Strawberry Milk
It was silent and dark. There really was no reason for Sakura to fly awake as she had. She wasn't particularly uncomfortable, her husband was where he was meant to be, tangled up in her limbs after months of being denied and the baby who had served as a bumper during that time was utterly quiet in his bassinet. Finding an uninterrupted stretch of sleep in those early weeks was a miracle, and yet as she stared at Sasori's face trying to count his eyelashes in the minuscule light, it simply wouldn't come. 'Maybe I'm starting to adapt to whatever passes for a schedule according to Senya.' At any moment her baby would probably go from whimpering to wailing, looking to be fed, changed, or simply held and so she simply laid there and waited.
One minute passed into two, multiplying until Sakura grew restless and couldn't bear it any longer. 'Alright, If I can't sleep I might as well go do...something.' Extracting herself from Sasori was a delicate process, just as her feet were dangling off the bed, searching through the shadows for her fuzzy slippers a hand caught her by the elbow, trying to tug her back towards the bed and the warm body in it. Huffing, she twisted and bent to find that his eyes were open just a sliver. "I'll be back." She murmured, pressing a quick kiss to his sighing lips. His hand relented, slid down her arm, and dropped to the sea of sheets.
The quick, precautionary look-see Sakura had intended to make into the bassinet ensured that her escape was a slow one. Whenever she saw him laying so silently, her first inclination was to check for the worst, hand placed over his chest just to feel the steady rise and fall of it. 'And really, it's impossible to just look at Senya.' Fawning was a far better word to describe what she was doing, A meager four weeks had not been enough to wear away the awe she felt at the sight of him. 'And why should it?' her finger trailed a cute little nose and the curve of plump cheeks.
From the nearly white, peachy-pink fluff of hair that left everyone wondering if it'd darken to her husband's shade or settle into her own, to the still blue eyes that nearly assured he'd share her eye color, he was the most perfect baby she'd ever seen. 'And I've seen a lot.' Although most of those had been from the other side of a glass partition. 'In a contest, he'd beat Shikadei and Inojin hands down.' Especially the latter of the two. 'It's not that I don't love Inojin, but that skin tone is just not normal on an adult, much less a child.' But he was healthy and that was the important thing.
As far as Sakura was concerned, Senya could be the face of any major baby brand—if she were inclined to share him, and she wasn't. 'It's bad enough the tabloids keep trying to get pictures, the bottom feeders.' The face she'd been admiring scrunched as if sharing in her distaste but smoothed before she could truly worry about waking him. 'He's happy enough to sleep.' And so she would let him, even if she couldn't.
30 minutes shy of 3 am and she was out wandering the halls, pouting when faced with what had become her arch-nemesis of late; stairs. Post-pregnancy recovery was more of a personal challenge than Sakura had initially thought it would be given how physically fit she was. 'Or had been.' Sighing, she took the descent with great care and glanced over her shoulder mid-way down, expecting to be faced with Sasori's judging eyes.
If you don't stop going up and down them, I'm going to install a chair lift. Apparently, elevators were only for girls who didn't ignore the nagging of their lapsed-medical-license husbands. 'I'm a doctor too and I actually practiced medicine.' The only person Sasori ever seemed particularly keen to practice on was her.
At the bottom of the steps, there were boxes of Christmas decorations waiting to be delegated into their proper places. They might have been done already if she'd simply left it to Sasori, but Sakura had yet to come to the point where she was willing to completely hand her favorite holiday off to a questionably reformed version of what could only be described as the bizarre lovechild of Ebenezer Scrooge and The Grinch. 'Let's call it a Scrinch, or maybe a Grooge...' She thought, stealing one of the candy canes that had been set aside, awaiting the arrival of some far-flung conifer.
Artificial trees were something Sakura had accepted as a necessary evil the first year she'd come to Suna but somewhere between the years of covert courting and marriage, where she'd dragged him into tinsel and garland, Sasori had become adamant about importing them from the mountain range separating Wind and its northern neighbors. She had her suspicions that the sad, drooping stick of Christmas past was what drove that compulsion and no amount of insisting that the look of it wasn't what mattered was going to change his mind. 'The real ones are best, to begin with.' And It was a far better focus for his attention than his desire to bar everyone else from the holiday. [1]
As she was rolling the peppermint stick to the corner of her mouth Sakura's ears picked up a muffled clatter, like glass being jostled in a room or so away. A creature was stirring and it sounded like it was more than a mouse. 'It's a toss-up between a very dumb burglar and an unannounced visitor.' Sasori would have treated both possibilities with the same amount of contempt. 'So much for his 6th sense…' And he had so much hubris on that point that when he was home, he didn't bother setting the security system. It's not for me, it's for you, or so she had been told.
