"Cloud Nine" [For those wondering, I'll re-state why this is called 'Cloud Nine' .;; I may have forgotten to mention it on FF, with all my double-postings... but from the moment this story begins, there are nine active members in Akatsuki and this story DOES in fact involve all of them at some point, hence the pun Cloud Nine (like a horrible comic book criminal organization in English :P). Also the place/state of mind one enters is also implied at some point, but I won't go into that. Sorry if it wasn't very clear, the title is a bit of an amusement to me... ::dies::
01: Books and Their Covers: First Encounter, Re:[visted
Warnings: Yaoi, Violence, LENGTH
Rating: M for Mature, just because I don't feel like changing it later, and my writing tends to insinuate constantly. Something between violence, aggression, touchy subject matter, and yaoi.
Author's Note: Yosh! Thank you everyone for giving such wonderful feedback ::nods:: Sorry this one took a bit to get posted, it was written up but I was a wee bit aggravated with a certain part further in. I suppose I'm satisfied enough not to keep you all waiting ::rolls:: At any rate, It's still in that timeframe the prologue ended at, and the chapter's still focused on Sasori and Deidara as they haven't gotten back to the lair. While this will contain SasoDei/DeiSaso and constant stabbings at other pairings, the story focuses around that partnership and the goings-on of the Akatsuki themselves. I still feel odd about turning this all into a story of sorts, so don't mind harassing me about the other members' mentalities. I'll try to make up for it, but seeing as a lot of this is based upon some odd RPing me and my friends do... ::rolls:: I promise they'll start making their appearances in the next chapter! I can say it with all confidence 'cos it's already been written. Anyway. I hope you enjoy this installation::bows::
Disclaimer: I own nothing. That's prolly why it's called a FANfic.
[Final Note, I swear:P Based on the bit of comments I received, though I assume the person who originally brought it up knows what it means, 'gaki' is a name that Sasori does in fact call Deidara often enough. It gets translated between 'kid' and 'brat' for the most part.
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Deidara hadn't been close enough to his family or anyone in his village to actually understand affection very well, much less something as profound as love; lust, he had butted heads with, and it was that very thing which made his mornings the worst. Being emotionally attached to someone was bad enough, he supposed. Adding in that Deidara's particular 'someone' was a grumpy, hunchbacked excuse of a monster didn't help matters – or his mood – any. Hell, when he had first joined Akatsuki, Deidara's nightmares involving Sasori had been so vivid that oftentimes he awoke with a parched throat, bruises, and even bleeding. Eventually he had become painfully aware that the majority of it was actually Sasori doing these things to him, but even after the man had stopped attacking him in his sleep the Iwa-nin's nightmares persisted. He had thought that that would be the worst of it; he hadn't counted on the dreams being even more torturous.
The longer this went on, the more and more Deidara began to falter, going as far as to doubt his own actions and causing the pair grief during missions. It made for quite a bit of awkwardness in the blonde's actions in general really, though he doubted the puppet-master ever even noticed such things. After all, Deidara wasn't one of his puppets; there wasn't any reason for the man to actually take an interest in him. If he was malfunctioning, the only real thing that could be done was to give up the ghost and die; then Sasori might actually pay him some heed and see about 'fixing' a few details. Maybe I really am mad, the blond reflected. I'm jealous of a bunch of damn lifeless dolls, un... Still, the hands that could build those intricate creations and wield them with such ease were nothing short of amazing to him. But like hell I'd die just so the bastard could pay attention to me. Even if those puppets were beautiful creations, they would inevitably fade along with their creator; Deidara couldn't think of going out so slowly. No, he wanted to be blazing, to burn out in one last harsh flare. He had fantasized about it since before he joined Akatsuki; finding the highest form he could carry his art to, and then to die with it in its fury... for him, that was his glory.
Once, Deidara had dreamt of becoming one of those unusual puppets, his body twisted in form to that of a lifeless, soulless mimic, dancing by the other man's hands. The whirring sound the gears made had echoed dully in his ears. What task had Sasori used him for? Everything we don't do, the explosive blond had thought in annoyance. Things he would never admit to wishing for, petty things, as well as the rather darker thoughts that he hardly ever admitted thinking. Products of a warped, lonely mind, he reasoned them away into a far corner. He had his clay, and Sasori had his puppets. Fleeting moments and a long drawn-out eternity... Deidara had tried to tell Sasori that eternity was nothing if it was empty; the man merely scoffed. Without those things that come and go so fast we don't know what hit us, eternity is nothing, un. There would be no point to forever if you didn't have something to do during it, right? The blond couldn't figure out why his partner was so hell-bent on forever, especially since he was constantly changing. That was the real kick in the ribs; even Sasori changed, progressed, erred... Eternity is filled with small, hopeless little shifts, and the puppet-master was not immune.
