Beta: Blood Zephyr

Chapter 3

Sasuke stood in Sakura's doorway, completely astounded. Kuwait was far, yes (he was reasonably certain that it was on the other side of the planet), but it wasn't just that. It was that he'd hurt Naruto enough to cause the man to move so far. It made him feel like throwing up, just as he had when-

Focus.

"When is he coming back?" Sasuke blocked Sakura from closing the door on him.

"I don't know," she sniffed.

"He must have said something… you have to be in contact with him some kind of way."

"I won't be sharing that information with you." She leaned all her weight on the door, grunting as she tried to close it.

Sasuke kept his palm on the door, effectively holding it open as he thought. He needed to get in contact with Naruto. He'd tried to look the man's number up on the internet, but the spook had gotten there first, wiping Naruto's information from the entire World Wide Web. It was more imperative than ever that he apologize, but it looked like if he wanted to get to Naruto he'd have to get through the sprite and her miniature army first. He dropped his gaze down to where she was furiously trying to close her door. Honestly, the woman was less than his leg.

"Why do you hate me so much," he asked curiously.

Sakura gave up and flounced into her apartment. Sasuke was left to follow her, which he did, closing her door behind himself. He viewed the many frills, floral patterns, knickknacks and the abundance of the color pink. He shuddered. Spotting a pure white couch, he went and sat on it. Sakura busied herself with cleaning her already clean sitting room as she ranted.

"Because he's loved you so much, for so long, and all you've done is ignore him. Which made him ignore other people around him who loved him back. All he saw was you. And you," Sakura fumed as she pointed at him with her dust rag, "couldn't have cared less. He found you down and distraught and tried to help you. You took advantage of him. That's why I hate you, you selfish pig!" She scrubbed mightily at a spotless end table.

"But, I'm sorry," Sasuke said plaintively. He didn't dare try to be charming or smile the smile that had driven female suspects to giving themselves up into his custody, but he did try to convey how sincere he was. "I honestly thought what we did that night was what he wanted. I never meant to hurt him."

Sakura looked at him. She was a compassionate and romantic soul by nature, and felt herself leaning towards believing him. "Why did you give him that money? Why did you make it seem like he was nothing but some street hooker with no feelings?"

Sasuke felt his face heating up. He looked down at his clasped hands. "I just thought… I don't know what I thought. I guess it was my way of apologizing for being such a prick. For fu- I mean for using him to make myself feel better. Even though I thought it was what he was offering, I felt… I don't know, guilty I guess? I wasn't thinking. It's no excuse. I just want to apologize to him and make sure he understands how sorry I am."

Sakura twisted the rag in her hands. She held his gaze and decided that he was sort of handsome. A little. But she wouldn't betray her friend. "I'm sorry, Sasuke, but if he wanted you to know how to contact him, he'd contact you himself. He has your phone numbers memorized. He knows what precinct you work out of, and your squad car number and a bunch of other things. I won't go behind his back and give the person who hurt him so much access to him. He's healing. It's not just what you did so much as it is realizing you'll never see him as anything worth acknowledging. He needs time. He'll come back when he's ready. In the meantime, I'm sorry, but I can't help you."

Sasuke stood as she went to her door and held it open for him. He paused on the threshold, but could think of nothing to say.

He hit the street, got in his car, and drove down to the station. Sitting at his computer there, he cracked his knuckles.

Alrighty, then. If the sprite wouldn't help him then he would just have to find another way.

Time to take on the spook.

Sasuke typed rapidly, setting up computer searches. He also accessed the department's Identi-kit program. He began a composite sketch of the spook as he remembered him.

Sasuke had it figured out. Sakura had that dyke friend of hers. The dyke friend was the link to the spook. After all, the spook had put the gun to his head only after Sasuke had hit the dyke. And the spook had gone to the trouble of coming down to Sasuke's apartment to leave a note telling him to stop looking for him and the dyke, a stunt no doubt brought on by the dyke's missing wallet. It thereby followed that the dyke was someone important to the spook. To get to the spook, he'd have to get to the dyke.

And to do that, Sasuke planned on investigating Detective Yamanaka.

