Chapter One
The Bird
~You Made Me
Author's Note
This story takes place earlier into Shippuden, before any one of the Akatsuki members die. In this world, Madara reveals himself earlier in, and is the current leader of the Akatsuki. There's not much mention of Pain.
This story is strongly Diedara orientated, focusing on the complexities of his living in the Akatsuki and dealing with the tragedies of his past life. It contains a considerable number of sex scenes, and not just of Deidara x Itachi. Please be forewarned.
This is expected to be an ongoing story, so please give me an indication of who's reading it. I'd appreciate the support.~
This story may seem to hold a darker undertone. It's intended to at this point: this story is a fairly tragic recount of what could have happened to Deidara through his life but probably never did.
NOTE: I should also mention that Hikaru, Deidara's brother, is of course an OC. His name means 'ray of light'.I have no idea who Deidara's actual family is, or whether they are even mentioned. But for the purpose of this story, I have created a brother for him. Please excuse any discrepancies to the actual story on this regard.
The Kumori do not exist either. They are an added aspect whose name means 'shadow, or cloudiness'. I'll do my best to explain them as they become important.
{Y*M*M}
"The worst thing you can try to do is cling to something that is gone, or to recreate it."
Johnette Napolitano
Deidara felt breathless. He was still trying to steady himself. But his body wasn't complying. His mouth trembled, his chest racked for air. He could hear his own breath as it erratically intercepted the silence.
He could feel his body tensing, unwilling. Incompliant.
With his mouth held open for air, he watched Madara close the space between their faces. It wasn't the first time. It would never be the last time. But it was still an uncomfortable surprise.
Madara was working his way further down Deidara. It was unsettling, to have anyone that close. It was invasive.
Deidara's feelings weren't nearly as exposed as his body was. He'd withheld his fears, fearing them childish. Inadequate. He had nothing to stand on to tell Madara no. He'd been merged into the Akatsuki, one of the strongest powers of the age. He'd found welcome. He'd taken solace in the concept.
Of course he hadn't understood it then.
Madara was rushing. He was usually as intense, but commonly always slowed it down. Marked it as deliberate. Tonight was different. He wanted easy access. He sought instance. Deidara couldn't predict his movements, although he recognized them as they arrived. He slid his eyes shut and willed his mind into absence. It was something, alright, to be welcomed into the Akatsuki. Drawn into their rankings. Even though just a child.
A pretty child, his father had told him that. His guardians had told him that. Madara had told him that again. Only the words meant something he'd come to resent on Madara's tongue.
The first night he'd arrived at Akatsuki, Deidara had laughed with Madara. He'd gathered an image of what he reckoned was to come from his Akatsuki lifestyle. He'd misjudged. Misplaced his landing. He faced a hard fall.
When Madara had first made this part of his job known, Deidara hadn't grasped the severity of his situation enough to ward it off. It had happened to him. Before his response time, before his comprehension of the matter. It had been too late, he had endured it. And if it had happened once, it would happen again. Now, it kept happening.
He'd tried to act grown up about it, tried to hold his head high when he passed the other Akatsuki members. But then gradually, it had gotten worse for him. His ego was trembling, almost violent. For he had lost what he'd come in with.
A pretty child, they'd used as praise. What good had being pretty brought him?
Deidara bit his tongue when it was over, to stifle the scream lodged in his throat. It was no use trying to find a better existence now. The only door out from the Akatsuki was death. Either that or the strength to overcome Madara. Is that how Orochimaru had achieved it? He'd overcome this man?
Deidara could not even muster himself to meet the man's eyes. Maybe that was a result of having been so vulnerable under him all these past nights. His mind had already decided: it yielded to this enemy.
Resistance was painful, that was the lesson Deidara had been taught a long time ago. Deidara wasn't sure he'd be capable of differentiating the power position of their nights together from their power capacities out on the battlefield. Maybe he would concede to Madara there too.
With the switch of a lamp, the bed flooded in clarity. Eyes tight against the light, Deidara looked up blurrily into Madara's glazed expression. Madara seemed troubled. It had wrecked them both, then.
Deidara looked away, on purpose. He had nothing to say to him. They spoke no words when they entered this world. It held the surreal quality of an illusion, which Deidara necessitated. He seemed able to convince himself, through it, that the night had in fact never happened.
{Y*M*M}
"It's too bad you won't admit it."
"Shut up."
"You should really just admit it."
"Sasori." Deidara pronounced his whole name, glaring daggers at his partner. "I'm fine."
"You're still sleeping, Deidara." And there was almost a thread of care woven into the words. The two ninja bound their way through the canopy in a rush of green. "And you're in pain."
