Exhausted and drained, they stumbled into Hidan's flat. With Kakuzu's arm wrapped around him, it felt to Hidan like a horrible parody of the night they'd got together. He nearly slipped over on his post, which one of his fucking interfering neighbours must've put through his letterbox. There was quite a lot.
Kakuzu picked it up. "Hidan, really?" he said, waving a threatened HMRC envelope in his face. Red capitals admonished him through the plastic window. Hidan groaned.
"Ah fuck," he protested, batting it away. "I was meant to sort it before we went away! I forgot, alright?! Is this really the time, man?"
"OK. Maybe not - definitely not," Kakuzu agreed, rubbing a hand across his eyes. "But, why do you do your own tax returns? Why not get an accountant?"
"Ah, man, I probably will. It's just, self-employed shit, it takes them fucking years to catch up..."
"You want me to take a look? Tomorrow, maybe."
"Yeah, sure, man," Hidan let out a weary giggle with a distinctly hysterical edge. "Fucking, be my guest - the shit's all over the dining table." He cast himself down onto the settee and buried his face in a cushion.
"OK," Kakuzu perched next to him, absent-mindedly rubbing between his shoulder blades. "Don't worry, we'll sort it out." He flicked through the rest of the envelopes just because having something to sort was soothing. There were a surprising number. One was an official looking one with a St Martin's stamp on it. Probably a cheque - these places were antiquated. Which made Kakuzu think; if the admin team had Hidan's address, maybe it wasn't too hard for anyone else there to get hold of. He stacked the post on the coffee table. "Don't open any of these for now," he told Hidan.
"Sure, whatever," Hidan shrugged, rolling over and rubbing his face against Kakuzu's sleeve. "You think there's razor blades and dog shit in them?"
"Hopefully not. But let's just not give ourselves any more to deal with right now, hm?"
Hidan had a pizza in his freezer, so they ate that, and drank tropical juice, and went to bed. Purple sheets, Kakuzu noted. Purple. But that was about as far as he got before simply being enormously grateful to be in a bed. A noticeably softer bed than his own, too. Admittedly, it wouldn't do his back many favours over an extended period, but right now... particularly combined with Hidan pressed against his chest; well, he wasn't going to complain. He draped an arm over him and after another heartbeat felt Hidan's fingers sliding between his own.
"I love it when you do that..." he murmured into the back of his neck.
"Mm, I can tell," Hidan murmured sleepily.
Kakuzu sighed. He knew Hidan would be out like a light any minute, and he shouldn't try to keep him awake, he really shouldn't... but he just wanted to not be alone with his thoughts for a little longer. "I was ... really glad you were with me today," he whispered.
Hidan wriggled round to face him. "I felt like a fucking useless piece of shit," he said wonderingly.
"I know you did, but honestly, I've had trained surgical assistants losing their breakfasts at a procedure like that before. You were perfect - everything I sprang on you, you were on it - even manipulating that bone yourself. And if you hadn't spotted it so quickly when Deidara was about to throw up we could've been in some serious trouble. I still don't know what tipped you off."
"He doesn't keep down anything that disagrees with him. I've ended up holding his hair back at a fuckload of parties..." Hidan wriggled down to fit his head into the crook of Kakuzu's shoulder. "The kind of parties you'd hate, with K and G and crystal meth and everyone mashed off their faces."
"Do you miss that scene?" Kakuzu stroked Hidan's hair off his face.
"Nah, man," Hidan's voice was soft and slurred. "I haven't even really thought about shit like that while I've been with you." And then, like that, he was asleep, and although Kakuzu thought he'd toss and turn for hours, he was so exhausted that he was soon soothed into sleeping as well.
But after only a few hours he was awake again, with a dead arm and a distinct ache in his lower back.
He carefully extracted himself from Hidan's sleeping embrace and lay restless and comfortless at the edge of the bed in an effort not to disturb him. Getting relentlessly more and more awake, he reached over to the bedside table for his phone. There was a brief message from Konan; she'd seen Deidara in recovery but he hadn't been coherent and they hadn't broken the news. He was sleeping now, and she had gone home.
He checked a couple of new sites then, and that was when he realised that this accident had, bizarrely and coincidentally, been an incestuously art world affair. The driver of the pink smartcar had actually been a student protégée of Sasori's grandmother, the artist Chiyo Suna, and her passenger was his little cousin Gaara. They'd been helping Chiyo to prepare for the opening of her first exhibition of new work in decades. Both had escaped with minor injuries. The third vehicle had been driven by none other than their old friend Kakashi Hatake, again with a student in tow, the back of the car full of previously unexhibited sculptures that Chiyo had decided at the last minute to include.
That gave Kakuzu an uncomfortable jolt and he spent the next few minutes trying to find out if Kakashi was okay. It seemed that he hadn't yet been discharged from hospital, but he was stable. He looked down at Hidan, sleeping beside him, and felt a twinge of guilt at just how very attractive he'd found Kakashi. Stop it, he told himself. It doesn't mean any more than Hidan flicking through Grindr.
Chiyo's private view had, of course, been cancelled and the exhibition was being re-planned as a major retrospective. There was a lot of speculation about whether it would be a joint retrospective and much was made of the fact that Sasori and Chiyo had only very recently started talking again after a bitter family feud. The rest of the extended family - with the possible exception of Gaara who had always at least attended Sasori's openings - were still said to be definitely estranged from him. Kakuzu, from what he'd read between the lines of Sasori's occasional dark hints on the subject, thought that was probably an understatement. Sasori had even changed his name to distance himself from them - it had been one of the first things that interested Kakuzu about him when he'd started buying art seriously in the mid-nineties.