He was almost positive the man was the dyke's relative in some way. His age made it possible that he was even the dyke's father. No two people could look so alike without there being blood involved. As in blood relations. Sasuke jotted down the address for Yamanaka then hesitated. If he was the dyke's relative, there was probably no information on the net about him either. The spook would protect that bitch on all sides… but it couldn't hurt to check.

Surprisingly, there was quite a bit of information regarding Yamanaka. Sasuke scrolled through the files and discovered a missing person's case in the man's past regarding his family. Sasuke noted that the case was labeled inactive. He read the details avidly.

Seemed Yamanaka, his wife, and his two-year-old daughter had taken a vacation down south. They'd been visiting an amusement park down there when their daughter had gone missing. They'd looked for her, reported her, even moved down south temporarily to stay on top of the search. Nothing. No body, no ransom demands, just poof. Kid had disappeared. Ten years after it happened, they decided to try and move on with their lives. They'd come back to New York.

Sasuke was able to pull up information about the wife as well. Apparently she'd had several nervous breakdowns since her daughter had been abducted. Sasuke closed Detective Yamanaka's file and sat staring at the screen. He tapped the mouse idly, thinking of the name of the daughter that had mysteriously vanished.

Yamanaka Ino.

As in Nara Ino.

The photo in the detective's file had shown a grinning toddler with a mop of pale blonde hair and big turquoise eyes. A lot of changes had occurred, but Sasuke would bet his life that the toddler and the dyke were one and the same. And the names matched. If the dyke had been snatched at the age of two, then she had to have met up with the spook at some point after that. Where? And where had she gotten the name Nara?

Nara. Sasuke ran a search on that name, beginning in the last place the toddler had been seen. Almost immediately he hit a match. A couple had reported their seven-year-old son missing from the same amusement park. Couple's name had been Nara. There was no photo or, indeed, any information other than that. The file itself was gone.

Bingo, Sasuke thought with grim pleasure. Those files had been erased, most likely by the spook. Going on pure gut instinct, Sasuke deduced that the only reason the spook would do that was because he was the son that had been abducted. His last name had to be Nara.

It required some thought. While he ran a search on Neji, Sasuke did just that.

Both kids had been abducted from the same location. It stood to reason that whoever had done the abducting probably used the amusement park to supply himself with victims. Private hunting grounds and such. Which meant the dyke and the spook had likely been plucked by the same person or persons. The dyke and the spook might have met at wherever their abductor had then taken them.

-oOo-

Sasuke closed out his searches when he was done. Armed with his printouts, he got in his squad car and drove to Queens. At the address listed for Neji, he strode up the flowered walkway, and rang the bell.

An ethereally beautiful woman with black hair and Neji's eyes opened the door. Sasuke flashed his badge. The woman recognized him, he could see. He tried not to blush at the videos Yamanaka must have shown her. "The police have already questioned us," she said before Sasuke could speak. "We know how he died. The case is closed."

"I know ma'am," Sasuke said. He used the tone of voice he did when dealing with grief-stricken witnesses. "I'm trying to find someone. This man." He held up the photo he'd printed.

The woman looked at it. "I've never seen him before."

Sasuke nodded at her, trying to gauge if she was lying. He wasn't even sure why he was questioning Neji's relatives about the spook, except that he had a gut feeling that there was some connection he was missing. He felt sure that if he could find this connection, he'd find the spook.

From Yamanaka's files, Sasuke learned that they'd looked up the numbers on Neji's phone. He knew the redhead Akimichi had shown him was named Gaara, but when Yamanaka had gone to Jersey to look up the address listed for that number, they'd run into issues with local police there. Apparently, the individuals who lived at that address were involved in another homicide. A sister was in jail, awaiting trial. Seeing as Neji's death had been ruled a suicide shortly afterward, they hadn't pursued the matter.

The drive to Jersey was made with Konohamaru that evening. His partner had called Sasuke, professing to be bored and in need of a diversion. At learning the progress Sasuke had made he'd begged to tag along. Konohamaru kept up a running stream of chatter during the ride, then suddenly became quiet. Sasuke looked over at him and found the kid staring at him. "What," he said.

"I don't get it," Konohamaru said with a frown.

"Get what?"

