[log]Blackmail Material for Life [Nejiko, Tentsuke, some Asuka]
Tentsuke shifted his shoulder as he draped the plastic bag over his shoulder. Good thing Leigh wasn't around to see this. She'd spend at least twenty minutes admonishing him for buying cheap convenience food. But truth be told he was exhausted. His training regime with Hinaji had him tapping into reserves he hadn't used in ages. It might be instant noodles and energy drinks but it was going to have to make for a good breakfast this time at least.
He turned his shoulder again and heard it pop. Yeah, if he was going to be doing something similar with Hoshino tomorrow, he needed all the energy he could get.
The early light of morning still hadn't come up over the horizon by the time the girls had been kicked out of the tattoo parlor (looooong after closing time). That made navigating the roads and darkened streets a little more difficult than it really needed to be. Especially? Considering you were so drunk off your ass you'd gotten lost five times. That said something when you knew the village like the back of your hand.
Half of it was Nejiko's fault, though. Damn Hyuuga ought to know the way to her own compound! But noooo, stupid git had to keep pointing and going no, tha' way!, and Asuka, seeing as she was currently the driver of this operation, went that way and got lost.
This time, though, there would be no more lostings. Nejiko would just have to stuff it.
"Oi," she said to the younger girl half-draped over her shoulder (it was probably better that she'd gotten to drag Nejiko home, rather than Sai, because she'd have gotten lost like ten times trying to get Sai home), "issat your boyfriend?" Kinda hard to tell at this distance, but he didn't have those buns, but he did sort of look familiar? Then again, everyone's ass looked familiar when you were drunk...
Nejiko was having the time of her life. The sky was all sparkly and spinning, and the houses were sparkly and spinning, and the way she and Asuka-sempai were moving it was like they were spinning too. And, and, she could have sworn they were sparkly. Or Asuka-sempai anyway. She couldn't really see much of herself.
She didn't understand why the ground kept randomly spurting up hills or why Asuka-sempai couldn't seem to walk straight. The older woman kept getting her legs in the way! But rather than be annoyed, Nejiko just couldn't help giggling at the absurdity of it all. Asuka-sempai was like, one of the village's best, and she couldn't walk a straight line. Nor could Asuka-sempai seem to remember where the Hyuuga compound was. It wasn't that far, or difficult to get to, so that was just something else for her to snigger over. That's why Nejiko liked Asuka-sempai so much - she made absolutely no sense.
But Nejiko lifted her head when Asuka-sempai asked about a boyfriend. The Hyuuga stared and squinted but whatever Asuka-sempai was talking about wouldn't stay still long enough or in a solid shape and it wasn't until they'd gotten much closer to the figure in question that she cried/sang out, "Oh, zznot my boyyyfriend, it'z Tenshuke~!" She grinned waved hugely with her free arm; the other was stuck around something hot. "Hi Tenzuke!"
Tentsuke had seen them stumbling down the street a while before they actually spoke. In his mind, he was thinking of ways to avoid running into the pair. After all, despite a few arrests, Tentsuke was very good at holding his liquor. He got a little violent, sure, but a majority of the people on the other end of a drunken brawl deserved it. The stumbling thing... he didn't do that much. And stumbling usually involved slurring which sometimes evolved into singing and man... he just wanted to get home and get to sleep.
So he was halfway to altering his course when he heard the one call out and he couldn't quite move over there. Because apparently, if Hell was going to freeze over, tonight was the night it would happen. Because either he was in a very warped genjutsu or that was Nejiko stumbling around drunk.
He paused, put his hands together and attempted to dispel. Nothing happened.
Tentatively he started to walk towards them. "Um... hi?" he tried, fighting the instinct to flee. It was a trap. It had to be a trap.
"Hey!" Asuka said brightly, one arm around Nejiko's waist and the other hand keeping hold of the arm slung over her shoulder. If not, she had a feeling the Hyuuga would slide to the ground like a wet noodle, giggling the whole way. This was an excellent encounter; surely one of Nejiko's team mates would know the way back to the compound! He probably wasn't drunk, which logically also helped! She hoped.
Once they were within typical talking distance, she planted her feet (otherwise, Nejiko would have just kept going) and turned a sunny smile on the younger ninja. If it weren't for the fact that she could hardly stand straight (and usually didn't smile that much even on a good day), you could hardly tell she was drunk. She certainly wasn't slurring like Nejiko was. (She'd offered the girl a napkin at least twice over the night, but after the second time of having her kidney poorly targeted, she chose to keep her mouth shut instead.) That only made her conversation marginally more easy to understand.
"Do you know -"
Right about then, Nejiko decided to end her sentance with a giddily half-sung "the muffin man, the muffin man ~!" and Asuka couldn't help but start giggling, too.
"Oh... hey," Tentsuke started, wondering if it would be impolite to start pulling out weapons now. "You're... Asuka-sensei. And..." he looked at the older jounin to the younger one in her arms. "You're holding on to my teammate who is apparently... umm... suffering the effects of a bad genjutsu? Recovering from getting hit with a drug laced senbon during a mission?"
That was pretty much all he could guess. Because the idea that Nejiko of all people would have ended up in this state herself... well, ironically that would probably require a few stiff drinks.
Nejiko protested this. "Nonononononono! I--- ...frazneffle, whuwuz th' quesshun ag'in?"
"Nope!" came the (far too) amused reply, once Nejiko stopped singing and her brain somewhere in the dark of before-morning. (To be fair, she might have left back at the tattoo parlor, in which case Asuka certainly wouldn't have noticed or known how to get back to.) "We're drunk!"
"I GOT POKED!" Nejiko declared, still clutching onto Asuka as she dissolved into giggles again. Damn gravity shifted again, and if she wasn't careful, she was going to fall. "Ih got pokereded, 'n th' backslide, 'n Iy'ma shtill zore."
Oh shit.
There were giggles. Honest to God giggles.
The sane part of his mind was screaming, telling him to get the hell out of Dodge and be nowhere near this cluster-fuck. But it was more of a train wreck at this point, a beautiful mind altering train wreck he couldn't look away from. So he nodded slowly. "I... see," he managed.
Now that Nejiko was too busy laughing her ass off to sing or otherwise interrupt, the jounin took another step forward and sort of slid/shoved/dropped Nejiko in Tentsuke's direction. Hopefully he'd catch the girl before she fell and started talking to the ground.
