Vomiting didn't get any more pleasant as time went on. It was funny, you'd think after a while his body would realize there wasn't anything left and stop heaving.

Apparently, there was always something left.

He coughed, spat the last of the bile from his mouth, and sagged, shaking, to the floor. The cool floor. Cold tiles against overheated skin.

He'd soaked towels in the sink, earlier. Let them get soggy and dripping with freezing water and then laid on them, under them. They'd dried at some point. He wasn't sure when. He ought to get back up and soak them some more, but couldn't bring himself to rise. Too hard. He doubted his legs would support him. He shook all over. His breathing came shallowly.

A hospital trip would have meant certain death. They'd be looking for him -- a man with a shallow scrape across one leg, suffering from a poisoning.

This, however, wasn't much better. He'd sucked out what poison he could -- if that would even work with something like this -- got the injury bleeding freely to try and wash it clean. Taken what anti-toxins he carried. They didn't seem to be doing much good. No word from Manako. Not that she could come here. More certain death if they followed her in, and her cover wouldn't stand up to much scrutiny.

How long had it been? He'd lost track of the time. His stomach heaved. He lurched for the toilet, but his body didn't react like it should have. Instead of sitting up, he managed only to roll.

Nothing came out, anyway. He spasmed around his guts, hands clenching into fists before his body gave up and he was able to relax again. Maybe a hospital and certain death would have been better, after all.

A flutter of unfamiliar chakra brushed against sweat-slick skin. He shuddered and thought about the boot knife on the sink. It really wasn't going to do him much good, now. He lay and hoped they'd just pass over him. Or kill him quick.

No footsteps. Definitely a ninja. His breath rattled in his ears. No way were they going to look over him. Summoning everything he had left, he clawed his way up the sink, braced himself on the edge, and grabbed the knife.

At the very least, he could kill himself before they got any information out of him. Twenty years old and already dead.

Man. That sucked.

It was almost unfair to call this place a city. True, there were thousands of inhabitants, bustling commerce, trade on the river, and it was all centered around a Grass daimyou's palace, but there was something about it that felt provincial. More like a village, with streets that were paved cow paths, and new buildings laid over the foundations of the old. It had been far too easy to get lost, with every second ticking the Konoha spy's life away. When Genma found the apartment at last, and eased inside the building's corridor, he checked his watch. Two hours seventeen minutes since he'd left the safe house.

OK, please let this Yanagi guy be alive, saveable, and not have his apartment trapped all to hell.

The apartment door was locked. But there didn't seem to be any traps. And at mid-day the hall was deserted. Genma got out his lockpicks. In another five minutes he was standing inside, back against the re-locked door. There was a futon in one corner, clothes strewn across a bare wooden floor. An open guitar cass held its instrument and a couple of coiled strings. There was a bowl and cup next to a small stack of magazines. No weapons. The window was open. The only chakra presence Genma could detect was from the bathroom.

Chakra presence was good, so long as it was the agent he was here to help, and not the man's enemy standing over his corpse.

Genma edged silently along the wall. There was noise from the bathroom — someone moving heavily. A stench of vomit.

Genma slid a kunai into his palm, and stepped into the doorway.

There was only one man in the bathroom. The agent. Thank gods. On his feet, barely. Holding a knife in one shaky hand, and the edge of the sink in the other. His skin was the color of spoiled milk.

And Genma recognized him.

It was that bastard who'd thrown him off the damn power station roof last summer.

"Yuki's mother liked the present," he said. The pass phrase Manako had told him to use. "And you look like hell. Karma's a bitch, huh?"

Yanagi stared at the masked shinobi blocking the doorway. Then he gave a weak shell of a laugh. "Nice. In that case, we all deserve to be poisoned, right? Swear to god, I'm gonna hurl on your shoes." It was an empty threat. He didn't think he could get over there.

Letting the knife slip from his fingers, he clutched the edge of the sink with both hands and glowered at the ninja. It was a man his own height, lean, dressed in black and bone. At least it was ANBU. "You here to help? Or you just going to stand there being an ass?" He hoped the former because, frankly, he wasn't sure he could keep standing for much longer. "I really hope you have civvies with you. Someone sees you like that and I'm screwed. Take off the damn mask already." His gaze had fallen. Too hard to keep it up. He leaned heavily against the sink and slid down, letting his head fall back.

