Title: Sugared-up Shinobi
Characters: Shiranui Genma, Namiashi Raidou, Umino Iruka, Uzumaki Naruto
Rating: T
Warnings: Expletives
Notes: I keep saying I'm going to do this, and then forgetting. A night at the movies goes mildly awry as our heroes ingest way too much caffeine and sugar. DDR, whinging!Iruka, and Genma's critical failure.
Genma was tired, but somehow he'd been talked into going to see some crappy adventure film for the third damned time — the bonus, of course, being that this time he wasn't going to have to pay for it. The village's favourite troublemaker was working off the cost of a prank at the ticket counter. So, Genma and Raidou decided they could be bothered to drag their asses off the couch, and followed a cheerful and bouncy Iruka down to the theatre.
"Naruto! How the fuck are you?" Genma bobbed his senbon in greeting.
"Oh, holy crap! It's you guys!" Naruto looked surprised to see a group of older shinobi in the theatre at all, never mind ones who knew him well enough to stop and chat a bit. "Iruka-sensei!" He bounded out from behind the counter and grabbed Iruka, spinning him around.
"Stop! Wait! Naruto! No!" Iruka babbled helplessly, legs flailing. "My lunch…"
Genma managed to look like nothing was wrong at all, and Raidou suppressed a snicker. Iruka staggered as Naruto finally set him back on his feet. Bowing politely to the two tokujou, the hyperactive chuunin finally slowed down enough to realise that he was, in fact, the only person on duty in the lobby. "Oh! So, what can I do for you?"
"Well, we came to see the eleven-thirty, but it looks like that's been bumped up to midnight…" Iruka was rather indirect, sometimes.
"It's not like we can't distract ourselves for half an hour." Raidou shrugged and patted Iruka on the head, earning himself an exasperated stare.
"They want you to get us into the Midnight Movie." Genma, as usual, was blunt as a brick. It seemed to work well.
"Oh! Of course, I can! Believe it!" Naruto dashed back behind the counter and printed out three passes. "These are just in case someone notices you, so they can't say you snuck in." He grinned and held them out, and each ticket vanished into another ninja's pocket.
"Brilliant. I knew Iruka must have rubbed off on you, somewhere." Genma grinned crookedly around the senbon and went back to studying the tessellated gecko-print carpet. The floor seemed to crawl in the corners of his vision, and he tried to ignore the vague sense of nausea it caused.
"I have to go close out the snack counter, but you can still talk to me while I do it." Naruto dashed across the floor as he spoke.
If there was one thing that could get Iruka's attention at thirty yards, it was chocolate chocolate chip. "I want ice cream! But all I have are coins, and I want to play DDR while we wait…" Iruka pouted and made a sad puppy face at Raidou. "Rai, you'll buy me some ice cream, won't you? Pleeeeeease?"
Genma failed to look innocent, the smeared remains of a suppressed smile still visible on his face as Raidou glanced over and rolled his eyes. "Remember the part where we're here at this place, at this time because we don't get paid until tomorrow? It's a movie theatre, Iruka. Prices are ridiculous."
"But it's chocolate chocolate chiiiiiip! Please, Rai? I'll pay you back tomorrow." Iruka looked young and angelic, and Genma wondered how the hell something that evil could manage to look that sweet and innocent. It had to be something about working around the kids all the time.
"Fine. But you will pay me back, Iruka. I'm not kidding." Raidou shook his head and followed the schoolteacher to the snack bar.
Naruto looked up from where he was cleaning the counter. "Oh! Iruka-sensei, did you want some ice cream before I put it all away for the night?"
"Oh! Yes, please! That's so nice of you, Naruto! Can Raidou have some, too?"
Genma rolled his eyes at Raidou as Iruka smiled prettily at his former student. He'd seen Iruka use that look on Kakashi, and it could level a man like no jutsu could. Raidou smirked back as Iruka continued to flirt, relentlessly, until the cups of ice cream were in his hand. Ah, the irresistible lure of chocolate chocolate chip…
Iruka frowned into the cup like a sad puppy. "But I wanted it in a cone…" he whined, disconsolately, just loud enough for Raidou and Genma to hear.
