Chapter Eight: A Lunatic
Who thought that in order to sustain in the Akatsuki, one had to familiarize himself with the reek of blood?
Waves of nausea layered up and formed a heavy blanket above the blond's head. In the distance, footsteps and mindless whistles rang. Deidara pinched the bridge of his nose as Hidan – the living form of Satan entered the room.
He said, using the basic icebreaker. "So? How many have you managed to sacrifice today, un?"
The Jashinist turned rigid at the sound of his voice. His eyebrows knitted, and his lips were pressed firmly against each other.
"You know, the things you always love to tell. How you get pleasure from having your ribs pierced through-"
"And how you can jerk off to a glamorous explosion?" Hidan retorted with a growl, pulling a carton of milk out of the fridge and knocking it down his throat. Drops of white mingled with the stained blood on his half-exposed torso made a pretty pink. He carelessly wiped them with his hands – Konan would scowl at that.
"Ah, best kind of orgasm."
Hidan almost laughed, and choked, "You're fucked in the head!" He covered his mouth with his hand, but those crinkled eyes revealed it all. Deidara usually saw his friend laughing like a maniac - loud, highly-amused guffaws that sliced through the air; a bobbing head and pricking hand that smacked against his back. Seeing Hidan trying to be cool and emotionless was rather comical.
"Don't tell me Kakuzu doesn't have wet dreams about money all the time, un."
"Fuck, don't remind me!" the silver-haired man screw up his face. "But your partner is even more than that, you'll see! He's the most fucked up among us!"
A corner of Deidara's mouth raised. "Still trying to scare me, un?"
"You will not say that if you have sneaked into his puppet room at 2 am."
"Are you stalking him or something?" With crossed legs, he tilted to and fro while listening to his friend. "Now who's the creepy one?"
"Can you think of the possibilities?" the Jashinist insisted, "No one, like no one, has ever seen him with a chick. And he has hundreds of those chasing behind!"
Deidara said in a casual tone. "Doesn't that make him gay, though?" .Something that was not to be casually discussed.
As soon as the words left his mouth, bitter with a tad of sweetness from Konohagakure's matcha tea (he had fallen in love with it ever since the training session with Itachi), Deidara's face blanched from terror. He jumped out of the dining chair and stumbled backwards, crashing his head into the kitchen cupboard.
"No, no, that's worse, un!"
The sneaky smile on Hidan's face turned broader, his eyes gleaming an unhealthy gleam. He loomed over the petite blond using his sturdy shape. "Let me tell you what I saw-"
"Shut up!" Deidara faked a scream, "I don't want to hear that!"
"Sasori, he was-"
"I said shut up!"
Deidara waited until Hidan had pushed him against a wall, and withdrew a DVD case from his pocket. He tapped the thing against his friend's forehead, watching it slipping down into Hidan's hands in a soft clack. The silver-haired man rounded his eyes at the gift. He held the black DVD up to observe it more clearly. Under the kitchen's light, images and words on the DVD grew visible, and they seemed to glimmer against Hidan's eyes.
"The Lord of the Rings: The battle for Middle-earth…" Deidara started.
Hidan followed with enthusiasm, "... part two. The Rise of the Witch-king!"
"Fucking long-ass name, un."
The Jashinist gave him cautious stares. "You... bought this?"
"Electronic Arts is getting more and more greedy, man." sighed Deidara, "Welp, can you pay the shipping fee? I'm broke."
"You're a fucking terrific friend, Dei!" Hidan screeched, giving his back a slap that might have broken 37 of his vertebrae. Deidara supposed he would live the last days of his life with a humped back and an extreme case of Arthritis. "Don't worry about it! We can rob Kakuzu's bank at any time!"
A frown appeared between Deidara's brows. "Ouch, you don't need to break my back for me to know that I'm a good friend, un..."
"Sorry, sorry, I'm a little over-excited." Hidan smiled in such a genuine way it was cringy, yet it had been a while since Deidara last saw him grinning showing all rows of teeth. It was a rather nice feeling. Granted that human could be regarded as sites, his friend and his partner must have been the poles at opposite ends of Earth – one with a heart on his sleeve and one that was a bundle of mystery. Hidan was so much easier to handle, but a little mystery did bring a refreshing taste. Deidara couldn't tell which one he preferred more. "Come on, I'll show you where Sasori keeps his snacks at. Then we can eat while playing this baby!"
