Sculpting for Dummies:
AN: I'm almost to the part of the story I'm most excited about writing! There's gonna be angst, and smut, and destruction of household objects… it's gonna be great! Heads up, though: Deidara can be sort of an angst-bucket in this chapter. Don't hate him cause he's gone kinda emo. Hate him because he's too damn sexy!
Chapter 10
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Tobi bounced along the forest path that led from the town with the train station to their destination, Thorn Village. Deidara trudged. The effort to lift his foot and put it back down a little ways in front of him barely seemed worth the trouble.
"Sempai, keep up! We're almost there!" Tobi squealed. Deidara forced one foot to drag forward, then the other. He looked down at his hands. 'Useless.'
The sight of the faint scars of his mouth-palms depressed him. In fact, every aspect of his hand was distasteful now. The slender fingers that he'd thought to be nimble and able to form any shape now seemed emaciated, fragile. 'Useless.' The black polish on his nails was chipping away; the imperfection of his fingers mirrored the larger deficiency of his whole being. The pale band around his right index finger magnified his fall from power.
"Where's my ring, un?" he murmured to himself. He hadn't noticed it missing until now.
Tobi stopped walking and turned. He squirmed in that way that foretold news that Deidara usually didn't want to hear.
"Itachi-san collected our rings a few days ago, sempai. He and Kisame-san sent a summon to fetch them."
Itachi. Deidara was usually pissed off by the mere mention of the Uchiha. Now he couldn't bring himself to care. What did Itachi matter, anyways? What worth was a rival when he had lost his… no. Better not to think of it.
The ring was useless anyways. If he had no chakra, he couldn't be a part of Akatsuki, and if he wasn't a member, a member's ring held no meaning. Useless, just like his old hitai-ate. Useless, like his hands, unable to….
"It's ok if you're angry, sempai," Tobi said. The dark haired ninja had been trying to coax Deidara into responding to him all during the trip. But speaking just wasn't worth it. Nothing was.
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Deidara and Tobi's entrance into Thorn Village lacked fanfare, and left Tobi feeling a little cheated. He'd expected a little bit of a welcome at least. One of the reasons he'd picked Thorn was because it was secluded, and didn't have very many strangers going in and out. He'd thought it best, since it'd be less likely that someone would recognize his sempai as an S-ranked criminal. Given that, Tobi would've thought that the arrival of two outsiders would have warranted an onlooker or two.
The gate was closed and there wasn't a living person in sight. Tobi pulled the creaking gate open and led Deidara inside the village. The streets were quiet. A few people were visible through glass windows and inside the village's restaurant, but they seemed too skittish to approach. Tobi and Deidara walked by them silently.
The deed, when Tobi pulled it out of his pocket and unfolded it, crinkled slightly in Tobi's gloved hand. The sound was quiet, but in the uneasy hush of the village, it seemed like a grave infraction. He held the paper lightly.
"It should be on the other side of the village, sempai," the ninja whispered to his companion. He motioned in the direction he thought they should go. Tobi wasn't sure it was the right way, but he had the feeling that asking one of the nervous, hidden villagers would be unforgivable.
The two outsiders wandered around silently. As they reached the limit of the village, Tobi consulted the paper. He paused, and turned. There was a small house near the wall.
"I think that's it. Why don't you wait here?" he asked. He left the 'one of us will be less intimidating than both' unsaid.
Tobi left his pack with Deidara, who stood in place like a perfectly sculpted statue. The masked man really, really hoped his plan would work out. He wasn't sure what was causing Deidara's depression, but he wanted to help in any way he could.
Tobi knocked on the door of the house. The wooden door muffled the sound of the residents inside, but the vague noises indicated they stood behind the door for a few moments before opening. It creaked and eased open reluctantly. A middle aged man with a hard face stared into Tobi's visible eye.
"I…I purchased a piece of property in this village. I'm supposed to report here to pick up the key." Tobi waited for the man to respond. The man waited for Tobi to…do something, Tobi figured, but he wasn't sure what.
"Well, can I have my key?"
The man held out an empty hand expectantly. "He wants the deed, un" Deidara called emotionlessly. The artist hadn't moved from the spot where Tobi had left him, but he was watching them, at least. Tobi handed the man the deed.
