Bull's Eye

By: Sonnie

Gaara knew and heartily admitted that he was guilty of many wrongdoings, but wondered what he could have possibly done to warrant his current situation. A borderline passed out-drunk Shikamaru on his left (after many, many drinks the man still clung to consciousness) and (a still in his prime state of drunkenness) Lee on his right. The latter was currently twelve degrees beyond obnoxiously loud.

"Another toast!" Lee exclaimed grandly, tears in his eyes. "May the glorious springtime of youth never cease!"

Not caring (or realizing, Gaara thought drolly) that no one else joined his celebration; Lee threw the glass back and downed the alcohol.

Forget the springtime of youth, Gaara thought warily, trying very hard to resist the nagging urge to push Lee into the nearest wall. Why can't you cease?

Gaara sighed, realizing he could only blame himself for what had happened. Lee had gone straight for the saké and Gaara hadn't thought to stop him. By the time he cared enough to do something, it was far, far too late.

I guess there are advantages to getting involved, Gaara thought glumly, wishing fervently that he had acted sooner as he wrenched the saké bottle from Lee's hand. To his dismay, the green-clad ninja merely picked up another, fuller bottle at the other end of the table.

Gaara heard the door open, vaguely hoping it was Naruto coming to put him out of his misery. It was Tenten, having just arrived at the bar. She was flanked by Temari and Kankurou.

"Wow…the famous Nara constitution finally defeated?" a voice behind him said, giving the half-unconscious man a poke.

"He's had quite a few," Gaara noted, not even turning to face Tenten. "I've lost count."

"Oi!" Temari yelled cheerfully, less than two inches from Shikamaru's ear. "Lazy bum, wake up! You need to wake up because I'm not dragging your skinny ass home."

"You could probably carry him," Kankurou mused, ducking just in the nick of time to avoid one of Lee's wildly swinging arms.

"But that would be so troublesome," Temari yelled, smiling maliciously as Shikamaru lifted his hands to cover his ears, an attempt in vain to block out the noise. Wincing as Lee crashed into something a few feet away, Shikamaru groaned.

"Someone needs to put a stop to him," Shikamaru warned, glancing over at Lee. "If you think he's bad now, a give him a minute and he'll be a nightmare."

Temari snorted. Her skepticism was cut short when one of Lee's elbows hit the table next to her arm, cracking it in half.

"And how do we go about doing that?" Kankurou demanded, eyeing Lee's meandering form carefully. It wasn't a pretty sight, watching the dark-haired man stumble through the establishment. Cheeks quite rosy, the dazed expression he wore did nothing to alleviate the fears of those around him. Wisely, everyone gave him a wide berth by either moving away or fleeing the scene. Gaara was thankful the furniture in Lee's immediate area was sparse.

"How did you end this last time?" Shikamaru turned to Tenten, who smiled sheepishly.

"Uh…I sort of let Neji and Gai-sensei handle it," she murmured, eyes darting to where Lee was spilling saké all over the floor. "He broke a table and about a month's pay worth of plates. He also managed to punch Neji in the eye."

Kankurou winced. No doubt, Hyuuga would have been pissed. He knew Lee was a competent fighter, but Neji was a master of defense.

For Lee to be able to get past him…

"Well, you're the one who's had the most experience with this," Gaara said, this meaning him. "You fix it."

Blinking, Tenten realized he was completely serious. "Fine," she sighed, submitting herself to the task. Approaching Lee with her hands raised defensively, she stopped about three feet away from him.

"Lee…why don't you hand me the bottle?" she asked gently, beckoning with one hand.

"Noooo," Lee slurred belligerently, yanking the bottle away from her. "S'mine."

Tenten blinked. "Lee, can I please have the bottle?" she asked again. When he ignored her, she made a swipe for it, unfortunately coming up empty-handed.

"It's miiiiiine!" Lee yelled. A slow grin split his face. "Unless…you wanna fight me for it!"

Tenten ducked his swinging arm, eyes wide when she noticed Lee's fist had gone right through the wooden panel of the wall. Rolling out of the way of a kick, she successfully blocked the next, only to have the force knock her into a table.

The sad thing is, he's holding back, Tenten thought dismally.

"Shouldn't someone help her?" Shikamaru suggested airily, only to end up with three pairs of eyes glaring at him intently.

"Aren't you going to?" Temari demanded. "She's your teammate!"

"Yeah…" Shikamaru drawled. "But she's all the way over there…"

"Moron, help her!" Temari hissed, smacking his head.

"Owwww…" the dark-haired ninja groaned, hands weakly trembling as he cradled his skull lovingly. He forced his bleary eyes to watch as Lee played keep away with his saké bottle, much to the girl's dismay.

"Throw something at him," Kankurou suggested, wincing as a plate when hit the wall by his head, thrown into the air by Lee when he stumbled backwards into a table. He'd been trying to approach but wasn't terribly familiar with Lee's fighting style. His taijutsu skills were worthless, anyway.

"I don't want to hurt him!" Tenten said, managing to block one of his swinging arms and dish out an uppercut with her own.

