AN: Oh Sweet Jesus, I'm ALIVE!
To all my readers, I hope you will accept my dearest most sincere apology for leaving you hanging for so freaking long, waiting for the next chapter. The original file had been completed a year ago, but after many struggles with an ancient computer, I lost what I had written over and over about a dozen times, and after that I honestly lost all motivation I had to keep going.
It was only recently, after getting a new computer, that I logged back in to my account for the first time, and saw all the messages and reviews from everyone that was the kick up the bum that I needed to re-write this chapter and get it back out to you. So, to all of my wonderful reviewers and dear friends who continued to check in, THANK YOU.
Now, enough with the excuses. Here it is, finally!
Much love to you all! Happy 2015!
- Zylis
Rating: M
Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with, nor do I hold any of the rights to the world of Naruto or any of its characters.
No Sere From Spook
Chapter 2 - Damnit Audrey!
A brunette, aged in her early thirties, but looking far more wise and worn, looked up from her computer screen. Her glasses slipped down her nose slightly from the movement. She had the front desk phone still against her ear, but she wasn't speaking. Instead, her mouth was gaping wide open as she watched the door close behind the newcomer.
In an agitated motion, they yanked off the motorcycle helmet that obscured their face and marched up to the receptionist desk.
"What can I do for you, sir?" the woman managed to ask after several moments of uncomfortable silence.
"Hello... Audrey," the handsome man in front of her greeted lowly, tilting his head to see her name badge. "I'm here to make an enquiry."
"Well, if you just take a seat over there, I'll be off the phone in a moment and we can get straight onto that enquiry," Audrey replied, gesturing to the hard wooden seats, strategically placed around an ugly coffee table holding stacks of trash magazines.
The man ignored her and was around the other side of the receptionist desk within seconds, his hand pulling the receiver from Audrey's ear and a finger pressing down on the "Hold" button. He sat against the edge of the desk and covered the emergency call button hidden on the underside of the desk with his hand.
"W-what do you want?"
The man leaned in closer, eyes staring straight into Audrey's own. Without looking, he slid his hand into his pocket and pulled out a thin black leather wallet. He flipped it open to reveal his own identification badge to her.
"I'd like to know why the fuck I was just chased through the streets of my own neighbourhood by four of your squad cars, Audrey?"
"Mr Uchiha?" Audrey gasped out, looking between the dark haired man before her and his photograph on the badge.
"Now, Audrey... Tell me, what the fuck is going on?" Sasuke ground out through gritted teeth as he leaned into to the woman, intimidatingly close.
~::~
"This has got to have been one of the longest fucking days of my life," Kiba groaned as he and Naruto finally stumbled into their apartment room after sixteen hours of non-stop work. They were exhausted, and ready to stretch out on the couch with a beer.
"Ugh, I feel you," Naruto moaned back. "Showers and then beers and more manly Football than we can handle?"
"Sounds like a plan. I'll bring the Pretzels," Kiba grinned.
Without another word, both men disappeared into their own rooms, grabbing towels and toiletries, getting ready for a nice, warm, and incredibly welcome shower.
As Naruto moved under the waterfall spray of warm water he let out a relieved sigh, rubbing at the tense muscles on the back of his neck.
Today had been hard on the blond. He and Kiba had been installing and monitoring systems all day, testing them against some of the greatest hackers in the world, and it was stressful trying to shut the hacker tests out while their client breathed down their necks, watching their every move and waiting for a stuff up.
It didn't help that Naruto was starting to feel a little lonely not sharing his bed with Sasuke Uchiha every couple of nights. It also didn't help that he hadn't had the chance to properly satiate his lust and need for the more physical form of contact with the other man for far too long now.
This mission was getting tedious.
And, as much as Naruto hated to admit it, he really missed Sasuke. To the point where he continuously played the one loop of their final morning before Naruto had left for this mission over and over in his mind when he had a moment to himself. God... He was acting like such a teenager!
But, before he could even think to stop himself, Naruto's eyes slid closed and he relaxed against the shower wall, already losing himself in the memory that now seemed so distant.
"Do you want to make this shit anymore cliché?" Sasuke grunted as he wandered into the kitchen, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
"What do you mean?" Naruto asked after taking a gulp of orange juice from the glass beside him.
"You standing in front of my stove, cooking me breakfast, half-naked. That's what I mean," Sasuke replied, moving to stand beside Naruto, appreciating the blond dressed in only his boxers before glancing down at the frying pan in front of them.
