At some ungodly hour the next morning, a man's voice announced to Ino that all around the world, statues crumbled for him.
"What is that?" asked Ino in a sleep-befuddled mutter.
Beside her, Deidara disentangled himself from the duvet and poked his head out. "S'my alarm," he said, his eyes still closed. "S'Monday…"
Ino pulled her pillow up around her ears. "Turn it off… My god… Who still listens to Sugar Ray?"
"Everyone."
"No one. Turn it off before I smash your phone."
"It's a great song…"
Nothing like a looming argument to pull Ino out of her sleepiness properly. She was fully awake, now, and glaring at Deidara, who pulled himself out of the blankets to glare right back at her.
Then he caught sight of her hair, fanning over her pillow in a white-blonde semicircle and said, "My god, you really are that goddamn peacock, come back to haunt me."
And Ino, who had been lining up some scathing insults about his hideous taste in music, blinked and said, "Pardon?"
"Look at this," said Deidara, lifting a strand of hair from the half-moon that glimmered in feathery softness around her head. "It's like you're doing it on purpose."
"I promise you I'm—"
"You never stop squawking, either…"
This comment earned Deidara a pillow to the face from Ino while Sugar Ray informed the two of them that love can make you hostage, wanna do it again?
"This song is so stupid," said Ino, smothering Deidara with her pillow as she reached for his phone.
Some fighting followed because Deidara disagreed with Ino's violent plans involving his phone, while Ino thought they were excellent plans and had every intention of carrying them out.
He pulled the pillow off his face and reached to knock the phone further away. Ino threw herself across him to snag it. Then he tried throwing her back to her side of the bed, but Ino clung onto him bodily with great ferocity and, every time he let up on his efforts for a second, she clawed her way across him and closer to his phone, until he pulled her back again by the waist or the leg or whatever limb was handy. This continued for about a minute—a minute interspersed with heavy breathing and uncharitable remarks grunted towards one another—until their movements, hampered by the heaviness of the blankets, grew more sluggish. Then it became less of a fight and more of a slow struggle towards the bedside table that neither of them was making headway on.
"Ow," said Deidara when Ino resisted his last attempt to push her off by digging her fingers into his shoulders.
"What'd I do?" panted Ino with a look down at the dishevelled Deidara below her.
"Ease off on the talons—I already have bruises there…"
"Oh, sorry." Ino passed a hand contritely over his bare shoulder. "Can't see them with all your tattoos, I forgot—"
"They're there. I wasn't kidding when I said you're clingy as fuck…"
Ino replaced the touch with a light smack. "Apology withdrawn."
Then she decided to take advantage of the lull in the struggle to make a quick swipe for the phone ("Who knows how long I've loved you…") but Deidara's hands on her hips rid her of that idea.
"So who's clingy now?" asked Ino as she attempted to writhe out of his grip.
"This isn't clingy—this is—holding—in a manly, unemotional way—"
"Hah," said Ino, pushing a knee hard into the mattress and leaning towards the edge of the bed. "Maybe I'd believe you were manly and unemotional if you didn't listen to bad 90s love songs—"
Deidara jerked her back down. Her fingers missed the phone by an inch. "Hey, at least I have emotions—"
"So do I," said Ino.
"You have one emotion: pissy."
"Excuse me?"
"…And there it is," said Deidara.
Ino pressed her full weight down upon Deidara's right forearm to try to disengage at least one of his hands. "If I'm pissy it's only because of you."
"If I can make you feel anything I'll consider it a win—"
"I just wanna fly," interjected Sugar Ray, "put your arms around me, baby…"
Ino pushed down harder. Under her palms, Deidara's forearm grew more taut. She could feel the muscles there, under the inked-up skin, lean and tough as the rest of him. His fingers dug more resolutely into her waist.
"Now you're going to leave me bruises," said Ino.
The effect of these words was instantaneous. Deidara's hands vanished her side, both of them, and dropped to the mattress.
