Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. If I did, Sasuke would be bastardy in the good way, and not in the way where he runs off to a paedophile and makes my sister phone me up at three in the morning to scream about it. Fangirls. You amuse me.

Hear Me Out

'Depart from evil, and do good. Seek peace, and pursue it.' - Jewish Holy Scripture Psalm 34:14

Henry Patrowski was a good man. He went to church two times a week, didn't drink, smoke or do drugs. When he was younger, he didn't look up girl's skirts (well, not after Mary-Ann hit him that one time) or pull the wings off of flies - in fact, he cried at documentaries of wild animals. Apart from that one August day when he jumped off the roof of the garage, sure in the belief he could fly, he was a steady, sturdy man.

And when he left school, this didn't change. He got himself a steady job, then took a risk and bought a car dealership when he was twenty and his grandma died, leaving him a small fortune. He was handsome, rich and drove a foreign car. Henry was the kind of man that mothers told their daughters to catch, and daughters passed up for the 'bad boys'.

All in all, Henry lived a good life. He was forty-two, had a wife and three kids, lived a cookie-cutter neighbourhood and paid his taxes on time. Apart from when his wife was giving birth to their second child, he had never run a red light, let alone committed any crimes.

So really, there was no good reason to find him stone cold dead on a warehouse floor, a 2mm bullet hole through his head.

"All that shimmers in this world is sure to fade…away…again." Steel surfaces winked as the fluorescent lighting streamed down onto the city's Crime Lab. Various machines hummed, blinked and growled. Sasuke was in the middle of replicating DNA from chewing gum using PCR when his beeper went off. He sighed, pushed his black-rimmed glasses higher with one digit, and then checked the display. A murder? He frowned, raised an eyebrow, then continued with the procedure. Another day, another crime…It wasn't that surprising. He had a lot of work to do before the next lot of DNA came in, and he still had that appointment to go to later. Turning up Fuel, he walked down between two white pristine counters that glinted in the bright lighting, and plucked the slab gel from the cupboard. For now, he'd just focus on the science in front of him. It was safer, anyway.

Minneapolis was one of those cities that held her skirts high above the mud and filth, with a wrinkle of her dainty nose. It had an underbelly - what American city didn't? - with the hookers, the johns, the high school kids cruising around late at night with music blaring, high on E, but Minneapolis was trying her damnedest to shame these people into turning themselves around. Naruto thought it was one of the only places left in the world where shame was thought of as the Cure All, and the weather was the hot topic of the day. It was in the old industrial district, where the warehouses lined cobbled streets dotted with a light drizzle, that Henry was found. The old warehouses lately had been selling up, remodelled as fancy little restaurants or eateries, the prissy little city getting her own way yet again. Detective Uzumaki wondered what happened to the men whose lives had depended upon the hard labour.

It was a dreary day, the grey surroundings better suited for London than anywhere else. A small crowd, not offput by the rain, crowded around the opening of the warehouse. Murder was big news in this town, and officers had already been put out front to deal with the gawkers. Bright yellow tape strung around the open entrance to the warehouse shouted 'CRIME HERE' and made Naruto think of 'Big Yellow Taxi'. He headed towards a young man with a baby face and blue eyes, fresh as a nickel and twice as shiny. Naruto reckoned he still spit-shined his shoes. Give that a year, and he'll be just like the rest of us. Reaching into the pocket of his black felt coat, he pulled out his badge and flashed it to the officer. His eyes flicked to it, then back to Naruto's eyes.

" Morning Detective Uzumaki." His face was grim, slightly pale, and Naruto wondered if it was his first murder scene. He was handling it better than Naruto had, who, upon seeing the bloated face of the jogger who'd fallen in the Mississippi River and never got back out, had puked three times in a row 'til his throat was raw and bloody. Kiba had never let him live it down.

" Morning. Detective Inuzuka here?"

