I got a small handful of reviews for the last chapter. There's at least 25 people on alert for this story. Can I at least get a few more reviews?

I hope you like it. This story is my second priority, but that doesn't mean that its tacky or bad in anyway. And if it is, be sure to tell me in a review.

I don't own the characters, only this unknown plot that I may or may not further develop. You can bribe me to with reviews ;)

Morbid Curiosity Fans 0 The next chapter is coming but it has to be perfect (I'm slightly OCD, have you noticed?) I recently got a new BETA! YAY!And she's helping me make it better and fight my writer's block. Gosh, I really need to get some writer's block repellent, don't I? Extra Deet.

In one soundless swoop, the craft softly landed in the grassy clearing. Sakura was mildly surprise at the less-then-chaotic stop, or maybe she just hadn't felt the turbulence because she was leaning back, cushioned against something warm that matched the curve of her back while another something else that lay snugly against her waist held her firmly in place against it (the first something). The combined effect was not altogether unpleasant.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, because the effect was lost when a voice sounded near her ear.

"Well, there's your village for the night, un. Let's go." And with that, Deidara slipped off from behind Sakura with his Akatsuki cloak trailing. After the sudden loss of warmth , Sakura realized that there was a chill in the air as the sun delved deeper into the horizon.

Once Deidara had straightened himself out, he held a hand up for her to help her get down. Sakura looked at the hand and then she looked at the ground a few feet below. With a huff of indignation, she began to slip off the bird herself. Deidara pulled his offered hand back.

"Suit yourself, un. That's not a good choice for you." Sakura very much hated being treated like an unequal, this was even more so when done by the same person she had beaten a couple hours ago. Did he not learn anything from that battle?

Ignoring him, Sakura continued to slide off the bird's back. As soon as her feet touched the ground, she immediately understood why Deidara had offered her a hand. With a greenish face, she felt the rising affects of vertigo and her legs nearly turned to jelly so she could barely stand up. Leaning awkwardly against the side of the chakra craft for a moment, she tried to collect herself.

"Told you, un."

Narrowing her eyes, Sakura took a quivering step away from the bird. As soon as she put her weight on one foot, her legs buckled and she fell forward, but before she could hit the ground, hands caught her around the waist once more and she was again leaning against a muscular chest.

"Let go of me! I can walk by myself!" Sakura told him through gritted teeth as she struggled against his hold.

"No, un. You'll hurt yourself. You strained your legs too much on the bird. You can't stand yet."

"Yes! I can! I'm perfectly fine! Let go!" Sakura just didn't want to give in to him. She knew she was tougher then that and she wanted to prove it to him again since he seemed to have forgotten that she had smashed him and his bird with a freaking tree. To get her point across, she gripped the front of his exposed shirt with both hands and pulled herself closer to his face.

"Let me go!"

Deidara looked at her indifferently before he let go of her waist.

"Fine, un."

Immediately Sakura went down while still clutching his clothes. Gasping, she swore under her breath as she tried to force her over-strained muscles to support her weight.

Seeing her futile attempts to stand, before him, Deidara resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he sighed and scooped her up in both arms. Automatically, she released a shrill cry of extreme displeasure and struggled against his hold until he got tired of her flailing and told her to stop. It wasn't like she could hurt him. Her legs couldn't move. If he did let her go, she'd drop to the ground and probably hurt herself.

"Sakura, please, just stop, yeah. Seriously, all you have to do is relax for a few minutes and you'll be as good as new." Sakura simply furrowed her brows and struggled further,

"No! I'm serious! Just let me go, and I'll relax!"

Deidara was not a man of much patience by nature, so taking care of his muse was the only thing his reserves of patience were used for. However, he had expected her to be a little more logical than this (she was a medic, yeah!), so his earlier patience was slowly dwindling. He pressed her tightly against his abdomen and forced her to stop moving,

"Relax." She still resisted, so he set his mouth into a straight line and tightened his hold on the kunoichi. She was no longer resisting, instead she had taken up glaring at him hatefully instead. Deidara loosened his hold and gave her a smile,

"See, that's better, yeah. Now just relax and in about fifteen minutes, you'll be able to pump chakra through those legs again. And you know something else,un?" his voice changed tones and his next words came out slyly, "that death-glare of your's is almost inspiring, too."

