" I feel like a "functioning alcoholic" is code for a bum. So yeah, don't call me that.'
"I just think it's a possibility you have to consider."
"I'm appalled that you would say that."
"Naruto it's 8 am."
"So?" Naruto reached for his cleverly disguised drink in his Ackimichis cup he'd placed in the drivers' side armrest. "It's like, 6 in Suna, and you're from Suna, and I'm in your company. Sooo-"
"That's easily the stupidest thing I've heard this week. And I'll remind you that you basically admitted to signing our own Death Notes."
"Oh leave it in the past you irritable Tanuki."
"Stop calling me that. How are you even drinking after yesterday?" Gaara's own health seemed shaky at best. He took sharp breaths with every passing moment as his bruised ribs bucked every so slightly with the moving car. The man's skin complexion resembled that of a ghost and the obnoxiously sunny day seemed to be doing it's best to disrespect his comfort.
"At least I'm not the one hiding from the sun because I'm scared of a little hangover." Gaara In fact still wore the same suit as yesterday, just as Naruto, and hid behind the frames of his thick polarized sunglasses.
"And don't plan on me being sober until we're done with this and I'm passed out in my own bed with that beautiful blonde beside me."
"Hn."
The worlds greatest contract duo cruised slowly through downtown Konoha, en route to a shop that was tucked away in a less savory part of town. After contacting Sasuke they'd come to an agreement with the Uchiha that seemed beneficial to both parties.
Picking up his laundry on the way to the penitentiary.
"You don't actually think it's laundry do you?"
"Well of course not. But when you're making a deal with the devil, you tend not to question much."
It's on record that one Sasuke Uchiha tended to dabble in trades less than honorable. Using his position in law enforcement as a means of control in his own undersided businesses. It's speculated that he and the larger majority of the Uchiha family involved themselves in the trade of guns, drugs, and a multitude of other crimes under the guise of the "law."
"So what do you think it is? Women?"
"Nah, I picture him more of a unic honestly." Naruto said dismissively.
"But didn't he date Sakura before you-"
"Unic."
"Yeah, sure... Guns?"
"Probably guns."
"Somehow I don't feel as dirty delivering guns."
Naruto gave a curious look at his friend as they cruised the street.
"Wait wait wait. How do you figure that?"
Gaara acknowledged the look and readied his throat for his explanation.
"Well to be frank, if he wanted me to deliver women, he'd be added to our new list of assholes to kill. I'm no human trafficker." Gaara said with conviction.
"Ok fair, what if it were guns and they were going to of group of let's sayyyy, teenage gangbangers? Is that somehow better? And what would you do with the girls anyway if it did turn out to be a bunch of chicks?"
'God Damn he's chatty in the morning.'
"We kinda killed early on so I don't see the gang mentality being a real issue with me. As for the girls, I'd free them and then I'd give them a job working in our coffee shops. Hell, the kids too."
"Hookers and Bangers turned Baristas? That's some ambitious shit you're thinking about over there."
"I know we're just joking but this is our city. If it can give us a second chance, then I'm sure I could offer a kid a job serving coffee."
"I suppose you're right." Naruto reflected on all the choices he made in life, coming to conclusion that perhaps a little good karma wouldn't be such a bad idea.
"Hey, fox." Gaara dazed as he stared blankly at the oncoming traffic through the window.
"Yeah? What's up Gaara?" Naruto held no particular interest as he weaved through the hord of day to day commuters.
"We'll make it to heaven after all of this Hell. Right?"
"I was hoping you'd be the one answering that for me, not the other way around."
"It all hypothetical of course. Hey, pull in here." The redhead pointed to a full lot of cars for a seemingly basic dry cleaner sandwiched between a fast food Mexican restaurant and a pawn shop.
"How." A pause as Naruto slurps down the rest of his beverage. "Underwhelming."
xXx
"I don't like anyone of you"
"Hey now-" Shikamaru started.
"Except Shikamaru." Shikamaru noticeably lightened under the sound of Ino's words.
"That's not the point." Tenten currently sat face to face with the blonde in the back of the Ackimichi restaurant. Tenten had since cleaned herself up and replaced her long chocolate locks with her two signature panda buns.
"Well then do tell. "Panda".I don't have time to be trusting my life with a bunch of incompetent rogues.
"Don't make fun of me you blonde bitch, just listen." Ino could only scoff before the brunette continued. "I trust the two of them with my life... So if they say they want to save yours." Tenten rose, grabbing a pair of keys and heading toward the front of the building. "Then you should listen."
"Wait just one second!" Ino rushed after her out of the empty restaurant, a slow Shikamaru closing the door behind her. Returning gratefully to his position on the couch.
