Tsume woke with a muzzy-headed start, aware that someone was copping a feel. She lifted a hand to find her breast, discovered it was much harder than it should have been, found her hip, her ribs, her face, a hand--

No, wait. She moved back to the hand. Larger than hers. Much larger than hers. She picked it up by one finger and shifted it lower, onto her stomach, before rolling to bury her face in Ryouma's chest. She took a deep breath, letting his scent curl into her lungs, and opened one eye.

Kakashi. Kakashi smelled pretty good. Not as good as Ryouma. They smelled a little like soap.

"You smell like soap," she mumbled, wondering if it was morphine or exhaustion that made her stupid, and unable to care.

His arm was being moved--no, someone was holding his hand--no, wait, there was... a hipbone? Kakashi flexed his fingers slightly, just enough to confirm that definitely felt like a hipbone, then someone started talking to him.

Not a nurse. Not Ryouma. Which left--

Tsume.

So that was probably Tsume's hipbone. Well, that was good; now she couldn't leave without him knowing. Which meant he could keep her here, and that would make Ryouma happy. And he'd smell happy. Then everyone would be happy.

"'m a genius," he muttered into coarse hair, pleased with his idea, and very carefully hooked his fingers into cloth, getting a grip on Tsume's hospital gown. "An'--soap? I can smell Ryouma, mostly. Who's got soap?"

"Dunno," she murmured, letting her eyes fall closed. "Not me." She had Ryouma. He definitely smelled better than soap.

He also smelled a little bit like soap.

She rubbed his chest, then laid her head down. Well, now he smelled like her and soap and himself. She sniffed him, hesitated when he shifted slightly, and relaxed. "He smells nice," she sighed. "Better'n... lots of things."

Kakashi, with his face in Ryouma's hair, couldn't smell the soap. But he could definitely smell Ryouma--and almost every emotion the man had been through since he'd last washed his hair. Follicles were good for containing scent. He inhaled deeply, prompted by Tsume's comment, and felt a myriad of scents spark up his nose.

"Happy," he mumbled. "There--smell that? And... fear. Ignore that. That's anger, I think. Tastes like--" he thought. "Acid." He scented again. "An' good thoughts. Good thoughts are the best. 'specially when he's thinking about trout..."

Against his throat, Ryouma sighed in his sleep. Kakashi managed to pull his other hand up, still dangling the line of the IV, and very carefully touched his fingertips to the nape of Ryouma's neck, finding softer hair.

"Smells like weather," he murmured, catching a grip on drug-slippery thoughts. "Like a storm. You ever notice...?"

"Only when he's horny," she nearly giggled, the laugh bubbling out on a tide of opiates. "Smells like huntin'. Sunny days an' that fun sorta danger..." She nuzzled into his shoulder, her voice whisper-soft. "Like the good sort of sunburn..."

Something brushed her hair. She opened one eye and saw Kakashi's hand, creeping up around Ryouma's neck, arm following laid across his chest, as if he could take over.

She wished she could take over. In retaliation, she threw a leg over Ryouma's and scooted farther onto the big body.

Mmm. Warm.

Kakashi opened his eye when something kicked him on the knee--and realized that was Tsume. The blankets were rucked up awkwardly, now, showcasing her bare leg tossed over Ryouma's pyjama'd ones, and her heel resting on the raw bone of Kakashi's kneecap.

"Ow," he said, belatedly, and realized he'd lost his hold on her hip. He found it again, or tried to; his hand ended up laid flat over the slope between ribs and pelvis, fingers spread. His other hand was still against Ryouma's neck, caught somewhere between a touch and a brace.

It was kind of nice, he thought muzzily, to be able to reach out and find people; they both smelled good. Tsume's laughter was a little like prickly sunshine.

"He smells great when he's horny," Kakashi confided, with his own low chuckle, and closed his eye again. "Like thunder. Pulls good faces, too..."

She wasn't sure she liked that, but she didn't know why. Tsume frowned and opened her eyes again to watch the pleased expression on Kakashi's face. It matched his sudden rise in heat. "So," she asked slowly, trying to form her addled brain into thoughts both subtle and clever, "he's gay?"

Very subtle. Terribly clever. She was proud of herself.

The effort of looking at her again was far too hard--Kakashi gave the insides of his eyelids a slightly incredulous stare, instead. "Ry'uma? He's not--"

He was talking too loud; Ryouma shifted slightly, hand tensing on Kakashi's ribcage, and let out a slow breath. Kakashi shut up.

When he was sure Ryouma wasn't waking up, he dragged his thoughts back to Tsume's question and said quietly, "He's not gay. Well, mostly not gay. He wasn't gay. I think I broke him." His inner-eyelids got a reflective look for a moment. "But he likes you. He's always talking about you. Wants to ask you out, but now he thinks you hate him..."

He pulled himself up a little, then, struck by the seriousness of that thought, and forced his eye open to look at Tsume--or the slim slice of her face that he could actually see. One pale blue iris, almost lost in the huge black circle of her pupil, gleamed beneath bandages. "Don' hate him. He's--Ryouma. Doesn't deserve it."