" Inuzuka...guy with red markings on his face, spiky hair?" Naruto nodded, silently congratulating the guy for withholding some of the more common adjectives used to describe his partner, such as 'loudmouth' 'rude' and 'slightly paunchy'. The kid would make a good cop, he decided, and if he kept the snappy dressing up, he and his diplomatic skills could go all the way to chief of police.

" He and some of the guys went to question the owners of the other warehouses, and some joggers."

" Who found the body?" Naruto had looked around earlier, and had been highly suspicious upon seeing no barfing kid or shock-stricken jogger.

" Cops did, answering an anonymous call about a disturbance." Naruto nodded, thanked him cheerlessly.

He ducked under the yellow tape, tried thinking of anything but the tune to 'Big Yellow Taxi'. Damn you, Jonie Mitchell, damn you. Hands in his pockets in an attempt to fend off the cold, he examined the warehouse. Looked like a typical abandoned warehouse to him - smashed out windows, used johnnies on the floor and those weird patches of random water that he'd never found a source for but nevertheless haunted every warehouse he'd ever been in. Which had been quite a few. Damn murderers are running out of imagination.

He nodded to Kakashi, the head of the CSIs, as he chatted to one of the younger CSIs, lecturing her about something or another. Kakashi wielded a cottonbud at the poor girl, and Naruto understood. Some geek in the forensics labs had been moaning about the evidence collections, complaining that it took too long trying to separate the DNA from the fibres. He'd mentioned an alternative, but the kids had been taught to use cottonbuds, and damn if that college education was going to waste.

Naruto's coat banged against his legs as he walked towards Sarutobi. The old man was rubbing the small of his back with a wrinkled, liver-spotted hand as two men from the coroner's department shifted a black bag containing the body of Patrowski onto a stretcher. At the sound of approaching footsteps, the old man turned and gave a small smile to one of the few people he could honestly say he loved like a son. Looking at him now, with his brow furrowed in thought and his blue eyes stormy, it was hard to imagine him as a young, sunny blonde with the widest eyes Sarutobi had ever seen and hair like sunlight. The kid had lived on the streets, living a not-so-crime-free life for the first fifteen years of his life, and so had spent a lot of time at the precinct. A lot of the guys there had grown attached to the little fellow and none of them had been surprised to see him enter law enforcement.

" Hey, Naruto." The old man's voice was warm and crinkly, like parchment read by candlelight, and Naruto thought it was alien in the warehouse. He smiled back nevertheless.

" Hey, old man. They pull you away from your bingo game?" He grinned.

" Watch your tongue, you." They both winced as one of the young men lost their grip and Henry Patrowski's body fell to the floor with a sickening mix of thump and crunch. The clumsy young man looked up at Sarutobi with a sheepish face and hurriedly picked up the corner again, the two men moving with renewed haste. A harsh grating sound echoed and bounced from one grey wall to another as the boys zipped the black bag shut, and started rolling the cart outside.

" What's your diagnosis, Doctor?" Naruto asked, looking sideways at the pathologist.

" If you'd been here earlier, you would've been able to hear it with your partner. He was worried sick you know, but don't tell him I told you." The man's voice was scolding, and Naruto again wondered why it sounded so weird here. The man had been doing these kind of scenes since before Naruto was born, and yet he still didn't fit there. The man sighed, and started talking again, having received nothing but a smirk from Naruto. " Tiny hole. Very clean. Either this guy was shot by a professional, or it was an incredibly lucky shot. Or unlucky, as the case may be."

" Twenty-two?"

" Ask the guys in forensics. But it's very likely, yes."

Naruto sighed, rocked back on the balls of his feet. " Personal effects?"

" The man's name was Henry Patrowski, 42, married and lives in a good neighbourhood. My sister lives near there." At Naruto's slightly questioning look, the old man explained himself. " Wallet in his pocket, driving license. Whoever killed him didn't take pains to cover up his identity."

Naruto sighed again. " Doesn't fill me with a lot of confidence." Sarutobi looked sharply at the boy, suddenly noting his down attitude. Maybe homicide wasn't right for him, after all..." If they left that, then there's a good chance the perp's not even connected with the victim. Another dead-end murder, no doubt. And now we have to go deal with the widow." Ah. " I'll go find Kiba."

