Sasori kept strong to his pact, not talking to Deidara for months, even occasionally staying in his puppet room
By now, the 'secret' knoll had grown back to how it was before, and it seemed that Deidara had stopped going there. In other words, he finally had peace again.
This situation could have ended quite badly, due to the current lack of missions; but the knoll had saved his sanity for him. Until one fateful night.
Sasori reluctantly returned to their shared room, after not having seen Deidara for almost two weeks straight, of which he was really very proud of.
He returned to the room, as quietly as he could, hoping- no- praying that Deidara was asleep. His prayers would not be answered.
The second he opened the door he was answered by a series of muffled noises, wondering what the hell Deidara would be doing up this late. "What?" he asked, his face wrinkling in an automatic anger gesture.
" Dnnamstck." he heard, unable to make sense of it "Speak up, I can't understand you, brat." It was at that moment he decided to turn on the light.
What his tired eyes met was something he was both extremely happy to see, and extremely angered to see. Deidaras' hair was in a complete mess, his hair out of the ponytail, and frizzed in all directions, his wrists tied together and handcuffed to the headboard of his bed.
His wrists were dripping blood, and chaffed everywhere, which lead him to inspect the rest of the boys' body: he was shirtless, bruises, cuts, and scabs crossing his entire chest and face. Had he mentioned the cloth tied around Deidaras' mouth? This was the part he was most thankful for, the small gag wrapped tightly through the boys mouth, completely rendering useless for speech.
"What the fuck did you do to have this happen to you?" he asked, hoping that Deidara wouldn't answer. He walked slowly over to the bed, now noticing a small piece of paper inside the handcuffs.
He ignored the muffled reply of the tied-up blonde, reading the cluster of words on the paper a few times over, trying to understand the messy scrawl.
It seems as if he would react more to your punishment than he would mine. He's yours. -Pein
He crumpled the paper, looking down to Deidara with a look that would have made any man cry. Deidara wasn't any man. He was just happy Sasori was looking at him, corny as it sounds.
Sasori ripped the cloth gag down from Deidaras' mouth, trying to cause the most pain as was possible.
"Answer my question, brat!" he screamed, able to keep his face intimidating through this, holding back his urge to smirk.
Deidara opened his mouth to say something, but instead a frightened yelp came out.
Sasori laughed for the first time he had in months, slapping Deidara across his cheek "Answer-my-question."
"Pein… he heard about my fights with the other members, and…" he coughed "Told me to tell you that it was your turn again."
Sasori gave in to his urge to smirk, he'd have to thank Pein for this later. "Did he? Well, I guess I'm feeling generous today." he rolled his sleeves up and cracked his knuckles "I'll let you pick your first method of torture." he finished with a nice neck crack.
Deidara picked his answer almost immediately "Whip me." his voice didn't hold fear at all, only anticipation.
"You'd fucking enjoy that, wouldn't you." he spat at Deidara, slapping him again.
Deidara flinched, his cheek getting sore already "So poison it."
Sasori laughed, thinking about how brilliant that idea was. Deidara might get his kicks now, but he'd pay for it in another day or two. Crippling pain running through his veins, as if his blood were on fire. And that was only if he didn't die.
Yes, this was a good idea after all.
"Better pray you don't die, brat." he said in between some devilish laughter, taking a kunai out of his pocket and carefully picking the lock on the handcuffs, getting a bottle of his special poison, and a whip he just so happened to have in his 'junk' pile.
He decided he was going to do this in his puppet room, cut the losses later, and just enjoy this whole process for as long as he could.
Unfortunately, he underestimated how awkward the walk there could have been.
"Why do you hate me so much?" Deidara asked, followed by a punch in the stomach and several gasping noises.
"Because, brat, you're annoying, you don't respect personal space, your idea of art is off, and you've already ruined my life in less than a year of knowing you."
"M-Maybe if you spent some time with me you could get used to it." He got punched again, exact same spot. If he was lucky he'd keep his lunch down.
"I can't stand being around you."
"How do you know that we're not actually soul mates? Opposites attract." he stated, bracing himself for another punch.
But in fact, Sasori was taken aback by this question so much that he couldn't even think about punching him, all he could do was vow to not speak for the rest of the night.
All he did in response was quicken his pace and pull on Deidaras' still tied arms tighter, making him follow at the same pace.
It took only a few minutes to get to his puppet room, and Sasori was convinced that Deidara wouldn't remember how to get there, and even if he did the door was locked. Hatred aside, this was the first time he'd let somebody else come into his workroom.
He opened the door, and threw Deidara on the ground. Deidara looked thoroughly worried now, which made Sasori even more excited for what was about to begin. Before, Deidara had been rather smug and generally used to this process, but upon seeing this scary, large, dark, and sinister room his heart began to pound. Sasori could hear it from at least five feet away.
Sasori walked over to the closest work table, shoving everything off of it in one large sweep of his arm, followed by the noise of clattering wood and glass shattering. The noise sent shivers down Deidaras' spine, causing him to shiver.
