A/N: So I haven't proofed this extremely well, so if any of you catch an error, just tell me what paragraph it's in and I'll be sure to fix it up. To all my readers and reviewers, I'm eternally grateful. You guys have become a source of my many smiles, and I'm inclined to believe you guys are better authors then me. You guys make me laugh so hard with one line of text. 10 words and I'll be crying with laughter. But I'm rambling about how awesome you guys are and I really ought to stop.

Without further ado,


"Are you out of your goddamn mind?!"

Gaara's head, while planted firmly in the top of his desk forehead pressing against the case file of some other case he was reading over about 2 days prior, throbbed. That pill bottle in his desk drawer was looking evermore tempting to his pain-addled brain. Which severely annoyed him. So his hand snaked into the drawer and he threw the bottle into the garbage without looking. The clink of plastic against metal twanged loudly through his skull, but he dare not flinch. Otherwise the people standing around his desk would think they were getting through to him.

Cause and effect dictate that for every effect there is a cause, something that came about in order to create the final product. He had to agreed with some principles in life, so Murphy's law, Cause and Effect, and Karma were his top three beliefs. So he created his own little cause and effect chart with a black pen on his notepad while no one looked.

Cause: Sasuke and Hinata getting taken hostage.
Effect: He had a headache.

Cause: Tymura wanted him to walk into a dangerous situation unarmed.
Effect: He had a headache.

Cause: There were several people in his office screaming their lungs out at him.
Effect: He had a headache.

His pen fell to the desk. Slowly he lifted his head, ignoring the way his spikes fell down around his face like a curtain, and looked up. Leaning his head into one hand he made a small waving motion with his hand. Most people went dead silent. Only Naruto had the balls to keep yelling at the top of his lungs. Gaara rose slowly to his feet and slammed his hands on the desk. He hated yelling, a lot. So he tried to avoid it when he could, hence you could always tell when he was really angry. He went dead silent.

Naruto finally shut up.

"I," He began casually, "have a nasty headache. This is not making it better. Can you all please fuck off." For a second nobody believed those words had actually passed his lips. He would curse at Sasuke in a heartbeat - their quiet banter often consisted of the words 'bitch' and 'asshole' - but he almost never cursed at the rest of the team. They weren't partners. Never would be, but they called each partner a lot. The word would be tossed around the bullpen freely, without real meaning.

Neji, TenTen, Naruto and a couple of SWAT members all nodded silently and left hurriedly. Once they were gone Gaara looked over at his notebook and wrote one last little note.

Cause: The BAU team of the FBI.
Effect: A hell of a lot of trouble.

He sighed to himself. A fast glance at the time told him that Sasuke was expecting to see his face at the door to the bank in about 45 minutes. He took a few deep breaths, stripped himself of anything valuable to him. Pictures, wallet, cell, pager, ID. All he took was his badge. His fingers drifted to his gun. He ran his fingertips over the grip before nodding roughly to himself and putting the weapon into his drawer. He felt naked without any of his possessions, but he hadn't the time to dwell on that. If he wanted to throw together this operation in less then the 45 minutes he had, he had to work fast.

The office became a flurry of motion. He made sure that he left extremely detailed instructions on how to hit the bank if he wasn't released, he couldn't risk there being an uninjured FBI agent in there. That gave Tymura absolutely no reason to keep Sasuke alive and Gaara wouldn't stand idle if he was murdered, he'd rip the damn robber apart with his hands if he had no gun. He'd been planning on how to take the bank since the very beginning, luckily this was a simple design and easy to clear quickly with the right SWAT team.

Gaara hesitated in the doorway, then forced himself to walk out the door and into the bullpen - even if his opinion of said bullpen was low at the moment due to his pounding skull. He leaned on the corner of Sasuke's desk and let himself breath for a moment. What remained of his team stared expectantly at him and he nodded. "Tymura offered a deal and I'm taking it-"

"You're crazy." Naruto again. Bugger.

"-because it is our best option. Neji, your instructions are in my office on the desk. I've got ten minutes so I'm going to get a coffee." He covered his nerves smoothly and strolled towards the break area. He needed something to steady his nerves that wasn't going to hinder his ability to react and think.

Coffee, regardless of other people's opinion's did not fall under this category. Coffee was a vital substance and the lifeblood of ten percent of all FBI agents. He took a seat on the counter and scowled when Naruto walked in with a solemn expression. "Partner, please. Reconsider this. It's suicidal."

"Naruto, I'll be fine. And I'm just chatting with the guy, not going anywhere out of sight." He put a hand on Naruto's shoulder and gripped it briefly to try and convey some sort of comfort. He wasn't very good at comforting people - that was always more Naruto's domain - and it would never change. He just didn't seem to have it in him to be a cuddly person.

Hence he ran the unit. Unit chiefs are not cuddly.