Deidara didn't admit this line of reasoning aloud for fear of attracting the other man's poison-tipped tail, no matter how much he wanted to point out that Sasori was in violation of his own beliefs. If he was meant to be eternal, then why did he constantly have to play with everything, readjust? Why did he feel the need to threaten the other boy with the loss of things they didn't own in the first place? Killing him? He'd die someday, sure. Deidara supposed it wasn't that far off; but in light of recent complications, the blond wondered if there was a way he could take his master with him, teach him the truth of everything in one final, louder-than-life message. He ignored the fact that it had suddenly begun to scare him to die alone in that hellfire, the turmoil; he wanted it all to be perfectly orchestrated, with that bastard beside him in shock as reality hit him headfirst, too quick to grasp. It was doubtful he'd understand, maybe even to the last moment resisting Deidara's efforts. Sasori valued his ways more than anything else around him, the blond knew that firsthand. And even during these long, morbidly drawn out fantasies that Deidara entertained himself with, he knew he wasn't ready. He hadn't reached his peak, hadn't reached his full potential. Nor had he seen the real Sasori...
The thought wasn't entirely new to him. Multiple hints lay around the place, waiting to be sorted out. The simplest and most basic of them all was the fact that Sasori made the same whirring sounds as his creations at times; but Deidara couldn't use that to prove anything, really. He wasn't unintelligent; a man as obsessed as Sasori was would certainly incorporate his puppetry in his own defense. It wasn't too much different from Deidara's exploding bunshin, he supposed. It was fairly obvious that that large metal tail he was constantly being threatened with was not a natural part of Sasori's anatomy; yet that one piece alone seemed to be enough for most situations... it had even been used to shield Deidara, which for some reason he never expected, always calling the last time a fluke, an odd quirk. Nothing substantial there; Sasori meant nothing by sparing him from a possibly-fatal wound. After all, if Sasori meant to save him, then did he mean to kill him himself? The man had always threatened his younger partner, always ready to take his life from him, between swatting at, abandoning him after a mission when the fight was gone to a trivial fate a handful of times, only to have Deidara show up at the lair exhausted and hungry, even strangling him all those times...
And on that line of thought, the blonde's brain easily altered course; it bothered him. What had confused Deidara more than the fact that he was being strangled in his sleep until a couple years ago was that the last time he had been left with a very clear imprint of a hand. At the time, he was still a bit small, and the hand itself had probably gripped his throat tightly to leave such a telltale mark... but what struck him as odd was that it wasn't that big. Judging from Sasori's body, his hands should have been a good few inches larger than the impression. Deidara wasn't an expert on anatomy, but unless his danna had foolishly petite hands, it didn't make much sense to him. The mark was smaller than his own hand, and even if Deidara had watched Sasori working at his bench a hundred times, something felt off.
Upon discovering this, Deidara had wandered off into the kitchen 'for a snack', only to find Akatsuki's resident hunter shinobi idly tidying up the place. The blond had spoken with Zetsu a few times before, but it wasn't often that the two-toned man was actually found in the lair; after all, he was usually the one helping Sir Leader with recognizance. "This totally doesn't look like Sasori-danna's handprint, yeah!" he had protested suddenly, jumping in the way of the odd looking grass-nin. "Danna's all big and misshapen and... and freaky, un!"
Zetsu had sighed, choosing instead to finish clearing the kitchen as swiftly as he could before turning his attention back to the boy. "If you must know..." he began slowly, his white side milking the situation. "Your 'danna' is not that stupid beastly puppet." "Or haven't you ever seen the real Sasori?" the white half had finished as the shinobi ducked through the doorway, disappearing from the room without any form of farewell.
The event had left Deidara a bit dumbfounded. '...not that stupid beastly puppet... the real Sasori...' He considered this as he stared hard at Sasori's back. "If you... weren't so slow, danna, you wouldn't have gotten damaged, un..." he began tentatively, keeping his voice low. Sasori remained silent at this, but the blond could still feel the only barely-held back rage that graced the man.
