The silence grew long – long and agonizing, for Ino, as Deidara sat and frowned and muttered to himself, apparently weighing the pros and cons of five million versus ten million and the risks associated with each reward.
Then he began to vocalise some of his worries and he and Ino bickered about how much more ten million was compared to five million (that wasn't even guaranteed to happen) and who the fuck could even afford to offer such a sum and how Deidara was going to be dead in a week if he didn't get the money and the ten million would definitely buy out his debts with this Kaka? Kazuzu? Guy ("Kakuzu. And don't say his name.") but at the same time what big-time Yakuza or mob boss was aiming to take down Yamanaka Sr. because holy shit, ten million, was it even worth getting involved in this shit?
"Okay," said Deidara when they had exhausted the topic over a two-hour circular discussion. "Okay, I'll tell you what. I'll try to get you a name. Low key, staying off the radar, just casually asking around. But I won't do more than that."
"I'll take it," said Ino. "What do we do? Who do we need to talk to?"
"We?" repeated Deidara.
"Yes, we," said Ino. "Or did you think I was just going to sit back and let you do the dirty work?"
"Uh, yeah, that's exactly what I thought."
"I do let others do my dirty work for me most of the time," admitted Ino (quite magnanimously in her opinion), "but not when someone's trying to murder my father."
"I don't think you're going to be useful where I'm gonna go."
"Where are you going to go?"
"Satan's Asshole."
"Be serious…"
"I am serious. It's a club."
"Oh."
"I know a guy who might have some background on that post," said Deidara. "Maybe. It's big money so it'll be natural for people to be curious about it. I'll ask him, but really subtle-like, you know–"
"I'm really good at interrogating people," interjected Ino.
"No. You're gonna cross-examine him like he's a witness in a courtroom and you'll blow everything. You shouldn't even come."
"Okay, okay, I won't talk to him," said Ino. "But let me be there, what if I pick up on something you don't? Please. I'm smart. I didn't get as far as I did in life by being a ditz…"
"Real far," said Deidara, looking her up and down. "Zip tied to a radiator in an ex-con's apartment. I wonder if there's a lifetime achievement award for this…"
Ino kicked at him and he laughed.
"Speaking of which," said Ino, "you should untie me, if we're going to work together…"
Deidara looked doubtful in the extreme. "Right. And how do I know you aren't just going to fuck off and run and I lose out on both the five million and the ten million?"
"I think we've already established that you're necessary to me right now, so why the hell would I run away?"
"I don't trust you," said Deidara.
"And I don't trust you – but I'm trusting you anyway."
"That's 'cause your dad's head is on the line. Mine's isn't," said Deidara. "Because he's already dead."
"I'm sorry to hear that," said Ino, though she wasn't sorry at all. "But what do you want to do? Sign a goddamn contract?"
"No," said Deidara, "because any contract you write will be full of lawyery weasel-y shit…"
"Fine, you write the contract," said Ino.
"No," said Deidara. "You write it. I dictate."
"Fine."
Deidara found a pencil and a scrap of paper, which he passed to Ino, and then he paced and crossed his arms and dictated while Ino wrote with zip tied hands, which was no small feat.
And so, Ino produced the following piece of crap of a contract:
Ino Yamanaka hereby declares that she will not fuck off and run away when her zip ties are undone. Also, Deidara will make a concerted effort to get The Name. If he succeeds, he gets ten million. If he fails, he gets five million for trying. If Ino fucks off and runs away, he will catch her again and get the five million anyway, so she better not do that. By signing this contract, Ino Yamanaka also agrees that she is an uptight spoiled little snot.
"Is this final line really necessary?" asked Ino.
"Yes," said Deidara.
"Fine," said Ino, signing the thing.
Deidara signed it too, looking pleased.
"Okay, so when do we leave for Satan's Asshole?"
Deidara looked at her like she was stupid. "It's noon. Do you really think the cool people go to the bar at noon?"
"No…"
"We'll go at, like, one in the morning. Nerd."
"Oh."
"And you aren't going dressed like that."
Ino looked down at herself. "Well I know it's not exactly club wear, but I can take off the jacket, wouldn't that be ok just to–"
"No. What are you gonna do, walk in and ask where the board meeting is? Jesus Christ. You'll stick out like a sore thumb."
"I don't have anything else," said Ino. "I kind of got kidnapped, remember? And I'm not wearing your clothes…"
"There's a thrift shop down the block," said Deidara, eyeing Ino's beautiful Yves Saint Laurent skirt suit critically.
"No. I'm not wearing disease-ridden thrift-wear."