"You're also cooking bacon?"
"Yep, with much regret. I'm fucking covered in grease burns from the splatters."
"That's probably why most people cook clothed," Sasuke yawned. "Want help?"
"Don't even think about it."
Sasuke held up his hands in defeat before heading over to his beloved espresso machine and making himself a damn good coffee. He turned around to find that Naruto was done cooking and was seated at the kitchen island, waiting for Sasuke to join him to eat.
Sasuke smirked, shaking his head as he slid into his seat only to find that his two sunnyside-up eggs and rashers of bacon were shaped into a goofy smiley face.
They dug in, and while the bacon was maybe slightly overdone, Naruto had actually managed to pull together a decent meal without burning Sasuke's apartment down.
They were done eating and their plates were packed in the dishwasher ten minutes later, leaving both of them standing next to the appliance in the kitchen, glancing at the clock.
"I have to meet Kiba at the airport in a bit over an hour," Naruto sighed.
"I'll help you with your last bit of packing and drive you," Sasuke replied.
Once they arrived at Naruto's it really didn't take long for Naruto to finish packing, Sasuke grabbing the necessities here and there as he spotted them in Naruto's bathroom and helping the blond pack them away quickly.
While Naruto finished up, Sasuke took it upon himself to put the international SIM card in to the blond's phone for him, and Sasuke froze as he clicked the cover back into place.
They were acting like Sasuke's parents before they left for trips.
Like old married people...
'Nope, fuck no,' Sasuke thought, striding into Naruto's bedroom and pushing his boyfriend down onto his bed.
"Sasuke, what the heck?" Naruto gasped. His skin tingled and burned as he felt Sasuke's lips trailing across his neck and a leg pressing up in between his own. Moving and gyrating against him.
"Oh fuck, come on Sasuke, I have to be at the airport in like twenty fucking minutes!" Naruto whined.
"Fine," Sasuke breathed. "But we aren't those old married people."
"Okay?" Naruto replied, completely confused.
With that, Sasuke was off him, breathing slightly harder than before, but getting a move on just the same. He grabbed Naruto's luggage bag and taking it down to his own car. It wasn't often that Sasuke used his car, but this was one of those rare occasions the sleek BMW made it out of the garage.
Naruto in the car ready to go a few minutes later, and Sasuke pulled away from Naruto's home with a sigh.
"Definitely got everything?"
"Yup. You ever been to Paris?"
"Yeah, my parents have a branch there."
"Is it nice?"
"You're going to love it."
Naruto grinned.
Traffic had fortunately been in their favour, and Sasuke pulled up at the airport with a couple of minutes to spare before Naruto would need to head off with Kiba.
"Thanks for driving me!"
"You're welcome," Sasuke murmured. "Um... Naruto, look I was wondering..."
"Sasuke Uchiha, are you blushing?"
"Shut up, Uzumaki! I'm trying to ask you something."
Naruto waited patiently, in silence.
"Look, once you're back... We've decided to keep going with this and it's the most serious... Ugh, did you want to meet my parents?" Sasuke managed to blurt out finally.
Naruto stared at him wide-eyed.
"You want me to meet the Mr and Mrs Uchiha?"
"Yes. My Mother is dying to meet you. And... I want you to meet them. I want them to get to know you."
"You bet your ass I want to meet your family, Sasuke. Tell your Mother to get the old baby photos ready, because I'm in!" Naruto said, one of the widest smiles Sasuke had ever seen splitting across his face.
"Okay," Sasuke said, feeling relieved at the blond's acceptance. A small, crooked smile split across his own lips.
There was a tap on the car window and they looked up to see Kiba waving.
"I'd better get going..." Naruto said after returning the wave. He leaned in and pressed a simple, loving kiss to Sasuke's lips.
"Be careful," Sasuke whispered as Naruto pulled away.
The blond nodded before getting out of the car.
"Oi, we watching the NFL or what, man!"
Naruto stood up quickly at the sound of Kiba's yell and quickly finished scrubbing himself off.
"Yeah man, be out in a second."
"All good, I had a sneaky wank too man, I get it."
"It's not sneaky if you tell me about it!" Naruto shook his head as he exited the shower, drying himself off.
Naruto still couldn't help but grin after he finished chucking on his clothes. No one had ever asked him to meet their parents before.
It made Naruto's heart flutter.