The strange man looked at the deed, then withdrew into the house, shutting the door before Tobi could even peer inside. He emerged a moment later with two worn brass keys. He pointed down the road to the right and handed the keys to the masked ninja. Before he could retreat and shut the door again, a little head peaked out from behind the man. A little brunette stared up at Tobi.
"Are you a bandit, or a ninja?" she asked solemnly. Tobi tilted his head, confused.
"Daddy told me that the only people who wear masks are bandits and ninja. Which one are you?" The man was desperately trying to usher her back in the house, but the little girl dodged and wiggled her way out of the door frame.
"Well, I was a ninja, but I'm not anymore," Tobi explained. The girl looked suspicious.
"Are you a bandit now?" Tobi shook his head. The girl smiled. "I'm glad. Do you know any tricks?"
Tobi nodded. He slipped the keys and the deed securely into his pocket, then did a summersault. He walked on his hands back and forth along the house's small porch. The girl giggled with delight. The door opened a little wider as more occupants of the house peered out. Tobi found three rocks, and started to juggle. He stopped after two minutes and gave the girl a bow. She applauded.
"Is your friend a ninja too?" she inquired, hungry for more tricks. Tobi paused.
"He's an artist," he said finally. That was safe enough for the villagers to know. If Deidara was going to stay in Thorn (Tobi crossed his fingers), it was better if the villagers didn't know about his past with the Akatsuki and the ninja order in general.
"Oh," she sighed, obviously disappointed. "What does he do?"
Tobi hated it when people misjudged his sempai. Deidara was the single greatest person that Tobi had met in his life. He wondered how to explain Deidara's art to the girl. He fished through another one of his pockets.
"He makes all sorts of things, like this," he explained. He handed her one of his prized possession: one of Deidara's clay birds. It was dried up, so it was useless to Deidara. Back at Akatsuki headquarters, the artist had thrown it away, but Tobi had rescued it from the garbage pile and kept it with his emergency supplies at Market.
"Oh, wow!" she exclaimed. She handed it back to him reluctantly. "Can he make me one?"
"We need to get settled in to our new place first. Maybe after we move in, you can ask him," Tobi said. He didn't think Deidara was in any mood to deal with small children at the moment.
The girl nodded. "My name's Lin," she confided. "Does he make clay puppies?" she asked.
Tobi shrugged. "I bet if you ask him, he can. And my name is Tobi." He stepped back off of the porch and waved to her. "I'll see you later," he called, and walked back over to Deidara. The blond followed him down the road to the right, to their new home.
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Dust swirled as Tobi swung open the door he unlocked with the brass key. He pulled Deidara inside by the wrist and explored the building.
"See, this side is a house for us, sempai," he chattered excitedly. "There's a bedroom for each of us, and you can have the big one if you want. Oh, here's the kitchen!" He dragged the blond into the abandoned kitchen. It had a few appliances, all coated with dust. The shelves were bare, but Deidara wasn't very hungry anyways. He tried to block out Tobi's impromptu tour.
Tobi turned and dragged him back out into the hall. "There's the second bedroom. Where is…? Oh, here's the bathroom. Here? No, closet."
The masked man walked on, pulling Deidara behind him. Doors were wrenched open and closed. Finally Tobi found the one he was looking for, at the end of the hall. He opened it and gave Deidara a shove through the threshold.
The room was a studio, wide and empty. It teemed with possibility, yet it seemed desolate. Tobi followed Deidara inside and gestured around.
"It's a studio for your art, sempai. There's a big storage closet there, and a kiln around back. The last owner made pottery to sell at the market, but we don't have to do that if you don't want." Tobi broke off from his rambling and looked at Deidara. He rocked back and forth on the soles of his feet nervously. "Do you like it, sempai?"
Deidara looked around. Like? He didn't like it, not did he dislike it. He didn't feel anything.
"Are you going to give me my chakra back, Tobi, un?"
Tobi looked startled. "Huh? What does that have to do with this?"
"I can't make my art without chakra. Return it to me, un."
Tobi growled when Deidara made his request, and stalked up to him stiffly. He seized Deidara's left wrist in his hand and pulled him towards the back door of the studio. The blond let Tobi pull him along.
They circled around their new house, and Deidara watched uninterested as curious villagers darted back into their houses. They must have come out to investigate when they saw the pair disappear into the building.