" This one world vision turns us into compromise. What good's religion, when it's each other we despise?"

It was four hours later when Kakashi poked his head in through the glass doors of Sasuke's lab, and smiled. " Yoohoo, Sasuke." Sasuke looked over, then looked back at his work dismissively. The older man sauntered into the lab, smelling of corpse, cold and Channel no.5. Sasuke rolled his eyes.

" Getting up close and personal to the new kids again, Kakashi?" He'd seen the blonde girl, looking pink, pretty and flushed with the joy of a new job. He'd steered clear.

" Well, you know, not all of us can be unsociable bastards like yourself." The masked man chucked some brown bags on the table, their tops marked with the red tape, sealed. " I want these to be your top priority."

Sasuke sighed, rolled his shoulders as he concentrated on separating DNA from cotton fibres. " I'll get there when I get there, Kakashi." Brian Molko told Kakashi to dry his eyes, and Sasuke moved to another counter. He didn't even spare the brown bags a glance.

" Yeah. Just make sure 'there' is less than two hours into the future. I've a feeling this case is going to blow wide open." Kakashi's voice was deceptively lazy. Sasuke had long been of the opinion that Kakashi tried to make himself a contradiction - a lazy appearance, a soft drawl, but razor sharp wit and a work ethic that left others gasping. Sasuke didn't mind much. The fast pace of the labs suited him, and Kakashi asked no questions. No one asked questions here.

The car door of the five year old Sedan slammed shut, and both men left out a deep breath they'd been holding. The air was subdued. Kiba leant back, his eyes painful to look at. Naruto stared out the window for a few minutes, then started the car up. There was silence in the car apart from the rumble of the engine, then Kiba spoke up.

" Man, I hate doing that. Every time, they...they..." There was silence once more as Kiba found himself unable to put his feelings into words. Naruto could sympathise. Mrs Patrowski had answered the door with a floral apron and flour dusted on her cheeks. A kid, about two years old, had been cutting cookies out of homemade cookie dough in the kitchen. The house had been a happy, typically suburban house, full of life, laughter and happiness.

They'd destroyed that in the short time it took to say 'We're sorry ma'am, but a body was found with your husband's identification. Could you please come and identify the body?'.

" Go home, Kiba. Hinata's probably still there. Go home, and bring me some of her baking powder biscuits tomorrow, okay?" Naruto's voice was warm and no-nonsense. He hated these days too, but knew it was especially hard on Kiba. Every time he went to deliver the bad news, he saw Hinata there instead of the new widow, and how badly his death would affect the woman he loved.

" Nah, Naruto, this is a lot of work and - " Naruto cut Kiba off.

" Don't be stupid. You won't work properly in this state anyway. I'll send some of the boys to talk to his neighbours, get a good look at his personality and who his enemies were. I'll go talk to Sarutobi and Kakashi, and call you if anything comes up. Okay?" There wasn't really any choice in the matter as they pulled up outside Kiba's house. His partner shot Naruto a grateful look and got out of the car. The door was already opening, Hinata's concerned face appearing in the crack of the open door, and Naruto wished there was someone at home to worry about him like that. The rumble of the car vibrated through his thighs as he left the curb.

" All the angels I know put concrete in my veins." Sasuke was staring at the red cloud on a black background.

He'd opened the bags soon after Kakashi left, having finished the DNA sampling and placing it in a DNA profiling program. There were tons of evidence, clothes, the wallet, and the bullet from the head. He'd started on the clothes. Nothing too impressive, lint in the pockets, a stick of gum. And then the card, stuck in the man's breast pocket of his suit jacket.

He'd found it five minutes ago, and hadn't moved from the spot since. Then, with careful movements, so controlled that you could practically see the fear moving them, puppeteering with little strings of pure terror, Sasuke continued his analysis of the evidence.