"Do you know the way to the Hyuuga compound?" she asked in the process of disengaging herself from the giggling girl. "Nejiko is lost and isn't helping things." Conspiratorially she added, "She said you weren't her boyfriend. Don't take it personally, I'm sure it's prolly just coz she's drunk."
The ground didn't wobble to badly as Nejiko stumbled to Tentsuke, wrapping both her arms around one of his and tugging on it to tell the world to stop, she wanted off. Suddenly tired, she leaned against the pole she held and closed her eyes. "Ne, Ten...Ten, 'm gonna needa 'nother piggy-ride-er-thing," she told him as she planted her feet. "The groun' duzzen like me walkin' onnitt."
Tentsuke turned about five shades of white and stared at Asuka. "I'll walk you guys to the compound... no wait, shit. Nej's aunt is kind of insane. She'll get in way too much trouble for this," he stammered. "I'll help carry her back to your apartment."
That made the woman immediately shake her head in negative.
"Nuuh," she replied, the most slurring noise she'd made so far. "Can't take her there. Don't have no where to put her. Gotta kid on the couch and me on the bed, she'd just be on the floor. You gotta couch?"
No. Tentsuke did not have a couch. He didn't have a living room, he didn't have a house. Lie Tentsuke, just lie. Let the sensei figure something out, that's what they're there for. Do not agree to anything without thinking...
"Yeah... I do," he replied, shifting the weight on his shoulder. "But... I mean..." he flustered, failing at a decent excuse not to do this.
"Perfect!" To emphasize her glee, she tossed up her hands like throwing invisible confetti. Invisible ninja confetti. "Put her on your couch and give her a pot. And water. Lots of water. Don't give her breakfast, then she'll have to use the pot. And that's it!
"Oh -" And here Asuka reached over to Nejiko and pulled out a bottle of some kind of topical lotion looking stuff that had been stuffed in the girl's pocket. "And don't let her lose this. She'll need it in the morning. Afternoon. Lunchtime! You know what I mean."
Once the bottle was replaced, she took a step back and gave them a double-thumbs-up. "Good luck." And turned/staggered on her heel to go. She could find her apartment from here.... right?
"Byyyyyye Asuka-shempaaaaaaaaaaaai~!"
"No wait!" Tentsuke cried out, watching the other woman stagger off. Oh hell. Oh shit. Oh... no wait, calm down. This isn't so bad. She's totally bombed. With any luck, by the time he got her home, she'll be completely passed out anyway. So... what's the worse that can happen? He'd had been drunk before, he got most of what Asuka-sensei had recommended but the topical stuff... okay that was just odd. But this was okay. He could handle this.
"All right drunkie," he sighed. "Lets go before karma can make me any more of her bitch."
"Piggy-ride?" she asked hopefully. "Muh feet're shtuck." Well, they didn't want to move, in any event.
Oh spectacular. He shifted the bag to his hand and hoisted her onto his back. For a second he wondered if just putting her over his shoulder would be a better approach but it was still Nejiko. And if she remembered anything tomorrow, he would be a dead man if he didn't play exactly by her rules. "All right, hold on," he said, moving as quickly as he could back to his house.
For someone who was doing grand impression of a wet noodle earlier, somehow she managed to hold on to his shoulders. She rested her head on his shoulder, too, and let her eyes close. "Nuh, yer no' fate'z bitch, you zmell ter naish," she sighed.
He smelt her nash? What the hell was fate's nash? No wait. Tentsuke, don't listen. This is drunk speak. You remember this. This is when you and Inosuke usually get into debates about the philosophical nature of chakra. It never makes any sense. "Is that so," he said, starting to move faster. Faster he got her to the house the better.
"Mmm, hmm," she hummed. "You shmeller verra nais."
...
Tentsuke picked up to a run. In fact, he didn't stop running until he reached his front door. Then it was a matter of juggling Nejiko, the groceries and everything else while he scrounged in his pockets for his keys. Keys, he panicked. He had to have keys somewhere in there.
Nejiko, meanwhile, was too zoned out to really notice how bumpy the ride was the remainder of the way to... wherever. She didn't care. The night air was cool (and damn, she was still hot) and her stomach...
Her stomach wasn't doing so great.
"I'm gonna throwwup."
Tentsuke decided locks were made to be replaced and gave it swift kick to open the door. He maneuvered around the nearly frantic dog, who initially bit into his pants thinking he was an intruder and then began to whine and cry and beg for forgiveness when she realized it was actually her master. So between hushing a frantic dog, praying that the kitten didn't decide to make an appearance and navigating through the minefield that was his living room, Tentsuke, felt the years starting to edge off his life.
But somehow, he made it to the bathroom, deposited her on the floor and managed to push the dog out and close the door behind him quickly.
Probably for the first time in... ever, Nejiko didn't complain about the male compunction to leave the toilet seat up. Instead she availed herself to this wonderful boon, grasping the cool porcelain in both hands and putting her head over the opening before her stomach contents completed their perilous journey up the esophagus and out the vaulted cave of her mouth. This happened two more times in decent succession before what was left of her insides murbled and burbled but stayed put. Groaning, she rested her cheek against the rim, loving the cold on her skin. Maybe she'd just stay right here. Yeah. That sounded good.
He waited five minutes before deciding she was done. It was the amount of time he needed to put Mika outside and toss a heavily catnip-ed fish into the forge. And it was about all the time he was going to give her. Then he opened the door and walked in. "All right then, see the detox is start," he quipped, pushing the lever of the toilet with his toe.
"Time for step two," he continued, picking her up under the arms and depositing her in the shower. He paused for a second, trying to ponder exactly how much damage she could do in this state, before turning on the water full blast and ice cold.
She leaned back against the cold tile (oh god that felt good) and looked up at him before loosing a high-pitched shriek as the icy-cold water slammed into her front unexpectedly. Her muscles tightened all at once, drawing her arms against her chest and her legs bending so she was curled in a wet, miserable-looking, shivering ball as she huddled in the corner of the shower, her head bowed and her face curtained by her thick hair.
He watched her for a while with a satisfied look on his face. It wasn't going to sober her up completely but it would do enough to make sure she could sleep without passing out which meant he could sleep without her choking on her own vomit. He cringed. Man, was the idea of Nejiko being drunk never going to work in his head. So he concentrated on the task at hand, watching the water seep into her shirt and then...
"AH!" he screamed, pointing to her back. "GAH! HOLY SHIT! Nejiko what did you do?!"
Nejiko slowly lifted her head, clearly confused and totally unaware that the bandages covering her back were visible as bulkiness under her shirt, or the edges peeping out from under her collar. "Huh?" she asked.