Yelling, Lee charged after her, saké bottle abandoned. Tackling her, a startled Tenten tilted backwards. She swore out loud when she felt her back crack against the stair she fell on, hoping desperately it wasn't too bad. Expecting a renewed attack, she moved her arms to push Lee off, only to exhale sharply under a mass of dead weight.

"Are you injured?" Gaara asked gravely, a shattered saké bottle in his hand.

"A little extreme, weren't you?" Tenten asked, ignoring his question. She painfully rolled Lee's unconscious body off her and checked his vitals.

"He's a little extreme," Gaara said simply, tossing the bottle on the ground. Smirking, he looked down. "But it was quite satisfying."

Sighing, Tenten stood. "I'd better go smooth things over with the owner," she said, sighing tiredly. She winced as she brushed fragments of glass from her back.

"You're paying for all this?" Temari asked her skeptically.

Tenten smiled. "No…Gai-sensei is." Laughing maniacally at this revealed bit of information, she walked over to the barkeeper, her hand rubbing at her injury.

-O-

Tenten was lazily throwing darts at the dilapidated board that was hanging onto the wall by a nail so rusty it looked orange. Grinding her teeth at the pain in her lower back, she flung the projectiles with a bit more force than necessary. Ignoring the stares of the people in awe of her perfect aim, she slammed her fist on the table after the last dart embedded itself in the board, not quite a bull's eye.

"How the hell is that idiot ever going to be Hokage if he's so damned late?" she growled, glaring at her missed aim before focusing on the clock above the door. She walked over and wrenched out the misguided dart. "The whole mess with Lee happened because he was supposed to be here over two hours ago."

"Maybe he's taking after his sensei," suggested Shikamaru, still looking bad but an improvement from before. His double vision was gone but his head kept ringing incessantly, usually brought on by a confrontation with Temari.

Tenten glared at the dartboard, prepared to let it loose again as the door swung open, slamming into the wall. Naruto burst through, followed by Neji and Hinata. The older Hyuuga looked less than pleased, and Hinata looked more than nervous.

"Hey!" Naruto exclaimed, smiling brightly. It dimmed a bit when he noticed the hard stares of several sets of eyes. "What's wrong?"

"This," Gaara moved back in his chair, revealing Lees in the next. He jerked his head sharply in the unconscious nin's direction.

"What happened?" Hinata asked worriedly, watching Lee's body slide right off the chair and hit the ground.

"He had too much to drink," Tenten said dismissively. She really didn't need Neji killing Lee because he'd hurt her in a drunken stupor. She really couldn't see Gai-sensei paying for the damages that way. She eased herself slowly off her chair, then realized it hurt just as much to stand.

"How did you stop him?" Neji asked.

"Tenten distracted him for a bit and Gaara broke a saké bottle over his head," Kankurou related calmly.

"Distracted him?" Hinata asked, puzzled.

"Yeah, she did the hard work while lazy bones here just sat back and watched the show," Temari said pointedly to Shikamaru.

"Can you please keep your voice down?" he wailed helplessly. "Besides, I didn't see any of you lift a finger."

"Actually, he did," Gaara contradicted, pointing to Kankurou. His green eyes were fixed on Tenten. "We should have met somewhere else. This was a bad idea."

Tenten waved a hand dismissively. "But since we're all here, let's just get this meeting over with," she suggested.

Agreeing with this, Naruto and Shikamaru drew up their plan, the former being of a lot more help than the latter. Despite listening to every word they said, Neji felt his eyes drift back to Tenten, who was frowning as her hand rubbed her lower back.

As Naruto rummaged through his belongings to find a map, Tenten felt rather than saw Kankurou come up next to her.

"You probably should have done this awhile ago," he muttered, handing her a pack of ice. "It's probably too late to stop the swelling, but it will still help."

Tenten smiled her thanks and Neji saw that her eyes follow his back as he returned to his sister's side. He'd noticed she was in pain but didn't know the whole story. Frowning, he looked back at Tenten.

Neji wasn't sure why he felt uncomfortable with what happened. Kankurou had just handed his former teammate an icepack…he was helping her. It wasn't in the slightest bit sexual…he hadn't even touched her. But there had been a sincere twinkle in his eyes and she had lifted the corners of her mouth as if something had passed between. It was something completely unfamiliar to him. Words couldn't capture the touches of comfort and ease and concern and kindness…

Neji felt everyone's eyes on him. Thankfully he had been halfway listening to Naruto and was able to answer the question easily without missing a beat, but felt a flash of irritation that he had allowed his thoughts to wander. Though the mission was just an escort (and everyone in town knew about the businessman's journey since he wasn't known for his discretion), he had paid for a lot of jounins. Tsunade hadn't been thrilled but didn't have a choice.

"It doesn't help that everyone within Fire Country knows he's taking a sabbatical," Naruto grumbled.

"It also doesn't help that he has a large family he's insistent on carting with him," Shikamaru said, frowning. "I've been researching a bit and ever since his wife died, he's seemingly replaced her with a large amount of servants as well as a governess. Guarding this little entourage is going to be a nightmare. The idiot wants to take twelve people."

