7.15.20XX
It's the worst part of summer, and Deidara and Sasori are sitting across from each other.
It's a nice cafe, the kind of place with dark wood tables and walls lined with bookcases for show - the kind of shit Sasori eats up, and Deidara chose it on purpose, to try to make things go as smoothly as possible. Sasori won't eat in front of people but he'll drink as long as he can use a straw - a peculiarity that Deidara has noticed in passing, over time, in a completely casual way - so Deidara's taken the liberty of ordering them both iced drinks that are now sweating onto the table in a way that's sort of relatable.
Sasori's hands are folded on the glossy table, the same way they've been since the two of them sat down a few minutes ago. Deidara jovially unwraps a straw and pops it into his drink. His hands don't move.
"You said you needed to know more about the band," he finally prompts.
Sasori exhales, short and controlled. "I said that I wanted to you share with me everything that might be a problem . If I told you to just 'tell me about it,' you'd spend the entire time insisting on the benefits, and I'd be left with no workable information."
"Okay, fine, you need to know all the bad stuff about the band." Deidara pauses to take a loud slurp from his drink. "Uhhhh, first off, the bassist I found-"
"Name."
"Kakuzu," Deidara supplies obediently. Sasori's eyebrow lifts a millimeter.
"As in the Dawn Hotel Kakuzu."
"The bar manager there, yeah."
"The felon," Sasori clarifies.
Deidara snorts and tears off the corner of his pastry, using it to gesture at the other. "Oh, as if you suddenly care about law and order. You'd be a serial killer if you had more free time."
Sasori doesn't smile, but his tone has a slight sense of levity that Deidara has learned to sort out from the typical monotone. "Perhaps."
"Anyway." Deidara stirs his drink with unnecessary vigor, ice rattling. "First off, he's not gonna quit his job."
Sasori pinches the bridge of his nose and exhales, longer than the first.
"That doesn't mean he's not taking it seriously! He's actually been suggesting a pretty grueling rehearsal schedule, man." He flicks a flake of pastry crust across the table and Sasori catches it in midair, like a freak, before dropping it and letting his hands return to center. "But, uh, also he isn't really bringing anything to the table on the composition front. And he can't read treble clef. And he only picked up bass a year ago-"
He's cut off by the scraping of chair legs against the floor, and when he looks up Sasori is snapping his phone case shut, preparing to tuck it back into his messenger bag. "I will never understand," Sasori murmurs, agitation voiced only in the speed of his words, "the lengths you'll go to just to waste my time-"
"He's good." Deidara bounces another crumb off Sasori's cheek and the indignant shock is enough to freeze the other in his tracks. "Freaky scary good, Sasori. I don't get how it's possible, but we're not gonna find a better technical bassist. It's like he took Cliff Burton and Frank Bello and - and, like, I don't know, Tom Commerford, and he ripped their hearts out and ate them. Except he doesn't fucking know who any of them are, Ichecked ," Deidara adds, as if he expects Sasori to agree that the heart-eating theory needed investigation. "Any bassline I can set up for him, ANYTHING I can put down, he looks at it like once and he can rip it out perfectly and it sounds like sex after a three-month dry spell."
Sasori blinks slowly, hands still frozen in a tableau of collecting his things. "I can't at all relate to that metaphor."
"God, I know you can't. Okay, uh-" Deidara slurps his drink as he thinks, and Sasori doesn't move. "Okay, like, imagine someone took your fucking violin from you for three months and then finally gave it back to you and said you could go nuts."
A pause, during which Sasori's grey eyes flick downwards as he seriously considers the example. Then he looks up again, slowly. "I'd snap all the strings, probably."
Deidara gestures with the pastry again, mouth half-full. "This is why I keep saying I want to sleep with you."
The direction of Sasori's movements rewinds and he's soon sitting down again. He stirs his drink with the straw, once, and the float of ice collapses in on itself like house beams. "What else."