"How the hell do you figure that I need that help of the fucking blonde dolt? I'm doing fine just by myself."
'Well aren't you both blonde?'
"Well for starters." Tenten hoped in Gaara's blacked out two seater camero, brand new tags compliments of Shikamaru. Reaching across the armrest to open the passenger side door for a fuming Ino. "I never said him specifically."
xXx
"I don't get it." Naruto voices as he paid the nice man at the dry cleaners. Sixty dollars and fifty cents for a large blue garment bag that weighed no more than ten pounds.
"Get what exactly?"
"Are you serious? How this asshole actually expected us to pick up his fucking laundry!"
"Is there a problem with that?" Gaara retorted as they both entered Shikamaru's Nissan. "And I'm driving, you drunk."
"Yeah whatever. I've just got better things to be doing than being a fucking delivery boy. Does that come as a surprise to you??" Naruto fumed as he strapped into the tight space of the passenger seat.
"Like?" Gaara ignored him as he pulled out of the lot, one black cased hanger bag full of unknown garments in the back seat.
"I don't know... but it's better than letting my girlfriend take my perfectly good whip, that's for sure."
Gaara only snorted as he cruised in the clunky car along the street.
"At least I have one, dolt."
"A-HA!!"
"Shut it! It's... it's complicated."
"I'm pretty sure it's a you "are" or you "aren't" kinda thing.
Silence ensued as Gaara focused on the road before finally offering a retort.
"...Maybe it's coke or something?"
"Don't change the subject!"
xXx
"Where are we going?" Tenten asked.
Ino punched in some directions on the cars GPS systems
"South Konoha? What on Earth is in south Konoha besides a bunch of rich pricks?"
"My father." Ino said a matter of factly.
"Oh... sorry-"
"And my father's house more specifically. I fancy a change of clothes, I'm not exactly a fan of going about my day to day barefoot." She nodded at her still bare feet. "I might even have some for you if you don't mind stuffing your chest a little bit."
"Gee. Thanks." Tenten forced out through clenched teeth.
'Big tittied Bimbo!'
"Breath Tenten, don't kill her..." Tenten mumbled to herself.
"How'd you get this off of that irritable boy anyway?" Ino questioned as Tenten soared down the street to the hum of Gaara's dark camero. She dejected her thanks in favor of staring out the window.
"I have my ways." Tenten smirked out.
"Gross." Ino shook her head as she gave Tenten a disgusted look from the passenger seat. "I thought you were a woman above that behavior, but obviously I was mistaken-"
"Ew no! Calm down. He owed me a favor for babying him last night while he made an ass of himself." The girl's rose tinted cheeks betrayed her offense, but she stuck to her statement none the less.
"Funny, Sure looked like you enjoyed his attention."
"What?! No-"
"Pull in the driveway there." Ino directed. "I'm actually really excited to see Daddy, it's been at least a week!"
'She visits every week?... isn't she like 24?'
xXx
"Hey Fox, you see that. Right?"
Gaara nodded at a black van in the rearview mirror. Darkly shaded windows and blacked out wheels had been trailing the pair for six blocks.
"Yeah, I see em alright." Naruto looked discreetly through his passenger side window. "We have a shop in construction about five minutes away. We should stock up there, just lose these guys."
And lose them he did. Gaara weaved between morning traffic with little regard. Hoping the curb while blaring horns at the alarmed locals of the city.
"MOVE LADY!"
Taking a sharp turn to cut into an ally that fed into a closed off road. The trip to the under construction shop took only a few minutes as he busted through a wooden street block at the end of the street, placing them just behind the building.
Naruto hoped out clutching his chest from the shock of Gaara's sudden takeoff.
"Pretty decent timing, and look, no visitors." Gaara said as he took his own exit from the car.
"You drive like a fucking maniac!" Naruto forced out, dropping his hands to his knees followed by a harsh dry heave. But Gaara paid no attention as he pulled his keys to get into the secluded building.
"Th-that poor old lady! You ran over her fucking wheelchair!!" Naruto gripped at his own hair as he clutched himself for comfort on the ground with his spare arm.
"Obviously didn't need it if she could jump out of the way like that...Home sweet home." A small puff of dust greeted his feet as he made his way to the storeroom of the empty building. "Should be right aroooound here." Gaara stopped at a wall cabinet next to many others. A false wall of landscaping equipment greeted him, but what he wanted was beyond it.
He pushed hard against a flat part of the wall behind it and the entire wall itself shifted back and to the left to reveal a gun rack and ammo cans filled with-
'Nothing? Naruto and I did stock this place right?'
