Summary:

The eyes of the Hyuuga are as cold and glittering as the iced-over snowflakes. Are their minds, their hearts, their souls any different? [AU] [Non-Chronological Linked Drabbles]

General Disclaimer For The Entire Story:

I don't own Naruto. If I did, I'd have given Deidara more screentime, because he is awesome and a pyromaniac and thus doubly awesome. In fact, he's 120% awesomer, you could say. Oh, and the cover picture isn't mine, either. Should I change it? (Does anybody actually read this disclaimer?)


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(curses at stupidity occur, with just cause)

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[Age 20]

(Mafia!AU)

"You're a goddamned idiot, you know that, Uchiha? You're a cocky, smug, insufferable, goddamned idiot who wanders off and gets his sorry little ass handed to him. Oh, yeah, and let's not forget how he then wanders back with a bullet in his chest and leaking gallons of blood. What, you expect me to patch you up every single time?"

Sasuke, the 'Uchiha' in question, is indeed leaking blood, although to say gallons of it would be a bit of over-exaggeration.

Nevertheless, it's probably enough to send him into hysteria.

At least, that's his private excuse for ever finding the way Hinata flushes an angry pink, nebulous eyes shining in feverish fury, and lips pressed thin in veiled anxiety, cute.

Because surely he has to be crazy before he starts thinking that the snappish she-demon, icy and violent even in their (forced) shared childhood, is remotely attractive, right?

(Grudgingly, he can admit that, to most of the general public, Hinata is considered as classically beautiful and gorgeous as, well, him.)

His smart-mouth moves on auto, snarking, "In our profession, we're all damned by god. And when'd you start cussing so much? Picked it up from that pal Hidan?"

And it's true.

When you're in a crime family-

Hinata barely looks at him, simply pinching him hard in the back of his neck, and action Sasuke can't counter with his current, wounded, sluggish body.

He blacks out on a freezing steel gurney.

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He wakes up on a stiff hospital bed, an orderly, color-coded mass of wires and drips and IVs hooked up to him, and winces at the pain from his neck, which Hinata had just pinched again to rouse him.

"You're fucking lucky that the Hyuuga always have at least a security squad patrolling and a well-stocked infirmary in every base. Anyway, they're out on a raid right now, so since you decided to stumble into this particular base, you have the honor of me being your medic, because it's not like any of the security goons can leave their post. Plus, they can't tell a stitch from a suture, which frankly bothers me more than them leaving a potential gap in security."

Ah, yes.

The Hyuuga.

A former rival Famiglia of the Uchiha, specializing in security, medicine, and churning out martial-arts prodigies skilled at the art of stabbing pressure points until they die, thanks to their freaky white eyes (though not as freaky as the Uchiha's even more infamous red-and-black eyes), until a recent alliance nearly two decades ago cemented their places at the top of the Mafia ladder.

(The Uchiha specialize in security, weaponry, and churning out eidetic-memory prodigies skilled in the art of setting things on fire until they die.

The Yamanaka branch of the Uchiha Famiglia is the one specializing in capture, interrogation, and churning out people-charming prodigies skilled in the art of mindfucking people until they die, with their less-freaky pupiless blue eyes, though many mistake the Uchiha to be the mindfuckers, since they have their unfairly strong illusions and subconscious hypnotization.

But no.

The Uchiha are just a bunch of pyromaniacs who pretend to be severe disciplinarians who abhor sunshine and ban joy and are soulless husks devoid of any concept of happiness.

It makes them seem cooler and more kuudere than a bunch of people cackling madly over a corpse on fire.)

Of course, there are always those upstart little gangs and those idealistic law-enforcers to keep an eye and a gun-scope on, so life's not all gold and diamonds and billion-dollar wine.

It's agony to simply croak out, "Sakura?", when every nerve end in his body feels numb and buzzing, marinated in a stew of pure pain.

Huh, he's not normally this eloquent in his head.

Or, uh, outside his head.

Must be whatever painkillers she's drowned his neurons in.

"Deployed to another base to bail out Naruto; he was accused of cheating in another Famiglia's casino (thanks to his unfairly divinely good luck), he got mad when they tried to, ahem, separate him and his winnings by force, long story short, the you-know-what started manifesting and he killed a bunch of guys and now he's trying to lay low at Shikamaru's. Sakura needs to run interference, make sure to hush the whole thing up, and either placate or absorb them. Probably absorb, they sent Neji with her," she mutters absently, clicking open a matte-chrome pen (a pen that he knows is capable of doubling as a high-intensity laser) to scribble away on the clipboard she's holding, an all-business look that clashed with her snazzy, pristine black-and-white-and-heliotrope lady-suit and black slingback wedge-heels, long blue-black tresses gathered into an elaborate bun.

(It's not really scribbling, per say, because Hinata's handwriting is a languid, loopy, lovely thing to behold, all curved lines and swift dashes and a crisp, 'I-look-down-on-you-and-your-not-as-fabulous-handwriting' presentation.

So it's more of an elegant 'scrawl' at most, not a messy 'scribble'.

