notes:
-Cowboy Bebop AU, cross-posting here from ao3, some homages to naruto canon, implied casual relationships - not plot relevant or concerning the main pairing but disclosing jic, mentions of sex,
-sasuhina is endgame, if you don't like the pairing, please don't read; you aren't going to have a good time here, and that is time better spent reading content you actually would like to read.
disclaimer: i don't own Cowboy Bebop or Naruto, and don't have a consistent updating schedule and most updates will go on ao3 before they come here (lol)
i. hands up, baby hands up
Officer Uchiha Sasuke is twenty-seven with a burgeoning career ahead of him in ISSP Mercury's Department's Major Crimes Unit, satisfied with the trajectory life is gently nudging him toward right up until his partner turns traitor during an undercover sting, blowing a chunk of Sasuke's left arm clean off with a Gauss Cannon.
The department-appointed physician attempts to dissect and disseminate all the reasons why Sasuke doesn't bat an eyelash at Deidara's betrayal but ultimately fails to pinpoint the root cause. It's as much out of Sasuke's amusement as it unwillingness to implicate himself as having bided his time for an excuse to wipe the floor with Deidara the way he did, that Sasuke refrains from sarcastically telling Kabuto he and Deidara only trusted to be in the other's company with a side arm or an object sufficiently sharp enough to stab with within reach.
Not that Deidara needs Sasuke's testimony to prove that; Kabuto canvasses their entire unit and hears differing anecdotes that confirm Deidara has been a dick since childbirth and had it coming. Just a matter of the universe playing catch up, at the end of the day, really. There's a passionate few who go so far as to say they're sorry it wasn't them who got to do the honors, but that's all hot air as far as Sasuke's concerned. Fact is, none of them, barring Naruto, actually know what it's like to lose a limb in the line of duty and more importantly, live with the knowledge that they'd lost that limb to goddamn Deidara, of all people.
.
. . .
.
Most of Sasuke's daydreams in the tranquil hell of his hospital bed are replays of that final confrontation; him taking the guy down three moves earlier. He can't focus on the daytime soap playing on TV, can't even enjoy a restful sleep knowing that an obtuse loudmouth like Deidara put him here: it just pisses him off too much to even think about trying. And then, lo and behold, the icing on the shit cake: Kabuto recommends explicitly barring Sasuke from paying Deidara a visit, killing off any attempt at closure.
It takes four orderlies plus Naruto to hold Sasuke down and administer the sedative after the news is relayed. For his trouble Kabuto earns a black eye but also Sasuke's respect for having the balls to break the news to him in person.
Sasuke snaps at Naruto and Sakura a lot during those first few weeks at Konoha General. He's a right little shit to them, and they both come close to decking him a few times but they don't give up; just continue to show up and listen and occasionally update him on how the case is going until Sasuke's fury reduces from a rolling boil to a quiet simmer. It's always been this way since they were kids: him, Naruto and Sakura. Theirs is a bond that transcends family and friendship, unwavering and infuriatingly infallible.
Sasuke's grateful for it.
.
. . .
.
Deidara's trial came at a time when Sasuke was in the early infancy of his rehabilitation and more importantly pain management, so there's not a lot of headspace allocated toward savoring it. Not that Sasuke could if he had the luxury - the lead prosecutor requests a round-the-clock protection detail for him on a remote moon and the Captain, somewhat gleefully, signs off on it.
Off Sasuke goes to Titan with two officers from the Counter Terrorism Unit, Kiba and Shino shadowing him. It's not that much of an improvement from the tiny hospital room, unable to jog around the neighbourhood, much less jerk off behind the privacy of a locked door. Kiba and Shino aren't superhuman by any stretch of the imagination, but Sasuke's not taking any chances.
Kiba isn't one for small talk. Or rather; he isn't one for talking too — more the guy you can count on to be talked at. He occupies his time with mining Sasuke's tablet for things to read and complains about too many textbooks and not enough Icha Icha. And then complains about there being too much Icha Icha. The Icha Icha novels are actually Naruto's, a gift from that pervert of a godfather who pens the entire series, but Sasuke knows better than to point this out. Kiba has enough ammunition as it is, and not mentioning Naruto lowers the likelihood of the two loudmouths meeting each other. As much as Sasuke loves Naruto, one loudmouth in his inner circle of friends more than fills his quota. He can't believe he misses that bastard.
Kiba's partner Shino, conversely, has a knack for blending into the background a little too well, and scaring the living daylights out of Sasuke every time Sasuke goes to fill the coffee pot most mornings. To make matters worse, Shino doesn't contribute anything beyond a blank stare and the occasional nod, just hangs back and lets Kiba have a go at him while he has a turn on the tablet to look up…exotic beetles. (Sasuke doesn't ask.) Sometimes Shino's so quiet and still Sasuke at times has had to switch on the thermal setting in his left eye to make sure the guy's not already sitting or lying someplace Sasuke's bound to trip over him.
.
. . .
.
The days come and go, but just slow enough that Sasuke feels every painful second whittling away at his psyche.
He's going to die in this godawful, desolate place, he's sure of it.
.
. . .
.
(He doesn't.)
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. . .
.
It takes everything in Sasuke not to sprint to his MONO Racer when the trial finally ends and he's back in Mercurian airspace again, ready for life to resume normalcy.
.
. . .
.
Normalcy, right.
When Sasuke finally goes through Kabuto's psych eval and subsequent recommendations to the Captain, he wishes he'd hacked into the guy's email sooner. Word for word, it looks like a copy-paste of every conceivable textbook diagnosis from retrograde amnesia to PTSD. The PTSD Sasuke's not surprised by, since that's part and parcel of what working in the ISSP entails, but the amnesia has him at risk of snorting coffee through his nose because it's the first time he's had something close to laughing about in ages.
