So, after 6 years... finally I am working on this again! What can I say? Chapter 6 was hard to follow... Please do review and let me know if you think this is up to scratch! :)

Kakuzu put them away. The room felt suddenly darker and he realised the sun had gone in; the afternoon was fast becoming evening. Slowly he relaxed the tension in his arm, and slowly, slowly Hidan reciprocated. They faced each other warily. Kakuzu didn't move his hand from Hidan's face and he was struck by how sharp the cheekbone felt under his fingers, the angle of his jaw against his palm - it hadn't felt that way before. He thought back to when he'd held him just there to reattach his head on the battlefield - it hadn't felt then like he could feel the contours of his skull just beneath the skin. His heart wrenched with sudden horrified pity and what could he do but just hold him? He didn't know what to say or what else to do.

"We should leave," he said finally. "You're right. The deer wasn't a good sign. You're right to be wary-"

"No, fuck that!" Hidan spat, suddenly struggling against Kakuzu's grip. "I'm a fucking mess, what the fuck's wrong with me? I should've fucking skewered that thing! A fucking deer! Fuck!"

"Hidan-" Kakuzu still had no idea what to say. He could see him getting sucked into a downward spiral of shame and self-loathing, which wasn't going to help anything.

"You must think I'm a fucking pussy now, huh?" Angry and wounded violet eyes finally met his as Hidan broke away and stumbled back a pace. "If you want to cut loose now I don't fucking blame you. I even fucking disgust myself."

"That's not what I think, Hidan." Finally, something he could be definite about. "I think you've been through hell, and I've been dead, and now-" he gestured mutely at the space between them, "- now this. We need time to adjust. It's idiotic to be so hard on yourself."

He reached out tentatively, wanting to pull Hidan back towards him but not feeling that he could presume his touch would be welcome now. "Hm..?" he said, making it a question, willing him to say something; to not flinch away; to stop looking so broken.

Hidan gave a miserable looking half smile, half grimace. "So I'm a fucking idiot now, huh," he began tiredly, before seeming to realise he simply didn't have the emotional energy or the appetite for it. His words trailed off and he turned away, drifting over to the door and opening it a crack to check if the deer had come back.

"Maybe I used to say that a lot," Kakuzu sighed, letting his outstretched hand drop back down to his side. "You might've realised by now that I used to say a lot of things that weren't really... what I meant. I... didn't want you to know how I felt about you because I didn't see how you could possibly feel the same. I'm not sure I do even now. So I-"

"Why not?" Hidan interrupted, whipping around to look at him. "How have I not fucking shown you that in every conceivable way?"

Kakuzu closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. How could Hidan not understand? "I've got used to it. It's ingrained. It's going to take time to unlearn. Hidan - don't be naive! I'm not a nice person. I'm angry and violent in my very nature. I'm not kind, or patient, or - or loving-"

"I don't need you to be," Hidan growled, obviously as full of shit as a festival long-drop.

"Hidan, you clearly do," Kakuzu said flatly, holding his gaze challengingly. "You always have. And I am trying to be. I want to be, with you. But for - God, so long - I've been trying to behave as hatefully as I could, just so the hate the world kept throwing at me didn't feel so undeserved. And you look at me, and you touch me as if nothing was wrong with me, but-"

"There is nothing wrong with you, Kakuzu."

Kakuzu threw his arms wide. "I'm a monster, Hidan, look at me!" he shouted. And you could be an angel, he wanted to say, but bit it back. He couldn't possibly open himself up to that degree. How did this conversation get turned around to me anyway? he wondered frantically. He didn't do this kind of personal exposure.

"Bullshit, Kakuzu," Hidan fired back at him. "Just because for some sad fucking reason you're obsessed with beauty and you don't fit your own narrow-as-shit ideal, it doesn't mean you don't fit mine!"

Kakuzu blinked, utterly wrong-footed. That wasn't what he'd expected and miraculously it gave him the headspace he needed to find some perspective. He started to smile. "Oh, come now," he said. "I think I fit you pretty damn well. And there's no need to call yourself narrow - you're a perfectly adequate s-"

"Fuck, Kakuzu!" Now Hidan was smiling again; he couldn't help himself. "We're having a fucking serious conversation, all about your issues and shit, and all you can do is make fucking dick jokes!" He peeled himself away from the doorframe and walked right back over to him; Kakuzu grabbed him around the waist before he could get away again.

"Do you want a serious conversation?" he asked. "Honestly? You?!"

Hidan looked up at him. "I don't know," he said. "Maybe dick jokes is a better idea."

"Yes," Kakuzu agreed, sighing. "Maybe. But I'm- I'm sorry. I'll try not to lash out again."

"Yeah? This morning you said you enjoyed it," Hidan reminded him, arching an eyebrow.

"I just wanted to touch you."

"Kakuzu..." Hidan shook his head. "You fucking idiot. I fucking let you do shit like that because it was better than having you not touch me at all. Just like I used to love our fucking battle routine even though it hurt like hell, because having your guys shooting through me felt like you were inside me." He bit his lip, smiled a crooked little smile. "Seriously, it was all I used to think about sometimes, walking behind you, talking shit just to get your fucking attention - I just wanted you so fucking much."