~::~
Sakura made her way through the halls of the office, her heels clicking as she made her way onto the tiles of the office kitchen. She ducked her head around the corner of the doorway and breathed a sigh of relief.
"Just who I was looking for," Sakura said with a smile.
"Hand me one more file to read over today and I'm going to quit," Shikamaru drawled, not even looking up from the cup of coffee he nursed between his two hands.
"I'm not here to give you a file. I was wondering if you've heard from Sasuke at all today? He should have been in over two hours ago."
"Haven't seen him."
"That asshole has security tapes to watch for the Blue Specs mission," Sakura sighed, hands clenching the files in her arm that little bit tighter out of annoyance.
"He'll turn up eventually," Shikamaru shrugged. There was a moment of silence before Shikamaru pushed himself up off of the bench and carried his coffee back out in the direction of his office filled with all sorts of technological gadgets, constantly beeping and whirring.
"Uchiha, if you're have some Skype sex with Naruto, I'm going to kill you," Sakura muttered under her breath before continuing to make her way through the office.
She stopped by her desk to double check Sasuke hadn't left any phone messages before continuing on to Kakashi's office. She didn't even bother going in, she could hear the screams of ecstasy of actors in one of his all too regularly watched pornos playing, even through the other side of the office door.
"Ugh, control your fucking urges, old man!" Sakura shouted against the wood of the door before stomping away.
Within about twelve paces Sakura was at Hinata's desk. The quiet girl looked up at Sakura's arrival, her hands still busily pruning and watering the few plants she had around her desk area.
"Good Morning, Sakura. How are you this morning?"
"I have been worse. How are you? Have you heard from Kiba?"
"I'm fine. He called earlier today. He and Naruto are finishing up the larger components of the operation today, so he said they may even be home earlier than expected."
"Oh, that's exciting! You miss him?"
Hinata's cheeks flushed bright red before nodding slowly.
"It's okay to miss him Hinata. I think you're doing a better job at handling it than the Ice Prince is," Sakura stated with a wink.
"Sasuke does seem even more on edge."
"And, is turning into the most unreliable shit. He hasn't even turned up for work this morning and we have so much to do."
"That isn't like him at all... Has anyone managed to contact him?"
"Nope, we got nothing. Nada, zip, zero. No answers to landlines, mobiles, social media, nothing."
"Perhaps we should try shining the bat symbol into the night sky," Hinata giggled.
"I'm sorry, did you, cute, sweet, darling Hinata just make a joke?" Sakura grinned, before laughing with her.
"Sakura!"
The stern call of her name from Tsunade's office abruptly stopped the laughter that the two younger women were sharing, and Sakura raised an eyebrow in the direction of Tsunade's call and shared a concerned glance with Hinata before making her way down the hall.
"You wanted to see me?" Sakura asked, knocking on the side of the door frame.
"Have you checked your phone?"
"Sasuke hasn't contacted me, I checked jus-"
"This isn't Sasuke," Tsunade stated, cutting her off. "Anything?"
"A text message from an unknown number," Sakura replied, raising her eyes to meet Tsunade's own worried pair as she opened the message.
"It's the letter 'E'?" Sakura said, confused as she stared down at her phone screen.
"Call Shikamaru, Sai and Hinata in here. I'll contact Iruka and Kakashi," Tsunade said, calmly. Sakura nodded, jogging out the room, impressively steady in her high heels, as Tsunade called the direct line to Kakashi's office.
"In here, now," she muttered into the receiver, before dropping it back down onto the holder.
Within a minute, everyone was lined up in front of Tsunade's desk, their phones already raised, showing their boss the messages they had each received.
"It's a code for all of us," Tsunade stated as she scrutinised each of the letters. "Hinata, contact Kiba and Naruto immediately, asked if they have received anything while on overseas roaming."
Hinata nodded, dialling Kiba's number and stepping out of the room.
"Hina?"
"I'm sorry if I woke you, Kiba?" Hinata said, a smile widening across her face at the sound of her boyfriends voice, slightly delayed as it travelled down the line.
"Don't worry, we weren't sleeping! We're just having a beer and catching up on the NFL that we missed during the day."
As if on cue, Naruto was cheering and hooting at a touchdown in the background.
"Hang on, I'll go to the other room so I can hear you better," Kiba said. "Alright, I'm good!"
"Thank you. Okay, this is urgent, Kiba. Have you or Naruto received an anonymous text message today?"
