Itachi found himself driving to his parents' beach house earlier than he intended, yet somehow later too. Sasuke's call had concerned him, it was unlike his brother to do drugs, but then again Sasuke's personality seemed unlikely to mix well with Naruto's, so Itachi was aware stranger things had happened. When he arrived at the beach house a little past two in the morning, he found one idiot on the laptop, and the other diligently taking notes in the kitchen. "All the websites seem to agree on is that mermaids like water, which is like saying the sun is hot."
"Or water is wet." Naruto added, Itachi could see the scowl on his brother's face.
Itachi decided there was no time to spare, if the idiots were seeing mermaids it was better to figure things out now. "How high are you two, and on what?" They both jumped at his voice.
Sasuke look offended, "we are not on drugs. As if I would allow Naruto to become any stupider."
''Hey! I resent that."
"You two called me asking me for help because you found a mermaid." Walking closer to them, he noted how they both fixed their posture, it had taken time to train them so well, but he was glad that even in their drug addled minds they held him to such esteem. "I arrive here to find you two researching mermaids. What did you take?" He asked again.
"I told you calling Itachi was a bad idea, and you call me an idiot." Sasuke for his part ignored Naruto.
"Actually Naruto, calling me was the smartest thing you could have done."
"Nah, calling Shikamaru was, even if he didn't pick up."
"Naruto, shut it you idiot." It was then that an alarm went off, he looked to the source only to see Naruto going to get his phone.
"Gotta go, it's my turn," and so Naruto left to do gods know what, which only confused Itachi more.
"We didn't take any drugs." With all the questions swirling around his head Itachi almost missed Sasuke's words. "Even if we had, the chances of both of us seeing a mermaid seem a little small don't you think?"
"That's your argument "both of us saw it?"
"I told you on the phone what we saw, if you don't believe us, why are you here?"
"Because you two are clearly on something."
"Than why is there a naked girl on my bed right now?" Even Sasuke seemed taken aback by his own words, "wait, let me rephrase that. How many people have you seen with naturally pink hair?" None, Itachi wanted to yell, but remained quiet, his brother clearly wanted to explain something to him. "she does!"
"It is probably some genetic mutation." Not probably, it was, it had to be. "How are you so sure it is natural?"
"Her eyelashes." He replied calmly, "I mean yeah she was naked, but I didn't look, you know," Sasuke was blushing now. "I'm not some pervert!"
"I am not accusing you of anything."
"You mean other than doing drugs?"
"Fine, let's say you didn't-"
"Which is true by the way."
"Fine, you didn't do drugs." Sasuke looked like he was about to interrupt him again, he put a hand on his shoulder to silence him. "Your eyes were probably playing tricks on you."
"We know what we saw."
"I do not doubt you believe to have seen a mermaid."
Moving away from Itachi, Sasuke's frustration was evident, "why is this so difficult for you to understand!?" Though even as he spoke it was abundantly clear to Sasuke why it was so difficult.
"Fine, we will look at the security footage, mermaids are not real Sasuke." Which where words he never thought he would have to say.
Sasuke felt like an idiot, he felt like Naruto. Wasting his time arguing with his brother when a camera had caught the transformation. Or at least it was safe to assume so, his parents spared no expense for security on their properties, especially the beach house which was meant for relaxation in the summer months.
Naruto caught them on their way to Fugaku's office, "where are we going?"
Sasuke was not given the chance to answer him when Itachi spoke, "to provide evidence of your stupidity." If Naruto was confused, he asked no questions only following their lead.
Sasuke had never in his life heard his brother curse. Naruto had once joked that his brother was incapable of such a thing, to much of a saint to do so. Five minutes after entering Fugaku's office, Sasuke could no longer claim the same. "Fucking hell." It was not the best angle, but the lighting was great, it had only been around seven when they found her after all. There they watched as the ocean seemed to carry her on to the beach and laid her gently. They then watched as Naruto and Sasuke stopped and stared as they watched the tail transform into legs.
It was kind of sad that it took the them a minute or two (actually five minutes), to react and rush to her aid. Sasuke had believed them to be speedy in aiding her. He expected Itachi to scold them for their late reactions. However the matter of their late reactions did not come up, instead Itachi played the footage again, and again. Every time a curse escaping his lips. "It appears I owe you both an apology." Sasuke noted that Itachi did not in fact apologize, but remained silent on the matter, it was not the time for it. Once more Itachi played the footage, and Sasuke felt the shock of seeing the tail transform into legs wear off.
Naruto must have felt the same, for both chose to leave Itachi looking over the footage at the same time. It was not until they were both at the kitchen that Naruto spoke, "I think we broke Itachi. We should have tried calling Shisui instead."
Sasuke silently agreed, Shisui would not have broken, he would have been excited at the prospect. Still he felt like he had to defend his brother,"get on the laptop idiot, we are not done with our research."
A/N: this story is mostly for fun... so some bad news, my laptop is acting up, there seems to something wrong with the battery, so idk when I can get that fixed... which means timely and unexpected have to wait even longer...