Quick-draw, round 2
As before, both are rated G - NC-17

Sai/Sakura

1. Angst

He wasn't a total idiot: he knew that when Sakura wasn't completely looking at him, she saw someone else for a fleeting minute. Someone with his dark eyes and his dark hair, someone from her past, someone she had loved.

If he'd chosen, he could have pointed out that he was not Sasuke, and never would be, but Sai never did anything to disabuse her of her illusions. It was a selfish thing to do, maybe, and he was aware he was probably supposed to feel guilty, but he didn't. He stole the spoils of love from the one who'd left her behind and felt nothing but smug satisfaction.

2. AU

Sakura knelt by Sasuke's body, her shoulders shaking with her fight against tears.

"You said you wanted to 'explore our bonds' with him," she accused. Then, out of nowhere, she laughed. "And I believed you."

Sai felt... bad about lying to her. Root had taught him that there was nothing wrong with lying to a person to accomplish a mission, but watching Sakura finally surrender and cry quietly over Sasuke, the torchlight in Orochimaru's lair flickering over her skin--it made his heart hurt.

3. Crack

"Hah! Let's see you make snide remarks about my privates now, eh?"

"Dickless, I believe it is discourteous to laugh at another person's misfortune. This is your technique. May I ask for some assistance in breaking it?"

Sakura didn't say anything. She'd been distracted by the passing thought that Sai was just as hot as a girl, and the subsequent swift and heavy worry that that thought meant she might have latent lesbian tendencies.

4. Crossover

If the dark-haired kid with the weird smile was guilty of oogling the pink-haired girl's legs, then so was Kirk. He'd been pretty brazen about his attraction all day, actually. Spock had been forced to remind him, in an undertone, on more than one occasion that it was not considered diplomatic to stare at or otherwise sexually harass the assistant to the leader of this primitive village; no, not even if she was "a total babe." Kirk was pretty sure she'd caught him staring herself, but aside from narrowing her eyes at him, she hadn't said anything. Probably in the interests of diplomacy.

Kirk, however, would never be as stupid as that guy. When she confronted him about his wandering eyes, he simply commented, "I was under the impression that girls wear skirts that short in order to attract the attention of the opposite sex."

She punched him through the wall into the hallway, where he skidded into the next wall and cracked it, too.

Spock made a mental note to ask if feats of extraordinary strength were typical on this planet, and if not what techniques could certain individuals utilize to increase the species' normal maximum muscle work capacity and avoid hyperstraining of the body in the process.

Kirk just stared at the hole the boy's body had created.

5. First Time

As first dates went, it was fine on the surface. Sai took her to a nice restaurant, then to some sappy romantic comedy she probably wouldn't have gone to see on her own, and he paid for all of it without complaint. He was polite and courteous and not like himself at all, which, Sakura thought, was the whole problem. He was on his best behavior, but it was a learned behavior, and the evening felt less like a date and more like a play-by-play strategy out of a manual on how to woo girls.

Come to think of it, it probably was. She had no doubt such a book existed.

Sakura was almost at the end of her rope with this facsimile of a date as they walked out of the movie theatre until Sai asked, in a very subdued tone, where she would like to go next. It was not the question that made her pause so much as the expression on his face, closed off and a little intense, without a trace of a smile. It was the first time Sakura had ever seen Sai nervous.

Sakura smiled and put her hand into his. He was trying, she realized. She could teach him the rest.

6. Fluff

Sakura looked like she wanted to be mad at him, but her angry frown lost out to the smile that followed. Instead of hitting him, which he braced for, she threw her arms around him and kissed him soundly on the cheek.

"Happy Valentine's day to you too, jerk," she laughed.

Sai would never understand girls.

7. Humor

"Why is Ino-san bending down to pick up her pencil with her back straight like that?" Sai asked, puzzled. "Is she aware that the rest of the library can see her underwear when she does that?"

Sakura hastily brought her book to her face to bury her snort and her smile into it. Ino was losing her touch if even Sai was noticing her attempts at flirting with him.

8. Hurt/Comfort

He didn't notice when she first approached--just stared blankly at the book in his hands, opened to the exact middle page, where two boys were smiling and holding hands. Sai only realized she was behind him when she stepped on a twig, the loud snap cracking through whatever his thoughts were.

He closed his book and turned toward her, his smile firmly in place and ready to ask her what she wanted, but he paused when he noticed the sad look on her face.

She stared at him for a second, wavering on the edge of a decision, before firmly stepping forward and sitting next to him. Without warning, she put her arms around him, hugging him lightly. Sai stiffened in her embrace.

"You don't have to smile if you don't want to," she said.

9. Smut

There was sex, which he was starting to get used to, but then there was this--Sakura licking down his stomach, biting him softly just above the waistband of his pants (he jerked a little) as she unbuttoned them and tugged them down. Sai could understand intercourse, but he couldn't understand this strange intimacy, how oddly vulnerable he felt, the duality of wanting to pull away and stay put at the same time, both wary of and anticipating what she'd do next.