Ino, perplexed at her newfound freedom, looked down with suspicion from her perch on his stomach and said, "That was too easy."
Deidara looked at her with an inscrutable expression. "Just pass me the damn phone."
So Ino reached over, unimpeded at last, and snatched the phone, and hesitated for a split second (she thought of lording it over Deidara but decided that that would be unsportsmanlike) before giving it to him.
Deidara turned off the stupid alarm clock and a blessed silence fell upon the bedroom. And then things got awkward because Ino was still sitting on Deidara and they were both kind of breathless and, somehow, wrestling together in bed had made way more sense when there was a phone to fight over and 90s pop blaring around them for ambience.
Now it made no sense at all.
"So anyway," said Ino, "I'm going to go eat breakfast."
"…You do that," said Deidara.
Ino clambered off Deidara with as much grace as she could muster and ran away, and Deidara kept the covers tucked up to his waist until she disappeared.
VVV
Deidara wandered into the kitchen later, wearing his jeans, a white singlet, and an expression of disgust. "What is that smell?"
"Egg white omelette," said Ino from her barstool at the counter. "I make it in the microwave, it's faster that way. There's enough for you, if you want—"
"It smells like farts."
"It does not."
"I'm not eating any."
"It's, like, pure protein! It's good for you!"
Deidara approached and hovered over the omelette with a critical eye. "You didn't even put any cheese in it. What's that stuff?"
"Green onions."
"Wow. Hard pass."
"Fine." Ino pulled the plate towards herself and resolved never to do anything nice for Deidara ever again in her life. "You can starve."
Deidara drifted towards the fridge and proceeded to ignore this directive by sucking down two of Ino's mini yogurt cups like some kind of animal.
"...I have spoons," said Ino in the face of this spectacle.
"Cool," said Deidara. He pulled out more yogurt cups and a bottle of almond milk and hoisted himself onto the counter beside Ino, clearly with no intention whatsoever of fetching himself a spoon.
"Here," said Ino, thrusting one into his hand (the gloves were back, she noted in passing—the leather ones). "Stop slurping… and why can't you sit on a stool like a normal person?"
Deidara's slurping was replaced with obnoxious sucking at the spoon. "Higher ground."
"Higher ground for what?"
"Dunno. It's just habit," said Deidara as he chugged down some almond milk. "So—what're we doing today, besides eating fart omelette? Have you thought of a new genius plan?"
Ino, who had been mulling over her plan (or lack thereof) throughout breakfast, rubbed at her eyelids. "No. I've hit a dead end. It wasn't Seigo who put out the contract. I can't envision any of my father's smaller rivals doing something like this. So all I have is this hit for ten million dollars and this stupid clue that the guy calls himself the Little Prince."
"Not much to go on."
"No," sighed Ino.
Deidara scraped out the last of the yogurt in the pot, and said, without looking up at her, "Maybe you should go to the cops."
"You think I should go to the cops? I thought you said it wouldn't be smart to do that…"
"You're stuck," shrugged Deidara. "What're you going to do otherwise?"
Ino, picking listlessly at her eggs, had no response to make.
"Just don't throw me under the bus when you do, yeah?"
Ino looked up. Something in the forced casualness of Deidara's words—of his whole demeanour, right now, actually—was raising little red flags.
"I wouldn't do that," she said, surveying him with increased scrutiny. "I understand why you kidnapped me, now, even if it was the stupidest move you could've pulled, and totally illegal, and you should go to jail for it. But you tried to help me, after."
"Yeah. And we signed a contract."
"I know," said Ino. "I haven't forgotten. And I will have my father reward you, since it's thanks to you we even know about the hit. He'll be generous with someone who saved his life."
"Good."
Ino turned back to her omelette and poked at it, truly suspicious, now. "It's funny, though. I thought you'd resist me going to the police a lot more. I thought you didn't trust them. You said there could be plants in all the law enforcement agencies—that it'd be a given, with someone this powerful who could put this kind of price on someone's head..."
