Tsume stepped up close to him, almost under the protective arc of arms and cue as she eyed the table and took a swallow of beer. She'd gotten him a cranberry and vodka, and hoped he didn't think they were disgusting.

It wasn't as bad, she guessed, than the raspberry coolers that had pink labels.

"Maybe you're doing it wrong." She smiled up at him.

"Bet you could do better," the chuunin said, grinning warmly.

Tsume gripped the end of the cue, sliding it out through the lazy loop of Raidou's muscled arms. The wood was warm and smelled like him. She absently rubbed her fingers on the oils he'd left behind, then rubbed her fingertips together. The heat and friction made the scent release, curling around her subtly. "I can try, anyway."

It wasn't her turn. She went anyway. A green striped one skittered into a pocket, and she smiled up at the two ninja. "My turn again, right?"

The jounin started to say no; she hadn't called that shot. The chuunin stepped on his foot. "Yup!"

With some surprise that they'd let her, she went again. This time, she missed. "Here, petal," she said sadly. "I just don't get those angles..."

"I could show you." The chuunin smiled.

Tsume waved a hand and picked up her beer. "I'll figure it out."

Either Tsume was truly clueless, or she played the most subtle game of Hard To Get he'd had ever seen. Raidou would've wagered money on the former--if he didn't already have plans for it on the pool table, anyway.

He gave the chuunin another steady look over the top of Tsume's head--earning himself a flash of recognition this time--and settled back to let her fight her own battles. If she asked for a hand, he'd pitch in, but he wouldn't insult her by sticking his nose in early. Tsume could take care of herself.

He took a gulp of the drink she'd brought him, and had to practice keeping his face straight until pure willpower made the taste go away.

"I think something died in my bottle," he murmured next to Tsume's ear, as he reached down to take the pool cue from her. "Possibly from eating toxic waste. Next time, ignore me when I say words."

He straightened up and took a shot. This time the ball only flew a few feet until the chuunin's nose was good enough to stop it.

"Ah," said Raidou apologetically, waving one hand. "Terribly sorry. I have moments where I don't know my own strength. It's a curse really. Can you still breathe?"

The chuunin gave him a dirty look and slapped the ball back on the table.

"Foul," slurred the jounin, and pointed at Raidou. "Should let'chore lady take the shots. She's mush better."

Raidou handed Tsume back the cue, fighting down a smile. "Good advice."

She managed not to snort beer at the thought of ignoring him when he spoke words. Luckily, she wasn't drinking when he nearly gave the chuunin a bloody nose.

The chuunin eyed Raidou as his friend lined up another shot. Tsume could practically taste the testosterone in the air. She buried her nose in her the sinus-searing alcohol.

"So... have you two known each other long?" He was looking at Raidou. Tsume didn't bother to answer.

"Years," Raidou answered, with perfect truth. "Dewdrop and I go way back. Practically served in the war together." Without a cue to hang his arms on, he simply leaned them back, hooking his thumbs into the loose waistband of his jeans. There wasn't nearly enough alcohol in his blood to make any topic concerning him and Tsume easy, but exhaustion was doing the job almost as well. Raidou didn't fight it.

"So I imagine she'll be ready to meet new people, then," the chuunin said, tilting his head to give Tsume an appealing smile.

Raidou wondered vaguely if a child-eating demon and a villageful of monsters counted. "Don't know," he said, rolling his shoulders in a shrug. "Maybe you should ask her yourself."

In the background, another stripe went in.

"You just seemed... close, is all."

They were having one of those MANLY conversations. Tsume eyed them both, and handed the cue to the jounin.

Then she noticed the smell. She clapped a hand over her nose and glared at him. He smiled back. She stepped away. "I am not having sex with you," she said through her fingers.

The chuunin looked alarmed, then glared at his friend. "Masami!"

"I didn't say nothing!" Masami reeled back.