"I am not." Deidara felt his argument dithering. It was pointless to defend against something that was true. His whole body fought with the weight of the night's strain. Madara had gotten it over with quickly. So quickly, that Deidara still wheeled from it the morning after. "I'm fine, okay. Let's just…get this over with."
Sasori cast him unconvinced eyes, observing his unusual pattern of movement as he tried to navigate a body that didn't want to be moved. He thought it looked almost puppet like. "Whatever."
Their mission took them to the nearest borderline of Kumori, an agency hidden deep in the forests in a location few dared to cross. The rebel nation. Kumori represented rogue ninja from across continents. Nearly every single one of them had been expelled on the grounds of stolen forbidden arts. Unlike the Akatsuki, they were not all ninja veterans. But at the same time, that meant there were so many more of them allowed in. Those stolen jutsus were being housed in their village's creation, honed and distributed between the members. They were surprisingly adept , their leader made sure of it. He aimed to distort the humans who walked through his doors into new beings of unimaginable destructive capabilities. Most of them had been disfigured by the forbidden practices they'd survived and incorporated.
Deidara felt his stomach churn at the anticipation of colliding with one. Of course it had been an unstated rule that the Akatsuki and Kumori leave one another undisturbed. There was no need to waste numbers on each other. They both saw the sense in avoiding meaningless warfare.
It was the fact that he couldn't depend on his body to save him just then that concerned him. He ached all over. The last thing he needed was reason to jump around.
Deidara's heart stammered as Sasori drew them to an abrupt halt a few steps off from their destination.
"Sasori man?"
"Shoosh." Sasori bid him quietly, slinking from the tree coverage with one hand out to withhold his partner. "Stay here, in denial if you want to." Sasori flit into the distance, a diminishing black speck.
Deidara tried to apprehend the situation before Sasori fell out of sight, but it was too late. He'd been left alone in the tree leaves. Deidara willed to move forward but his legs rejected him also. An unutterable moment of solitude crossed his conscious and he felt faint. There wasn't much sunlight leaking in between the treetops, but he could still see the light from the lamp flooding the bed at the reminder of bright light. He could still see Madara's troubled eyes assessing him. He could even hear, distinct in the amplification of the silence, Madara's worrying words.
"Well Deidara, I'm guessing you know it already. But I love you."
A strangled sound escaped Deidara's chest, involuntarily freed at the memory. His body rocked and his hands gripped the nearest tree trunk. The wood was coarse and cold as the birds resting between its heights radiated out on spirited outcries at the disturbance. Calm down, Deidara thought in panic, hating himself for having trudged up the memory here with Sasori due any minute. Just cool it.
The words were lost in the vastness of his mind, where the fear of Madara reigned. Where the fear was constant.
"Calm down." Deidara whispered on an intense breath, saying the words out loud at last so that he could experience them. "It's not that bad." So why was he shaking? "It's not that bad…"
"What's not that bad?" Sasori's return intruded on the moment of sincerity.
Deidara spun back at him, no longer so brave as to pretend he didn't need him there. "Hey. Sasori man."
"You look crazy." Sasori said bluntly, with a perturbed shake of his head.
"I'm fine." Diedara forced the lie another time. It was probably worth lying to Sasori. Truth would lead to questions. Questions would lead to more truth. Of course he was hesitant to selling out Madara, but really it was his pride that kept him in check. What would their relationship be reduced to, if Sasori knew their blonde haired blue eyed member was only part time ninja veteran, and part time just Madara's personal whore.
Sasori allowed the privacy and ignored the sick expression that found his partner's face. "Alright then. Well the enemy's in numbers. Want to divide this?"
"Hmm." It was unconvincing. Deidara tried again. "Yeah, sure. Let's do this."
"You don't have to, you know. I'm probably better off without you." Sasori moved away again, throwing back towards Deidara's injured eyes, "There aren't that many of them. Save yourself for the next mission."
Which would only be days apart from this one. Days of resting to regain himself till then.
Sasori disappeared out ahead.
Initially offended, Deidara suddenly interpreted that message. The hidden manner in which his partner could exhibit care for him.
Save yourself, Deidara picked out from his partner's words.
"Thank you." He muttered quietly, standing back.
The respite was temporary.
Deidara could see them move, their dark shapes breaking into view underneath the shafts of light from the canopy. His eyes darted after each form as it crossed by, tallying them. Six. There were six of the things. They were headed straight towards Sasori.
Deidara clung onto the tree for a minute, unsure of himself. Were those the Kumori people? Were those even people?
The obligation to warn Sasori wavered as he tested his feet. They weren't going to hold him, let alone carry him. He sunk down into his tree side, contemplating yelling.
When one appeared beside him.
"Hey!" He spat the word, stumbling backwards into his tree. It took all of his willpower not to yell Sasori's name. It wasn't a Kumori.