It's a tiny victory that Deidara isn't too proud to gloat over, expression smug as he takes another bite. "Okay, so you actually already know the drummer. You met him a couple times, he's one of my friends."
"Which one?" Sasori's tone is flat, still holding everything at arm's length. "You don't at all filter the company you keep, so you're constantly surrounded with mediocrity. Another thing I'm glad to say I can't relate to."
"That's a funny way to say 'I don't have any friends and you have tons,'" Deidara laughs. "I'm talking about Hidan. The guy who's like, really fucking stupid? The one with the face tattoo?"
"That's both redundant and unhelpful."
"You've met him," Deidara insists again. A second passes, and he decides it doesn't matter. "Whatever. He does, uh, self-publishing right now. And his stuff's really raw, I like it a lot. But he's kinda a loose cannon. It's gonna be hard to get him to attend practice and stuff."
Sasori sniffs dismissively. He seems to be finally starting to consider the option of drinking his coffee. "Pathetic, but not an uncommon problem." He starts to lean down to take a sip from the straw, but pauses with parted lips when another question surfaces. "What of a guitarist."
Of the dozens of times Deidara's laughed throughout the conversation, this is the first one that seems a little uncertain. "Well, that's kinda what I'm bugging you about."
Sasori snaps back upright. It's discouraging. "I won't play guitar." He's checking his phone again, with quick, precise movements. "Not for your little garage band project, not for anything else."
Deidara slumps halfway across the table, hair shifting liquid across his cheekbones. "I'd write you cool parts. Unique stuff. Come on-"
"You'll use me for my particular talents or you'll not have me at all." He's already standing again. "I'm not some wooden figurehead to stand at the front of the stage and dazzle idiots with anything as vulgar and common as mindless technical performance."
"Sasori." Deidara stands, too, but doesn't bother trying to chase the other when he pushes his chair in and starts to walk away. Sasori's the only person he's ever met who's been a match for his own stubbornness. "You know I'd never let you be bored."
"But you'll still gladly insult me." Sasori clicks his bag closed and the gesture has a ridiculous amount of gravity. "Find a guitarist. Find a role that's actually worth my time and talent. Maybe then you'll have something to talk to me about."
"Aaaaagh." Deidara flops back down into his seat as the cheery bell on the cafe door announces Sasori's departure. It only takes a second for him to drag the other's drink across the table. "Alright, you asshole." A long, obnoxious slurp. "I can do that."
4.3.20XX
They're all gathered around a portable grill-cum-firepit in the lot outside Itachi's apartment, and Hidan's the one who lifts the first beer. Condensation glints in the oily orange light of the streetlamp, and he takes a deep breath before tipping the bottle upside down.
"Pouring one out for you, man," he says soulfully, eyes cast up at the dark sky. Sasori, whose pint glass is full of water, takes a step back to avoid the foamy splatter as the beer puddles on the asphalt. When it's empty Hidan picks his own beer up and raises it again, and a few others follow in suit. "To Tobi, tragically taken from us too soon, in the pit at last year's absolutely wicked Violator show."
There's a jagged overlapping chorus of "To Tobi" and some half-hearted clinking. Kisame takes a long swig and sighs. "You hear about pit accidents, but you never think it's gonna happen to someone you know."
"Shame," Itachi murmurs.
Deidara, who one year ago today pushed Tobi Uchiha down during the wall of death at a Violator concert, stays tactfully silent.
"It's his own fault," Sasori says. His eyes don't really reflect the firepit. Deidara has an immense and extremely stupid urge to get up and scoot around the circle to stand by him.
"Dude, you're such a dick." Hidan motions to punch Sasori in the arm, but thinks better of it - probably because the last time he did, he accidentally knocked Sasori over, and then the next day his bike didn't have tires. As far as Deidara knows he still hasn't scraped up the cash to replace them. "That's a fucked up thing to say."
"Then why are you laughing?"
