Genma nodded. "I'll help." He planted his feet carefully in a crouch, pushed off with his hands, and stood straight up. Not even swaying. All it took was a little concentration and effort and...

His stomach gave him a two minute warning.

Right, better get on towards his apartment then. He slid one foot carefully forward, shifted his weight to it, and collapsed like a house of cards against Raidou's back. He draped his arms around his friend's chest and leaned over his right shoulder.

"Oops! Sorry, Rai." He giggled. Raidou was really so cute. How had he never noticed that before, like the way his earlobes were all soft and fuzzy, and attached to his cheeks without any gap. He had big ears, too. Not huge ears. Just nice, big, masculine ears.

One minute, fourty-five seconds, his stomach warned again.

"We prob'ly better fin' my partymeny soon."

Raidou took that to mean my apartment, and judged by the slightly urgent undercurrent to Genma's voice that they needed to do it sharpish. And without Genma actually walking, apparently. "Trust you to be difficult," he muttered, trying to judge angles and find out what the hell had happened to his hands; they'd been on his wrists a second ago...

Ah, there. Wrapped around Genma's waist. When had that happened?

Mystery, he decided after a second of jumbled thought, and put them to use hauling Genma up and onto his shoulder. It wasn't ideal, what with the way it planted Genma's stomach right on solid bone and heavy muscle, but it was the only way Raidou could carry him and stand a chance of keeping his balance.

Had to be quick, then.

"Don' you dare fall off," he warned, and shoved away from the wall. He glared at the hallway until it stood still, and then took off walking as fast as he dared. One arm stayed fastened around Genma, holding him on; the other braced against the wall, keeping them upright.

Actually, once he got the hang of it, it wasn't that hard. His joints felt greased and weirdly loose, and his stomach was definitely a shade too warm, but he had a lot of practice at carrying Genma--and even more at walking drunk.

"Genius," he muttered softly, and even found a whisper of a smile when he spotted the right door looming up ahead. "You better have a key, lover boy."

Everything had been gloriously right-side-up, and with Raidou right there, and so very, very hot. And then suddenly it wasn't. It was all upside-down and something pressing on his gut and gravity wasn't working at keeping the lethal Grass Country curry-pitchers of beer-Anna's exotic cocktails time bomb under control. Genma's jutsu was really the only thing keeping Raidou's back dry...

But then the motion stopped and Genma took a breath.

Keys. Raidou wanted his keys. They were in his pocket. He reached into it to fish for them, unbalancing himself and Raidou both. They crashed against the door and Genma giggled as he slid to the floor.

"Keys for a kiss!" he said happily, and held out a handful of metal. Lock picks, a little black vial containing tiny poisoned needles, some change, and--by a great stroke of fortune--his keys.

The motion started again, even though he was pretty sure he was sitting still. Ominous rumblings of a volcano about to blow. Genma's face took on a confused, concerned look.

Raidou held onto the wall for a moment, fighting against gravity and the sudden, strong desire to sit down. He wasn't buzzed anymore. He'd managed to fall right through pleasantly hammered and crash land out the other side; a horrible place where things made no sense, the floor was a treacherous enemy determined to dump him on his backside, and he was fairly certain the walls were melting.

He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. When he opened them again, Genma was making that face. The one that meant 'bathroom now--or get me a bucket'. Raidou grabbed him by the shoulders again and hauled him up, pinning Genma to the door while he wrestled the keys into the lock, swore in a few different languages, and managed to spill them both onto the floor again when the door lurched open.

For a brief moment, Genma's carpet seemed like a wonderful place to stay. Then Genma started to gag.

"Oh no," muttered Raidou, levering himself clumsily up. "No, no, no, no--don't you dare..."

Picking Genma up again was out of the question--Raidou couldn't keep his own balance steady enough anymore, let alone carry someone else around. He staggered to his feet, swayed once, and managed to identify his own hands long enough to wrap them around Genma's slim hips and drag him bodily to the tiny bathroom tucked into the bedroom corner.