"Um... Hold on a moment... Yeah, I have got one actually, weird."
"What does it say?" Hinata asked, gripping the phone tighter.
"It's just the letter 'T'..."
"What about Naruto?" Hinata asked, the urgency in her voice a little more noticeable to Kiba now.
"I'll ask," Kiba replied. There was a few moments of shuffling on the line before he was back again.
"He's got one with a capital 'A'."
"Thank you," Hinata replied, biting her lip in confusion of the whole situation.
"What's going on, Hinata?"
It was Naruto's voice on the end of the line now, his voice coming from a little further away than Kiba's. Obviously he was standing off to the side now while Hinata and Kiba spoke.
"We don't know exactly. We all seem to be getting sent a letter, we're going to put them all together. Once we have whatever it says worked out, I'll let you know."
"Hinata... Can I talk to Sasuke for a minute?"
"H-he hasn't been in the office all morning. No one has been able to contact him at all either," Hinata replied. Kiba relayed the message to the blond man and Hinata could hear his mutter of 'fuck' somewhere in the background.
"Naruto, we'll work this out. I have to get back to the meeting, but I will keep trying to contact Sasuke. And, we will call you guys as soon as we have anything."
"Alright, we'll be waiting. Stay safe," Kiba replied, and both he and Hinata ended the call a moment later.
Hinata slipped back into Tsunade's office, and everyone looked over at her expectantly.
"They both got one. An 'A' and a 'T'," Hinata said, and Tsunade nodded, quickly scrawling the letters on the page.
"And yours, Sai?"
"It's a dash and an 'O'," the stoic man replied, exchanging a glance with Sakura.
Shikamaru shifted in his seat, turning to get a better view of the layout of words in front of him. He sat in silence for a moment before quickly grabbing the pen and rearranging and rewriting the letters.
"All of the letters go together to create a word," Shikamaru explained.
"Tsunade' had a 'C', Hinata an 'E', Iruka an 'M', Sakura an 'E', Kakashi had another 'C', Naruto an 'A', Kiba had a 'T', my letter 'K, and finally, Sai had the dash and 'O',"Shikamaru continued.
"All of them are fitting together to make this."
He turned the paper so that everyone else was able to see what he had written.
C ECKMATE-O
"And, I bet you my next pay check, Uchiha received a message with the letter 'H'."
Tsunade and Shikamaru shared a look for a moment as he looked up from the code before she murmured a 'shit' under her breath.
"Turn on the television, put it on the news," she commanded.
Kakashi grabbed the remote and quickly flicked on the twenty-four hour news channel.
"Oh fuck," Iruka groaned, as Hinata and Sakura gasped beside him.
"This is not good," Sai muttered.
"Someone contact Naruto and Kiba, now," Kakashi ordered.
Sakura had her phone out and was dialling within seconds.
"No need," Tsunade said, pointing down at the flashing call light on her office phone.
"Naruto," Tsunade greeted softly, putting the call on speakerphone.
"It's made it onto the news here too. I'm coming home," Naruto stated.
"Naruto, that's exactly what he wants you to do," Sakura warned.
"We can protect him better with our resources here though. We can't send a full squad out to Paris, and we can't leave Naruto and Kiba alone in Paris while all this unfolds," Iruka reasoned.
"What about-"
"It doesn't matter what you say right now, guys. You need me for the trial now," Naruto interrupted.
"We'll be on the next plane home," Kiba added.
"We'll see you in a few hours then," Tsunade replied. The line went dead.
"How'd Orochimaru manage to pull this one off? The slimy son of a bitch," Sakura growled, glancing down at the '-O' written at the end of the code.
"Shikamaru, I want you to look into what hacking system he used to get a hold of our phone numbers," Tsunade said, staring at her team.
"Kakashi, you are to help Shikamaru, and pick up Kiba and Naruto at the airport, fill them in on anything they need to know. Hinata, Sakura and Sai, I want you to get us onto the best lawyers we have available. I will be calling Itachi," Tsunade continued.
Everyone nodded, and with that, filed out the room to begin working on their own duties. Tsunade turned slowly in her chair and stared at the television screen across the room.
Sasuke's dark, chilling eyes stared back out at her. His hands in cuffs as he was led down the hall by a group of Police.
'Checkmate indeed, Orochimaru. You got us this round,' Tsunade thought to herself before standing from her desk.
This was her round now.