A/N- Fridge Logic. It's fun. Here's mine, involving Deidara's intelligence level, which is 4.5 out of 5, according to the Databooks. That's equal to Kakuzu and higher than Sakura, even Post-Timeskip, and Sakura is smart enough to quickly devise antidotes to Sasori's poisons (Sasori has a full 5 out of 5, in case you were wondering). Kakuzu is… um… yeah…
Oh, and this chapter is dedicated to the Fourth Wall. Give the Wall a round of applause, people. It keeps you safe from the psychos on the other side of it.
o.o.o.o.o
"What are you doing?" Sasori was inside Hiruko, so Deidara couldn't really see his expression, but the blond could guess.
"Mixing volatile chemical compounds." Deidara turned back to his measuring, making sure not to go overboard. Everyone knows, er, knew what happened, er, had happened the last time.
Fr***in' fourth wall. You know what I'm talking about, right readers? Yes… you do… of course you do…
"You understand chemistry?"
"No s***, Sherlock." Deidara wasn't wearing his cloak, though a baggy shirt was still somewhat requisite if he wanted to keep the rest of Akatsuki from accidentally walking in and seeing his lack of… baggage.
"Who?"
Deidara froze for barely a second, still on the verge of pouring the compound into the beaker, back turned to Sasori. Well… f***.
"No one you'd know. A fictional character… sure, let's go with that…"
Sasori stared at him for a bit. "You referred to me as a fictional character? Really."
"He's apparently an extremely good civilian private detective, in a world where ninja are non-existent. So… sarcasm… yeah…" Deidara was still frozen in place, his hand just barely twitching.
"Do I even want to know the full truth?"
"It involves Hidan, so probably not." Deidara was still posed to pour the compound, waiting for Sasori to just leave already. "Um… these are very likely to explode and may possibly cause you to catch fire since you're made of wood, so if you don't mind…"
"You do realize you could just ask me to leave if you've begun to feel awkward, don't you? Also, isn't your arm getting tired?" Sasori deadpanned.
Deidara blinked in slight surprise. "A bit? Maybe. Er… why are you being so open?"
"Put the beaker down." Sasori ordered.
"Yes, Danna." Deidara did as he was told, pointedly ignoring just how subservient those two words had made him sound. He sat down on a chair, swinging it around to straddle the back and lean his head on it.
"Now, what exactly are you trying to do here, and why?" Hiruko slowly lowered itself to the ground, though Sasori still didn't bother coming out.
Deidara moved a lose strand of hair out of his face, tucking it back into the ponytail that was, for once, holding back all of his hair instead of just part of it; it was better to keep his hair from accidentally dangling down into corrosive chemicals and having sight from both eyes, especially from the sight on his left, was extremely beneficial in such delicate work.
Yes, a shinobi who focused on explosives could do delicate work.
He just preferred not to.
"I need a way to use explosions without using chakra; we both know that there'll probably be some incidents in the future where using chakra isn't an option for one reason or another, but I still need to blow something up. There are multiple ways, but certain chemicals are more effective under different conditions, so I'm trying make some that work well in an extremely humid environment right now."
"At least that explains why if feels like a Mizu no Kuni summer in here right now." Sasori muttered under his breath. "Why did you never mention this… interest of yours before?"
"You didn't ask." Deidara leaned his head to the side, a lazy grin spreading across his face. "I have many hidden talents, Danna…"
Sasori stared at him, made all the creepier by the ugly face presented by Hiruko. Deidara simply continued to grin at him. "…I'm sure I don't want to know."
Deidara raised an eyebrow, lazy, creepy grin still present.
"I'm going to leave now. I don't want to get caught up in what you're trying to do here."
"Bye, Danna!"
As Sasori left, Deidara's grin grew wider and he turned back to his precious chemicals. Time to see just how well these would work.
It was a good thing that Sasori had burn cream with him.
o.o.o.o.o
"Hidan, we're going clubbing."
Hidan looked up to see Deidara standing in his doorway, currently in…
What mode was s/he in?
"Blondie…"
Deidara grinned manically.
"What the h***?"
"Like I said, we're going clubbing."
"What are you wearing?" Hidan pushed himself up until he was leaning back on his bed instead of just being sprawled across it on his back.
"The most androgynous, Visual Kei-type clothing that I have. Can you tell anything about my gender?"
"No. See? This is why I think you're weird. You enjoy messing with people's heads, including your own, apparently, far too much for it to be healthy."