Sakura continued to glare at him as she spat out her response,

"Does it inspire you to create visions of your future death?"

At this, Deidara's mouth quirked up at one corner to resemble his characteristic smirk. His muse sure was feisty, he thought, as he started to walk down the rest of the dirt road that lead to the small village.

"That's funny, but no. It's just that it's very expressive, yeah." Deidara looked forward at the village gates in the distance.

"So that means you do know how much I hate you, right now." Sakura's glare lightened up as she found another outlet to vent her anger from. Talking his ear off. Wait…why did I say 'right now'?! I've always hated him!

Yes, but now it's more of a 'dislike' then an utter loathing

NO, I still lllloa-theh h-him

See, you can't even admit it. Don't deny it.

sigh But he's still very annoying with all his 'muse' talk.

Deidara looked down at the pink-haired girl in his arms.

"Hey, I'm being nice to you, un. I'm not like this to everybody. In fact, I don't recall I've ever been this nice to anyone before, even if they give me free food, yeah."

"Is stalking me for miles, dragging me onto your bird thing, then speeding off into the sky, nearly dropping me from hundreds of feet in the air, then holding me hostage in your arms, your idea of beingnice?"

Deidara frowned.

"Quit exaggerating, un. It wasn't that bad, and half of what you said isn't even true. Besides, people actually pay a lot of money for a ride like that."

Sakura gave a very unladylike snort and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Who'd pay for that?"

Deidara left it as a rhetorical question and walked on towards the village, silently gazing at her every few minutes. After the first of Deidara's intense stares, Sakura had to look away blushing. She just couldn't help but wonder what was going through his head. Seriously, what did he see in her that kept making him look back? Sakura came up with a variety of different reasons as she kept her eyes focused on the approaching city. The muscle cramps in her legs were starting to go away, she could now twiddle her toes and bend her ankles, but her knees and thighs were still tight. Grudgingly, she had to admit that he was right about the relaxing part. What's funnier still was that she was actually relaxing. Oh, well. This isn't the time to argue.

Sakura's eyes were still on the horizon when she felt a prickle in the back of her head that told her that she was being watched. A little bit annoyed, she turned her head and made contact with the pair of blue eyes. Deidara didn't flinch, and Sakura decided to have a little staring contest. They looked at each other for a few minutes. Deidara was thinking the same mysteriously artsy and deep thoughts he always did when he looked at his muse. Sakura on the other hand wasn't really thinking about anything deep, instead her eyes took in his features. The same ones she had kissed a short while ago. Sakura blushed at that but didn't look away. Just what was it that made her do that? What was so attractive about him anyway?

Deidara grinned, noticing her blush.

Oh yeah, that's one of the reasons. The answer to Deidara and Sakura's individual questions. Deidara had been wondering why he couldn't leave her, why he just knew that she was his muse, his would-be inspiration. For him, it was that wild blush of hers. The one thing that she couldn't control about herself. For her, it was that boyish grin that stated 'Fear nothing' and assured her that all would be well.

She could now swing her knees about, albeit a tad uncomfortably because her thighs were still sore from clutching that infernal bird's neck.

Sakura unconsciously reached over and smoothed his hair back so that it no longer obscured his face. Her fingertips lightly trailed along his cheekbone before slipping behind his ear and coming down. Deidara couldn't help, he managed to control the expression on his face to remain to same, but the mouths on his hands opened a little in an 'O'. All of sudden, Sakura shrieked began thrashing in his arms, and since she could move her legs better, she was a lot harder to control.

Dammit, Deidara thought. He didn't need to ask her what happened. He already knew. They were his hands, weren't they?

"Sakura! Calm down! It was nothing, un!"

"No! What the heck was that?! Something licked my knee!"

Deidara mildly blushed at his hands' uncontrollable antics.