The masked man dragged him over to a tree, where two teens were ducking out of sight.
"Excuse me, can you tell me the greatest artist you know of?" he asked. Tobi was still shaking with anger (Deidara wasn't sure why), but he spoke politely to strangers, as always.
One of the teens, a nervous looking boy, shrugged. "It's not anyone you've heard of," he said apologetically.
"It doesn't matter. Who do you think is the greatest?" Tobi pressed.
"Ahh…there's a painter in Forest City named Shizuka. I have one of her paintings in my room."
The second boy coughed. "Askari the glassblower," he mumbled. Tobi nodded and jerked Deidara along down the street. Whenever he found a villager, the masked ninja demanded to know their favorite artist. Most of them answered with men and women that Deidara had never heard of, although one did mention Sasori no danna's puppets.
The road looped around, and Deidara and Tobi ended up back in front of their new house and art studio.
"What was the point of that, un?" Deidara asked. Obscure village artists had nothing to do with his chakra, as far as he could tell.
"Did anyone say your name, sempai?" Tobi hissed. Still angry for no reason, the blond figured. Deidara shook his head.
"Did they mention explosions as the greatest kind of art?" The volume of his voice rose as he spoke. Deidara shook his head again.
"That's because EXPLOSIONS AREN'T ART!" The masked man punctuated each word with a poke to his chest. "Art is about creating, and all you do is destroy."
"Mr. Tobi?" a small voice asked. Tobi ignored it and continued his rant. Deidara stood, frozen in place. 'You don't understand.'
"You don't make anyone happy but yourself, and even you aren't happy because you're trying to get yourself killed!"
"Mr. Tobi!" Tobi and Deidara both turned and saw the little girl they had met while picking up their keys. She tugged on Tobi's shirt to get him to bend down to her height.
"Sorry, Lin-chan. What do you need?" He asked, reigning in the fury he'd been expressing just seconds before.
"I want a clay puppy. Is your friend settled in yet?" She asked innocently. Deidara felt the blood drain from his face. She wanted him to make a figurine for her? He couldn't…
"See, sempai? Lin wants clay, not bombs. You have a talent, and you could be a great artist if you just-"
Deidara couldn't take it any more. "You don't understand anything, un!" he yelled, and fled into the house.
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Lin blinked up at Tobi. "Did I do something wrong?" she wailed.
Tobi waved his arms and shook his head. "No, you were fine. It's just…not a good time right now. Maybe you should come back in a few days," he told her. She nodded, and walked off sadly.
Tobi sighed. He had thought Deidara would be angry with his accusations and snap out of his depression. Instead, he had become more sullen. Tobi had to be missing something.
He swung the door open cautiously. "Sempai?" He stepped quietly through the house, listening for Deidara. He stopped in front of the door to the empty studio. Through it, he could hear pacing.
"Sempai?" he called again.
"Don't come in!" Deidara ordered.
Tobi dropped his hand from the doorknob. "What's wrong, sempai?" The pacing stopped, but Deidara didn't answer. Taking the silence as an invitation, the dark haired ninja cracked open the door and slipped inside.
"I told you not to come in," Deidara murmured. He was on the far side of the room, staring out of a small window. Tobi didn't approach him. He wanted to ask what the matter was again, but repeating his queries wasn't going to make Deidara answer if he didn't want to.
Deidara tore his gaze from the window and continued his pacing around the studio. He kept himself turned away from Tobi, and his thick blond hair veiled his face. Was he crying? Tobi stayed where he was by the door so Deidara could move around more freely without being seen.
"Why are you still here, un?" the artist asked suddenly.
"Because there's something upsetting you, sempai, and I want to know how I can help."
Deidara turned and walked the length of the room, still avoiding looking at Tobi. "If you want to help, give me back my God damned chakra, un!" he screamed.
Gloved hands clenched into fists. "I'm not going to let you blow up this town or yourself! I'm trying to make a life for us, and all you want to do is destroy it!" It made Tobi's eye see red when he thought about Deidara's final jutsu, and his death wish, and his idea that watching a city being blown up was a form of entertainment. He wouldn't allow any of that to happen, not again.
Deidara turned toward him, but jerked away quickly before Tobi could look into his face. "That's not why!" he cried.
Tobi stepped toward his and held out his hands. "Then tell me why!"