Raidou bounced a fist off the top of Iruka's head. "Iruka, it's free ice cream. As in, you didn't pay for it. Now, shut up and enjoy your free ice cream, that just happens to come in a cup."
Genma struggled not to choke on the laughter that threatened to bubble out of his throat as he watched Iruka rub at his head and glare suspiciously up at Raidou. "Can you spot me a soda?" he yawned in Naruto's direction, "I could use the caffeine. Just watching Iruka makes me tired."
Naruto laughed and filled a cup. "Believe it!" He smacked it on the counter, sloshing cherry cola, and then quickly wiped it up, pretending he hadn't just made a mess.
"Thanks, kid." Genma winked at Naruto, picked up his drink, and wandered over to where Raidou was watching in horror as Iruka played Dance Dance Revolution.
No amount of whining or wheedling would get Genma to play against Iruka. In fact, no amount of pleading, begging, whining, or wheedling would get him anywhere near the pads. Finally, he pointed out that it was time for the movie and Iruka was off like a candy-powered gunshot.
Genma looked lazily at Raidou. "No more Pixy Stix. If I ever catch you giving Iruka sugar again, I swear on my right eye only one of us is walking out alive."
Raidou laughed and slapped his friend on the back as he wandered toward the theatre.
After the film, Iruka was still sugar-powered, and Genma was significantly revived by the soda and the action film. Raidou was still quietly amused and probably up to something.
Naruto caught them on their way out. "Hey, hey! How about some coffee! I get off work in like another fifteen minutes — believe it!"
Iruka agreed before anyone could get another word out. "Sure! That sounds great; we'll do it." Genma and Raidou stared at each other, mouths opened in unvoiced protest, as Iruka ran off toward the DDR machine, again. "I'm gonna beat Butterfly! It's gonna be great!"
Naruto laughed loudly as he swept the lobby. "You haven't managed it yet, Iruka-sensei!"
"I'll do it! You just watch!" Iruka loaded coins into the machine, and set a pile of them on top of the coinbox, settling in for a long run of trying for a Perfect.
Half an hour passed. Genma, Raidou, and Naruto had spent the better part of it staring at Iruka as the polite little schoolteacher just kept dancing. Non-stop.
"Why isn't he a jounin?" Genma asked.
"Iruka-sensei, I have to turn the machine off, now, so we can go out." Naruto sounded almost envious of his teacher's skill and endurance.
"Aww! Okay, just let me finish this… Ah! Got it!" The sugar-powered chuunin bounced down from the machine, and scooped the rest of his coins into his pocket. "Where do we want to go?"
"I got nothing." Genma was non-committal as Naruto herded them toward the doors.
"I dunno." Raidou just shrugged.
"Let's go back to my place, then," Iruka suggested, "We can play video games, and the music's better and the coffee's already paid for."
Genma looked slightly frightened at the idea of Iruka drinking coffee. Raidou looked suspicious. "Maybe you should have tea."
No one heard him but Genma. Iruka and Naruto had managed to get a few yards ahead and Naruto was babbling about some new game, with Iruka occasionally making some excited response or other. Genma glanced at Raidou, glanced at the support pillar of a building they were passing, and had a terrible idea. Watching Iruka playing DDR had wound him up a bit, and he needed to burn off a bit of energy before he did something actually stupid, like dragging Iruka off into the corner for a bit of something interesting.
He eyed the pillar and considered. He could probably make it to the top and backflip off of it with a minimum of chakra burnoff. Nodding at his decision, Genma broke into a sprint —
— and slammed into the ground, twisted up like a pretzel, before he'd even gotten close enough to try.
He wheezed in confusion and blinked at the sky.
"Hey, you alright?" Raidou had watched it happen, and he still had no idea what he'd just witnessed. The hand of fate was the best cause he could come up with.
Genma opened and closed his mouth, like a fish gasping for air, as he considered whether any serious damage had been done. Finally, he offered a shaky thumbs-up. "I think I broke my something. Probably not an essential body part," he wheezed, still recovering from having the breath knocked out of him, and felt around until he found the senbon, which he put back between his teeth.