"He just stinks." Tsume took another step and shoved the cue at Raidou. She drained the rest of her beer, faked a stagger as she set it down, and reeled toward the bar. A glance back told her Raidou hadn't finished his monstrosity. She didn't offer to get him another, but she did buy two beers.

"She, um..." The chuunin smiled at Raidou. "Does she always drink like this? And, you know, given we've just won--" he glanced toward the table. Tsume had been hitting their balls into the pockets. "--we'll give you a too-many drinks handicap. Say, two balls?"

"Two balls." Masami giggled.

"Only when she can get alcohol," said Raidou, cranking his voice back to cheerful. "And you're too kind." He watched the weak pun sail over both heads without touching so much as a neurone. "But she's pretty much that honest all the time."

Raidou ignored the fact that he'd technically only ever met Tsume three times. They'd been memorable times.
Well, unless you counted the first time. But eventually that had been memorable, too. Once he'd... remembered it.

"I think I'm getting tangled in a paradox," he murmured to no one in particular, and watched the men set up the table again. In a brief moment of forgetfulness, he downed another gulp of the pink drink Tsume had gotten him, and furnished his mental silence with a few mute curses. "I imagine you fine gentlemen want to break this time?" he asked, when he could speak again.

The chuunin cast a glance at Tsume by the bar, but nodded with an easy smile. "Sure."

The crack of ceramic balls spiked through her head. She took another gulp and wove her way toward the table. "Here, rosebud," she said, handing Raidou a beer. "You promised you'd drink one if I got you that pink thing. I did. Your turn." At least it gave him an excuse to drink the beer, rather than that cranberry thing.

The chuunin broke. The drunken jounin leaned on his pool cue and gave her a sloppy smile. She ducked around to Raidou's other side and glared at the creep until his buddy bumped him and gestured to the table.

While the hammered guy tried to aim, the chuunin walked around and leaned next to the wall where Tsume stood. Flanked by Raidou on one side and the chuunin on the other, she felt oddly crowded. She took another drink and watched the dance of the balls over felt.

"So... are you ready to meet new people?"

She eyed him suspiciously. "I suppose. I'm at a bar, right?" The smell of beer drowned out everything else. She set it down and leaned on the counter, shifting her weight away from it. Suddenly, she wanted her senses.

"Sure. But... maybe you're here with your friend." He glanced over her head at Raidou.

He had to be retarded. Tsume stepped away from him to go play bad pool.

Behind her, she heard him shift positions and ask quietly, "So... you and she...?" Her hackles prickled even as she tried not to hear conversations not meant for her.

Raidou weighed a few responses and tried to guess how much trouble an ANBU would get in for knotting a chuunin's arms behind his head. Tsume didn't want to be anywhere near the guy, that much was obvious. But she wasn't exactly cutting him down in a way that would keep him down, either.

Apparently she'd missed a few steps in kunoichi training. Or focused on others, Raidou amended, remembering the way she'd carved her way across the cave ceiling and into that demon.

Pity that wouldn't work on the chuunin.

"We're teammates," he said, looking down at the other man with a very special grin. "That go way back. Which means I have something of an interest in the company she keeps. And if she doesn't happen to like that company--" he folded his arms in a way that made muscles move out of the way for other muscles, "--well, I've been suspended before."

There was just enough truth in his voice to make the chuunin give him a slightly alarmed look. Raidou took a gulp of his beer and pulled a theatrical face. "One day she'll stop making me drink this stuff," he added, pulling up a shudder. "Dulls the reflexes, y'know. And your nose is still bleeding. Muffindrop!" he turned back to Tsume as the chuunin put a hand over his face, "Is it my turn yet?"

She faked a drunken stagger as she turned, and whacked the jounin on the head with her cue. On accident, of course. "Sure thing, buttercup!" She handed him the cue and dove for her beer. "I think I'm getting better. I almost hit two that time!"

"But they were both ours," the jounin pointed out, rubbing his temple.