Of course, as a major collector who owned a lot of Chiyo's seminal works from that period, as well as a huge amount of Sasori's spanning his entire career, all this did depend a lot on his co-operation. Kakuzu sat up - noticing another twinge in his back as he did so - and rubbed his temples where he could feel a headache forming. He was bound to be approached and he wasn't at all sure how this would go down with the rest of their friends. Konan would want the retrospective to be at Akatsuki Gallery and the remaining Suna clan would almost certainly be dead set against it, but certainly the small commercial gallery that had represented Chiyo all through her career was not going to have the space to do it justice. It wasn't beyond the bounds of possibility that a major gallery like Tate Modern might want to be involved.
He suddenly had a very vivid recollection of walking into the Akatsuki space for the first time and could hardly believe it was more than a decade ago now. They'd been preparing for the opening of Orochimaru's first exhibition there and Sasori had been with him - he'd been Orochimaru's boyfriend at the time, though not for much longer. It was already obvious that Sasori was less than enamoured with certain aspects of his behaviour and he and Kakuzu gone round the corner to a grimy cafe - this was before the relentless gentrification of the East End had really taken hold - and had a nice chat while Orochimaru flounced around interfering with Konan's decisions on how to hang the show. She'd been so young then, but already so cool and elegant, her curating flawless. Kakuzu and Sasori had recognised a kindred spirit in each other immediately, but even from the start it was uncomplicated by any attraction to each other - for which they'd both been grateful. Kakuzu recalled with a twinge of shame that he'd been - most ill-advisedly - involved with another artist whom Akatsuki gallery had briefly represented at the time - the guy who'd ODed on mephedrone - and he'd been finding it hard going already too.
Kakuzu had in fact known Orochimaru vaguely already, because the promiscuous bastard been going out with Kimimaro four or five years earlier, and Kim had brought him to the operating department Christmas party. Then, when Orochimaru spent all evening ogling Kabuto, he'd got so drunk he'd vomited into a potted fern. Kakuzu could still hear Kim's agonised wail of "he's not even a fucking surgeon, why is he here?" as he hung retching off Kakuzu's arm. Kakuzu hadn't quite liked to admit he'd brought Kabuto there himself - being dumped by his date wasn't something he'd wanted to shout from the rooftops. Orochimaru had left the party with Kabuto, and some time later he'd ditched him for Sasori, who promptly returned the favour when Kakuzu had introduced him to Kabuto himself. Though Kakuzu was pretty sure now that Orochimaru and Kabuto had carried on fucking all along... That was the art scene in the 90s for you, he supposed. Everyone making up for the devastation of the 80s. No-one had even batted an eyelid.
Then there had been the various scandals, the suicides and overdoses had started, Zabuza Momochi was arrested with an underage boy, Orochimaru got himself fired from the Chelsea faculty - or was it St Martin's? Or both...? Itachi had come on the scene with his actually quite crazy boyfriend... Juzo, was it? - a very conceptual Goldsmiths graduate - who'd been tragically killed in some kind of brawl. And Orochimaru had broken up with Kabuto again and gone after Itachi with the kind of stalkerish determination that in retrospect, they should all have tried to put a stop to much much earlier.
One thing was clear, with all this going round in his head he wasn't going to get any more sleep for a while.
He tucked the duvet carefully back around Hidan and went into the living room. Perhaps sorting out Hidan's tax affairs would help him get his thoughts under control.
The rest of the night was a haze of exhausting himself with bureaucracy and crawling back in next to Hidan for short bouts of unrestful sleep. He called some clients in different time zones, he texted Kim and Konan - but it seemed they were both getting a better night's sleep than he was. Finally at about 5am he gave in, made himself a cup of strong black tea, and accepted that the night might as well be considered over. He wrote some emails, rearranged some meetings so he could work from home for the day and was just considering getting in the shower when Hidan appeared in the doorway, tousle-haired and trailing his dressing gown.
"You get a call yet?" he asked immediately.
Kakuzu shook his head. "Konan texted," he said. "Deidara came round pretty incoherent - as expected - and he's sleeping it off."
Hidan was staring at the array of papers in front of him. "Wow," he said. "How long have you been up?"
Kakuzu made a dismissive gesture. "On and off since about 1am - too much adrenaline yesterday, I guess."
The sun was just rising over the Thames and pinkish light started to bathe the room. Hidan shrugged on his dressing gown and crossed over to where Kakuzu was sitting. "Fuck, let me get you a coffee or something!" he exclaimed. He leant over to see what he'd been doing. "Did you seriously sort out my fucking tax return for relaxation? Fuck me!"
"It kept my mind occupied." Kakuzu murmured. He looked up at Hidan and managed to muster a smile for him. "Coffee would be nice," he agreed, only realising as he said it that actually, yes, he really ready did want that. "As would some real food," he added, slipping a hand into Hidan's open dressing gown and pulling him close. "You seem to be down to energy bars and protein shakes..."
"Oh, sure," Hidan hooked his arm around Kakuzu's neck and dropped a kiss on top of his head. "Do you want to go out, or shall I go and get us something?"
Kakuzu, still in his pyjamas, didn't feel like facing the world on an empty stomach. They decided that Hidan would nip round the corner to get bacon sandwiches and coffee. Matters were slightly complicated by the fact that he had actually nothing left to wear, but after shoving what looked to Kakuzu like a rather over-large load into his washing machine he pulled on his least compromised jeans and a hooded sweatshirt that Kakuzu hadn't worn on holiday. He examined his reflection in the bathroom mirror with critical satisfaction. "I just need a fucking baseball cap and I could pass for fucking fifteen!" he said, putting up the hood. "It's fucking nice and cosy, anyway."
An hour later, having eaten and showered and feeling a little more human, they were still waiting to be summoned. Kabuto had called while Hidan was out - his shift had just ended and he was on his way home. There had been some concerns about a possible head injury during the night and they'd been monitoring Deidara in the ICU until a few hours ago. They'd done a scan but it hadn't shown anything conclusive. "Don't come in yet," he'd said. "I think he'll sleep for a few more hours now. Kim's going to check in on him when he comes in."
