Author's Notes: Ok. Here it is. The next installment of Unsettled. Im not completely happy with this. My writer's block has been a huge pain in my butt for far too long. So Ive been forcing myself to write no matter what. Unfortunately, the result is complete rubbish in my opinion. But I will post this before I decide it's too horrible and delete or change something and have to start all over again.

By the way, I hate the title. I might change it later when my brain isnt melting out my ears.

Stick Figures and Yellow Waterfalls

"Holy fuck! That's not a rat it's one of your nin-dogs!" echoed from behind the bathroom door.

Kakashi rolled his eyes and yanked back the blankets, "Shit!" he jumped back and gave the scattering insects a sincere look of disgust before snatching the mildewed bedding and tossing it back in place.

Ok. So Genma had a right to bitch he thought suppressing a shiver.

Several loud bangs and curses later, Genma emerged from the bathroom, "I found your last girlfriend." Kakashi's eyes widened slightly and he took several steps back as his partner crossed to the window and tossed the diseased looking carcass out into the snow, "Make that your only girlfriend." Genma frowned reaching for the blanket.

"I wouldn't do that." Kakashi cautioned.

The senbon sucking shinobi closed his eyes and let the blanket drop back into place. Kakashi was sure he was silently cursing, silently praying, or silently devising a plan to kill him in his sleep. Perhaps all three.

"Genma."

"Don't. Don't speak to me."

"But..."

"No."

Genma grabbed his pack and disappeared into the bathroom. Kakashi walked over and pressed his ear to the door, listening to the random noises and hissed curses for a few minutes before he too disappeared.

Out the door and down the stairs.

He needed a drink.

The first thing Genma saw when he cracked his sleep encrusted eyes open was white. He frowned. Was he going blind? Blinking a bit he turned his head to peer over the edge of the bathtub, groaning from the crick in his neck. The second sight to greet his tired brown eyes was a yellow waterfall.

"Yo."

Kakashi smirked down at the jonin cramped into the five foot long porcelain tub and gave himself a quick jiggle before zipping up his pants and flushing the toilet.

"You're a pig." Genma groaned trying to roll away and smacking his head on the faucet, "Damn it!"

Kakashi opened his mouth to say something but was stopped by a very livid shinobi's glare promising death and pain and things Kakashi didn't want to imagine. He finished washing his hands and wiped them on his pants before heading back out into the room, "Foods hot if your interested."

Genma shot up from his half crouched position, feeling too many cracks and pops to be deemed healthy, "Oh please, just kill me now." he whimpered, pressing his forehead to the cool edge of the tub before crawling over and stumbling out into the bedroom, "My back."

Kakashi crouched in front of the half bent jonin and smirked, "Guess you shouldn't have slept in the tub."

"Just help me straighten so I can kill you."

"Can I eat first?"

Genma's eyes widened, "You really did find food? Real food? Not worms or insects or even half dead rat?"

Kakashi pouted playfully, pushing up and circling the crippled shinobi, "You have so little faith in me Genma-kun."

"Just fix me so I can eat." Genma growled.

Kakashi shrugged, "If you insist."

"GAH!! What the hell?" Genma spun around, hands on his ass trying to rub out the pain from the hard pinch he'd just received on both cheeks, "Your fu-"

Whatever curse he was about to throw at the grinning copy-nin was cut off by the warmest, sweetest, most amazingly fluffy piece of pancake he'd ever tasted.

"Mfgd!"

"There's more on the table." Kakashi smirked, licking the syrup off the fork before handing it to his partner.

Genma frowned at the utensil then decided he didn't care if the man slobbered on his food as well, he was starving and would eat anything that wasn't alive, dying or dead. Unless it was a medium rare steak he grinned and quickly glanced around the small room for the rest of the food.

Spotting the table in the corner, which he was sure had not been there the night before, he decided everything else could wait as he straddled the chair and began stuffing his face.

Kakashi sat on the edge of the bed, dragging his pack closer, pulling everything out and laying it on the mattress next to him, "Don't choke. I haven't had sex in...well...let's just say far too long. If I have to give you mouth to mouth you might like it and forget your not gay."

"AHA! That means you are! I finally got you to admit it!"

Kakashi flinched, reaching up to wipe the spray of food off his face, "And you call me a pig. At least I pissed in the toilet. Don't talk with your mouth full baka."

