a.d.t.o.y

Callista Miralni

Disclaimer: nothing but characters. title from a 2PM song which may or may not have anything to do with the fic. formatting style borrowed from angel-puppeteer.

Prompt: butler!Sasuke as requested by anonymous on fyeahsasusaku tumblr. And the brief mention to Sebastian Michaelis by the admin.

I should be writing my term paper. But I have the urge to write everything but it so I'll do what I always do when that happens—write a bit of my paper and a bit of this fic. As of right now, this will be a one-shot unless I get enough clamor to continue. Which will probably be never since all anybody ever seems to do nowadays is favorite and alert stuff, not leave reviews.


"Ojou-san."

The lump under the covers was to be expected but honestly, it was noon for goodness's sakes.

"Ojou-san," he called again. "Ojou-san, wake up."

The lump shifted and a set of green eyes peeked out from under the covers before the covers were thrown back over.

The butler sighed and set the tray down. "Ojou-san, if you do not get up this moment, I will be forced to take drastic measures."

The lump paused for a moment before the covers flew forward. "You wouldn't dare," the young woman hissed, her jade-green eyes flashing with anger.

He met her angry stare with a calm expression.

"Oh, I would."


eyecatch! The slim, elegantly dressed businesswoman emerges from the Mercedes-Benz and gracefully accepts the black briefcase from her butler.

snap! The butler pauses a few steps behind his mistress to look across the street.

zoooooommmmm~! He gives a haughty smile before flicking something towards the camera.

"GAH! MY PRECIOUS BABBBBBYYYYY—DON'T DIE ON ME!"


Haruno Sakura—aged eighteen and the sole owner of major toy and sweets company Hanako—was a social recluse in the Konoha high society.

Some say the elusive heiress was that way because of her parents. Mr and Mrs Kizashi Haruno were brutally murdered in the middle of the night and the sole witness to the horrific crime was a fifteen-year-old girl.

After the murder, the girl vanished. Relatives clamored to find her, resulting in the most publicized custody battle fought in court. On the eve of her sixteenth birthday, now legally an adult, Haruno Sakura returned just as mysteriously as she vanished with a boy at her side.

No, not a boy. A man.

To this day, no one knows where Haruno Sakura went and when she picked up the faithful shadow at her heels. All they knew is that Uchiha Sasuke was one hell of a butler to keep up with the whimsical fancies of his mistress and run her entire household with the most lack staff in existence. Uchiha Sasuke was servant, bodyguard, and investigator in one handsome package and the women of high society bemoaned his plebeian status.

Oh if only they knew.


Sasuke glanced at his mistress in the rearview mirror as she ranted on about her board meeting.

"Really, Sasuke, do they think I'm some kind of idiot? I've been running this company for three years and it has prospered more under my control than it ever had under my father's."

"Perhaps they do not have your uncanny gift of researching fashionable trends. You are still a child to them, after all."

Sakura ignored the subtle jibe at her obsession with Pinterest. "I'm eighteen, Sasuke. How much of an adult do they need me to me?"

Sasuke gave her a pointed look. She tugged the scarf around her neck off and scowled.

"Please don't answer that."

"I wouldn't dare."


BZZZTZZZZ!

"Did you get the intel?"

The man tipped his fedora and brandished the manila envelope out from his coat pocket. "Don't doubt me. I'm the best in my field for a reason."

Even if it did cost me a camera lens.

He snatched it out of his hands and ripped the envelope open. Full color pictures along with a detailed report on the pastel-haired teenager slid into his hands and he almost wept with joy.

Finally. Justice at last.

Wait and see Haruno Sakura!


CREEEAAAAAAKKKKKKKK!

"Did you hear that?" The gardner jumped into the house steward's arms. "I'm telling you, this place is haunted!"

Hatake Kakashi, the current house steward and former butler to the previous head of family, sighed and patted Uzumaki Naruto on the head.

"The house is not haunted, Naruto," he said slowly, patronizingly. "The ghosts in your head are products of your over-active imagination."

BAAAAAZZZZZINNNNNGGGGGG!

The ornate Chinese vase on the table exploded, sending shreds of plant and porcelain all over the hall. Reflexively, the two men ducked, Naruto screaming at the top of his lungs.

"NOW THE GHOSTS ARE SHOOTING AT US. OH MY GOD KAKASHI, WHY DID I EVER DECIDE TO FOLLOW THAT BASTARD TO THIS CRAZY CITY IN THE FIRST PLACE?"

Kakashi narrowed his one good eye (the other was ruined in the knife fight that claimed Mr. and Mrs. Kizashi Haruno) at the shattered window and found what he was looking for: the tell-tale glint of a sniper's scope in the trees.