He turned off the water and then paused. Oh... oh boy was this bad. This was... worse then bad. This was catastrophic. "Please, please please tell me in your drunken state you... I don't know ran into a mirror and cut up your back or something else that is not what I'm really afraid those bandages mean..."
"Huh?" she asked again. "Oh!" she continued, her face breaking into a lopsided smile. "Zai dreweded onnmai back with'er pokey-er-thingermabob."
OH FUCK, he thought.
No wait... there was either an echo in his brain or he had just said that out loud. He was betting on the latter. Shit, the topical lotion, that made sense now. It all made perfect sense.... there was at least two irresponsible jounin who he wanted to skewer at the moment. But for now... okay, think straight. Tattoos were sort of like getting porcupined by a majority of your senbon right? So... need to get her out of the water and keep the bandages dry.
He grabbed a towel and put it around her shoulder. "Okay, come on, time to get out of there."
She made a complaining noise that sounded like a 'nyurrr'. "But I'm so hot annitz nice'n cool'n here...," she mewled.
"Yeah, well, you're hot because you went and got yourself inked," he replied, grabbing her by the arm and 'helping her out'. "That's going to burn for a while. A longer time if you don't get dry so..." He moved the towel up and down her arm, "starting drying off."
"Nuh, I'z hot a-fer the doo-dlin'," she said, watching his hand with utter fascination. "I think'm drunk." And she smiled at him.
Gray hair. He was going to spontaneously sprout gray hair in about five minutes. "Hey look at this, we're drying off," he replied, using the towel to get as much water off her exposed skin as possible. The bandages... looked like they might just hold. But... the shirt was still sopping and that would eventually make the bandages wet as well and...
Tentsuke put his hand to his head. She has bandages around her torso, around the entire torso. This is not going to be an obscene question, this is not going to result in your castration... really.
"Take off your top," he said.
Nejiko blinked, then asked, "Then cannai lay down?"
His eyes had been clamped shut, his hand had reflexively gone up the minute she spoke to protect the vital parts from any extreme acts of violence. So when the words finally sank in, he cracked open an eye. "Yes..." he replied.
"Okay~"
She looked down at her shirt. Tugged on the front. Still on. Oh right, need to pull it off. Okay. Okay. She reached for the bottom hem of her shirt and started to pull it up. She was fine until she got her arms all tangled up in her shirt. The wet fabric refused to move or give or do anything but stick to her skin, and with her arms pinned over her head she lost her balance to stumble into something firm and warm. (Which was nice since her chest and stomach were too cold and she was shivering again.) She leaned against it, panting through the wet fabric.
"'m stuck," she complained, her voice muffled.
He made the mistake of opening his eyes just before she hit. So he had a millisecond to realize what was about to happen.
There was the sound of cracking glass and it took Tentsuke a second to realize that might just be the sound of his brain breaking apart. Because it had been hard enough to accept a drunk Nejiko but the fact that a half naked, drunk Nejiko had just....
Cold shower was out of reach. Cold shower was right there but there was pushing him further towards Nejiko and... right right just pull yourself together boy. Just don't look, move your hands, you are armed with a towel.
And so carefully he wrapped the towel around her and secured it just under her arms, all the while finding an extremely interesting spot on the ceiling. My look at that spot. It was most definitely whiter then all the other spots on the ceiling.
He pulled the rest of the top free, finding the tie that kept it shut and undo it before unwinding her from it. "Okay, there we go," he whispered. "No just stay there and I'll find something warm."
He slowly back pedaled out of the bathroom and headed towards the forge. Cold shower out of the question. So he'd go with plan B. "Here, kitty kitty," he whispered, looking around for the damnable cat. A good mauling would clear his head. It usually did the trick. But no, no luck for this poor soul. Bloodfang was on his back, batting at the air in a catnip haze.
"You... traitor," Tentsuke hissed. The kitten mewed and pawed at more air.
So Tentsuke moved on to plan D, deciding Plan C which consisted of sticking his hand in the forge fire would be too much. He found the bucket of cold water, didn't care much if there was soot and chips of metal in it from cooling hot blades, and dumped it over his head. It was lukewarm.
Wow. Wow. Fate really hated him today.
He gave up and found a bulky sweatshirt there, the one he threw on when Mika needed walking in the winter and decided that was going to be good enough. It was large on him, she'd be swimming in it. He headed back to the bathroom, closing his eyes and holding out the sweat shirt ahead of him. "Here, put this on."
After he had left, Nejiko had stood there and hugged the towel to her before deciding she had had enough of standing and was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall with her legs tucked beneath her. She roused when he spoke and with deliberate carefulness, pulled herself up to her feet with the aid of his towel rack. Still clitching the metal rod, she stepped slowly towards to the proffered garment, then took it. Instead of putting it on, though, she simply clutched it in front of her with one arm.
She just wanted to sleep. Sleep was... sleep was good. "And good is good," she muttered. "I c'n go a-shleep now, yeah?"
He cracked opened an eye at that and realized none of this was going to work. He was completely fucked. And if he was going to die in the morning anyway then hell, he might as well just get the job done right.
"Just another minute," he replied, walking behind her and opening the medicine cabinet, finding a roll of bandages. Standing at her back meant at least some dignity was maintained. Slowly he pushed her elbows straight so she was holding the shirt away from her now. "Stay just like that, I'm going to redo the bandages."
Deciding silence was as close to an okay as he was going to get, Tentsuke put his hand at the edge of the towel and pulled down. The bandages came free quickly enough, the water had done its damage. And sure it looked pretty enough but the problem was the bandages weren't stopping at her lower back, they dipped below the waistline of her pants.
Tentsuke just sighed, somewhat resigned to his fate and left the lower bandages alone for a moment. He then placed the edge of the bandages at the center of her back. He pulled it around her side, passed the roll to his other hand in front of her making sure he was way clear of a majority of her... okay, he couldn't even think the word, and just started wrapping, pulling it taunt once it was around her back again.
Classic first aid technique. Known affectionately among male ninja as 'How to bandage your female teammate's torso and not wake up only half a man the next morning'. He tightened it at the small of her back and cut the bandage. Right, step one done. And hey, look at that, her chest was now completely covered again. So slipping her into the large shirt was easy by then. In fact, he could almost smile as he did. Until he realized his next request.
"Okay, so... need to get to the tail end of that so... umm... " Gah, just say it Tentsuke. Just get it out... "Can you loosen your belt a bit?"