"Fine," said Deidara with a shrug. "Then you aren't coming. You'll blow everything showing up like Attorney Barbie."
Ino raised her eyes to the ceiling. God help her, she needed him, so now she had to listen to him. "Fine, fine, I'll go…"
VVV
The thrift shop felt less like a shop to Ino than a place where people fenced off stolen goods for resale. Watches, jewelry, designer wear suspiciously with the tags still on – yeah, this wasn't the most legit place she'd ever set foot in. But the clothes in the bins seemed clean enough – there were no visible lice on them, at any rate, and they smelled vaguely like industrial detergent.
First Ino wandered around and picked things up here and there and Deidara shook his head at everything and called her an uptight nerd, and asked where was the math competition was, because that was obviously what she was dressing for?
Then he apparently grew tired of watching her find the classiest pieces in the shop ("Hey, I think these heels are like, legitimate Jimmy Choos?") and then try to convince him that they were appropriate to wear to his nasty hole of a club. He shoved her into a fitting room and flung things at her over the curtain.
"Everything is hideous," said Ino through the curtain, "but how do you hit my size dead on every time? Damn…"
"I have an eye for proportions," said Deidara, flinging more things at her.
After a prolonged argument about the necessity, or not, of fishnet tights, which Deidara won, Ino emerged from the fitting room wearing what he apparently considered to be appropriate for tonight: the skankiest, tightest, shortest "dress" that Ino had ever worn (god forbid she had to bend over), four inch heels, torn-up stockings, and glittery makeup.
"My god," said Ino, looking down at herself.
Deidara whistled and gave her a long once-over. "Hot trash. It's…kind of doing it for me."
"I think the tights are too much."
"Leave the tights."
"The Ke$ha makeup, though?"
"Leave it. And do something with your hair, for fuck's sake – mess it up a little."
"It's already messy," said Ino.
"No it's not. It's still perfect. How is it still perfect? You slept in it."
Deidara reached over and tugged some strands out of Ino's bun here and there, enough to make her look like a trailer trash girl who'd just rolled out of her bed, or, perhaps, her outhouse.
"Ugh," said Ino.
"Now put these on," said Deidara.
Ino looked at the enormous hoop earrings he was handing her. "Are you serious? These are so trashy…"
"You can decide if I was wrong after we get there tonight."
Ino put on the earrings and looked at herself in the mirror. "Jesus Christ. I just understood."
"What?"
"…You're making me dress like a prostitute."
"Uh, yeah."
"I am not okay with this," said Ino.
"What kind of girl do you think goes to this kind of joint, exactly? Nuns?"
"But a whore?"
"You can dress the goddamn part and fit in, or you can stay tied to the goddamn radiator and let me do my thing without you fucking it up…"
"Fine, I'll dress the goddamn part," said Ino.
"Good girl," said Deidara. He swatted her ass as she walked by, presumably for the benefit of the cashier who had wandered to their corner and was eyeing them suspiciously. As if Ino would ever shoplift from this dumpster of a shop…
It insulted her profoundly to have to pay for this garbage – but Deidara made it clear that it sure as hell wasn't going to be him.
So Ino tottered out of the store looking completely different from when she had wandered in. Oddly, her new outfit garnered far fewer stares in the street than her previous one, except for one guy who wandered up to them and asked Deidara who Ino's pimp was.
"Me," said Deidara.
"When can I have her?" said the guy.
"She's out of your range, buddy," said Deidara with a friendly pat on the shoulder. "Try Trixi's down the road."
"K," said the guy, and he wandered off.
"Wow," said Ino.
Yes. Dressed like this, she fit in here, here in this hideous post-apocalyptic neighbourhood of NYC where the only denizens were weirdos and creeps and ex-cons and drug addicts. And apparently every woman was either a whore, a crack whore, or…
"Dead?"
"Yeah," said Deidara, turning Ino away from the corpse that lay in the street. "Don't look."
"But? Why is she dead? Overdose? Did someone kill her? Is someone going to investigate?"
"Eventually," said Deidara. "Let's be honest, she's better off now than she was…"
"How do you know that? Do you realize that she was someone's daughter? This is terrible? This cannot be real?"
Deidara rolled his eyes. "Welcome to outside of your castle walls."
"How can people live like this? This is like, a third world country?"
Deidara said something about princess fucking peach and steered Ino into a pizza joint.
"How can you eat when we just saw a dead person?"
"'Cause I'm hungry," said Deidara. "She's not getting any less dead if I starve myself, is she?"
Ino watched him eat an oily slice of pizza in disgust.
"You aren't going to eat?"
"No."
"You're gonna pass out if you don't eat something soon."
"I'm not eating that."
