Well, that clinched it; they were all insane. Or blind.

"Hey, don't veto anything yet, lover boy," said Raidou, pasting a grin on that was only mostly forced. "I'm open-minded."

Anna chuckled with a deep brassy note that undercut the music. Raidou lifted his drink and took a long gulp--then almost choked at the unexpected punch of sweetness. It coated his tongue, slid smoothly down his throat, and danced a rash of tingles through his stomach before alcohol wiped it away.

"Whoa," he coughed, and set the glass back down. Nothing like beer, but at least it was buzzy. "That's--special."

"You have no idea, gorgeous," said Anna, with a meaningful look at Genma. She made his mostly empty glass disappear with a smooth sleight of hand and replaced it with two clean ones, already grabbing yet more long-necked bottles brimming with bright colours. "And there's really no better way to get an evening going than with a decent Screaming Orgasm."

Raidou blinked.

Anna laughed at him and waggled a bottle. "The drink." She grinned lasciviously at Genma. "Pretty and innocent, you sure know how to pick 'em, sugar."

"I'm not innocent," Raidou protested, which only made her laugh harder.

"Don't pick on him, Anna," Genma chastised. "You have any idea how hard I had to work to get him to come dancing with me?"

"Dancing?" Anna retorted. "I don't see anyone dancing. I see two boys too cute for their own good sitting on their asses enjoying Screaming Orgasms." She plunked the glasses down, two stemmed, bowl-shaped containers filled to the brim with frothy, thick, whitish liquid. "Don't forget to lick your lips and swallow when you finish."

Even Genma sputtered a little, mouth falling open. Anna leaned over with a whipped cream dispenser and sprayed a blob onto his lower lip.

"Actually," Genma said, putting a hand on Anna's wrist with a firmer grip than was maybe strictly necessary. "I think Rai and I could stand to spend some time alone with our screaming orgasms." He wiped his mouth, turned his back on the bartender, who put on a great show of pouting, and raised his new glass to Raidou.

"Cheers. Don't let her get to you. I think she's on some new hormones that make her a little crazy."

"I think I'm drowning in innuendo," Raidou muttered, pulling his drink over with an incredulous look. "Or I will be." He glanced at Genma, who didn't seem quite so horrified by the concoction they'd been presented with, and reluctantly raised his glass to return the toast. Creamy liquor spilled over the rim and ran down his fingers, making them sticky.

Drowning in innuendo.

Still, once you got past the shock of sweet and the embarrassment of drinking something that looked like--well, you know--it really wasn't half bad. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and ran his tongue thoughtfully over his teeth. A Screaming Orgasm was definitely one of those drinks; it sat on the tongue like the finest meringue, and on the stomach like a concrete bowling ball.

Still, between the three-pronged assaults of curry, beer, and--Raidou couldn't quite bring himself to call the last three drinks real drinks--he was beginning to feel a little on the warm and fuzzy side of hammered.

The music was even starting to sound good.

"But I'm still not dancing," he informed Genma firmly, and finished his drink.

Genma was just a little smaller than Raidou. A couple centimeters shorter, more slender of build, with less muscle mass. What it meant that was by the time Raidou was really feeling his alcohol, Genma was well and thoroughly toasted. At this point he was at the very pleasant, exuberant stage of being drunk. The stage you want to prolong as much as possible, which Genma was a master at doing. You timed your drinks out, and you danced to drive your metabolism up a little. And the buzz made everything that much more fun.

"Of course you're dancing!" He set his nearly empty glass down and licked his finger where Anna's fill-to-spillover technique had gotten him. His eyes danced with mischief as he looked up at Raidou. "She got you, too, didn't she?" he asked with a wave. "You can be all polite and use a napkin, but Screaming Orgasms are always sticky. Come on, clean up and let's dance!"

He backed up a pace, hips and shoulders already swaying to the rhythm of the beat. "Dancing's good exercise. Keeps the alcohol in check. And if you dance with me than no one else will hit on you, but if you hang around the bar you're gonna be having to turn down disappointed suitors all night."

Raidou leaned his elbow on the--sticky--counter, and stared. "Did you just use logic on me?" he demanded finally, even while his knee jogged to the thumping bass beat. "In a club?"