Itachi Uchiha. The pressing eyes of a man unconcerned whether you lived, died or hid in a tree.
"The hell?" Deidara barked, feeling stultified. "Are you doing here? You're not doing this mission…"
Itachi's eyes dipped down to the disgraced Akatsuki. He snorted. "Neither are you."
Deidara glared at his daring. Itachi was preoccupied with the situation by the time Deidara's comeback sprung to mind.
"I don't thi-"
"Stay here." Itachi said, turning simply.
"Don't patronize me!"
Itachi dissipated into crows, which Deidara reacted to by flinging his arm up in front of his face guardedly. When he looked back out over his sleeve, he could hear his team out ahead of him. Some glorious battle had engaged. He was going to be remembered a coward if this one made history.
Deidara staggered to standing, his mind torn. The battle sounded angry. They had not come here to fight Kumori. Their mission employers had merely selected an area just outside of their territory to kill a few ninja.
Conflict had been inevitable, what was Madara, stupid?
Deidara flinched as he took a step again, feeling the pain of an after morning descending on him. Well of course he was stupid.
After several tense moments of relentless combat in the distance, silence fell. Then Deidara felt another presence nearby him in the stillness. He snapped his head to his left, where an unnatural shadow had fallen. He remembered his comeback for the lurker.
"Like I said, Itachi. I don't think…"
Deidara inhaled sharply, the dark end of a kunai set to his throat. He felt the alertness only an enemy spurred.
"Itachi is killing them." An irritated voice stated. He tightened his hold on the kunai. "Get them out of there."
"Who?"
"The Akatsuki. Send them the fuck back!"
"We're not after the Kumori…"
The kunai stiffened at his throat, dangerously closer. "Send them back!"
"Okay." The whites of Deidara's eyes were showing as he locked sight straight down at the kunai. He'd have agreed to anything. "Okay, just let me out…"
"Deidara!" Sasori hailed, flying inwards and stamping down onto the tree. He was breathless. His hands were bloodied. He seemed furious that he'd gotten to his helpless friend too late to avoid the exact situation he was facing.
The Kumori rogue pulled the kunai up against Deidara's prickling throat as a warning. The death trap winked at them in the sunlight. "One step closer, you bitch."
"They're all dead." Sasori raised his voice at the man. "What are you fighting for?"
Deidara felt his head race. The Akatsuki had killed Kumori? Why would they have dared to…
He didn't have time to speculate. Sasori had launched. The kunai had followed.
It was within his last hopeful breath of consciousness that Deidara realized he'd been spared by inches. A strand of blonde hair was cut free onto the wind.
The rest blurred together for him. The overwhelming sensation of adrenaline and exhaustion mingled inside.
Someone's hands held him. Deidara felt the world slipping, but he caught Sasori's furious movement as he slit the throat of the man who'd near executed his partner.
And then darkness.
{Y*M*M}
It wasn't making sense. The lines were merging together into unreadable forms, with every letter appearing the same. Deidara's eyes strained against the dim lighting to detect a word like 'pain' or 'relief.' None of the bottles seemed to hold those.
"Come on." Deidara murmured, flinching just from standing upright. He whisked up another bottle from the medical shelf. He really wasn't looking forward to getting caught in here, or having the question raised.
What're you doing in the medical room, Deidara? Are you hurt? What happened?
A bottle of strikingly blue pills called out to him. Deidara's hands found it gingerly. 'Pain Killer'; the label could not have been more distinct to one who needed it.
The door juddered gently to his left all of a sudden, setting a spring in his step as he darted to one side. The curtain that guarded the single bedside present in the medical room provided shelter.
Deidara's hands were still tight around the bottle of pills he'd come in for, urging the intruder to leave quickly as he ducked behind the draping. What if it was Madara, his mind flashed the worst fathomable image. He sucked his breath in so that he could hold his mouth quiet.
It wasn't Madara, for the best part. Itachi Uchiha had stony eyes as he brought his hesitant shape into the room, one sleeve suspended in front of his mouth.
Deidara watched him rummage through the shelf for bottles as clumsily as he had. Unease crept into his mind. And if Itachi was as evasive about the cause of his vulnerability as Deidara was? Would he hate him for being there watching him?
Itachi appeared more deliberate in his search, scratching for what he wanted. Not finding it. He coughed a broken sound that almost seemed too weak to be his. Blood spewed from his lips and caught on his awaiting sleeve.
With a forced exhalation, Itachi tried again. He was desperate for something that apparently he hadn't found the first time round on the shelf.
Deidara's hands pressed guiltily around the bottle, and he passed it his gaze. Probably this, he thought dismally. He was probably holding onto the exact thing Itachi was looking for, which was a sure way to get found.