'Amnesia in retrograde.'
"Not likely," Sasuke mutters, looking over his stump of an arm, propped up by the pile of prosthetic brochures Naruto's brought for him.
.
. . .
.
They did drinks once, Deidara and him. Once. First week on the job Deidara said if he didn't need 'this gig' he'd reach right across the bar and glass him. All Sasuke had done to trigger that unwarranted burst of aggression was inquire as to the reason behind Deidara's transfer. Mercury wasn't a step up from the crisp, clean offices of Mars, actually more of a misstep on the career ladder or a nasty plummet back to the epicenter of the crater where God dropkicked you back to ground zero.
Honestly, anyone in Sasuke's position would have wondered the same thing.
Hell, everyone at the precinct was wondering the same thing, Sasuke's point being: any ISSP Officer worth their salt would have noticed the anomaly and called it out for it was.
(And maybe be smart enough not to get their fucking arm blown off.)
Such was the beauty of hindsight. It hadn't even been a particularly trying week when Deidara started, too: patrols in their district to get him accustomed to the area; a handful of noise complaints, a few domestic disputes. All in all, nothing that required any more effort than a stern talking to, but Deidara snapped for no discernible reason back then.
Whatever.
With Sasuke's testimony the Crown sees to it that that amoral reprobate gets prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and tossed into The Kiln, never to be seen nor heard again. 'Never to be thought of' is a pipe-dream when the result of Deidara's exploits is there to haunt Sasuke in the mirror every morning. If the phantom pain doesn't do a fantastic enough job of that already.
.
. . .
.
Recovery's a pain in the ass, ironically. Once out of hospital Sasuke is prescribed painkillers - but "not too strong" because the doctors don't want him getting addicted. He finds out later from Kakashi that painkiller addiction had been Deidara's entry-point into the Mercurian underbelly and that had Deidara's juvie records not been sealed, Sasuke would have known in advance the extent of Deidara's connection to the Mercurian Crime Syndicate. Maybe even had the foresight to have a backup plan.
"I'm sorry, Sasuke. You were on a need to know basis."
"Eat a dick." Sasuke snarls, more pissed off with the fact that the guy has not a shred of decency to at least stash his Icha Icha novel into his desk drawer, instead of leaving it right under Sasuke's nose. Weirding people out into submission, is apparently Kakashi's favourite leadership tactic. It works, and it's fucked up that it works.
"Well then. I'll be sure to include that in the feedback section." Kakashi replies dryly.
He kicks Sasuke out immediately after that. Far be it for the Captain to let someone mouth off to his face, much less allow them to leave his office without getting the last word in. As an added measure, he also ropes in Sakura to escort him off the premises. Tenten tags along too, which isn't so much out of her being nice or nosy as it is her fulfilling her obligations as a union rep. Sasuke's the least vocal about workplace issues and most likely to resolve his own without need to involve her, so their interactions are always rare and to the point - which Sasuke appreciates. It's the whole reason he voted for her in the Delegate Elections in the first place.
"It's out of operational necessity," Tenten explains on the front steps of the precinct while they wait for Sasuke's cab, "HR's on edge about being pulled up for Negligence, especially with Deidara's past coming to light. You've got a strong case if you feel like pursuing it."
"But you also voluntarily haven't taken leave since you started." Sakura points out critically, before Sasuke can say anything, "Kakashi could use that against you."
"He won't." Sasuke says. He's never giving the guy the satisfaction.
He climbs into the waiting cab and spends most of the trip to his apartment trying ignore the cabbie's lingering stares at his missing arm.
And without any further preamble, life marches on.
.
. . .
.
At least, Sasuke had hoped it would.
Somehow, during the one month he vanished off the face of Mercury, he became the name and face of the war against corruption. Apparently during his forced sabbatical, the public had been spurred out of their apathy by Sasuke's 'valiance' that they crowdfunded for a state of the art prototype prosthetic to get him back on the horse and cover Sasuke's medical bills. 'Lend a Hand to Sasuke!' is the campaign slogan, and yes, there are t-shirts, and yes, those were Naruto's idea. Sakura shows up on a house call rocking one of them just to tease Sasuke: bright pink with lime-green lettering. Ugliest thing Sasuke's ever seen on her. Prettiest thing on his bedroom floor, on the other hand.
The sex is...a challenge, but Sakura makes it work. Sasuke's red-faced after the whole ordeal because so, much, fumbling in the dark and pinky-swears her to Itachi's grave and eternity to never, ever, ever divulge to another living soul how that romp went.
.
. . .
.
"Beep-Beep!" Sasuke's watch-arm goes. First time it happened Sasuke nearly wet himself. "The time is now-"
"AWE-SOME. O-CLOCK." Naruto finishes robotically, over the sounds of whatever vegetables he's presently tossing in a wok. Sasuke doesn't have to look to know the guy's doing some kind of follow-up robot-dance after that proclamation. Sakura's giggling fit more than confirms it.
"You dork," she says.
Sasuke calmly changes the channel, content to keep up the charade of ignoring the two idiots in his kitchen until dinner's actually ready. It took him a dedicated few days and various broken eggs all over the kitchen counter before he could properly figure out the limits of its strength, but through sheer stubborn grit he powers through. Works at it until every muscle movement is perfectly controlled and calculated. Naruto calls him a 'show-off' for it.
Naturally, when the breaking news broadcast on television announces that Deidara has escaped his maximum security cell, Sasuke crushing the remote in his hand to tiny remote pieces, Naruto and Sakura both know the seemingly bulletproof veneer of eerie calm that's been present since leaving the ER has finally shattered.
And all they can say in response is:
"Fuck."