Now Hidan, just out of the bathroom, was wandering around in his last pair of boxer shorts waiting for his wash to finish. Yahiko had called at 8am on the dot and said that he'd rearranged his appointments for the day, but that he still had to see Yugito Nii tomorrow. And though neither of them felt remotely like going to work, an empty day stretching ahead of them was unsettling. Neither of them could quite think past the point of breaking the awful news to Deidara, however much they tried to distract themselves with the mundane. Still, Hidan was - in a rather disorganised fashion - doing his best to get his flat tidy and Kakuzu had all the paperwork available to him pretty much sorted. After Hidan had produced some slightly crumpled bank statements he'd figured out where he was going wrong with his projected income. A few calls to HMRC from his own accountant would soon straighten things out. There were just a few points of slight ambiguity...
"Come over here a second, Hidan," he called, holding up a sheaf of papers. "Can you just clarify this for me. These regular donations..."
Hidan wandered over from the kitchen, where he was loading most of the contents of the fridge into the bin, and gave the statement a cursory glance. "Oh, they're to the Church," he said casually.
Kakuzu opened his mouth to speak. Closed it again. The amounts were ... really considerable. From the little Hidan had told him he'd assumed that this cult was a fairly small outfit. This was looking more like ... well ... the word 'scientology' hovered ominously in his head. This was really disturbing. "Right," he said heavily. "The church."
Something in the kitchen started beeping, and Hidan wandered off again. Kakuzu watched him with a sick weight of anxiety in his chest. Who were these people? How had they got their claws into Hidan in the first place? Did he really want to be part of this? Kakuzu had to admit, it looked as though he really did. Oh love, you really have drunk the cool-aid, haven't you? he thought, his heart heavy. Not only that; Kakuzu wasn't at all sure how he'd cope emotionally without it. So often his hand was at that rosary, running the beads through his fingers or tracing around the edge of the symbol. So many times he'd glance at him and see his lips moving in a silent prayer; his face suddenly unbelievably serene...
Well. He had their bank details now and he had sources who could find out a fair amount about them with that. He discreetly photographed the relevant documents, then tidied up the papers and filed them as neatly as he could in Hidan's rather chaotic system. Then he went to join him in the kitchen, trying to put the situation out of his mind for the time being. A discussion at this stage wouldn't do any good at all.
Hidan was unloading his washing and the sight of him engaged in such a domestic task was so incongruously pleasing to Kakuzu that it wasn't actually very difficult to put the church donations out of his head at all. However, domesticity did not seem to be Hidan's strong suit...
"Ah fuck, this doesn't smell right!" He dropped his laundry back into the basket with a grimace and slammed the washing machine door shut so hard it bounced open again and hit him on the shin. "Fucking piece of shit!"
Kakuzu squatted down in front of it. "When did you last run a maintenance cycle?" he asked, spinning the drum around. He pulled out the detergent drawer, then made a little grimace as he removed it fully and placed it carefully in the sink.
"You what?" Hidan said blankly.
Kakuzu smiled. He might even have rolled his eyes - just a little. "You're really not ready for the grown-up world, are you love? Appliances do need a little bit of TLC, you know!" He closed the washing machine door with exaggerated gentleness. "We'll nip out and pick up a cleaner for it. And clean the filter. That'll probably sort it out. We can get some dishwasher salt while we're at it - I suppose you've never heard of that either!"
"Fuck you, man." Hidan grabbed Kakuzu's belt buckle and jerked him towards him. "Where'd you get off on bring so fucking patronising, 'daddy'," he said with slow deliberate insolence, right up against Kakuzu's mouth.
"Oh, don't you mean, 'fuck me'?" Kakuzu leant back against the work surface, enjoying the way that pulled Hidan after him. "Because that's what you usually mean," he kept his voice infuriatingly cool, "when you get all ... up in my face like this..."
"Hm." Hidan just lolled against Kakuzu's chest rather than make any effort to keep his balance; one hand working the end of Kakuzu's belt through the metal, his other arm hooking around his neck. "Actually I think I want you to blow me..."
Kakuzu raised an eyebrow. "What are you undoing me for, then?"
"Habit, I guess," Hidan murmured, shifting his hips back a little, and Kakuzu got his hands around his waist, easing his boxer shorts down; letting them drop to the floor. He nudged the laundry basket aside with his foot, then turned Hidan around to sit him on top of the washing machine. He dropped to his knees in front of him, pushing his legs wider apart, intensely enjoying the sight of him getting harder before his eyes.
"Ahh," he breathed. "Do you know how much I love doing this for you?" He started trailing a line of kisses along Hidan's inner thigh, breathing in deeply, feeling almost weak with desire for him.
"Oh fuck, yes, I think I can fucking tell!" Hidan moaned in reply, as Kakuzu's sucking, nipping kisses reached his balls, which tightened gratifyingly. One hand kept Hidan's knees wide, the other smoothed up over his stomach, his taut abs, reached up to caress around a nipple, taking a moment to just feel the beautiful solid smoothness of him before trailing back down.
Anything else Hidan had to say was lost in a moan of pleasure as Kakuzu's tongue explored around the base of his cock, then slid up to the head. He took it in - not that deeply, one hand working the shaft, the other working its way back... A quick glance up at Hidan confirmed that this was having the desired effect, and Kakuzu felt distinctly grateful that Hidan had managed to half undo his trousers before he'd interrupted him. Slick with saliva, one of Kakuzu's fingers began to work around Hidan's ass and Hidan moaned and pushed back against him. Clearly he was after the gold standard here. Kakuzu took his hand away for a moment to free his own erection and pump lazily up and down. He took Hidan's cock deeper into his mouth, slid his other hand down. While he didn't have quite Hidan's level of interest in self-abasement, there was something about the feel of him pushing deeper into the back of his throat than was entirely comfortable that was also deeply arousing. He was fully hard in seconds, and, as he was counting on - aroused as he was - producing a nice quantity of pre-cum.