Ooo, yey a warm shirt. She was still cold, though. Fumbling with the shirt to pull it tug enough to get to her belt, she then took longer than it should to unhook the thin metal bit from the hole it was passed through. Success was had when she undid the belt, and tugged on it to loosen it. Cold air rushed down her pantlegs from the waistband and she shivered again. "Brrrr."
Look at that, something went according to plan. He placed the edge of the bandage at the small of her back, tucking the loose end under the knot already there. And then he went to winding again. For every millimeter lower he had to go, he cringed, cursed and tried to figure out who exactly he had to kill for this. In the end, it was done and the bandage was secure.
Right. That was done. He let himself sigh in relief at that and then frowned. Just one problem remaining. He stood up and walked back to the door, standing in the frame but facing out into the living room. "Okay, one more step and then you can sleep." He massaged the growing migraine in his head. "Lose the pants."
That was easily enough done. Right now the only thing holding them up were her hips, and a hard shove had them falling to the floor. It also knocked her off balance to hit into the towel rod, causing her to laugh and say 'Ow' before falling on her butt. More giggly laughter ensued. This was fun! Took a little bit to get her shoes off so she could get the pants off completely, but she managed.
The overlarge shirt was big enough to fall just past mid-thigh, thereby ensuring that everything that needed covering, was, as Nejiko somehow got herself to a standing position again. One arm was hooked at the elbow around the towel rack while her other hand held on tightly.
"Pants gone-gone~"
He checked over his shoulder quickly to make sure that was all she lost. A little sound of relief escaped his lips. "All right," he mustered, turning around and hooking an arm around her waist. "Off to bed."
He bypassed the couch and headed for the bedroom. No matter what Asuka said, there was no way he was tossing her on the couch. "Hey look at that, it's a bed, perfect for sleeping things off in," he said, gently guiding her that way.
She unwound herself from the towel rack and wrapped both arms around his waist to lean against him as they walked. Humming happily she nuzzled her face against his side, even if he kept getting is legs in the way of walking, just like Asuka-sempai. Maybe the fact the lights were out had something to do with it? When he mentioned 'bed' she opened her eyes (that explained why it was dark!) and looked from it to him to it to him.
Wow, she was dizzy.
So she did the smart thing and held on tighter until the world stopped spinning again. "Still smell naish," she muttered as she snuggled against him again. She liked his smell. Smokey and a little sweaty and him. She was sure she'd know his smell anywhere.
"Oh hey, that's nice of you to say," he said turning a bit pink. He was already drawing a list up of every deity he could think of to pray to tonight that there was absolutely no memory of this left in her tomorrow. He reached over to the nightstand where he kept a glass of water and handed it to her. "Drink it all," he stated.
Silver eyes blinked owlishly at the glass. Keeping one hand clutching the fabric of his shirt, she reached. "Holditt still," she told him as she kept missing the glass.
Finally she grasped it and though the clear stuff tried to jump the sides she brought it over without incident. She sniffed. That's odd, it didn't have a smell. All the stuff Asuka-sempai had put in front of her had a smell. This just smelled... wet. She tilted her head and considered it. Too big to down like a shot, but still managable.
She gulped a mouthful and spluttered at the blandness. "It duzzen tays' like anything."
He sighed a bit and tried to come up with something. "The tasty stuff is umm... at the bottom of the glass," he tried, giving it a gentle push back at her mouth.
"Te-ki-la?" That was clear, and that was good. Burned like a motherfuck, but good. She brightened and tightening her grip on the stein's handle, chugged the rest of the water down. Oblivious to the tiny streams on the sides of her mouth, she finished to peer into the empty container.
"Nuthin there." She looked up at him, confused.
"Huh? No way," he said, taking the stein from her. "I'll go refill it and leave it by the side of the bed so you can try again later."
He gave her a gentle push to get her on the bed. "All right, time for sleep," he stated.
Nejiko squeaked when the world lurched and she stumbled and fell onto cushy soft. The hand wrapped in his shirt stayed wrapped in his shirt as she held on, pulling him too.
He had forgotten she still had a grip on him but his knees hit the side of the bed quick enough and he bent his back just enough to prevent toppling forward. "All right," he said, "I need my shirt back." He worked her fingers slowly to try to get them to loosen the hold on his clothing.
She lay on her side, her fingers grabbing his when she no longer clutched his shirt. Her hair was a mess and the shirt had inched up dangerously, but she was only focused on their hands. Slowly she dragged her gaze up to look at his face.
"Hi," she smiled.
He did his best not to look, really he was much too concentrated on her fingers to be bothered to see the way she was looking at him. Absolutely concentrated. Ignore the flush, he was just getting a bit warm. Or sick. Or anything else.
He very carefully gave her back her hand and straightened up. "Hi. Now... good night," he told her.
"Hnn. 'Kay. Night~"
Curling into a ball on her side, she tried to watch him a little longer before her eyes closed. Within a few minutes, her breathing had deepened to indicate she was well and truly oblivious to the outside world.
He managed to steady his breath a bit but didn't move until he was sure she was out. Then carefully, he walked over and opened the window, returning with a blanket that he put over her. He refilled the stein and left it by her side, all the while, moving with grace and silence that came with being a ninja.
That done, he let Mika back in and let her settle on the bed softly. The dog whined once but he pat her on the head, making sure she understood it wasn't that he was upset with her. He just needed someone to make sure Nejiko didn't roll onto her back. Having a seventy pound dog against her should prevent that.
He left them both asleep and wandered back out into the living room, taking stock of the damage. It wasn't that bad. The door was still slightly ajar and a quick check of the lock showed it was broken beyond repair. He'd have to fix that first thing in the morning but for now, a chair against it would be good enough.
He collected the remains of her clothes from the bathroom, eyed them before deciding the cold water hadn't done too much damage and hung them up to dry on the towel rack. He put a towel on the ground and wiped up the stray water so the tiles were no longer slippery. Satisfied there was a clear line from bedroom to bathroom free of obstacles and potential hazards, he went back into the living room and opened up a drawer in his desk.
He scanned through his will, making sure everything was in order. He had to attach a note about the kitten and that it should probably go back to Hanabi in the event of his death. The change wasn't notarized but it would do. He put it back in the drawer and grabbed a blanket off the arm chair, nestling into the couch. He stretched a bit and tried to get comfortable.
Just as he started to fall asleep, he felt something crawling on his stomach. Cracking open an eye, he watched as the kitten, eyes still fully dilated from the copious amounts of catnip it had ingested, walked around his stomach twice before curling up into a ball and falling asleep.