Deidara hides his mouth behind his hand - not that his hands aren't so expressive anyway that they're practically mouths themselves.
"'Cause fucked up shit is funny!" Hidan is yelling, and then he's leaning over to yank on the shoulder of Deidara's vest. "Hey, c'mon."
"Bathroom already?" Deidara straightens up out of his wobbly squat, the leather on his new boots creaking. "You're gonna break the seal, dude."
"I hate goin' alone, man, you know that." They step over the cement stoppers at the edge of the lot and soon the chatter of the group around the grill - now several times quieter due to their absence - fades away, and they're crunching through grass and underbrush along the side of the building.
"You're so cheap, dude," Deidara says. They've stopped about halfway around to the front, and as suspected, Hidan's pulled out an altoids tin.
"I don't wanna share with those guys! Sasori gets weird about it. And Itachi could smoke this whole thing by himself and he'd still be stone cold sober." He holds up the blunt for emphasis, between thumb and forefinger, and Deidara observes that he hasn't gotten any better at rolling. "It would be a waste."
"This is still such a dick thing to do." Deidara takes the green hit without asking.
"You don't wanna share either." Hidan snatches it back, but there's more frolic in the gesture than annoyance. "Man, these guys are kind of a drag."
"It was your idea to have a Tobi's Deathiversary get-together, and now you're complaining that it's a drag? " Deidara's exhaling laugh is too harsh and a second later he's doubled over coughing, Hidan's hand warm and firm on his back. "Shit-"
"That's called karma, bitch." Hidan waits until the other has stopped wheezing to take the next hit. "I'm serious, though. This blows. Let's bail."
Deidara's mind immediately returns to Sasori, short and tense by the firepit, arms crossed over his chest. "Uh."
"Let's bail, " Hidan repeats, snapping him out of it, and Deidara scoffs and shoves at him.
"I'm gonna remind you again it's your party."
"That just means I have more right to ditch it than anybody else." He's grinning, and Deidara tips his nose up at it. Hidan's clearly already locking on to the fact that Deidara's uncertain. "And I know that's not what you call a party, Dei."
He's buzzed enough to tell the truth. "I'd feel shitty leaving Sasori here."
"I'd feel shittier bringing him along." Hidan has a point, and he doubles down when he catches Deidara's resigned sigh. "He's even better at abandoning parties than we are. When you don't come back he'll just go home."
"Trust me, he's not waiting on me." It comes out less of a joke than he wanted it to, and Deidara takes another quick drag to cover it up. "You know what? Yeah, fine. Let's go."
A few more minutes of covert giggling as they finish the blunt is all it takes for Deidara to decide the plan is one hundred percent what he wants to do, and he's got two fingers hooked into one of Hidan's thick leather bracelets as they run out to the front of the complex.
"We should've taken more beer with us," Hidan laments. Everything seems brighter outside the shadow of Itachi's cement block apartment, even though the sky is as dark as ever. Deidara hates the guy, and he doesn't realize how much he's relaxed until they're a block away. His feet hurt a little and the air is still and crisp, all his sensations folded over each other and amplified by the high until each bit of it seems equally important and interesting.
"I've got plenty at my place." He swings their arms as they walk, something Hidan scoffs at at first but quickly cooperates with. "And Taco Bell's on the way."
"Shit yes."
They're making a weaving path down the street, towards the cluster of lights and noise that indicates the more fertile blocks of this part of town. Deidara thinks I'm stoned , with a level of matter-of-fact serenity that only comes when he's well overshot where he intended to be. Hidan's laughing in his ear and it's pretty, unimportant noise, and then suddenly the laugh is a throttled yell.
"Ow! Jesus, what?" Taco Bell's right on the corner, but that isn't where Hidan's looking, and when Deidara follows the other's stricken gaze he seessomething move in the half-darkness; the size of a raccoon, but the wrong shape, quick and jittery with a skinny tail trailing behind. It streaks across the sidewalk so quickly he barely knows what he's looking at, pauses at the curb, and disappears into a cracked storm drain with an almost audible pop.