With his fingers as slick as he could make them he was back on his mission with both hands, and soon had a finger halfway into him. Hidan's head was thrown back in ecstasy, he was clearly utterly in thrall to Kakuzu's every tiny movement and he took full advantage of that, working that finger deeper in, a second one starting join it. The rest of that hand around his balls, the other hand back to working the length of his cock, he pulled back a little to really focus on the head and was swiftly rewarded with that thrumming buzzing sensation against his tongue. He paused for a moment - he wasn't ready for Hidan to come quite yet, he wanted him completely out of control; desperate for it. He let Hidan's cock just rest against his tongue a moment. Lazy movements now, letting him slide in and out, really working those fingers, a third slipping in with a little more friction, so he went slowly, making Hidan come to him at first; then harder, more insistent - and he was so open now, so vulnerable, Kakuzu could make him almost sob with the intensity of it, could bring him right to the edge and then pull him back.
And suddenly he didn't want to wait any more - he sucked harder, pulling him back in deeper again, really going for it now, making himself almost dizzy but determinedly keeping up his rhythm. "Kakuzu, shit! Oh my God, Kakuzu!" he heard, at the same time as a salty taste began to spread in his mouth. He pulled back again - just keeping his lips around the head of Hidan's cock - because a dick firing on all cylinders into his mouth was something he liked to feel the full force of.
Sitting back on his heels, he wiped his mouth with the back of his free hand. Hidan was still gasping on top of the washing machine, leaning back on his elbows; laundry powder and fabric conditioner bottles teetering on either side of him. Kakuzu slowly extracted his fingers and opened his arms wide. "Come to daddy, then, sweetheart," he said, one eyebrow raised.
Hidan slithered off the machine and into his waiting embrace. That had been fucking off the scale, and although that 'daddy' was clearly tongue in cheek, he couldn't deny that his stomach twisted with excitement just hearing the word. He didn't bother thinking too much about why, though, just reached for Kakuzu's cock, leaning forward to kiss him; craving a moment of tender connection after so much intensity. But Kakuzu seemed more interested in just blowing his load all over him, taking himself in hand and pushing Hidan firmly back against the washing machine door, keeping a restraining hand on his shoulder. Hidan contented himself with keeping a caressing hand underneath, stroking and gently squeezing his balls as he pumped himself to climax, trying to at least keep eye contact as hot lines of cum zig-zagged across his chest.
"Well," Kakuzu smiled, releasing Hidan and letting his hand trail idly through it, smoothing it over him, delighting in marking him as his own, "We'd better put you back in the shower before we go out..."
"Mm," Hidan stretched up again towards him, lips parted, irresistible now that the urgency of shooting his load was gone. "Not yet..." he murmured, and Kakuzu leant forward to meet him as if an invisible hand was pressing between his shoulder blades. He felt acutely aware of every tiny detail; the fraction of a second their lips brushed together before the kiss was really a kiss at all, the way Hidan's tongue seemed to be tasting him and drawing him in at the same time; how sweet he tasted against the lingering saltiness in his own mouth. His hand instinctively came up to Hidan's cheek in a slippery caress, their hearts seemed to be pumping in time with each other, even as they separated there seemed to be a connection between them. He drew back a little to look at him; Hidan turned into his hand as if it was next in line and Kakuzu's heart flipped as he felt his tongue skimming over the underside of his fingers. After a taste of Kakuzu now. Was there any way in which he ever held back? Any way he wanted him that he didn't transparently show? It didn't seem like it.
"God, I love you like this," he said. And then his brain caught up with him. He froze.
"Kakuzu?" Hidan popped the fingertip he'd been sucking clean out of his mouth. His lips curved in a slow smile. "Did you just say 'I love you'? Did you fucking say that?"
Kakuzu was already looking down, tucking himself back in and zipping up, hoping that Hidan wouldn't notice how hard his heart was pounding or the heat he could feel in his face. "I... Maybe... there was a context..." he muttered.
"Oh man, don't be like that!" Hidan grabbed his hand back, stopping him from getting up. "Why're you so fucking cagey about how you feel, anyway?"
Kakuzu couldn't find an answer for that. Or was it that there were so many contenders he simply couldn't choose? "Um," he said helplessly.
Hidan propped his outstretched arm on his knee and looked up at Kakuzu with his head on one side. He didn't seem to feel at all uncomfortable about being naked and covered in cum on his kitchen floor, but he did seem uncharacteristically serious. "Hey," he said. "I was thinking, yesterday..." He paused.
"What?" Kakuzu shifted into a crouch; this floor was feeling pretty hard now. He didn't make any attempt to take his hand away from Hidan though. There was an almost anguished expression creeping in around his eyes that he desperately wanted to soothe away, but didn't know how.
"That I didn't want you to fucking die like Sasori, without ever knowing how I felt about you," Hidan continued finally, frowning in a way that Kakuzu was coming to recognise as one of his methods of keeping himself under control. "Because I fucking love you too, Kakuzu, even if I've been too much of an idiot - or just too fucking shit-scared - to say so. We don't know how many chances we're going to get, do we? In the end, what the fuck's the point of pretending to be so fucking cool?"
"I'm not going to die!" Kakuzu protested pointlessly. "I think you've still got plenty of time-"
"Do you think I don't love you? Is that the reason you change the fucking subject every time we get close to it?"
"No. Not really." Kakuzu sat down next to him. "I'd have to be walking around with my eyes closed. But-"
"Poor fucking Dei is gonna wake up and never know if Sasori loved him or not." Hidan let his head fall back against the washing machine, staring up at the ceiling with suddenly over-bright eyes. "And all because the bastard was too fucking scared to open up."
