Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Some language in here, so don't read if you mind the F-word! And more angst.

"I'm not helping you, I'm kidnapping you." She had said. What the fuck? Nobody kidnapped Akatsuki, especially not him! He was the fucking bomber and was feared by everybody, yeah! Deidara yanked his ties sharply. Who the fuck did she think she was, tying him up like this? He really disliked being tied up. That's why he always had a plan for times like these. Just because they were chakra enforced did not mean that they couldn't be untied.

He began to twist the long tongues on his hands into the ties on his wrists. The bitch had underestimated him severely; he fumed as he felt them loosen, the delicate manipulating motions he had trained his tongues and teeth to be capable of paying off. It was rare that anyone ever got close enough to tie him up, but when they did, it never stayed that way.

He rubbed his wrists, and felt something he hadn't noticed before. It was a pink metal bangle which had moulded itself exactly to fit his wrist. When had that gotten there? He focused on it intently; it was humming slightly with some chakra. The same chakra he had felt this morning when she was healing him. He definitely had some questions for the pink haired medic.

After looking around the room for some sort of weapon, he found a small shard of broken glass near her bed. She was going to get a nasty surprise when she returned.

Sakura turned the creaky faucet of the old fashioned shower, enjoying her first shower in days. The hot water was the perfect temperature, relaxing her sore muscles and draining away her tension. She used the flower-scented body wash the innkeeper must have put there to clean away the grime from the past few days' travelling. The water actually turned brown from Deidara's dried blood and the dirt from the forest. Using more of the inn's flowery products, she shampooed and conditioned her hair.

She thought about Deidara as she rinsed it out, wondering how someone so young could be in the Akatsuki. From what she had seen of the Akatsuki you had to be good, very good- not in the moral sense of course, remembering the once human puppets who were killed and exploited by Sasori. She also thought of the Uchiha clan, even children slaughtered while they dreamed. No, the Akatsuki surely didn't have any morals.

She turned the water off, and stepped out, using the fluffy white towel to dry herself. She put on her spare outfit and washed her other set in the sink with the liquid soap. She always liked to have a spare set of clean clothes with her. While she was thinking about clothes, she realised that Deidara didn't have any with him, and all he had on when she found him was a pair of singed trousers and his boots. She sighed. She was going to have to buy him some.

She trotted down the wooden stairs, making a hollow tap with each step, and found the innkeeper at the desk.

"Excuse me, I was wondering if you have any men's clothes I could buy for my-" She paused. It's not like she could come out and say hostage. Innkeepers were not always the tightest lipped of people, and she really didn't need bounty hunters on her case as well. "For my companion."

Both Deidara and herself had high bounties on their heads, though his a lot higher. Since she was no longer in Konoha, right now she was fair game for all the missing-nin- turned-hunters in the area.

Sakura set off back upstairs, somehow having acquired a full black outfit, including a travelling cloak and even a toothbrush for the furious blonde upstairs. The kind old woman had also agreed to bring a big breakfast up in half an hour. She was definitely glad that Tsunade had for once not been frugal with the mission budget.

She entered the room awkwardly, having difficulty with the door knob, looking over her pile of clothes. She was not anticipating that she would be slammed up against the wall by her throat the second she shut the door.

His hand was so tight around her neck; she couldn't breathe, and she could feel her face turning purple. She dropped everything she was holding and grabbed his wrist with both hands, intending to use her chakra to break it. She started to summon her chakra to her muscles.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." He told her forebodingly, pressing the shard of glass from the anaesthetics vial against her jugular. "You're going to give me some answers, yeah." He released her neck enough for her to breathe, but kept the shard of glass in place, so she knew he could still kill her at any time. She was terrified. She had not expected this. "Where were you trying to take me, hm? And under whose orders?"

She replied quietly, her hands trembling around his strong wrist. "I'm taking you to Konoha. It was my own decision." He roughly shoved her again; making her head hit the wall behind her. She made a pained noise as she saw stars.

"Your own decision? Why would you risk taking an Akatsuki all that way on your own? Do you even know who I am, hm?" He couldn't believe the audacity of this girl, for her to think a medical ninja, of all things, could capture him.

"We've met before actually." She gritted her teeth. Now wouldn't be the best time to tell him that. Why had she said it? Panic? No. She knew why. She hated being underestimated, and he was bruising her slightly immature ego.

His gaze turned from confident and threatening to confused in a second. He really was blonde, she thought.