Tentative in case he made a noise, Deidara slipped the lid off the pill bottle without diverting his eyes from Itachi. He tipped four of them into his hand, and then eased those four down into his pocket to be kept. Then he placed the resealed bottle down on the other side of the curtain, holding his breath that it wouldn't prove suspect enough to inspect his side of the curtain.
Itachi halted, drawing short of breath as he heaved against his agony. Deidara felt his own pain must be diminutive in comparison, judging by that reaction. He set his gaze on Itachi's breathless figure.
He held no sympathy for the Uchiha. It had probably been his own exploitation of forbidden powers that had resulted in his sudden wave of damage now. The Uchiha were driven beyond the boundaries of their limits by their over seeking minds. He stood resolute in his decision that he hated the Uchiha, especially this one that had made him join the Akatsuki.
Cough blood, you foolish bastard. Deidara thought in a moment of childish spite. Karma says that's my blood on your hands.
{Y*M*M}
Having eventually seen Itachi leave, Deidara felt safe enough to slip from the medical room. He'd downed the pills. All four of them. He hadn't been sure how many you needed. He hadn't managed to read the bottle before he'd placed it in Itachi's sights and lost it to him.
His mind hung now, suspended between the realms of conscious of the realms of sleep. The pills were descending with potency, numbing the pain, along with his thoughts and his energy and every other viable part of him.
He wanted to get some sleep in, but Sasori and he shared a room. He couldn't face Sasori with his faded gaze that spoke of drugging. He wasn't even sure he'd know how to thank him for his earlier rescue. He knew he should ask questions about what had happened back at the Kumori Village. But care fell second to his miserable headache. So he paced himself around outside the door, a little unsure of himself. A little too dizzy to be sure what his pride should be worth just then.
He sunk himself down against the wall adjacent to their bedroom door, his eyes sealed shut, blocking off the light. He pulled his arms up around his knees and buried his faint head between them. It was proving difficult to stay awake and difficult to get to sleep.
It wasn't his failure in combat that lurked in his mind, keeping it awake. It was the distinct image Of Madara, diminishing him to a ninja who failed in combat. It wasn't only his body suffering. Internally, he was fragmenting. How had everything amounted to this so rapidly? Being taken advantage of was one thing, but imposing love when Deidara knew only hate? Wasn't what Madara had done to him, surely, surely out of hate? Where the hell had love come into that equation?
A light broke out and trailed under their bedroom door. Sasori had awoken. Deidara could hear him stirring around inside the bedroom, before he'd pulled the door open to exit. Deidara's pitiful figure confronted him.
"Deidara. I was going to look for you." Sasori said frankly, raking his eyes across him. "You're one broken looking piece of work."
"Art's a bang." Deidara muttered dryly, eyes half open. With a sigh, he reluctantly sunk his head back between his arms again.
Sasori ventured over warily. "Are you sick or something?"
Deidara didn't know how to frame it right. He had no hold on his thoughts, so all he could do was ensure they never came out.
"Are you hurt?" Sasori went on, raining questions with a deepening frown. "Are you angry?"
All of those things, Deidara thought dejectedly. And more.
The impending silence was shattered by a distant outcry. Sasori flipped his head back. "Itachi." He said the name as though it fit the commotion naturally. It hadn't even been a battle injury. It was something happening inside the Uchiha rogue.
"How long has he been sick for?" Deidara didn't bother conceal what he knew, his thoughts were too fogged to care. Sasori's eyes wavered down to him.
"Well…a while."
There was a crashing sound from beyond the passage. Itachi's pain was severe for him to be breaking things.
Sasori sighed, returning his focus to Deidara. "But I'm more worried about you. I can't have you abandoning me on the field."
Deidara just managed to look up at that.
"I'm serious," Sasori went on. "Tell me what's wrong, or don't. But either way, fix it." He bordered on the door again, before turning his head back. "Oh yeah. And the pay we got for that last mission is on your bed, waiting for you. Goodnight." He left the door open as an inviting gesture, but then he still turned the bedroom light off, plunging Deidara's hallway into darkness.
Itachi's outcry still demented the atmosphere, even though it had passed them. Deidara shivered at the memory of it. It was a sincerely painful sound. It halted reality.
It reminded him of what he sounded like on some nights, when Madara was towering over him. Genuine distress was something he could empathize with even an Uchiha over.
He couldn't pinpoint why the tears were pricking behind his eyes, but he squashed them there with one determined swipe of his sleeve. No, crying was the last step. The last resort. Overcoming would always be first.
Deidara waited up in the silence for a while, wondering if Itachi would scream out again.
He didn't. Sleep won the war over conscious.