The artist stalked around the studio again. Tobi sat down on the floor. 'I'm not leaving until you tell me,' the action said.
With Tobi seated in the middle of the room, it was harder for the blond to circle around and still avoid meeting Tobi's gaze. He found the one place he could stay without having to worry about Tobi sneaking up on him or himself accidentally turning around; he sat down on the floor, back to back with the other man.
"Kisame brought Sasori-no-danna a puppet one time," Deidara began, in a voice just above a whisper. "I don't think you were around then, un."
Tobi stayed quiet. The story didn't seem relevant, but his sempai had to have a point he was trying to make. He shifted his head to the side so Deidara could rest his head on Tobi's shoulder. It was nice, being so close to his sempai.
"Headquarters used to be boring between missions; out in the middle of nowhere, nothing to do. So Kisame brought back this puppet when he went out, un. You know, a normal puppet with strings and a stick to control it, un." Tobi nodded. Deidara let his head lean back on Tobi as he continued.
"We all sat around, waiting for Danna to entertain us. But when he tried to make the puppet move, he couldn't. The strings got tangled up and it wouldn't move, un. So Danna cut the strings off and put chakra strings on it, like he did with his battle puppets, and then he could work it, un." Deidara finished his story and stopped speaking. Tobi waited for him to continue, but found only silence.
"Sometimes," Tobi said finally, "when you get used to doing something with chakra, you forget how to do it without it. Is that what happened to Sasori-san?" 'Is that what's happened to you?' he wondered.
He felt the movement of Deidara's head against his shoulder. The artist was nodding. "I tried to make a bird, but I…I couldn't. I can't make my art without my chakra, un." His voice was breaking, and Tobi's shoulder had become suspiciously wet. The masked man was careful not to turn and look at him. Deidara would, he had no doubts, kill Tobi if he witnessed the blond's breakdown.
Tobi sat there for a few minutes, letting Deidara rest against him. When the artist's breathing stopped coming out in sobs, he shifted and stood up. "I'll be right back, sempai," he said, and left through the back door.
A few minutes later he returned and handed Deidara a shopping bag. The blond reached in and pulled out the contents. It was a book. Tobi held his breath while Deidara examined the title.
"'Sculpting for Dummies'?" There was a poignant pause. The temperature in the room dropped a few degrees.
"H…how dare you? An artist of my caliber…." Deidara stuttered. He stood up and whirled to face Tobi. His eyes were red and they narrowed when they caught sight of him. "I'll fucking kill you for this insult, un! You BASTARD!"
Tobi had been tackled by Deidara many times over their partnership, but he each time, he never suspected it and was never ready. As always, Deidara's flying leap caught him off guard, and he tumbled to the ground with his sempai on top, pummeling him with his fists.
Behind his mask, Tobi smiled as Deidara attacked him and screeched obscenities. Finally, his sempai was back to normal.
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Rediscovering his clay was a slow, ongoing process. Deidara spent a day and a half molding clay before his hands remembered how to make a bird. Another day of self-imposed exile in his new studio yielded a centipede, an owl, and a dog for the annoying little brat that kept pestering him for one.
The victories with the figurines were tempered with defeats. Growing up, Deidara hadn't had access to an artist's tools. He had created his art with only his hands. The tools he found in the studio closet were foreign to him. During his first encounter with a potter's wheel, he pressed the foot petal too quickly and spattered clay all around the room (it had taken Tobi two hours to clean it all up- Deidara, as an artist, was above such menial tasks). Worse than the wheel, Deidara's first attempt to fire his creations in the kiln was a complete disaster.
It wasn't his fault, of course. He designed pieces that were meant to explode. They were made with air bubbles inside, to facilitate combustion. It wasn't a surprise, really, when the entire batch ended up cracked and shattered.
Looking back, Deidara admitted that he might have lost his temper just a little after that first great defeat. Specifically, he'd gone around the house smashing every piece of pottery he could find: ceramic vases, clay potholders, porcelain plates, everything.
Tobi hadn't been very happy when he'd come back from grocery shopping to find his dishes strewn on the floor. He'd flatly refused to buy more to replace them. That evening, he'd served Deidara dinner straight out of the pot he'd cooked it in.
"That's uncivilized. Go get us some plates, un," he'd insisted.