Deidara fiddled with the lid of the almond milk bottle and didn't quite look at her. "Hey. It's like you said—you're at a dead end. So now you need to move."
"...And if I remember correctly," said Ino, making a show of reminiscing about that far-away Saturday morning, "you said it could be weeks or months before someone picked up the contract—you said those kinds of things can take ages. Because people are going to be leery of another sting."
Briefly, Deidara looked irritated, and when he opened his mouth Ino was ready to hear him spit out, I know what I fucking said. But he swallowed that down and said instead, in a cautious tone, "Yeah, but, again, now you're at a dead end. You can't just sit on this kind of information. We tried the obvious shit with Teruo and Seigo and we didn't get much out of 'em. So someone needs to be investigating this properly, someone who actually knows what they're doing. So, yeah. Go to the police. Call your dad. Let's get this moving..."
Ino's phone, which was lying beside her plate, was nudged towards her by Deidara.
"Of course, if I go to my dad and the police now, you also get your reward that much sooner," said Ino.
"Uh, yeah, I guess," said Deidara, like he totally hadn't been thinking about that, but thank you for bringing it up.
He was in no way subtle enough to deceive Ino. She crossed her arms and fixed him with a cold stare.
"What?" asked Deidara in the face of her stiffened-up demeanour.
"You don't even care if going to the police is a bad idea anymore. You just want the money as soon as possible."
Deidara glanced down at her from his spot on the counter and held her hard gaze for two valiant seconds before turning away. "It's not that I don't care, exactly..."
His hesitation made Ino grow colder still. "Don't lie. You don't care if some Little Prince informant expedites this whole thing and kills my father within the same hour that I let the police know that I know, as long as you get your money first. That's why you're pushing me to go to the cops now. Our other plans failed and you're getting antsy and you want your payday. You don't give a damn what happens after."
"That's not true. I don't want your dad to die, I just have my own priorities..."
Ino squared her shoulders. Something of the ruthless cross-examiner emerged in her tone.
"Deidara. Look me in the eye and tell me you seriously, one-hundred-percent-honestly, think my best option right now is to go to the police with this information."
To his credit, Deidara didn't even try. He said nothing and studied the grey striations that lined the white quartz countertop.
"Let me change up some factors in this equation and see if I can get an answer out of you. If it was your mother's life on the line, rather than my father's, would you go to the police at this point?"
"...No."
Ino's jaw tightened. "Then why are you encouraging me to?"
Whatever pretense Deidara had been trying to maintain fell to pieces under Ino's relentless glare. He dropped the spoon he'd been fiddling with—threw it, almost—onto the counter with a clatter. "Listen, we tried my thing, then we tried your thing, and neither of them worked. Now you're out of options, and I'm out of time."
"I can't believe you'd compromise my father's safety over money."
Deidara held up his hands in a gesture of aggravation. "News-fucking-flash: not everything's about your precious father. I have problems of my own to deal with—"
"This is my father's life we're talking about—"
"What about my life? Without that money, I'm dead in four days. Or had you already forgotten that? Where does that factor into your precious equation?"
Now there were bitter words on Ino's tongue waiting to be unleashed upon Deidara. News-fucking-flash yourself—your life isn't as valuable as my father's, it's not as important, in fact, it doesn't factor into the equation at all.
But, as she glared at Deidara where he sat on her counter surrounded by empty yogurt pots, his tattoos clashing beautifully with her white kitchen, she realized that she couldn't say these things. First, their utterance would sever, no doubt forever, whatever tenuous alliance existed between them. She couldn't risk crossing that line, not when she might still need him. And secondly—well, secondly (she realized with simultaneous astonishment and displeasure), those words weren't entirely true.
They should've been true, but they weren't.
So the bitter words died on her lips and became, instead, a sigh through her teeth.
"Don't you peacock-hiss at me," said Deidara. "Answer. Where do I fall in your goddamn equation?"