Light switch--no forget it. Sink--wall--toilet, there. He crushed himself against one tiled wall, jammed Genma neatly between himself and the other, and swept his friend's hair out of the way just in time to avoid technicolour disaster.

Then there was just the small matter of being trapped in a small, airless room while his best buddy threw up everything he'd apparently swallowed in the last decade. Raidou sent up a small, garbled prayer of thanks that his own gag-reflex didn't have a hair-trigger, cupped one hand around Genma's forehead to keep him steady, and tried to stop breathing.

If Wave Country Peri Peri Crab Soup and Mangrove Country Style Spicy Prawn Curry were blistering going down, when combined with several pints of alcohol and some stomach acid, and going the wrong way, they were something like a liquid fire jutsu. On the other hand, Genma was fairly certain he wouldn't be using his esophagus for it's intended purpose anytime soon, so that would give it a chance to regrow its denuded lining. If only the caustic torrents would stop.

That was really the problem with that jutsu, which he'd have liked to have cast again if only it didn't have that damn rebound effect. Fortunately he wasn't so drunk he forgot that. He'd done that once--been drunk enough to disregard the danger of overuse of this particular jutsu--and ended up in a hospital bed with a very angry Kanae-sensei lecturing him about more appropriate ways to kill himself if that was his aim.

Speaking of aim...

It was amazing how small a target an open toilet with an aperture bigger than your head could be. Even when your friend was aiming you. That was funny. Aiming him. Because he was a weapon, right? And ninja were good at aiming weapons, and Raidou was a ninja, too and... He started to laugh, and got as far as "ha" before it turned into "harrrrghhhhnghhhrhogaaaah."

Really, there were worse situations to be in. Missions gone wrong, teammates' funerals, incredibly awkward first dates--but try as he might, Raidou couldn't think of any. But at least the mad desire to shove his best friend up against the nearest hard surface and do... something was long gone. Mostly he just wanted to drop Genma in his own bed to sleep it off, and head home.

As soon as Genma stopped laughing around gut-wrenching heaves, anyway.

"You're officially insane," Raidou told the back of his head, speaking very slowly in the attempt to make all the words line up right. "Who enjoys this? Seriously. You're worse than one of those--those kids that goes and shows all his friends his new stitches 'cos he thinks they're cool. Curry masochist..."

Talking required breathing, which was not the best activity to engage in willingly, even if he didn't have Tsume's nose, so he fell silent and waited. Eventually, after another collective agony of painful sounds, Genma stopped throwing up.

"Than' your god," Raidou mumbled, and hit the flush gratefully. He hooked one hand through the back of Genma's belt, flattened the other over his chest, and half-tumbled them both out of the bathroom. The room swayed sickeningly, like a ship at sea, but he managed to keep his balance. Genma's bed was...

There.

Raidou dragged him over, trying not to trip over his own feet, and dumped him on the dark blue covers in a tangle of long limbs. He lurched back and held up his hands. "Stay there. Jus' two secs..."

Glass of water, painkillers for the morning, probably a bowl if he could find one... He stumbled away to locate the kitchen again.

Genma lay on his back and waited for the bed to stop moving. It was moving a lot. Raidou had told him to stay there, which was probably sensible advice. On the other hand Raidou was staggering around knocking things over. He might get hurt. Plus it would be more fun if he was over here and they could laugh about being drunk together. Genma thought about it, and decided he'd have to go help his friend do whatever it was he was doing so he could stop doing that and come back over and lie down where things were more comfortable.

He rolled to his side to get up, and kept rolling, tumbling right off the bed to land on the floor with a surprised grunt. Wait, what was he doing? Oh yeah, looking for Raidou. That meant getting up. The floor was rising and falling like he remembered an Iwa ninja making the ground do on a mission a few years ago. That had been a cool jutsu, except for the way it completely pinned you down while the guy's buddies aimed shit at you from the trees. Genma's head whipped up, looking for flying kunai. The room spun through a full three-sixty, and he fell backwards and cracked his head against his table.