"Yeah, sorry about that. It was my hand…uh, sometimes I can't exactly control them…" That was, by far, the most ludicrous thing Sakura would have ever heard had it been said by someone else in some other context. She would have punched the man's head into the ground had he not been entirely serious about the whole matter of not being able to control his hands, or more precisely, his tongues. Sakura stopped thrashing. She was still feeling quite grossed out, but she took a deep breath to calm down. She didn't want to say something to him about his hands that would offend him. She assumed that, as the artistic type, and someone with a very rare and easily noticeable kekkei genkai, he'd be a bit sensitive.

"Deidara, just put me down. Now. I think I can walk by myself…" Sakura was still sore but she had to get out of his arms, she muttered the next part under breath as he knelt to set her on her feet, "…God, who knows what else those hands have been doing…"

Deidara chuckled softly,

"nothing I don't know of, un. Making bombs. Doing dishes. Eating clay. Drooling."

Sakura was shocked for a moment that he'd heard her before she broke into a small grin. Well, that threw Sakura's he's sensitive theory out the window. Apparently, he was pretty casual about his hand-mouths. They were normal to him. And in all truth, Sakura hadn't noticed until the hand-mouths actually announced their presence by licking her knee.

"You sure you can walk, un? I don't mind carrying you all the way to the hotel if you can't." Deidara had an arm around her shoulders supporting her up as she took a few steps forwards. The image Deidara's words made in her mind made her mentally grimace. What would people think if an Akatsuki walked into town carrying a Konoha kunoichi bridal style, and to a hotel room, no less? Yeah, she didn't want to think about it.

"I know you might not mind, but I do. Look, I can walk."

"Alright, yeah. You win. But I'm not letting you walk by yourself."

"I wasn't walking by myself anyway, you'd follow me one way or another." Sakura made a face, she hadn't even realized that she wasn't fighting his being with her anymore. Deidara smiled.

"True, I wouldn't." The two walked like that until the town's gates could clearly be seen, even in the diminishing daylight. Deidara had forced Sakura to put an arm around his neck while he kept one around her waist, 'just in case, yeah.' he told her.

"Oh! Deidara…that reminds me…this is Fire country, if they see you, they'll know you're Akatsuki and whatever shinobi are around will try to kill you, instantly."

"Try to kill me, yeah, but they won't be able to. I'm too good at what I do. I'll get you and me out of there." He smirked at her mischievously.

"No! I don't want to make a scene! Remember, you're coming withme, that means I'm leading. I want you to hide your identity before we walk through those gates." Deidara stopped walking and looked at her,

"Are you serious, un?"

"Ido not want to be seen with an Akatsuki trailing around." She deadpanned. Deidara gave an exasperated sigh.

"Then what do you want me to do about it? How am I supposed 'hide my identity'?" Deidara waved one hand making quotation marks in the air in front of her face. The tongue was hanging out. Sakura looked away from the unsettling sight, she didn't think she'd get used to his hands again after the licking incident. Her eyes landed on his cloak, particularly the red clouds that marked him as Akatsuki.

"Your cloak." She said, pointing to one of the clouds. Deidara looked down.

"…what about it, un?"

"Hide it…or do something about it. It's the clouds that give you away." Rolling his eyes, Deidara took a step back from Sakura and took his cloak off. Turning it inside-out, he put it on again.

"There, better, un?" The inverted cloak looked rather disconcerting at first. The seams were hanging out and loose threads hung here and there. It looked downright shabby, and it just didn't look right on him with his smooth, golden hair. But the weirdest part was the collar. Unlike the normal black, it was a vivid red. Although the clouds were well hidden, the red collar was still …eye-catching.

"…uh…I guess that'll work." She turned and started walking towards the gate. Deidara caught up to her a few seconds later. Together they entered the small cluster of houses and shops.

Unbeknownst to Sakura, she was being followed by another party from a distance. A second Akatsuki who wore an orange colored mask. The same one whose existence Deidara had vaguely wondered about nearly half a day ago.

There was a soft rustle of something moving near the town's walls.

A Tobi lurked behind the bushes. His lone eye following his blond partner and his 'muse'.

"Sempai?"

Seriously, I'm dying here. If I get more reveiws for this then I do my other story, then I'll focus on it more.

MORE REVEIWS equals MORE DEIxSAKU crack

...mmmm...I'm actually against bribery, but this is the one exception.