Lots and lots of stuff to do... Let me just squeeze this in! I've had such a busy time lately. School is terrible y'all! I've had to start going to so much more stuff than I ever have before, and I really don't give a fudgenut about any of it. Really annoying...

Oh! I found an author that I absolutely love. They've been on the site for a while, but I just discovered them a few days ago. Check out maravelous. All of her (I assume it's a she! Correct me if I'm wrong.) stories are simply wonderful and I love her pairings and writing style. Just thought I'd mention it!

Please read the very last thing written at the bottom of this chapter! Tis important my readers! Thank ya kindly~

Disclaimer:

Hinata: This story has got me so confused.

Author: How? You're the main character. You pretty much already know how it's going to end.

Hinata: Well, yeah, but I mean Itachi's going to discover that the agent in the Akatsuki is-

Author: Would you shut the heck up! Now you've gotta do the disclaimer for almost exposing the plot.

Hinata: *sniffle* AMB11 doesn't own Naruto.

Author: No, no. All wrong, needs more feeling.

Hinata: *Starts to cry*

Remember, Sasori still thinks Hinata is Konan, so even if it says something like "Sasori watched Hinata do blah blah blah," it's really a reference to Konan!


Chapter 8: More Than One Meaning

The sound of the shower starting up behind her automatically made laughter bubble up deep inside of her chest. Hinata leaned back against the closed bathroom door and slid down to the ground. The image of him standing in her foyer flashed through her mind, and she had to bite her lip to keep a stupid smile from lighting up her face. Sasori had looked like a wet rat coming in through the front door.

A drop of water fell from the pile of wet clothing in her hands and was soaked up by the carpet the second it hit the ground. Hinata sighed. Now she would have to do the man's laundry. It was like Sasuke all over again. "Might as well dig up something he can wear."

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Goosebumps ran down the length of Sasori's arms as he waited for the shower to warm up. A sole rivulet of water slipped down his spine from his hair and managed to cause a cacophony of tremors that reached all the way to his fingertips. He wrapped a towel around his waist and leaned back against the counter, trying to calm the shivers that continually racked his body because of the freezing rain. He closed his eyes, but that only made his contacts itch even worse than they had before. "Gah, damn things." Sasori blinked and held his left eye open between his fingers. "This is proof that if you're gonna wear make up, go ahead and buy waterproof anyway. Heh, never thought I'd say that." He wiped at a bit of mascara smudged under his eye.

He dug the contacts out of his watering eyes and blinked to clear the tears, his vision suddenly bad enough to make a bat feel good about itself. "Now I'll have to get my spare pair from my bag, thank God I brought it in with me earlier." The mirror was misted up when he turned around to inspect his much less irritated eyes, and he dropped the used lenses into the trashcan beside the black toilet. Brilliant green stared back at him from his reflection. He turned away.

Sasori peeled the towel from his still damp skin and let it drop to the ground with a huff. He stepped around the shower curtain, immediately being affronted by the onslaught of the hot water. It pounded against his forehead, rolling down his face and neck, willing away the irritating chills that wouldn't quit making their way up his spine.

He heard a door slam somewhere in the house, and a smile made its way onto his face. He didn't bother hiding it.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"Are you decent?" Sasori froze at the knock on the door, the bright pink shampoo bottle he'd been staring at skeptically sitting in his hand.

"Uh..." His eyes peeked around the white shower curtain, his red hair dripping water over his shoulders. "Close enough."

The door knob turned slowly. The door slid inward on slightly squeaky hinges and she slipped into the room, leaving it open a crack behind her. "I brought you something that you might be able to wear until your clothes are dry."

Sasori was aware that his face was red, and even though he couldn't see jack squat right then, he just knew that Hinata's was a matching pair. At least he could blame the hot shower, yeah, that's all it was. "Er... Thanks." She set something down on the closed seat of the toilet.

"Do you need me to do anything for you while you're in there?" The red-head nearly dropped the bottle in his hand. "Wait! That didn't come out r-right."

"Got that right, Princess." Sasori let out a slightly shaky breath through his nose and leaned back against the cool tile wall so he could just see out into the room through a crack between the wall and the curtain. He really wished he could see right then. "Well, since you're offerin', I need a couple of things in the bag I brought with me."

"Oh, well I'll just bring you the whole bag then. The duffel in the living room, right?"

"Yeah..." The door slid shut behind her, and Sasori sighed in relief. He rushed through washing his hair, still a little miffed about the floral scented shampoo, and shut the water off.