Naruto rubbed his eyes, took a sip of his black coffee and then turned his attention back to the crime scene photos. Due to his late arrival, he hadn't seen the body, and now he had, he was wishing he hadn't. Henry had been a good looking man, forty-two and only just turning to fat. A testament of a good diet and too many kids' cookies. Sighing, he stood up and headed towards the toilets.

When he came back, feeling better for the quick wash of cold water, he found a beautiful man sitting in his chair, attracting all kinds of surreptitious stares from the cops in the room. God, how Naruto hated beautiful people. This one was twirling black rimmed glasses on his finger as he examined the crime scene photos with a passive face. Naruto wondered if he was human.

He cleared his throat. The black man looked up, and black eyes locked with blue. A rich, smooth timber (dark chocolate, Naruto thought) broke into the moment. " Detective Uzumaki?"

" Who wants to know?" He wondered why his own voice sounded whiny and raspy in comparison.

There was a snort, and a raised eyebrow. " Sasuke Uchiha." Ignoring the way several heads flicked up in response to his answer, he stood up, and offered his hand to Naruto. " I'm the forensic scientist working on the Patrowski case." Naruto took his hand, noticed how it was papery and dry, then asked the question that first popped into his head.

" Akatsuki's Itachi's younger brother?" There was near silence in the surrounding area now.

Another snort, and Sasuke dropped his hand, folded up the glasses and placed them in his pocket. " What brilliant deductions, Uzumaki. You should be a detective with those kind of skills."

" Shut the fuck up Uchiha, we don't want your kind he -" Another cop broke into the tense atmosphere, too many cups of coffee, late nights and years of frustration.

" Shut up, Kankurou." Naruto said. " What do you want, Sasuke?" The muscles in his body were coiled, and he tried to calm himself down with mundane, routine questions, although the situation was anything but. Itachi's younger brother...

" Here." The brunet handed him a polaroid. Naruto took his eyes from Sasuke's long enough to examine it, and when they flicked back up to Sasuke's, surprise and a little fear was evident. " Found it in Patrowski's clothes."

" Patrowski was an Akatsuki hit?" The room increased in tense atmosphere, and Naruto dreaded calling his partner up and telling him.

" No." Naruto's attention rounded on the Uchiha again, who almost winced from the intensity. " It's a copy-cat. There was a long hair found on the clothes, and I managed to get DNA from it. Also, if you examine the crime scene, it's too sloppy to be an Akatsuki. Plus, a warehouse?" Another derisive snort. " Please. They have more imagination than that."

Ignoring the way Sasuke echoed his own thoughts of earlier this morning, Naruto looked back at the photos on his desk, then the one in his hand. " That would mean someone knows about the Akatsuki murders."

There was a slow clap. " Well done, Uzumaki." Sasuke said sarcastically, lowering his hands to his side again.

A burst of anger rocketed through Naruto. " Shut up, Uchiha. For a damn geek, you know a lot about these Akatsuki killings." His voice was hot, his eyes narrowed. The brunet's attitude was finally getting to him.

There was silence, and Naruto watched as Sasuke's eyes darkened and his whole body got tense. When he spoke his voice was clear, and mockingly light. " Of course. Itachi may be an Akatsuki, but he was an Uchiha first." The brunet walked closer, and Naruto almost felt suffocated by the amount of raw power and intense anger he radiated. He plucked the polaroid from Naruto's fingers and walked out the room." Be seeing you, detective."

A/N: Yup, prepare to see my English culture mixing with Kathy Reichs, Patricia Cornwell, and CSI. A change of pace from Tension, but got this in my head and it wouldn't go away. I quite like it.

Songs:

" All that shimmers in this world is sure to fade...away...again" - Shimmer by Fuel. Also called 'So Far Away'.

" This one world vision turns us into compromise. What good's religion when it's each other we despise?" - Soulmate by Placebo.

" All the angels I know out concrete in my veins." - Nothing to Lose by Billy Talent.

Placebo just suit Sasuke.