Fandom: Naruto
Pairing: SasuSaku
Summary: "So, we have your wife. You get her back for two billion yen. Cash." The caller's confident Sasuke will find a way to get the money. If he loves his wife enough. Sasuke does. He has sixty hours to prove it, and he'll pay a lot more than two billion yen.
Disclaimer: Naruto © Masashi Kishimoto. The Husband © Dean Koontz.
Courage is grace under pressure
– Ernest Hemmingway
Call #4: The Insurance
They'll just take one step into the kitchen and they'll know you killed her yourself
"I understand your anger—"
"You stupid, fucking—"
"—but I don't have much patience for it."
Sasuke paused, thinking over the man's words.
"Listen," he snarled. "If you hurt her—"
"I already have hurt her," the kidnapper sneered. "And if you don't pull this off, I'll butcher the bitch like a side of beef."
As he said that, Sasuke was suddenly aware of the position he was in.
They had his wife.
He had nothing but a bloody kitchen that only pointed an accusing finger at himself.
"Don't hurt her again. Don't," Sasuke said, trying not to sound desperate.
"Chill, Uchiha. Just chill. Let me explain a few things."
Sasuke absentmindedly brushed a broken dish aside to clear the breakfast bar. It was the only thing that was clear to him at the moment.
"About the blood," the kidnapper continued. "I slapped her down when she tried to fight back — you've got one tough wife there, I'll tell you that — but I didn't cut her."
"What?"
"We just got a tourniquet and put it on her arm until a vein popped up, stuck a needle in it, and drew four vials of blood just like your doctor does when you get a physical. Hey, the missus is studying to become a doctor, right?"
Sasuke leaned his forehead against his free hand, which was supported on the breakfast bar. He tried in vain to concentrate.
"We smeared blood on her hands and made those prints," explained the kidnapper. "It's a stage setting, Uchiha. So it looks like she was murdered there."
Sasuke blinked and sat up straight in his seat.
"Wait, what?"
"Think of it as a little extra insurance. Just in case you chicken out and go to the police. No matter how much you clean up, you'll never remove all the bloodstains. They won't believe the kidnapping story. They'll just take one step into the kitchen and they'll know you killed her yourself."
Sasuke stared at the bloody handprint on the refrigerator.
"I didn't tell them anything," he said.
"I know, Uchiha."
There was a pause.
"There's a butcher knife missing from the rack in your kitchen," the abductor pointed out.
Sasuke didn't even bother to confirm the claim.
"We wrapped it with one of your T-shirts and a pair of your blue jeans. The clothes are stained with your wife's blood."
They were professional, all right, just like Sakura had said.
"The package is hidden somewhere on your property. You won't be able to find it, but police dogs wouldn't have a hard time doing so."
"I get the picture," Sasuke finally said.
"I know. You aren't stupid. That's why we picked you, after all."
Sasuke didn't know whether he should have taken that as a compliment or not.
"That's also why we bought ourselves so much insurance," the kidnapped continued. "You don't have any room for mistakes, Uchiha. One slip and your beloved wife dies. You're a mess right now. So just go relax. I'll call you at six o'clock."
"You've got to be kidding me. That's," Sasuke checked the clock on the wall, "three hours from now."
"You're still in your work clothes. Go change. Get out of the house. Don't stay there. It's filled with memories, and your head's already fucked up as it is."
Sasuke closed his eyes.
"Hn. All right."
"Oh, and one more thing. Listen to this…"
Sasuke thought he was going to hear a scream of pain from Sakura again, to emphasise how powerless he was to protect her. He was relieved when instead, he heard two taped voices:
'Okay. Is there anything else you would like to tell me?'
A pause.
'No, Lieutenant.'
'I see. Well, I gave you my business card.'
'I have it.'
'Call me if you remember anything you would like to say.'
'Of course.'
The first voice belonged to Lieutenant Hyuuga Neji. The second voice was his own.
The kidnapper said, "If you told him anything, Uchiha, you'd be a widower right now."
Suddenly, it hit Sasuke.
"Hyuuga's one of you."
"Maybe he is. Maybe not. You should just assume everyone is one of us. That'll be safer for your family. Everybody is one of us."
They had built a box around him. Now they were putting on the lid.
"Uchi—Sasuke" the kidnapper said, reverting to his given name to seem more assuring. "I don't want to leave you on such a dark note. I want to put you at ease about something. I want you to know that we won't touch her."
"You hit her, you bastard."
"And I'll hit her again if she doesn't do as she's told," snapped the kidnapper. Then, in a gentler tone, "but we won't touch her. We aren't rapists, Sasuke."
"What makes you think I'll believe you?"
"Obviously, there are a lot of things I won't tell you—"
"You're killers, but not rapists?" Sasuke sneered.
"—but everything I have told you up to this point has been true. You think back over everything that's happened, and you'll see that I've been truthful and that I've always kept my word."