Tenten sighed, the trickle of icy water running down her back from the icepack just about the only thing going for her. It was going to be the mission from hell and they only had two days to prepare everything—their client was obsessed with paperwork and contingency plans. Thankfully, Shikamaru, Hinata, and Neji were taking care of all that. But the mission itself would be basically babysitting a bunch of spoiled little brats…Tenten scowled. This was a very bad day.

"Tenten."

She jumped at the gravelly voice that uttered her name as gently as it probably could. "Let Hinata have a look at your back," Gaara told her. "We can take care of this."

Tenten was about to protest but realized it was useless. She knew he was about as concerned as he was ever going to show and was actually touched he said anything at all. Acquiescing, she allowed the Hyuuga woman to pull her aside and lead her to the restroom. Dropping the bag of ice in the sink, she pulled up her shirt in the back.

"Oh my," Hinata gasped, colorless eyes wide as they surveyed the bruises.

Glancing behind her in the mirror, Tenten felt like she was going to be sick. Even though it hadn't broken the skin, the shards of glass and ceramic from the broken table wear had scored her back, leaving many angry, crimson lines crisscrossing over a mass of yellow-purple bruises.

She held her breath as Hinata began to carefully survey the damage, not quite touching her as she ran her fingertips over her lower back. She felt the healing energy and knew that even though some of the damage was mending, it would still look and feel really bad for at least a few weeks. Tenten lost track of time counting the tiles in the ceiling, coming up with a different number every time.

"The damage isn't permanent," Hinata said finally, eyes fixed doubtfully on her back. "But I think you have a hairline fraction. It would probably be best if you didn't go on the mission."

Tenten whirled around, eyes squeezed shut when she accidentally bumped into Hinata's arm in her haste.

"You can't heal it all?" she asked helplessly, already knowing the answer. Her wallet was getting quite thin and she was getting restless.

"I've healed some of the damage, yes," Hinata said fretfully. "But you really need to rest your back. I'm sorry, Tenten, but that's—"

"Yo, what's taking so—holy shit, that's gotta hurt like a son of a bitch," Temari finished, her face a mixture of disgust and pity. "He really got you good."

Tenten felt a surge of anger. "What are you doing here?" she demanded.

Unfazed, Temari shrugged. "Well, it is the girls' bathroom," she trailed off. "But those guys sent me to check on you because you took so long. I think they were expecting an in-out kind of thing."

"Yeah, so was I," Tenten replied unenthusiastically.

Temari turned to Hinata. "Can she go on the mission like that?" she asked, pointing.

Hinata looked down, her fingertips meeting in that classic nervous gesture of hers. Tenten felt her hope melting away.

"I—I wouldn't recommend it," Hinata said truthfully, shying away from Tenten. "But if she really wants to, I can't stop her."

"Huh," Temari grunted, surveying the damage critically. "Well, since Hinata-san is the medical expert and she thinks you really shouldn't, you need to at least tell Shikamaru and the others and see what they think."

Tenten exhaled sharply, pulling down her shirt. "I'm an adult, Temari," she said in a low voice. "I can make my own decisions about whether or not I'm capable of going on a mission or not."

"It's not a matter of what you think, it's a matter of what the leader thinks," Temari corrected icily. "And if they don't want you, you're stuck with their choice."

Tenten stormed from the bathroom with a stony expression, stopping at the table next to Shikamaru. Temari threw open the door and followed calmly, trailed by an extremely anxious Hinata. Staring straight ahead and ignoring them both, Tenten took a deep breath.

"Hinata doesn't think me fit to go on this mission," she said, voice tight. "But she healed me and if I get proper rest I know I'll be more than up to it."

"Is it that bad?" Shikamaru asked her, his expression dead serious. He could see how angry she was; Tenten was not someone who succumbed to that very quickly. He was concerned and to see that emotion all over her calm leader's face just made her angrier.

Biting her lip, Tenten lifted up the back of her shirt, showing about four inches of skin. Turning around in time to catch the slight grimace Shikamaru allowed himself, she crossed her arms irately after yanking the fabric back down.

"How bad is the damage, Hinata?" he asked the med-nin. Biting her lip for a completely different reason then Tenten, she fiddled with her sleeve shyly.

"She's got a small fracture," Hinata confirmed. "But I healed it. Still…the bone is tender. She'll make a full recovery but not in time for the mission. I don't want her risking something more serious." Pausing, she looked at the unreadable expression on Tenten's face. "I'm sorry."

Tenten shook her head, determined not to take her anger out on Hinata. "Don't worry about it," she said quietly. She looked at Shikamaru, whose face had guilt written all over it.

"Tenten, I—" Shikamaru began tightly.

"Forget it, I already know what you're going to say," she whispered. "I'll get my things and head back."

Scooping up her bag, she wisely held it by her hip instead of customarily slinging it over her shoulder. The feel of everyone's eyes on her made her so incredibly angry that she picked up the dart she retrieved earlier and flung it at the board. The door shut, not quite a slam but her feelings were no secret. No one said anything for a moment until Kankurou's whisper broke the silence.

"Bull's eye."