"I still got you to admit it." Genma grumbled, turning to hover over his plate.

"Yes. You caught me. I admitted that I haven't had sex in forever and you'd turn gay if I blew life back into your lungs." Kakashi rolled his eyes, shaking his head, "Lack of food and sleep turns you into a raving lunatic you know that?"

Genma breathed in the cool air and smiled. It was sunny for the first time in forever. His belly was full with something that didn't have legs and felt as if it were trying to crawl it's way to freedom. And he was wearing clean underwear.

Life was good.

Well as good as it got on an S-ranked undercover mission to hell he thought stretching any lingering kinks out of his back and neck, "So. What now?"

Kakashi slapped a piece of paper against his chest, "Shopping. We need to look as if we belong to this cockroach infested corner of the world, but not so much that Ryuujin's men wont notice two ex-Konoha shinobi in hiding. So do your best to look suspicious and fit in at the same time."

"What are you going to be doing?"

"Scouting."

"Why do you get to have all the fun and I get stuck with the chores?"

"Because while you were napping last night I cleaned the room, your dedicates and found food. The least you could have done is thanked me. Instead, you chose to argue over the bed rights so now you get to do the shopping." Kakashi said cheerfully, stepping off the front stoop of the dingy hotel slash Inn and making his way up the street.

Genma peeled the paper open and read off the list before glancing around. Funny how a place looked different during the day. It wasn't nearly as intimidating in the sunlight but it wasn't exactly home either.

Konoha would be clean and have streets with sidewalks. The snow would be scooped aside to allow villagers access to the shops. And people wouldn't smell like the animals they were tending Genma thought leaning away from the man trying to squeeze past him into the tavern.

This place looked as if it was frozen in time...about fifty years behind everyone else. The road was a frozen muddy minefield that even the best of oxen were having trouble traversing. The buildings were patched up with various pieces of materials. And the people looked nearly as old and worn as the buildings.

He couldn't understand why anyone stayed in such an unforgivable place.

A glance at the list and then the small town and he doubted he would be able to find everything they needed. But perhaps that's what Kakashi expected. If this town was under the direct control of the psychopath then buying black market goods provided by the self proclaimed God would make them more noticeable without making it look like they were trying to be noticeable.

Genma smiled, mentally patting himself on the back as he stepped off the stoop and headed in the opposite direction of his partner.

"Where the hell have you been?"

"Carving an army out of logs. Where the hell did you think I was?" Kakashi gave his partner a disgruntled glare, tugging several rolled up papers out of his pouch and tossing them on the table before heading to the bathroom.

"I was beginning to wonder. But hey, if you die I get to go home. So don't do me any favors by being careful or anything." Genma frowned. He picked up the stack of papers, unrolling them and flipping through the diagrams trying to work out the silver haired nins scrawl, "Is this suppose to be the magic kingdom?"

"What do you mean suppose to be?"

"Just tell me it's a step up from this place and Ill pack us up right now."

"You should have seen it Genma. It's a five star resort compared to this dump. Dragon breath's got..."

"Dragon God."

"Whatever. He's got a pool and sauna and gym and all sorts of things to make little boys happy."

"Really?"

"No." Kakashi's false smile disappeared and he snatched his work from the gullible shinobi.

"You're an ass."

"Maybe. But the look on your face just now was priceless. Kid in candy store meets horny teenage boy in girls dressing room."

"So what does Dragon ass..."

"God."

"Whatever." Genma rolled his eyes, "What does he have in that castle of his?"

"Probably STD's that make his brain swell and cause paranoia because there wasn't one section of the outer wall that wasn't guarded or rigged to disembowel." Kakashi spread the papers out, aligning them to form one big untidy map and stabbing the corners with shuriken to keep them from rolling away.

"What are these?" Genma pointed to several stick figures.

"Guards. A crap load of them too by my calculations. Getting in is going to be a hell of a lot easier than getting out Im afraid."

"And this?"

"That would be a dead body. See the hangman's noose. Im guessing a girl who didn't like Ryuujin's idea of foreplay or something. Who knows. Who cares."

"I seem to recall a silver haired shinobi who actually gave a shit about other people once upon a time. Have you seen him lately? Tall. Not bad looking. Shitty taste in literature."

Kakashi tapped his chin for a moment, "Does he wear a mask?"

"That would be him."

"Haven't seen him."