"Well, then you aren't coming tonight 'cause I don't need you fainting in the middle of everything and drawing attention to yourself."
Ino sighed. "Do they have salads?"
"…This is a pizza place."
"I'm going to ask if they have salads," said Ino, pushing back her chair.
When presented with the mushy, mayonnaise-soaked salad options available, Ino opted for a slice of thin-crust margherita and choked it down. "Horrid. I'm going to have to do, like, three extra spin classes to burn this garbage off…"
"Finally, you're eating," said Deidara. "I thought you were gonna make like that goddamn peacock and die."
VVV
Satan's Asshole had earned its name: it was dark, smoky, and hot. The place was crowded with far too many bodies for Ino's liking and it stunk as a result, of alcohol spilled or burped up and many illicit things being burnt and smoked, and sweat, so much sweat…and the quote-unquote music? It pounded with a beat that was definitely not Tchaikovsky, so loud that Ino could feel it in the soles of her shoes.
The place was an assault not only on Ino's senses, but also on her sensibilities. As she and Deidara pushed their way in through the throng, she spotted a man injecting himself with something just in front of her (insulin, said Ino to herself, definitely insulin). There were women wandering around so scantily dressed that Ino, in her skanktastic outfit, felt chic. Everyone seemed at least moderately drunk or rolling on something. Ino looked at the people surging around them and barely saw human beings in these creatures with their glassy eyes, their half-opened mouths, their grinding…
"Oh my god," she said, holding herself tightly to Deidara's side. "There's a woman back there? Who just did a line of coke off of a guy's dick? Oh my god?"
"A girl after my own heart," said Deidara. He tried to pull his arm from Ino's grip. "Stop being so clingy, Jesus, I can't feel my arm…"
Ino did not return his arm. Deidara looked down at her. Their eyes met – and he saw her fear.
"You're scared."
"No," said Ino, and then a knife fight broke out next to them and she all but leapt into Deidara's arms. "Yes."
"So leave. I'll give you my key–"
The fighters were subdued by the crowd; their knives were removed; the party carried on.
"No," said Ino, climbing off Deidara and trying to seem less clingy. "I want to meet your guy."
Deidara raised Ino's hand to his face. Even under strobe lights, it was obvious that she was trembling.
"Scared shitless and stubborn – that's a stupid combination," said Deidara.
Ino glared and Deidara, seeing from this that she wasn't changing her mind, sighed and led her into a more or less quiet alcove. (At least, no one nearby was doing blow off of someone's dick.)
"Stay here," said Deidara. "I'm gonna see if he's around."
"Okay," nodded Ino, though really she wanted to say, "please don't leave me here by myself oh god."
Deidara disappeared into the crowd. Ino stood around and tried to look like she belonged and nothing was phasing her, but really she was staring around in horror at the things she was seeing. This was everything she disdained: the poor and the criminal and the broken, all of those dregs of humanity, all grouped up in this disgusting hovel where the floor was sticky with booze and puke and the air was thick with smoke and sweat and the breaths of mouths with open sores and ugh, ugh, ugh…
"Hey, sweetcheeks," came a voice in Ino's ear at the same time as a hand grabbed her ass.
She turned to find a massive bald guy peering down at her. He pulled her towards him, both hands now gripping her ass. "You new around here? Haven't seen you before."
Ino froze, unsure whether she should slap him for daring to touch her or whether she should be encouraging him because she was supposed to be a prostitute, so wouldn't this be, like, good for business? What to do? His breath was foul? His arms were like gorilla arms? He had honest-to-god gold grills? Should she scream? What to do?
"Um," was all Ino managed – that and a weak squirm, which elicited a wide grin from the man. (His grills said "Yoji.")
Then Deidara saved Ino by forcibly wedging his way between her and Yoji.
"She's taken," said Deidara.
"Aw, but she's fresh meat…"
"Taken. Fuck off."
Yoji fucked off with only a few choice expletives, which surprised Ino, because he must've weighed twice as much as Deidara and probably could've concussed him with a backhand.
"Never leave me alone again," said Ino as Deidara pulled her by the hand through the crowd.
"I won't – clearly you just start goddamn flirting with everyone…"
"I was just standing there–"
"Just standing there when that guy is fondling your ass is an invitation to go out back and get railed by him and his buddies on the hood of his Acura."
"Excuse me?" – Ino paused to step primly over a puddle of vomit – "How could that possibly have been interpreted as consent?"
"You're right," said Deidara. "You should go talk to him about consent and make sure he understands that no means no, and also, drugs are bad."