"You really do stalk him, don't you?"
"Trust me, I stalk everyone in this house."
"Where do I keep my snacks, I wonder?"
Deidara wouldn't be surprised if Sasori was standing behind him, but he did jump upon the appearance of an Akatsuki cloaked old man, who was an absolute mess. The man was either crouching or suffering from a severe hunchback, with a humanoid mask attached to his back and a questionably wry face. The blond gave him a skeptical look, "What the fuck are you!?"
The more he stared at the man, the more a sting in the eyes he became. How could a man appear so artless as that?
"Couldn't tell, brat?" With an attractiveness that was inferior to Sasori's sex dolls, he addressed him by such a disrespectful name. Brat. Who else called him brat? Endless scenarios would have been going through his head if it wasn't for Hidan's grabbing his arm.
"Oh fuck off! We need to go bonding our friendship." Hidan pulled him aside. "Beautiful, beautiful friendship."
The old man spoke in a disturbingly low voice, "What about the poison plan?"
Hidan paled for a second before stuttering, "Oops, I just realize I have to go iron... my... cat." Shoving the game CD deep into his pocket, the Jashinist vanished from the two's sight. "Let us flourish our friendship later!"
Deidara calmly took the last sip from his teacup, because nothing more than the warmth of brewing tea could keep his mind in order right now. After gulping the beverage in, he dragged his gaze down to look at the man beside him.
"So, what have you done with yourself? False plastic surgery?"
"Cut it out, you little piece of shit." The ugly Sasori sighed. "Five minutes from now, I expect you to present here fully clothed and equipped for your first mission."
The battleground was a complete chaos.
Clash. Clash. Clash. Their swords swung almost incessantly, crashing against each other with their blades glinting in the dying light.
He continued to retreat, and they continued to advance. Clanking sound of metal clashing along with his clay bombs exploding echoed in pure harmony. A feast to both the eyes and the ears.
Deidara didn't rest for a second, for he knew he would then be covered in sweat. The perspiration surfaced on his forehead, his cheeks, the bridge of his nose, and ran in rivulets down his face until he became sodden, encased in parched heat. Fighting within the confined space of an underground cavern demanded a load of strength. It was one of those times when he found his bang so damn annoying, and how in the world could his partner even breathe properly in his puppet armor?
Hiruko, if memory served right. Sasori might have an attractive appearance – ehem, basically stating the facts here – dreamy eyes and mousy red hair that people worshipped, but that was all amounting to his values. His personality was as gloomy and ugly as the puppet he used as a disguise.
Deidara had jumped to that conclusion seeing the egomaniac shushin'-ing without a warning. When he turned his head, all was left was a bundle of hot air where Sasori was supposed to be strolling behind his back. Sasori, being him, had gone off on his way to search for the hidden scroll, leaving him alone as a bait. Or God knew, he might have been chewing on snacks and chilling in his air-conditioned Hiruko.
Holding up a smoke bomb in the air, Deidara prepared for his basic escape plan – through the ground. He dug and dug and dug, half way through the earth until being stopped by his partner's call.
"Brat! Come here!"
It was too fast to see. A sharpened blade glinted before slicing through his shoulder, neat and prompt like a knife through butter. Blood splattered, seeming to freeze mid-air. Then in his blurry vision, a red lump came. It plucked his lower body off the ground and carried him flying through the smoky chaos.
The flight ended with Deidara on the floor, blood on his shoulder and dust in his throat. He held up a hand to his mouth, turning to the red figure. "What the fuck was that, un!?"
A foot stomped on the ground. "I'm here." Deidara jerked his head in the direction of his partner's voice before turning back to the red-clothed puppet he had been talking to. He growled at Sasori, or should he say the bastard who had put him on the brink of death. The cut on his shoulder started to sting. Deidara tore along the dotted line a piece of cloth to cover it up. Sasori, now more apparent, crouched down and put a pink glowing hand on his bruise.