There's a beat of silence, and then Hidan hollers, "Did you see that?!"
"My ear," Deidara complains, but his voice is just as high and just as strung with hysteria as the other's.
"That was the biggest rat I've ever fucking seen in my life -"
"It was not a rat," Deidara says, a hollow, horrified protest.
"But did you see its tail?" Hidan is shaking him by the shoulders, and Deidara's eyes are still glued to the storm drain. It is unbelievably difficult for him to put his thoughts in any helpful order. "It was so fucking big but I don't know what else it could have been!" His ankle hooks Deidara's, dragging him into a ballroom dip, and they're both fucking losing it. "It was as long as - look, it was as long as your calf. And you've got, like, long, sexy legs-"
"It's gonna kill somebody at the Taco Bell," Deidara wheezes, and then they're both howling.
"It ate the other rats in the neighborhood to power up." Hidan sounds like he's choking to death, and Deidara would be trying to help him if he weren't slowly lowering himself to the sidewalk, holding his burning sides. "To measure its abilities-"
"Shut the fuck UP," Deidara screams.
"It's gonna fight somebody in the parking lot-"
"That's why I haven't seen any other rats lately, it's 'cause fucking Megarat's been feasting!" Deidara is so sure that his eyeliner is running, but he's only barely managing to calm down now, each breath in embarrassingly labored. "Oh, shit. Megarat would be a sick band name."
Hidan flops down onto the sidewalk next to him, still riding out some residual giggles, and puts on a voice. "This is my queercore band, Megarat. I named it after a fucking stupid huge rat I saw once."
"Out of respect for its fucking largeness." Deidara lays out on the cement, arms spread, and breathes. His throat hurts. "God. I am never gonna fucking stop thinking about this."
"Me either," Hidan pants, and when he finally lays down too, half in the grass, he reaches for Deidara's hand. It's stupid and childish and Deidara accepts. "Someone's gonna step on us."
"I hope you pop like a water balloon." Deidara feels like the stars above them are spinning fast enough to draw clean circles, a live time-lapse photo - but that's stupid. It's too light polluted here to see more than a few stars to begin with. Hidan's hand is sweaty and Deidara's hair is plastered to his forehead and again, as always, every second feels like a diorama, a crystalline and perfect moment that he wants to destroy at its peak before it can turn into whatever comes next. "We should do it."
Hidan shifts onto his side to look at him. "What, get stepped on?"
Deidara swings across his chest with his free hand to chuck Hidan in the pec. It only barely connects. "Start a band, jackass."
Hidan collapses onto his back again, snorting. "You're always saying shit like that. Let's go off the grid, let's dig out our own pool, let's buy a bar."
"Yeah, well." Deidara lifts their linked hands and drops them against the sidewalk again, banging Hidan's knuckles, and the other lets out a grumbled cuss of protest. "Let's start a band."
Hidan laughs at him, but it's a laugh that sounds like a yes.
7.17.20XX
Deidara gets a text from Kakuzu after three in the afternoon and he drops all his plans in favor of swinging by the Dawn Hotel. It's hard enough to get ahold of Kakuzu in the best of times; for the old bastard to text first under any circumstances is exciting by itself. It's news , and that's enough to hold Deidara's attention for now.
Deidara doesn't belong in the hotel lobby and it's obvious. His bootlaces trail on gold-veined marble, and though he's miraculously not tracking dirt in, there's a trail of guests' suspicious glares following him across the room that's nearly as tangible. The lobby opens up into the dining lounge down a waterfall of carpeted steps and Kakuzu spots him a while away, and even from that distance Deidara can see the way he rolls his eyes.