Deidara stopped at a long, crowded table and pulled out the only vacant chair. Ino, in all of her civilized innocence, expected him to offer it to her, but he sat in it himself.
So yes, chivalry was dead.
"I told him you were with me, so act like it," said Deidara. "Sit down."
"Sit where?" said Ino pissily. "You just took the last chair."
"Here," said Deidara even more pissily, pointing to his lap.
None of their tablemates seemed to notice or care about this angry exchange; they were all too engrossed in their own conversations and deafened by the thumping bass that rattled their glasses.
So Ino lowered herself onto Deidara's lap and sat there like a frozen thing. Deidara put one of his gloved hands on her thigh and she twitched.
"Why are you so skittish? Jesus…"
"Sorry," said Ino, taking a breath and remembering that she was supposed to be a prostitute and not Ino Yamanaka, Attorney Extraordinaire, Also Completely Out Of Her Depth.
Deidara put his hand on her again, and again her leg twitched.
"Wow," he said, removing his hand from her thigh and putting it back to watch the phenomenon repeat itself.
"Stop that…!"
"Then stop being so stiff and twitchy and sit back. I'm just a guy, holy fuck…"
"I know you're just a guy."
Deidara looked her up and down. "You're not some kind of virgin, are you? Never been touched or something?"
"Of course not," spat Ino, taking his hand and putting it on her thigh firmly to prove it. "I'm nervous. I can barely see, I can barely hear, I just got groped by a gangbanger – this place is freaking me out."
"I told you this was a bad idea."
Ino was not in the mood for his sass. "Know what else was a bad idea? Abducting me."
"I know," said Deidara, closing his eyes in a long-suffering manner.
Ino blinked at him. "Did you just admit…?"
"Yes," said Deidara. "But I still need you – and your daddy's cash. And you need me – and the people I know. So we're both going to have to suck it up."
He was right, of course. Ino slumped against him in something that looked an awful lot like defeat for someone who was always a winner.
But this was okay because it meant that, to any onlookers, Ino looked like she was slouching lazily against Deidara and he was just chilling there with this pretty paid-for girl on his lap.
"When's your guy getting here?" asked Ino, both because she wanted to know and because it was awkward to lean into Deidara's chest in this comfortable way – she would rather be bickering about something.
"When he gets here."
"Yes. Obviously. But when."
"Soon."
Useless. Ino sighed and turned her attention to the goings-on around her – all of this sex, drugs and alcohol that was so raw and dirty that it didn't seem real. She watched a girl younger than she was pass out and get carried off by a man – somewhere safe, she hoped, though she knew as she hoped it that she was being naive.
"Why do they do this?" asked Ino.
"Do what?"
"All of this," said Ino with a gesture that encompassed the entirety of the debauchery before them.
She felt Deidara shrug below her. "Boredom. Escapism. Nothing better to do."
"Do you do it?"
"No."
"Oh."
There was a pause before Deidara spoke again. "I used to."
"Not anymore?"
"No."
"Why?" asked Ino.
Again there was a pause before Deidara spoke. "'Cause… I almost lost everything that matters to me that way."
"Oh."
"Stop looking at me like that."
"Sorry," said Ino. "I almost cared, for a second."
"Don't," said Deidara.
"I won't. There are very few people I care about and I can assure you you're not one of them."
"Good – so let's not have a heart to heart about my tragic past, okay?"
"Okay," said Ino. "Fine. Let's talk about something else. Like why those three women in the corner have been glaring daggers at me ever since we sat down."
Deidara glanced over at where three particularly scantily clad women were huddled into a corner and scowling in Ino's direction. "I dunno. That's just how they look."
"Um, no," said Ino. "I know the look of female jealousy. That look transcends socio-economic classes. They hate me because I'm here with you. Who are they?"
"Just…girls," said Deidara.
"Like girlfriends?"
"Uh…they'd like to be?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I don't really do the girlfriend thing. And I don't pay for it, so…yeah, they're probably wondering who the fuck you are and why you get the honour of sitting on me."
"Blonde, brunette, and redhead," said Ino, eyeing the women. "Wow. You've got the pick of the litter."
"Yeah, well–"
"What are their names? Chlamydia, Herpes, and Crabs?"
She felt the huff of Deidara's laugh on her shoulder. "Careful. The redhead's done time for aggravated assault – someone lost some fingers…"
"Wow," said Ino. "What a night. How to choose between Yoji and his Acura and the psychopath ginger?"
"You don't. You stay right here and you stay safe. I can't trade in your corpse for five mil…"
Ino was distracted from the pissed-off prostitutes by the sight of something far worse. "Oh god."
"Now what…?"
"There's a guy. Getting a beej. Right there."