There. Now he could see the ninja again. That was nice.

Genma shoved his mask back with a scowl. "Beggars can't be choosers. I came straight off a mission, so you get this, a henge, or me naked." There was no spark of recognition in the other agent's eyes. Dull, sunken eyes.

Fucking hell, the guy was in bad shape. Genma eyed his bare chest, his torn black pants — uniform pants, though where the hell the rest of this guy's uniform was, who knew? Undercover ops usually meant civvies anyway. His left leg was a bloody mess, and there was dried blood on the floor. Genma knelt next to him.

"I'm Genma. Shiranui Genma. And you have no idea who I am, do you?" He reached out a hand to touch Yanagi's wrist, feeling a slow, thready pulse. Checked out dilated pupils, a raw, runny nose. "Lucky for you, I don't hold grudges, and I'm a field medic. Do you know what you got tagged with? And how long ago? Does your head hurt?"

Dehydration was the first problem to take care of. And IV access would let him get an antidote in faster. Genma pulled out a bag of fluids, looked around for a place to hang it, found none, and drove a kunai into the door frame to serve as a hanger.

"Hope you're not afraid of needles."

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Genma half smiled. "No. If we'd fucked you wouldn't have forgotten me." He picked up a couple of the vials. Pain killer, chakra booster, standard antitoxin for metal-based poisons. Nothing here for phosphates, though.

Yanagi looked like he was going to start puking again. Or try to. If he'd taken the tag at five, and it was a phosphate... "You had the runs, too, or just the puking?" Genma shaped chakra with hand seals and set one palm against Yanagi's forehead, the other to the back of his neck. "This ought to help with the nausea, just breathe and give it a sec."

At least this guy still had chakra of his own to work with. And despite the blood, the injury didn't look that bad. And he wasn't dead yet. That was a good sign, all things considered.

Genma's hands felt cool against his skin, and for that alone he'd have sat there as long as the medic wanted. "Runs, yeah. That a good sign?" He really hoped it was a good sign. "Man, you have got to change before someone sees you. Or I'm dead and my mission's blown. Be a rainy day in Suna before we get another agent in here, too..." He paused, leaning against the hand on his forehead. "Except, y'know, it actually does rain in Suna. End up with quicksand patches. Sucks."

The nausea was receding. Tension he didn't realize he'd had slowly drained out of his muscles. His next words were a faint mumble. "That feels better." Maybe he could function. If he wasn't barfing half the time, maybe he'd get some strength back.

"You with me? Don't pass out on me, Yanagi. Yanagi, right? You better be Yanagi, or else I just screwed up big time." Genma glanced around the tiny bathroom, pushed some of the damp towels out of the way, and tried to ease Yanagi's head down a little.

"You look like you've got phosphate poisoning. Makes you weak, eyes tear, nose runs, and you puke and shit till there's nothing left in you. Sound about right? If you didn't get enough of a dose to kill you in the first six hours, you'll probably make it if you get rehydrated and get some antidote into you." Genma checked his watch again. And his med kit.

"Lucky for you, I use phosphate poisons, so I always carry some antidote. In case of accidents." He shook up a small green vial, withdrew all of its contents into a syringe, then injected that directly into the IV.

"This is gonna make your mouth dry. Might make you feel like your heart's beating fast. Don't worry, I'm watching it." Like a hawk. Because Yanagi still looked grey, and that six-hour window wasn't really a hard and fast rule so much as a best case scenario.

Safest thing now would be to keep Yanagi talking. "So you really have no memory, huh? Here's a hint, you were wearing the wrong hitai-ate last time I saw you. Dislocated my damn shoulder, too."

Yanagi shifted, laying down on the cold floor entirely. If all he needed was rehydration and the antidote -- which was already in his veins -- then he was well on his way to recovery. That was good.

He focused on Genma's words. Wrong hitai-ate. Wrong hitai-ate? That made no sense. He didn't generally wear a hitai-ate, much less the wrong one.