From the parlor to the first sitting room she couldn't find a thing out of place until she poked her head into the formal dining room and saw the light spilling into it from the kitchen. 'Gotcha.' She had the thought of doubling back and getting the fire poker from one of the hearths but quickly abandoned it. 'What if it's Granny Chiyo and I bust in there waving a sharp iron stick at her?' She could never.
Sidling her way around the long table, Sakura leaned her way into the brightly lit kitchen, recognizing the interloper on sight. "Oh," she sighed, neither alarmed nor relieved to see him sitting there. "It's just you…actually, where the hell have you been?" Her brow furrowed, trying to remember why it felt like it'd been ages since she last saw the man pouring himself a bowl of her secret cereal, colorful confetti bits heaping over the rim. "Hey, that's mine!" She thought she'd hidden it well enough that even Sasori couldn't find it. 'I wedged it between the fridge and the wall…'
"Yeah well your husband stole three months of my life, un!" Deidara scowled and pulled the bowl closer to his center of mass. "He refused to put up any bail money—wouldn't even take my collect calls from jail!" In fact, he hadn't been able to get a hold of anyone. "Consider this just deserts." The eyeliner Deidara wore only served to highlight the long, ogling look he gave her midsection. "You even had the baby while I was gone, un." It just wasn't fair, his plan to switch around the maternity ward infants and dare Sasori to pick the right one was ruined and the disappointment he felt was immeasurable.
Hearing that he'd gotten into trouble with the law wasn't a shocker. 'But Deidara's typically out within 24 hours.' One way or another. "Why not pay your own bail?" Sakura wasn't exactly sure what his job title was on paper, but it probably read along the lines of; Paid-Henchman and Agent of Chaos; proactive and prolific destroyer of private and public property on demand or otherwise, doer of miscellaneous and often dirty deeds for a moderate price. 'Job perks include political immunity in foreign countries, free food because he steals it, and all-expense-paid trips to every backveld and hole in the wall you've never heard of.'
"Funny you should mention that un," Deidara mumbled, the spoonful of rainbow sugar in his mouth clinked against his teeth. "Along with most of my calls going straight to the modem noise from hell, all my finances were completely suspended." He should have known better than to rely on banks. 'Didn't I pay my taxes last year?' That had been the primary charge—as to what or who had tipped them off, there were plenty of candidates. 'Off the top of my head; Sasori, Kakazu, Gaara, Kankuro, Naruto, that fat old grandpa from back home, Sasori's grandma…Oh, and that kid whose skateboard I set on fire.' And truly, if he'd known there was a warrant out for his arrest he never would have cut that lady off at the intersection.
"Uh-huh, What an odd series of coincidences." Sakura's eyes flicked knowingly towards the ceiling, staring in the direction where her husband was last seen. 'And I would be shocked if he didn't have something to do with them.' As for why she couldn't quite say. 'I'll figure it out, in the meantime, I'll let him finish that bowl and then show him the door.' They clearly needed to have another talk about boundaries which would be disregarded almost as soon as the words pierced his ears. Picking up the cereal to place it back in its hiding place, she stopped and gave the box a shake. "You ate all of it?" Her foot tapped against the floor in agitation, a clear warning to tread carefully for anyone who cared to pay attention.
Deidara looked up from watching milk drip down his spoon. "Yea, you're also out of milk. I know he's rich but you've got to get your husband to stop blowing money on ridiculous organic-artisan nonsense, that little glass bottle barely had enough for one bowl." He said, jerking a thumb to the counter behind him. "It's some of the best milk I've ever had but there is no way it's worth whatever he's paying for it, un."
'Sasori does have a habit of that. The man buys luxury water with the herb sprigs in it. What a waste.' But for as long as Sakura could recall he'd been buying dairy products from the same small farm and she'd never seen it in little bottles. 'Jugs usually.' She looked towards the marble island and then did a double-take as the candy cane fell from her mouth and broke all over the floor. "That's my milk!" She cried, stomach sinking.
Rolling his blue eyes towards the ceiling, Deidara flapped a hand at her. "Yea, yea and this is your cereal, and your spoon, and your house. You're both so selfish, un." Just to spite her, he looked Sakura dead in the eye and took a long, lingering lick of the utensil.
The box scrunched and crumpled beneath the force of Sakura's hands. That was milk she'd suffered to make, sitting around with that stupid, embarrassing machine hooked up to her breasts, trying to coax her body into producing as much milk as her baby could want. 'Not that Senya cares.' He treated silicone nipples like someone was trying to shiv him in the face with a knife, wailing until he was practically purple and as Sasori had so helpfully remarked, it was torture for everyone so she'd given up trying. 'And just because I feel bad about it going to waste doesn't mean I want him consuming it!'
