rot. Though if Kakashi was his sibling, he'd drown himself at birth. Bastard was colder than a glacier in the dead of winter, and just as sharp. Full of cracks and dangerous footing. Gah.

It wasn't an excuse, he told himself, as he made his way up through the corridors, getting waylaid by nurses who tried to tell him he really oughtn't be in this ward or section at all.

Jutsuing a uniform was more trouble than stealing one, and it sure beat trying to climb up the walls outside the hospital. Some of those traps out there were treacherous.


He found their room - they were in the same room, huh - by simply checking the records while the personnel in charge was distracted by that little... sound in their common room out back, and he just strolled up.

He nudged the door open and slid in, cocking his head and adjusting the medic coat he'd 'borrowed' from the storeroom. "I guess you're up for visitors then?"

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Ginta looked up sharply. "It's you! That kid!" he said, and grinned at Kotetsu. "Are you actually a medic apprentice or something then? You can help. He woke up just now." He pointed at Kakashi. "But he's not feeling well. Well nobody feels well in a hospital bed, but you know what I mean."

He pulled the sheet up a little, suddenly conscious that he potentially had his naked ass hanging out of the back of the hospital pajamas for all the world to see. Not that that was necessarily a bad thing. Heck maybe the kid would appreciate it. But it was a little chilly with the door open.

"Also my pillow fell. Can you grab it for me?"

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Kotetsu swallowed. It was one thing to see the blond guy - Ginta, his name was Ginta, gods that was an interesting name, seriously, he wanted to know the kanji; the receptionist or whatever had only written it in hiragana, and he should have gotten a better look at his dogtag - out cold and prone, and another to see him up and about, grinning and obviously full of life.


Plus, it was fairly obvious that they didn't wear anything under that patient thingie.


"Not a medic," Kotetsu admitted, and felt thoroughly bad for being unable to help Ginta in that aspect. "Hadta steal a coat to get in to make sure you weren't dead."


He sidled in and shut the door behind him. "You could call a medic, right? The button works?" He scooped up the soft, thin, hospital issue pad of stuffing masquarading as a pillow and presented it to Ginta. "Or I could go call?"


Please let there be no need for me to leave...

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Kakashi recognized that chakra signature. And that voice. The rookie. The one whose face he'd smashed into a bedpost. Grabby kid. Dumb kid. Irritating kid.

Ninja who'd probably helped to get them home.

Man he didn't want anywhere near him.

"I'm fine," he said shortly, flatly, in a voice that brooked no argument. "I don't need a medic. Neither one of us is dead. Don't piss off the staff when you leave." They were vicious when provoked.

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Kotetsu wasn't exactly inclined to listen to Kakashi, not when he was being so short, sharp and basically rude. "I noticed," he said, equally short. "The medics won't notice." They wouldn't - it wasn't as if they took stock right now, in the middle of the day. And right now, he didn't feel like leaving. At all.

He patted Ginta's pillow down on what must be his cot, and just gave him a cursory glance. The guy looked like shit. Alive, talking, rude shit, but shit all considered.

"Maybe I'll get you something to eat?" He wasn't going to leave, but honestly, maybe they - and by they he meant Ginta - needed something non-sicky. He knew that outside food always beat hospital gunk. And he'll... get snag a medic along the way, perhaps?

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"Yeah, you could get us some dango," Ginta said, and tucked the pillow under his head. Funny how much stronger gravity seemed all of a sudden. He let it win, tugging him down against sheets and pillow and mattress. "And don't be a brat, either of you. Although I'm guessing it comes naturally to both of you. But anyway you don't get to be a brat to him," he said to Kakashi first, "because he hauled our pathetic asses back home. And you," turning to Kotetsu," do not get to be a brat to him, because he's my partner and he's sick and injured and we both outrank you anyway."

That wasn't quite as diplomatic as it should have been, Ginta thought, but it did seem to get both of the other men to stop sniping at each other. At least for the moment. He yawned and stretched, and winced at the stretching. "Dango would be good. Or some chocolate. Those cakes that are all rolled up with the jelly? Those are good. Or daifuku. I like the plain red bean ones, but green tea is good too. And black sesame. Or taiyaki. Taiyaki would be good, if it was fresh and hot. That place on Canal Street does good taiyaki, with really sweet bean jam inside, but the place on Hokage Way is pretty good too, although theirs is a little crumblier."

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