"Jell-O," Ryouma told the ceiling sleepily. "Bet she'd like some of that." Jell-O was fit food for a patient who'd just awakened from a coma, wasn't it? They'd given it to him, last time. He could probably cajole an extra cup from the nurse who brought his dinner tonight, save it for when he visited Tsume in the morning. Sure, she might not eat it--he remembered her nose-wrinkling scorn at the energy bar he'd offered her only a few days ago--but the thought still counted.

Sort of.

"You sure you don't wanna go place an order with the florist?" he pleaded with Shouma. "They're not too far. You could be back in twenty minutes. Even Tsume should like flowers."

Shouma shook his head, ears flapping, and let his breath out in an amused huff.

"Guess you have a point there," Ryouma admitted. "You can't talk. I can't write. We could get a nurse to write a note for us?"

The dog's lips curled off his teeth, and smoke erupted at the foot of Ryouma's bed.

He blistered his pathways, reaching for chakra that wasn't there as he threw himself up on his elbow. Kakashi's arm slipped down his chest, but Shouma still snapped at it, breaking the pale skin with gleaming white teeth in the instant before he whirled, slipping over blanketed bodies. Nails tore the sheet as he scrambled to straddle both Kakashi and Ryouma, heavy hackles bristling, teeth bared in a low, savage snarl. Ryouma couldn't see around the dog's bulk. He couldn't pull free of the re-implanted IVs. Couldn't even sit up. Couldn't see.

The smoke began to clear. Kakashi was already moving.