Sasori walked back to Deidara, picking him up by his handcuffed arms, and shoving him into the table, getting a kunai out so he could unlock the handcuffs and hold him to the table.
Deidara did what he was told, climbing onto the table and laying face down on it, arms cuffed behind his back.
Within another moment Deidaras' arms were handcuffed together under the table, and Sasori was dipping the first few inches of the whip into the phial of poison. He was ready for this, almost to the point of laughter he was enjoying this so much.
Of course, he would have been enjoying this a hell of a lot more if Deidara had seemed scared at all, and he didn't. So he figured he'd whip the boy extra hard for his audacity. Yeah, that sounded like a plan.
He set the phial down on the chest of one of his puppets, and walked up to Deidara, bending down until he was at his face level. "Remember that you chose to do this, brat." he said, adding in a little chuckle to make it seem more sinister before cracking the whip.
Deidara responded with a lovely twinge, and the sound that echoed through the stone room.
Sasori moved out of the sight of Deidara, raising his arm and swiping the whip across the boys' spine, resulting in another large twitch from the 'victim'.
He watched in the dim light as he saw a pink line spread across his back where the whip had bitten into the light skin.
It almost seemed a shame to spoil such soft, light, perfect skin… Sasori wiped that thought out of his head with another snap of the whip, making another line of pain blister across Deidaras' back.
This went on for several minutes, blood spilling out of some of the marks, and after his back was completely covered in pink, bleeding, and blistered spots, Sasori dipped his whip in poison once more: finishing with one blow, pumping all of his emotions and thoughts into that one blow, and taking peace from the blood that spurted in result of those thoughts.
He dropped the whip, the ringing in his ears stopping now. Ringing? He hadn't noticed that before… But what he did notice now is a constant mumbling, coming from the wounded thing on the table.
"Saso…Sasori… Danna… Danna…" it moaned, twitching and convulsing in something that certainly didn't sound like pain.
It went on like this for a few more minutes, until Sasori finally got the courage to go up to the completely silent figure on the table.
"Serves you right, brat." he said, admiring his work.
Deidara kept his eyes shut. "Danna…" he mumbled, his voice sounding distant and soft. "Thank you."
Sasori was completely taken aback by this. Had the person he just tortured, and even possibly lead to his death just thanked him?
"For what?" he asked, generally interested now.
"For talking to me… even if all I am is a burden…" he sighed, flinching as if it hurt to move his chest. Good. At least it hurt.
Sasori didn't have a response to this. He still couldn't believe that Deidara had just thanked him. To add to his vast amount of confusion, he felt a sort of admiration to the boy on the table, a sort of friendship, you could say.
He unlocked the handcuffs, letting them fall to the ground. "Come on brat, get up." he said, the strictness somehow dropping out of his voice.
It took several minutes for Deidara to sit up, and when he did all he could do was stifle a very loud scream.
Sasori sighed, shaking his head. He was feeling sympathy for his torture victim now. Great.
He walked around to the side of the table that Deidara was facing, ignoring the tears making their way down the blondes cheeks, and bending over, pulling on Deidara's legs until he was at the edge of the table, pushing his shoulder into the boys stomach, and lifting him from the table and draping him across his shoulder; answered with a soft cry.
"Shut up, brat, we'll be there soon." he said, walking at a reasonably fast pace until he arrived back at the room and lay Deidara on his stomach, looking at the still bleeding wounds for a moment, and then realizing that the blonde had passed out.
He stood for a moment, watching Deidara take small, painful breaths in, the only part of his naked back not covered in cris-crossed lines being the very bottom of his back, where his pants line and his back united.
Sasori placed his fingertips gently on this spot, just to see if it was really as soft as it looked.
He set his fingers gently down, dragging them an inch or two before taking his fingertips back, and looking at them as if they had something on them.
How could somebody be that inviting? Was it that possible to make somebody want to touch them that much? The proof was laying right in front of him.
He bent over, crouching on his feet, putting at him about face level with Deidara… his face looked inviting too… even when it was twisted in pain. He started leaning in closer, staring at the pair of soft lips in front of him… just a little touch of lips, it didn't mean anything… he finally convinced himself and closed his eyes, letting his lips gently touch Deidaras': leaving them there for a moment and pulling back slowly, crawling into his own bed.
"Thank you…" he heard Deidara mumble, again, just before he managed to fall asleep himself.
That night he dreamt of what had happened that day, accept the whipping lasted longer, and Deidara screamed in pain every time the whip made contact with his skin. This time, the dream ended with Deidara taking a shaky breath in, and dying right in front of Sasoris' eyes. Sasori cradled the body, as the flowing blood began to get cooler, and eventually stopped flowing altogether. And he cried, and cried. Until he woke up the next morning.
The first thing he did was get up and make sure Deidara was still breathing.
The brat was still passed out, but he was alive.
God, he hoped he hadn't killed his little blonde…