The events that had led up to Deidara's curiosity had been well in the making before this. No, this incident had not been planned, though through it all the questions suddenly came flooding up to the surface yet again. Six years and I don't know what Sasori-danna really looks like, un... Deidara thought desolately. Of course, he had things he refused to just outright show the man, but still!
The mission was minor, and admittedly Deidara may have gone a bit... overboard with the explosion at the end but... well, he supposed he didn't really have much of an excuse. He and Sasori had a rather heated argument beforehand about his concept of art until the scorpion had attacked him just to get him to shut up, and one thing led to another... and there was no way in all the hells that Sasori wasn't going to think that Deidara hadn't attacked him on purpose!
"Shut up, gaki. I'm going to need to concentrate to repair this." Deidara bit his lip at the suddenness of the outburst; had he been rambling again without noticing?! He rarely ever did so, contrary to popular belief within the lair, but seriously... to do so was dangerous around his danna, right? To emphasize his point, Sasori removed the Akatsuki cloak from his body, revealing the strange and elaborate frame of what was simply an enormous... "beastly" puppet. Then without another word he began to climb out from the back of his ruined puppet, the practiced motion only slightly hindered by the damage that the main body of the puppet had taken.
"W-what the fuck?!" Deidara stammered loudly, his legs giving out as he collapsed rather childishly on the edge of his bed. The small man scowling emotionlessly back at him with one leg still inside the nightmare contraption certainly fit the way his danna always acted but... reminded of his earlier thoughts, Deidara swallowed thickly. Here he was, having spent so much of his time thinking about this awkward moment, wondering how it would come to pass... and the puppet-master simply climbed out of the damned hideous puppet. It was just like his danna to completely ruin the moment he cherished the most with his calm and cold disposition; Deidara neglected to think about thanking the stars he hadn't been brutally beaten for his accident and only stared as the moment passed, suffocated in an uncomfortable silence. It was extremely anti-climatic, in one sense, yet in another... the effect it was having was a separate matter.
This could pose a serious problem. It was bad enough having indecent thoughts about his danna in the first place, but now Sasori had gone from aged and mutated to young and rather good-looking. Previously he had been disgusted with himself for even harboring any emotional intensity towards his partner, but now he definitely felt wrong! Shuddering, Deidara took in the sight cautiously. He... doesn't look any older than me Deidara realized immediately, wondering what that was about. Somehow, he had expected the man to appear a bit more... close-cornered. But no, Sasori even wore an Akatsuki cloak from within the puppet, flat brown eyes devoid of emotion, messily tousled red hair seemingly burning in the poor light of the room. Actually, the scorpion bore the appearance of a petite young man who had fallen asleep at his desk right in the middle of some sort of project. A burning sensation began to creep its way through Deidara's system, the acid in his stomach churning.
"So... this is the real you, un?" the blond asked carefully, fighting back the urge to stare. The scorpion's appearance may be different, but he was sure Sasori's mood hadn't gotten any better. Irritably the redhead swatted at the air before his nose as he pulled the puppet off to the side, his face still expressionless. Almost instantly the younger male had noticed the size of the puppet-master's hands, recognizing them to be the ones to cause him damage so many nights. Deidara studied the man from his peripheral vision, wondering what drew such a person to remain hidden, only chancing to emerge when the other was fast asleep. I never would have thought that Sasori-danna looked this good, un. And why the hell doesn't the bastard age!? Hmm... the boy mused to himself, a hand balling into a fist at his side. Maybe it's 'cos everyone else here looks freaky, Sasori-danna just decided to blend in, yeah?
It occurred to him suddenly that once the ungainly puppet was repaired, the redhead would once again enter its shell. "Danna's much better to look at than that ugly old thing, un!" Deidara protested quite suddenly, shaking his head as he finally collected himself to sit properly on the edge of the bed. "Why do you have to go back in it? You look like a trash can, yeah!"
Blinking at the admission, Sasori checked his protective barrier over to completely assess the damage it had sustained. Did that gaki just say he likes the look of me? he wondered inwardly, keeping the frown from appearing on his face. Such a weird one... "I need to repair some of the damage Hiruko took during the assignment. It's easier to do it while I have all my tools and we are not in a rush," the puppet-master explained, trying his best to stay level.
"Hiruko is that thing's name then, yeah?" Deidara asked, trying to get any sort of conversation going; the effort wasn't so much to bury the earlier argument as it was to hear Sasori's voice without the muffled, strained effect it took on from within the puppet shell. I'm going to hell already anyway, he reasoned with a small smirk. At any rate, he wanted it to be clear that he did not consider Sasori and the lump to be one and the same.
