—
It was only ever supposed to be temporary.
(There are sirens and screaming. The roaring of the flames. Dust and smoke in the air.)
Sakura knew this coming in: it was just a favor for a friend, a learning experience.
(Beneath her hands, a man screams, blood gushing out around the piece of rebar through his shoulder.)
And she has learned a lot, advanced her own skills not only in healing and fighting, but in grifting and hacking and stealing. She’s had fun and she cares for her teammates. She doesn’t regret any of it.
(She stabilizes him as best as she can–it’s not fatal, not with ambulances on the way, he’ll be brought to a hospital soon and they can do more for him there–and moves on to the next person.)
But it was only meant to be temporary.
(When she’s done with triage, she leaves with one of the ambulances, holding the hand of a woman who might lose her leg tonight.
The explosion was far too big–nothing at all like the controlled blast that was part of the plan–and no one is answering on the comms.
She follows protocol and gets out.)
—
The explosion knocks both of them off their feet. Sai drops his gun.
Yamato doesn’t.
“Don’t,” he warns, simply, barrel aimed perfectly even if he is awkwardly crouched against the wall and his head is aching from the collision.
Sai raises his hands, moves away from where his gun lies by his feet slow and calm and as expressionless as ever.
“Was it you?” Yamato asks, uncaring of the encroaching fire and the heat and the ringing in his ears. “Interpol showed up before the alarms went off. There’s no way they could have come here so fast unless they were warned ahead of time.”
He would know. He used to be one.
Sai doesn’t deny it, Yamato cocks his gun. They’ll probably both burn to death if they don’t leave now, but Yamato isn’t willing to leave that up to chance.
“Kakashi-taicho told me to.”
—
“Teammates don’t keep secrets from each other,” Sasuke grits out, praying to any god that’s listening that the ropes don’t snap. His arms are killing him, and he can see from the look on Naruto’s face that the harness is becoming painful.
The rig is only designed for one person’s weight–maybe two, tops, but definitely not three.
Shikako doesn’t answer.
“I’ll drop you,” Sasuke threatens, but doesn’t mean it. If it were a shorter fall, maybe, but at this height–this many stories up–it would kill her.
“I was trying to keep you safe,” she says, finally, and while she doesn’t really think Sasuke will drop her, she coils the rope in her free hand just in case.
Sasuke dismisses it immediately, “What, by keeping us in the dark?”
“Well… I mean. That is kind of my thing.”
Naruto snorts. Or maybe that’s a grunt of pain.
“This isn’t the time for jokes,” Sasuke scolds.
“This isn’t the time for arguing either,” Naruto wheezes out, and both of his teammates focus, “We need to get out of here.”
The elevator shaft was an impromptu haven, sliding doors heavy enough to save them from the blast, but it very well might be their death if they don’t figure a way out of this mess.
—
Kakashi sits at a table, a dim lamp the only source of light in the room.
Across from him is a dead man.
“It’s nothing personal,” says the dead man, smile on his face.
It’s a struggle to put a matching smile on his own, but Kakashi isn’t a grifter in name only. “Of course not,” he says, casual and cool and not at all what he feels.
“What’s a little sabotage between friends?”
~
A/N: I have no concrete idea of what is or isn’t canon in the Friendship Is A (Mutual) Con ‘verse, so I don’t know if the “dead man” is Obito or… I don’t know.
Basically, this would be one of the season finale type episodes in Leverage–the one in which everything honestly goes to shit and the crew barely make it out alive (and have to disperse for several months before reuniting and getting even).
Thanks for the prompt, anon!
JackSGreyson Says 