"You better not. I'm aiming a sniper at your back, if you start moving away, I'll shoot you in the leg." Naruto deadpanned and Gaara laughed. Only his blond amigo would threaten to shoot his boss. And be dead serious about it. Typical Uzumaki.

Gaara sipped the black liquid in his hands and curled his fingers around the mug, relishing the familiarity of Naruto's presence. Naruto always seemed to emit some kind of warmth and light. It was one of his quirks, one of the ones Gaara found himself enjoying most. He pushed the sleeves of his shirt up and stared at it. He didn't want it getting ruined, it was a birthday present from his sister. One he actually kinda enjoyed. Which was rare.

He sighed before standing up and undoing the shirt, leaving him in his tee shirt underneath. He passed the button-down to Naruto with strict orders to keep it safe. Naruto nodded and snickered. "Without a gun on your belt and when you're not all unit chief-y, you look like a punk."

Gaara just glared. Then groaned and began walking down to the elevator. The team stood waiting. TenTen was spinning a knife between her fingers expertly, she had her buns done up with a silver ribbon today instead of red. How odd. Neji stood behind her, arms wrapped affectionately around her waist. Shika was off to one side, sitting on the floor and half-asleep already. Naruto dashed forwards and smacked him to wake him up before turning back to Gaara with a goofy smile.

"So shall we send you off the pits of hell without a pitchfork?"

.

.

On the rare times that Sasuke was feeling really negative, and when he was like that there was no convincing him otherwise, he was certain that someday his antics would cost Gaara his life. Someday instead of him being shot or stabbed or injured, Gaara would die in his place. Hina told him once in a tizzy that that would never happen - I'm your partner Sasuke, not him, so he won't be there to save you. But he would never let Hinata die for him so he knew that that would never happen.

It made his pride burn that he couldn't say the same thing about Gaara Sabaku.

"Hina, if you don't stop torturing yourself I'll be forced to get up and knock you out." He turned his head to face his weakly smiling friend. "So humor me and just relax please? I need you to be calm." And he did. If Gaara seriously walked in that door Sasuke would have to rely on her composure, because he'd be likely to panic. Gaara was prone to reckless choices and moves to protect things. He'd plan and execute the most insane of plots if it had a high chance of successfully defending whatever he needed it to.

This was likely to protect the hostages, and it would succeed so the Uchiha knew he'd go through with it. Even if that did horrify him beyond all rationality. Gaara had to be scared, any rational person would be scared, then again, he frowned, this half-cooked plan of Gaara's didn't exactly scream rational did it. Sasuke's hand went to his other, compulsively turning the ring on his middle finger nervously. The clock positioned nearby told him that in 5 minutes Gaara would be standing at that door.

The phone rang shrilly and the whole lobby jumped in surprise. Tymura appeared in the lobby and put a gun to Hina's temple. Sasuke picked the phone up quickly and made a noise to alert Gaara as to who it was. On the other end of the line Gaara sighed quietly. "I'm sitting beside the door. Naruto thinks I'm crazy - am I crazy? The entire police force outside is watching my every damn move. They're fascinated." Gaara chuckled sarcastically.

"Of course they think you're nuts, I would think you're nuts. Hell you are nuts!" Sasuke managed an almost real sounding laugh. Tymura frowned but didn't say anything, so obviously he wasn't inclined to smack around anybody at the present time. There was silence on the line then Sasuke asked softly, "Are you coming in?"

"Of course partner, I'll see you in a minute." Gaara used the term partner loosely but warmly. A term of affection. Damn was it comforting.

Outside the building, the red headed leader of the BAU team took a deep breath to steady his nerves and stop his heart from beating erratically. Freaking out would do him absolutely no good and he had no time for such childish antics. He took another breath, turning to stare at his team. TenTen tossed him a big supportive thumbs-up and elbowed Shika until he did the same. Neji nodded respectfully then smiled slightly. He nodded to himself and turned to the door.

Gaara's appeared in the door frame and knocked. Tymura smiled with all the charm of Satan and looked to Sasuke. "Go get him." The Uchiha closed his eyes for a second and took a deep breath to steady his own nerves - a trick he'd picked up from his boss - before standing. He stole the cane of a hostage and used it to keep his stride even. He pulled the door open and smiled ruefully at the red head.

"You absolute fucking asshole." Sasuke plastered a smile on his face for the added effect.

"Oh I know, but you love it." Gaara groaned out the Oh in the way only he could, aloof and agonized at the same time. By the end of the sentence he was smiling though. The Uchiha could bring a smile like no other, even if he was an ass.

"God only knows why." Sasuke stepped aside and let the redhead walk in before shutting the door and shutting away both of their friends and lives. But he didn't care; his boss, his friend, his one true brother was beside him now and they'd do anything to protect each other. Up to and including committing murder on a low-life bank robber.