"Yeah," Kakuzu said heavily. He put his arm around Hidan. "Well. It is scary. I've been in love with you from pretty much day one, but I was scared too. That you'd think I was a sentimental old fool and laugh at me... And that there was no way you could possibly feel the same and I was just opening myself up to heartbreak. Or that I'd simply scare you off by being too full-on too soon..."
"I don't scare that fucking easily." Hidan leaned into Kakuzu's shoulder. "And things've got full-on without us making them that way."
"That's true," Kakuzu agreed. They sat in silence for a minute. Is it strange to feel elation mixed with so much sadness? Kakuzu wondered. Maybe not. There was probably even a German word for it... and from the look in Hidan's eyes, he was feeling something similar. "You're getting cold," he said quietly, after another moment. "Come on. Shower."
"Yeah." Hidan got to his feet, pulling Kakuzu after him. "You could come in too..."
"Better not, love, or we'll never get anywhere today. We'll probably get a call from the hospital soon..." Kakuzu went over to the kitchen sink to wash his hands and get a glass of water. Then something out of the window caught his eye. "Oh hell."
"What is it?" Hidan said, joining him, taking the glass from his hand and finishing the contents himself. He leant forward a little to see better. "Oh shitting fuck!" he exclaimed. "How the fuck do they know we're here?"
"The car, probably," Kakuzu said darkly, thinking of all the videos and photos from the crash everywhere you looked online. It wouldn't have taken a determined journalist long to put two and two together. He pulled Hidan away from the window. "Stay back a bit - with a long enough lens they could easily get a picture from there. You get in the shower and forget about it. I'm going to call my solicitor."
Hidan hesitated a moment, his face blank. Then: "Yeah, fuck that!" He shrugged off Kakuzu's hand. "This is my fucking kitchen!" Pausing half a moment to wipe himself down with the dishcloth, he vaulted up onto the draining board and threw the window open wide.
"Hey cocksuckers!" he bellowed. Kakuzu groaned.
"Are you including me in that," he asked archly, rolling his eyes. He made no attempt to get Hidan back down - he didn't for one moment intend to be papped wrangling his indignant naked boyfriend off a windowsill.
"Yeah, you!" Hidan shouted down into the street. "Dickhead with the long fucking lens! Do you want a fucking picture? Come the fuck on then! Shoot me!"
Kakuzu closed his eyes.
"Oh, you're holding out for the full fucking monty are you?!" He opened them again just in time to see Hidan lean out further, baring all to the crowd of press photographers below. "You want to know how many fucks I give?!" He gave them his most psychotic laugh. "I give precisely zero fucks! Do you think the whole fucking world hasn't seen me with my kit off already?! Huh?!"
"Oh! Oh! You know what - maybe you should pay me a fucking fee for that?! You want me to sign a fucking model release?! Fuck! Is it fucking news that I'm in my fucking kitchen?! Yeah?! You sad fucks. Get a fucking life and a proper job for fuck's sake!"
"Hidan, maybe that's enough now," Kakuzu began as Hidan paused for breath.
It clearly wasn't.
"You all want to know about Sasori, right?! Why the fuck'd you want to know now, huh? - because he fucking died?! - you fucking vultures?! You fucking carrion crows! You want to ask me how I fucking feel?! Is that it?! Well, you know what? He was a fucking artist, not like you fucking hacks. That's right, we've lost a real fucking artist and you bastards think we're the story. Go fuck yourselves, seriously!"
He leant out really precariously far now, middle finger extended down for the cameras. "Hey, here's a pose for you boys! You like this one?! Yeah?! I can hold it a little while for you and all! And maybe you can sell it as fucking art cause it sure as fuck isn't a story!"
"Come in now, Hidan," Kakuzu interjected. "You're going to end up killing yourself. Those pieces of trash aren't worth it."
Hidan slithered back into the room, breathing hard. He slammed the window behind him. "Right!" he said, his eyes sparkling with a manic gleam, voice husky from yelling. "Let's go and get that washing machine cleaner! Let's do it right fucking now!"
Kakuzu took him by the shoulders. "Hidan..." He shook his head, though he couldn't entirely suppress a smile. His heart was pumping, and at last there really was nothing but Hidan in his head. "You absolute lunatic..." he breathed. He slid his hands down Hidan's arms and with a swift jerk got them pinned behind him, pulling him off-balance. "What kind of crazy fool have I fallen in love with?" he asked rhetorically, frogmarching him through into the bedroom and ignoring his clearly delighted protests. "Is this going to be my life now?"
Bending him over backwards, keeping a firm hold on him - feeling him trembling with the effort of supporting himself - he kissed him again, lingering and hard until he was certain he must be both dizzy and disorientated, then cast him face down onto the bed beside his discarded clothes. "Get dressed then," he said lightly. "I'm not going out with you in the nude, however comfortable you are with it."
"Don't put your dick in crazy, they said," he mused, "Not an edict I can really see myself adhering to now..." He retreated to the doorway, because otherwise he really was going to end up fucking him senseless, and, Christ, they'd only just finished!
Hidan rolled over, throwing his arms wide. "Hey, you're welcome to ride crazy's dick anytime you want!" he invited. "Who says you have to put anything inside - come and kiss me like that again and let's see what happens..."
"Ah, Hidan, you're so distractible..." Kakuzu threw a balled-up sock at him that had escaped from the rest of his clothes. "Focus, love! What happened to going out right fucking now?" He sighed. "Not that I'm in any hurry. I'm not particularly relishing the thought of having to restrain you from murdering our friends from the press. Not least because I'd quite like to do it myself. But I would prefer, on balance, that neither of us get arrested today."
Hidan sat up and started to pull his jeans back on. "Alright, alright." An irrepressible smirk belied the sulky note in his voice. "I don't promise not to smash their fucking cameras though."