Deidara turned to where Ino was looking and studied the heels that were poking out from under the table. Then he looked at the guy's face. "Yep."
"This is so wrong…" said Ino, staring as though hypnotized. "He's about to…"
"Yeah, he is," said Deidara, turning away to stare at the ceiling.
Ino watched, appalled, as the guy finished and the woman climbed out from under the table, wiped her mouth, and flung herself onto him.
"Stop looking so scandalized," said Deidara as Ino turned to him, wide-eyed.
"I cannot believe I just saw that."
"Shouldn't have looked."
"We made eye contact," said Ino, "no wonder the floors are so sticky…"
"You don't want to know what else makes them sticky."
"Oh my god…"
Deidara looked at her horrified face and laughed. "Man. You are way too sober to handle this shit."
He waved over a waitress-slash-prostitute who came by with a tray of shots that smelled more like gasoline than alcohol.
"Here," said Deidara, plonking one in front of Ino. "Drink and loosen the fuck up before you draw attention to your uptight nerd self."
Ino looked at the shot glass. Deidara was right: alcohol did loosen her the fuck up. But usually it was alcohol in the form of imported wines and expensive brandies, not…sewage moonshine, or whatever this was.
"Do you think they carry Courvoisier?" asked Ino.
"Carry what?"
"…Nevermind," sighed Ino.
She stared at the brownish liquid in front of her, took a breath, and swallowed it down.
"Christ," she said, coughing half of it back up. "What the hell is this? Battery acid?"
"Haw. Funny girl."
Ino looked up through her tears to see who had spoken. It was a fat, greasy-looking man, with slicked back hair, a flower in his buttonhole, and a glass of something strong in his fist.
"Teruo, hey," said Deidara.
"Deidara. Don't often see you with girls," said Teruo, raising his glass in Ino's direction. "Who's this? One of Bertucci's new ones?"
"Uh, yeah," said Deidara, as Ino wiped away her tears and tried to look like a decent prostitute. Was she supposed to be being sexy right now? How was one supposed to be sexy when one's nose was running because one's sinuses had been scoured by a shot of Javex?
She wiped her nose with the back of her hand as discreetly as she could and assumed the vacant smile that the women around here seemed to favour. For good measure, she looped her arm around Deidara's neck. (It was his turn to twitch under her touch – perhaps because he was worried that, from her current position, she had a decent shot at strangling him.)
"Have another on me, sweetheart," said Teruo, snatching another shot glass from a passing tray. "You'll learn to like 'em…"
Ino had been about to refuse, but Deidara's fingers digging into her thigh suggested to her that she ought not do that.
She steeled herself and choked down the second shot with minimal tears.
"Good girl," said Teruo, patting her on the knee. "Fast learner."
Ino smiled at him as her stomach roiled unhappily: oily pizza and poison, oh my god, she was going to hurl.
"Heard you wanted to talk," said Teruo to Deidara.
"Yeah. You got a minute?
"For you, I have two," said Teruo. He tapped the shoulder of the burly man at Deidara's right and shooed him off. To Ino's surprise, the man took one look at Teruo and vacated the spot without an argument.
Teruo settled into his newly acquired chair and propped his feet on the table. "How's your ma?"
"Fine," said Deidara.
Teruo placed his drink on his protruding belly and studied Deidara. "That's good. It's been a while. You lookin' for a job?"
"Yeah. I need cash."
"No job I can get you is gonna give you what you need to pay him back," said Teruo. "You know that."
"I'm working on it," said Deidara.
Teruo shook his head. "You got in deep with the wrong one, boy. I told you that a long time ago…"
"You know I didn't have a choice."
"You did have a choice," said Teruo. "But it wasn't a choice you were willin' to make. And so here you are."
Deidara's face darkened. "Well – I don't regret it. I'd do it again."
"I'll ask you next week if you regret it," said Teruo. "No, wait – I can't – 'cause you'll be dead."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence, man…"
Teruo chuckled, but it was a sad chuckle. Ino, who was on the periphery of this conversation (good whores let the men do the talking, right?) thought that she could almost like this Teruo guy; he was kind, in a mean way, if that made sense…
"What're you gonna to do?" asked Teruo.
"I'll figure it out," said Deidara.
"You had a year to figure it out," said Teruo. "Now you got six days left."
"I know," said Deidara.
"You're dead," said Teruo.
"I'm not."
"I'll miss you," sighed Teruo. He turned to Ino. "Best in the business, you know, for blowin' shit up."
"Oh?" said Ino with a blank smile.
"Now where'll I go for the mob contracts?" asked Teruo, turning back to Deidara. "Hm? Slim Jim? O'Neal? They aren't the same…"
Deidara shrugged.