Genma just grinned at him, all white teeth and shining eyes in the moving, seething dance of shadows and coloured lights. Blue frosted his skin for a moment, gliding quick, bright fingers over his open-collar shirt. He was doing that same not-quite-dance he had on the first mission he and Raidou had taken together; the one that was more muscle and movement than it was any kind of jerky two-step.

"An' you can stop that, too," Raidou told him, waving a vague hand. "No secret seduction tricks. I'm immune." Or close enough. Probably. "And straight," he added as an afterthought.

He glanced at his empty glass, then pushed it carefully away with two fingers. Clearly the bartender had added in something extra, like crazy juice.

And Genma was still grinning.

Raidou's knee was still jogging.

"Fine," he said, and slid off his bar stool. "One dance. But if anyone gropes me, I'm flinging you at them."

"If anyone gropes you an' they're not me, I'm gonna knock them into next week," Genma insisted, with not a small amount of something a lot like chivalric possessiveness. "You're my date, whether you're straight or not." He reached a hand out for Raidou's, pulling his friend out onto the dance floor proper. The sinuous swaying of his body shifted into a higher gear, more deliberate, more energetic.

"Anyway who's seducing? I'm not seducing. I'm jus' dancing." The grin took on a higher wattage intensity, too. A happy, pleased with himself and the world grin. People moved away a little, giving them room to maneuver. Orange and green lights washed over Raidou's face, picking out the scar in sharp relief, glinting brightly reflective from his eyes, turning his grey shirt colorful. The shirt clung to him really nicely, Genma noticed for the second time that night. Really nicely. Raidou just needed to get into the feel of things and he'd be a natural.

"You jus' gotta loosen up a little. Feel the music in your core." Genma's hands were on Raidou's waist before his friend could protest. "Move a little, like this. See? You can totally dance."

"And you're drunk," Raidou returned, after a second to process the new hold just above his hipbones. Genma had slender but surprisingly strong fingers, and they were now settled firmly half an inch from Raidou's waistband, creasing his shirt a little. He stiffened more just on reflex--then Genma pushed.

Well, it was more of a gentle shove, really. But one that caught him right in his centre of balance and forced him to step or fall over. Then Genma kept pushing and Raidou had to keep stepping, and--

And they were dancing. With a hip twist.

Raidou wasn't quite sure what to do with his hands. Finally he settled them a little awkwardly on Genma's upper arms, wrapping his fingers around hard muscles. He couldn't feel where Genma's ANBU tattoo was, but he was fairly certain he had one palm over it anyway. He relaxed a little, getting into the swing of things, letting Genma guide him as he always did.

Then the music leapt up a notch, and the people around them began to writhe.

"Er," said Raidou, but it came out a little more like eep.

Genma threw his head back and laughed, brown hair flying as the intensity of the dance picked up. "You're doing awesome! Keep going!" He could feel Raidou's supple waist, muscular and defined, could feel the tops of his hips cresting at the edge of his loose jeans as he moved to the pounding beat. It was sexy and marvelous and everything a dance should be.

As the music heated up, the crowd pressed in, forcing Genma to take a step closer to his dance partner. Raidou's hands on his shoulders had at first felt like the grip of a drowning man, but now they were steady. Warm. Close up now, he grinned a feral grin and leaned in so his mouth was near Raidou's ear. "Not being groped by anyone but me, are you?"

Someone backed into him, and he had to take a quick sidestep, pushing his hips flush with Raidou's for a half second. For a heartbeat and a half, everything slowed down as Genma locked eyes with his friend. Then the moment passed, he had room to swing his hips away, and the dance went on under the pulsing strobe of colored lights.

Raidou almost tripped over his own feet. That had--what was--huh? He gaped at Genma, but Genma just grinned at him and tightened his grip very briefly. Keep dancing. The music was still pounding, couples were still grinding, the roof hadn't fallen in, but Raidou still felt a little like the earth had shifted.

Not being groped by anyone but me, are you?

Well--no, but he was fairly certain he'd just been groped by Genma. Just--not with hands.

Fingers tugged on his hips again, encouraging him to move. Raidou startled, covered it with a grimace, and got back into the dance. It was just Genma being Genma--flirty by default. It didn't mean anything. Did it?

No, of course not. It was Genma.

He was sneaking a cautious look at his dancing partner, trying to get a read of what was actually going on behind that lazy smile, when someone stepped wrong and slammed heavily into his back. Raidou stumbled, taken by surprise, and hit Genma; Genma crashed into another man, knocking him into his date, and the whole thing almost became a domino run until a hand clamped down on Raidou's shoulder and yanked him back.