"Just make it look like an accident if you can," Kakuzu agreed resignedly.
Back in the flat twenty minutes later, Kakuzu placed a roasting tray strategically in front of the washing machine while Hidan leant in the doorway watching him. He pulled the bung out of the filter and rather unsavoury liquid began to flow out. Going to the shop had been a bit of a rollercoaster, but he had allowed himself to take a back seat. He smiled again just at the thought of how absurdly protective Hidan was of him whenever the media was involved in any way; if a journalist had so much as called out his name he was in their face in a heartbeat.
"Kakuzu doesn't have jack shit to say to you, but I can give you a fucking quote if you want! Hm? How about 'go fuck yourself, you fucking cunt'?!" had probably been Kakuzu's favourite interaction - with its bonus of being unprintable by any major newspaper but the Guardian - though Hidan had also managed to walk into two photographers while theatrically looking the other way; at least one of them probably sustained several thousand pounds worth of damage when the camera he had strapped around him hit the kerb.
There's a potential lawsuit in the making, Kakuzu thought resignedly... That was the point at which he'd remembered that Yahiko had said on no account to let Hidan anywhere near the press. But if Yahiko wanted Hidan told what he could and couldn't do, well, he could come and give it a try himself. And they had got their washing machine cleaner.
The flow trickled off and Kakuzu took out the filter itself with a final gush of water and a distinct rotten egg smell. A couple of scalpel blades, a lolly stick, and a lot of fluff... Pretty much as expected.
"Ah fuck!" Hidan clapped a hand over his mouth, almost retching; "That's fucking rank, man," he wailed.
Kakuzu looked up at him, making no effort to hide his amusement. "And you say you're not a fragile flower?" he remarked, raising an eyebrow. "Run along and play, then, the grown-ups are busy..."
Patiently and imperturbably, he rinsed and replaced the filter and finished cleaning the detergent drawer. And just as soon as he'd set the cycle going and was on his way to join Hidan in the living room, the hospital called.
They had Deidara in a private room, small and functional. Hidan leant on a cupboard next to the bed. It had a stack of what seemed to be little hats made of egg box material on top. He picked one up; Kakuzu took it away from him and put it back. Konan had been there already when they arrived, sitting quiet and calm on the far side of the bed. A nurse was waking Deidara, and giving him some tablets from a tiny paper cup. He looked small in the high bed, his arm elevated and immobilised, and he was clearly still woozy from the drugs they had him on - apparently they'd been rousing him slowly over the last half hour. Kimimaro was there to break the news. Despite his instinctive dislike of him, Hidan had to admit he was like a different guy now, all ego and posturing set aside.
"Deidara," he said softly, once he was satisfied that he was as alert as he was going to get. "Hi. I'm Kim Kaguya, I'm one of the surgeons here. You've been in a car accident. You've done quite a lot of damage to your right arm, but we've managed to patch you up and you're going to be fine."
Deidara focused blearily on Kimimaro, then shook his head. "I think I was at a rave," he said. "I wasn't in a car."
"Alright, it's natural that you're going to be a bit confused - we've had you on quite a cocktail of drugs - but I'm afraid you were definitely in a car. I want to be sure you're taking all this in - do you understand? Are you feeling well enough to have this conversation now? We can let you rest a little more."
"Yeah, I. I understand you, hn." Deidara blinked slowly, and looked beyond Kimimaro for the first time, looking around the room, at Hidan and Kakuzu, then Konan. "Is - is Sasori here?" he asked. "I think he'd want to know that I'm in the hospital. Guys, have you called him?"
"Deidara, I'm really sorry to have to tell you this, but Sasori died in the accident." Kimimaro's voice was gentle but definite. "So did the other passenger, his grandmother. You were the only one in the car to survive the crash."
"What?" Deidara said slowly. "No." His voice was urgent. "No! Me and Sasori had had a fight - I'd gone out with Hidan; Hidan got himself fucked up and we had to call Kakuzu..." His eyes flickered wildly from face to face, trying to find some reassurance, some validation for what he was sure he remembered. "You - you were there, Kakuzu," he said desperately, zeroing in on clearly the most reliable person in the vicinity. "Tell him this isn't right!"
Kimimaro's eyes flickered over to Konan, then to Hidan and Kakuzu, and they moved closer to the bed. Konan took Deidara's hand. "I'm so sorry, Deidara," she said softly. "I know this is terrible to hear, but we're here to help you through this."
Deidara snatched his hand away and looked up at Hidan. "I remember..." he said. "I only remember Hidan covered in blood. I remember Kakuzu saying 'everything's fine' - I - this - this doesn't make any sense..."
"Dei, man." Hidan sat down beside him on the bed. "Kakuzu gave you IV K for the pain, you were in fucking legoland half the time; it's not likely to make a fuck ton of sense." He looked into Deidara's eyes and although they seemed to be pleading with him not to, he remorselessly ploughed on, "You're mixing things up - you did have a fight, but that was days ago. We were on our way home from holiday. You and Sasori went to pick up his Grandma, remember. From Swindon. I said, 'it's a fucking shithole, don't get out of the car'-" He broke off. He remembered what he'd said next, and, fuck. Fuck. He'd really didn't want to remember that now.
Something seemed to click in Deidara's head as well. He swallowed. "Chiyo," he said slowly. "Yeah. She was going to go up to London with her student friend but she wanted her to meet little Gaara, so he went with her instead," He looked dazed now, talking faster and faster as if to try and block out the reality of the situation, not to give it a chance to settle itself in his brain. "We were going to take Gaara, his little cousin Gaara, but Chiyo said, 'no, you go with Sakura, you two young things can have a nice chat, make some connections between Chelsea and St Martins, don't be like our generation with our silly rivalries.'" He was getting whiter and whiter as he spoke. "Sasori was fucking hacked off that she would say that, he wouldn't admit to having any rivalries, he - Sasori - oh fuck! -"
"OK, man," Hidan said. "OK."