Sasuke wanted to kill him. Never before had he felt an urge to do serious violence to another human being — it was just a waste of effort and emotion for him — but he honestly wanted to destroy this man and his friends that were holding Sakura captive.
He was clutching the phone so fiercely that his hand ached. He was not able to relax his grip.
"You're tougher than you think, Sasuke. But in the interest of getting the best performance out of you, I want you to know we'll treat Sakura with respect. If you do everything we ask of you, then she'll come back to you alive… and untouched."
Sakura was not weak. She would not easily be mentally broken by physical abuse. But rape was more than a violation of the body. Rape broke the mind, the heart, and the spirit.
Her captor might have raised the issue with the sincere intent of putting some of Sasuke's fears to rest. But the sonofabitch had also raised it as a warning.
"Why should I believe you?"
"Because you have to. Otherwise, you might as well consider her dead right now."
That was an inescapable truth.
The kidnapper terminated the call.
Standing on the back porch, Sasuke was deep in thought.
If they had hidden the bundle of clothes somewhere on his property, it would most likely be buried under one of the flower beds. If he found the clothes and the knife, and cleaned up the kitchen, he would be able to gain some control, however little it may be.
Sakura had said she knew he was in the kitchen. She could only have known if the kidnappers had known. They wouldn't view his actions the same way. They had staged his wife's murder to box him in, and they wouldn't want that box to be deconstructed.
To punish him, they would hurt Sakura.
We won't touch her, the kidnapper had said. But he had no compunctions about hitting her.
To dress the set of the staged homicide, they had drawn her blood painlessly, with a hypodermic syringe. They had not, however, sworn to spare her from a knife if need be.
At the garage, the dark windows and the sun-tinted windows mocked him. The porch furniture and the patio furniture, arranged with the expectation of the enjoyment of lazy summer evenings, mocked him.
The lush and sculpted landscaping, on which he and Sakura had spent so many hours, mocked him as well.
All the beauty born from their work now seemed to be superficial, and its superficiality made it all seem ugly.
He returned to the house and closed the back door. He didn't bother locking it.
After having a shower and changing, Sasuke found himself standing at Sakura's small vanity, where she sat daily on a tufted stool to brush her hair, apply her makeup and put on her earrings.
Sasuke had no idea what they expected of him, how he could possibly raise two billion yen to ransom his wife, but he made no attempt to imagine any other possible scenarios. A man on a high ledge is well advised not to spend too much time studying the long drop.
The doorbell rang.
"Oi, Sasuke, you got any food?" Naruto asked, as his stomach growled for the twenty fourth time that afternoon.
Sasuke looked up from his work briefly.
"Yeah, it's in the kitchen."
The three of them heard the house's front door open and close, and one of the household servants greet, "Welcome home, Itachi-waka-danna."
"I'll get the food!" Sakura said enthusiastically, jumping off Sasuke's bed and running out the door before either Naruto or Sasuke could ask her what to get.
Naruto leaned his chin on his fist.
"You know," he mused, "Sakura-chan seems to be awfully active whenever she's in your house."
Sasuke grunted in reply.
"But then again, I've noticed that," Naruto continued, looking at Sasuke with a puzzled expression on his face, "it only appears at intervals."
"Naruto…"
"Like whenever Itachi is in the house," Naruto finished, oblivious to the death glare Sasuke was giving him.
"Naruto. Shut up."
"Wait a minute," a figurative light bulb appeared over Naruto's head, as he had a revelation, "I think I'm on to something! Damn, Sasuke, I think Sakura-chan has a crush on your brother — Ow!"
"I thought I told you to shut up. Now give me back my book."
The kidnapper said he would call at 6 o'clock, not come calling. Besides, the bedside clock said that it was only 5 o'clock.
Leaving the door unanswered was not an option. He needed to be responsive regardless of how Sakura's captors chose to contact him. And if the visitor had nothing to do with her abduction, Sasuke was nevertheless obliged to answer the door in order to maintain an air of normalcy.
His car in the driveway proved that he was home. A neighbour, getting no response to the bell, might circle to the back of the house to knock at the kitchen door. The six-pane window in that door would provide a clear view of the kitchen floor strewn with broken dishes, the bloody handprints on the cabinets and the refrigerator.
He should have drawn shut the blinds.
Sasuke left the bedroom, followed the hall, and crossed the living room before the visitor had time to ring the bell twice.
The front door had no windows.
He opened it and found Lieutenant Hyuuga Neji and Detective Nara Shikamaru on the porch.
A/N:
NB: waka-danna means 'young master of the house', if I'm not mistaken. Correct me if I'm wrong.
So I think it's about time to include some flashback-like things to give more character-understanding in Sasuke and Sakura's relationship.
And Naruto isn't that dense. When it comes to knowing who his friends fancy.
When it comes to knowing who fancies him, however... -cough-HINATA-cough-
Um. The rape thing is half from a conversation I had with fisah, about how YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSE TO ENJOY IT.
Lessthanthree.