Teruo swirled his drink, looked around, and leaned forward.
"Though," he said in a voice so low it was difficult to make out over the music, "there is one job that would solve all your problems. You saw it?"
"Yeah," said Deidara. "But – assassinations aren't my line. You know that."
"So make it your line," said Teruo. He produced a cigar, lit it, and regarded Deidara significantly.
"I'm not equipped for that kind of shit," said Deidara.
Teruo shrugged. "They want it accidental. You can fix something up. There hasn't been a gas leak in New York in a while. We're overdue, wouldn't you say? A nice localized explosion?"
Ino kept her eyes on the glowing end of Teruo's cigar and fought to keep her expression neutral because the two of them were now chit-chatting about the possibility of killing her father.
"Too much collateral," said Deidara, shaking his head.
Teruo studied him. "You got your principles, son. I understand that. I respect it. But you're also running out of time…"
Deidara ran his gloved hands through his hair and Ino had to admire the acting. At least, she hoped it was acting. "Hundreds would die."
"But you get a fuckin' payday," said Teruo. "Ten million."
"Fuck," said Deidara.
"Yeah," said Teruo. "There's been a lot of interest. But folks are skittish, you know, after the McTavert bust. No one's signed on yet…"
"It does seem too good to be true."
Teruo shrugged. "I think it's legit."
"You think, or you know?" asked Deidara.
Teruo took another sip of his drink and held it in his mouth before swallowing.
"I know," he said at length.
Ino's gaze flicked to Teruo. Her fingers were itching to latch around his thick neck and ask, you know? How do you know? Who is it? Who is it, you fat bastard?
She played with her empty shot glass instead, as though a little bored with this conversation. Teruo noticed the gesture and waved over another shot, which Ino was barely able to swallow.
Deidara rubbed his face. "Ten mil, man. Who even has that kind of money?"
"It's legit," said Teruo. "Who gives a damn about the who?"
"'Cause it's too good, that's why I give a damn," said Deidara. "Why do you think no one's biting?"
"It'll only be a matter of time before someone does," said Teruo. "Won't be long. If it's not you, it'll be someone else who'll become a rich motherfucker."
Deidara rested his chin in his gloved hands and sighed into his palms. "What do you know about whoever's offering this?
"He calls himself the little prince."
"That's a shit name."
"It's all I got."
The waitress wandered back to the table, cleared the empties, and whispered something into Teruo's ear.
"Shit," said Teruo, pushing back his chair. "You tell me if you change your mind, son. Kakuzu just arrived. I can't be seen talking to you – you're a dead man walking."
Deidara looked with dread towards the entrance. He was afraid – which meant that, instantly, Ino was terrified. Terrified and slightly drunk; those three shots had gotten to work fast.
"Bye, sweetheart," said Teruo to Ino. He pulled the flower out of his buttonhole and gave it to her. "You come find me when this guy's dead. I'll take care of you."
With these parting words, Teruo disappeared into the crowd. There was a moment when Ino thought that Deidara was about launch her off of his lap and bolt – and then a shadow loomed blackly across their table.
Ino's mouth hung open as she took in the man who had cast it: a man immensely tall and broad, peering down at them with unnaturally bright green eyes. Like Deidara and his long sleeves and gloves, this man was overdressed for the summer weather: his hair was covered by a skullcap and his face was muffled by a scarf – and over everything he wore a heavy trench coat that reached his boots.
The man was simultaneously so bizarre and so intimidating that Ino wanted to skitter away and leave Deidara to deal with whatever bullshit he'd gotten involved in; it was soooo not her problem right now…
"Hey, Kakuzu," said Deidara in a voice somewhat smaller than Ino was used to hearing. (This, combined with her nerves and her tipsiness, made her want to giggle, but she heroically managed not to.)
"My money," said the man in a gravelly voice.
"I told you you'd get it next week," said Deidara.
Kakuzu leaned forwards. There was something frightening in his posture – something of profound, long-standing irritation, something of a temper about to snap…
Ino, under the onslaught of this rising tension, curled herself into Deidara a little more, which drew Kakuzu's attention to her.
"Who's this?" he asked.
"A girl," said Deidara.
"Do you have the money to be playing with girls?"
"I told you I'd get it to you next week," said Deidara. "So I'll get it to you next week."
Those unnatural green eyes lingered on Ino; on her hair, on her posture, on the grace that even a few shots of sewer moonshine hadn't erased from her movements.
"She's more upscale than you can afford," said Kakuzu.
"I only have one life," said Deidara, running a hand down Ino's thigh, "so I wanna live it."