Kakuzu doesn't belong here either, but he cleans up nice, at least, all things considered. A crisp black dress shirt does wonders for covering prison tattoos. Not much can be done about the raised scars, though, almost over-the-top enough to seem unrealistic - a faded Glasgow smile, and a ring around the neck that raises alarming questions. The hotel guests that had been staring at Deidara avert their gazes as soon as Kakuzu approaches.
"I've told you to meet me around back, at the employee entrance." Deidara should be used to how deep Kakuzu's voice is by now, but somehow it manages to catch him off guard every time. "I don't need you parading your sorry ass around out here where my employers could see you."
"Christ. It's nice to see you, too!" Deidara bounces up onto his toes, reaching to press a finger to the tip of Kakuzu's nose, and Kakuzu deflects him like a basketball. "Ow-" A second later, the other's hand is closed entirely around his narrow elbow, and he's being dragged behind the bar. "Ow,ow, okay, fine -"
There's a swift shortcut through a bustling kitchen and a kicked door and then Deidara's blinking in the harsh light and heat of a sun-baked alley. "Can you relax?"
Kakuzu's never been tolerant of the inessential. "I found a guitarist."
Deidara squints at him. "I didn't know you were actually looking." He's got a pack of cigarettes out and is packing it distractedly against his palm, and the the next thing he knows, the carton is in Kakuzu's hand instead.
"Your voice." He slips the pack into his pocket, and Deidara snaps out a snarled curse but knows better than to try to get it back. "Of course I was looking," he says, returning to Deidara's statement. "I want this underway sooner rather than later."
"Okay, you know what?" Deidara is patting his pockets as if there's a chance there's some miracle backup carton of smokes, even though he knows there isn't. "Can I ask you something I normally never ask about anything?"
"You can do whatever you want." At some point Kakuzu has finessed a cigarette out of the pack, and Deidara scowls at the injustice of it all. "But so can I, and I might not answer."
"Why." Deidara lifts his arms, hovers incredulously with fingers outstretched, and drops them again. The gesture comes with shitty windchimes, his rings and bracelets hitting the chains hanging off his belt. "Why are you even humoring me on this. Konan sets you up with this plush fuckin' job you never would have gotten, considering-"
Kakuzu looks up, sharply, and Deidara reconsiders. "You've got a job. Like, a real one. And as you've told me a million times, you don't give a shit about music. Also, you're like a billion years old."
"Forty-two," Kakuzu exhales slowly, a sandpaper growl.
"Right, like a billion years old," Deidara confirms. "And looking sexy for that, by the way. But no matter what you tell yourself, I'm not stupid." Deidara's gaze, usually excitable and distracted, is zeroing in on Kakuzu's face like a scope. "There's no reason for you to be playing along with some art school dropout's pet project."
Kakuzu breathes in and out again. Deidara hates waiting, but sometimes with this guy, it's all that can be done. Finally he ashes, with one flick of his broad thumb, and his lips part again. "I'm indulging in a lottery ticket." Deidara waits a little more, even though impatience is strung through him like an electrical current, and Kakuzu rewards him for it. "If I explain myself to you, you're not to let it get to your head," he warns. "Or I'm out. You're bad enough already."
"I don't make promises I can't keep," Deidara says.
"You actually do that almost constantly." He reaches a little further this time, just so that he can ash directly into the knotted sleeves of the flannel around Deidara's waist. Deidara ignores it. "But you have a sense of potential around you that's worth investigating."
It's already clearly, hideously going to Deidara's head. Kakuzu lets out a soft groan of regret, but grudgingly continues. It only takes a few sentences, though, for his mouth to curve back into a distant smile. "There has to be a formula. There has to be a way to reliably replicate the success of other musicians, who have enjoyed a level of success lucrative enough to launch them into early retirement."
"Oh, my god." Deidara stomps around in a circle, bracelets jangling as he jostles his arms in stiff, frustrated movements. "Of course. It's about money. You're such a fucking poser, first off, and second off you're dumb. " When he's made the full circuit, he gestures dismissively in Kakuzu's face. "Nobody actually makes money off music, dipshit."