Important message imparted, he slumped down again, finding the warm hollow left by his own body, and tucked his face back down into Ryouma's hair. "An' you should ask him out," he added, as the thought lined itself up behind his teeth. "Make him happy. He's very good with his hands. An' tongue. And--everything."

"I don' hate 'im!" she protested sleepily. "But--" she frowned. "'M not askin' him out. He can be good with his hands an' tongue an' everything with you. Tha's fine."

And now it was possible she was even more confused. Except--"Are you sure he's not gay? 'Cause if he was sleepin' with you..."

She petted Ryouma, hand stroking from midchest to his stomach, over the ragged edges of his tattoo. He shifted and she stilled, checking to make sure her voice had been low. It definitely had. She didn't stroke again, anyway.

He smelled awfully nice, though. She wrestled with the urge, and finally left her hand where it was.

Whatever Tsume had done was making Ryouma's scent warm up. Kakashi made a soft, pleased sound in the back of his throat and took a deep breath--

Which was the exact moment his mouth finally managed to get a message through to his brain, and pointed out he could feel Ryouma's hair tickling his lips.

His pant-leg mask--Ryouma's present--was gone.

"Hate nurses," he muttered, remembering at the last second to be quiet, and tried to gather his thoughts together enough to plot vengeance. When that didn't work, Tsume's scent-- almost as warm as Ryouma's--prompted him back to their not-quite conversation. "He's not gay. He's--special. Or something. Flexible." He smiled a little. "Very flexible. An' I asked; he said he's not gay. Don' know why. Women are scary."

A little moment of silence fell, broken only by the whisper of three sets of breath.

"No offense."

Tsume waved a hand. "I'm just like a guy. With boobs." She glanced at her chest. "Little ones. So really like a guy."

Something trickled into her brain. It danced with morphine and flirted with confusion, and she heard herself say, "So maybe he is gay... Are you sure--" Names were so hard. "--Pup? 'Cause if he slept with you... an' he likes me... an' I'm like a little guy... I mean, a boob--"

She'd forgotten what she was trying to say. An idle finger traced the lines of muscle down Ryouma's stomach, absently noting when his skin quivered. "He's got an innie." She was oddly pleased with this discovery.

"You talk about body parts a lot," Kakashi pointed out. "Maybe you have a fetish." He pulled his hand back from Tsume's hip anyway, lifting it up to find her arm laid over Ryouma's chest, and followed it down to her fingertips. Very carefully, he mimicked her touch.

Ryouma did indeed have an innie.

"Hah," said Kakashi, equally pleased, and slid his hand further left, tracing down a ridge of hard abdominal muscles. "He's got tattoos, too. One--here. Dagger. You can kind of feel the edge..."

A thought occured. "I'm not a pup. Rescued you, didn't I? 'm an alpha--when I have a pack." Who weren't here; the thought slipped beneath the liquid warmth of the opiate-haze and pulled his mood down. He found a string of others tied to it; half an inked dragon, a dog shaped like a man struggling to breathe on his own, rot burning away beneath a blade...

He blinked hard, eyelids brushed by sable-black hair, and focused back on his hand. He could still feel Tsume's; and the edge to Ryouma's pyjama pants. "D'you want him to be gay?" he asked, as one image crossed with the other.

"I saw the dagger," she nearly purred, remembering water running slick over flesh, warbling into color over the jeweled brightness of the designs. She ignored Kakashi's next words, enjoying memory instead, running her thumb over the tip of the dagger peeking out from pajama bottoms.

The pup's scent whirling into displeasure brought her up short, and she stared at him.

He was upset over... what she wanted? But, no, he was already beginning to smell like cotton-coated spring again. "I... sure," she said, confused. "If he wants to be gay." Her nose wrinkled. "'Cept I don't see why he would." The whole concept seemed a little... odd, to her. She hoped Kiba was never gay. Maybe she'd discourage him ever joining ANBU. They seemed to collect, here.

Kakashi could be as gay as he wanted.

"Because..." Kakashi settled again, hand lazily moving over skin, occasionally catching Tsume's slimmer fingers accidentally with his own. "I don't know. Why're you straight? Some things just--are."

It was probably a good thing Ryouma was exhausted and drugged; Kakashi wasn't sure he wanted to hear seven different theories about relative sexualities while the man got all obnoxiously pleased at being the centre of attention. His scent was already warm enough.

Well, maybe not quite.

"Not that he is gay," Kakashi went on, carefully flattening his palm over the long scar that cut Ryouma almost from ribcage to hip. "He's--I don't know, in-between. Everything-sexual, probably. Difficult."

Difficult was a good word. He should call Ryouma that more often.

"Definitely difficult," Tsume agreed, finding the same scar and tracing it up until she hit Kakashi's fingers, then sliding back down again. "An' persistent. But not bad." She sighed, remembering their fight in the forest. "An' he doesn't growl. Kinda funny, that." Her words tumbled around in her head, finally petering out.