"I don't know." Ino let her head fall into her hands in a rare display of weariness. "How can I answer that? After what you just tried to pull, I don't even know if I can trust you..."
In the periphery of her vision, Deidara's leather-clad fingers dug into the quartz.
"...As if you ever trusted me in the first place," he said after a beat.
Ino raised her head. "Up until five minutes ago, I did."
Deidara gave her a look that said he didn't believe her at all.
Ino almost throttled him for it. She clambered onto the counter beside him and pulled him towards her with a finger hooked into the front of his singlet. "Let me ask you a question. Do you really think I'd agree to your dumb plan to dress up like a prostitute and get hammered on back-alley homebrew, if I didn't trust you?"
"I—"
"Rhetorical question," interrupted Ino. "Don't answer, just listen. I listened to your advice regarding my father's life. I slept beside you, drunk, in nothing but your stupid sweatshirt. I took you to meet my ex. I brought you into my condo. I let you sleep in my bed. Do you think I'd do any of those things, if I didn't trust you on some fundamental level?"
Again Deidara opened his mouth to answer and again Ino cut in, her voice hard and brittle. "I thought we were working well together. I thought our strengths and weaknesses complemented each other's. I thought we were an okay team, all things considered, and most of all, I thought you—" this Ino accompanied by a jab at Deidara's chest "—were a decent person. At least, that's what you've led me to believe, you sure lecture me enough about how I'm not. I've trusted you until now and I haven't regretted it. But now—now, if I need to be suspecting that you're pulling this kind of shit—trying to push your own agenda and pretending it's for my benefit—then…then I don't know where we go from here."
Ino pulled away from Deidara, crossed her arms, and glared at the wall.
Somewhere in her condo, a clock ticked loudly.
A door slammed down the hall.
Rush hour traffic hummed, far away.
Deidara's face was tilted down, half-hidden by his golden fringe. A line of tension ran from his jaw down to his neck and into his hunched shoulders. Ino's frown lessened as she contemplated him sitting in this uncharacteristic silence and wondered if he had any idea himself, of where they should go from here. If he thought they should call it quits and cut their losses and part, and deal with the fallout of the respective shit storms that awaited them. Or, if he felt, like she did, that there was an odd sort of strength to their erstwhile coalition—that he could still be useful to her, and she to him, therefore they ought to work this out…
Deidara ran a hand through his hair. He took a breath, let it go, and then took it in again. "It's not just me."
"…What?"
"If I go," said Deidara, staring straight ahead now, "if I die, if anything happens to me—it's not just me…"
"You mean your mother," said Ino.
The tightness in Deidara's jaw increased. He did not answer her.
"…Then be upfront with me about it," said Ino. "Jesus. You don't hesitate to be upfront about everything else."
"What does that even mean…? I've been upfront about being in this for the money from the very beginning."
Ino gave him a look. "Yes, you have. But you haven't tried to mislead me into doing something unwise just because you want the money faster."
"Yeah, well—we've tried the obvious solutions and came up empty. I don't have time to run around the city playing Detective Barbie with you. This is getting urgent."
"I told you I'm going to honour that dumb contract. You'll get the money. So stop panicking. When does Kakuzu come and collect, and-slash-or kill you?"
"Friday morning." Deidara ran his fingertips along the circles under his eyes. "Fuck. That's in, like, five minutes."
"By Thursday night, it'll be in your account. Okay? Can I now assume you'll help me without pushing some ulterior motive?"
Deidara stared at her. "…How did you manage to play this so now you're using the money as leverage against me? Now you're—you're guaranteeing I stick around to help you until Thursday night."
"Yes," said Ino.
Deidara raised his hands in a gesture of vast irritation. "Wh—?! I kidnapped you. You're my hostage. I'm the one who should have the leverage, here."
"I know. You're a terrible kidnapper," said Ino, hopping off the counter. "And I'm way better at this kind of strategizing."
Deidara stared at her like he wanted to argue the point, but decided against it. "…So now what?"
"Are there any cops you trust?"