Hinata had folded the towel that he'd left in a careless heap on the floor and set it on the counter, so he used it to wipe down his chest quickly, then wrapped it tightly around his waist like before. She'd left a plain black t-shirt he automatically knew would be too small and a pair of khaki cargo shorts that were obviously from the men's section of whatever store they'd come from. "Wonder why the hell she'd have these."

"They're my cousin's. He used to visit a lot, so I keep a few sets of his clothes laying around. He's not as big as you are though, so I'm not sure about the shirt." Sasori fought back the blush rising to his cheeks and tightened the knot keeping his towel up with the hand that wasn't holding the khaki shorts. Her eyes ran up from his bare feet to his well muscled chest, and finally to his pale face to meet his gaze. He cleared his throat nervously. Her face was set in stone, but he noticed that her cheeks were lightly dusted in a pretty pink.

"Thanks... Again." She nodded in reply. Hinata set the bag down just inside of the door and backed out with a smile, the door clicking shut gently once she'd turned around. Sasori breathed a sigh of relief for the nth time that day.

Her hand flew to her chest and the other groped through thin air as she tried to find the wall. "God, I think I'm gonna faint." Hinata stumbled down the hall to her bedroom and flopped face first onto her mattress, the headboard smacking against the wall loudly. "I don't know how I kept a straight face." Her heart skipped a beat and she let out another deep breath so it wouldn't leap out of her chest. "And I thought Sasuke was physically fit," she mumbled into her pillow. "I mean honestly, there needs to be a rule against looking like that."

The bed squeaked as she rolled onto her back, her bare feet dangling over the edge. Hinata hugged the pillow to her ample chest. Her purple painted toes brushed the carpet. "Wait." She abruptly sat up, ignoring the large crash and the butchered stream of Spanish swear words that came from the master bathroom down the hall. "I thought Sasori had brown eyes."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"Sir, we've had a recent tip off that there's someone that's spying on Akatsuki from the inside."

"I'm aware."

"You... Are?"

"Why do you think I called for the meeting later tonight. We're going to find out who it is."

"So, you don't know who it is?"

"I know that there's more than one person. The Uchiha has been a double agent for years, so that already means there's at least two."

"Wait! Seriously? Why didn't anyone tell me my partner was working against me."

"Would you have done anything about it Kisame?"

"Well..."

"You care too much, but like I said, he's a double agent. He gives me information about anything I need to know, and I give him limited knowledge of the Akatsuki for him to relay to his uncle, the chief of police."

"That's screwed up man. Anyways, do you have any idea who the other person is?"

"Akatsuki is a bunch of sneaks, thieves, and criminals. You tell me which one is the biggest suspect of being a liar."

"Sorry, Boss. That was a stupid question..."

"Absolutely. But, there are a few people I've narrowed my suspicion down on."

"Who?"

"If I told you, you'd have a biased opinion when you all finally meet each other tonight."

"What's the harm in that?"

"It's called a meeting, not a killing."

"...Was that a joke sir?"

"Just get out of my office before I maim you Hoshigake."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"So..." Hinata fingered the hem of her sweater and glanced at the half-naked man sitting on the bed beside her.

"Yeah..." Sasori rubbed at the back of his neck, fingers tangling in the thick red locks on the back of his head. He really wished she'd had a shirt that fit him.

'This is so awkward... I wish we had even just one thing to talk about to break this tension. I'm going to shoot myself!' Her eyes caught his, and they both jumped and looked away just a little too quickly.

'You idiot! Just think of somethin' to talk about. You're scarin' the poor woman. I really suck at talkin' to girls.' He sighed.

"So..." She repeated, the single small word drawing out the silence between the two young adults even further. Sasori sort of felt like a rubber band.

"...Yeah." He wanted to slap himself. "K-Konan," he cleared his throat when it cracked, "what did you do before you joined Akatsuki?" Hinata felt a slight pang of guilt when he used her fake name. She racked her brain for something that seemed logical, but gave up when Sasori's stare seemed a little too intense after the first few seconds of hesitance.

"I was a receptionist." She inwardly cringed at the hasty reply and the extended bout of silence that followed it. This feeling was getting old really quickly.

"You," his finger prodded her in the middle of the chest, "expect me to believe that you had a desk job, and the Boss would let you into Akatsuki as anything other than the water boy?" Hinata just blinked in surprise. "Alright, if I tell you what I did, will you be honest about what your job was?" Compromise, she could do that.

He continued before Hinata could even nod.

"I was a police officer." Hinata blinked again, her eyes open just a fraction wider than before. Sasori's brown -falsely so if her suspicions were correct- eyes bored into her own fake blue ones, and she suddenly smiled.