He is just petulant enough to not concede that she has better handwriting than he does: cursive, shorthand, plain, inkwell, quill, brush, pencil, whatever and whichever way.)

Sasuke tries to glare at the suit, fails because he can't move his head properly, and settles for mentally glaring at it.

Damn it all, how does she manage to keep her 5-digit pricetag suit in mint condition, while his is all ruined?

Okaa-san is going to kill him, then resurrect him, then murder him, then revive him, then slaughter him, then regenerate him, then slice him slowly to pieces with a butter knife and set each one individually on fire.

A plastic blunted butter knife with traces of actual butter left.

And meanwhile, smug little Itachi will be standing in the corner with his smug little face smirking that smug little smirk.

God, how he hates him.

Itachi's goal in life is to make Sasuke as miserable as possible, and for the most part, his plans work.

Sasuke isn't exactly sure how Itachi has been responsible for ruining his suit, but it is definitely Itachi.

It is always Itachi.

"If you want your suit to be fine next time, then make sure there isn't a next time. Suits tend to get ripped when one runs recklessly into ambush and a line of fire because they didn't listen to the mission briefer. And stop blaming your brother for everything, that's just being petty."

What?

"Yes, you were saying all that aloud. Woozy from the painkillers. You're drugged up to what tiny gray cells you have left. That's your brain, by the way."

But he is thinking in perfect clarity ... he thinks ... and he thinks that that is supposed to be an insult ... ?

"Well, then, whatever comes out of your mouth sure isn't in the same clarity. Hold still, I need to extract the bullet, concentrate on something else. Or don't."

Okay, so it isn't Itachi this time.

This time, Sasuke decides that is is definitely Naruto's fault.

If that dobe hadn't gone off and made a fool of himself and had to hide out at neutral info-dealer Shikamaru's place, then Sakura wouldn't have had to go save his ass, and then she'd be the one healing him and not Hinata, whose bedside manner really, really sucked, and-

"Oh?"

Something feels vaguely tighter around his ribs, barely poking through the general 'warm-gooey-eurgh' of the numbing medication.

"So ungrateful," she snipes with a carefully strained reservation, but the sound seems far away, miles away from next to his head, his dazed and subtly sleepy head.

'Crapcrapcrap,' he thinks, making a titanic effort to reduce the faint babble in his head back to coherent words.

They go something like: 'Holy fuck I should not have said that even if I thought I'd just thought it because they could be taken the wrong way and the last thing I want is an angry Hinata when she's in charge of my life even if she probably wouldn't let me diie because she's my-'

"You were saying all that aloud again, fiancé. I won't let you die, naturally; that would kind of sour the arranged-marriage for the nearly two-decade Hyuuga-Uchiha alliance, wouldn't it? But the next time you fucking ditch me in the middle of a dinner date for some shitty mission you con-fucking-viently forget to tell me about until you just bolted 3/4 through, well... Well, telling you would ruin the fun, fun, fun surprises, would they not? Rest assured, Saucey-honey, this humorous anecdote will be going straight to Mikoto, and then Hanabi and Neji and, hell, why not? Itachi and Naruto and Sakura and everyone we know..."

An extreme sense of horrifying, impeding paranoia and doom descends heavily upon him.

Okaa-san will have no mercy; she is utterly devoted and delighted by the idea of having a daughter-in-law to dote on, especially one who 'can't change her mind because of your social awkwardness', and especially especially Hinata, who she finds a 'charming, simply charming girl'.

Hanabi has hated him from the get-go; Sasuke is half-convinced she rose from her crib with the fires of hatred stoked and ready to confront the one about to 'take my Nee-chan away from me'. She finds everyone to be 'unfit for my Nee-chan, since she's too awesome for anyone!', and that doubly includes him. He has once seen her burning a voodoo doll that looked incredibly like him, so Uchiha-like is her love for fire.

Neji is the classic over-protective brother. Itachi is the classic make-his-life-hell brother. Naruto is the classic overprotective annoying friend. Sakura is the classic opinionated scary friend.

Ohmaigai I'm gonna die.

"Although I find it amusing as to how you are praying to Gai of all people, this much terror might be negative for your recovery. We'll have to wait until after you're well again in order to torture you, so relax a bit. Though if you dare to pull that same stunt on our wedding-"

He doesn't relax, partly because he's still paralyzed.

A sigh.

"Can't believe I forgot that. Ah, well. Relax."

His neck throbs again, a piteous wail for mercy, and he blacks out once more, to the blurry sight of his fiancée smiling shyly at her delicate engagement ring of moonstones and amethysts and linked-together titanium, her entire body softening in this moment of vulnerability, safe in her assumption of him already being knocked out.

Cute.

(Terrifying, but cute.)


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A Mafia!verse, because I love those things.

Yay for a Hidan and Hinata friendship; I've read a few very well-written one-shots about that, actually, with him giving her confidence and getting her out of her shell.

... Okay, more like I've read two, maybe three well-written one-shots, but they were very good.

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-Review.-