She closed her eyes, not sure when they'd come open, and tried to crawl up to bury her face in Ryouma's neck. "He smells like summer," she mumbled into his skin, one hand feathering over his ribcage. "Smells nice."

For a moment, the thought of Ryouma growling sidetracked Kakashi to vastly interesting mental place--until he realized his hand was definitely drifting south of Ryouma's waistband. He pulled it up, distantly aware he was already dancing along the line of groping an insensate teammate without adding actual groping to his list of sins--even if Ryouma would probably completely approve--and settled for finding another scar, instead.

On the other side of the bed, Tsume was wriggling around. The blankets slithered off her completely, piling up in a tangle for a moment before her leg kicked them aside; half of them slid to the floor. Kakashi was too warm to really care.

"You're going to wake him up," he protested in a sleepy mumble, and slid his fingers through Ryouma's hair, stroking carefully. Stroking was a good way to keep someone asleep; though he'd had more practice on dogs than people. "Then he'd stop smelling like--" He frowned sightly, and inhaled. "He doesn't smell like summer. Smells like--water. Lakes. Something peaceful. Bit like steel..."

It was hard to put into words. Harder still when he couldn't keep a thought in his head for more than three seconds at a time.

"Smells like Ryouma," he finished. "And you, I guess."

She roused slightly. "Does not smell like me. No reason to smell like me." It was possibly the most emphatic statement she'd made in hours. The energy needed to maintain that faded quickly. "An' I s'pose he smells like lakes. In the summer."

Splashing around, having fun, skin slightly tight as it warmed with the sunshine.

Except he had more of an edge than a day at the water. More of a carefully hidden danger, like any good shinobi should, but many didn't. So many were tough without the underlying nature. Ryouma had the steel, and yet he didn't need to prove it.

At least, that's what she thought. No scent was really that specific.

Tsume took a deep breath and exhaled, relaxing farther over Ryouma's body. "Y'r jus' crazy," she mumbled to Kakashi.

"An' you're taking up the bed," he retorted sleepily. "Or most of the Ryouma. Budge over." Tsume's weight was on his arm now, pinning it between what felt like two sets of hard ribs--unless that was her hip again. It was hard to tell what connected to what when she was so small.

He considered moving, and decided it was too much effort. Ryouma's head was still unsmothered, and his hair still close enough for Kakashi to get a spiral of scent with each breath; his shoulder still against Kakashi's chest, his lean hip still against Kakashi's thigh...

This bed, Kakashi decided, was the best place ever.

Except he couldn't feel his fingers anymore.

"Now he smells more like you," he complained, and twitched his hand; blunt nails found cloth and the skin beneath it, and contrived to give Tsume a noticeable dig. "C'n bite you again, 'f I have to..."

She didn't see what was so bad about him smelling more like her. Except, no, wait, he didn't need to smell like her at all. Really.

She resisted the urge to rub all over him anyway, just to spite Kakashi. There was too much moving involved.

And she'd have edged over if he'd just asked eventually! Instead he threatened to bite her. She slivered an eye open at him, a glitter of blue he probably didn't even see. "That was a free bite," she muttered. "Do it again an' I'll grab your nuts so hard you'll wish you'd been pre-neutered." There was, after all, a difference between someone getting the better of you when you were weak and injured, and someone getting the better of you when you were weak and injured perfectly fine, if a little sleepy.

"'f I wasn't such a gentleman," Kakashi mumbled, completely unfazed, "I'd make some sort of comment about your hands being too small to do the job. But I am--so I won't." He drifted for a moment, then tripped over another thought. "Maybe if I was Ryouma..."

Who was still being covered in a blanket of Tsume. Kakashi debated about jabbing her again, but the effort it would take to make nerves spark and muscles move and bones shift... It made him tired just thinking about it. And his hand was still numb, which would make it harder.

Perversely, he pulled up a leg instead and tossed it over Ryouma and Tsume's both. There, now he covered everyone.

Beneath them, Ryouma stirred. His scent spiked. His hands moved.

Kakashi felt fingers shift against his ribs, then a grip like loose steel settled over his upper arm. He blinked one eye half open and glanced down.

Ryouma had grabbed his arm.

And Tsume's arm.

And still hadn't woken up.

Kakashi snorted softly, but felt oddly pleased at the new tangle of crossed limbs; now everyone had hold of someone. He shut his eye again, preparing to drift back off, and made an attempt at getting the last word. "There--see? You made him twitchy. Bad Inuzuka..."

She smirked as his breathing evened out, then nuzzled closer to Ryouma. A squirm took her farther under Ryouma's arm and Kakashi's leg, burrowing into the safety of large bodies and temporary pack, the warren of protection they each wove around the other.

Not that it was terribly effective, drugged. But it was the feeling that counted.

Warm and secure, she let her mind drift away.

Sunshine and edges. Definitely sunshine and edges.