"Moi?" Deidara put a hand to… his chest, posing in fake outrage.
"No gratuitous French, it's bad for you."
"I thought we weren't supposed to mention that we knew about the fourth wall since the Holmes incident." Deidara smirked.
"Wipe that smirk off your face, you little blonde b****."
"Soon as you come clubbing with me, albino w****."
Beat.
"Alright, just give me a minute to put something decent on."
"We're going clubbing. What part of that is decent?"
"Shut up, Deidara."
o.o.o.o.o
Five people.
Two girls and three boys.
That was how many people had come up and asked Deidara to dance, and that was only fifteen minutes after they'd gotten there. Hidan had been asked by two girls—not terrible, but not exactly the best either—and accepted one of their offers.
Deidara declined all of his. He did, however, accept the drinks that the boys offered. He then easily told each of his suitors that he was their own gender, leading to embarrassed apologies on their part and condescending smirks on Deidara's.
Hidan and Deidara were currently sitting at the bar, Deidara leaning against him in the laziest way possible. A pair of girls caught their eyes and ambled on over settling in next to them.
"Hello, boys." The one with dark purple hair purred, running a finger along Hidan's shoulder. He glanced her over, noting that, on the classic one to ten scale, she would easily qualify as, at the least, an eight.
"Ladies." He nodded to them, confident smirk on his face. He took another sip from his drink, eyeing them from the side. Yes, very nice…
"Yo." Deidara did the little chin jerk that boys always do to acknowledge someone.
"We couldn't help but notice you two over here together and… alone, you see…" The redhead said, giggling lightly and slowly twirling her hair around her finger. She bat her eyelashes at Deidara who smiled back, a teasing light in his eyes.
"Is that so? Well, I don't think it's fair to say that we're completely alone." Deidara slowly leaned over and lay his head on Hidan's shoulder.
"Get off, s***head." He bounced his shoulder to try and get Deidara off, but the blond persisted.
Deidara smiled at the girls, who were staring in abject fascination at the interaction between the two.
"Are you two, you know, lovers?" The purple-haired girl asked, twisting her fingers across each other.
"No, Deidara's just an idiot that likes messing with people's heads way too much. Get off, moron!" Hidan finally succeeded in pushing the androgynous blond from his shoulder.
"Oh Hidan, how could you? I thought we had something!" Deidara pretended to sob, eliciting giggles from the girls and a condescending snort from his pale-haired compatriot.
The redhead leaned in close to Deidara's shoulder, giving him a look that was 'smoldering.' She spoke in a tone that was part teasing, part seductive. "Well, would a lovely-looking boy like yourself like to come dance with me?" The purple haired girl asked Hidan the same question, and Deidara heard Hidan get up to do just that.
"I'm a girl, you know." Deidara told her smirking and leaning back, taking another sip of his drink. "Don't worry, a lot of people make the same mistake. I do tend to dress as ambiguously as possible."
The redhead eyed him for a few seconds, and then tilted her head to the side. "Wanna dance anyway?"
Deidara blinked, and then chuckled. He quickly downed the rest of his drink and got up, "Well, I guess I can't say no to that."
o.o.o.o.o
"I'm not even going to ask." Hidan said as the two walked back to the base.
"Aw, why not?" Deidara was leaning on him, obviously a little tipsy. Hidan had a relatively high alcohol tolerance, so he was fine if it came to fighting off a bandit, or if necessary, a band of hunter nin.
"I don't want to know what you did to make that happen." It was odd enough just seeing it; he didn't want a play-by-play of the events leading up to it too.
Deidara wiggled his eyebrows at his friend. "Sure you don't. But hey, Het is Ew, right?"
"Deidara?"
"Yes, Hidan dear?" Deidara said, and then yelped as a hand smacked the back of his head. "Ow! Dude, what was that for?"
"Stop talking. Like, right now. Seriously, shut the f*** up, okay?" Hidan glanced down at the short blond next to him and rolled his eyes. "I hope Sasori isn't p***ed off at me for letting you get drunk."
"I'm not drunk, Hida-kun!" He hiccupped. "I'm just a little… buzzed."
He wiggled his eyebrows at the older of the two again, "I could buzz something of yours too, if you want."
"Deidara! Shut up!"