Deidara gripped his arm. "Hidan, did you see him?" he asked, staring wild-eyed at him. "Is it true?"
"Yeah, I saw him." Hidan said. There was no way he could share what he'd seen with Deidara, though, was there? He looked up at Kakuzu.
"Sasori was killed instantly, Deidara." His voice was so calm, it was impossible not to believe him. His hand settled on Hidan's shoulder, warm and soothing. "So was Chiyo. Neither of them would have had time to suffer in any way."
"What happened to Gaara?" Deidara asked suddenly. His hands were trembling and his eyes flicked frantically from face to face. "Has anyone told Gaara?"
Kimimaro was conferring with a nurse over by the door. He turned back towards them and, "It seems that Gaara and Sakura were told yesterday evening," he said. "Gaara's with his family now, don't worry, Deidara." He gestured to Kakuzu to join them. "Talk about a fucking coincidence by the way!" he said in a rapid murmur, but Hidan could still hear him. "The driver of the third car is here too - Kakashi Hatake, isn't he another artist?"
I fucking knew I recognised that car, he thought, glancing quickly at Kakuzu, then back at Deidara. He was shivering all over now. "Dei?" he said. "Man, are you cold-?" he broke off as he saw Deidara doing his signature rapid swallowing technique and it suddenly dawned on him what the egg box hats were for. He got one in front of him just in time. Not much came out - a few ounces at most of clearish liquid. Hidan rubbed his shoulder gingerly. "Hey, there there, take it easy, OK?" he said.
Deidara looked up at him balefully through a curtain of hair. "You shouldn't ever have said 'everything's fine'," he said to Hidan, and his voice was almost a snarl now, hoarse and cold. His whole demeanour had changed and he spat violently into the hat. "Why did you say that? Why would you lie to me like that?!"
"Dei, man!" Hidan began helplessly, shocked and stung. He felt Kakuzu appear behind him, his hand on his shoulder again; a grip that was probably meant to be a gentle squeeze, but he never quite got it right.
The nurse took the hat away from him, shooting him a commiserating smile. "Well done, love," she said over-brightly, giving Deidara a sip of water.
As soon as he'd swallowed, Deidara turned his face away from them, icy blue eyes staring unseeingly at the wall. "Can you all just go?" he said finally, an awful flat numbness in his voice. "I just want to be alone. Just fucking go, please."
Kakuzu, Hidan and Konan stood in the corridor and looked at each other in helpless bewilderment. They'd been prepared for explosive grief, for shock, anger, even denial. They'd been ready to help him though anything. But none of them had considered the possibility that he wouldn't let them. Through the door they heard a gasping sob quickly choked off; the soothing murmur of the nurse's voice followed by an awful, low keening sound. Hidan moved compulsively back towards the door. "No!" he said, "We can't fucking leave him like that!"
But the door opened before he reached it, and Kimimaro was there. He put an expertly restraining hand on Hidan's arm, shaking his head at Kakuzu, some medical short-hand seeming to pass between them. "Sorry, guys," he said. "Give him a bit of time."
Kakuzu took Hidan by the shoulders and moved him away from Kim before he could throw a punch at him. "We can visit him again tomorrow," he said, doing his best to sound reassuring. "He'll be more himself. Try not to worry." But there had been something awfully final about Deidara's glassy-eyed rejection and he realised he wouldn't really be too surprised if they found that he was refusing all visitors tomorrow as well.
"Yeah. Maybe." Hidan's voice was anything but convinced. He scuffed at the glittery lino floor with his foot and Kakuzu could feel that brittle tension building up in him again. He was fiddling with his rosary, too, reminding Kakuzu sharply of the morning's unsettling discoveries.
He sighed. There was no point pretending this was okay, but there was nothing they could do about it either. Very suddenly he found he'd made the decision that they needed to get away from all this. "Let's go and get the dogs and take them up to the Heath," he said firmly. "They'll be getting antsy. If Deidara changes his mind Kim will call." His eyes flicked commandingly to Kimimaro. "Won't you, Kim?"
"Fine." Hidan assented. "I'm gonna ride though. I've fucking had it with cars! Fucking death traps! Give me the dog place address and I'll meet you there."
"Well, Sasori's might've been, but I wouldn't tar mine with the same brush," Kakuzu protested, scribbling it down and tucking it into Hidan's back pocket, not foregoing the opportunity to given him a little caress as he did so despite the grim situation. "But suit yourself."
Sitting in the car by himself five minutes later he suddenly felt an awful flatness, and he he wished he had Hidan's vivid presence beside him to drown out the dull ache of it. What was more, without someone to be strong for, he suddenly felt like he might actually break down. He pressed his lips together and leant his head heavily against the window. Oh course, there was no obligation at all to hold it together with Hidan - he'd had made that more than clear. But old habits die hard.
But before he could go too far down that path his phone rang again - he picked it up warily. Kim, perhaps? Had Deidara already changed his mind about being alone? Or Hidan, wanting to chat terrifyingly while he dodged traffic? But no. It was Karin Uzumaki. And Kakuzu realised he actually felt quite relieved.
"Karin," he said.
"Kakuzu, I'm really sorry," she said. "I saw the news, I'm so sorry to disturb you now."
"No. No, you're not disturbing me." Kakuzu sighed, and switched off the engine. "The opposite, really. I have to drive across London and Hidan's taken off on his bike and - God, I hate thinking about it. How's life in a tent with those idiot boyfriends of yours?"
"Oh, it's... well it's pretty grim actually, I can't wait to be back in the city. I'm sharing with Suigetsu because he's gay, obviously, but to be honest he's probably the least respectful of the bunch - I don't know how we even came up with this arrangement!"
Kakuzu snorted. "I'm pretty certain I'd rather share a tent with a straight guy than Suigetsu too - he seems like pure trouble."