"Naruto, calm down and do what you're supposed to do."

"I'VE BEEN THREATENED MORE TIMES THAN I CARE TO COUNT LIVING IN THIS HOUSE-"

"Naruto, shut up."

"-AND YET THE BASTARD STILL SIGNS MY PAYCHECK WITH APPALLINGLY LOW DIGITS. WHERE IS THE JUSTICE?"

"Naruto, if you had any sense about you, hold your goddamn tongue."

"BUT NO!" The blonde man stood up and whipped something cold and black from his back pocket. "INSTEAD, I'M PLAYING GARDNER TO THE MOST MANIPULATIVE PRINCESS-BITCH I'VE EVER MET."

Slack jawed, Kakashi watched as he took aim at the scope and fired the Glock while yelling at the top of his lungs. The sniper fell from the tree, bleeding profusely from his shoulder.

"HOW DID WE EVEN GET INTO THIS MESS IN THE FIRST PLACE?" Naruto continued to wail as he fired another shot at the sniper's knee.

Most days, Kakashi wondered the exact same thing.

Why did Sakura-san find these people?


"I need intel on the servants."

The man in the fedora gave his client an incredulous look. "Why would you need that?"

Scowling, he tossed a pile of papers on the desk. The man tiled his fedora up and picked up the first page. Hospital bills for two gunshot wounds—one to the shoulder and the other to the back of the knee.

"Her gardner did that," the client hissed, none too pleased. "What kind of gardner carries a Glock around in his back pocket?"

He set the bill down and smirked. "I'll see what I can do."


hihihihi~! Hatake Kakashi—pleasure to meet you.

snap! A greying man, still dignified despite the thick scar across his eye, smiles for the lens.

zoooooooommmmm~! "Now, where do you think you're going with that?"

"OW. OW. OW. THAT IS MY TRIGGER FINGER—I MEAN SHUTTER FINGER. NO. STOP. I BRUISE LIKE A BANANA."


"Ojou-san, Mr. Piccadily from our Italian partner, Delizia, is here to see you."

Sakura looked up from her desk just in time to see her butler usher in the tall Italian to her study.

"Get us some tea and coffee for our guest," Sakura waved Sasuke off. "Come now, Sasuke, I don't pay you to be rude."

Her trained eyes caught the imperceptible twitch of his jaw.

"Of course, Ojou-san." Sasuke bowed so deep Sakura knew he was mocking her back. "If you will excuse me for a moment, I will fetch the tea cart. I've already made all the necessary arrangements."

Her eye twitched.

Smug bastard.


hihihihi~! Uzumaki Naruto here!

snap! A blonde man with a sunny smile and bright cerulean eyes waves at the camera, pesticide applicator in hand.

zoooooooommmmmm~ "Ara? What are you doing with something like that?"

"GAH. WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU? YOU JUST SPRAYED CARCINOGENS ALL OVER MY BABYYYYY."


Methodically, Sasuke pulled the coffee cake and tea cookies out from the warmer and set them on a the silver serving tray. Pulling two cups from the china cabinet, he arranged them on saucers with a spoon. Next, the cream, milk, and lemons were pulled from the refrigerator. He poured hot water over the black tea leaves before moving to the espresso machine and preparing a cup of cappuccino.

"Oh, Sasuke-san, has our guest arrived already?"

The chef stood in front of him, watching him prepare the tea cart. Dressed in the traditional chef's garb, Sai looked starkly out of place in the pristine kitchen. Ink black hair, pale skin, and dark eyes stood out like an eyesore against the glittering silver and blue scheme.

Most of the time, Sasuke thought Sai was an eyesore.

"He has," Sasuke affirmed. "Get back to work; you're not supposed to be in here."

"But I'm the chef," Sai protested. "I'm supposed to be in here. Isn't it more odd for a chef to be out of the kitchen?"

"Not with the disasters you cause," came Sasuke's snarky reply before the door shut behind him.


hihihihi~! They call me Sai.

snap! A pale man nods at the camera, the sounds of a sharpening knife filling the air.

zooooooooommmmmmm~! "You shouldn't be in here. The kitchen is a dangerous place."

"GODDAMNIT NO. NOT AGAIN. I JUST BOUGHT THIS CAMERA AND BOUGHT A NEW LENS."


Sakura scanned the financial report, careful not to betray the incredulity she felt over the presented figures. She schooled her features into a blank expression as she had been taught in order to intimidate and induce anxiety.

Really, it was so much fun running her own global venture. Why on earth was her board of directors so keen to have her act as a figurehead and not as CEO?

Idiots—all of them.

She flicked the paper down, just enough so that Mr. Piccadily could see her glassy green eyes.