He sighed, resigned to the fact that tomorrow morning was probably not going to go well no matter what. He might as well get some sleep to be ready to face it, he decided. Ten minutes later, he had fallen asleep.
He turned his shoulder again and heard it pop. Yeah, if he was going to be doing something similar with Hoshino tomorrow, he needed all the energy he could get.
The early light of morning still hadn't come up over the horizon by the time the girls had been kicked out of the tattoo parlor (looooong after closing time). That made navigating the roads and darkened streets a little more difficult than it really needed to be. Especially? Considering you were so drunk off your ass you'd gotten lost five times. That said something when you knew the village like the back of your hand.
Half of it was Nejiko's fault, though. Damn Hyuuga ought to know the way to her own compound! But noooo, stupid git had to keep pointing and going no, tha' way!, and Asuka, seeing as she was currently the driver of this operation, went that way and got lost.
This time, though, there would be no more lostings. Nejiko would just have to stuff it.
"Oi," she said to the younger girl half-draped over her shoulder (it was probably better that she'd gotten to drag Nejiko home, rather than Sai, because she'd have gotten lost like ten times trying to get Sai home), "issat your boyfriend?" Kinda hard to tell at this distance, but he didn't have those buns, but he did sort of look familiar? Then again, everyone's ass looked familiar when you were drunk...
Nejiko was having the time of her life. The sky was all sparkly and spinning, and the houses were sparkly and spinning, and the way she and Asuka-sempai were moving it was like they were spinning too. And, and, she could have sworn they were sparkly. Or Asuka-sempai anyway. She couldn't really see much of herself.
She didn't understand why the ground kept randomly spurting up hills or why Asuka-sempai couldn't seem to walk straight. The older woman kept getting her legs in the way! But rather than be annoyed, Nejiko just couldn't help giggling at the absurdity of it all. Asuka-sempai was like, one of the village's best, and she couldn't walk a straight line. Nor could Asuka-sempai seem to remember where the Hyuuga compound was. It wasn't that far, or difficult to get to, so that was just something else for her to snigger over. That's why Nejiko liked Asuka-sempai so much - she made absolutely no sense.
But Nejiko lifted her head when Asuka-sempai asked about a boyfriend. The Hyuuga stared and squinted but whatever Asuka-sempai was talking about wouldn't stay still long enough or in a solid shape and it wasn't until they'd gotten much closer to the figure in question that she cried/sang out, "Oh, zznot my boyyyfriend, it'z Tenshuke~!" She grinned waved hugely with her free arm; the other was stuck around something hot. "Hi Tenzuke!"
Tentsuke had seen them stumbling down the street a while before they actually spoke. In his mind, he was thinking of ways to avoid running into the pair. After all, despite a few arrests, Tentsuke was very good at holding his liquor. He got a little violent, sure, but a majority of the people on the other end of a drunken brawl deserved it. The stumbling thing... he didn't do that much. And stumbling usually involved slurring which sometimes evolved into singing and man... he just wanted to get home and get to sleep.
So he was halfway to altering his course when he heard the one call out and he couldn't quite move over there. Because apparently, if Hell was going to freeze over, tonight was the night it would happen. Because either he was in a very warped genjutsu or that was Nejiko stumbling around drunk.
He paused, put his hands together and attempted to dispel. Nothing happened.
Tentatively he started to walk towards them. "Um... hi?" he tried, fighting the instinct to flee. It was a trap. It had to be a trap.
"Hey!" Asuka said brightly, one arm around Nejiko's waist and the other hand keeping hold of the arm slung over her shoulder. If not, she had a feeling the Hyuuga would slide to the ground like a wet noodle, giggling the whole way. This was an excellent encounter; surely one of Nejiko's team mates would know the way back to the compound! He probably wasn't drunk, which logically also helped! She hoped.
Once they were within typical talking distance, she planted her feet (otherwise, Nejiko would have just kept going) and turned a sunny smile on the younger ninja. If it weren't for the fact that she could hardly stand straight (and usually didn't smile that much even on a good day), you could hardly tell she was drunk. She certainly wasn't slurring like Nejiko was. (She'd offered the girl a napkin at least twice over the night, but after the second time of having her kidney poorly targeted, she chose to keep her mouth shut instead.) That only made her conversation marginally more easy to understand.
"Do you know -"
Right about then, Nejiko decided to end her sentance with a giddily half-sung "the muffin man, the muffin man ~!" and Asuka couldn't help but start giggling, too.
"Oh... hey," Tentsuke started, wondering if it would be impolite to start pulling out weapons now. "You're... Asuka-sensei. And..." he looked at the older jounin to the younger one in her arms. "You're holding on to my teammate who is apparently... umm... suffering the effects of a bad genjutsu? Recovering from getting hit with a drug laced senbon during a mission?"
That was pretty much all he could guess. Because the idea that Nejiko of all people would have ended up in this state herself... well, ironically that would probably require a few stiff drinks.
Nejiko protested this. "Nonononononono! I--- ...frazneffle, whuwuz th' quesshun ag'in?"
"Nope!" came the (far too) amused reply, once Nejiko stopped singing and her brain somewhere in the dark of before-morning. (To be fair, she might have left back at the tattoo parlor, in which case Asuka certainly wouldn't have noticed or known how to get back to.) "We're drunk!"
"I GOT POKED!" Nejiko declared, still clutching onto Asuka as she dissolved into giggles again. Damn gravity shifted again, and if she wasn't careful, she was going to fall. "Ih got pokereded, 'n th' backslide, 'n Iy'ma shtill zore."
Oh shit.
There were giggles. Honest to God giggles.
The sane part of his mind was screaming, telling him to get the hell out of Dodge and be nowhere near this cluster-fuck. But it was more of a train wreck at this point, a beautiful mind altering train wreck he couldn't look away from. So he nodded slowly. "I... see," he managed.
Now that Nejiko was too busy laughing her ass off to sing or otherwise interrupt, the jounin took another step forward and sort of slid/shoved/dropped Nejiko in Tentsuke's direction. Hopefully he'd catch the girl before she fell and started talking to the ground.
"Do you know the way to the Hyuuga compound?" she asked in the process of disengaging herself from the giggling girl. "Nejiko is lost and isn't helping things." Conspiratorially she added, "She said you weren't her boyfriend. Don't take it personally, I'm sure it's prolly just coz she's drunk."