{Y*M*M}
A long time ago, Deidara had walked the world as though it was white as snow. With honor. He had made sure every step he took left the path as unblemished as previously.
Now there was nothing but a dark road. A black passage, with no meaning between beginning and end.
Deidara had stumbled around, unbalanced by the sinister, unexpected weight of the nothingness. How much emptiness seemed to weigh.
Deidara felt shameless, as he stole into Hidan and Kakazu's conversation. "I hope that he does die."
Hidan turned a curious expression on him, to contrast Kakuzu's hard fixed stare.
"What makes you say that, Deidara?" Kakuzu asked with uncertainty.
"Mercy." Deidara speculated, shrugging. "Itachi Uchiha is one breath away from his last, so I hope that instead of pain, he finds death."
It made sense to Deidara. A long time ago, his brother Hikaru had drilled it into his mind that death was not the worst thing. There were much worse things. His brother leaving him had made him understand that.
"And you're wishing him death?" Kakuzu finished somberly, eyes tracing Deidara's sleep deprived gaze inquisitively.
Deidara nodded, which Hidan burst out laughing to. "How sweet man. Can't imagine what you give your friends for Christmas. Cremation maybe?"
"I'm wary, Deidara," Kakuzu insisted sharply, rising up from his seat at the long Akatsuki table. "Of what motivates you to call death a mercy."
Deidara resisted shrinking back from Kakuzu's tall stature as it rose before him. He located words in time. "Well you wouldn't get it. You don't stay a room or two down the passageway from him. He's screaming the nights away."
Kakuzu paralleled the theory with Deidara's purple half-moon ridden eyes. Perhaps his lack of sleep came from the Uchiha's story of suffering. "So it's a sacrifice for…your own sake."
Deidara wasn't sure which way down the mountain drop was worse. He flicked his gaze away disinterestedly. "Whatever you think it is." He hadn't meant to share that much with them. His brother's words were always finding him at the wrong time. "Now, excuse me."
He ran from one train accident into another as he reached the doorway. Uchiha Itachi stood before him, eyes narrowed. Both saw their own exhaustion reflected in the other's expression. Itachi cast his gaze down at the young Akatsuki member, whose honest blue eyes promised they'd fight until their last if he threatened them. Itachi wasn't goaded by the hostility.
"Here." He freed the word from behind the guard of his Akatsuki robe, extending his hand to Deidara. "You shouldn't take more than three."
Deidara's eyes stung the bottle he was proffering him. The strident blue pills. The most destructive of healers he'd come across. He took it, unthinkingly. He was going to kill the same pain the pills had caused in his mind with the devils themselves.
Only then had the idea struck him. "Why are you giving this to me?" More importantly, how had he known Deidara needed them? Had he noticed him behind the curtain there, after all? Had he not been too blinded by pain to be ninja enough to sense his presence?
Itachi's mouth was deceptively hidden behind his robe as he spoke. "I saw you in the passage." Last night, Deidara presumed he meant. "I thought you looked sick. And since I'd found the bottle out of its usual place, I figured you'd tried taking them."
"Spying, huh?" Deidara said ironically, before childishly thrusting the pill bottle back into Itachi. "I don't need pills. Overdose on them, for all I care." He made to veer around Itachi, but was cut off instantly by the Uchiha's arm. "You want to make war, Itachi?" Deidara's voice arched in his frustration, a pressing headache mingling with rising anger. "I'll take you right now!"
"Say one more word, and I'm going to tell them."
Deidara's mind caught on the foreboding whisper, perfectly sinister without a single change in tenor. He forced a reaction from his vocal chords. "Tell them…what…" His eyes made sure to find his. "Itachi?"
Itachi snorted as though Deidara was helpless, returning the pills to him. "Take three." He reminded him. Then he swept away.
{Y*M*M}
A Few Days Later
"What is this?" Madara's voice verged on disgust. Deidara flushed scarlet when he realized what it was he was holding.
"Just tablets." He didn't dare swipe the bottle back from his superior, even though he ached to. "Just for headaches."
Madara examined the blue pills carefully, before transferring his unimpressed gaze to Deidara. "Is there something you're not telling me?"
"Telling you?" Deidara repeated incredulously, unsure which Deidara persona to take on. Was he Deidara, reporting back from a mission or something? Or was he Deidara, the quiet bedmate who said everything without words?
"Tell me, Deidara," Madara persisted. "Is this for after me?"
The dreamlike quality of the night was collapsing against the stark reality of talking about it. Deidara felt his face burning. "I'm…not…"
"Am I hurting you?" Madara's eyes crossed his in pursuit of knowing everything.
