A/N: I trust all has been made clear to everyone ^^. Not everyone gets screen time in this epilogue, because they got a bit in someone else's screen time. I did enjoy doing this little fic, I must say. The poll will be up for a week. Get to voting! Me, I'm working on the continuations, TTb and Save Me. I will get to giftfics in due time. Patience, pls!
Sasuke: Cop, intelligent, likes to eat. Loves Neji.
Naruto: Writer, somewhat dramatic, very sensitive. Loves Sasuke.
Sakura: Vivacious, fun-loving, usually cheerful. Somewhat conflicted and confused about love. A tad excitable.
Ino: Butch, Security guard/boxer, very angry. Loves Sakura.
Shikamaru: Ticking time bomb. Loves Ino, but has no intention of being with her sexually, ever.
Temari: Cowed. Subservient and submissive personality.
Neji: Mid-life crisis. Loved Gaara.
Gaara: Inferiority complex. Loves Shikamaru.
Beta: Blood Zephyr
Epilogue
Sasuke
He'd gotten home Saturday night and paused in the hall to see if his neighbor would be around. The hall was deserted. He spent at least three minutes shaking his keys loudly on the pretense of opening his door, but his neighbor didn't make an appearance. Sasuke entered his apartment, disgusted with himself for wanting to fuck his neighbor again. And okay, the brownies hadn't sucked either.
He'd had to visit four ATM machines in the middle of the night in question to leave a thousand dollars for his neighbor. It was his way of apologizing for his crude behavior and thanking him for the brownies and the sex. It was money he could ill-afford to spend, but he admitted to himself that the evening had been worth it. His neighbor had gotten him through the worst of his grief. Now, Sasuke was mostly pissed at Neji. If he ever saw the cabron again, things would go differently, of that he would make sure.
His buzzer woke him in the pre-dawn hours of Sunday morning. He groped for his gun, checked to make sure it was loaded, and went to his door in his boxers. A glance through the peephole showed a bunch of strangers. Probably looking for someone else in the building and had gotten the wrong apartment. He opened his door.
First off, "strangers" wasn't entirely true. He recognized the pink-haired sprite as someone who visited his neighbor from time to time. Sasuke barely looked at her, or at the tall, beefy dyke staring at him with a bruised face and a recently broken nose. All his attention was on the slight man behind the two women.
Sasuke had recently been on a drug bust of a building down in Harlem. The place had been full of junkies and strung out shitheads in the process of shooting up. The ones looking to score had yet to acquire junk and had the nervous, needy, do-anything-for-a fix attitude that addicts got after using for any length of time. This guy behind the sprite and the dyke wasn't jumpy like that but he gave off the same capable-of-anything vibe with his steady stare. Sasuke correctly pegged him as the most dangerous of the trio and cocked a bullet right there in front of them, body tensed to spring.
The sprite spoke in withering tones. "We'd like a word with you, Sasuke."
Sasuke didn't even get a chance to answer. The dyke only waited until the sprite was done speaking before she plowed a fist like a battering ram into his gut and had him doubling over. Her fist then crashed into the back of his neck and Sasuke saw stars. He brought his own fist up, rearing backward to take aim, but the dyke had by then muscled him back into his apartment. He went down with her on top of him, feeling her rock-like blows and hearing someone lock his door. He heard a shotgun cocked and thought, Fucking hell, what the Christ is this shit?
Naruto
Sakura left him in her pretty apartment to go with Ino to the hospital. They didn't come back until after the sun was up Sunday morning. Ino wasn't with her. Sakura spent every moment with him after work that week and Naruto slowly began to recover. Sakura really was a great friend.
He decided he wanted a change of scenery. He told Sakura that he wanted to move to the farthest hole on the planet for awhile and decided on the Middle East. Kuwait, specifically. Sakura agreed that some travel would be a good idea. She said she'd watch his apartment for him and see that his plants were watered. He left the following week.
Shikamaru
Gaara interested him. He'd never been interested in anyone before. He did not give in to the interest, opting to sit back and see what would happen.
Temari
Neji didn't show up for the wedding in court. They'd been forced to leave, as other court business cropped up and required the judge's attention. Temari had hung her head in shame at having been stood up at the altar. Hours later, after they were home, Kankurou called Neji's house in Queens and got some cousin or the other. He was told that Neji had been found dead two days ago. He hung up the phone and turned to his sister, furious.
"You drove him to it with your ugly self, I bet," he snarled as he advanced on her.
Temari had heard her brother's end of the phone conversation. Neji was dead and there went her last hope of escape. The safety of her baby and Gaara was now up to her.
If Kankurou had ever heard the saying that a kicked dog would eventually turn and bite, he might have hesitated before going after his sister. As it was, he made a shocked sound of surprise when Temari took the letter opener she'd picked up from the dining table in their living room and rammed it into his eye. He fell and made no sounds at all as she continued to plunge the thin blade into the softest parts of his body. Gaara came home from school and found her sitting calmly near Kankurou's bloody corpse. "We're safe now," she told his stunned face.