Damn.

That was funny.

"Look out for enemies, Rai," he called, and burst into giggles.

Generally most of Genma's warnings didn't come with a girly sounding laugh-track attached, so Raidou figured it was safe not to take this one seriously--after he pivoted on one heel and gave the room a quick, if dizzy, look-over.

Nope, nothing but Genma on the floor trying to concuss himself.

"I said stay on the bed," Raidou muttered, waving his hands and spilling most of the water in the glass he'd found. He swore and stuck it back under the faucet. One of Genma's med-kits rested on the counter, along with a convenient saucepan he'd managed to scrounge from a cupboard. They would have to do. "'F'you kill yourself, I'm not coming to your funeral. I'll stay home and laugh, is what I'll do."

Glass of water accomplished, he gathered up the other things and headed back to drop them on Genma's bedside table, then he knelt down to look at his friend. Genma was sprawled on his back in a silvery patch of moonlight, still laughing. His eyes were half-lidded with mirth, the distinctive amber-brown almost swallowed by blown pupils.

"Idiot," Raidou mumbled, and didn't manage to sound quite as unaffectionate as he hoped. He reached down a shade unsteadily and ghosted his fingers over a growing darker spot on Genma's temple. "How hard you hit? You even know?"

"Hit?" Genma gave Raidou a puzzled look. "Am I hit?" There had been that bar brawl, but that had been a while ago, he was pretty sure. Now that Raidou mentioned it there was something slightly squishy feeling about his head and eye...

"You know wha'?" he asked, deciding to leave pondering the problem of whether and how he'd been hit to his hind brain. "I like getting drunk with you, cause y'er... y'er... y'er..." Oh what was it? There was something he was trying to say.

More puzzlement. Oh, but it was Raidou! The bemused expression dissolved into a happy grin. "Y'er my bes frien' and I love you."

Raidou paused, fingertips still resting against the slow pulse beating in Genma's temple, and looked at nothing. Alcohol made his thoughts slippery and slow, hard to grasp, but now it felt like he didn't have any at all.

"Right," he said after an age, and dropped his hand. "Wow, you really did crack your head. Okay--um. Right. Bed. That's what we're doing." He stopped and shook his head, flustered. "You. That's what you're doing. You're going to bed and sleeping until you wake up sane. Or sober. Whichever comes first."

Genma was giving him a faintly puzzled look. Raidou bit his tongue until he stopped babbling, and braced his hands on the floor. Getting back to his feet was much harder than it should have been; his weight felt balanced weirdly, leaning him in the wrong direction. He canted, swayed, and caught himself splay-legged. Genma was still giving him a puzzled look, but it was starting to colour with new amusement.

"C'mon, wrists," Raidou said, even more flustered, and held out his hands. "Need you to help out again."

Genma offered his own hands, silvery with scars in the moonlight; Raidou caught him carefully by the wrists and pulled him half-way up, using a staggering kind of momentum to land him on the bed again, where he released him.

"Right," Raidou repeated, re-catching his balance. "Water's there. Pills for the morning. Saucepan if you feel sick again. Um..." They were ninja. They didn't do love. Most of them hardly did friends.

"Sleep well," he said wretchedly, and turned to head for the door.

Wait. Wait, that wasn't what was supposed to happen. Raidou was supposed to plop down on the bed with him and laugh and laugh about how the room was spinning, and how they totally kicked those guys asses, and how awesome everything was when you were with your best friend. And there was something... Well Raidou was hot, but you weren't supposed to think about your friends like that. Something, though. Something about how Raidou was hot, and they'd been dancing...

"Rai? S'wrong?" Because something was definitely wrong. "Did I get sick on you?" That might explain why he was annoyed. Except he didn't really sound annoyed, more... depressed or something. Or maybe Raidou was sick? Although it took a lot of alcohol to get Raidou sick. But then given how drunk Genma was sure he was, they had undoubtedly consumed a lot of alcohol.