Gaara rounded back around the corner toward the entrance to ask Naruto himself.
"Oi! Fox, where's all the gear-"
He stopped dead in his tracks to see a long haired blonde man that'd he'd never met before. Brandishing a small handgun firm against Naruto's temple.
"Didn't I tell you to fucking lose them!" Naruto gritted out through tight teeth.
"I did you idiot, he must have already been here! I'm not the one caught up right now-"
"Oh I'm sorry, am I interrupting?" The man interjected.
"Gaara who the fuck is this guy?" Naruto attempted to push him away but the mysterious man quickly struck him in the back of the head to heed his compliance.
"Moi? Well, I'm so glad you asked. Deidara at your service. I've just come to deliver a message is all." The man pushed a dazed Naruto in Gaara's direction, making sure to keep his gun weaving between the two of them. "Seems like you two have gotten into some trouble with the wrong people lately." The gun in question being a black revolver, one of Gaara's many that should have been secured neatly in the cabinet.
"What do you want?" Gaara said, keeping his composure, staring the man down as he waited for any mistake to be made.
"Are you another one of those ROOT assholes?" Naruto rubbed the back of his head, choosing to take a seat in one of the dining chairs.
"Oh no no no. Nothing so grand. You see, I do more individual "work". Does the name Hyūga ring a bell?"
'What could this guy possibly want with the Hyūgas?' Gaara thought to himself.
He looked over to Naruto who seemed to be having the same silent contemplation, be it with a menacing scowl on his face.
"Ah, the silent types are we? Well, let me just lay it out for you. I'm sure you remember the beautiful Miss Hinata, correct?"
"You bastard! What have you done with her?!" Naruto yelled, but the loud accusation did nothing to help the pain he was in, causing him to grasp roughly at his abused skull.
The man only chuckled as he began to walk the length of the coffee bar. Gliding a hand across the smooth wood.
"Tsk tsk "Fox". It's not what I did, oh no not that. It's what you've done."
"What the hell are you getting at? Is she safe? Spit it out before I wipe that smirk off of your face-"
A blare of rounds erupted in the small store as two bullets laced wholes in the ceiling. The amused smirk on the man's face unwavering as ceiling debris scattered down after his sudden shooting.
"Don't you know it's rude to interrupt?"
The two men reluctantly fell silent.
"You see, Mr. Hyūga didn't much appreciate you leaving his eldest daughter out to dry after a fucking shootout. Go figure. So naturally-" The man named Deidara stopped to pull out a pack of cigarettes. Lighting one as he pulled up a chair across from the two. "You're on Mr. Hyūga's shit list. There's a whole five hundred stacks each on your pretty little heads."
"A low rate mercenary huh? I bet you don't know shit about wetwork you amateur-"
"Mercenary?! HAH. Please, I'm an artist. This is my passion. The prospect of blowing you two up unsuspectingly on a Tuesday afternoon?? It seemed like a fucking waste!" The man pulled a small metal rod from his pocket, as he snuffed out his cigarette on the ground, topped with a dull black button. "This whole place is already rigged to the teeth with my own special home made explosive."
"So then." Naruto rose to his feet. "What does that mean for us?"
"Don't get me wrong, I'm still totally going to kill you yeah? But when I heard the Fox and the Scourge of the fucking Sand where black listed? I couldn't pass that up! So here's what we're gonna do." The man named Deidara prepared to take his leave, backing slowly towards the door, what was presumed to be a detonator in one hand and Gaara's revolver pointed threateningly at the two with the other. "It's because of my passion that I'm going to let you two go. And this standoff will be the most explosive celebration of death that we could ever fucking imagine. God, I'm excited just thinking about it!"
"You're quite literally a lunatic aren't you." Gaara stated more than he asked.
"Artist. I'm an artist. But you didn't know better so I'll forgive you. Because you, me, your little girlfriend, Misses Yamanaka, and even her crook of a father are going to get to know each other very well."
"If you want even a chance of being able to live out your life in at least a wheelchair, you'll leave the girls out of this." Naruto growled.
Deidara stopped his retreat. Clutching his stomach as he tried to hold in a hearty laugh. "Oh, My bad." I honestly meant just the three of us, my associate should be doing away with the girls and that prick Yamanaka any minute now."
xXx
A/N: Bit of a cliffhanger, but it makes since to end it here for now. What's in the bag? What's going to happen to Tenten and Ino? Whys my update schedule so fucked up?! Find out next time on DBZ.
Let me know what you thought! Tell me! Lol I'll see you guys in a few, peace.
-Sober T