"Watch where the hell you're going, asshole!"

Raidou felt his eyebrows arch as he turned to look over his shoulder at the man grabbing him. Shorter but heavier, stacked with muscle and an obviously bad temper--and a blond mullet, which was a little weird. Behind him stood a woman, looking a little the worse for wear; obviously a civilian. The man's fingers tightened on Raidou's shoulder.

"Well? Apologize to my lady, dickwad, before I take it out on yours."

Raidou blinked once. "You're kidding."

In answer, a little chakra sparked down the man's arm and earthed itself in Raidou's shoulder with a sting.

"Okay, you're not kidding." Raidou smiled slightly, feeling the world snap back into place. This he could deal with. "Just do me a quick favour. What rank are you?"

The man snorted a dark, beery laugh. "Jounin, asshole. Why, looking to impress your ladyfriend?"

"No, he can take care of himself," Raidou said, and punched the man solidly in the face.

Something was very, very wrong in Genma's club tonight. Someone who really didn't get the whole crowded dance floor etiquette was making trouble. He looked around for Shin and Anna, sure that they'd be coming to head off trouble at the pass. In the mean time the blond guy with the bad haircut was lunging back at Raidou, fists limned with chakra. At least there were no weapons in sight. Yet. A fist fight between shinobi was bad enough, but if the blades came out or people started casting jutsu, then the Uchiha got called and people got arrested and worse...

Genma was just about to remind Raidou of that when blondie's thuggish brother, or cousin, or best friend, or was that closeted lover? spun Genma around by the shoulder and made a rather injudicious grab for his hair.

"You stay outta it, fag-boy. Your salad tosser boyfriend had it coming."

Genma's cool descended like an arctic blast. He hadn't actually been planning to intervene, since Raidou looked like he could more than handle his opponent. But now...

He smiled. Reached up to remove the man's hand from his hair with a bone crushing grip, and twisted until he heard tendons pop.

The man whose wrist he was breaking didn't take well to that, and lashed out with a vicious kick. It send Genma staggering back against Raidou.

"Don't use a knife!" he shouted, pushing away as fast as he could and counter-kicking at hair-grabber's knee.

Who needed knives? Raidou was perfectly content to work with his hands--and feet, when the crowd pulled back enough to allow for it. The mulleted jounin was fast and hard-hitting, but he'd obviously indulged in several more of Anna's creations than Raidou had, and his reflexes were just a hair-trigger too sloppy.

Of course, Raidou's weren't exactly up to his usual standards, either, but he managed to get in at least two hits for every one of mullet-boy's. Right up until Anna ghosted up behind him and locked an arm around his throat.

"Just because I think you're pretty, does not mean I'll watch you tear up the place," she said severely.

"--!" said Raidou, who was mostly getting choked.

The jounin grinned at him, mouth dark with fresh blood, and wound up for a fresh punch--

Until Shin clocked him neatly in the temple, flooring him.

"Genma," Anna snapped, pivoting with Raidou still in her surprisingly firm grasp, "you know the rules! No fighting. No bringing people who will fight. And who the hell let these idiots in?"

"They started it," Genma said with a look that might have been apologetic. The purplish bruise around one eye made it look slightly cheeky. Mullet-boy's girlfriend was sobbing, a couple of trendy boys were bickering about who was going to have to take care of getting the blood out of whose clothes, and mullet-boy's buddy let his alcohol get the better of him. He pulled out a kunai.

"Dammit, Genma!" Anna was furious now.

"Not my fault!" Genma ducked as the steel flashed.

Shin was on the knife-wielder like white on rice, but not before three observers to the mayhem got involved, and the two bickering twinks took their fight a step further and another punch got thrown.

Anna suddenly had a lot more to worry about than Raidou. She let him go, shoving him towards Genma. "Your problem, you deal with it," she said, and gave Genma a dirty look.

"Come on, let's get out of here before the Uchiha show up," Genma said, grabbing Raidou's hand and dragging him towards the emergency exit behind the bar.

Genma actually grabbing his hand was sufficiently jarring enough that Raidou forgot--mostly--about getting even with mullet-boy or Anna, and actually followed where his friend led. Well, dragged. They weaved through the crowd, half-leapt half-slid over the bar without scattering a single glass, and tumbled down to fall through the emergency exit and out into an alleyway.

