Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. All rights belong to Masashi Kishimoto
"You have ten seconds," Sakura hissed to Naruto and Sasuke. "Explain to me why I'm here, now."
"But, love–" Madara Uchiha started, studiously ignoring the glare Sakura was aiming his way, "–aren't you glad to see your future husband?"
Somehow, Sakura and the rest of the males in the house had found their way to the living area again. Sakura was sitting on the couch, plastered so tightly against the arm of it so as to put as much space between her and the eldest Uchiha that had somehow squirmed his way into the spot next to her (in fact, Sakura idly remembered hearing the yelp of pain and string of curses behind her as Madara harshly elbowed Shuisi and Hidan in the rush to obtain the spot closest to her).
Sakura ignored him. "Naruto. Sasuke." They both flinched. Both of them had taken posts on the far end of the room, standing against the wall while Naruto shot desperate glances at the hallway leading to the door, no doubt planning his escape if Sakura made a move towards him. "Tell me why I shouldn't leave this house right now."
"Sakura," Sasuke began, somewhat firmly and stoically, and he was proud of himself for keeping his cool and not shaking in fear like the dobe next to him.
If possible, Sakura's glare intensified. "Don't 'Sakura' me, Teme. You two kidnapped me in the middle of the freaking night, crawled through my window, and scared the living shit out of me," Sakura hissed through clenched teeth. "And you two even had keys!"
The room was still and silent.
And Sakura realized her mistake.
"You two have keys to Sakura-chan's apartment," Shisui started, looking at Naruto and Sasuke with a look of both envy and annoyance, "and you didn't share?"
Suddenly Hidan was in her face. "You let those two fuckers into your house whenever they want!?"
Sakura just stared into his violet eyes and blinked lazily. And then she slowly looked around the room at the clustered males. "Unlike you cretins," she began, "I trust Naruto and Sasuke not to rape me in the middle of the night."
"But you let them kidnap you instead," Pein said in his monotone.
Sakura shrugged. "I have to pick and choose my battles with them." She looked back at the two morons in question. "Again," she said, "what in fuck's name am I doing here?"
Hidan groaned somewhere in the background and was dragged further away from Sakura by Deidara and Sasori.
"Um," Naruto began, rubbing the back of his head, "we just saw how tired you've been Sakura-chan."
"You've been walking around like a corpse lately," Sasuke bluntly said.
"I'm always tired. You know what my schedule is like with school and the hospital. And even when you two do kidnap me it's still not to here of all places."
"Ano," Naruto began again and touched his fingers together much like their friend Hinata. "Well, you see . . . there was a bet."
Sakura could feel the vein in her forehead throb. "What bet?"
Naruto visibly flinched back at her tone. Sasuke's reaction was less obvious, but he could feel his throat dry up at the look in her eyes when they met his. He quickly looked away and swallowed thickly.
"Pein proposed a bet about a week ago. He bet the dobe a month's supply of ramen that he could beat him at a game of shogi, but if he won, we'd have to bring you over for a visit."
Sakura's eye twitched. Of course this started because of ramen. Because what else would convince Naruto to sell Sakura's soul to the devil? "And he won." Obviously. She glared over at Pein, who was looking a little too smug for her liking, smirk promptly in place.
She twisted her glare back at Sasuke, who tensed right back up again. "So what about you, Sasuke? What did they bet you?"
Sasuke shifted from foot to foot, looking uncomfortable and mumbling something under his breath.
"We bet him that he couldn't talk to one of his fangirls for more than three minutes, yeah," Deidara said helpfully, grin in place.
Sakura's eyes widened. "What!?" She looked at Sasuke incredulously. This was almost more preposterous than Naruto playing shogi and winning. Against Pein, of all people. "And you agreed?" Out of everything she'd heard so far, this was the most ridiculous. For one, Sasuke avoided his fangirls at all costs. Talking to one was simply out of the question. Sakura idly wondered if Sasuke just ended up walking away from the girl or if he finally snapped from the amount of blubbering and basic fangirling-ness that undoubtedly happened. Maybe he even raised his voice. "Not only that, but how on earth did you think you'd beat Pein at a game of shogi, Naruto!? Even Shikamaru would have trouble!"
"We might have all been a little drunk," Naruto admitted sheepishly.
"A little?" Kisame scoffed. She couldn't blame him. Between the two of them, they could hold the most liquor while the rest of them had a pathetically low tolerance for alcohol.
"Either way," Itachi began, "you're already here. And it was a two hour drive from your apartment if I'm not mistaken, so you might as well stay here for your visit."
Sakura narrowed her eyes. "About that. How is it that all of you are here at the same time?"
They just smiled lecherously at her.
"Fucking perverts," she mumbled under her breath.
Sakura loved Naruto and Sasuke. She really did. She'd do anything for them, like they'd do anything for her, she knew.
But that didn't mean she was blind to their . . . quirks.
For Naruto, it was the moments when he'd say something or do something, and Sakura would have the thought about how when she looked at him, she knew the wheel was turning, but the hamster was dead.