Kakuzu pulled him over to the futon and sat down on it, tugging Hidan's hands to bring him down too. "I don't think I could do that, now," he said quietly. "I wish I hadn't then." So many things I wish I'd done differently.

"Ah, shit, I didn't mind, man." It was almost as if Hidan was trying to comfort him now. "It was fucking nothing compared to what I used to do to myself every day. It felt like you were right next to me, like you had my back. Like you always actually fucking did, come to that." His voice cracked a little; he swallowed hard. He didn't want to lose it again. At the back of his mind was still the fear that Kakuzu would blow his shit again if he showed any weakness, even if he had said he wouldn't. And it wasn't the thought of physical pain that scared him.

"But now, we don't have to do that shit," he continued, his voice forced and low so that it wouldn't tremble. "We don't need any fucking excuses. Do we?"

"No," Kakuzu said, looking at him sharply. 'Used to'? he thought. 'What I used to do to myself'? But he didn't say anything about it, and Hidan didn't seem to notice his reaction - he was turning around, fitting himself between Kakuzu's legs to lean up against his chest and Kakuzu felt his guilt redouble at just how easily he'd been forgiven. And he could think of one or two times he hadn't had Hidan's back off the top of his head, and if he had- But it wouldn't do to think like that now.

"Not anymore," he reiterated, letting his arm steal around him. Maybe he could make it true if he said it enough times. But. He'd never been able to control his anger. He knew that. He was a different person when it really rose in him. Even when it was only starting to, it was next to impossible to get a handle on. He lost all sense of anything he was trying to achieve. Tactics, strategy, the mission, everything but the immediate burning urge to maim and destroy went out of the window. He really had no clue if this was a promise he'd be able to keep.

If he was going to be brutally honest with himself - and he might as well be; after all, hadn't he made something of a speciality of brutality? - had he ever really tried to keep his temper in check? The answer had to be no. Ever since leaving Takigakure he'd just indulged it. In its way it was just as much of a tantrum as Hidan's shouting and swearing. Of course, the forbidding persona he'd cultivated and the devastating way his anger manifested meant that people - until Hidan, perhaps - hadn't tended to call him out on that.

Hidan was turning his head up to look at him and he leant in towards him. All he felt was tenderness now, but it could change so fast, there was no guarantee…

"Anyway," Hidan was saying, "the way you've always been with me... I didn't think you were so fucking unkind. Sure, you could be a bastard sometimes, but you looked out for me, anyway. You were always on my side."

"God, Hidan." Kakuzu's arm around him tightened. "That's-"

"Fucking tragic? Probably. I was actually... pretty fucking lonely when I met you."

"That was possibly because you were killing everyone you met..."

"Yeah, well, I didn't feel like I could connect with them anyway. You might not have been exactly chatty, but you'd always talk to me, at least." He yawned suddenly, and Kakuzu was struck afresh by the dark circles under his eyes and the way his jawbone seemed to move directly under his skin.

"I liked talking to you," he said quietly. "I liked it that you always wanted to. Even if I didn't always have a lot to say. Or a lot I would say." He glanced over to the door, gauging the level of the fading light through the shoji screen. "We'll rest til it's dark," he said. "Have something to eat, and then we'll go. It'll be better to move at night."

Hidan hesitated. A muscle kept jumping in his cheek and he rubbed it unthinkingly against Kakuzu's shoulder. "Deer aren't nocturnal, are they?" he said uncertainly.

Kakuzu regarded him a moment in silence. Hidan's nerviness didn't seem so frustrating to him now - just a new factor in their partnership to be appropriately dealt with. "They're crepuscular, I believe," he said, his voice calm.

Hidan let out a slightly hysterical giggle. "And what the fuck is that when it's at home?"

"They like the dusk and dawn. Not much else."

Glancing towards the door which was letting in a distinctly dusky light, Hidan shivered slightly. Kakuzu lay down and pulled him against him, tugging the cover over them both. After a moment's thought he sat up again, and, with somewhat more care than he habitually used in battle, he released one of his masked creatures and sent it over to stand guard.

Lying down again, black threads weaving him back together, he pulled Hidan back into the crook of his shoulder. "There we are..." he murmured against soft, almost-dry hair. "Sleep, now... you're with me... nothing's going to hurt you..."

"Mm..." Hidan nestled into his shoulder, and Kakuzu carried on talking, his voice a slow comforting drone, watching Hidan's eyelids get heavy and start to flutter down.

"If anything tries to even touch you I'll fuck it up... believe me, its mother wouldn't know it again... anything that comes near you can expect to get torn limb from limb... If you want me to, I'll devote my life to a mass extinction of deer... it'll be cervidarmageddon, we can change the whole damn ecosystem, I don't care... I'll eviscerate anything with hooves... You'll never have to worry about the little fuckers again..."

And to this vicious lullaby, Hidan swiftly drifted off into peaceful-seeming sleep.

Well, there we are. Lots of talking and Kakuzu thinking... but they do have a fair few issues to iron out... Hope you enjoyed! ~lilac