The cold hit Raidou like a slap in the face, bringing him up short for a second before Genma yanked him onwards. They fled down the alleyway and ran like particularly noisy ghosts through three more, turning sharp corners whenever Genma decided. Vaguely, Raidou remembered he'd left his sweater back at the club, but he doubted anyone would be happy to let him go back for it.

At the fourth alley, he planted his heels and brought them both to a halt. He was panting, laughing around the bruises darkening his throat, and Genma was laughing right back at him, bright eyed and flushed with the success of a clean escape. He was still holding Raidou's hand.

It might have been the bubbles of alcohol still singing in his blood, or the adrenaline from a half-decent fight; it might have been the way Genma's shirt collar was ripped half open, revealing the shadowed line of one previously broken and long-healed collarbone. It might have just been Genma, there to keep Raidou steady like he always was.

Whatever it was, it made all the sense in the world to shove him up against the alleyway wall and kiss him breathless.

It took Genma's booze-soaked brain almost a full minute to catch up to what the hell was going on. His body was perfectly content operating without specific instructions, however. Hot guy, that he liked. A lot. Shoving up against him, kissing him like he meant it more than anything he'd ever said before? There was one and only one correct response to that. It was to kiss enthusiastically back.

The plaster wall was rough and cold against his back. The stars above were spinning. And Raidou. Raidou was hot and insistent, muscular and demanding, right there, all broad shoulders and thin lips. Stubble and scar. With a taste of sweet liquor still on his tongue, and something else. Genma's tongue scraped Raidou's teeth. His hands clutched at Raidou's back. His pelvis pressed urgently against Raidou's, legs tangled, balance lost.

When his brain joined the party, he stuttered, for half a second. This was Raidou, his best friend, not his lover. Raidou who wasn't interested. Raidou whom he didn't think of like that...

Raidou's hips shifted, making Genma's breath catch in his throat. He opened his mouth for a deeper kiss. He was drunk. Raidou was drunk. And everything in the world was awesome.

Something in the back of Raidou's head was signaling urgently. It was a bad idea to get drunk and kiss people; it led to rooftops and blood and people getting badly hurt--

Genma's fingers spread over his back, hard and firm against muscle, and then tightened and clenched, catching in his shirt. He felt lean and solid, built in straight lines where he should have curved, rough and strong where he should have been soft and yielding, but his mouth was warm and wet--and okay, attached to a he, which was kind of weird, but most of the kunoichi Raidou had ever kissed weren't really the into-lipstick types--and that, at least, was familiar.

Hips shoved against his, bringing more hard angles instead of curves, but Genma was losing his balance between the wall and Raidou, slipping down with a low, distracted laugh, and Raidou got side-tracked grabbing for him--

"Guys! Get a room!" A raucous chorus of drunken mirth exploded behind them. Raidou broke away, startled, and whirled, catching Genma automatically as he turned.

A group of mixed civilians girls grinned at him; a blonde one whistled, staring at his scar. "Hey--oh my god, you're ninja."

How had they gotten this close? The sober parts of Raidou's brain berated him for not paying attention. The rest was torn between reintroducing Genma to that wall, or getting them both the hell home--

Wait, he'd just kissed Genma.

"Uh, ninja-san? Are you okay?" A redhead was giving him a concerned look.

Raidou stared at her. "I--" He'd kissed Genma. "What?"

"Do you need to go to the hospital?" asked the redhead, looking more concerned as she caught sight of Genma's black eye, the blood dappled over both of them. The blonde nudged one of her friends and muttered something about Or just a room, seriously.

"No--we--no," Raidou managed, and felt Genma's hand still pressed firmly against his shoulderblades. "Uh..."

"Go 'way, we're fine." Genma grinned over Raidou's shoulder and waved one hand at the girls. "An we're not your type. Don' tell Anna you saw us, she's pissed." There. That was enough of that. Distraction taken care of. Raidou needed to turn back and pay attention to him again, and not the rude people staring at them. He reached up and touched the unscarred side of Raidou's face gently, leaning in for another kiss.

"Don' pay 'tention to them, Rai. S'not... s'not... important right now." What was important was that kiss. More of those kisses. Raidou's biceps and flat chest. His slender hips and long legs. Him. Now.

