Title: Spider
Requester: nayanroo
Author: londondaime
Characters: Sasori an' Itachi
Genres: General
Notes: This was written for a fan fiction exchange. For more information, see the narutoflashfic community on livejournal. Beta'd by TheBoredOne XIII.
Spider
Even for an Akatsuki member, Itachi is a solitary creature. He stands Kisame's presence for security's sake, but while in the relative safety of their Leader's quarters, he chooses to isolate himself in his room. The activities of his partners-in-world-domination do not interest him.
At least until, while on a trip to the kitchen, he notices Akasuna no Sasori moving large amounts of sand into his room. Surely, he doesn't miss desert life that much, does he? A few days pass before Itachi spots the puppet master hauling a large bucket of gravel through the halls. This is followed shortly by thick, gnarled tree branches, probably pilfered off the large willow across the street, and, of all things, a few hairy coconuts.
After examining the structural elements of the building, Itachi concludes that there is approximately one and a half feet of space between each floor, possibly constructed to reduce noise. Any normal person would simply ask the sandnin what he was doing, but Uchiha Itachi is no normal person. His method of discovery involves what he hopes is a stealthy peek into the other man's room via a tiny hole in the ceiling.
His plan runs smoothly until he realizes, much to his horror, that the wood above Sasori's room is dangerously soft and damp, eaten by insects and mold over the years. In the small space available to him, Itachi's ninja reflexes are no great resource. Confined by the floor above, the ceiling below, and numerous support beams, in the event of a break in the wood, the only direction Itachi can go is down. And down he goes.
He glances briefly around, assessing his situation. Debris decorates the doubtless once spotless room. Something sharp cuts into his ankle, his right hand is disturbingly wet, and a long, sharp blade rests gently against his throat, wielder crouching low and fully clothed in the bathtub.
"Uchiha Itachi," he voices dryly. The man, or perhaps the boy, can only be Sasori. Few in their organization has seen the Sasori beneath the armor, and Itachi is not one of those few. He allows a chuckle to escape his lips.
"Amused?"
"Possibly."
"You look down on me, don't you? Have I not proven that age and experience are not factors when it comes to fighting me?"
"Fighting, fighting. That is everything to you, isn't it? Consider that your fancy eyes will not work on me, Itachi. Consider that perhaps my amusement stems from your sudden awkward, uncharacteristic fall through the ceiling of my washroom."
Itachi, unable to form a response, works instead to right himself, removing one hand out of the thankfully unused toilet, pulling himself to his feet, and brushing bits of ceramic pedestal sink from his now dusty robes.
"Now may I ask why you were worming about up there?"
"I was spying."
"Spying," repeats Sasori.
"That's correct."
"On me."
"That's also correct."
"I should kill you now," Sasori deems aloud.
"That is rather incorrec—"
"Why were you spying? Perhaps someone put you up to it?" he speculates.
"No, I—"
Sasori interrupts him again: "You wanted to know what I really look like."
"Actually, no," Itachi admits. "What," he begins, and then pauses.
"What…?"
"What do you do with the sand and coconuts?" His puppets are mainly metal, wood, and… human, are they not?
Sasori breaks into a sort of smile, more like a sneer than anything else. He turns to face the door leading to his bedroom. "Come." As the Uchiha exits the bathroom, Sasori takes care to close the door behind them, leaving the light on.
Itachi takes his first look around the puppet master's room, first noting the lack of a bed. Except for the long, wooden tables that border the room, Sasori's bedroom has no furniture, not even a chair. One side of the room matches closely the workroom of Itachi's imagination. Half-finished puppets and corpses lie splayed out on oak surfaces, tools and sawdust strewn about. Despite his work with dead, and sometimes live, ninjas, there is a distinct absence of blood, gore, and even smell.
The other side is a puzzling maze of glass boxes.
"My hobby," Sasori explains. "Or, as our Leader likes to call it, my other hobby."
One particularly large container houses four, large, black scorpions, almost glittering in the light of a heat lamp. Impressively sized pincers adorn the anterior end of each monster. While scorpions are a large part of Sasori's collection, even they were dwarfed in number by the population of tarantulas to which he tends.
Itachi sees spiders of every color. Some varieties, he has met before. Most of them are new to him, and he knows the name of none.
"Some spiders," Sasori says, "are arboreal. They like to cast webbing between branches and live off the ground. Others," he continues, "are ground dwellers. Usually they're more comfortable if I provide them some sort of shelter, and that's where the coconuts come in." He points out a few boxes, in which Itachi can see split and hollowed coconuts. With the open end turned down and a hole cut in the side, it makes a clever critter hide.
There is even a snake. It is an exotic sort of white, approximately three feet long, and half-hidden under and behind a mess of tree limb and leaf. The snake turns its eyes at Itachi's approach, but otherwise remains motionless.
"That ugly worm was a gift from our dear friend Orochimaru."
"I'm surprised that you still have it."
"I'm rather at a loss for what to do with him. Our Leader advised that it would be unkind to kill him, though kindliness has never been high on his agenda. I've been waiting for it to die, actually."
"Sasori," Itachi says.
"Question?"
"What were you doing in the bathtub earlier?"
"Feeding," he answers simply.
"You eat in your bathtub."
"I should clarify. I was feeding my particularly fast spiders. If I do it out here, they'll be gone the instant I look away." Itachi nods, understanding, though concerned secretly about Sasori's possibly existent escaped pets.
"Notice that the scorpions I keep in groups, while the tarantulas are held in isolation, separated from their cousins by these prisons of glass…"
It is then that Itachi realizes that the glass is not entirely smooth. Instead, it is warped and rippled, probably home blazed. It is as if Sasori froze a shore bound wave, and then cut it to size. Glass makes up five faces of each box; the top sides are covered securely with mesh screens, which facillitate air circulation.
"So they are."
"Did you know, Itachi, that given the opportunity, a tarantula will eat its own kind? Even another spider that shares half its genes, a brother or a sister. Curious that these creatures seem to show no interest at all in community or character preservation, willing to kill family for food, or often, for no reason at all."
Sasori gazes hard at Itachi, trying to judge a reaction. The younger man meets his eyes, but turns quickly back to the spiders.
"Ironic that I was given the name of the scorpion, but I've grown to identify more strongly with the spider."
Itachi remains silent, so Sasori continues with his introduction in arthropod husbandry.
"Unfortunately, I've lost many a spider to hungry females during the mating process. In some species, the female will kill her partner before, or even during the act."
"The males die most easily?"
"It makes the most sense for the male to die. It is not as if he sticks around after they mate. After she has his sperm, he is essentially useless and ripe for the picking. Mature female spiders also tend to be larger at maturation. After all, they do live significantly longer." He moves to a large case, filled halfway with a loose, light colored soil. "This girl is even older than you."
The spider is only partly visible. A small burrow conceals her body, two long, hairy legs poking out. The hair is either black or a very dark brown. The spider's feet are a pale, dainty pink, as if she is wearing four pairs of barbed slippers. He lifts up the top of the container, brushes some silk out of the way, and prods the spider onto his hand with his other. She crawls slowly in a circle before sinking her fangs into his palm, venom totally ineffectual.
"I wonder which of you two will die first," Sasori says, a playful smile on his face.
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