"Get you. Why are you going to all this trouble to find your neighbor? I mean you made a mistake. People do that all the time. Why are you so bent on apologizing? You just wasted a perfectly good day off trying to track down your neighbor's number, all so you can apologize for something that wasn't a big deal."

"Not a big deal? The man packed up and moved to Kuwait because of it. I was held at gun point for what you're saying wasn't a big deal."

"And you're going after the shit who held the gun," Konohamaru shot back. "Because you think you have leverage that will make him help you. Obsess much? What is wrong with you? Who does all this just to apologize to someone they've spent a year ignoring?"

Sasuke clenched his hand on the steering wheel. How far would he go to apologize? And since he was contemplating going to the other side of the globe to do just that, could his intentions really be summed up with such a benign word?

The truth was he missed his neighbor. He missed coming home from work, dog tired, and having his neighbor greet him in the hall. Without fail. Naruto had been as permanent a fixture in that hall as the lights were. He missed seeing him in the morning, jogging back to the apartment building as Sasuke left for work. Naruto had always waved jauntily on those morning run-ins. It galled Sasuke now to recall he'd never done more than pull away from the curb as quickly as possible. The man was a nuisance with his constant bids for Sasuke's attention, but now that he was gone, Sasuke really missed him.

He remembered wanting to fuck his neighbor again the very next night. He'd been waylaid the next day by the sprite and her posse. One thing had followed another until he realized he hadn't thought of the night he'd had sex with Naruto since it happened.

The few times Sasuke could remember topping, it had always been with some smooth-cheeked mouth-breather who'd demanded that Sasuke be rough. They took in his size and automatically assumed he fit the stereotype associated with it. It disgusted him to see that he'd gone and behaved exactly like said stereotype when he'd been with Naruto. That wasn't who he was. He could be gentle and considerate and affectionate. Instead, he'd cuffed Naruto to the bed and had satisfied his own lust. He hadn't even asked after Naruto's own pleasure. He really was a selfish pig, just as the sprite had accused.

He had to apologize.

There was also the matter of Naruto loving him. The sprite brought this up time and again. Outside of Neji, no one had ever professed to love Sasuke. High school had been one long orgy of crushes, sex, parties and more sex, but no one had ever said they loved him. Except Neji. And that had been a lie.

Why did Naruto love him? Especially since he had never spoken to his neighbor beyond a few sentences that night? What did the man see in him? As he parked in front of a seedy apartment complex, Sasuke felt a thread of anxiety. He had to find Naruto and apologize before it was too late.

Before Naruto's feelings changed and Sasuke missed out completely on knowing what it was like to be loved.

He pounded on the door listed as Gaara's residence, but there was no answer. The super, when questioned, informed Sasuke that the boy had a habit of staying out late. Sasuke left and parked across the street, in almost the exact spot Neji had used when doing the exact same thing. Konohamaru went to the corner store to get Gogurts. When he came back, he handed Sasuke a bag. Sasuke looked in and found a small mountain of coffee cakes and three cans of Coke.

"They didn't have any Malta," his partner said sheepishly.

Four hours later, Sasuke was the only one awake when Gaara came jogging back to the building. Sasuke nudged Konohamaru as he got out of his vehicle.

They caught up to Gaara at the elevator. He looked at them curiously, then with some trepidation as they flashed their badges. They were off-duty, in casual clothes, but a cop was a cop to Gaara. Sasuke saw this and decided to go with the swift and direct approach. He held the picture of the spook close to Gaara's eyes, invading his personal space. "We're looking for this man. Do you know him?"

The recognition in Gaara's eyes wasn't even hidden. Sasuke felt a savage jump of accomplishment in his belly.

-oOo-

Earlier today, after Queens, he'd sent Konohamaru into Jim's Gym with a photo of the spook. "Look for a guy with a scar through his right eyebrow," Sasuke had said. "I made him as someone who'd respond to your type when I was in there last."

"My type?" Konohamaru had asked. In answer, Sasuke had only looked his partner up and down. Konohamaru had gotten the point: He was to locate some gay man with a scar who would take Konohamaru for family. "I really look gay?"

"No, but I saw him checking out the young ones in there. He seems to like the boyish type. You can act like it. Now, move."

