Deidara copes with Sasori's death.

An Empty Room

Even though Deidara knew that the empty room near the end of the corridor would remain empty, as it did, day after day, he continued to pause every time he passed it by. On days when he was feeling particularly lonely, he'd slip into the room and lay across the barely used bed. Sometimes he'd walk around the room, touching things that Sasori had touched. Books, scrolls, paints, wood shavings, all scattered around as if they'd been used only earlier that day. But the only one who moved them now was Deidara, waiting to be scolded or snapped at for meddling in things he knew better than to meddle in. Instead, he remained just a teenage boy playing with a dead man's things.

Deidara never had been much of a reader. He found books boring, reading about other people's achievements and memories paled in comparison to making his own. Why read when he could fly? Why read when all the thrill of danger and possibility lie right outside his own door? But now he read because Sasori had read. He had many books on many different subjects, and as Deidara gradually pushed through page after page, he wondered if he had known Sasori very well at all. He had known Sasori to read, but he didn't know that Sasori had a liking to books about travel, to classic literatures about love and war, to books with happy endings. He never would have guessed Sasori considered himself such a tragedy that he had to make up for it in made up places with made up people. He must have spent a lot of time there too, judging by the dogeared, worn out spines of almost every book in the room.

It had taken Deidara three days to realize Sasori wasn't coming back. The morning after it happened, Deidara stopped in front of Sasori's door and knocked. Like usual, he didn't wait for an answer before letting himself in. He was mid-sentence when he realized the room was empty. It could have been any other day, Sasori's things spread out as if he'd only stepped away for a moment, but then Deidara remembered the few small words Pain had shared in Sasori's memory and how nobody but himself had really given a shit. He stood there for a moment before he stepped back out and closed the door behind him. He'd repeat these same motions in the days to follow.

Two days after that, the sickness had come after him. He woke up with his sheets wrapped around his sweat-soaked body. He spent the morning hunched over the toilet, hair clinging to his neck and back, and he heaved and heaved until his body was so worn out the only thing he could do was sleep.

He blamed the fever for the strange dreams he began having. In them, Deidara was walking down a dirt path somewhere in the woods. He was thirteen again, small for his age but still just as capable, and while at first he'd thought himself to be alone, the smallest figure matched his stride in the far distance. "Hey!" Deidara called out, cupping his mouth with his hands. He lowered them and waited for a reaction but all he got was a few birds, startled out of their tree by his voice. Deidara picked up pace and while he managed to get just a little closer, close enough to recognize a shock of red hair, the figure broke out into an equally as quick stride. By the third time the dream had come, Deidara was only a few feet from who he now recognized as Sasori, still acting as if he wasn't hearing Deidara yelling, sometimes even screaming for him to stop. He was always out of reach, until the fourth day, when Deidara reached a small hand out and brushed his fingertips across the back of Sasori's cloak-

"He's been talking in his sleep all week."

Deidara blinked his eyes open. He was on his back blearily staring up at the ceiling where Zetsu had emerged.

"What of it," he mumbled back. He had been so close, this time he almost had him.

"You sure are sleeping a lot, is something bothering you, Deidara?" White Zetsu frowned down at him, but Deidara just waved him off.

"Just tell me what you want, will you?" He sat up and moved to the edge of his bed, rubbing at his sore neck. He was sleeping heavier and heavier these days, that much was true.

"It's time to meet your new partner," Black Zetsu sounded amused and his other half gently explained why. "Of course, you've already met. Leader thinks you would be best suited to work alongside Tobi-"

Deidara jerked his head back towards the duo, appalled. Stunned for only a moment, he quickly snapped back and stood up hotly. "You've got to be fucking kidding me. Tobi?! That idiot doesn't have what it takes to be part of the Akatsuki."

"Then teach him." The creature began to sink back into the wall. "We've been instructed to survey your sparring with each other, please don't take long." Before Deidara could protest, he was once again alone. A hot rage spread throughout him and he sat back down on the bed, gripping the edges as if he'd lose himself if he let go. To replace Sasori with the Akatsuki's errand boy was an insult to Sasori and his work, his art. Was Deidara the only one who had respected him? He hung his head and squeezed the mattress until his fingers ached. How unforgivable this was.