For Sasuke, it was his inability to hold a conversation. Sakura wasn't much of a talker recently, mostly due to the fact that the times she finally got to be around friends, she was utterly exhausted, and her mind was on her next nap and not the conversation at hand. But there were still the simple things, like a Hello and How are you doing that were simply the social norm.
But this was completely lost on Sasuke. Even if he obviously wants to talk about something, or needs something, the most one could hope for on a good day was a Hn.
He didn't do this with Sakura anymore, however. A girl can only take so many Hn's in a lifetime without snapping, and Sakura snapped a while ago. And by that, she meant she beat the utter crap out of the boy. After that, Sasuke – for the most part – attempted to use actual words (even if the first time he did this he had a black eye and cut lip, courtesy of Sakura and her snapping).
Apparently, this was a life changing event, because soon after that happened, Sakura received a tearful phone call from Mikoto asking her if she could just go ahead and marry her son. Or at least into her family in the hopes of curing the men of their aversion to words with more than one syllable.
Maybe that was why Mikoto always brought her up at family dinners.
At the moment, however, Sakura was beginning to wonder how they'd all managed to stay friends for such a long time. Because if these two morons could somehow make a bet with the Akatsuki and the Uchiha family and honest-to-god somehow think they would come out of top - even if they were drunk, because god knows that even the biggest imbecile could only glance at the Akatsuki and the Uchiha family and know their life would be much simpler to never, ever be on their radar - it was a miracle in itself that they weren't all dead yet.
Because the Akatsuki didn't make simple bets. Oh, no. They made life destroying bets.
Sakura wasn't joking when she called them a gang, though they never appreciated her labeling them as such. They were much more sophisticated than any punky little street gang.
No, they were the silent and vicious type. The kind that could wrap an arm around someone's shoulder and talk even the smartest businessman up, make them completely relaxed, then bam. Their wallet's gone, somehow Kakuzu has gotten a hold of all their personal information in the last thirty minutes, they're getting a call from the IRS about their taxes from last year, and so they sit there dumbly, realizing that they even gave some of that information out freely, but just hadn't noticed at the time how truly wrong the whole situation was.
The Akatsuki had a strange obsession with Sakura. Much like with the Uchihas, their obsession began when Deidara got a little too handsy and she'd flipped him over her shoulder.
At the time, Itachi – who'd already meet and begun his obsession with Sakura – had simply stared in the weird way he could. Almost proud, but too prideful to show it. Or any emotion, for that matter.
It was Deidara she'd seen the look on first, the look too much like Madara's after she'd sucker-punched him, the one that said I like BDMS and I've just now realized it and pink is now my favorite color.
It just went downhill from there.
God help her.
Sakura knew she didn't even know half of what the Akatsuki even did. All she knew was the rumors everyone else knew. Even Sasuke, whose brother was in the organization, didn't know any more than the rest of them.
The Uchiha's weren't much better. Born prodigies, all of them. Ridiculously beautiful, dark, twisted men that they were. And that was the odd thing – all the born Uchiha's were male. Not one woman among them. Mikoto had married into the family, like it appeared all the women did.
They were crafty businessmen, ranging from owning multiple spa's and luxury resorts around the world to being police chiefs and detectives to owning corporations.
And then there were their eyes. A strange, unique genetic trait that never skipped a generation, an Uchiha's normal dark eyes would take on hints to full-out blood red hues when feeling extreme emotions.
Sakura had seen a lot of red eyes in her lifetime.
Both the Akatsuki and the Uchiha's were imposing in their own rights, and Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke all knew this very well.
So how, in all-that-is-holy's name, did the two morons think a bet was a good idea?
It was like late middle school and high school all over again, when both Naruto and Sasuke thought they could do whatever they wanted without any repercussions. (Well, okay, so not that much has changed, but they're somewhat better since then.)
Sakura was beginning to re-think saving their asses all those times. Like when Naruto had tasted vodka for the first time, and then vodka mixed in ramen for the first time (ugh), and he thought taking off his shirt and running down the street screaming "WHAT DOES THE FOX SAY? Ring-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding!" was a good idea. And Sakura, being the friend she was, had tackled him mid-run and hog tied him to the couch until his hangover took over.
Or when Sasuke had been accused of being gay, and this had also been during one of the first times he'd ever been drunk, and the guy who'd done the accusing had also been drunk, and, somehow, in-between his fangirls coming to his straight-ness defense, Sasuke had thought it a good idea to begin stripping.
No reason for it whatsoever. Sakura had sat next to him, laughing her ass off still at the gay comment (it had crossed her mind more than once over the years, too) because she knew that Sasuke was very much straight, and she had looked over at him through her tears, and noticed he was very suddenly shirtless and undoing the buckle at his pants.
Now, Sakura was a little tipsy at the time too, so at first, she thought she was hallucinating. But she'd always held her liquor better than her two best friends, and realizing that Sasuke's fanclub had stopped bickering about Sasuke's sexuality and noticed the object of their affections (read: obsession) was suddenly very shirtless and very not-gay, got very, very quiet.