The ground didn't wobble to badly as Nejiko stumbled to Tentsuke, wrapping both her arms around one of his and tugging on it to tell the world to stop, she wanted off. Suddenly tired, she leaned against the pole she held and closed her eyes. "Ne, Ten...Ten, 'm gonna needa 'nother piggy-ride-er-thing," she told him as she planted her feet. "The groun' duzzen like me walkin' onnitt."
Tentsuke turned about five shades of white and stared at Asuka. "I'll walk you guys to the compound... no wait, shit. Nej's aunt is kind of insane. She'll get in way too much trouble for this," he stammered. "I'll help carry her back to your apartment."
That made the woman immediately shake her head in negative.
"Nuuh," she replied, the most slurring noise she'd made so far. "Can't take her there. Don't have no where to put her. Gotta kid on the couch and me on the bed, she'd just be on the floor. You gotta couch?"
No. Tentsuke did not have a couch. He didn't have a living room, he didn't have a house. Lie Tentsuke, just lie. Let the sensei figure something out, that's what they're there for. Do not agree to anything without thinking...
"Yeah... I do," he replied, shifting the weight on his shoulder. "But... I mean..." he flustered, failing at a decent excuse not to do this.
"Perfect!" To emphasize her glee, she tossed up her hands like throwing invisible confetti. Invisible ninja confetti. "Put her on your couch and give her a pot. And water. Lots of water. Don't give her breakfast, then she'll have to use the pot. And that's it!
"Oh -" And here Asuka reached over to Nejiko and pulled out a bottle of some kind of topical lotion looking stuff that had been stuffed in the girl's pocket. "And don't let her lose this. She'll need it in the morning. Afternoon. Lunchtime! You know what I mean."
Once the bottle was replaced, she took a step back and gave them a double-thumbs-up. "Good luck." And turned/staggered on her heel to go. She could find her apartment from here.... right?
"Byyyyyye Asuka-shempaaaaaaaaaaaai~!"
"No wait!" Tentsuke cried out, watching the other woman stagger off. Oh hell. Oh shit. Oh... no wait, calm down. This isn't so bad. She's totally bombed. With any luck, by the time he got her home, she'll be completely passed out anyway. So... what's the worse that can happen? He'd had been drunk before, he got most of what Asuka-sensei had recommended but the topical stuff... okay that was just odd. But this was okay. He could handle this.
"All right drunkie," he sighed. "Lets go before karma can make me any more of her bitch."
"Piggy-ride?" she asked hopefully. "Muh feet're shtuck." Well, they didn't want to move, in any event.
Oh spectacular. He shifted the bag to his hand and hoisted her onto his back. For a second he wondered if just putting her over his shoulder would be a better approach but it was still Nejiko. And if she remembered anything tomorrow, he would be a dead man if he didn't play exactly by her rules. "All right, hold on," he said, moving as quickly as he could back to his house.
For someone who was doing grand impression of a wet noodle earlier, somehow she managed to hold on to his shoulders. She rested her head on his shoulder, too, and let her eyes close. "Nuh, yer no' fate'z bitch, you zmell ter naish," she sighed.
He smelt her nash? What the hell was fate's nash? No wait. Tentsuke, don't listen. This is drunk speak. You remember this. This is when you and Inosuke usually get into debates about the philosophical nature of chakra. It never makes any sense. "Is that so," he said, starting to move faster. Faster he got her to the house the better.
"Mmm, hmm," she hummed. "You shmeller verra nais."
...
Tentsuke picked up to a run. In fact, he didn't stop running until he reached his front door. Then it was a matter of juggling Nejiko, the groceries and everything else while he scrounged in his pockets for his keys. Keys, he panicked. He had to have keys somewhere in there.
Nejiko, meanwhile, was too zoned out to really notice how bumpy the ride was the remainder of the way to... wherever. She didn't care. The night air was cool (and damn, she was still hot) and her stomach...
Her stomach wasn't doing so great.
"I'm gonna throwwup."
Tentsuke decided locks were made to be replaced and gave it swift kick to open the door. He maneuvered around the nearly frantic dog, who initially bit into his pants thinking he was an intruder and then began to whine and cry and beg for forgiveness when she realized it was actually her master. So between hushing a frantic dog, praying that the kitten didn't decide to make an appearance and navigating through the minefield that was his living room, Tentsuke, felt the years starting to edge off his life.
But somehow, he made it to the bathroom, deposited her on the floor and managed to push the dog out and close the door behind him quickly.
Probably for the first time in... ever, Nejiko didn't complain about the male compunction to leave the toilet seat up. Instead she availed herself to this wonderful boon, grasping the cool porcelain in both hands and putting her head over the opening before her stomach contents completed their perilous journey up the esophagus and out the vaulted cave of her mouth. This happened two more times in decent succession before what was left of her insides murbled and burbled but stayed put. Groaning, she rested her cheek against the rim, loving the cold on her skin. Maybe she'd just stay right here. Yeah. That sounded good.
He waited five minutes before deciding she was done. It was the amount of time he needed to put Mika outside and toss a heavily catnip-ed fish into the forge. And it was about all the time he was going to give her. Then he opened the door and walked in. "All right then, see the detox is start," he quipped, pushing the lever of the toilet with his toe.
"Time for step two," he continued, picking her up under the arms and depositing her in the shower. He paused for a second, trying to ponder exactly how much damage she could do in this state, before turning on the water full blast and ice cold.
She leaned back against the cold tile (oh god that felt good) and looked up at him before loosing a high-pitched shriek as the icy-cold water slammed into her front unexpectedly. Her muscles tightened all at once, drawing her arms against her chest and her legs bending so she was curled in a wet, miserable-looking, shivering ball as she huddled in the corner of the shower, her head bowed and her face curtained by her thick hair.
He watched her for a while with a satisfied look on his face. It wasn't going to sober her up completely but it would do enough to make sure she could sleep without passing out which meant he could sleep without her choking on her own vomit. He cringed. Man, was the idea of Nejiko being drunk never going to work in his head. So he concentrated on the task at hand, watching the water seep into her shirt and then...
"AH!" he screamed, pointing to her back. "GAH! HOLY SHIT! Nejiko what did you do?!"
Nejiko slowly lifted her head, clearly confused and totally unaware that the bandages covering her back were visible as bulkiness under her shirt, or the edges peeping out from under her collar. "Huh?" she asked.
He turned off the water and then paused. Oh... oh boy was this bad. This was... worse then bad. This was catastrophic. "Please, please please tell me in your drunken state you... I don't know ran into a mirror and cut up your back or something else that is not what I'm really afraid those bandages mean..."