"I got the scroll." He said in an undertone. His gaze landed briefly on the troop of puppets fighting from afar before turning back, letting his other hand do the work. "You can rest now."
"Why the fuck did you leave me here, un?"
"To buy some time, what else?"
"Do you call that teamwork, un?"
"It is teamwork. Splitting up tasks."
"Only if you had told me first hand, you bastard."
Deidara shifted to a more comfortable position, his back a little hunching. The clashing sound of weapons faded into distance, and he could only focus on the feeling of his skin rejuvenating under his partner's aid.
"You're a medic?" he asked, breaths clogged with fatigue.
"Used to." Sasori replied with unblinking eyes. "But still skilled enough to deal with these small injuries, I guess."
"What am I doing?" Deidara huffed, "I'd rather talk with that puppet earlier, un."
"And I'd rather you be dead." the redhead raised a brow, "But that can't happen, correct?"
There was this thing that Deidara had been dwelling on ever since he became a member of the mercenary organization. That was Sasori's eyes never seemed to contain him, or anyone in that manner. He made zero eye contact during conversations, and almost everytime they talked he was too busy engrossing in something else. Most typically his puppets, a book, a plant, a little crack on the pavement's gravel block, a streak of orange that splattered across the sky of a late afternoon, an ant on its way to return home, anything but the person he was in company with. That must be the reason why people found it hard communicating with him; he wasn't even making the effort.
Quietly, Deidara lowered his head and smiled at him.
Sasori blinked and backed away, scowling at him with his eyebrows raised. The blond chuckled, "Heh, it's like you are afraid of people or something, un."
Sasori looked a little more human-like when he was annoyed, with scrunching nose, impersonal stare and silent curses. Not a puppet, just a very annoyed man. His arms dropped to his sides as he stood up. "Thank you, I'm disgusted by them."
Deidara mirrored his movements. "So now, as you have got what we need, let me-"
"Under one condition."
"Who cares?" the bomber rolled his eyes, "I'm blowing this place up anyway, un."
"Then would you care to do it as a collaboration?" Sasori held up a finger, "Before you jump on me, I'm only doing this to follow Nagato's order. He needs every pair to perform their combo move next week as an evidence for their teamwork."
He drew from his pocket a summoning scroll and flashed it open. Materializing itself from the smoke was a brown-capped puppet with black substance pouring out from its mouth. "And I think we may try it today... Only once that is."
"Combining my art with yours seems like an insult to me, un." Deidara commented, redoing his ponytail.
"Just to let you know, I feel completely the same."
He was lying, of course. The idea of combining two ever contradictory forms of art screamed astounding. For their arts to merge it was like the sun and the moon colliding, scarce yet extraordinarily odd. Not to mention fatal.
"Bring out the best you've got, brat." Sasori provoked, "We have to make this big."
Deidara barked and puffed out his chest in pride. An excessive amount of clay gushed out from his hand-mouths, and in a blink of an eye, in front of the two artists was already the gigantic C3 dragon, whose form created a shield to separate them from the gang of thieves.
Deidara looked sideways to his partner, who was, either intentionally or accidentally, glancing at him. On no occasion had he seen the redhead's gaze so pretentious. Idling and thrilling. So, so filled with this stirring sensation Deidara thought he might explode.
"You look over-excited." Sasori said in a wary voice, "Please don't, nothing good happens when you're excited."
Somehow, it wasn't solely a combination attack, but a competition. Thus it was time for Sasori to take over the spotlight. With a brandish of his hand, black ashes evolved into massive black clouds hovering in the thin air over their heads. They sponged on the texture of the animal, covering all of its body and inking the pure white color of the dragon's skin into a gloomy shade of blackness.
The C3 dragon flapped its wings, sending gush of wind which lifted the two's hair up and down gently.
The sight in front of them took all his breaths away. Heartbeats accelerating, body heating, mind blurring, hands shaking, the world fumbling all over, Deidara twisted his fingers. He formed hand-seals which he himself couldn't control, he screamed from the pit of his lungs something he himself couldn't pick up. He might be laughing, he didn't know. He was wandering around the land of dreams, the terrain of finest arts - where those filthy peasants with blinded eyes and shallow minds and could never set a foot in.