Unless -- oh. Oh. "Hey!" Yanagi said, lifting a hand to point at Genma. "You lived!" Then the rest of the memory came crashing in, and he scowled, hand dropping to his stomach. The IV trailed along behind. "You nearly fucked my mission over, too. Set me back three weeks. I spent two of those letting other jounin kick the shit out of me and getting unofficially interrogated." He paused to catch his breath, then went on with less enthusiasm, "They suspected I dropped you over the falls so you'd live, 'cause I was a traitor. Like I'd do that..."

Wait. He had done that, and he was a traitor -- just not to Konoha. He skipped it. "I'm glad you survived." His grin was faint, but true. "Especially since now you're gonna save my ass. But, seriously, if you could change clothes..."

His heart sped up. He took a deep breath and tasted old bile. The initial burst of energy that came with recognition was fading fast. "Clothes, and maybe a breath mint," he muttered. "For me."

"Are you expecting company?" Genma asked, but he took the time to effect a quick henge, hiding ANBU black and bone under an illusion of torn blue jeans and a black t-shirt. "It's not like anyone who looks in here and sees me giving you an IV is gonna think you just have some really kinky fantasies. You look like shit."

He looked around for a cup, emptied a little packet of salt into it, and added water from the tap. "Here, rinse with this. I'll help you sit up so you can spit." He handed Yanagi the cup, then slid an arm under the other man's shoulders. This close to him the thick scent of blood, old sweat, and vomit was almost enough to turn Genma's stomach in sympathy. He tried to breathe through his mouth.

"Yeah, I lived," he told Yanagi. "Almost no thanks to you. That was a nice move making it look like you'd snapped my neck, but I spent three weeks doing rehab, off missions. Rinse. Spit. Don't swallow that, if you want water I'll get you fresh."

He held the water in his mouth for another moment, debating. But fresh was definitely better, even if it wasn't right here. He spat. "I want water," he croaked, and sagged back against the sink while Genma followed through on his word. Yanagi took the cup gratefully, holding it in both hands, fingers overlapping, to keep from spilling it.

His eyes closed after the third sip. "At least you were alive to do rehab. And look! You're better than new. Maybe I did you a favor." The man definitely hadn't been wearing ANBU gear when they'd met the first time.

There was a beat of silence, and Yanagi could imagine the dagger stare aimed his way. He smirked. When a kunai began to slice through his pants, he opened his eyes again, slits watching the blade hear his exposed flesh. "An' the henge matters. If someone gets into the bathroom I'm toast, anyway, but if someone spots you in the other room, through the window... They're paying attention right now. Everyone's tense." He set the cup down on his other side, pondered laying back down, and decided it was safer to stay put while Genma was wielding a knife.

"So your cover ID is on their radar? You think your being surveiled?" Genma grabbed one of the towels, poured some water onto it, and started mopping dried blood off of Yanagi's leg. He could see bruising around a shallow scratch, and a deeper gash across the scratch, where Yanagi must have tried to open the wound to let the poison out.

Too bad that really only worked for poisoned puncture wounds, like snake bites.

The leg didn't need more than a quick healing pass. And there was no necrosis. Genma aimed a prayer of thanks to whatever Bodhisattva had arranged that miracle. The poison Yanagi had been tagged with was probably just a phosphate, with no hemotoxic component. He held glowing palms over Yanagi's thigh, and watched the edges of the wound draw closed with satisfaction.

"I'm pretty sure I wasn't seen on my way here. And I checked out your building and all the sightlines before I came in. But if you're being watched, and they've seen this..." He gestured at the blood and medical supplies. "Then yeah, we're both screwed. Especially since you're gonna be flat on your back the next thirty-six hours or so. What am I looking at having to fight, if someone comes after us?"

Yanagi struggled upright, attention suddenly grabbed. "Thirty-six hours? I can't be here for thirty-six hours! I have a gig in -- well, I don't know what time it is. But tonight!" He gulped for air, shaking with exertion. "Never mind who might come through -- they're watching all travelers right now and pick up suspicious people and if I don't show up then I'll definitely be suspicious!"

His heart was going to burst right through his chest. All his available energy expended, he sagged back against the sink. What had he blathered, exactly? It didn't matter. His brain wasn't working well, that was all. Which didn't make anything he'd said any less true.

"I have to perform this evening. Lots of people. Lots of witnesses to say no, the traveling musician couldn't possibly be a ninja, he was here. Or we really are screwed. Well, I am. You could leave." He glared, as if Genma had suggested he'd do just that.