Again Kakuzu stared; this time his eyes bore into Deidara's so powerfully that Ino thought she might feel the heat of it, if she were to put her hand out between them…
"Perhaps a wise decision," said Kakuzu, turning away, "because Friday, barring a miracle, that life is over."
"We'll see," said Deidara with more arrogance than was, in Ino's opinion, strictly necessary.
Kakuzu whipped around; both Deidara and Ino flinched.
"You seem pretty convinced for a kid with, what, 300 grand to his name? Who owes me millions?" Kakuzu leaned on the table; his fists pressing into the wood made it creak. "What are you plotting, little bomber boy?"
"Nothing," said Deidara.
"You gonna skip town?"
"No."
"You got a job lined up?"
"Looking."
"You thinking of the Yamanaka job?"
"Maybe."
Ino swallowed again and stared at the floor: oh my god, if Kakuzu knew the Yamanaka daughter was sitting right in front of him…
"Don't touch that job," said Kakuzu. "It's bullshit."
"Is it?"
"Don't be stupid, boy. It's ten million. That doesn't happen."
"You don't know that," said Deidara.
"It smells wrong."
"Maybe," said Deidara. "Or maybe you just want it for yourself."
Ino was certain that Kakuzu was about to swing one of those fists forward and take off Deidara's jaw.
Instead, he leaned back and barked out a mirthless laugh. "If I did, it would already be done."
(Thank god, thought Ino, thank god thank god thank god.)
"So who the hell puts out hits like this?" asked Deidara.
"Exactly," said Kakuzu. He turned away. "Six days, Deidara."
Deidara seemed ready to spit out another retort, but Ino's fingers on his mouth stopped him. Instead, all he managed was "Mff," which was amply drowned out by the thump of the bass.
"Will you shut up and let him leave," hissed Ino. Then, with a gasp, she pulled her hand away. "Ew, did you just lick me?"
"Now he's gone and he got the last word in, that miserly asshole…"
"What is wrong with you? Who cares about the last word? Don't you like having teeth? He could pulverize you…"
Deidara watched the tall figure of Kakuzu vanish into the crowd. He blinked, took a deep breath, and leaned his forehead into Ino's shoulder. "Yeah. Okay. So maybe adrenaline makes me stupid…"
"Incredibly," said Ino.
"I need a drink," said Deidara.
VVV
As they meandered through dark streets back to his apartment, Ino and Deidara took turns being the leader and turns getting lost. They argued about which way was the right way and which was the wrong way, and who was drunker (probably Deidara), and who had the worst sense of direction in the world (definitely Ino).
They approached a building that seemed, to their inebriated eyes, to be the right one.
"It is," said Ino as they stumbled into the smelly lobby. "There's the deathtrap…"
"Good," said Deidara, yanking elevator's rusted doors open. "Almossst home."
"M'not getting in there," said Ino. "Not today…"
"Get in," said Deidara.
"No," said Ino, turning away. "Where's the stairs?"
"Back there," said Deidara, pointing into some dark recess with an unsteady hand. "I'ma tell you something, though…"
"What?"
"Some units don't have working toilets any more, yeah? So they just drain it all into the stairwell…but if you wanna climb fifteen stories of shit, be my fuckin' guest."
Ino's hands covered her mouth in horror.
"No," she breathed.
"Yes," said Deidara. "I'm goin' up. Bye…"
"Wait!"
Deidara laughed at the sight of Ino clambering into the lift with him. "Look whose prissy ass decided to show up."
"Fifteen stories of shit," said Ino, holding onto Deidara's collar to steady herself. "I can't…this is the lesser…I can't…"
The elevator door slid to a close with some assistance from Deidara and he and Ino stared at each other in its flickering orange light and swayed on unsteady feet.
Ino blinked in gentle drunken wonder. "Hey – look – I'm not panicking right now…?"
"That's 'cause…you're completely sloshed," said Deidara. He reached out with a black-gloved finger that wove a bit in front of Ino's face before he managed to tap her on the nose. He looked at his hand. "Woah. That was way harder than I thought it was gonna be…"
"Jesus, you're trashed…"
"Yeah. H-hey – why isn't this piece of shit moving?"
"You forgot to press the button," pointed out Ino after a careful study of the button panel.
"…Oh," said Deidara.
He did so. It only took him four attempts to hit number fifteen (seventeen, twenty, sixteen, and B were the victims of his unsteady fingers) and, finally, the old machine heaved its way upwards.
"Does it…normally make that noise?" asked Ino when a distant metal-on-metal screech rang out.
