Stubborn
mayonaka-ni-sakayume
A/N: Don't own it. Wish I owned it. No luck. This one's extra short. Enjoy. GAH I love writing Deidara.
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He's stubborn.
I mean, he's really stubborn, you know? Even when it comes to stuff he isn't right about. Frustrating sometimes, yeah.
(I'm stubborn too. But it's not so bad, because at least I know what I'm talking about.)
So we argue a lot. Usually about the same things, over and over, because he won't back down and I won't back down, mm-mn. Course, no good explosion goes off without a fuse getting lit first. There's usually something to set us off – otherwise we get along pretty much okay, most of the time. Not always. We're lightning and rain, you know. I'm fast, he waits; I flash, he whispers. I tire him out, he makes me impatient. But…yeah, it's okay, in the end. Because we're both artists, and he's with me, and I'm his.
Still, we argue, when we're triggered. When something sparks. Last fight was my fault, probably. Hmm. Because I'd gotten clay all over everything, mm. He missed the best part; he usually does, yeah. He doesn't get it anyways. Which is what we were fighting about. It's not worth anything if it just sits there, I said. Sure, it's a pretty sculpture, but what good is it if that's all, hm? If it just hangs around and picks up dust…there's nothing artistic in that, and shouldn't he know that? But of course he doesn't, no. That's the kind of thing he thinks is art, believe it or not. 'Eternal', he calls it. I call it flat, dull, lifeless.
Maybe that's why he is like he is.
I can't imagine doing it, mm. Turning myself into a doll the way he did. Art is life, and life is breathing, and what's he in all that? Wood and thread and those things that aren't real…he's one of his own 'eternal' things. I don't know, I guess, because it's not me. But looking on, I don't get how that could be worth it – how anything could be worth giving up your own heartbeat for, yeah. Not just that, either, not just the heartbeat. It's feeling. When something hits you, something really great and amazing – like a thunderstorm, or a firework show – you've gotta be able to feel that, or you're just not alive. I tried to get him to see it, one time. We sat in the rain, the rain he couldn't feel on the skin he doesn't really have, and I tried to show him how beautiful the lightning was. He nodded, he put up with it, he got as soaked as I was – but he didn't get it, I know he didn't.
And it's not fair! It's not. I help him out sometimes – patch up the bits of him that need repairing, because 'eternal' things are frustrating like that – and I can feel it. I can feel my hands getting warm while I'm working on him, I can feel my heart get all crazy-winged if he tosses me one of his little smiles, I can feel all of it. But what about him? He can't feel my fingertips, and how careful and gentle I am with him. He hasn't got a pulse to start fluttering, even if I wrap him up in a hug (telling us both it's to keep him warm or dry, as if he needs that). He doesn't get the little jittery flashes I do, and no matter how much I touch it'll never get to him. Unfair…mm.
I do it anyway, so I guess it's for my sake. And he's a lot more patient than me, so I get away with enough – I get to sleep next to him if it's just us, maybe sneak an arm around him or lean on him while we're traveling (he's just short enough to make a nice little armrest, mm) – and he puts up with it. Not sure why I bother. The memories I go away with are nothing amazing; he's smooth and cold and all the things I can't usually stand. But I can imagine. Do imagine, mm. He told me he used to be more alive than that, said he had a pulse and a heart and everything. So that's what I imagine. Mine, my one, feeling and breathing and being warm, and shivering when I touch him, and letting me get away with even more without that look that reminds me how futile it is, I imagine him reacting and squirming and maybe even crying out just a little and by now I'm ready to explode ---
He's headstrong, you know? And he's convinced he's right, mm. He thinks he's art, still and unfeeling and…'eternal'. I'm usually the one who gives in, just because he'll give me the silent treatment otherwise. And it's the one argument I wish I could win – he can make all the puppets he wants, and I'll keep my clay to myself and everything, all of that, if he'd just let me have this one. It's crazy, how much I'd give to win him over, to get the chance to make him know what all this is like. It's too hard, handling it alone, knowing it's just me.
But he's stubborn, even when it comes to stuff he isn't right about, and I don't think I'm ever gonna be able to change that.