"You've been poisoned by what I'm really hoping the hell is not a lethal dose," Genma shot back, pressing one palm flat against Yanagi's shoulder. "And it takes time for the antidote to work. The only reason you're not still puking is that jutsu and the fact you've got nothing left in you anyway, and I'll need to keep casting that every couple of hours."

He reached for Yanagi's hand. "Squeeze." The grip Yanagi gave him was weak. "Muscle weakness, see? Dehydration I can take care of, but clearing the phosphates is gonna take time and luck. You're not playing any concerts."

He stared unhappily at the wall. "I could henge as you and uh... I play biwa, a little. Although that means leaving you here alone. Don't really want to do that."

Yanagi settled back against the sink, unable to do anything else with Genma's hand on him. "I don't think your biwa playing is going to hold up." His mind was trying to work furiously even under the haze of poison. "I've been playing guitar, and people know me there." He rubbed a shaking hand over his forehead, trying to think. "It doesn't take that much muscle to play the guitar. And I can sit on a stool..."

Except if his fingers were weak, he wasn't actually sure he could play the guitar.

"There's got to be some kind of... of... way to speed this up. Can't we clear out the phosphates quicker? Some jutsu or something? If I miss that damn gig, we might as well just bring put out a sign saying, 'ninja here. Come ask us what we've found!'"

"Can't you just, I don't know, tell someone you have the flu? Or food poisoning? Musicians eat dodgy shit, right? And anyone who takes one look at you is gonna believe you." Genma looked around the little bathroom again: toothbrush, toothpaste, shaving things. Soap. Nothing in here that screamed ninja, that was for sure. He swiveled his head to look into the main room again. It was just as devoid of obvious clues.

And there was the futon.

"Come on, I'll help you get to bed, and I don't know, send a message to your manager or whatever that you've got the world's worst hangover and you can't play tonight."

Yanagi pulled away, glaring at Genma. "Did you not hear me? They've cracked down around here. Something's going on. Anyone who hasn't been here before isn't trusted now. I have been here before, I've spent a fucking year dropping by, building up friends and contacts just for something like this, and they're looking for an outsider to get suddenly ill! It's gonna be more than a little suspicious if I don't show up -- and worse, it'll completely blow my mission! A year, it's finally turning over, and you want me to botch it all and stay in bed? Which, by the way, probably will get me attacked when they decide that's suspicious behavior."

He paused to catch his breath, feeling sweat trickle down his back. He swallowed hard. All the excitement was getting his body wired up again -- which apparently meant more nausea. He wondered how much of what he'd just said got through to Genma, and how much he'd managed to twist into incomprehension.

Yanagi rubbed a hand over his face, scraping his hair back. "If we can at least keep my cover intact, I can come back in a few days. A week. Things should -- should stay stable here that long. Or, if I can't," if he were dead, "another agent can come back as me. It's tricky, but doable. But we have to keep my cover intact." He swallowed against bile. "Can't you -- dose me up? Pump me full of solider pills and pain killers and -- and whatever you have in that kit of yours to keep my heart going? A few hours. I just need a few hours. Four, tops." He took a breath. "You're in the way of the toilet, and I gotta hurl."

Genma got out of Yanagi's way, leaned down to help him up so he was balanced over the toilet bowl, and cast his jutsu, so that the hand that went to support Yanagi's forehead, and the one steadying him at the back of the neck, were both limned with chakra. "You probably don't have anything in you but that sip of water I gave you. Try to breathe through it. It'll be better if you don't..."

Yanagi lurched, gagging up the mouthful of water and little else.

Genma increased the chakra flow, trying to shut down the overtaxed bits of Yanagi's nervous system that were triggering the retching. "Breathe. Slowly."

Yanagi panted, leaning against Genma. Genma concentrated on the shape of his jutsu, the flow of chakra through his palms and fingers. When he finally felt Yanagi relax, he let the jutsu dissipate, and eased Yanagi back against the sink once more.