"In the Akatsuki base where you extracted the bijuu from Gaara. Remember? I helped kill your partner." She coughed a little, finding the hold on her throat uncomfortable. The jarring motion cut her throat on the piece glass he was holding. The blood tickled as it dribbled down her collarbone.

"Shit... You... You're the one who destroyed the base..." Deidara's expression became unreadable for a moment, before it hardened once again into his interrogating face. "Then what the fuck is this?" He demanded to know, releasing his left hand that was holding the glass shard to show her the bracelet.

The instant she saw the opening, she quickly summoned her chakra into her hands, using them to hit his choking grasp away, hearing a small crack and a grunt of pain, she pushed herself forward off the wall with her feet for momentum and tackled him gracefully. She landed atop him, and quickly flipped a kunai against his neck. His eyes were wide, but it didn't look like he was afraid, more like he was surprised, and just a little curious. Then he grinned a boyish, cute grin. For that second he really did remind her of Naruto. That was before she realised that his hands were on her lower thigh, just below her shorts. She blushed as she felt a tongue lick her, and glared furiously while pressing a little with her kunai as a warning.

He looked at her innocently. "I can't help it. I only have complete control of them when I feel I'm in a life threatening situation, yeah, they must be doing it on their own." He shrugged. Was he trying to annoy her? Of course he was in a life threatening situation, she was on top of him with a kunai at his neck for God's sake!

Perhaps he really did thinkthat she wasn't prepared to kill him, because he began to tense for attack once again.

"Don't move prick. You are in a life threatening situation. If you kill me you'll die too. That bind is filled with liquid cyanide, and the only thing keeping it from opening into your blood stream is my flow of chakra. If it stops, you die. If you escape, I'll stop my chakra myself. If you're good, then I'll take it off when we get to Konoha." She was breathing hard as she told him the brute facts, the kunai still pressed against his neck.

The predatory grin disappeared from his face, replaced by an expression that almost made her pity him; the angry, sad blue eyes looked up at her as if they couldn't believe something like this was happening to him. It was like caging a wild animal.

"That's low, yeah."

He may not be tied up physically, but he was no longer free. The only thing that really bothered him, more than his arms being ripped off, or being called a girl, was being unable to do what he liked.

Sakura suddenly felt very odd as she noticed his eyes growing bigger and bigger, then the floor around his head began to ripple like water. Something wasn't right. Her eyes widened in horror. The glass he had used to threaten her with must have been from her med kit. He had inadvertently anaesthetised her.

He looked up at her in confusion as she could no longer maintain her grip on the kunai, and let it fall to the side with a clunk. She put her shaking hands on his chest as she tried to burn off the effects with her medical jutsu, but it had been in her system for too long and she couldn't make her chakra work right. Her head fell onto his warm body as she lost the ability to sit up.

"What are you up to, hm?" His voice sounded very distant and she couldn't tell which direction it was coming from, or which direction was up for that matter.

"Drugged." She managed to get out, before for the second time in as many days, she was unconscious on his chest. Only this time, he was awake and she was the vulnerable one.

When she came to, the foggy feeling ebbing away gradually as she tried to move her arms, she realised she was lying on her bed. But didn't she pass out on the floor? No, on someone... On Deidara?! Then why was she on her bed? Pulling herself hastily upright with a blush, she found herself alone in the room. Shit. From light coming from the window, she'd say it was around one in the afternoon. That had been a long sleep.

She panicked. She didn't actually know how to stop her chakra from flowing. She had been bluffing. Maybe he'd figured out she was lying, and was halfway back to the Akatsuki. Well at least he hadn't raped her from what she could tell. That was nice of him.

The door opened, and Deidara came in towelling his long hair, as though he had never thought him being gone might panic her. He wasn't wearing a shirt, so she could see his muscles flexing gently as he shut the door. She hid her blush under her glare.

"Oh. You're awake." He said looking at her with a smirk. "What's that face for, hm? You look annoyed. It's not my fault you don't clean up your medical supplies, yeah." He stopped drying his hair even though it still hung damply over his bare shoulders. He sat down at the small table by the window and picked up a pair of chopsticks, tucking in to what looked like tempura and rice. How long had it been since she had last eaten? It must have been at least two days.

"Whatever." She said crossly and walked over to the table to join him. "How long was I out for?" She asked, shoving a piece of prawn tempura in her mouth hungrily.

He finished his mouthful before answering. "Around three hours. The old lady came with breakfast straight after you collapsed on me, and she offered to bring up lunch too." He returned to eating cheerfully, almost like a different person from earlier. He had to be planning something, she thought, until he spilled his tea on himself.