"Fighting from within Hiruko takes care of a rather notable weakness of being a puppeteer; I have no intention of being an open target." The words were clipped, almost robotic. Sasori was straining to keep his temper in check, Deidara knew, but he wanted the man to attack him like this. He wanted to keep him out of Hiruko for as long as possible, before he'd go another six years without seeing the redheaded scorpion exposed.
The blond hopped off his bed and stalked over to his partner, his brow furrowed. Danna's so damn stubborn, un! "I don't believe you... you just hide in there because you're afraid someone's going to break you, un! I've never even seen you out of it before, and I live with you. I even had to ask Zetsu-san if the marks I got were really from you, Sasori-danna, yeah!"
Suddenly, Sasori felt as though he were reliving the moment he was first assigned his new partner. The pestering. The annoyance. The strange will to get to know someone. The off-putting sense of discomfort that the blond always gave him. Even he knew that the tension between them had risen steeply recently, but Sasori didn't see any reason to find out why. "Just shut the hell up, gaki," Sasori growled, his voice taking on a sharp edge. As Deidara made to speak once more, the puppet-master spun quickly on his heels, his fingers digging into the blonde's shoulder and clavicle as he slammed the larger boy forcefully against the wall, dislodging a light fissure in the process.
Deidara bit back a yelp, trying to remain calm. His 'master' had just shoved him against the damn wall out of nowhere! It was unexpected, in the sense that he was more prepared for further vocal rebuttal or a punch to the face... but the strange expression settling across the redhead's face completely threw him. Sasori's glassy brown eyes grazed the younger man's countenance, studying him slowly from the awkward position, his smaller size clearly noticeable. "Why won't you just do what I tell you?" he demanded levelly, his hand still at the blonde's throat as he closed his eyes.
"Maa, Sasori-danna, that's not how partners work, un. It's not like I'm one of your puppets! You gotta listen to me too, yeah!"
"...Not one of my puppets?" Sasori repeated softly, the edges of his lips twisting into a cruel little smile. The hooded eyes that Deidara wished would show some sort of emotion opened once more, even more desolate and cold than previously. "No, you're right. You're less than that. You're completely useless; I don't have any reason to keep trash like you near me."
"I'm not useless!" the blond shouted suddenly, his voice echoing mechanically off the room's stone walls. Just as quickly as the outburst had erupted from his lungs, Deidara sucked in a mouthful of the stale air and firmly clammed up within himself. His entire body quivered with barely held outrage; the words had struck a chord within his mind. "I'm not trash..." he muttered to himself. His visible eye was narrowed drastically, that oddly dilated pupil wild.
Sasori had noted the drastic change in mood and blinked as his partner shouted down at his face, his warm breath blasting across Sasori's smooth skin; he knew this because his hair ruffled slightly and it couldn't have happened without such an action. His fingers faltered for a moment, nearly dropping from their resting place as he considered his own response. Admittedly, the blond had spunk, and he was merely toying with him... but to suddenly cause Sasori to lose his own concentration... again, and again... the redhead frowned thoughtfully. Deidara's eyebrow twitched at the stare. "What are you staring at, un?"
"If you're not trash, then stay out of my business. I'm not a trash can," the redhead said pointedly, slightly reaffirming his opinion of the boy in a more roundabout manner. This got a small sneer from Deidara, though Sasori could only guess what it was about. The boy's mind was about as messy and chaotic as the thing he called 'art', a wasteland at best with sharp plants and dying creations. Still... as the boy shifted, a glint had caught the puppet-master's eye. A second hand was raised to the blonde's body, Sasori's left hand holding his captive's torso to the wall as he allowed the other hand to trail upward now, reaching for the strange lock of hair that had been so obtrusive to this point. Deidara recoiled, further flatting himself against the wall. However, Sasori brushed the fringe aside, revealing a strange mechanical appliance covering the left side of the blonde's face. The thoughtful frown grew now as the slender fingers lightly graced the contraption's surface. Deidara's one visible eye stared, transfixed by the smaller figure's gaze. The puppet-master was mesmerized by the object's existence, his rusty-hued eyes silently flitting from it to the dilated blue orb shivering before him. It's ill-fitting, he gauged instantly, seeing how the object was causing discomfort in the area around it. It's been here quite some time, if he grew out of that mold. It needs to get refitted. But how did he end up with this? The scorpion at least knew enough of their missions' results that he could make a fairly easy guess that it wasn't the result of any one of them.
