11—Dreaming in a Cage
The hours between when she went to bed and when the sun came up were so long and quiet that she forgot what she was actually doing. Her breathing was tightly regulated to imitate sleep, her chakra levels consciously smoothed into an even, sleepy flow; like this, she maintained herself all the way until morning, watching closely over her roommate who was now habitually sleeping beside her. For three nights, she kept it up.
Two of those three nights produced victims.
Each time, Sakura told them plainly, "I was watching him. He never woke up that night."
It was the truth, but the ANBU were getting antsy enough to not believe her. Tsunade called her into the office this fourth morning, right after finishing the autopsy of their third victim. With her steps wavering a little from lack of sleep, Sakura marched towards the top of the Hokage Tower, ready to raise hell with her teacher and teammates. A shouting match, a fistfight…anything was possible, really.
The doors opened before her and shut quickly behind, and true to her suspicions all her boys plus her teacher were there, waiting to hear what she had to say.
"It's not him."
"We've heard that you're his alibi, Sakura. You've been his ally from the start though, and it's not going to pan out that easy," her teacher returned. Sasuke fidgeted slightly just out the corner of her eye, and Naruto raked his fingers through his hair.
"Sakura-chan, are you sure you know what you're doing?"
"Are you saying I sacrificed three nights of sleep for nothing, Naruto? Deidara never woke up. And between us, if you can keep your damn mouth shut, he never left the bed either. We've gotten in the habit of sleeping in the same bed, and he didn't move an inch the whole night, on any night. The man sleeps like he's dead," she snapped, a growl creeping around the edge of her words. There wasn't a single lie to be had in what she said. Deidara didn't make a sound or budge a finger once he was asleep. He only roused if her chakra fluctuated oddly, before falling back into his personal nirvana. "Deidara-san is innocent. He's being blatantly framed."
"Then what do you expect us to think, Sakura?" Sasuke asked, his dark mood hanging around his shoulders uncomfortably. "What do we have to go on that will tell us otherwise?"
"We're in the middle of a damn residential district. If a bomb went off, don't you think somebody would hear it?"
There wasn't a comeback for that one. In fact, they had already been contemplating it. Three murders had occurred on the roofs of houses that surrounded Sakura's poorly-secured apartment complex, and yet no-one had so much as heard a peep in the night, not even Earthquake Haruno herself, despite how carefully she'd been listening, watching and waiting for something to happen. An explosion solid enough to blow someone's head apart would have to be loud enough to at least wake a building.
The tension in the room was moving, shifting, changing like an acrid tide around their feet, drowning them in feelings of unease and distrust. Her teammates hadn't known what to think from the moment they met him; neither had anyone else. Sakura really was the only one on Deidara's side, and the more she knew about him the more firmly she planted herself there. Inside, he was timid; he was domestic and understanding, and his bloodthirsty side had been an obsession for victory, which eventually became an ingrained façade. She knew him better than anyone, even if she didn't know everything. Even not knowing everything was enough.
She was sure it was enough.
"Deidara-san is innocent. I staked my head on it, right? If he were guilty, or if I doubted him, don't you think I'd be the first to kill him and then finish the mess for you myself?" she asked, and her eyes landed directly on Naruto as she said it. Vehemently, she said, "Trust me, dammit. I've never betrayed you before, and I won't start now. You're my boys, and if there were anyone an enemy would aim for it would be one of us. Like hell will I let an enemy get near you without showing him the Sanzu's bloody banks first."
Naruto's sky-blue eyes were on her, solid but cold. He knew. She knew he knew. Her haggard face could probably tell several stories that her mouth couldn't, and Naruto was the one man in the world who could read them all. He was stubborn as a damn mule and vicious as a lion when he wanted, but he had loved her once upon a time. Whether that was enough to make him really, really look, even she wondered. Sai would make a straight, factual decision whether she pleaded or not; his only change would come with team decision. Sasuke would think for himself, but would surrender his opinions for the sake of Naruto. Kakashi would protect her until she proved herself guilty, but she wouldn't dare make him bloody his hands for her too. The real decision was between Naruto and Tsunade.
Their tempers, their stubbornness… they were so much like each other they could've been mother and son. Even the value they placed on her was an even match, higher than the estimation of anyone else in all the world. Naruto would give her an answer. It would be a heavy one, weighing the safety of the village against her word; it would be a verdict heavier than a blow from her fist, more decisive than a crack in the earth. Even if it was positive, it would mean pressure.
His eyes lowered. He sighed soundlessly and walked towards her, his boots tapping quietly on the floor. At her side, the boy touched his forehead to hers; she could see a few flecks of green mixed into his eyes as they stared sorrowfully down at her face.
"Sakura-chan, I trust you. But I don't trust him."
"You still have to make this decision, Naruto. I can't make even one move if you're not with me," she replied. There was a lot more truth in that statement than she wanted to admit. "If you don't take my word and believe in me this time, it'll be the last time I ever get to ask. You know that, right?"
His eyes didn't waver, even as he said, "Yeah. I know, Sakura-chan."
"Will you let me prove him innocent?" she asked.
"Will you be able to?" he replied, and there wasn't an ounce of hope in his eyes as he asked. Sakura hardened her guard at that. Permission, but not belief. That wasn't the best sign, but it was all she needed.
"Able to? Damn straight I will. When do we start?"
Inside her apartment, Deidara was cleaning up a storm.
In her closet.
"Why the closet?"