"What are you proposing, Mr. Piccadily?" Sakura asked in perfect Italian. "Tell me what you want and I will employ any means—even violence—to see to it."

The Italian looked taken aback by the strange wording of her request.


hihihihi~! Uchiha Sasuke.

snap! The perfectly composed butler quirks an eyebrow into the most condescending expression this camera has ever seen.

zooooooooommmmmmm~! "Can I help you with something?"

"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? YOU'RE ALL MAD, I TELL YOU—MAD."


"What do I want?"

Sakura leaned on her elbows, resting her chin on her laced fingers.

"Think about it," she said, the famous Haruno smile playing on her lips. "Come see me again when you have your answer."

Mr. Piccadily started to rise from his seat but Sasuke opened the door and pushed in the tea cart. "Tea for you, Ojou-san, and cappuccino for our guest. Today's snack is cinnamon coffee cake and an assortment of tea cookies."

"Stay for a while!" Sakura urged gaily. "I assure you, no one makes better sweets than Sasuke. You won't regret it. Think of it as a sampler if you choose to feature our goods at your coffee stands."

The cake did look good and the cappuccino reminded him of home.

"Your hospitality is legendary," Mr. Piccadily replied. "If you insist, I must oblige."

Something in his reply made Sakura smile.

"Excellent."


"What a drag. Is that a mouse I see here?"

He gulped and tried to put on a friendly smile, trying to discretely stuff the roster into his camera bag. "There's mice here? Shucks. I'm terrified of rodents. This is an awesome spot to shoot skylines."

The man with a pineapple-esque hairstyle took a long drag on his cigarette. "Funny. Rats are usually the ones terrified of us."

"Wait—what?"

The flash of red and white made him pale in fear. A burly man came out from the shadows behind the pineapple one, looking all too threatening with the semi-automatic in his hands.

"Hey, we can talk about this, right?"

"Hold up. I need to call the Exterminators," the Pineapple sighed and pulled out a cell phone.

He didn't think—he bolted for the street.

"AFTER HIM! DON'T LET THAT DAMN RAT GET AWAY WITH THAT LIST!"


"Did you get what I asked for?"

The man in the fedora grumbled something about ruined cameras, busted lenses, and bruised fingers. "I ought to charge you triple the amount for the trouble you've put me through." He shoved the envelope towards him.

Eagerly, the man opened it and read through the reports. With each passing page, the scowl on his face became more pronounced.

"I thought you said you were the best in your field," the client hissed, throwing the pages back in his face.

He pushed his fedora out of his eyes. "Do you have any idea what I went through to get that tiny scrap of information?" He snapped. "Bruised fingers, destroyed cameras… at one point, I had the entire Syndicate after me for tiptoeing into their territory!"

"No, you had the entire Syndicate after you for thinking you could so much as look at their hideout."

The two men jumped and glanced at the door. Leaning against the frame, Haruno Sakura studied her nails, looking every bit comfortable in the cramped office as she did in her spacious study.

"Sasuke, make an appointment with Ino after this. I desperately need a manicure."

"Of course, Ojou-san."

"You!" The client spat.

"Me," Sakura replied. "Honestly, I'm a little disappointed. You're not very subtle, after all." She pushed herself away from the wall. "You arranged to meet in my home, took a million photos of the papers on my desk with the watch camera I invented, thought you could rob me blind, and ate my sweets. Are all villains so uncreative nowadays?"

Mr. Piccadily always hated the Harunos but he never despised them this much before in his life until he met their infuriating legacy in the form of an irritating, skinny, pink-haired, green-eyed whelp who thought she could turn the world of commerce into her own personal playground.

"You're a fool to come here by yourself," Mr. Piccadily sneered. "I have men surrounding this building, all with orders to shoot you on command. What makes you think I'll let you walk out of here alive after all the misery your wretched family put me through? Arrogant little Haruno Sakura—walking into the lion's den with only her pretty butler at her side."

The mention of Sasuke made her perk up. "You think he's pretty?" She beamed at them. "I do too but he hates it when I call him that. I mean, look at his face!"

She grasped her butler's jaw and turned it so the two men had a good look at his profile. "Practically perfect. It's almost unfair the gods created someone this good-looking to be regulated to playing the role of a butler."

Something in her word choice made the man in the fedora pause. Playing the role of a butler? Hasn't Uchiha Sasuke always trained to be a butler? Granted, the standards for the Haruno family were a bit extreme and required their household staff to be proficient in self-defense, but Uchiha Sasuke's training would have prepared him to always and forever be a butler.

The reports he compiled on the staff caught his eye and he realized he gathered all their information from the same source.

The Syndicate.