He let indistinct prays fly out of his mouth, opened his arms widely to welcome the arts he had wished forever to come get him and shut his eyes in immense contentment.
But oh, wouldn't it would be a selfish act to revel on his own? For this little moment, before a masterpiece was brought to life, Deidara turned to look at his partner. The usually-stoic Sasori seemed nervous! There were sweat and fear mingled on his once impassive face and the smile of his swirling in brown irises. The artistic strokes of his pen painted so ever beautiful emotions on a blank page. Deidara loved devouring delicious reactions that his art driven from people.
He thought of little clay bugs clinging on his partner's clothes and slowly eating him up in white, dissecting his body into millions of pieces. He thought of the man's scream muffled against clay, every fiber in his being ripped and burned in the blazing heat of a formidable bang. Oh, how spectacular would that be! People of all walks of life deserved a chance to marvel at the supreme beauty of art before they died, and Deidara was definite his enemies would be more happy to die within their ultimate collaboration than anything else.
Sadly, the pitiful Sasori refused that favour as he turned his back and rushed out of the place. Deidara stood poker-faced for a short while, sank in disappointment. But then below him shook violently, blazing embers and amid debris thrashing down one by one like the hammering of his heart. They might have hit him, they might have not. All he knew that he was cackling in utmost delight, hollering his all-time favorite phrase.
It hurt. It hurt so damn much. It hurt like a million of poisoned arrows ripping through his body. It hurt like someone reaching inside him and pulling his guts out with their bare hands. It hurt like having his every bone crushed, flesh torn under the worn-out wheels of a passenger bus. It hurt so much that it actually felt nice.
Deidara started running and flailing his arms around the way he would do playing in the rain, but now among dust, fire and blood. It didn't matter. He dashed through the falling debris, sliced through the pillar of fiery smoke and spun in the air, ever so gracefully. He was dancing amidst the chaos. His blue eyes glimmered, rivaling against the dazzling sun.
Those eyes witnessed how the world was falling apart.
Those eyes saw the catastrophic flame that started breaking by their corners before expanding to everywhere else, covering the realm in a deadly red.
Those eyes observed the fire turned, twitched and writhed before splattering out as flashes of lightning.
Those eyes watched the mushroom-head of a column of incandescent gas and dust arose from the ground and almost deafened his ears in the reverberating noise like a thunderclap.
Those joyful eyes were only kept open before the air cracked, and Deidara collapsed onto the stack of debris, limbs falling out. The burning excitement cooled down into a freezing coldness. There it came again, the inevitable empty feeling following every epic moment of his art.
Deidara lifted his arms, which were covered with small scratches, a little blurry because of his dizziness, and wrapped them around himself. Soft breaths escaped his chapped lips, struggling to maintain a steady pace. It was a little lonely, to be honest.
When he slightly opened his eyes and anticipated for the brilliant sunshine, the red colour of the puppeteer's hair already obscured most of it.
"You are fucking crazy."
Deidara smirked, "Took you long enough to figure that out."
Sasori dropped himself down and crouched on his feet. Shiny sweat lanced his forehead and his cloak was covered in dust. "The fuck are you? You should have warned me beforehand."
"So did you warn me when you left me as a bait, un?"
The redhead looked like he wanted to be angry, but he was too tired to try to appear so. "Please, as if you weren't able to take those down."
"I don't know if I should take that as a compliment," Deidara used his remained strength to shout out the comment. "but I was definitely traumatized, un!"
The corners of Sasori's lips twitched up, opening slightly for breaths to come out. For a while, it was only the sound of them sucking in the grimy air. Rays of sunshine draped over Deidara, and along with the episodic exhales of his partner beside, it was a little warmer.
"I could kill you right now."
Deidara glared down at the chakra strings which was creeping onto his neck, swaying to the fluid movements of the puppeteer's hand. He liked those movements, somehow. The way his fingers twisted and danced to a lyrical beat, his provoking sneer, his cold eyes and dreamy expression while manipulating others. Those were worth observing, rather than the awkward pose and rigid snap of wooden joints.