"Holy crap! Genma! Are you okay? Do we need to take you to the hospital? What did you break?" Iruka was now both hyperactive and extremely concerned.
"How did you —" Naruto looked up the pillar, as if searching for an answer.
"Not the faintest fucking clue. Hey, Rai, help me up? I can't get my leg out from under… my… I don't want to know where my leg is, and let's all just pretend that what I suspect exists only in my imagination." Genma looked a bit green as he realised that he had to have dislocated at least two joints in the fall — one of them, his hip. "Just get me up. I have to see how bad this is."
Raidou grabbed onto the proffered arm, and Genma locked both hands onto his friend. A few seconds of cursing and pulling later, Genma had his hip and knee back in place, and was on his feet — foot, rather; he kept touching the other one to the ground, delicately. "Ankle's sprained. That's a pretty bad one — can't take my shoe off or I'll never get it back on." He shifted his weight back and forth. "I can't tell if this foot is broken, though. I think it is, but it's a weird one. Might just be an extension of the sprain…"
Genma seemed perfectly calm and rather philosophical about his injuries, which was impressive, considering he's taken a kunai pouch in the kidneys. Iruka, used to dealing with academy students and injuries, was kicking into teacher mode. "Genma, if it's broken, you need to go to the hospital. Do we need to take you to the hospital?"
"No, really, even if it's broken, what's that? I keep my shoe on for three days, and then I bandage it. It's just a break. There's not even a joint there. It's not that important." He limped along with the others as they headed back to Iruka's place.
"We're, you know, passing the hospital, are you sure you don't want to get that looked at?" Iruka was neurotic about broken bones for reasons no one else was entirely certain about.
"If it hasn't crippled me yet, it's not going to. Quit worrying so much, Iruka-sensei." Genma knew it bothered the crap out of Iruka to be called sensei in anything like a disrespectful fashion. Especially by Genma, because Genma only did it to be an asshole. It had the desired effect, though, and Iruka shut up for a few minutes, only to start chattering again as Naruto started talking about the movie.
"… because he's sooooo hot!" Iruka burbled, and Genma tried desperately to ignore the conversation, concentrating instead on the condition of his foot as they came up the garden stairs.
Finally, as Iruka waved them all into the house, still arguing with Naruto over which one of them was going to take home the absolutely dreamy secondary character from the hero's party, Genma finally snapped. "Okay kiddies, and when he gets tired of waiting for you two to quit arguing and start fucking, he can join me and the hero over here in our little corner!"
The door closed in a draft, and all conversation stopped. All eyes were on Genma, and he looked tense. "Eww," Naruto protested weakly. "He's not hot."
"Heh. Shows what you know." Genma waggled his senbon smugly, trying to pretend that nothing was wrong, but Raidou caught him.
"You sure you're okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine." Genma bounced up and down, hopping on the questionable foot. "See? It's not —" He paled and his other foot slammed down. "ohholyfuckingshit. —" -cough- -eyewater- "— Yeah, okay. That's kind of broken. Kind of broken a lot." He rocked back on his heels for a moment before settling back to his feet, staring blankly across the room.
"You need to go to the —" Iruka started.
"No!" Genma cut him off. "I do. not. need. a. hospital. I just need to walk it off. It's just a broken foot, Iruka, it's not like it's that important."
"But it's —"
Raidou cut him off, this time. "Leave him alone; he's made up his mind and he's a stubborn bastard. If he needs it later, he'll go."
Iruka glared around the room for a long moment. He pointed at Naruto. "You don't get to do that. You have a brain — use it."
In the end, Genma wound up walking it off. Got his shoe off after three or four days, when the swelling went down, and kept a bandage on it for a couple of weeks, mostly to hold the sprained ankle in place. About five days after the accident, he went out dancing and walked to work, the next day. It hurt a bit, but really, he had no regrets about not visiting the hospital. That would have cost money for people to tell him what he already knew. What was the point?
…
…
And hospitals sucked, anyway.