"I'll give you another dose of the antidote. And then you need to rest. Seriously rest. Sleep if you can. Maybe I can speed up your metabolism a little. And give you a soldier pill, but you have to be able to keep it down." He shook his head, just as caught as Yanagi was. "I'll do what I can, okay? I can't promise anything, but we have a few hours, right? If you rest, really rest, maybe I can get you functioning enough you can go do your show, if you can think of a reason I'd be there with you. I mean, I'm a stranger, too."

"Okay," Yanagi breathed, wrapping one arm around his aching stomach. "Okay. I'll sleep. Don't think that'll be a problem. You wake me up, and... and that'll be good. You can... be my groupie. Or boyfriend. Or something. You don't have a problem being gay, do you? Hope not."

Now that Genma wasn't arguing -- wasn't insisting that it couldn't be done -- Yanagi's mind had calmed down. He would sleep, the medic would make it so he could stand, they'd get through this gig... and everything would be just fine. He leaned his head back against the sink, eyes drifting closed. "The bed would be more comfortable."

"I'm fabulous at being gay," Genma told him. "Better than you, I'll bet." He shifted around again, stepping over Yanagi's legs, trying to maneuver in the small space, and knelt next to him once more. "You think you can walk if I help?" He slid an arm under Yanagi's shoulders and lifted him up a little. "I'll get the IV. Just put your arm around my neck."

Yanagi started to comply, then stopped. "Wait, wait," he gasped. "The window. Get the window."

Genma swore softly and eased Yanagi back down. "Were you kidding about being gay? I hope not. You had boyfriends up here before? If I strip the shirt out of my henge and go shut the window, will your watchers assume I'm about to give you a BJ and don't want an audience?"

Yanagi chuckled weakly. "Yeah, that'd work." A moment later a seemingly half-naked Genma walked across the room, pulled the shutters, and walked back. Yanagi was pretty sure he saw a smug grin and a hip roll but... it might have been the poison talking.

This time, when Genma knelt beside him and pulled his arm across lean shoulders, Yanagi didn't protest. They paused to get the IV bag off the kunai and continued across the room, Genma's free hand raised high to keep the bag overhead.

"Don't want you thinkin' I'm easy, falling into bed within the first twenty minutes," Yanagi said, dropping slowly onto the mattress. "Usually only takes ten." He rolled onto his back, arms outstretched, and closed his eyes. He opened them again a moment later, finding Genma. "You will wake me, right?"

"Every couple hours, lucky you," Genma told him. He rehung the IV, using a nail in the wall this time. There was a shadow of paler paint below it, in the shape of whatever scroll had once hung there. "I'm gonna inject some chakra booster and then another round of the antitoxin. If you tolerate that okay, I'll see about using a jutsu to try to speed the metabolism of the poison."

He felt Yanagi's pulse again. Faster now, and a little stronger. Fluids were helping. He hoped he'd brought enough. Should have packed a scroll. Maybe he had. He'd have to take his kit apart and see if that one from two missions ago was still in there.

"What time's your gig? I'll make sure we do a trial of getting you on your feet an hour before we need to leave, so I can figure out what I need to do to buff you up." Or come up with plan B. A plan B that didn't involve them both getting killed, even if it did blow Yanagi's mission.

"Ten. Ten to one-thirty, in four sets with breaks between each..." Left him plenty of time to go skulking about after the pub closed, and gave him an excuse to sleep all day. "Three days a week. Different pubs. At the Broken Arrow tonight, an' then I got a few days off..."

With the nausea gone, or at least receded for the moment, and lying prone on a soft bed, sleep beckoned. Fingers left cool imprints on the inside of his wrist, and he could hear Genma bustling around, getting doses of whatever he needed and injecting them into the IV line, no doubt.

In spite of his pounding heart, Yanagi's eyes drifted closed. The room was dark with the shutters drawn, and he was worn out. Even still, complete sleep remained just out of reach. His heartbeat battered it away. He dozed fitfully, plagued by disjointed dreams. Every so often Genma would check his pulse. That woke him, even though cloth rustling and a person in his room didn't. He had people spend the night, or he stayed the night with others often enough for human presence not to worry him. He wasn't, however, used to a teammate checking on him.

After the second time, it only disturbed him enough to make him slit his eyes and reassure himself that it was Genma, and then he went back to his not-sleep.