"We totally kicked those guys asses. You an' me. Cause we're awesome. 'Member?"

Raidou hesitated with his hand on the doorknob. The floor bucked under his feet, making the world slide sideways; he leaned forward and rested his forehead against panelled wood. "Yeah, kid," he mumbled, and the words were almost incoherent. "We're awesome. I remember."

Mostly he remembered riding high enough to grab and pin and kiss and not think. He never hooked up when he was drunk, not for years. He'd made a point of it without ever being quite sure why--until Tsume had reminded him. And now he'd tried to do it with Genma, of all people. What the hell was wrong with him?

"Goin' home," he said, and winced when the words slurred together. The door felt too cold against his skin. "Gonna sleep, kay? You sleep, too. Feel better. F'you need anything call--" He stopped and swallowed. "Call Haruichi. He's workin' tonight."

He twisted his hand until he heard a click and leaned hard against the wall until he could get the door open. The lights in the hallway made him wince again; he put a hand up and shaded his eyes, looking back. Genma was an indistinct shadow sprawled out on dark covers.

"Jus' got to sleep," Raidou said helplessly. "World'll be better tomorrow."

He shut the door and braced himself against it until he could find the willpower to head for his own.

Genma lay in the semi-darkness and watched Raidou's silhouette disappear into the hall. When his door swung shut, the only light left came from the lamp near his shrine. The lamp he never let go out. World will be better tomorrow? What was wrong with the world now? Except for being sick drunk, but at the moment he was feeling more drunk than sick.

Also, call Haruichi?

Damn, he must have done something really stupid. He put his hand to his forehead and felt a goose egg there. And his eye was pretty much swollen shut. He wondered if he'd somehow maybe messed up and caused Raidou to miss a chance to get laid. Only he was pretty sure Raidou would still be in here and giving him hell if he'd done that, not sulking off to his own room. And he was definitely unhappy.

Maybe it really was just that he was sick. Raidou almost never got the heaves from booze, but almost never wasn't the same as never ever. Genma'd have to make sure to bring him some of his hangover powder later. As soon as he stopped feeling like the bed was spinning. Which it was again. Spinning and rocking and spinning and swaying and rocking and...

Thank gods Raidou had left him that sauce pan. He really, really hoped Raidou wasn't doing this over in his room, because seriously? Puking sucked. And he was never getting this drunk again.

He didn't think much more beyond that. Didn't ponder what was wrong with Raidou, or go over the evening again to try to fill in the memory gaps, which were growing like holes in a moth-eaten blanket. He just finished vomiting and passed out with his head hanging off the side of the bed.

Raidou made it to his own door without landing on his knees, and spent an age searching through his pockets until he remembered his key was hanging on his dogtags. He wrestled with the lock until he was tempted just to kick the whole thing in, and groaned with relief when it finally gave with a dull click.

The lights in his apartment were off, leaving the room cloaked in shadows and a bare slice of moonlight. He leaned back against the door and let it stay that way. They'd only make his head hurt, anyway. His face already hurt enough.

"Drama," he muttered to himself, and slid slowly down. "Damn dramatic, like a teenage--teenage girl. Drunk teenage girl." He hit the floor without really noticing, and let his legs splay loosely out. The bed was only across the room, but he didn't want to move anymore; even with the lights off, he could still feel the room swaying like a damn slow dance. He closed his eyes.

And saw Genma. Warm and solid, panting and laughing, with the alleyway lights picking out the sunshine in his hair and the brightness in his eyes, right before Raidou pinned him up against the brick and--

He thumped his head back against the door.

It wasn't until much later, when the moon was starting to sink and he was drifting somewhere between half-consciousness and full sleep, leaned uncomfortably against his door and unwilling to move, that he realized he'd barely even worried about kissing another man.