"It was you who chose this embarrassing role for me," the Uchiha's smooth drawl reminded his mistress. "If you only decided to stick to our original arrangement as intended, we wouldn't be having this tiresome debate."

Sakura waved him off. "Where's the fun in that?"

The man in the fedora wished he demanded for his pay before this whole mess started.

"Stop with this mindless drivel," Mr. Piccadily hissed. "Sign your entire company to me or I'll have you blasted to pieces with a single phone call."

The man in the fedora rose from his desk in a panic. "Piccadily, don't be rash and calm down. You really don't want to mess with these—"

"I AM CALM. I WANT THAT BRAT DEAD AND I WANT HER TO DISAPPEAR NOW!"

"Sasuke, he's threatening my life!" Sakura wailed in mock hysterics.

"What can I do, Ojou-san? I am but a mere butler who lives to serve his mistress…"

Mr. Piccadily whipped out his cell phone. "SHOOT THAT BRAT NOW!"

"Piccadily, DON'T!"

It happened so fast, the man in the fedora could hardly believe his eyes. In that brief space in time, the sniper across the street took aim for Haruno Sakura's pretty pink head and the bullet broke through his glass window. Before the bullet met its mark, Uchiha Sasuke pulled her behind him and dropped Piccadily to the floor with a well-timed sweep underneath the irate Italian's legs.

"You're pathetic."

The glitz and glimmer vanished from Haruno Sakura's voice as she approached her would-be killer with the icy eyes of someone all too used to betrayal.

The Italian howled as Sasuke's heel dug into his shoulder before snapping his collarbone. "Who are you people? You're monsters—all of you!"

The man in the fedora shuddered as the final pieces came together.

Hatake Kakashi.

Uzumaki Naruto.

Sai.

Uchiha Sasuke.

The Inner Circle are here under her command!

Sakura sank down to her knees with all the elegance befitting her station, softly trailing her fingers over the surface of the Glock Sasuke wordlessly handed her. "You haven't figured it out? My name is Haruno Sakura—the girl whose parents you helped murder in the dead of the night and this charming bastard is Uchiha Sasuke, the next leader of the Syndicate and my butler."

BANG!


The pair exited the premises, leaving no hint as to the destruction they left behind in their wake.

"Ne, Sasuke, do you think he'll tell anyone?"

She was, of course, referring to the man in the fedora, the private investigator Morino Idate.

"I doubt it," Sasuke answered. "Shikamaru's had eyes on him since he caught him trespassing on our territory. Morino is smart enough not to blab."

He parked the Mercedes in front of the Haruno manor. Sakura waited for him to open the door before sliding out of her seat.

"Sasuke, come here. I have something to tell you."

The Uchiha hesitated before bending slightly so she could whisper in his ear. Sakura grinned wickedly before she pressed her lips against his cheek and danced up the front steps.

"Thank you for today!"

He stood there, frozen, before his hand flew up to touch the spot where she kissed him. The back of his neck flushed. He turned around to shut the door and nearly jumped out of his skin when he came face to face with the entire household leering at him.

"So. A kiss from Sakura-hime, eh?" Naruto wagged his eyebrows suggestively. "Jii-chan will be pleased to hear you're going through with the arrangement after all."

"Don't be stupid," Sasuke snapped. "I cannot control that child anymore than I can stop Sai from drawing all over himself—"

The chef had the grace to blush.

"—Kakashi from reading porn—"

The steward laughed sheepishly and tucked the bright orange book into his back pocket.

"—or you from being a dumbass."

Naruto bristled. "HEY! I'm not the one who's getting all worked up from a kiss on the cheek from my fiancée!"

SMACK!

"Get back to work," Sasuke hissed one final time before climbing into the Mercedes and parking it in the garage.


The night always brought forth the monsters.

Wordlessly, he handed her the steaming cup of milk and honey. Sakura accepted it with shaking fingers and drank it slowly.

"Is there anything else you need, Ojou-san?"

She set the cup down. "Stop it."

"Stop what, Ojou-san?"

The irritation showed in her eyes. "Stop playing games with me, Sasuke."

"Ojou-san, it is highly improper for a butler to be so familiar with his mistress. People will talk."

"There is no one here, Sasuke," Sakura countered fiercely. "There will never be anyone else in this empty building to tell me what is right and wrong. For once in your goddamn life, stop acting in the roles given to you and be human."

The dim light flickered across his obsidian colored eyes.

"Go to sleep Sakura." He gently pressed on her shoulder and pulled the covers to her chin.

"I'll be here when you wake up."


Author's note:

It was so much fun to write this! Thank you all for reading and reviewing.

Ja ne!
Callista Miralni