Slowly, with fluids pouring into his system, the world seemed to cool. The internal fires that had kept him miserable began to abate. Sleep came in snatches. A few minutes here, almost ten there. Still broken by his heartbeat, by Genma, by nausea. But thankfully, still more than it had been.

The sun was already starting to fade by early afternoon, in these darkest days near the winter solstice. Genma had poured litres of dextrose solutions into Yanagi, injected him with more antidote, more chakra boosters, and some painkillers for good measure. He'd recast the anti-nausea jutsu when it looked like Yanagi was starting to groan. And he'd waited. Monitored.

Watched the clock.

When Yanagi surfed near the edge of consciousness yet again, Genma cast the jutsu one more time, then shook Yanagi's shoulder gently. "Yanagi? Think you can wake up a little?" Bloodshot brown eyes slitted open. "That's good. Wake up a little more. I just re-cast, so you might feel a little buzzy."

Yanagi blinked hazily at him, but there was recognition in his eyes. "Good, glad you're with me," Genma said. And meant it. Yanagi's heartbeat had stabilized, his color had improved. His reflexes seemed to be recovering a little. Genma had gotten there in time, with enough antidote, and the dose Yanagi had gotten was just shy of enough to kill him. In the binary world of poison, that was as good as it got. If you got poisoned by something that usually killed quickly, and you lived, you thanked your god and the guy who gave you the antidote.

He gripped Yanagi's hand. "Squeeze." It was good. Better. There was a little more strength in Yanagi's fingers. "Good. OK, here's the story. It's a little after fourteen-hundred, the antidote is working, but like I said, it's gonna take a good thirty-six hours." Alarm shot across Yanagi's wan face. Genma shushed him. "I know. Your gig. So I think it's safe for me to try that acceleration trick I was talking about. But you need to know it's gonna hurt. I'll dose you up with some muscle relaxers first, and if the acceleration works, I think I can have you on your feet enough to make it to your concert, as long as I go with you. But... Yeah. Gonna suck. Muscle relaxers and painkillers will help, though."

It was always better to tell your patient if what you were about to do was going to hurt. You told them, and then you reassured them you'd deal with their pain. Or it wouldn't last long. Or it would be worth it. Yumiko had told Genma that rule when she'd been in medical school, and practicing what she'd learned on her little brother. And his sensei in field medicine had taught him the same thing.

"So... you need to take a piss before I dose you with the muscle relaxers? Cause I've given you a lot of fluids. You were pretty dehydrated but..."

But unless Yanagi's kidneys were shutting down — and if they were, they had a much bigger problem on their hands that getting him to a concert — he probably needed to use the toilet. It would be a good test, actually.

Yanagi checked in with his body, and realized taking a piss was probably a really good idea. "Bathroom," he croaked, and winced at the sound of his own voice. "Tell me that's just sleep roughened. Vomit roughened, probably," he muttered, continuing to talk in the hopes that it would clear out.

He rolled out of the bed, practically falling before Genma grabbed his arm and hauled him upright. He hummed, sang through five notes of a scale, and winced. "I mean, granted, I don't have to sound operatic, but it'd be nice if I only sounded like I had too much to drink last night..."

His voice was clearing up, though. By the time he'd staggered to the bathroom with Genma's help and emptied his bladder, it wasn't nearly so much of a croak. He stumbled back to the bed and sat on the edge, watching the medic's hands. His head was clearer than it had been in hours, even if he still felt like shit. "Okay, Doc," he said on a deep breath. "Dose me up and cause me pain. Good times all around."

"Not a doc, just a field medic," Genma said quietly. He rehung the IV, lowering the flow rate a little. "My sister was a doctor." He went still, words dying in a suddenly closed throat. Yumiko the doctor was seven weeks in her grave. And Genma was a field medic for ANBU. It almost felt like a mockery. But he'd learned his skills in the war, as well as from his sister, and ANBU needed Hunters who could save a life as well as take one. The line between healer and assassin was a thin one indeed.

"You probably ought to lie back down." Genma pulled a dose of muscle relaxant into a syringe. "This stuff is gonna make you loopy as all hell. They gave it to me when they set my shoulder last summer. You know, after I got thrown over a waterfall by this undercover ANBU guy." He raised an eyebrow at Yanagi. Smiled faintly. "You really are Karma's bitch, aren't you?"