It was an unconscious Deidara that was finally handed over to the puppet-master. "If he wakes up and starts making weird sexual innuendos that barely make sense again, don't send him to me."
o.o.o.o.o
Konan was, obviously, frustrated. Not quite as frustrated as, say, Itachi, but she was still one of the three Akatsuki members that hadn't figured out Deidara's true gender, and one of the two left that actually cared. Kakuzu didn't actually give a… well, an anything, really. He was too stingy to bribe anyone. The only reason he was interested at all was because the clothes that Deidara regularly went through could be just as regularly sold for a profit. He was, after all, Akatsuki's treasurer.
Konan was different. As stoic as she appeared to be most of the time, Konan was a genuinely curious individual. She had been Akatsuki's only female, and was relatively proud of the fact that she could keep up with all the insane S-class criminals that inhabited the base.
And then Deidara came and turned it all on its head.
No, it wasn't quite that bad, she had to admit. But having Deidara around was more like having a pair of nearly identical twins that were never around each, rather than just having one person. Zetsu probably could have explained it better, considering the fact that he had, somehow, secured a degree in psychology. She wasn't going to ask him, though.
So when Konan saw Deidara and Hidan dancing Thriller in the middle of the living room, with Deidara in girl mode and covered in fake blood, there was really only one thing to do.
"What are you two doing?"
"Dancing, Konan, dancing. We are but zombies brought to life! AHA!"
"Dancing because the little b**** asked me to, and I had nothing better to do today anyway."
Konan stared, waiting for more information, but none was forthcoming. "Why couldn't you do it in one of your rooms?"
"Sasori is working with poisons. We might inhale noxious fumes or something. And after I got drunk last week, Danna doesn't want me doing anything that might have me acting weirder than usual again."
"Kakuzu would cut my head off in a spurt of anger several seconds in." Hidan shrugged, and then stopped dancing and leaned against the wall next to Konan. They watched as Deidara continued to dance, a look of amusement and unadulterated giddiness gracing her face.
"How did you even figure it out?" Konan asked conversationally.
"I thought we weren't supposed to f***in' tell? It's not like you to break a rule this way, Konan-san." Hidan smirked over at her, looking down the scant few inches between their heights.
"I'm not asking for the answer, just for information regarding how you arrived at it." Konan answered primly.
"What if I were to say natural cunning?" Hidan smirked over at her.
"Really? Only a week of 'natural cunning' and you managed to figure out what Itachi, Kakuzu, and I haven't?" Konan deadpanned.
Hidan started laughing, which soon turned to cursing as a kunai found its way into his gallbladder, courtesy of Deidara. "F*** you, blonde b****!"
"I know you'd love to, but I still consider myself a little young for that!" Deidara called back, provoking a long list of half-hearted insults and curses from Hidan. Konan just rolled her eyes.
"So are you willing to actually tell me, then?" The bluenette asked as they watched Deidara spin in a circle, dancing to the tune of, well, something. Neither of them knew, nor did they care.
Hidan shrugged. "It's not like it'll actually help you, you know. I'm pretty much the only person in the world that could have done the s*** I did."
Konan raised an eyebrow, and when she spoke, there was obvious doubt in her voice. "Really."
"Jashin-sama thought it was funny and told me for the h*** of it." Hidan deadpanned.
Konan stared at him, not blinking at all. Her mouth was open just the slightest bit, though not a hind of sound escaped.
"Er… are you okay, Konan?" He waved a hand in front of her face. A panicked expression crossed his face. "Deidara! I think I broke Konan's brain!"
Deidara stopped dancing and flounced over, an overdone look of horror plastered across her features. "No! You broke Konan! You monster!"
"How can I ever forgive myself?"
"How can I ever again associate with you?"
"Oh, the humanity!"
"Oh, the duplicity!"
"I'm a monster!"
"A villain of the worst sort!"
"I should be burnt at the stake!"
"Commit seppuku like the dog that you are!"
"Deidara's clay would be too good a death for me!"
"Subverted in that you cannot even die, fiend!"
"Oh, woe! Woe betide the—"
"What the h*** are you two doing?" The monotone was easy enough to point out once they turned to see Sasori standing in the doorway. He looked stoned, no different than usual.
"No, no different at all." Deidara muttered.
"What was that, brat?" Sasori asked, smoothly raising one eyebrow just enough to change the tone of his expression. Paired with the crossed arms and slight frown, the confused disapproval, as odd of a combination as it was, was obvious.
"Hidan broke Konan!" Deidara stepped to the side, face blank, and pointed accusingly at Hidan.
"Just her brain!" The albino protested.
