-Sai-
Although most of the people who had attended the funeral would have told you it was a gunshot, Sai was one of the ones who had been privy to the information that it was, in fact, a very large firework. He knew this information for a very simple and logical reason: He'd been the one to set it off.
His 'Ami' persona looked her absolute best – if she did say so herself – wearing a sheer white lace top that did nothing to hide an overly-stuffed red bra, exposing just enough unauthentic cleavage to arouse the common man without revealing the fact that it was, in fact, merely foundation-covered silicone. His skirt was a deep almost-black blue, with ruffles galore. Were he actually a woman, he would have chosen something skin-tight, but as it was, there were certain things between his thighs that would have given him away if they were visible, so the ruffles were convenient.
His hair was already grown out rather long, but he wore extensions today, so that it hung messily in windblown waves down his back. His eye make-up was a smudged bright hooker blue, and his lipstick was cherry red. In truth, 'Ami' was a lot more decent than the woman he was presenting himself as today, but he wasn't here to get past the guards unnoticed this time. The already imperfect look, that he'd later made sure was quite askew in all the most disturbing places, was in fact supposed to make him more noticed.
And he was.
There were five guards total. Two each for Itachi and Sasuke, and another for added security. As Shikamaru had predicted, the "gunshot" only drew three of the guards away from their positions and into the alleyway. Which would have meant that two of them were left un-distracted … if not for the fact that at the exact moment of the 'bang' Sasuke Uchiha would be "startled", and spill a full glass of red wine onto Ino Yamanaka's shirt. Which she would, of course, have to take off, exposing her barely-legal lingerie-clad C-Cups to anyone who wanted to see.
For someone who was completely and entirely homosexual, Shikamaru had certainly involved a great deal of breast exposure in this plan. One would think that a heterosexual male could not be so easily distracted by a woman's bosom, whether it be a legitimate one, or a silicone replica. Of course, even the pervy-est of pervs could not be distracted for long by breasts, no matter how beautiful. Still, even the most prude-ish of prudes would take at least one second to look. It would be a quick look, but it would be a look away from whatever they'd been looking at before then.
And the Uchiha brothers were very, very fast. Having none of the guards looking at them for a full second was enough for them to get to the door, and Sai knew without seeing any of this happen, that by the time the guards looked back at where Itachi and Sasuke were sitting, they'd be long gone.
"What are you doing back here, Miss?" One of the guards questioned him, he turned his eyes towards the man, and flung his arms around him in desperation, letting sobs shake his body.
"A-A man! With a g-g-gun!" He squealed out in horror, pointing down the alley towards the exit to the street, "He t-took my purse! If I hadn't ducked in time he'd have... he'd have-" Sai promptly pretended to feint.
"Stay here, Miss! We'll go and find him!"
Shikamaru had expected one of the guards to stay with Sai. Sai was rather disappointed to see all three of them running in the direction he'd pointed, but it was actually better for the plan that way. Parked on that street was a heavily tinted vehicle, that had been almost empty until about thirty seconds ago, when Itachi and Sasuke would have gotten inside of it. And it should be turning in from the street to drive down this alley, right... about...
Now.
Sai smirked, as the car came to a moderately slow stop in front of him. He opened the driver's seat door, and switched out with Kiba Inuzuka, who then tipped unnoticed back into crowd of people running out of funeral reception, mixing himself in with the chaos.
Sai closed the door and looked back at Itachi and Sasuke, giving Itachi a pointed look.
"Well?" He asked, refusing to move the car at all until he heard the magic words.
"We will not make any attempt to kill you," Itachi reassured, pulling off his shirt and replacing it with the one that had been set aside for him in the car. Sai decided to ignore the hungry way that Sasuke's eyes lingered on his brother's chest.
"And?"
"And we will not reveal the true identity of 'Ami' to our father or any authoritative or legal persons."
Sai grinned.
"One more thing," He hinted, eyeing them mischievously.
They looked at each other for a moment, as if trying to decide if they'd be willing to risk their pride in order to escape successfully. Finally, they both turned towards Sai, and said the same two words in unison.
"Thank you."
-Shisui-
It had been the middle of the night when they came knocking on his door, and he had been blessed with the rare opportunity to wake up before Gaara. He smiled, looking down at the peaceful sleeping form of his lover. Gaara didn't sleep until very late, and woke up very early, so it was a scarce occasion indeed when Shisui saw him surrendering to the pull of slumber. But Gaara was a heavy sleeper when he slept, and Shisui was not.
