Blonde and Red.
Blue and Brown.
Passionate and Apathetic.
Hot-headed and Passive.
Bubbly and Stoic.
Loud and Quiet.
Spit-fire and Scheming.
Stone and Sand.
……
Fleeting and Eternal.
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That was their legacy, their one thing to be remembered by. All artists were that way. Art is not something that you just happen to do. True art has passion or meaning, and all artists must have extreme drive to keep at their art. True art consumes the artist to the point where nothing else matters at all to the artist. True art takes over the artist's mind, body, and soul. An artist's life must be their art, they must live their creations. That is the sole way for the artist's art to be true, undeniable art.
That is what they both had.
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Neither of them would agree on it. Never once did one admit that the other's masterpieces had any validity to them.
Not outwardly, at least.
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It was sad, in fact. Neither of them would ever see how much they truly had in common. They looked to their differences, putting up a thousand different boundaries, creating every wall and blockade that they could. They just wanted to keep the other out.
Only art, only art.
No matter how much they could have had, they never would. No, pride and fear would never allow that. Pride in one's art is natural, as that art must be your life, your passion. And fear is natural as well, especially if you lived as they did. Shinobi never trusted. Not the smart ones, at least. And especially not the ones who had been raised as those two had.
Art is everything.
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If they would have paid any attention to the other's ideals, they would have seen it. That common area. Art was what tore them apart, but it could have bound them together.
Most artists are blind to everything except their art. These two were no exception.
Eternity could never agree with a fleeting moment, could it?
It is illogical and stupid, correct?
They both told themselves that. They made it their second oath, right after their pledge to their art. It was their second priority. Neither of them could break the other if they didn't come any closer. They had no reason to worry if they just kept their distance. To trust is to allow weaknesses to penetrate you. To bond is to prepare for hurt. To accept is to allow for rejection. None of the repercussions could occur if the causes were never carried out.
So they stayed apart. By means of fear, logic, pride, and art.
And it would have been fine that way. Had it not been for one little factor.
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Fate never agrees with logic. It is blind to everything except for its own wants and needs. It cares not for the artists' arts, their wills, their ideals, nor their passions and beliefs. It only cares for itself and the plan it has laid out for them.
So the barrier was broken.
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Neither of them would ever confess who truly broke down all of the barriers. Neither would ever own up to being the one who started all of the mess.
But they both secretly blamed themselves.
The rest of the Akatsuki all blamed Deidara, as he was the more logical guess.
With a hot temper, loud mouth, and talkative personality, he would be more likely to scheme up something to get Sasori to react to.
Sasori would have never started the "bond", all of the other members reasoned. He had severed every last bond that he could, why would he optionally recreate all the ties he struggled to break?
Fate laughs at their simple-mindedness.
That is exactly the reason he would do anything to create a tie with Deidara.
Because neither of them had anything else. Besides their art, of course.
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It had been on a mission that their unraveling began.
Sasori was in one of his many masterpieces, Hiruko. Deidara walked beside him, humming a low tune that no one besides himself had ever heard of. It was like every other mission.
They walked, they remained silent. They fought, they worked brilliantly together, without getting emotions mixed up in all of it. They won, without any serious effort. They achieved so through their art.
But something went awry. Neither could remember exactly what happened. One second they were walking to the Waterfall Village, and the next they were surrounded by the entire village of Iwagakure.
Which bothered Deidara immensely.
The life he left behind, rebuked, had caught up with him. The memories he had shoved into the back of his mind came hurling up, along with all of the emotions. His family, his village, his former home. Before he had his art, that was his life. His father, as the Tsuchikage, promised him that he would be a leader one day himself.
Until they saw what a freak he was.
Deidara unconsciously glanced down at his palm-mouths, shaking his head. He tried to clear his mind, but he couldn't pull out of the fog. His mind was clouded and blotched with pained memories long hidden.
After several moments, he realized that he was bleeding. Laying down, bleeding.
After he regained his hearing, he realized that Sasori was yelling incoherently at him as he fought off the Iwa-nins on his own.
Deidara didn't respond, or even stand up. He merely smirked and raised a hand-sign.
From there, it was black.
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He awoke several days later, on a small cot. His sight was blurred and he felt both dizzy and queasy. He couldn't remember all that had happened, but he was fairly sure he knew.
He had disappointed Sasori. Yet again.
Though he cared not for the shinobi, he did care for carrying his weight in matters, and disliked being a nuisance.
He was sure Sasori would kill him for slacking off with the fight, and then acting so recklessly, but he faced it with his courage, and sat up.
He looked around, blinking, and was very surprised by what he saw.
Sasori, of all people, had out some gauze, medicine, painkillers, and other various medical items.
He took notice to the fact that his entire abdomen was covered in some of the gauze, and yet he felt nothing.
Sasori had his back turned, so his expression was even less readable than usual. He grunted, though, showing that he recognized that Deidara was awake.
He turned around slowly, silently. His gaze held more emotion than he would have liked for it to have held, but he continued anyway.
"Brat, lay down and rest. If you ever pull this again, you'll be left for dead."
And he turned back around, working on a puppet of some sorts.
Deidara, being curious, tilted to see the puppet's face. He could only smirk when he saw.
It was the Tsuchikage.
"I hope you know that he won't be useful to you, un. No inartistic idiot could ever be useful to an artist."
And, with that little slip, on both of their parts, it was the beginning.
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Sasori understood, for once, what Deidara had been through. Seeing one's village was never easy or nice, no matter how stoic you are. Not that he would ever sympathize with the other, just that he understood.
It hurt him at first, but then he numbed himself. That made things easier.
But only for a short time.
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It ended up killing them both.
Sasori died out of pride and contempt. He died while trying to kill his one last part of his old self, and while trying to prove his art to Deidara. He died, and left an empty shell.
That was all he was now.
A lifeless, empty hull left to rot on the ground.
And somehow, Deidara found that that bothered him more than he would ever care to understand. His last piece of humanity (if Sasori could qualify as such anymore) had been taken. The last person that he had let in, the only person that he had let get so far, had taken all of that and died.
An empty shell.
Rotting. Dead. Bland. Disgustingly serene.
Sasori was so quiet and still, even for his class of stoicism. Deidara touched the symbol on his chest and let his numb fingers trace the box. He then abruptly ripped out the two swords left in Sasori, growling ferally as the realization and blunt pain hit him.
Sasori was without emotion, but he was not.
Deidara bowed his head, trembling as he fell to his knees.
"You do not understand, Danna, how much I hate you right now, yeah."
His eyes were duller than even before, the emotions taking their toll.
"I'll never trust again, yeah, I shouldn't have even trusted in the first place. I should've known, and have never let you in. You shouldn't have let me in either, and you might still be here, un."
His voice was as bitter as bitter could be.
And soon he collapsed.
His body wracked by the emotional sobs that wracked not only his form physically, but mentally as well.
He laid there for a week and a half, before Zetsu showed up to inform him of his new partner and new mission.
Deidara nodded slowly and numbly.
He would keep his oath this time.
Only art, only art.
Art is everything.
Nothing else matters.
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Owari.