She took him into her mouth, slid her tongue along the underside of his cock, sucked him softly. Sai gripped the sheets and gasped.

10. UST (My goodness, this one just went on and on! But I like it, so it's staying.)

Sai's apartment was messy, littered with art supplies, which would normally drive Sakura crazy, but the studio was light and open and airy and his bed was larger and more comfortable than hers. She liked bringing over her books and scrolls to study, feeling the breeze ruffle her hair from his open windows, the quiet interrupted only by turning pages and his brush against canvas.

Today she was rehashing the skeletal system. She lay on her stomach on his bed with the book propped open on his pillows. She started from the bottom up, unconsciously wiggling her toes and rolling her ankles as she counted off metatarsals and tarsals.

The arc of a tail Sai was painting curled and bent, becoming a feminine foot.

Sakura made it all the way through the limbs and the thoracic skeleton, and was continuing on to the skull, before she felt the bed dip under his weight. The feel of his body moving to cover hers--his knees on either side of her hips, his hands pressing next to her shoulders--distracted her, and she turned her face slightly over her shoulder to look at him.

Sai's fingers traced over the other shoulder, threading through her hair. His palm came to rest over her ear, his hand spreading over her cheek and jaw (temporal, zygomatic, mandible, Sakura thought), and he coaxed her head farther to the side, pulled her shoulders back slightly. His eyes caught hers; her stomach clenched.

Sai eased off the bed. "Stay like that," he told her, and walked backwards to his canvas, deftly avoiding piles of mess while looking up and down her body, appraising her, studying her. He sat with the same unconscious grace, took up his brush and started to paint. Sakura could feel her heart thudding against her ribs in time with the clock on his wall.

Itachi/Sakura

I know there's technically only one AU slot, but a lot of the other ones are non-massacre AU, as well. In my defense, you try writing canon-based Itachi/Sakura fluff. Not. Easy. I mean, technically, all of it's AU, because he's dead in canon, so.

/attempts to defend my fail

1. Angst

It was a strange thing, happening upon the broken body of a monster in the forest.

Because that's all Itachi had ever been to Sakura. She never knew him as anything other than the man who'd killed his entire family and tortured his brother. Sasuke, whom she'd loved, who she still loved, a little--Itachi was the man who had ruined his life. He was more demon than person to her.

He didn't look very much like a monster when she stumbled upon him, though. He was unconscious, barely breathing; even his normally blank face was contorted in pain. His wounds were very grave. In that moment, despite her long held hatred of him, Itachi looked all too human. She could heal him, if she wanted.

Sakura walked away, continuing on to her rendezvous point, but she felt as if she carried a lump of iron in her stomach the rest of the way.

2. AU (Fleet Week was last week in NYC--totally inspired this.)

Sakura had heard of him--everyone had--but being several years below him in the Academy, the first time she actually saw him was after a five-mile early run by the bay with Tenten. She was sitting on the ground stretching her quads when he ran past alone.

"Was that Uchiha Itachi?" Tenten asked.

Sakura grunted as she pulled a little harder on her foot, enhancing the stretch. "Don't know. I've never seen Annapolis' resident prodigy," she said, the last three words spoken with a touch of distain.

"I think it was," Tenten mused, looking in the direction he'd gone. She took a long drink of water before commenting, "He's got a great ass."

Sakura snorted and switched legs.

The next time she saw him, however, she was forced to agree with Tenten, and add that it looked especially good in white naval uniform pants.

3. Crack

When the black hood was pulled off her face, Sakura fully expected to see a bright light shining in her eyes, obscuring the silhouettes of her interrogators. She expected to be questioned, beaten when she wouldn't cooperate, and subsequently tortured with horrible jutsu and hot pokers and maybe thumbscrews if they were feeling old school.

She did not anticipate Kisame's grinning face greeting her. She also didn't predict being grilled by him with increasingly personal questions regarding her and his partner's relationship, focusing particularly on the more intimate aspects thereof.

"You kidnapped me from my apartment at two in the morning to ask about my sex life?" Sakura asked incredulously.

"I'm just looking out for my sexually repressed buddy," Kisame replied, his face the picture of shark-like innocence.

"The second you let me go," she promised in a dark tone that would have sent Naruto running, "I'm going to kick the ever loving shit out of you."

4. Crossover

Itachi was just fast enough to dodge the rockfall that came out of nowhere, cutting off the mountain path and sending his troops into a small panic. He, however, glanced up to the source of the landslide. He expected to see the back of a fleeing figure, which was all he'd ever seen of this persistent thorn in his side. The resistance in this part of the Earth Kingdom was small but singularly annoying, and one young earthbender in particular seemed to be there every time he tried to move troops or establish supply lines, mucking up his endeavors, vanishing before he could retaliate.