"No. If you want to eat off of a plate, you'll have to make them yourself," Tobi responded.
Deidara had spent two stubborn days refusing to go near the art studio. On the third day, he'd refused to eat his omelet directly out of the pan. He locked himself in his studio and made plate after warped plate. The first batch, much like his figures, exploded in the kiln, and he wasn't even able to enjoy the aesthetics of the blasts. Explosions were fun, yes, and beautiful to create, but he needed to produce plates. The sense of purpose was far greater than any he'd felt before, enough that he even overcame his disgust and resorted to looking in that book.
He discovered the problem was the air bubbles he left in the clay, which heated and expanded in the kiln, making cracks. The mistake was easy enough to correct; he had a good feel for his clay, and once he knew what consistency he needed it, actually creating it was no great task. He made sure to replace that book exactly where he'd left it, on the floor of the studio where it had been dropped during Deidara and Tobi's fight. He wasn't about to let Tobi know he'd used it.
The first set of plates was ugly and misshapen, but functioned well enough. Tobi treated each dish as if it were the greatest he'd ever seen. It was sickening enough that Deidara made a second, better set to replace them, and hid the first ones deep in the store room. Tobi, who didn't wear his mask when they were alone together, smiled knowingly when he saw the new dishes. The bastard acted like he'd planned it all along. Deidara hated him so much….
Along with his first attempts at vases and pots, a Tobi doll found itself in Deidara's kiln, being baked to its plush-toy death.
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Tobi watched Deidara spin his potter's wheel and slowly form a cup out of clay. He was reacting remarkably well to village life. They both were. The artist had been frustrated at first, but a little motivation had been all he needed. Tobi saw the pride in Deidara's eyes every time one of his sculptures came out of the kiln intact. For a man who had spent so many years destroying things, the ability to create lasting artwork must have been a strange transition, but a welcome one for Deidara.
The book he'd bought for his sempai rested in the same position and place on the floor. Only someone with sharp eyes like Tobi's could have noticed the increasing wear on the spine and the displacement of the dust that signaled the book had been picked up, read, and placed back on the floor. Tobi didn't mention the book; Deidara was entitled to his secrets, and it was stupid to piss off a temperamental artist over such a small deception.
As much as Deidara seemed to enjoy his new studio, Tobi enjoyed the village of Thorn. The people were beginning to overcome their fear of newcomers, and Tobi worked hard to win their trust. He waved at them cheerfully and greeted them whenever he met them. He impressed them with his acrobatics, and even once managed to make use of his shinobi skills rescuing a kitten from a tree.
His acquaintance from the first day in the village, Lin, helped greatly in the villagers' acceptance of the two. She showed all her friends her clay puppy, and the next few days every child in the village had stopped by to obtain their own clay figure. With the children of the village singing the praises of Deidara and Tobi, the parents had to accept their presence.
It was nice, being able to skip and not have anyone reprimand him for acting foolish. It was good making a living without having to use violence and force. It was healing, seeing smiling faces every day and not having to wonder if they'd be alive the next day. The village was peaceful and friendly, once the people got used to them. He'd never been part of a real community before, and the feeling of belonging gave Tobi warm feelings in his chest.
The best part of village life, though, was being with Deidara. They had a home together, and Tobi fantasized that they were a real family, instead of being two partners thrown together. He pretended that Deidara was there with him by choice, not by necessity. He cleaned the house and tried to cook (neither man was particularly skilled with cooking, so they ate out more often than not), blissful in the knowledge that he was taking care of Deidara. The blond didn't seem to notice Tobi's domestic efforts, but the ninja didn't let himself become disheartened. He'd waited years to live with Deidara, and even if they slept in separate rooms and Deidara didn't acknowledge his presence on most days except to order him around like a servant, it made him happy.
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AN: Once again, this chapter is late in coming because fictionpress is too damned distracting. Seriously. I apologize for the lateness and the lack of action, especially in the second half of this chapter. Don't worry, though. It gets more exciting next chapter. This chapter sets the groundwork for the next parts of the story, so it had to be done.
And a random side note: latest manga chapter (371): Pein's like, a friggin' Deidara cosplayer or something. It made me miss Deidei sooooo much! Deidara, you will live on forever in my heart and in my fanfics! This I swear.
And fun with Microsoft spell-check: Apparently, 'Manga' mange