"I'm getting Pein." Sasori muttered as he walked off. The two younger Akatsuki members continued to argue, and when Konan finally came to, it was to see Deidara and Hidan trying to out-Ham each other once again.
o.o.o.o.o
"Onward, my valiant steed! Into the sunset we ride!" Deidara pointed straight ahead, despite the fact that:
A) It was a quarter to three in the afternoon. The sun was nowhere near setting.
B) The sun did not set in the north, which just so happened to be both the way that she was pointing and the way that the Akatsuki base lay.
C) She and Sasori were deep in Fire Country, and should have probably tried to keep quiet in order to try and not have angry ninjas after them.
Of course, that wasn't exactly the most pressing concern for the blonde of generally ambiguous gender.
"Get off of Hiruko, brat!" Sasori yelled from inside said puppet, waving his scorpion tail around to try and get Deidara of the puppet's back.
"NEVER! Go, my rodeo bull, go!" Deidara was holding on to the back of the Akatsuki cloak that Hiruko wore. She waved her other hand in the air, hollering as her beloved Danna tried to dislodge her.
Neither of them really noticed the Konoha nin that had been attracted by the yells, screams, and giggles.
"Um, Gai-sensei?"
"Yes, TenTen?"
"Those are Akatsuki, right? As in, S-class missing nin?"
"Yes, I believe so."
…
"Wow, their standards must be a lot lower than we thought."
Neji budged in there. "Or perhaps they simply follow the idea that more powerful shinobi are generally more… eccentric?"
TenTen glanced away from the spectacle in front of her to look at her pearl-eyed teammate, who jerked his head towards their teacher. "I guess that's possible, but don't you think that they're acting a bit more stupid than eccentric? What kind of an idiot makes that much noise when in enemy territory?"
"My kind!"
TenTen spun around with a kunai in her hand, aiming directly at the voice that had come from behind her. The cheery-looking blonde hopped to the side, easily avoiding her kunai swing, despite the fact that she did all that upside down and in impractical-looking heeled boots. "Aw, come on. I'm not an S-class for nothing, you know. Give me a bit of a challenge."
"What is wrong with you, brat?!" The extremely irritated voice that yelled that sounded as though it wasn't used often. Or rather, that the speaker spoke relatively often, but not very loudly.
"Hidan's not nearby, so I have no one to be crazy with!" The blonde called back, once again completely ignoring Team Gai.
"So you were treating me like a horse just because your best friend isn't here?"
"Aw, you know that that's not what he is to me, Danna…" Deidara pouted at Sasori, walking closer to him, and further from Team Gai, who were just standing there. This was perhaps their first time actually seeing someone that beat their teacher in terms of blatant disregard for social norms.
"In that case I don't want to know what you two are to each other." The puppet-man turned away.
"Sasori no Danna, you pervert!" The blonde raised both hands to her mouth in fists, squeezing her eyes shut and blushing. She shook her head—and most of her body, come to think of it—from side to side quickly. "Hidan and I aren't like, we aren't like that! You know you're the only one for me!"
"Yes, yes, whatever. Great, now let's go before you do something stupid."
"Okay!" Suddenly chipper again, Deidara practically bounced after him, hands held out to her side in a decidedly cute fashion.
"Eh-hem!" Gai coughed, prompting the two missing nin to turn around. He took a stance, confident grin on his face. "You have trespassed upon Hi no Kuni soil and must now—"
"Whoa, his eyebrows look like a pair of giant, fuzzy caterpillars! And so do the weird kid's, the one that's got the same terrible fashion sense!" The pure happiness radiating from Deidara's face as she said that and pointed at their group was completely at odds with anything the Konoha nin were ready to expect. Except, Gai could remember something…
"You were the two missing nin that fiendishly fled upon my arrival to my compatriots' altercation with Uchiha Itachi!" He pointed at them, no longer smiling. Now he was almost glaring, as unyouthful as it may have been.
Deidara glanced at the sky for a second. "Well, that was an odd thing to put in…" She muttered.
"Your unyouthful deeds shall not go unpunished!" Gai proclaimed grandly.
Deidara's mouth fell open in understanding. "Oh, now I get it…"
She frowned. "Wait, you forgot Kisame! You forgot my fishy friend!"
Gai tilted his head to the side. "Who?"
Deidara just stared at him in surprise. "You fought him! He told me that you fought him!"
Gai continued to stare, and his students shifted on their feet nervously. "I apologize, miss, but I don't know who you're talking about."
"You know, tall blue guy, looks like a shark, has a big-a** sword on his back? No? You still can't remember?"