He was surprised, therefore, to see her standing on a ledge ten feet above him, watching the chaos she'd caused. She was tossing a rock up in the air and catching it in her palm once, twice, three times. Her bright green eyes met his, and she grinned cheekily before chucking the rock at him. Itachi ducked and the rock sailed right through the space his head had occupied. He immediately slid into a firebending form and punched a ball of flames in her direction, but she was already gone.

5. First Time

Itachi once made the mistake of forgetting that a consequence of training Sakura for the elite Jonin exams was that she wasn't just going to be getting better; she was going to get better at fighting him. He learned his lesson four nights prior to her exam--it was easier for her to sneak out of the village to meet him at night--when she got under his defenses and dealt a swift, hard uppercut to his jaw.

He ducked under the kick she aimed at his temple, but just barely, and leapt back out of her line of fire. Sakura paused, her breathing heavy. Itachi took the opportunity to spit blood out of his mouth.

"Had enough?" she called, her mouth curved with an insolent smile.

Itachi didn't reply; he lunged at her, forcing her to dodge quickly to her left.

6. Fluff

Sakura knew from the start that their relationship was not going to be the stuff of those trashy novels Ino read. She knew she'd have to be the one to seek him out of she wanted romance. Itachi only ever consistently sought her out when he was injured on a mission and wanted to skip the hospital visit. Sometimes, if she was grouchy, she'd tell him he couldn't mooch off her healing abilities whenever he wanted and send him off, but today she was in a better mood. He'd been gone for a while on this mission and she'd missed him.

That didn't mean she wasn't going to lecture him, though. "I'm not going to do this every time, you know that, right?" she told him while putting his dislocated wrist back in order.

"Of course," Itachi said.

"I mean it, I'm going to start demanding things in return."

Itachi didn't reply as she finished up. When she was done, the light of her healing chakra going dim, he reached out and held her hand in his, twining his fingers with hers. Sakura's gaze snapped to his. "Thank you," Itachi murmured.

Sakura blushed. "Sure," she replied. Flustered, she pulled her hand from his and gathered her medical kit. "You're still taking me to dinner tonight."

Itachi smiled very slightly. "Of course."

7. Humor

Kakashi's reaction--total indifference--and Naruto's reaction--total freak-out--were largely as Sakura predicted. As for Sasuke, she wasn't sure what to expect--mild disgust, complete and total indifference, maybe he'd try to talk her out of it--but it certainly wasn't the deafening silence she got. Sasuke said nothing when she told them she was seeing his brother--nothing. He was utterly dumb for the hour they sat at Ichiraku while Naruto fussed and wailed. He'd even been silent all that evening at home, according to Itachi's report the next day.

Naruto even forgot his outrage in the face of Sasuke's strange behavior. "Sakura-chan, I think you actually broke his brain," he concluded.

8. Hurt/Comfort (I should point out that this is not part of the canon timeline. Sakura is closer to 18 than 8 here o.O)

He blacked out in the time it took to run to Sakura's apartment. He must have, because one minute he was standing on the Nakano River and the next he was in her bedroom, the moon casting a pale light on her as she threw off her covers. Her every movement and feature was sharp in his eyes, sharper than normal; he could count each strand of tousled hair that fell on her neck, her cheeks, from six paces away.

Sakura stood hastily and crossed those paces, either not realizing or not caring that she was wearing nothing but a lacy camisole and shorts, that she was not fit to be seen by anyone but a lover. "Itachi," she whispered, her voice urgent, "Itachi, what happened?"

His hands felt too heavy as they hung at his side, as though a quarter of his weight had fallen into them. Shisui hadn't bled--Itachi had been careful--but he could almost feel Shisui's blood running down his palms, his fingers, dripping to the carpet and staining it. Ruining it.

Shisui is dead, Itachi thought, I killed him.

He might have even said it out loud, but before Sakura had a chance to react he grabbed her head in his heavy hands and brought her mouth to his with bruising force.

9. Smut

Sakura shifted, using the leverage of her thighs around his hips to curl into his rhythm... and moaned, sharp and loud, breaking their kiss and pressing her head to the mattress, exposing her throat. Itachi absently put his mouth there, at her collar, her jaw, anywhere he could reach, both of them too caught up to care where so long as neither of them stopped...

One particularly hard thrust, and Sakura dragged her nails through his back, leaving deep gouges--she'd find his blood caked under her nails in the morning. Itachi gasped, and it wasn't out of pain.

10. UST

The fight was long and hard. Sakura's muscles burned even after she'd shoved the kunai into her target's heart. After a solid hour and a half fighting the missing nin, her entire body felt like gelatin. She didn't even have it in her to start in shock when Itachi appeared before her; the red and black of his cloak was starting to smudge together in her vision.

Itachi reached out and touched where her victim's blood had stained her hair, twisting the crusty strands in his fingers. It would have been all too easy in that moment for her to slump forward into him, to give him everything he wasn't asking for.

She could almost forget the reasons why she couldn't.