Deidara was the type of man who, even when he knew that he was in danger, tended to flaunt it. He lived fast and loose, so of course, he looked her right in the eye and slowly took another bite, a thin dribble of white sloping down the corner of his mouth. "Don't you know not to cry over spilled milk, un?" The explosive reactions he could never get out of Sasori were abundant in Sakura, evident in the way that she shook, fingers wrapping around the back of a chair until her knuckles were white. 'And as an added bonus, bothering her bothers him,' Especially when Sasori wasn't around to see it for himself. 'It's a two for one deal that I'm not about to resist.'
It felt violating and the blood in her body went straight to bubbling hot, throbbing with every pass it made through her circulatory system. There were only two people who were supposed to have any sort of intimate knowledge of how she tasted and he wasn't one of them. The low keening scream caught in the back of Sakura's throat would have gone uncared for if not for the very same sixth sense she'd mocked moments ago.
For as long as Sasori could remember he had been a light sleeper, a fact that given the recent changes in his life he now acknowledged must have been a struggle for his parents. It was a state of being that his mandatory stint in the military and the off-the-books operations that followed had honed. By necessity, he learned to fall asleep anywhere and if he woke due to some aberration that his subconscious mind had alerted him to he could fall back into slumber as soon as it was resolved. 'But I have no interest in becoming used to an empty bed.'
The longer Sasori had laid there waiting the less content he felt and judging by the noises Senya had begun to make as he left seeking their communal pacifier, he wasn't alone in that impatience. The worrisome habit Sakura had developed around the middle of her pregnancy where she would leave, or try to leave and buy junk food in the dead of night was no longer a concern and while he knew that she hadn't gone far but he was still relieved to find her standing beneath the bright kitchen lights in her mint green nightgown even as he took in the tight, tense lines of her spine and shoulders.
Deidara saw him first, as the darkness looming beyond the kitchen was dragged from his mussy red hair like a black shroud. Eager and foolish enough to cause more chaos he tipped his head back to down the last dregs of milk and soggy rice-crispy bits from the bottom of the bowl. 'Discord is the spice of life.' he thought, setting the bowl down with a smack of his lips. "Been a wh—ack!" A chair came slamming down on the table, narrowly missing his head as it smashed the bowl and scattered pieces into his lap.
"That's my breast milk you fucking degenerate!" Sakura howled and tried to follow up her chair toss with a lunge, but as she had miserably noted when coming down the steps, she was too damn slow and he scuttled away, using the island as a barricade against her.
As evidenced by the sight before him, Sasori had made a mistake in judgment. 'I should have dealt with him myself.' A prime opportunity would have been back when he'd first heard the slam of a car door and Deidara's imbecilic verbal tic but no, he'd magnanimously decided to deal with the breaking and entering—a repeat offense of his, at a later date. Preferably when his wife and baby weren't sleeping. 'Or around as potential witnesses to a crime.' He highly doubted that when his Mother In Law spoke about baptism she meant for it to be in blood. 'But here we are.' he quietly eyed the assortment of knives on display, each arranged according to size and purpose.
It was the sound of whispering steel that turned Sakura's head. "He's a milk-thief," she whispered as though it pained her to say, eyes big and wet as she looked at her husband. 'For the rest of my life, Deidara is going to run around telling people he's tasted me.' She could never show her face in public again. The knife that Sasori was holding went unnoticed even as she pressed her temple into his chest, protected from losing an eye only by the man's quick thinking and fast reflexes.
Unsure of exactly what to say because it's all right was hardly a comfort and certainly a lie, Sasori said nothing and put a pause in considering all of the things he could be doing to Deidara with that sharp, mirror polished blade. 'It's very hard to commit murder when your wife wants hugging.' And he had his priorities. ' Deidara can die any day and at any second.' He wasn't picky about it. 'If anything the one most desperate for the hour to fall upon him, is him.' And as much as he would relish expediting that moment, the bunched muscles and tendons between Sakura's shoulder blades were just starting to relent beneath his hand.
Deidara peeked over the top of the counter, looking from Sakura to the broken bits of glass and back. "Huh." He said, tongue rolling around his mouth as he considered the new revelation she'd dropped on him. The mental scale wobbling between gross and magically delicious. "Have you tasted that stuff?"