"Brat, hurry up! They're just a genin team, we can ignore them. Make one of those transport birds of yours and get us out of here!"
"I can't!"
There was silence for a few seconds, as the puppet turned towards Deidara ever so slowly. "And why not?"
Deidara pointed to her watch. "Wait a few seconds."
The tail on Hiruko began to twitch much as one's eye would. "You have got to be kidding me, brat."
"Nope!" The blonde said brightly, as the watch beeped. "A~nd that's my cue!"
She pulled a scroll out of her pocket, and the Konoha nin got on guard, not that they hadn't been already, and were ready to spring at a moment's notice.
"Byakugan!" This small hiss of a word came from Neji as he quickly activated his doujutsu…
And promptly stumbled back in horror. "What, what are you two?"
His head swiveled, though barely, between the two missing nin, before landing on Sasori, flitting around his form for a few seconds, and then moving quickly on to Deidara, dipping for a just a second, and glancing between her hands. He quickly ran off into the woods.
Team Gai was surprised at the sound of their normally stoic teammate puking up his guts as the blonde glanced at her partner. "Do you think it was the hands?"
"Just hurry up so that we can leave."
"Thank you, Danna!" She ran off into the woods. "Oh, and remember not to kill the white-eyed boy until I've asked him a few questions later!"
There was silence for a few seconds, Sasori and the remaining three members of Team Gai staring at each other. They all tried to ignore the ambient noise, rather than think of what was going on in the woods.
"Hands?" Lee asked. "Why would Neji react so unyouthfully about a young lady's hands?"
"My idiot of a partner and I aren't exactly normal people. Deidara is, to say the least, odd in both body and temperament."
"Jump, Danna!" A voice, far deeper than the one they had heard earlier from the blonde, cried out. "Incoming, un!"
The puppet, surprisingly agile, jumped and landed on a giant clay bird that was sweeping dangerously close to the ground. "Did you really have to do that?"
"Of course I did, you old fart, un. My whole M.O. consists of explosions. If I can show off with something in any way, I'm going to show off, un." The blond was now male. Not unmistakably so, but they'd spent enough time around Neji to recognize the signs.
Which begged the question, of course, of how they hadn't realized earlier. Unfortunately, Deidara had sent the bird too high for even Gai to reach with a simple jump.
"We'll leave in a second Danna, I promise, un. Just one thing first." The blond MALE turned back to the Konoha nin, eyes narrowing on Neji as he walked out of the forest in a surprisingly noble manner, considering the fact that he'd just been emptying his stomach. Deidara pointed at the Hyuuga. "You, white-eyed pretty boy, un."
Neji glared up at Deidara. It was surprisingly amusing.
"Yeah, you, un. What do you say about me, male or female, un?"
Neji seemed disbelieving at that, but answered anyway. "I couldn't tell. There was something with high chakra density over anything that could be considered a giveaway in concerns to gender."
Of course, there was a sneer on his face towards the end, pale as it was from his impromptu dispensation of bodily wastes from the wrong orifice.
"See, Danna? I told you I could even fool a doujutsu."
"I never said you couldn't. Now, let's leave. None of these people would be worth turning into a puppet, so just leave them one of your pathetic excuses for a piece of art and get us out of here."
"Bah, my art is an explosion, un. It lasts for just a moment, as all true art should. You and your puppets are boring, unmoving, un. What art is timeless? What kind of meaningless art doesn't change, un?"
"Just get us back to the base, brat." There was audible strain in Sasori's voice. "I don't like to be kept waiting, and I don't like to make other people wait. So stop procrastinating."
Deidara stared at him with a deadpan expression on his face. "Yeah, yeah, whatever, un."
He turned back to Team Gai, still on the ground; he reached into his clay pouch surreptitiously. "Wow, you guys are idiots, un. You tried to pick a fight with a pair of S-class missing nin, and then don't run away on the multiple occasions that they tried to leave without bothering you, un. Must be something about your stupid Will of Fire, or whatever it was. Oh well, too late now, un. C1 is on its way."
The palm of his hand was pointing straight out at Team Gai, who stared in surprise, fear, and mild disgust as the mouth on it opened and dispensed a clay bird.
"Really, un, you should have run when you could." He brought his hands together as his words finally reached the Konoha nin that were finally trying to get out of range. Poor idiots.
"Katsu." The grin on his face was maniacal and very, very happy.
"Now, get us the h*** out of here, brat."
"Danna, you broke the mood, un!"