"Plenty of people do," Kakuzu retorts. "But we call them celebrities, and assume it can never happen to us." The cigarette butt is discarded, with a movement that mirrors the impudence of Deidara's own. "We don't need an entire career. Just one solid album. Maybe even a single on its own, if we do it right. Just fifteen minutes in the sun. And then I'll take my cut and never talk to any of you morons again in my life."
Deidara's gone from being incredulous to being absolutely fucking tickled. "You are sooo dumb. You are so fucking dumb. God, I can't wait til it's like, a year later, and you're still stuck jamming with all of us -"
"As if you haven't thought about it," Kakuzu cuts in. The lighter is at his mouth again, but Deidara is too distracted to be bothered by the continued theft. "Fame."
His hands are tight fists at his sides, the knuckle of each middle finger a white peak.
"As if the taste you had a few years ago would have been enough for you."
Memories, then. An inbox full of emails, discussions about an agent, sitting for photos, the fucking Frieze interview - Deidara releases his fists, two little explosions, and one flies up to his mouth so he can gnaw at a fingernail. Before it all collapsed.
"You could do it." Despite his earlier expression of reluctance, of not wanting to flatter him, Kakuzu is manipulating him now, and Deidara's perfectly aware of it. "The formula isn't going to be trying to emulate anything that's worked before. We'll need to make something entirely new. You can pull that off, and that's why I'm putting up with you."
Deidara's thinking about lights, lights, lights. About going out with a bang. It's what he's been thinking about the whole time, playing pretend at playing pretend - he's been serious from the start and it's equal parts violating and exhilarating to have that so easily dragged out into the open. "Whatever." His teeth close too far, nipping the quick, and he hisses and pulls his hand away from his mouth. "Maybe. Tell me about the guitarist."
Kakuzu grins again. Two smiles in one encounter is too much, and Deidara takes a slight step away. "He's a technical find, like me. Background in the metal genre, apparently."
"You barely know what metal is," Deidara mutters.
"Plays in cover bands, right now. Talented, and popular with audiences, despite not having much stage presence." Kakuzu folds his arms over his barrel chest, cigarette still streaming smoke in a wavering strand where his hand tucks into his elbow. "And he's directionless. Doesn't have anything better to do. He'll be easy to get on board."
Technical player and metal and cover bands and doesn't have anything better to do have all combined in Deidara's mind and settled as a hot lump in the pit of his stomach. "Kakuzu. If you say the name 'Itachi Uchiha' to me right now, I'm gonna kill you back here." His thumbnail's bleeding and he presses the pad of his pointer finger down on it, trying to smooth the sting out. "I swear to god-"
Kakuzu's eyebrows lift, slowly, in mild surprise. "You know him?"
"Aaaaaaaaagh!" It's a shriek sudden and violent enough to actually make Kakuzu startle, if only for a millisecond. Deidara's boot connects with a nearby trash can, and it's light enough to launch and bounce once, twice down the asphalt. "Aaaaaaaaa!"
"Stop fucking screaming -"
"Son of a bitch!" Another trash can falls victim before Kakuzu grabs his arms, trying to smother the detonation; it's a shorter one than usual, flash in the pan, one bright flare up before he gives up and shakes Kakuzu off. "You're fucking with me."
"Grow up." Kakuzu's towering over him, glaring down his nose. "I don't know what your issue is, but whatever it is, swallow it. He's marketable and easy to obtain. I won't put unnecessary effort into finding another, and apparently your idea for someone who could match his talent fell through."
Deidara shakes out his elbows, glowering right back. The mere mention of Sasori puts a dent in his momentum, and he hates that.
"You can be a diva when we're making enough money to justify it." Kakuzu reaches into his pocket, and for a split second Deidara hovers in disbelief, thinking he might be handing back the cigarettes for once - but he's just pulling out the key to the back door. "Hell, we pull this off, you can be the biggest brat in the goddamn world.
