Title: The Typhoon Song
Author: Kit Spooner
Pairing: Uzumaki Naruto and Haruno Sakura
Fandom: Naruto
Theme: # 17 – kHz
Rating: R/M for discussion of sex and a metric crap-tonne of profanity
Disclaimer: The characters and situations portrayed in this story are the sole property of Kishimoto-sensei and the assorted corporate types who've bought the rights. I've merely borrowed them for a brief time.
Notes: Oh, I kill myself. dies Plus, I love Neji. He's such a complete goober.
I knew the mission was going to be a serious pain in the ass from the moment I heard about the assignment – and about who would be on my team. Naruto, ever-obliging and eager to please, is currently demonstrating how little he's changed since his incomprehensible graduation from the Academy.
"Ten-four!" he howls in my ear, via our radio com-links. "Roger, roger! Ten-four!" He's gleeful and excited to play with technology. "Can you heeeeaaaaar me Sakura-chyaaaaaaaaahn!"
I hear a quiet, feminine sigh over the radio. "Naruto . . ." our medic warns, sounding a little exasperated.
"Dude, these are awesome!" Naruto continues eagerly. There's a series of weird static-y clicks and chirps as he discovers the button used to send code across the airwaves. This goes on for a while.
"Neji!" Kiba's voice is a steady whine and I grind my teeth. "Can't you make him shut up?"
"Naruto," I mumble automatically. "Shut the hell up."
"I'm familiarizing myself with my equipment," Naruto responds smartly, sounding as though he's used that excuse before. He clicks the code button a few more times, tapping out the rhythm of some crappy pop song that's currently being played all over the place in Konoha.
I grit my teeth and feel the blood vessels pound in my ears.
But no, this wasn't enough for Naruto. He stops clicking out the code button rhythms and begins singing where he'd left off. "Oooooh, I wanna – unf, unf – love you like a – unf, unf – typhoon! Woow woow! Oooooh, baby, you make me wanna – unf, unf – uh . . . something something something . . ."
I find myself discovering – the hard way – that Naruto's musical abilities are diminished somewhat when he's sober and leaping tree to tree. My mind also shudders away from the horrible knowledge of the pelvic thrusts that usually accompany the 'unf, unf' parts when I've seen other morons singing the stupid song.
But then, just as the singing trails off and I think that disaster is averted, Naruto makes a
horrifying segue. "Oh, man, Sakura, I missed you bunches while you were out at Hidden Mist on that stupid-ass mission the old bag sent you on." He gives a lusty sigh that I immediately wish I hadn't heard. "And then we got stuck on this recon mission with Mister Cranky-Pants Hyuuga and the Wonder Twins."
Akamaru yips something in response and Kiba sniggers, so I suspect the dog had something snarky to say about the "Wonder Twins" comment.
"I . . . missed you too, Naruto," Sakura responds calmly. I'm struck by the sudden urge to somehow order her to calm Naruto the fuck down, but am not entirely sure how to phrase it in a way that would both keep Naruto from beating the crap out of me, and keep Sakura from poisoning my tea.
"Yeah, yeah," Naruto rambles. "But I really missed you, Sakura, if you know what I mean." There was a significant pause before he added. "Wink, wink, nudge, nudge."
"Oh, god," Kiba moaned. "Now we all know what you mean."
"Fuck off, Kiba," Naruto snaps. "I barely got to even kiss her before we were dragged back out into the woods, never mind getting her to —"
"Naruto!" I've never heard Sakura actually bellow, but that's really what she did.
"Yeah, dude," Kiba adds. "Akamaru and I really don't want to know what you two freaks get up to when you're off-duty."
I'm briefly caught up in the hilarity of Kiba calling someone else a freak, particularly in a sexual connotation. The whole village is aware of the boy's extracurricular activities.
Naruto growls briefly, pauses, and then cheerfully resumes his quasi-rhythmic clicking of the code button on his com link.
Kiba, never the calmest person to begin with, spontaneously combusts.
"Neji!" he howls. "Make him cut that shit out or so help me I'll make him eat the damn radio!"
The clicking continues, if anything, louder than before. I'm really not sure how Naruto manages it. "Ha! I can do whatever the fuck I want, dog-boy. We're still in friendly territory so it doesn't matter."
"But the noise is hurting Akamaru's ears!" Kiba snaps irritably. "We're going to need him at the top of his game once we get to the mission site."
"And he'll need more than two days to recover from the damn radio?" Naruto is rightly incredulous. "We won't even get to stinking Wasabi Village til then, never mind begin the surveillance and stuff."
"Naruto . . ." This time, it's my warning sigh.
"What!" the blonde bursts out. "It's not my fault Kiba coddles his stupid, spoiled mutt!"
Kiba's outraged shriek overloads the microphone briefly and my ears ring in response for a few seconds afterward. Then there's ominous silence for several seconds.