"Trying to strangle me? Go ahead. But a man that assassinate earns no respect."
"Still giving lectures when you're about to die?" Sasori twirled his fingers, bringing the strings closer to the blond's neck. They trailed like snakes on Deidara's skin.
The blond squirmed to the side and laughed. "S-Stop! My neck is sensitive-"
Because tickling him and watching him suffer must have been a much better idea than strangling him to death.
Even laughing hurt. His laughs were faint, depressing breaths of a man in his death throes. He curled up in a ball and tightened his fists. Things were starting to get dizzy, him at the brink of entering a whole other galaxy with different swirls and colours. When the tickling session ended, Deidara almost fainted.
Sasori seemed satisfied. The blond hated that he was too drained – emotionally and physically, to do anything but lying obediently like a puppy, letting the redhead's glowing hand touch his stomach.
"Well? Have you learned your lesson?"
"Yes, I should have killed you." he panted.
The puppeteer shrugged. "And I should have never rescued you."
"Y-You almost killed me, un!"
"And I am going to leave you here to death if you don't shut up."
"I don't need y-"
The blond let out a little shriek as his partner's hand came in contact with his bruise. Sasori pressed his thumb further in, which Deidara responded with a crippling scowl.
"Don't shout when you're already out of breath."
"You're bullying me!" Deidara argued.
Sasori rolled his eyes at him. He scanned his bare torso with a disapproving – maybe even amazed look. "How are you still alive?"
"The shield. I've activated it. It's a special technique I've been working on. Still not completed, though."
"You risked all of these for being in an explosion?" Sasori asked, dragging his weary gaze across Deidara's wounds. His eyelashes fell and hung heavily on his lids.
"You'll never know the feeling of standing in the core of one. It is fascinating." Deidara gave a lopsided grin, "That must have tired you out, un?"
"You tired me out." Wiping his eyes, Sasori blinked rapidly to get him back into consciousness. Deidara felt his partner's gaze shifted and lingered on the area on his chest.
"Curious, un?" He chuckled in a raspy tone, which was the result of dust collecting themselves in his throat.
Deidara unraveled the stitches on his left chest, where his extra mouth was buried under, and ran a skeptic eye over his partner's expression. It had become a little game of his: either trying to guess Sasori's emotions through marginal hints or evoking those from the redhead. But Sasori's values didn't remain only in that aspect.
He had the aura that stirred people's curiosity. Who thought that such boring man could be so much of an enigma? What was his motivation, his happiness, his regret? What was the story behind his indifferent appearance? It was similar to the question why Hidan was so devoted to his bloodstained religion. You never knew – or so people all failed to know. Deidara wanted to know.
Never had he longed so badly to delve into others' minds, particularly an artist with his ridiculous perception. Not everyone could bring out that side of him, and thus his partner is a must-keep.
Even though his overall facial expression remained mild, Sasori's eyes widened watching Deidara bit by bit untangling the black threads that held his skin intact. The blond did it with a smile, but couldn't resist a little frown whenever the thread was plucked off. Painful, but not unfamiliar. Ultimately, he withdrew the string out and twirled it around his finger.
The blood was drained on Sasori's face as the wound started opening to reveal the dark void inside. Then came a clammy tongue sliding through the rows of teeth, curling and reaching for the alarmed puppeteer. Drawing out a scroll from behind his back and held it in front of Deidara, he shouted, "Stay in your lane, or I'm cutting all your tongues off."
"Was that a little stuttering, un?" Deidara chuckled loudly, "You are so careless."
"Careless of me," he replied, "never come near me again."
Sasori grumbled, rubbing the ashes off his eyes once more. With heavy steps, he walked to the edge of the gas pit, where there was a rope hanging loosely from above.
"Hey-" Deidara said as a wheeze resonated from the depth of his throat. "Sas-"
An invisible force dawned on Deidara's lungs, which failed to absorb any oxygen. The ground was swaying under his feet. He gagged, and the last vivid thing he saw was some red drops on his palms.
_xxlynnchan