"Me too."

"Now that, I'd believe." He hid his unfamiliar smile behind his hand in a way she had already grown used to seeing.

"So..."

"Don't you dare start that again." He'd said it while rolling his eyes, but Hinata laughed anyway. "I broke the first silence, it's your turn, Princess."

"Okay, why do you call me 'Princess' all the time?" Hinata flopped back against the bed and crossed her arms across her chest.

"It's what I used to call my sister, and you remind me of her." Sasori fought back a wince. 'Dammit. Whatever happened to keeping personal business out of this mess?'

"You have a sister? What's her name?" He saw her eyes light up in interest, and a stab of guilt struck his heart.

"Er, well... I don't really like to talk about her all that much." He hit the bed abreast to its other occupant and he crossed his arms behind his head. "What about you? Any siblings?"

She got a far off look in her eyes. "A little sister, but I haven't seen her in years. I think she's studying abroad somewhere."

"You don't know where?" 'Why the hell am I asking so many damn questions? I'm not supposed to get attached. Something's wrong with me.' Sasori felt like slapping himself.

"My family isn't exactly close. My father likes my sister better, so I was just kind of thrown off to the side once I was old enough to fend for myself, even though I never really was alone."

"What do you mean?" Hinata jabbed him in the side with her finger.

"For someone who avoids answering every question I ask, you sure like to ask a lot of them yourself." He just rolled his eyes again, an incredibly lazy smirk peeking out from beneath the hand laying across his face.

"Call it a habit, Princess." She rolled her eyes, mimicking him with a smile. He poked her back. "But seriously, did someone take care of you?"

"My best friend. You see, he was living with his older brother for the longest time after both of his parents were killed in a car crash. His brother went AWOL just a few years afterward, about the same time my father dumped me off by myself. We sort of just... Filled in the missing spots in our lives with each other."

"Sounds like you're in love with the guy." Was that a tinge of jealousy in his voice? Hinata peeked up at the man beside her, but his eyes were closed. She shrugged it off. Sometimes his accent made things difficult.

"You couldn't be any farther from the truth." He cracked an eye open when she laughed quietly to herself. "Once you've lived with someone for years, doing their laundry, cooking every meal for them, practically becoming their mother, there is no way in Hell itself that you'd be able to fall in love with them. It'd be like deciding you wanted to marry the sister you wouldn't tell me about." Sasori poked her again in retaliation. "That doesn't mean we didn't try. I mean, we did give each other a shot, but it was just so awkward."

"How long'd it last?"

"About eight months. Not even once in that time did he try to kiss me or hold my hand, always said he was afraid I'd hit him if he tried." She smacked him when he chuckled, but bit her own lip to keep from joining him.

"S'pose that when you get too close to a person in one sense, it gets hard to suddenly think of them in another way." A quiet beep filtered into the room from down the hall through the open door.

"First smart thing I've ever heard you say Sasori." He felt his chest constrict, and for the first time since he'd adopted it, he felt guilty about someone calling him by his fake name.

Hinata got to her feet and stretched, her shoulder popping loudly. Sasori opened his eyes and glanced at her silhouette; the red sweater that was just a little too long in the sleeves, tight around the chest, and stretched upward when she raised her arms; the jeans that were faded from use and shredded at the bottom from being too long and being walked on; the different shades of purple that adorned each nail on her toes. Sasori smiled.

The floorboards beneath the carpeting squeaked with each footstep as Hinata made her way to the door. "Sounds like your clothes are done. You're probably freezing by now." His eyes followed her as she escaped into the hallway and disappeared, her voice carrying back down to where he still lay in her bed.

"First smart thing, huh? It's a good thing 'partners' has more than one meaning."

"Sasori! Get your ass out here or I'll make you go to the meeting like you are now." Sasori jolted up in bed when she shouted from across the apartment.

"Do you have to be so loud woman?! I'm comin'!"

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

End Chapter 8.


1. Sorry about the long wait, but it took me a while to get this just the way I wanted it. Not to mention that I've been busy with a messload of other crap. I hope you liked this! Yeah, heheh... I left ya hanging on Sasuke's end. Probably will for the next few chapters.

2. For those of you that don't quite understand the ending: The term 'Partners' can refer to either the two people working together or as in two lovers. Ever heard of 'Partnered for life?' No? Maybe it's a southern thing.

3. Keep on watch for updates, because I don't know when the heck the next one will be.

R & R much so! The more reviews I get for this, the faster it will be updated. I'm updating according to how much you guys want it! More popular stories get written first. Love, AMB11.