"Like you can talk," Karin shot back. There was a brief pause - both of them knew they couldn't really continue to ignore the elephant in the room much longer. "Look, I'm sorry, but I need to know what you guys want me to say," she said finally. "I don't think I can hold off posting much longer without people remarking on that and we've got the chance to put the lid on some of the wilder speculation about what happened at the - the scene..."
"Yes. I see that. Just. I don't know. Everyone's in shock, we're doing everything we can to support Deidara but."He cut himself off abruptly. Don't go any further with that. "Hidan and I gave him first aid at the scene - I was a surgeon a long time ago, so I knew what needed to be done." But do I really want to be asked about that? "Maybe don't say that, though." He sighed. "Maybe I should get Kim - who did the surgery yesterday - to give you a call, he'll know how much to say or not ... Or..." He stopped. Because Kim could be fucking indiscreet and flakey as hell to boot... "Maybe I shouldn't do that." He paused, fist clenched on the steering wheel, wishing Hidan was here to give him a reason to keep it together. Wishing he had more experience with this sort of thing, but at the same time definitely not willing to pass Karin on to 'Mr. Pein's media team'.
"Karin, can we... I don't want to put you in an awkward situation, but can we be off the record here?"
"Of course we can!" Her voice was calm and steady and he was very grateful for that. There was silence for a moment, but she didn't make any attempt to rush him.
"Christ, Karin, I don't have a clue what we should say," he admitted. "This has been - I don't even know how to express it-!"
"Awful?" Karin provided bluntly.
"Yes. Awful." Why not call a spade a spade after all? "I - I think I've opened up something that I really needed to keep buried - all the medical stuff, the people I used to know, the operating theatre... Hidan's was in pieces yesterday and now Deidara won't see us, I can feel him going back there and I can't stop it, and I - I'm hardly able to even comprehend that Sasori's gone." He dropped his head on to his hand, pinching the bridge of his nose. He badly wanted to tell her about the cult - and the money - but maybe that was going too far. "I shouldn't be lumbering you with all this," he said, his voice hard with the effort of keeping back a flood of emotion. "I'm sorry Karin. I've barely slept - I hardly even know what I'm trying to say to you..."
"Kakuzu, give yourself a couple of days before you start even trying to figure out how okay or not you are," she said, her deep voice soothing even through the crackle of poor signal. "Or Hidan. Look, I'll say I spoke to you briefly, you're both devastated and the decent thing to do would be to leave you alone for a little while."
Of course.
"If you think of anyone I can talk to about the medical side of things let me know. No rush, but if you used to be a surgeon people are going to dig that up and speculate."
Kabuto, of course. He's always been more stable than Kim. But brief him first. Kakuzu took a deep breath, and felt clearer. "Yes. OK. I - I'll let you know. Look - call me if you need to. I mean it."
"Thanks," Karin said, and she sounded sincere. "I will."
"Drop me a line when you get back to London," Kakuzu said, surprising himself with how much he wanted to see her again. He liked her. Her uncompromising directness, her clear intelligence - she's going to go a long way, he thought as he hung up and tossed the phone onto the passenger seat. If she can detach herself from those callow young idiots, anyway - she's worth ten of them.
Hidan didn't break his neck in the London traffic, and was there waiting at the kerbside by the time Kakuzu arrived. He seemed calmer too, better for his cycle ride. And after a couple of hours with him and the dogs in the wildest parts of the Heath, the world did feel less dark. The God thing'll sort itself out, he told himself. It doesn't have to come between us. It has to not come between us.
Watching him pick his way through mud in unsuitably white trainers, ducking his head elegantly under a low-hanging branch; looking up and meeting Kakuzu's eye just to smile at him - everything they felt for each other seemed to be there between them without either of them needing to say a word. And the freedom that a pack of hounds and the fact that the pair of them together could take down just about anyone they came across gave to him; to hold his hand, to kiss him in public without hesitation without any burden of shame or fear - a freedom he was acutely aware was very much rarer than it should be - it was undeniable that he had something here that could brighten any darkness he brought to it. He was still melancholy, still tired and anxious, but they were the lucky ones. And though that carried its own burden of irrational guilt, an undeniable exhilaration came with it as well.
By the time they were making their way back down Parliament Hill it was the day that had darkened and it was grey and drizzling, but there was still a gaggle of reporters waiting expectantly at the end of Kakuzu's path. This time, however, accompanied by four gigantic black dogs and Kakuzu not in the mood to keep them on a short leash, the press crowd kept well back. He kept a restraining hand at Hidan's elbow though. One lawsuit was going to be plenty. "Relax," he murmured in his ear, tightening his grip slightly as he felt Hidan's whole body tauten like a bow string next to him. "Leave it to Tsuchi..."
And once she'd started up her blood-curdling growling they weren't given any more trouble. As the door closed firmly behind them the crowd dissipated, having to be content with the delightful headline opportunities handed to them by the fact that Hidan appeared to be bringing a basket of laundry with him. Kakuzu Taki's protective but controlling body language would be worth a few column inches too; padded out with ghoulish speculation that perhaps, for all of the fêted Akatsuki crowd - after a decade of dominating the art scene - the honeymoon was finally over.
A/N So, if you're enjoying this, please let me know, even if it's just one line - it really helps to keep the writing flowing well! I'm working on this every day anyway, but it really helps to have the occasional reassurance that I'm not alone! And if you're on tumblr, feel free to come and chat to me. I'm lilac-bramble there too. :D
For non-British readers, HMRC is 'Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs' - Hidan is having problems filing his tax return. And the fact that he's still doing it in May means that it's very late and he'll have been fined several times by now - you can imagine how this makes Kakuzu feel...
We will probably catch up with the boys again a couple of weeks down the line, at Sasori's funeral - brace yourselves..!