He stood up, and went to his door, opening it to see two people who he was not expecting.
"Hold on for a moment, if you don't mind," He requested, escorting them into his living room before he went to get a little more dressed.
Gaara was still sleeping on his bed. He brushed crimson hair away from the younger man's forehead and smiled, pressing a kiss against Gaara's deepest and most treasured scar. It wasn't the only place on Gaara's body that had the word "Love" carved into it, but it was the only one with the kanji "Ai" while the others used "Koi" which Gaara clearly thought was less meaningful. The location was what was special about it. It was the place that he'd first kissed Gaara, though that kiss hadn't been romantic. It'd been when Gaara was in middle school, and Shisui was tutoring him. The redhead had jokingly mentioned that he'd never been kissed before, not even by his parents, and Shisui had jokingly kissed him on the forehead.
Gaara turned in his sleep, sending his hair cascading over the scar again, and Shisui stood up, and put on some proper pajamas, rather than return to his guests still in his boxers.
As he stepped back into the living room he could feel the tension in the air.
"Alright," He began, "I love you guys, but why are you here at three in the morning?"
"The police are raiding our house right now, they say that our boys have escaped..." Mikoto answered, glancing at Shisui's basement door. "We wondered if perhaps they might have come here, and if so, we thought to warn them before the raid spread out to other places in the complex."
Shisui stared at her, then let his gaze travel to Fugaku. He tried very hard to stay out of the drama that seemed to surround his family. This was just plain … rude. It was an insult to Fugaku and the poor fool didn't even know it.
Mikoto couldn't give two shits where Itachi and Sasuke were, and she knew damn well that they wouldn't be hiding at Shisui's. She was here to warn him that Sai wasn't safe in his basement tonight if the police came looking. He nodded at her, showing that he understood, before speaking.
"Last I heard, all three of them were on a private jet headed towards Alaska."
Fugaku scrunched up his face, "We only have two sons, Shisui,"
"Oh, is that right? Well. The two of them, then." He pretended to correct, though a glance at Mikoto showed that she understood. "I'm sure one of them will be contacting you shortly. Is that all?"
They nodded, and with apologetic goodbyes, exited his home. He sighed and turned around, coming face to face with an amused half-naked Gaara.
"Your family puts the 'T' in taboo," Gaara mused, leaning against the wall casually.
Shisui shuddered uncomfortably. He hadn't really pieced together Itachi and Sasuke's actual relationship until Gaara had outright told him about it, and Sai had confirmed the information as true. He still pretended not to know when he was around Itachi or Sasuke, but that wasn't about his discomfort. It was about the fact that in Konoha, the more you knew about Itachi and Sasuke Uchiha, the more likely you were to end up dead.
So far – there were only seven people who knew exactly what had happened in that classroom with Sakura. One of them was the killer. One was Sakura herself – who was dead. Then there was Hinata – who was also dead. Gaara – who was luckily smart enough to rat out Hinata instead of being killed. And, of course, Itachi and Sasuke – the reason the killer was still free and killing.
Shisui would be damned if anyone knew he was the seventh person on that list.
A/N: You guys review so prettily! I would love to give you lots of little hearts for that, but as I'm sure we all know, it would look something like this:
Stupid FFnet.
I'm giving you this chapter because I adored your reviews on the last one. Wanna know a secret? I wrote this one and the last one in the same day. I'm a review whore. It's awful, I know. This fanfic gets an average of 16.6 reviews a chapter, so I waited for 16 reviews before I posted this chapter, cus I knew I could get them. I'm a terrible person – but that's just the way I am xD
BUT- On the good side – at least I was kind enough to make sure I had the chapter AFTER the cliffhanger done before leaving you guys with that cliffy. (I know myself too well to leave a cliffhanger without having the next chapter ready. I'm extremely horrible with updating the same fanfic consistently, which is partly due to laziness, but mostly due to the fact that I've got about fifty billion fics in progress.)
I'm about to start writing the next chapter right now, so it could very well be done by tomorrow and up by Monday if you guys review lots and lots!
I love you for reading!
-Beloved
PS- I changed the end there a bit, because it seemed to cause you guys some confusion the way I first had it.