"So? If I can hit yours, I can totally hit mine." She started to drink, purposefully missed her mouth, found it, and drank.

The world was starting to fuzz at the edges. Her heart didn't ache quite so badly. Another ten beers, and she might be able to forget the whole mission.

"You have to admit she has a point," Raidou said, taking the cue from Tsume. He spared half a second to give her a careful look the others couldn't see, working out how drunk she really was.

Not very, he guessed, catching a glance of almost completely clear eyes. Her pupils were dilated, and the red of her tattoos hid any kind of alcohol-laced flush, but her chakra was still tightly coiled--guarded like an ANBU's. He could feel the sloppy flare in the other jounin's; he didn't bother to check the chuunin.

And neither one of them was good enough--or sober enough--to read Tsume's anyway. Raidou stopped worrying. Mostly.

"Y'know, pool always reminds me a little bit of sword fighting," he said, as he bent over the table and lined up. "Gotta watch the pointy end..." He shot, knocked a ball in, and jerked his cue back with well-acted surprise.

The chuunin made a soft noise of agony and folded up, both hands jammed between his legs.

"Of course," Raidou continued, studying him thoughtfully. "Sometimes the blunt bit can do the damage. Do I get another go?"

The jounin snorted with laughter. "Wrong balls, dude."

Raidou gave Tsume a wry look. "My mistake."

Tsume cracked up and clapped the man on the back, nearly knocking him to the floor as he curled around his balls. "Bad luck, buddy. Hey, dandelion, I think you're getting better, too! I have..." She dug in her pocket, making it far more obvious than need be. "I have three ryou and..." She peered at the coins. "Fif'y three... four... SIX cents change says we win this round!"

She could afford to lose three and a half bucks.

Always nice to make a teammate laugh.

Raidou grinned to himself as Tsume planted the idea of betting, and watched the jounin light up. The chuunin was still too busy moaning quietly to notice.

"You think we're that good, button?" he asked Tsume, playing slightly anxious.

"I thin' you're tha' good!" the jounin--Masami, Raidou reminded himself--assured him. "Totally tha' good. An' you still have your two balls handicap." He sniggered. Raidou had to fight the urge to join in.

"We-ell," he said, after an apparently thoughtful second, "I guess if you put it like that... sure! Let's give it a shot."

They lost the game, but Raidou did manage to give the chuunin a few more swordfighting tips, so he counted that a win.

All in all, Tsume lost two weeks' worth of grocery money over the course of four games.

Then, leaning heavily against Raidou and spilling her beer all over the chuunin, she suggested double or nothing. The other ninja laughed at her, but agreed.

It was remarkable how much one could sober up when one was faking drunk. Which wasn't true anymore, exactly. She was drunk. She was very drunk. Drunk enough that when she and Raidou won easily and the jounin accused them of cheating and cracked her over the head with his pool cue, she only ducked fast enough for it to hit her shoulders. For Tsume, that was downright hammered.

Then she yanked it out of his surprised hands, moving with a speed that rivaled non-drunk jounin, and cracked him across the face. The reverberation up her arms felt wonderful.

Chaos erupted. Tsume threw her head back and gave a brief yipping howl.

Raidou wasn't much of a howler, but when the chuunin whipped around with both hands full of kunai, he brayed cheerfully in the man's face and broke his nose.

"Don' like you!" he hollered, as the chuunin staggered back, hands clamped over his latest injury. Blood splattered and made the floor slippery."Or y'face."

In a ninja bar you could always count on one constant: if there was a fight, everyone got involved.

Raidou whipped around in a cheerful circle, staggering very slightly as alcohol greased his joints, and found himself confronted by three glares. Tsume was wrecking havoc to his left. The bartender smacked a wooden bat warningly against one palm. "Think carefully," he said.

Raidou grinned. "Done thinking!" He dropped his chin, brought his fists up, and threw himself forwards.