Deidara was trembling, still fully clothed, but feeling more exposed than ever. He sat up straight on the bed. "Well…" His voice broke off, and then it seemed impossible that he would ever fill the silence again. Madara waited patiently for him to try. "The thing is…"
He was brought to a silence again. Madara had pulled him closer, wound his arms around him. He was breathing the scent of his hair in and it made Deidara's neck tingle.
"Deidara, honestly. There's nothing you can't tell me at this point."
At this point? Deidara's mind choked on the words. Why? Where the hell were they?
Deidara sat open mouthed against the truths he could never voice, he could never tell this man, who suddenly wanted to know everything. Who suddenly cared about the voice to the body it had been with for so long now.
He was asking Deidara to confide in him. He wanted truth. Deidara couldn't tell him the truth he wanted outright. He wouldn't like Deidara's true feelings.
Madara spoke on his behalf. "I wondered, if I was making you afraid, Deidara. But you were always so sure of yourself that I passed it by. But now you can't even talk to me, can you? So just nod for me. Am I hurting you?"
That was unfair! Confidence and trust were two separate entities. Deidara couldn't say the words because they couldn't be heard, not because they couldn't be spoken.
"Yes." Deidara said brashly, since the irritation had provoked his worst side. He was too tired to monitor his behavior. "In case my screaming didn't tip you off."
Madara scoped him out with interest. He hadn't been snapped at for so long, he'd forgotten it was even possible. "So you can still to talk me. Even about this?"
"I'd rather not talk to you about anything. Can we just get this over with?" He'd never said so much before, let alone so vehemently. He wasn't sure where he was mustering the courage from. His irritation, most likely.
Madara's hands weaved up through his hair, threading the band out and setting it loose in a single golden cascade. Deidara shifted in Madara's arms uncomfortably. He didn't like the sound of his own voice when it was trapped in this setting. It sounded anxious.
"Are you asking or ordering?" Madara raised the question suddenly, tempting Deidara's mouth with a kiss as he drew him in.
Deidara blanched slightly. He pulled away in revulsion muttering, "Neither."
Madara leaned away at that, occupied meanwhile with stroking through Deidara's hair. It was always faultless. A soft river the color of honey.
Diedara pulled his eyes shut as Madara's grip tightened on the threads. "Ah."
Madara's hold grew taut, a relentless action that Deidara couldn't pull away from without getting hurt further.
"Ow," Deidara muttered quietly, usually a compliant partner through pain, but this time voicing against it. Since his voice had found this world anyway. "That's too tight."
"Let me explain another aspect of me to you. You're allowed to talk to me, Deidara. I really want you to. But for so long as you do, remember who it is you're talking to, " Madara's words were pregnant with venom. He didn't waver even to dispel the tension the night was imposed with.
Deidara was released with the tension of the pull still throbbing at his brain. He reached for his head, but Madara clutched at his hand before it had made contact.
"You are still aware of your position, aren't you?" Madara asked Deidara, in a tone bordering on darkness.
Deidara bit back a retort the instant he felt threatened. Still, it seemed his anger was outweighing his fear more every night. "Of course."
"You are under me, Deidara." Madara reminded him anyway, sliding the blonde down onto the bed beneath him. Words fell short.
Deidara let another night envelop him, not sure how to get from it. Wishing he'd taken more than three pills.
{Y*M*M}
His room was cold without Sasori.
Still, it was warmer than Madara's bed. Deidara pulled himself into his own sheets with a weak sigh, wondering if Sasori was bitter about having been sent on his late night mission alone.
Deidara had been excused on Madara's order. Despite the fact that Deidara would have much rather gone with Sasori.
It was too late to be thinking it through. Deidara breathed numbly until his mind wafted towards sleep. Midway to the dream world, his mind found memories.
Deidara was seven. He was standing, staring out with bright hopeful eyes. His brother knew where he was waiting. So why hadn't he come already?
His brother Hikaru used to run up between six or seven other boys. They all wore important masks. They'd ask about his little sister. He'd laugh, and tell them Deidara was a boy.
His brother would knock Deidara's chin up when he zoned out. "Don't think too hard." He'd tell him with a smile. His father used to say Deidara was a pretty child. His guardians had said it again.
His brother had always told him was a smart child. Deidara preferred it that way. He was the one who looked inside.
Deidara had always known his brother was important. He ran with the highest of the village's veterans, protecting the Hidden Stone village. But no one could perceive how important he was the way Deidara saw him.
Deidara was spewing words as Hikaru caught up to him that day. Rapidly. They were tangling in his throat because he only had eight minutes. Then his brother would be gone again.
His brother drew his sibling's blonde hair back behind his ears. "Say it clearly, Deidara. I can't hear you."
Deidara hadn't realized how much he wanted to tell his brother. The short interval between missions was never enough time. His brother always promised him he'd return later.