"Huh?" she asked again. "Oh!" she continued, her face breaking into a lopsided smile. "Zai dreweded onnmai back with'er pokey-er-thingermabob."
OH FUCK, he thought.
No wait... there was either an echo in his brain or he had just said that out loud. He was betting on the latter. Shit, the topical lotion, that made sense now. It all made perfect sense.... there was at least two irresponsible jounin who he wanted to skewer at the moment. But for now... okay, think straight. Tattoos were sort of like getting porcupined by a majority of your senbon right? So... need to get her out of the water and keep the bandages dry.
He grabbed a towel and put it around her shoulder. "Okay, come on, time to get out of there."
She made a complaining noise that sounded like a 'nyurrr'. "But I'm so hot annitz nice'n cool'n here...," she mewled.
"Yeah, well, you're hot because you went and got yourself inked," he replied, grabbing her by the arm and 'helping her out'. "That's going to burn for a while. A longer time if you don't get dry so..." He moved the towel up and down her arm, "starting drying off."
"Nuh, I'z hot a-fer the doo-dlin'," she said, watching his hand with utter fascination. "I think'm drunk." And she smiled at him.
Gray hair. He was going to spontaneously sprout gray hair in about five minutes. "Hey look at this, we're drying off," he replied, using the towel to get as much water off her exposed skin as possible. The bandages... looked like they might just hold. But... the shirt was still sopping and that would eventually make the bandages wet as well and...
Tentsuke put his hand to his head. She has bandages around her torso, around the entire torso. This is not going to be an obscene question, this is not going to result in your castration... really.
"Take off your top," he said.
Nejiko blinked, then asked, "Then cannai lay down?"
His eyes had been clamped shut, his hand had reflexively gone up the minute she spoke to protect the vital parts from any extreme acts of violence. So when the words finally sank in, he cracked open an eye. "Yes..." he replied.
"Okay~"
She looked down at her shirt. Tugged on the front. Still on. Oh right, need to pull it off. Okay. Okay. She reached for the bottom hem of her shirt and started to pull it up. She was fine until she got her arms all tangled up in her shirt. The wet fabric refused to move or give or do anything but stick to her skin, and with her arms pinned over her head she lost her balance to stumble into something firm and warm. (Which was nice since her chest and stomach were too cold and she was shivering again.) She leaned against it, panting through the wet fabric.
"'m stuck," she complained, her voice muffled.
He made the mistake of opening his eyes just before she hit. So he had a millisecond to realize what was about to happen.
There was the sound of cracking glass and it took Tentsuke a second to realize that might just be the sound of his brain breaking apart. Because it had been hard enough to accept a drunk Nejiko but the fact that a half naked, drunk Nejiko had just....
Cold shower was out of reach. Cold shower was right there but there was pushing him further towards Nejiko and... right right just pull yourself together boy. Just don't look, move your hands, you are armed with a towel.
And so carefully he wrapped the towel around her and secured it just under her arms, all the while finding an extremely interesting spot on the ceiling. My look at that spot. It was most definitely whiter then all the other spots on the ceiling.
He pulled the rest of the top free, finding the tie that kept it shut and undo it before unwinding her from it. "Okay, there we go," he whispered. "No just stay there and I'll find something warm."
He slowly back pedaled out of the bathroom and headed towards the forge. Cold shower out of the question. So he'd go with plan B. "Here, kitty kitty," he whispered, looking around for the damnable cat. A good mauling would clear his head. It usually did the trick. But no, no luck for this poor soul. Bloodfang was on his back, batting at the air in a catnip haze.
"You... traitor," Tentsuke hissed. The kitten mewed and pawed at more air.
So Tentsuke moved on to plan D, deciding Plan C which consisted of sticking his hand in the forge fire would be too much. He found the bucket of cold water, didn't care much if there was soot and chips of metal in it from cooling hot blades, and dumped it over his head. It was lukewarm.
Wow. Wow. Fate really hated him today.
He gave up and found a bulky sweatshirt there, the one he threw on when Mika needed walking in the winter and decided that was going to be good enough. It was large on him, she'd be swimming in it. He headed back to the bathroom, closing his eyes and holding out the sweat shirt ahead of him. "Here, put this on."
After he had left, Nejiko had stood there and hugged the towel to her before deciding she had had enough of standing and was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall with her legs tucked beneath her. She roused when he spoke and with deliberate carefulness, pulled herself up to her feet with the aid of his towel rack. Still clitching the metal rod, she stepped slowly towards to the proffered garment, then took it. Instead of putting it on, though, she simply clutched it in front of her with one arm.
She just wanted to sleep. Sleep was... sleep was good. "And good is good," she muttered. "I c'n go a-shleep now, yeah?"
He cracked opened an eye at that and realized none of this was going to work. He was completely fucked. And if he was going to die in the morning anyway then hell, he might as well just get the job done right.
"Just another minute," he replied, walking behind her and opening the medicine cabinet, finding a roll of bandages. Standing at her back meant at least some dignity was maintained. Slowly he pushed her elbows straight so she was holding the shirt away from her now. "Stay just like that, I'm going to redo the bandages."
Deciding silence was as close to an okay as he was going to get, Tentsuke put his hand at the edge of the towel and pulled down. The bandages came free quickly enough, the water had done its damage. And sure it looked pretty enough but the problem was the bandages weren't stopping at her lower back, they dipped below the waistline of her pants.
Tentsuke just sighed, somewhat resigned to his fate and left the lower bandages alone for a moment. He then placed the edge of the bandages at the center of her back. He pulled it around her side, passed the roll to his other hand in front of her making sure he was way clear of a majority of her... okay, he couldn't even think the word, and just started wrapping, pulling it taunt once it was around her back again.
Classic first aid technique. Known affectionately among male ninja as 'How to bandage your female teammate's torso and not wake up only half a man the next morning'. He tightened it at the small of her back and cut the bandage. Right, step one done. And hey, look at that, her chest was now completely covered again. So slipping her into the large shirt was easy by then. In fact, he could almost smile as he did. Until he realized his next request.
"Okay, so... need to get to the tail end of that so... umm... " Gah, just say it Tentsuke. Just get it out... "Can you loosen your belt a bit?"
Ooo, yey a warm shirt. She was still cold, though. Fumbling with the shirt to pull it tug enough to get to her belt, she then took longer than it should to unhook the thin metal bit from the hole it was passed through. Success was had when she undid the belt, and tugged on it to loosen it. Cold air rushed down her pantlegs from the waistband and she shivered again. "Brrrr."