Of all the virtues that Sakura had, a poker face was not among them. Her head jerked up from its hiding place, cheeks red from something other than fury. "That was an accident!" She cried. "It just...leaked." She was still adjusting to that new phenomenon, among other things.
'Bless her, un' Truly, it was as though the heavens had created Sakura to be a perfect little foil to Sasori's default setting of unreactivity. The baking soda to his vinegar. 'A chink in his armor of apathy.' It would be a complete waste if Deidara didn't take advantage of her. "Oh sure, and his mouth just happened to be on your tit at the time too, un." He quipped, chin against the counter as the garish grin stretched over his face, reminiscent of the Cheshire-Cat in the midst of its disappearing act.
"It's not like that!" Sakura bristled, quickly whisked right back into a fervor. "We were taking a shower and—" her hands wavered around her chest in frustration. 'Well, it wasn't strictly just a shower.' There had been cuddling of some sort, but that was about all they could indulge in for weeks or even months more but it was nowhere close to what he was insinuating. The incident had been such a shock to her sensibilities she'd completely shut down any attempts Sasori had made to talk about it, determined to go about as if it hadn't happened until Deidara wandered in and gleefully stepped all over that covered landmine.
Standing there with his arms now very empty, Sasori sighed towards the ceiling. "Sakura," This, he noted not for the first time, was exactly why it would be very bad if anyone ever had cause to question her about legal matters. "Don't explain yourself to him." He could understand perfectly well why it bothered her to find that some maggot had snuck in and guzzled down several ounces of her bodily fluid-it was displeasing to him too. 'What I can't quite configure is why it's a problem that I've done it.' Mostly by accident but he certainly wasn't averse to a repeat performance. 'It's inevitable.' 6 months to a year of feeding Senya made It so, even if she had yet to think it through.
"Eww, what would the public do if they ever heard about your weird kinks, un?" Deidara clucked his tongue. "I can just see the tabloids now; The Secret Dairy Predilections of Recluse Royals, Is Human Milk Better than Soy?" He lit a fuse and all there was left to do was watch as it hit the powder keg.
In the blink of an eye Sakura froze, didn't even draw a breath as her brain jumped at the insinuation. 'What if he posts this to social media?' Dumb luck wasn't what kept their private life and the daily tribulations therein from being splashed all over supermarket magazines and internet blogs. It was friends—Sakura's to be exact and family who kept their mouths shut along with a generous amount of money and influence doled out to publications on her husband's part. 'Sometimes even that's not enough.' Every now and then some minuscule thing would be zoomed in on and amplified to ridiculous proportions.
'Like body language experts with their pseudoscience opinions claiming that my marriage is headed for divorce because of the angling of my torso.' That had Sasori looking at her sideways for a whole week and Sakura's mother had most certainly called after spotting that issue in the check-out line. 'She sounded pretty disappointed when we hung up too.' The news that two grown men had tasted her breast milk would likely be the most salacious thing that had ever come out. 'They're going to think that I'm into weird shit.' Stranger things—fetishes that Sakura wasn't even going to dignify with names.
"Are you going to start calling her Mommy from now on, un?"
Only Sasori's eyes moved—a glimmer of anticipation to be seen in the smooth shift from one instrument of inanimate murder to his wife.
Deidara thought she was slow, he'd gotten away the first time and decided that the relatively recent experience of childbirth had hobbled her—he should have quit while he was ahead because fury had a way of dulling the senses and whatever discomfort Sakura felt as she lunged against the counter to grab him by his stupid long hair didn't register. "This time you've done it for real!" Like reeling in a fish, she tried to haul the squealing man over the counter all as he tried to dance around the edge."I'm going to kill you." She seethed, arms straining. "I'm going to drag your corpse out and bury you in the greenhouse"
"Fuck, un!" It felt like Deidara's whole face was being stretched upwards by her yanking. 'Starting to feel like I might have made a mistake…' A nervous laugh escaped him. "Come on, this really doesn't feel like it's in the Christmas spirit…"
"Don't worry, I'll plant something nice over you." Sakura was all grit teeth as she pressed his head down into the hard surface.
'With enough pressure, his brain might splatter like a ripe tomato.' Sasori took a seat at the counter, chin propped against the palm of his hand a sadistic smile began to play at his lips. "If he wants to get festive, we can bury him with a stake of holly through his heart." The suggestion was ripped right from the pages of A Christmas Carol. 'Very fitting.' He spun the knife, point down like a dreidel.