He usually did, but later was a long way off, with many wasted hours in between. Deidara had seen his brother's rock jutsu. He'd seen it rear up into animal art forms before driving into the village's enemies with decisive death. All he'd managed to fill the time with had been reconstructing them. Out of clay, since he couldn't bend rock yet. Deidara had made snakes first, because they were easier. Then one day he'd made a bird.
His brother had brought him a stone bird a day later. He'd told him it was permanent. A forever type of art. Deidara had touched it gently, even though it was solid as rock.
"Don't worry, you won't break it. You know, unless you really try." Hikaru had told him laughingly.
Well several years later, he had tried. Tried so hard.
The bird had been smashed to pieces.
Deidara had tried his whole life after the betrayal had made him break it to reassemble them. But it hadn't wanted to be whole again. So he'd kept a fragment. A fragment of rock, from the village, and the brother, that had once been his.
Permanent forms of art.
Whatever.
Deidara's art went out with a bang.
Deidara pushed the memories aside, fighting them into eventual sleep. It was hard hating someone you loved.
He could hear talking, echoing somewhere down the hall. He roused from sleep only seconds after he'd fallen into it.
"Sasori!' Someone bellowed. The sound of Kisame's jutsu trailed after it.
Deidara flipped bolt upright in bed, adrenaline reviving him. It was still so dark. What were they yelling about?
"Deidara." Sasori was at their door, filling the frame. His eyes were winced open, his mouth hung in the search for air. Blood trickled down from between his eyes.
"Sasori…" Deidara was cut short by a rebounding explosion.
What was happening? How badly had the pills disorientated him?
"Deidara!" Sasori pursued above the overwhelming din. "Get up, get out."
"What's happening?" Deidara cried, falling onto his feet and barely catching his balance. His hips hurt. "Are we being attacked?"
Sasori didn't answer him. He slid down to his knees. The air had been knocked from him. Everything closed into darkness.
"Sasori man!" Deidara dropped to his side, urgent as the panic choked the atmosphere. "Get back up!"
"Hidan!' Kakuzu was shouting from further away. "Don't rush at him!"
Hidan's maniacal laughter ensured all that he wasn't listening. Itachi's fire jutsu and Kisame's water jutsu stinging the air were discernable even out of sight.
Deidara looked up unwillingly. The noise was everywhere. But they were further away than they sounded.
"What's happening?" He repeated into Sasori's ear, which only earned him an incoherent murmuring.
Without any indication of the fight at hand, Deidara rose to join it.
"Deidara wait." The voice of Itachi landed from nearby. He was approaching from down the passageway.
Deidara's eyes flew at him. "What is this Itachi?"
"It's under control. We just need you to stay out of it."
"Under control?" Deidara spat incredulously, waving his draping sleeve at Sasori. "Sasori is fucking dying!"
"He helped control it." Itachi admitted, quickly taking the arm Deidara had extended. "Let's go."
"Let me go!" Deidara wrested against him, managing to break the hold. His arm whipped up into his chest, where he used it to hold himself. "What's your story?"
Itachi closed their berth and pulled Deidara's arm again. "I need you to follow me." He said seriously. "This is what Sasori came to warn you of."
"Of what? You?" Deidara couldn't wrench away without the element of surprise. His words were his last attempt at breaking them. "I deserve to know what the fuck is happening!"
"They want you." Itachi made it his final plea. Nothing he ever said made sense to Deidara, but those words were especially mystifying.
"Why the hell would anyone want me?" He hadn't realized for how long those dull words had been echoing hollowly in the midst of his mind for.
Itachi didn't humor him. He advanced in a single step that filled the space Deidara had been standing. Deidara ended up in his arms.
"Are you for real?" Deidara screeched, flailing his arm up at Itachi's face. "Put me the fuck down!"
"I detest you almost as much as you do me. Deidara." Itachi assured him, confronting his gaze. He then took them away at a run.
Sasori, Deidara's frantic thoughts bound to. Was Sasori going to die?
Deidara couldn't muster the strength to fight against Itachi. It had been too soon after Madara had finished with him. He was drained of fight.
"Don't help me! Help Sasori!" Deidara demanded, to no one's acknowledgment. Itachi kept them running. Itachi, who was supposed to hate him. It didn't make sense. "Why?" He yelled in a confused outrage. " Why save me?"
{Y*M*M}
"Why save Deidara?" Kakuzu was exclaiming, standing across from the others. "I mean for God's sake, cut your losses where you can afford to."
A sense of separation pervaded the room. The Akatsuki members gathered had their eyes cast down at the floorboards.
Madara sat at the head of the table, each hand buried in the opposite arm's sleeve in a concealed mannerism. His gaze trailed over Hidan, Kisame, and Zetsu, before settling on Kakuzu. "You would dispute my orders, Kakuzu?"