Look at that, something went according to plan. He placed the edge of the bandage at the small of her back, tucking the loose end under the knot already there. And then he went to winding again. For every millimeter lower he had to go, he cringed, cursed and tried to figure out who exactly he had to kill for this. In the end, it was done and the bandage was secure.
Right. That was done. He let himself sigh in relief at that and then frowned. Just one problem remaining. He stood up and walked back to the door, standing in the frame but facing out into the living room. "Okay, one more step and then you can sleep." He massaged the growing migraine in his head. "Lose the pants."
That was easily enough done. Right now the only thing holding them up were her hips, and a hard shove had them falling to the floor. It also knocked her off balance to hit into the towel rod, causing her to laugh and say 'Ow' before falling on her butt. More giggly laughter ensued. This was fun! Took a little bit to get her shoes off so she could get the pants off completely, but she managed.
The overlarge shirt was big enough to fall just past mid-thigh, thereby ensuring that everything that needed covering, was, as Nejiko somehow got herself to a standing position again. One arm was hooked at the elbow around the towel rack while her other hand held on tightly.
"Pants gone-gone~"
He checked over his shoulder quickly to make sure that was all she lost. A little sound of relief escaped his lips. "All right," he mustered, turning around and hooking an arm around her waist. "Off to bed."
He bypassed the couch and headed for the bedroom. No matter what Asuka said, there was no way he was tossing her on the couch. "Hey look at that, it's a bed, perfect for sleeping things off in," he said, gently guiding her that way.
She unwound herself from the towel rack and wrapped both arms around his waist to lean against him as they walked. Humming happily she nuzzled her face against his side, even if he kept getting is legs in the way of walking, just like Asuka-sempai. Maybe the fact the lights were out had something to do with it? When he mentioned 'bed' she opened her eyes (that explained why it was dark!) and looked from it to him to it to him.
Wow, she was dizzy.
So she did the smart thing and held on tighter until the world stopped spinning again. "Still smell naish," she muttered as she snuggled against him again. She liked his smell. Smokey and a little sweaty and him. She was sure she'd know his smell anywhere.
"Oh hey, that's nice of you to say," he said turning a bit pink. He was already drawing a list up of every deity he could think of to pray to tonight that there was absolutely no memory of this left in her tomorrow. He reached over to the nightstand where he kept a glass of water and handed it to her. "Drink it all," he stated.
Silver eyes blinked owlishly at the glass. Keeping one hand clutching the fabric of his shirt, she reached. "Holditt still," she told him as she kept missing the glass.
Finally she grasped it and though the clear stuff tried to jump the sides she brought it over without incident. She sniffed. That's odd, it didn't have a smell. All the stuff Asuka-sempai had put in front of her had a smell. This just smelled... wet. She tilted her head and considered it. Too big to down like a shot, but still managable.
She gulped a mouthful and spluttered at the blandness. "It duzzen tays' like anything."
He sighed a bit and tried to come up with something. "The tasty stuff is umm... at the bottom of the glass," he tried, giving it a gentle push back at her mouth.
"Te-ki-la?" That was clear, and that was good. Burned like a motherfuck, but good. She brightened and tightening her grip on the stein's handle, chugged the rest of the water down. Oblivious to the tiny streams on the sides of her mouth, she finished to peer into the empty container.
"Nuthin there." She looked up at him, confused.
"Huh? No way," he said, taking the stein from her. "I'll go refill it and leave it by the side of the bed so you can try again later."
He gave her a gentle push to get her on the bed. "All right, time for sleep," he stated.
Nejiko squeaked when the world lurched and she stumbled and fell onto cushy soft. The hand wrapped in his shirt stayed wrapped in his shirt as she held on, pulling him too.
He had forgotten she still had a grip on him but his knees hit the side of the bed quick enough and he bent his back just enough to prevent toppling forward. "All right," he said, "I need my shirt back." He worked her fingers slowly to try to get them to loosen the hold on his clothing.
She lay on her side, her fingers grabbing his when she no longer clutched his shirt. Her hair was a mess and the shirt had inched up dangerously, but she was only focused on their hands. Slowly she dragged her gaze up to look at his face.
"Hi," she smiled.
He did his best not to look, really he was much too concentrated on her fingers to be bothered to see the way she was looking at him. Absolutely concentrated. Ignore the flush, he was just getting a bit warm. Or sick. Or anything else.
He very carefully gave her back her hand and straightened up. "Hi. Now... good night," he told her.
"Hnn. 'Kay. Night~"
Curling into a ball on her side, she tried to watch him a little longer before her eyes closed. Within a few minutes, her breathing had deepened to indicate she was well and truly oblivious to the outside world.
He managed to steady his breath a bit but didn't move until he was sure she was out. Then carefully, he walked over and opened the window, returning with a blanket that he put over her. He refilled the stein and left it by her side, all the while, moving with grace and silence that came with being a ninja.
That done, he let Mika back in and let her settle on the bed softly. The dog whined once but he pat her on the head, making sure she understood it wasn't that he was upset with her. He just needed someone to make sure Nejiko didn't roll onto her back. Having a seventy pound dog against her should prevent that.
He left them both asleep and wandered back out into the living room, taking stock of the damage. It wasn't that bad. The door was still slightly ajar and a quick check of the lock showed it was broken beyond repair. He'd have to fix that first thing in the morning but for now, a chair against it would be good enough.
He collected the remains of her clothes from the bathroom, eyed them before deciding the cold water hadn't done too much damage and hung them up to dry on the towel rack. He put a towel on the ground and wiped up the stray water so the tiles were no longer slippery. Satisfied there was a clear line from bedroom to bathroom free of obstacles and potential hazards, he went back into the living room and opened up a drawer in his desk.
He scanned through his will, making sure everything was in order. He had to attach a note about the kitten and that it should probably go back to Hanabi in the event of his death. The change wasn't notarized but it would do. He put it back in the drawer and grabbed a blanket off the arm chair, nestling into the couch. He stretched a bit and tried to get comfortable.
Just as he started to fall asleep, he felt something crawling on his stomach. Cracking open an eye, he watched as the kitten, eyes still fully dilated from the copious amounts of catnip it had ingested, walked around his stomach twice before curling up into a ball and falling asleep.
He sighed, resigned to the fact that tomorrow morning was probably not going to go well no matter what. He might as well get some sleep to be ready to face it, he decided. Ten minutes later, he had fallen asleep.