When Deidara trudged into the field outside where Zetsu and Tobi were waiting, Deidara refused to look at his new partner. "Can I kill him?" Deidara asked flatly, looking at the plant creature.

"You can certainly try."

"Wait, what?" Tobi asked, startled.

Deidara had infused his clay while walking to meet the pair and without wasting any time, he molded the clay as it was spat out into his hand. When he finally met Tobi's eye, all the fury he thought he'd left in his bedroom welled up inside him again. It should have been Sasori standing in front him, not this moron. He angrily threw out the figures in his hand, but stumbled back upon seeing them. He was as shocked as everyone else to see two crudely shaped snakes wiggling slowly towards Tobi. The masked man looked down at the misfortune and then straightened up with confidence.

"Eh, what's this? Having some problems, senpai?"

Deidara seethed and snapped his attention back up. "Don't you dare call me that!" It didn't matter how they looked as long as they still had the ability to explode. He put his fingers up to his face and detonated them. The two worm-like creatures burst with a small popping sound. Tobi had taken a few steps to his left as that's all the room he needed to avoid being singed. "What the hell is going on?" Deidara looked down at his palms and they grinned back at him sloppily.

"This doesn't look promising."

It was no use, he just didn't have it in him that day. He shot Zetsu a cold look and balled up his fists. "This can wait for another day, you tell him that." He didn't bother waiting for a reply. On his heel, he turned back towards the base, shoulders shaking with humiliation and frustration.

Instead of going to his room he went to Sasori's, throwing himself down onto the bed as he rubbed at his eyes. He felt exhausted these days. No matter how long he seemed to sleep, the ache never went away. It touched at his whole body, seeming to stem from the center of his chest. Deidara rolled over into the pillow. Was this what grieving felt like? It must have been, but he barely had time to consider this before he succumbed to sleep once again.

He was thirteen once more, stricken still in the middle of the road with his small hand fisted around the black fabric of the cloak. "Sasori," his voice quaked as he spoke. "Is that you?"

A breath caught in Deidara's throat as he watched the back of Sasori's head expectantly. It had taken so long for Deidara to catch up to him, there was no way he could keep denying him now. Slowly, Sasori's head bowed and his shoulders shook with a light laughter. Deidara released the cloak in surprise, it wasn't a sound he'd heard too often, but it was always a pleasant one. "Look at you," Sasori turned and smirked down at the blonde boy. "You're such a small thing. What are you still doing out here?"

"I've been calling you for days," Deidara snapped. "Couldn't you hear me?"

"I thought I heard something, but I wasn't quite sure." His hooded brown eyes moved to look past the trees. "I think I like this place. It's quiet here. Well," he brought his gaze back towards Deidara, "until you came and made a racket." There was a faint smile on his mouth, looking out of place on that young face of his.

Deidara bit at his lip and looked at the ground. "It's quiet back home too," he muttered. "Without you, anyway." The ache had returned, hollow and resonating. "Why'd you have to go and do that, huh? You idiot." He shot an accusatory look up at the taller man, who normally would have retaliated with anger, but now he just stood there, softly studying the boy. Deidara froze when Sasori reached a hand out and laid it atop his head.

"It's better this way." He said it as if it were something Deidara just couldn't understand just yet. But Deidara didn't like the way those words sounded coming from him, this wasn't the Sasori he had known. The blonde child batted the hand on his head away and stumbled back.

"It's not better, it's just easier! When did you get so soft, old man? I thought you wanted to live forever? I thought art was eternal-" But all his noise went unheard. He blinked and looked around, realizing he was standing alone again, yelling to himself.

Deidara woke with a start, face still pressed into the pillow. He rolled himself over and stared at the ceiling. Even in his dreams Sasori was taken from him. It was almost laughable, when did he begin to care so much?

He was almost impressed with Sasori's ability to leave and linger at the same time, it must have been nice finally getting under Deidara's skin for once. Tired of sleeping and aching, of redheads and grieving, Deidara pushed himself up and stepped towards the door to leave. Maybe some rooms were meant to be left empty, maybe, like a lot things, it was just better this way.

A/N: This will probably be the last thing I post for awhile. It's been fun but I've got way too much stuff irl going on and I just can't make time for this anymore. Thanks for reading, I really appreciate it!