The ground lurched a little, and the night sky spun faster, and Genma had to hang on tight or fall down altogether. Although on his knees for Raidou wasn't a bad place to be, if it came to that, he thought. If Raidou wanted that.

Raidou managed to catch Genma again just as he lost his balance, and got a clumsy kiss against his jaw for his trouble. He wrapped an arm around his friend's waist, half-steadying him, half ready to dodge anything that looked like another gesture of affection. What the hell had they been thinking?

"Man, how much did you guys have to drink?" asked one of the girls, stifling a giggle with her hand. "I thought ninja were supposed to have discipline."

"Can you go away?" Raidou snapped at them on mass, pulling Genma's arm over his shoulders. "Far away, for preference."

"You're, um, bleeding," pointed out the redhead.

"It's been a long day!" Maybe that was it; the mullet-jounin had smacked him hard enough to knock his brain loose. A concussion would explain everything. Raidou grabbed onto that thought and held it tight while he steadied Genma, ignoring his friend when he laughed and admonished the world to be nice to civilians.

And leaned up to kiss him again.

Raidou slapped a hand over Genma's mouth, felt playful teeth nip at his palm, and decided they really needed to go home. "Look, all of you," he ordered the group of girls, dragging himself back together. "Stay out of alleyways when it's dark, you're going to get yourselves attacked--or worse. And if you see ninja, stay away from them. Especially when they're losing their minds!"

With that pithy bit of logic, he shaped a translocation jutsu, got a better hold of Genma, and transported them both to ANBU's HQ rooftop--where they both fell over.

It was a real testament to Raidou's skill and strength that he could translocate not just himself, but Genma as well, while he was as drunk as he was. It wasn't a terribly hard jutsu, but the greater the distance, and the greater your burden, the more chakra control it took to manage it. Genma might even have been impressed, if he hadn't been so busy clinging to a merry-go-round of crazily spinning roof tiles and waiting for his stomach to catch up with the rest of him. It seemed to still be back in that alley.

"Mmmnnhgh." Kiddie ride was slowing down. Genma rolled to his side, opened his eyes and looked for Raidou, but the blackened eye was swelling and blurry, and the other one was tearing for no obvious reason.

"Rai?"

That had been such a nice kiss. Such awesome kissing. He wanted to do more of that, just as soon as he stopped feeling like he'd been rolled through a mill. He managed to get himself onto hands and knees before that whole stomach coming back to body plan turned out to be a bad idea.

"Oh shit."

That about summed everything up. Raidou lay on his back, feeling his entire chakra system protesting the wrenching dance he'd just forced it through, and studied the star-dusted sky. There had been a sunset earlier, he remembered, one of the glorious ones designed to make you feel in awe of the universe. Now there was just--stars.

And he'd lost his mind.

He heaved himself onto his hands and knees while Genma retched, and staggered up to his feet. Whatever Anna had put in their drinks, it was making itself seriously felt. And Genma had always been a lightweight.

A vomiting lightweight, now. Who Raidou had just kissed.

"What?" he said to the world at large, as if it might explain that particular bit of insanity to him. Genma had just been--right there, like he always was. Warm-eyed and grinning, looking at Raidou as if he'd never even noticed that half his face was gone--

This really wasn't helping.

He touched his throat and his cheek, feeling new bruises, and realized Genma had stopped throwing up. They were on ANBU's rooftop. They just needed to go home and sleep, and with any luck the world would make sense in the morning.

Raidou bent down and hauled his friend to his feet. "C'mon, kid. You'll feel better in your own place."

"'M realllly wasted," Genma told Raidou's shoulder, to which he found himself clinging. "Should prob'ly lie down... little." Hadn't he just been doing something? Puking. No, before that. Something...

Kissing Raidou!

Genma burst into laughter. That was about the funniest thing he'd ever heard of. Kissing Raidou!

It was awesome and completely unbelievable. Therefore he was beyond wasted, He was even beyond shitfaced. No, to be thinking he'd been kissing Raidou, he had to be completely, one-hundred-percent plowed.

"Did you know I like you?" he asked, as Raidou maneuvered him towards the stairway door. "I din't even know, until just now, 'cause y'er my bes' friend an' I... I... respec you."

The stairs were a treacherous waterfall of linoleum. Genma lurched down them and was nearly sick again on the landing, but he managed to recover himself.