The possibility of Deidara dying that night was high. Help was not coming from Sasori who was sitting down as if it were a dinner show on display rather than attempted manslaughter and none of the apologetic garblings that made their way past his smooshed lips could reach Sakura in that haze of red. It was Senya and his ear drilling cry from the floor above that had her neck craning upwards, grip slacking as the pressure building in her chest dampened her bloodlust and threatened to do the same to the front of her dress. "Ooh!" She made damn sure to give his head one last hard knock into the counter before sprinting out of the room without a look back at the dazed and battered man.
"What a shame." The spinning dance of the blade came to an end. "What to do with you?" Sasori flinched, his considerations interrupted by the sound of a loud thump and a secondary whine reaching his ear. "I warned her about those steps.' The spine of the knife nudged against Deidara's battered cheek. "Three months was clearly not enough of a time out for you."
Accusatory blue eyes snapped to attention. "It was you, un!"
"Obviously, you Idiot." There was no way Sasori was going to let Deidara anywhere near his laboring wife or a newborn he was obligated to care about. 'I could solve all my troubles tonight and be done with him.' But truly, that would take far more effort and energy than he was currently willing to expend when there was someone else he would rather be with. 'Her anger is fleeting and she'll regret wanting him dead when it's done.' But he could hardly let him go unaccosted. He thought on it for a moment, filtering out the angry chatter being thrown his way until an idea seized him. "You should consider what you're about to experience a Christmas miracle." He said, snatching at the sad, sloppy top-knot Deidara still sported.
A sharp, unrelenting pull forced Deidara to scramble in the wake of Sasori's quick steps. "What is it with you people and the hair? Is this another one of your kinks, un?" He just couldn't stop himself. The back door flew open and a burst of teeth-chattering cold air hit him in the face, the sudden slack his head experienced sent him stumbling out into the dark, ass hitting the pavement at the end of his unbalanced reel-around.
"Keep your mouth shut. If you show up before the New Year, I really will kill you." He'd have plenty of time to prepare for it.
Deidara only got a brief glimpse of the man standing there as the door was kicked shut, knife in one hand, odd yellow tuft in the other.
Putting away his weapon of choice Sasori ambled up the steps to find his wife in the rocking chair he'd made, Senya turned to her chest, tiny little fingers twitching with each draw.
"Is he dead?" Sakura found that It was hard to stay angry and sustain it when her body was periodically spiking with oxytocin.
The price that Sasori exacted in place of blood was dangled in front of her, blonde strands tickling against her cheek. "In the spirit of the season I have been most generous." When he realized he was missing a good chunk of hair, Deidara was likely to blow a gasket of his own. 'Fair is fair.' And even if it wasn't, in this case, he didn't give a damn.
Sakura turned her head trying to hide a smile at the sight but a ditty spilled from her lips all the while. "On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...the many split ends of a man-child." She cooed to the baby feeding at her breast, growing sleepier as the moments passed.
"Wait until you see what I have planned for the fourth day," Sasori spoke the ominous words through the kiss he pressed into the crown of her head.
[1] If you go back and read Spring Fever it's mentioned that as a young child, shortly after his parent's death Sasori tried to celebrate Christmas—-secretly. He wasn't very good at it. There was a half-dried-out twig, some handmade ornaments and the one thing he wanted was his parents.
That didn't happen and you can imagine that it would sour his feelings about the holiday (and other things.) for years afterward
I had originally wanted to hold off on talking about their kid(s?) until I had written about them in pre-existing fics like Spring Fever but that is soooo far off into the future and the premise for this was so amusing that I couldn't resist.
Senya was born on Oct 31st which also makes him a Scorpio. The week or so difference between Sasori and his son is based on personal experience—only those were both Gemini. (It's also my favorite holiday but mostly, the decision was based on my desire to torture Sakura and the world with a double dose of Sasori's neuroticism. I am a cruel, fickle god, tremble before me.)
The name is a bit of a double homage. Romanized, it starts with an S, as both Sakura and Sasori do, and ends with A, as Sakura's does.
But, Senya, written as; 千夜 meaning "A Thousand Nights" or "Many Nights" [as close as I can approximate it.] can also be related to Chiyo (Sakura assumes it does, Sasori insists otherwise.) meaning 1000 years/generations. For Sasori It's simply poetic and he likes big numbers, his grandma doesn't have a legally binding trademark on 1000.
It is somewhat of a feminine name for a boy but anyone who bullies him about it is gonna experience insta-regret.
In "Story-time" it's exactly Dec 1st. You don't have to squint, this is Spring Fever-verse. In my household, not only do we eat candy canes, we also use them as tree decorations.
There may or may not be a more Christmas-themed fic taking place in Spring-Fevers past in the works but you won't see it until well after (This) Christmas.
I had a cold for Thanksgiving and I had a cold for Jesus' B-day. I'm not having a good time.