"Why not the closet, hmm?" he snapped, head somewhere in the back. With a sudden jostle he threw a handful of unidentified clothing items out into the floor, only to up-end just as many hangers from the rod and drop them on his head. With a fair amount of near-tangible frustration, he sat on her floor and—to the best of her knowledge, she couldn't tell through the clothes—stared at her. "Please, Sakura-chan. Tell me why the closet is such a disaster, yeah?"
"Because I don't have time to clean and you're apparently the only one who has ever noticed," she chirped, acting as cheerful as possible. With extreme difficulty made worse by his growing temper, he finally fought his way out of the clothes on his head. "Sasuke and Naruto give me the clothes they get too big for because I use them for lounging, pajamas, dirty work and stuff. Ino can't fit my clothes because she's too big in the bosom, so I get her hand-me-downs too. But on the reverse side, this means no one is small enough to raid my closet for something to wear, and thus nothing ever goes missing."
He stared. She stared back. Then, as if the very thought pissed him off, Deidara dove into her closet and dug. It wasn't unlike a dog attempting to bury a bone, though in this case he was attempting to unearth her floor. With great zeal, he climbed over a small mountain in the doorway, and after a little crash-banging around he shoved out the entirety of the mess into the middle of her floor rug. Sakura continued to stare, and then clapped lightly.
"Wow, I think I see a jacket I forgot I still had."
Between the hems of some dresses and the top of Mount Junky, Sakura could see Deidara's blue eyes glaring.
She laughed.
After the nice bout of cleaning, arguing and laundry, Sakura found herself in higher spirits as she headed towards the bed. Her personal damper, however, made an immediate appearance at the doorbell, ringing it furiously in a way that spoke just a few, dry words.
Don't expect to sleep.
The second her front door opened, Sasuke spewed, "Where's he been for the last hour?"
Sakura, rather pissed and already sleepy, replied with, "Helping fold the laundry he dug out of my closet. Why, did you want to join the party?"
Without so much as a by your leave, he grabbed her arm and hauled her into the street, pulling her towards the corner of the building roughly.
"This is no time to be joking! We've got another victim!"
"And I told you, Deidara-san has a legit alibi. The laundry. Nosy Yukimura-san from next door could probably tell you that I was taking up all the hot-water ever since two this afternoon," she replied calmly. Deidara hasn't left my sight since then until now, Sasuke-kun."
The classically dark Uchiha eyes examined her closely, observing her for any tick, any indication of unease, but she was completely at home with her words. Every one of them was true; there wasn't a fault to be had, much less to be found. Still, Sasuke's eyes were desperate to make absolutely sure that she wasn't even stretching the truth before he let her arm go. "The ANBU are getting too antsy to handle, Sakura. Just an alibi isn't going to hold them off for long. They may try to kill him."
"You take care of what you can, Sasuke-kun. I'll do the same," she replied softly. In one of her rarer shows of affection, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders briefly. "I'll do what I can. Tomorrow I'll talk to shishou about working this autopsy together. Maybe we can find something that the ANBU medics couldn't."
"Sakura—!"
She released him, and stepped out towards the street. "Stop. Don't worry, don't panic; just trust me."
It was all she could offer him, but she was even starting to doubt herself. Deidara had been with her; it was a solid, airtight alibi if they would actually believe her. Still, every time he really had that airtight alibi, the attacks would occur. It would look like the worst timing ever for a framing, but at the same time it was done deliberately.
Sakura had the grave suspicion that someone was planning to kill two birds with one stone this time around.
Slipping through her front door, the kunoichi shut it calmly behind her, heading for the bedroom as she had originally intended, quite ready for some sleep. Deidara had obviously beaten her to it, and he was spread out on his stomach, pillow tucked beneath his chin, chewing on his thumbnail as he plowed through what appeared to be one of her medical research scrolls on kekkei-genkai and their cancer-like tendencies. Her dry, ironic thought was, 'Gee, what a bedtime story,' as she flopped directly on top of him.
It effectively knocked the breath out of him for a moment, but that was funny anyway. She giggled, and the blond eventually rolled over and held her to him; he was trying to act like he was sulking, but the amusement that glowed on his face ruined it. For a long, long moment, Haruno Sakura lay in the arms of a man once her enemy, now her friend, and contemplated him.
He was a bag of tricks and mischief to begin with, but his domestic side seemed to be getting the better of him here. She wanted him to be free to walk out the front door and down the streets, to shop and the market and make mayhem with the local kids without having to worry about ANBU being on his tail. Still, inside his closed, single-apartment world with little to offer, he seemed happy.
Deidara, locked away in a cell disguised as a home, was dreaming about a future that was so absolutely fragile he couldn't see it about to break. He was dreaming inside a lovely cage, and she felt as if she wanted to keep him tucked away and safe, firmly walled about with his illusions. She didn't want him to know that all hell was about to break loose in the outside world. She didn't want him to notice the bars he'd willingly walked into.
"Deidara, are you happy?" she asked softly. His bright blue eyes lit up, and his smirk was answer enough, really.
"I'm nearly euphoric, yeah."
Instead of making her happy, his contented words made her want to cry.
AN: Umm... wow. I think this is the fastest I've updated in like, forever. An age. Maybe ever, since the start of this one. o.o Shocking! Anyway, having more inspiration for writing lately, and since I'm out of school for the summer I also have more time, despite my moving. I'm glad to have this one in the bag! So very, very glad~
On a side note, I have absolutely no idea how long this story is going to be, but due to circumstances and involved characters, it's probably on the other side of the peak now; just a handful more chapters by guesstimation, so I'll try and churn them out quickly~! Keep an eye out!