"That's nice," Raidou mumbled, thanking the universe that they both lived on the top floor. He pulled Genma up again, half-expecting the man's knees to buckle, and half-steered half-dragged him through the heavy door that led to the wide hallway of ANBU's third floor.

Then he had to pause and work out where they actually lived. It was... on the left? No, right. Wait...

Damn Anna and her stupid froofy death drinks.

Genma sagged against him, pale cheeks flushed delicately green around his cheerful grin. Raidou very much doubted if his friend could even tell the difference between a kunai and a goat anymore, but at least he seemed happy about it. Happy enough to be getting slightly handsy again--

Or he was just trying to keep his balance. Raidou grabbed just as Genma's legs collapsed out from under him, sending them both staggering sideways into a wall. The breath burst out of his lungs as Genma's shoulder thumped him heavily in the sternum--just as cold plaster did the same from behind.

Genma giggled a little; Raidou mostly gasped and swore.

"Home," he slurred firmly, when air returned. "We're going home. It's--" Left or right? He picked one at random. "That way. C'mon."

Genma didn't have a lot of ability to follow directions, but he let Raidou steer him. Sort of. Bumping along the astonishingly maze-like halls of the third floor, going nearly to his knees at one point, and bringing Raidou down with him. He laughed then, and stared at the doorways. None of them looked familiar, until he recognized the women's showers. That gave him an idea.

"Gotta go in here a minute," he told Raidou, and lurched through the door. Because he was going to puke, and the showers had toilets, and tile floors: so much easier to clean the one if you missed the other.

Raidou stared at the slightly fuzzy kanji on the door, and then cursed violently. They were at the woman's showers--which put them on completely the wrong side of where they actually wanted to be. He should've gone left.

And they were also right next to Hatake's damn room, which Genma fortunately hadn't seemed to notice yet. Raidou resolved to get him out of there before someone died.

"Dude, seriously," he said, and grabbed onto the door frame when the scenery tilted. Genma was a blurred shape landing on his knees by the shower drains, hair falling all over his face. "There's a bathroom in your room. Which is--" he flapped his free hand, "--that way."

Having made the decision, such as it was, to go ahead and vomit, Genma was committed. Or so he thought. Then Raidou appeared and told him that he shouldn't do that here. It was confusing. But Raidou was probably right. He was usually right about things like that. Months of getting drunk with him had taught Genma that Raidou was very spot on about where it was okay to take a leak or hurl up your last few martinis, and where it was not. If this was a not place, he'd have to put a stopper in it. Not many people could do that. But Genma was a ninja and a medic. He cast the jutsu almost without conscious thought.

"Kay. Um." He used the tile wall to haul himself back to his feet, feeling alcohol and insanely hot chili churning like mad in his stomach. "Can you find it? Cause I.... I... This will las' 'bout five minutes. I think."

Raidou was really cute, all drunk like that. Genma struggled across the tiles towards him with a wide grin on his face. "Yer my bes friend. You know? Like... better than a Hokage." He stumbled past Raidou into the hall and fell against the door opposite. 309. Kakashi-bastard's place. Genma's grin turned to a scowl.

Raidou was not so drunk--or distracted by oddly endearing compliments--that he missed that particular warning sign. "Oh no you don'," he said, and grabbed Genma by both shoulders before he did something seriously stupid--like knock. "I didn't live through death by curry just to get killed because you can' let go of a stupid grudge."

Genma made a protesting noise; Raidou ignored it in favour of dragging him swiftly down the corridor, paying no attention to any walls they accidentally ricocheted off of. The floor seemed to be oddly reluctant to stay under his feet.

Damn Anna, was becoming something of a litany. If he ever managed to get home, he was never drinking again. It only led to bad things, like rooftops and kissing friends and--and--bad things. Losing his mind things.

By the time they made it back to their original starting point, Genma had mostly given up on walking. He was laughing again, apparently delighted to get lugged around by his increasingly dizzy best friend, but he definitely wasn't making Raidou's job any easier. And to add bizarre insult to injury, his shirt was doing that gaping-collar thing again, showing off scarred skin the colour of oiled wood; his mouth was kissed-red and smiling and--

Not helping.

Raidou leaned them both against a wall for a second, catching his breath and balance. "You gotta help me out a bit," he pleaded, increasingly desperate for either home or sanity to present itself. "Just--stand up or grab hold. Whichever works."