Sakura felt very awkward. The last thing she remembered before being drugged was threatening each other with sharp objects, and a lot of swearing, yet here they were, eating lunch like civilised people. She remembered what she had bought from the innkeeper. He was still wearing the singed trousers, so he probably hadn't found them.

"Um... I got you clothes and a toothbrush, over there by the door." She pointed to the black pile vaguely. She wondered if he had to brush the teeth in his hands.

He gave a noise of thanks, and she supposed she was lucky to get that much. He didn't seem like the most polite of people. She noticed he was having trouble using his right hand, as he spilled his tea for the second time. She couldn't help but smile a little. It was pleasantly refreshing to see an Akatsuki being clumsy. When she had met both Itachi and Sasori, she had been stuck by their grace and poise while they fought. Deidara seemed much more human somehow.

"Let me see." She asked once they had finished the food, indicating towards the slightly swollen arm. He moved it towards her slowly, with a faintly surprised expression. After all, it was her who had done the damage in the first place, when she broke his hold on her neck earlier.

She pressed her soothing chakra into his arm, and was stunned when she realised he had a very painful looking fracture on his radius, distorting it out of shape and messing up the veins around it. It was impressive he had been able to move it at all, let alone eat breakfast cheerfully.

She used her chakra to first dull the pain receptors in his nerves, and then move the veins out of the way. Then she pushed the bone back into place using her hands. Once they were in position, she began to knit the bone marrow together, followed by the bone itself.

Deidara watched her with amazement. He hadn't been able to see properly when she'd healed him before, and he wished he'd had the opportunity now that he could see how strangely beautiful her chakra looked. It flickered between multitudes of pure green colours, with shades of neon, to the deepest colour that he had only seen once, as he flew over the endless fathoms of Fukamizu, just outside Iwagakure. He was sad when her chakra stopped glowing, he had enjoyed watching it. He noticed that she had dulled his pain while she healed him, which was unexpected. He thought she might be one of those sadistic-type nurses who push the needle in further than it needs to go, considering her reputation.

She bent his arm backwards and forwards, listening to the joints. Apparently hearing nothing wrong with his arm, she withdrew her chakra completely.

"How does it feel? It was a pretty nasty fracture." She asked him, prodding at the area carefully before letting go.

He flexed his arm, looking impressed.

"It feels good, yeah." He looked at her with an expression she didn't quite understand. It almost looked like respect. "So do you have a plan, or are you just making this up as you go along?" He checked the ends of his hair, probably for split ends, before looking up at her with a teasing smirk. "I'm guessing it's the latter."

She was about to retort when she felt some strong chakra signatures approaching, and fast. She put her hands together and reached out to sense further. There were four signatures, two chuunin and two jounin level ninja. Luckily, she was good at sensing chakra, so they probably hadn't sensed hers yet. She performed the hand seals and quickly masked her chakra. She couldn't sense Deidara's chakra; it seemed the chakra bind hid chakra as well.

"So we have company, hm?" Deidara asked, standing up, and pulling out a kunai from a trouser pocket. She knew it was hers from the binding around the base; she always used blue so she could tell which were hers when she trained with her team.

"Since when did- never mind." She resigned herself to the fact that it was not a typical kidnapping. He could keep it for now. "We have four strong ninja approaching straight towards us quickly. Do you think they could know that we're here?" She wasn't sure why she was asking him, he'd probably just lie anyway.

He shrugged. "There are a lot of people after me. We're not too far away from Iwa, so I wouldn't be surprised if hunter nins have come to search the area to recover what's left of my body, yeah. My jutsu's pretty distinctive."

"Then why are they in this village? The explosion site is a mile and a half away. Surely they don't think you survived?" She was a little worried now. She knew she was strong, but to take on four high level ninja at once and deal with a hostage; it was pushing it. She hoped they went undetected.

"Iwa ninja are good trackers, especially the hunters. I wouldn't be surprised if they were counting on it. They are from the same village as me after all." Deidara dextrously twirled the kunai round his fingers, staring at the door as if expecting the hunters to burst in any second. "If it's who I think it is, we're in trouble." He warned, not taking his eyes off the door. "And if you die before taking this thing off I'll be fucking pissed, yeah." He shook the deadly chakra bind at her crossly.

Sakura stiffened as she felt the ninja enter the building. "They're here."

A/N: Thank you to those of you who reviewed so far! I want more!! Please be nice and review my cute cute readers whom I adore very much. I worked so hard on this, don't I deserve them? *big wobbly eyes*

Iwagakure- Stone Village

Fukamizu- Deep water