"Deidara..." The tense air the past few weeks, the stiff movements, words... they were both frustrated, Sasori realized. Neither of them had previously brought up a single desire or feeling that was boiling to the surface now, but it clearly wasn't new. He wasn't entirely sure why it chose to happen on this mission, during this incident, as there had been plenty of rough moments before. Whatever the case may have been, the malice and confusion hanging between them was thick, venomous. Arguments had consisted of loud, empty words, small stabbings at only the skin of their character; neither knew anything of the other, just the daily toil that they shared for six entire years. Knowing someone so well in method and habit, yet knowing nothing behind the action, the glance; motivations had never been questioned aloud.
Sasori had known Deidara from the mere age of eight, giving the boy only a minute amount of history that he wasn't present for... but he knew nothing of what drove the boy to his madness, or what continued to fuel that fire, living his new existence as he did. Six years, and he hadn't even bothered to try and catch a glance of what the boy hid behind this awful swath of hair; Sasori merely fantasized of its brutal removal. To the blonde's defense, Sasori had lived quite a few years more, completely shaping into the man he was now years before their first encounter. Was that the driving reason Deidara claimed to respect and admire his superior, eventually succumbing in their fights simply because there was just too much of Sasori that he couldn't grasp at, couldn't begin to fathom? It was obvious that Deidara had concluded that Sasori was not the large thing he travelled with, but how long had Deidara been wondering what was really there? Sasori had never noticed any such curiosity, but then again, the man hardly paid any attention to what the blond chose to do. If anything, he was the one who enforced the strict rules of the dance the two performed daily, allowing them to blindly continue on in solitude side by side. As it was now, the unknown appeared ready to swallow them whole, and it was only translating into a bitter anger without understanding.
"So what if I'm a fucking freak?! You hide inside a damn hunchbacked troll, un!" the boy spat, his lone visible blue eye narrowing yet again in cold anger. The hand moved faster than Sasori anticipated, gripping the redhead's wrist tightly. The outburst only made the puppet-master blink for a moment, suddenly doing something he hadn't planned on. Withdrawing his outstretched hand from Deidara's face, he swiftly brought it and the attached appendage towards his chest, to the inside of his cloak. The blonde's face shattered and flushed as he tried to comprehend what the man was having him do. Whatever it was, what his skin brushed against was anything but what he would expect; his jaw dropped slightly. "Sa… S-sasori-danna, what is..."
The large hand recoiled from the body, releasing Sasori's wrist in the process. This being done, the scorpion's eyes gently rolled back from the blond, focusing on the large puppet abandoned on the floor. With an annoyed sigh he walked back to his creation and sat heavily beside it. And that was that.
Deidara didn't know how long he had been standing there like that, or when he had started shivering. But his skull felt as though one of his bombs had been set off inside him. There was something wrong with his danna, more than anything he had said in angry, loud words, or in joking taunts. What his hand had felt was not human. The man had ended the argument in his favor and gained the blonde's silence; they had been rapidly approaching a breaking point, a point where change was inevitable, and Deidara knew just how much Sasori hated that sort of thing. But it all paled in comparison to that feeling. Blinking rapidly, Deidara finally worked up the nerve to robotically walk the three paces to his bedside before collapsing face-down on the bed in a heap. He wanted to yell; he wanted to fight; this silence was worse than anything. What was wrong with the other male? A million questions raced inside his mind, but there was only one answer among them. He knew what his danna looked like... But what the fuck are you, yeah? The boy mused in annoyance. Shit... I yelled at him again. He's going to hurt me when we get back to the lair, isn't he, hmm?
"Deidara." The blond cringed, a small wince escaping his lips. That damn voice of his... Why don't you just go and fucking die already, danna, yeah? "Gaki."
"Hai." Deidara groaned softly as he realized he responded much easier to the only-slightly pet-name-and-not-an-insult-for-once Sasori long ago gave him. It was normally used whenever they were having their artistic debates, but lately it seemed to be the only thing the other man would call him. Was it because he kept missing his name and not noticing?
Sasori's nose twitched irritably. His partner had spaced out again; the boy was never prepared for anything. Refitting a panel within Hiruko's body, the redhead commented, "We'll be leaving before dawn. Be ready by then or I'm leaving you behind."
"Hai..."