The Akatsuki member checked himself. He shook his head, rarely angered to this point. But the lack of sensical judgment on Madara's part left him wondering. "I don't intend to. I'm merely saying that Deidara does nothing for the Akatsuki. These are the Kumori we're waging war with. We may win, but it will end us. There will be nothing left of us but you if this battle commences."
"This battle has already commenced." The white half of Zetsu pointed out, loyally in Madara's corner.
Kakuzu slid his eyes to him. "And look at how many of us are left." The empty seats of Itachi, Deidara, and Sasori illustrated his words.
The black Zetsu scoffed. "Let's not kid ourselves. Sasori is alive, Itachi is unharmed. Deidara's acting up."
"This is why we shouldn't let children into the Akatsuki." Kakuzu went on. "Their judgment is impaired by their childishness."
"Do you understand the debate you're on about, Kakuzu?" Madara said irritably. "Do you have the vaguest idea?"
"The Kumori want us to hand Deidara over."
"And?"
"And you said no."
"Is that all?"
Kakuzu paused himself, derailed slightly. He tried to fathom any points he could be missing. "If we were to insist no, then war would happen between us." Kakuzu managed eventually. "War between the Akatsuki and the Kumori. The two most revered nations. We'd kill each other."
"I think Madara knows otherwise." Kisame offered his opinion.
Hidan had his eyes set on Kakuzu, bouncing them to Madara each time he spoke, and then back again. He was resting his head on his arms, leaning observantly on the table. He wasn't very politically motivated, but the discussion of the two sides warring intrigued him.
"I'm just saying that by handing over Deidara, we avoid the whole thing." Kakuzu said. His eyes refocused on Madara, whose mask was concealing his true outrage.
"And who next, Kakuzu?" He asked in a dry whisper.
"What?"
"Who next would we just hand over to them? Itachi? You?" Madara rose deliberately. His logic would exceed theirs. "We can't afford to let it be known that the Akatsuki concede to anyone, Kakuzu. We can allow ourselves to avoid combat. But we cannot be seen running from it. I will not let them have anything of mine. We are the Akatsuki, their equal. Who should be allowed to take anything of ours?"
He folded his arms as he stared at them. His true reasons for war would have to remain beneath the surface. "I dismissed their request to hand Deidara over because of pride. This, is a matter of pride. They cannot have anything they want. We are Akatsuki. To yield would be to demean ourselves to their lesser." In reality, he had not thought they'd be driven to war over the matter. How irrational their leader was. "I will not let this agency bend to the threat of war. Or what is the point of it?"
"Agreed." Hidan struck out with, lifting half his arm up. Kakuzu didn't look at him.
"I heard their reasons weren't rash," Kakuzu ventured in with. "I heard the Kumori's reasons were also of pride. Surely a compromise could have been reached. An exchange of veterans, if they wanted Deidara for some matter of pride, so badly? Surely we wouldn't be perceived weak for that, but smart?"
Madara could have killed him on the spot. Deidara's warmth still clung to his skin beneath his velvet black robe. "No." He replied simply, trying to push his personal argument aside. "Why should any real indomitable agency have need to compromise? War will befall any Nation that stands to argue with our decision." The fire in his chest imploded. "Even if it kills us."
Kisame looked him straight on for that. Zetsu tried not to stare, while Hidan flit his excited gaze from his partner to his leader.
"That much is true, Madara." Kakuzu said permissively. "But if that is the attitude we expect to fight with, then we resign ourselves to death." Kakuzu stared directly at Madara in his confidence. "I would much first see us resign ourselves to compromise."
{Y*M*M}
"It's a bird, Deidara."
Deidara had clasped it between his young hands, delicately. The little bird of rock his brother had crafted for him. "Is it mine?"
"It's yours."
Hope touched Deidara's small mouth. "Why did you make it for me?"
He hadn't seen his brother's tears. He'd been too young to hear them in his voice, and too short to see them in his eyes. "Because you'll need a rock. Something that won't break on you."
Deidara had stared at the creation curiously on the words, the remnant of a smile on his face. "It won't break?"
"Never."
"And if it does break?"
If I break? Hikaru had thought dismally. "Then it will only break because it had to, Deidara." If I break little brother, if I stop supporting you, if I'm not your rock any longer…
"Just keep the bird, okay?" Hikaru had asked him.
Please, don't take that bird from your sky.
{Y*M*M}
I tried to write this as naturally as possible, but character dialogue still seems a little strained here and there. :/ Please point out the good and the bad as it comes to you. I appreciate any constructive criticism! But please, don't be afraid to let me know what you liked either. :D
~AfterForev3R