"But until then, keep your head down and get to work." The lock clicks and turns. "I'll get in contact with Uchiha. Write music."
He isn't even given a chance to respond before the door slams shut. Conversations with Kakuzu always end that way. He kicks it, just for good measure, and hopes the other can at least hear the resounding echo of thick rubber against hollow metal.
"Fucker!" That, he definitely didn't hear, but it feels good anyway. Deidara knows what it looks like when Kakuzu isn't going to budge - it's not hard to learn, since it's how he looks the majority of the time. He paces the length of the alley a handful of times, muttering imagined comebacks and manufactured, one-sided arguments under his breath, until he's expelled all the excess energy he didn't get a chance to unload onto Kakuzu.
A bright side doesn't present itself until he's already a block away, sweating himself with the angry pace he's pounding down the blinding white sidewalk. Sasori's checklist.
He stops short at a crossing, and the gust of wind from a bus passing too close to the curb would've been refreshing if it weren't perfumed with diesel. He turns into the sun, shielding his phone screen with his hand. The bloodied thumb flies across the keys.
guitarist CHECK, better shit for you to do CHECK
17-July-20XX 4:15 PM
let's talk
17-July-20XX 4:15
author's notes!
this is my first time posting on ffnet - i usually use ao3 - so i'm sorry if my formatting is off or if long author's notes aren't the norm. this is going to be an edited version of the fic to comply with ffnet's much stricter content policy, but if i can't find ways to smoothly remove the explicit sexual content from the chapters, i might not post any further on here (i'm anticipating that just cutting out the sex scenes might be difficult to do, because in my writing smut isn't just a casual add-on; it's an important part of how characters develop and interact with each other and how the plot moves). so if you like this story, please make sure to follow it on ao3 at /works/14756651/chapters/34121807 !
some housekeeping:
first off, i feel like it might be important that everybody knows i haven't... watched naruto, persay. my girlfriend marinarin, who introduced me to the series, surgically extracted every single deidara and/or sasori scene, down to the timestamps, and i watched THOSE, and then i watched all the kakuhida, and that is literally the only naruto content i've consumed. i decided it wasn't gonna stop me from creating fan content, but i figure i might as well admit i'm tackling this from a REALLY limited frame of reference. i promise it's still gonna be fun, though.
re the au:
- set in anytown, usa. i'm not thinking too hard about the logistics of them being there, but they're still japanese
- ages are the same except for kakuzu, who's been bumped down for obvious reasons, and deidara, who i've aged up to 24; not because i think there would've been an issue with him being 19, but because for the purpose of this fic it just makes everything work a little more smoothly if he's had a few more years history under his belt
- 20XX bc this is a story that could've happened any time in the past two decades and i don't wanna be nitpicky lol
- it hasn't come up explicitly yet, but sasori's the autistic character (more on that in a second) and deidara's the nonbinary character! deidara's also gonna be borderline, based on my own experiences, but i didn't feel it would be prominent enough to tag.
special shoutouts have gotta go to, again, my gf, who has been practically co-writing this with me because i've felt out a lot of the dynamics and changes to the characters in this au by roleplaying test scenes with her, and to tjesje (tjesje on ao3), who is doing me a HUGE solid by being my sensitivity reader irt: portraying sasori as autistic. i'm not autistic myself, and i want to be responsible and conscious while writing this, so it helps me a lot that he's willing to give me guidance and feedback. if you as a reader are autistic and have any feedback on what you'd like to see out of this portrayal, or if down the line i make a mistake and you want me to fix it - please don't be shy and drop me a line! i would really appreciate as many points of view on this as possible.
these are like the longest author notes i've ever written so i'm gonna wrap this up. if you wanna yell about gay naruto villains, come do it with me! i'm baph0meat on twitter!