Konohamaru had gone in and turned on the charm once he'd identified his mark. The man did indeed warm up to Konohamaru, saying of course he knew the spook. He was Ino's room mate, went by the name Shikamaru, or so they'd heard Ino refer to him as. The spook had paid them all not to answer questions if one big mean cop had come in, but seeing as it was only little ole Konohamaru, who had never heard of any big mean cop… The man had smiled at Konohamaru then.

The rookie cop, playing his part well, ducked his head and blushed. He allowed the big guy to rest a hand on his knee, squeezing suggestively. "What else can you tell me about Shikamaru?"

"Nothing, really," the big man shrugged. "He comes in here and watches our Ino sometimes. And sometimes some kid comes in here and watches him."

"A kid?"

"Yeah. Red hair, weird tattoo. Say, you free for dinner some time?"

Konohamaru had come back to the car where Sasuke was sitting and fixed him with a glare. "You so fucking owe me for that."

"Any luck?"

"Plenty."

They'd found their connection.

-oOo-

And now, here he was, with Gaara's wide green eyes staring at Shikamaru's face.

"Is he in trouble?" Gaara asked nervously.

"I'll take that as a yes to my question," Sasuke said aggressively. "Where can I find him?"

When Gaara hesitated, Konohamaru stepped in, drawing the kid's focus on him. "We just need to ask him a few questions. No one's in trouble."

Gaara swallowed. He gave them an address that wasn't too far from where they were standing.

A tight smile stayed on Sasuke's lips as he pulled up to the rambling three-story house. Konohamaru clapped him on the shoulder. "You really are an excellent detective, you know. You should pass the exam with flying colors."

"One day I plan to," Sasuke quipped as he stalked into the open driveway, found a back door, and rapped on it smartly.

The spook himself answered. His eyes widened the tiniest bit at seeing Sasuke. "Nara Shikamaru?" Sasuke said pleasantly. "I believe I have an offer you might want to hear."

-oOo-

Konohamaru looked from Shikamaru to his partner. Sasuke gazed at his fingernails intently, waiting for an answer. Shikamaru stared at the information in the files Sasuke had handed him. They were all sitting around in the sparsely furnished living room. Finally Shikamaru picked up his head.

"All you've said is that you've found my room mate's father. You've yet to tell me why you're giving me this information."

Sasuke looked up and fixed an expression on his face that Konohamaru recognized as predatory. He realized that Sasuke expected Shikamaru to refuse to help him.

"I want your help finding my neighbor," Sasuke said.

"Okay."

Sasuke and Konohamaru blinked. "Okay?" Sasuke questioned in surprise. "That's it? You don't care why I want to find him or plan to try and stop me?"

Shikamaru pulled a strange phone out of his pocket as he answered. "I only approached you because my room mate asked me to. As far as I'm concerned, that job is done. What beef you have with your neighbor isn't my business and I couldn't care less. But finding her father…" Shikamaru paused as he read information he pulled up using the internet features on his phone. He looked up at Sasuke. "You don't know how much you've given her. I've been trying to find out Ino's true identity for years. If all you want in return is some info on some guy I've never met, I'll consider it a small way to repay you. Right now you could ask me for anything."

Sasuke caught the phone as Shikamaru tossed it to him. He read the data there, memorized it. Then he looked up, curious. "Anything?" He threw the phone back.

Shikamaru nodded. "Anything."

Sasuke considered it. "There's this detective's exam I keep failing, even though I know I've passed it each time I've taken it…"

Shikamaru needed no further info. He got to work on his phone.

A cab dropped Sasuke off at JFK airport a week later. Shikamaru had offered to obtain a first-class seat for him free of charge, as well as five-star hotel accommodations in Kuwait, and a chauffer driven BMW for the duration of his stay. Konohamaru had screamed at him to take the deal, but Sasuke had refused. "It's enough he found out that Deidara was doctoring my exams to fail me. I have a real shot at making detective now that he's been suspended."

He called his brother from the airport, after he'd checked in. Itachi admonished him to be safe, to not drink the water in Kuwait, and to wear lots of sunscreen.

"I will," Sasuke said. "Love you, bro." He hung up.

"Qatar Airways, flight 804, now boarding from gate six," A robotic female voice announced.

Sasuke grabbed his carry-on and stood nervously in line.