And Sakura had tackled him in much the same fashion as Naruto, and having been straddled over his chest, been forced to threaten calling Itachi to get him to stop trying to slid down his boxers.
Ugh.
Sakura currently held a hand to her forehead, feeling the migraine coming on. The amount and volume of the voices around her weren't doing her any favors.
She took a deep breath, and tried to find reason. "I can't stay here. I don't have any clothes."
Sakura could practically feel half of the men in the room perk up at this.
Her hand involuntarily clenched into a fist.
"Don't be silly, Sakura-chan," Naruto began, looking hopeful for his life now that Sakura wasn't glaring visions of his death into his soul, "the teme and I know what you wear, so we packed you a bag when we . . . uh . . ."
"Kidnapped me," Sakura finished dryly.
"Yeah!" Naruto rubbed the back of his head.
Made sense. They'd done it every other time they'd kidnapped her before. It didn't even bother her so much anymore that this meant they'd scrounged through her underwear drawer and picked and chose what she'd be wearing that week.
She idly wondered at what her life was where she didn't automatically feel inclined to kill them for seeing - and touching - her panties.
"You really should relax more, doll," Sasori purred – literally purred – coming to bend right over Sakura, reaching a hand out to gently trail down her face, light as a feather. "You'll get wrinkles if you don't."
"I'm good," Sakura deadpanned.
Sasori tisked at this and leaned down until his mouth was close enough to graze her ear. "I bet I know a way to help you relax some more." And the bastard trailed his other hand down Sakura's arm.
Her expression didn't change as she slid her foot out to knock his own feet out from under him.
He was caught off-guard but easily caught himself before he stumbled. He was Sasori of the Akatsuki, after all.
Sasori chuckled at her. She just looked at him and raised an eyebrow. "I sincerely doubt that."
Suddenly, Tobi was there in front of her. Again.
"Meanie Sasori said something bad to Sakura-chan again, didn't he?!" There were tears in his eyes. Sakura patted him on the head and gave him a soft smile. Tobi wasn't half bad when he wasn't killing her of suffocation. He was one of the few Akatsuki members she could stand being around for (somewhat) longer periods of time.
A large hand pushed Tobi out of the way, and a new face took up Sakura's personal space. "Sakura, my love, come, let's get you settled, shall we?" Madara purred, tugging on her arm to get her off the couch.
She wasn't having it. "No." She looked at Naruto and Sasuke. "I'm going home, bet or no. I wasn't involved in your bet so I'm not going to be a damn prize for it either."
"About that," Shisui started, smugness lacing his voice. Sakura immediately tensed, already knowing that he was about to say something she really didn't want to hear. "You actually can't. The van Naruto and Sasuke kidnapped you in was a rental, and we already had someone return it."
Sakura narrowed her eyes. "So, what? You're telling me that there are this many people in a house and there's not a single car around? I doubt it."
"Oh, no, we have cars around," Shisui explained. "It's just that we don't particularly want you to leave."
Her eye twitched.
"What Shisui means to say in a less creepy manner," Itachi interupped her thoughts about pummeling that damn smirk off Shisui's face, "is that there's also a storm coming, and we don't want you or the person driving you to get stuck in it."
Damn. Sakura remembered hearing about a storm. And it was more than a two hour drive for her to go home.
Even though Sakura wasn't particularly fond of a lot of the men in the room, she had to admit to herself that staying in the mansion wasn't as unappealing as all that. Mostly because she thought about what awaited her at home. Nothing, that's what. She lived by herself and now had time off. Sure, she could be doing school work and catching up on chores and basically not getting molested by her friend's family and a gang, but at that very moment with Sakura being as tired as she was, it really didn't seem worth the fight.
She could always demand to be taken home when the storm passed, anyways.
But still. Sakura closed her eyes and breathed deep, praying that Naruto and Sasuke had packed her some decent clothes. "Fine," she mumbled, sounding as irritated as she felt. "I'll stay the night. But once the storm passes, I'm going home." With that she glared at Naruto and Sasuke, who both nodded vehemently.
"Since that's settled," Madara clapped his hands together, looking mostly serious. If you weren't counting that deranged glint in his eyes, that was. "I'll show darling Sakura to our room."
"Our room?!" Naruto bellowed. Even Sasuke looked irritated at his uncle. Huh, looked like their protective streak had come back.
Though a bit late, if you asked Sakura.
"SAKURA-CHAN CAN STAY IN TOBI'S ROOM! SLUMBER PARTY!"
"Hell, no! The bitch is sleeping with me!"
"Sakura-chan was kidnapped by me and the teme! So she can stay with us!" She wondered if Naruto was hearing himself and was thinking about what he was saying, but then remembered that the hamster was dead and to just let it go.
Sakura could already see where this was going.
While the men were debating about where Sakura was going to sleep and with whom, Sakura casually stood up and went to find Mikoto. She'd tell her where she could sleep. It was her house, after all. And it wasn't like the three story house had a limited amount of bedrooms.
As Sakura was going up the staircase, she could hear them still bickering and decided that nap was overdue.