Deidara was tilting his head to listen. "You know, I'm not sure…"
The screech grew louder and then, far away above them in the elevator shaft, something clanged hard.
The elevator shuddered for a moment and then stopped moving altogether.
"It…stopped," said Ino.
"Yeah…"
Ino looked around and asked, with a beautiful kind of drunken innocence, "This is a nightmare, isn't it?"
"Uh, no, it's–"
"It is," said Ino, clutching at Deidara's collar, the beginnings of the old claustrophobic dread in her eyes. "Say it's just a dream. Say it."
"Okay, okay, it's just a dream – uh, you're not looking so good…"
"It's just a dream and I'm going to wake up soon," said Ino, struggling to keep her breathing regular.
"Yeah, you are, and it's going to be fine…"
"It's going to be fine," repeated Ino – but the dread had set in, and now she couldn't believe the words. The walls were so close, so awful, and the ceiling was so low, and they were stuck, they weren't moving – they were going to run out of air, they were going to die here, she was going to die in a piss-soaked elevator. She wasn't ready to die – she hadn't said her goodbyes, she still had so much to do, she didn't deserve this kind of death and neither did Deidara, really, he wasn't that bad – and her father, who was going to save her father…
"You aren't going to die in a piss-soaked elevator," said Deidara from close to Ino's ear, which made her realize that she was climbing him – and also, she had said those things out loud.
Both of these things were embarrassing. She couldn't unsay the words but she could ease off on the climbing.
At least, that was the theory…Ino thought hard about releasing her fierce hold on Deidara, but her arms were knotted around his neck and her legs were locked at the ankles at his back and the irrationally afraid part of her brain that was dominating her right now said, no, okay, this is fine, this is how we will die, clinging to this man like this, and perhaps his body will cushion ours when we plummet to our death so we won't be too malformed when they find our corpses, hah, no, who are we kidding, this will be a closed-casket funeral shitshitshit–
"We aren't going to plummet to our deaths," said Deidara, thus informing Ino that she had, again, said those things aloud.
Something creaked and the elevator tilted violently to one side. Deidara and Ino had one chance to exchange a look – concern on his part, horror on hers – and then the lights went out.
They tumbled into the corner where the floor met the wall: now the piss-soaked floor was at a forty-five degree angle from the ground and it was almost impossible to stand up.
Ino struggled and fought to regain her footing in the dark anyway because that's what panicky claustrophobic drunks do. "Not going to plummet? Not going to plummet? We're plummeting!"
"Ouch – quit stepping on me – sit still," said Deidara, grabbing at Ino's legs in the dark.
"No," said Ino. "Let me go…!"
"Stop moving."
Ino struggled until she had exhausted herself – which took all of a minute – and then she collapsed where Deidara was already awkwardly wedged into the bottom-most corner of the elevator.
"Ow, fuck," said Deidara.
"I can't – can't get up – which way is even up?" said Ino, writhing around and trying not to poke him with a heel or a knee or an elbow and therefore managing to do all of those things and more. "Oh my god, I can't see anything – where's my phone – where's your phone – need some light–"
"Stop – fucking – moving," said Deidara, trapping her arms with his hands and her hips with his thighs.
There was another creak and both of them froze.
"I'm going to puke," said Ino.
"Don't."
Ino proceeded to hyperventilate, which, at least, held back the puke. "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god…we're going to drop down ten floors and be smashed to bits…!"
"We're not – that's not how elevators work, you idiot," said Deidara, blowing the heat of his beery breath onto her face.
"Like a drunk bomb boy would know how elevators work!" hissed Ino.
"Like a useless fucking princess would any better!" said Deidara.
"I'm not useless–!"
"Yes you are – you can't even be in an elevator without panicking!"
Ino found the front of Deidara's shirt in the pitch black and shook him. "Are you serious? Look at where we are right now–!"
"I can't see anything, actually–"
"We're stuck! In! The! Elevator! Was I not right to be panicking? Pre-emptively panicking?"
"Are we dead? No."
"We're about to be."
"No we aren't. Calm the fuck down," said Deidara. "Someone's going to need the elevator and it's not going to work and they'll call someone – okay? 'Cause no one wants to take the shit stairs."
"When will someone need the elevator?"
"I don't know. Soon."
"It's four in the morning!"
"Soon!"
There was nothing much else for them to say at this point, so they shuffled into more comfortable positions – well, Ino shuffled into a more comfortable position on top of Deidara, and she didn't give a damn if he was comfortable – and they breathed at each other.
"Great," said Deidara into the darkness. "Now I'm hard."
Ino chose that moment to have the most ladylike, gentle little puke, right down the front of his shirt.