"Uh, Naruto?" I tentatively ask. He's usually a good-natured idiot, but today he seems like an irritable, peckish idiot who's looking for a fight. And Kiba, being a slightly less-good-natured idiot, seems quite willing to oblige him.
Then there's a grunt, a sharp cracking noise, some rustling and rumbling noises, then a few muffled expletives.
"Oh, for fuck's sake," I hear Sakura mutter.
I quicky activate my Byakugan and locate the excitement a ways ahead of me and to the left, on the forest floor, where Kiba has dropped back from his position on point to tussle with Naruto. Akamaru has fastened his teeth around Naruto's bicep, prompting the boy to gleefully punch Kiba in the face; Kiba, teeth flashing white and quick in the dappled forest light, snarls and bites the other boy's hand.
Sakura is standing off to one side, looking angry, embarrassed and a little amused.
I'm somewhat less amused.
So I wade into the fray and bodily pull the two morons apart, kicking them both sharply in the stomach as I do so. I casually toss Akamaru into the undergrowth, ignoring his yelp.
"Okay, I'm in charge here, and this isn't the way things are going to go on this mission," I tell them in the quiet, carefully-enunciated tone that used to scare Hinata so badly that she'd wet the bed at night.
Sakura, who's been on my team for several missions, has heard this lecture before. She sighs and leans against a tree. "Here we go," she murmurs.
"As the leader of this squad, you two monkeys have to obey my orders to the letter. Is that clear?" I focus my glare first on Kiba and then on Naruto, both of whom are still gasping from my kick to the gut.
They nod, and I smile. It's not my nice smile. "You," I say as I haul Kiba to his feet. Akamaru slinks out from the shrubbery and crouches mournfully at his master's feet. "Keep a tighter rein on your temper, you half-wit," I tell him. "First of all, remember that while Akamaru is, in many ways, a useful member of this team, he is still a dog." Akamaru hangs his head.
"Second," I continue. "You really don't have any room to be talking about the sexual practices of your teammates. I know how you are with women. And to be completely honest, I'd probably break both your legs if you ever came near any female I was even remotely acquainted with, never mind someone I'm related to or actually care about." My expression of disgust includes a wrinkled nose and I hope it conveys dignified disapproval along with utter disregard for him. The Hyuugas have carefully cultivated such expressions for generations and even the children of the Branch House are instructed in their use.
I turn to Naruto, who has crept to his feet with a sullen expression that nearly mirrors Kiba's.
"You, Uzumaki, are an utter idiot," I begin with a sniff of disdain. "But you usually behave yourself on missions. What – in the name of all that is holy – is wrong with you?"
Naruto refuses to meet my eyes, instead staring at his feet while he nudges leaf mold with the toes of his sandals.
"Well?" I can hear my voice rising with impatience. A good leader is never impatient – only cool, calm, and controlled, both of his men and of his own emotions . . .
It's so quick, I nearly miss it. But I'm trained to spot such things, and Naruto's sudden, forlorn-yet-smoldering glance at Sakura is definitely noticeable.
Akamaru suddenly whines and shakes his head. Kiba listens, tilts his head to one side, and stares at Naruto. "Oh, you're fucking kidding me," he says loudly. "Akamaru says he smells like he wants to . . ." He begins to laugh.
Sakura's a smart girl, and more importantly, she knows Naruto, since she's been with him for a many years at this point. She groans and hides her face in her hands.
I sigh. These people are all jounins. Each is a master of his or her chosen field. They're also all in their mid-twenties. I wonder, very briefly, why they act like stupid teenagers out for a picnic.
"Okay," I tell them. "Here's what we're going to do . . ."
So we set up camp early for the evening. We won't lose too much time here, and I am incapable of dealing with crazed Naruto for another instant. Once the camp perimeter's secured, I send Naruto and Sakura off to "gather firewood" with careful instructions not to return until Naruto can behave himself again.
Naruto chortles merrily as he leads off a startlingly smug-looking Sakura.
"Dude, what the hell is wrong with you, Neji?" Kiba demands as soon as they're out of earshot. "Fucking while on a mission is totally against the rules and stuff."
"I was tired of the typhoon song," I reply shortly.
"Ugh," Kiba mumbles as he pitches our tents. "Me too." He pauses while hammering a stake into the ground. "So does that mean that if I was an utter bastard on a mission, and Hinata was on the mission too that you'd . . . urk."
The forest falls suddenly silent, devoid of even bird calls, as I stare down an idiot and his terrified dog. I wonder, in that quiet moment before I attack, how I could have missed the signs. I mean, Hinata's been "spending the night at a friend's house" a lot lately and, fuck, I think Hanabi's been covering for her, the little minx . . .
"Oh, shit, we're going to die," Kiba croaks to his dog. Akamaru whines and takes off into the underbrush, his ninja following a split-second after.
"I knew this mission was going to suck," I mutter before heading off to break some of Kiba's bones.