"You're asking me—a convicted criminal—if I trust any cops?"
"Yes. Like, in your many interactions with them, have you found any that are genuinely good? Honourable? Trustworthy?"
"…No. There are tons on the mob's payroll, on the yakuza payroll, on random little crime boss' payrolls. Hell, I've paid some off myself, just to give you an idea of how cheaply they can be bought. And these aren't just beat cops I'm talking about— these are sergeants, captains—the deputy commissioner is a mafia man, I know that for a fact. So depending on who's put the hit on your dad, you're taking a gamble approaching them…"
Ino reached for her phone. "Then I'm not going to risk it—not yet. I do know someone who works with the police, though—not for them, but with them."
"Who?"
"Is that post on the black web thingy still up?" asked Ino, ignoring his question. "I should've thought of this earlier…"
"The dark web," corrected Deidara, reaching for his own phone. "Who's the someone?"
"An old friend. Runs his own cyber security firm. He's an actual, legitimate genius."
"How much do you trust him?" asked Deidara with a raised eyebrow. "Anyone can be bought."
"With my life," said Ino. "He can't be bought, money doesn't motivate him. Nothing motivates him, really… Send me the link to that forum thing—"
"I can't send you a link, that's not how this works," said Deidara.
"Then send me a stupid screenshot so I have something to show him."
"Then what's your stupid number?"
Ino held up her screen for Deidara to copy down her number. She shook her head as he did so. "Wow. Simultaneously the most rude and most successful attempt to get my number by any man, ever..."
VVV
It took four calls—during which Ino grew progressively grouchier—before Shikamaru picked up his phone.
"Mwhellouh?"
"Shikamaru. Finally."
There was a pause, during which Shikamaru made some disgusting dry-mouth sticky-saliva-swallowing sounds in Ino's ear.
"Are you there…?" asked Ino when he seemed to have finished.
"S'too early," came Shikamaru's groggy voice.
"Listen, I know you're not a morning pers—"
"Bye."
The line went dead.
"That lazy turd," hissed Ino as Deidara laughed in disbelief.
Ino dialed again, twice, and, when Shikamaru finally picked up again, she reminded him that she knew where he lived and that she would be there in fifteen minutes to shake him up, if he dared to hang up on her again.
"Fine, fine," huffed Shikamaru. "What?"
"I need you to look into something for me," said Ino.
"Sounds like work," said Shikamaru. "So, no."
"It's a matter of life and death," said Ino.
These dramatic words did not have the desired impact. Shikamaru merely breathed out a yawn and said, languidly, "You think Chipotle opens this early?"
Ino pressed two fingers to the bridge of her nose and Deidara, who had been eavesdropping over her shoulder, chortled.
"...Who's with you?" asked Shikamaru.
"No one," said Ino.
"I heard someone laugh."
"It was—it was me."
Silence fell on the other end of the line. Ino could see Shikamaru in her mind's eye as clearly as though he were in front of her; those sharp black eyes, that expression of flat cynicism.
"…Right," said Shikamaru, a little more interested now that he knew Ino was up to something. "So tell me about this life or death thing."
"Okay so—so I have this—" Ino eyed Deidara up and down. "—this client, who I pulled out of a tight spot. He's come to me with something weird."
"Something weird," repeated Shikamaru in a deadpan. "Elaborate."
"Hold on. I'm sending it to you." Ino pulled her phone down and flicked quick fingers across the screen. By the time the phone was at her ear again, she heard the ping of a new email in Shikamaru's inbox.
"Got it. Lemme look."
Meanwhile, Deidara was holding his own phone up to Ino. She swatted it away a few times until he held it right in her face so that she would be forced to read the text from Sasori on the screen: "Picking up the Hamura order in 30."
Deidara gestured to his wrist and mouthed, "Hurry the hell up."
Ino covered the phone and said, "What? This is way more important."
"Sasori hates waiting. He'll trash my place and kill my cat. C'mon…"
"Your place is already a dump," whispered Ino. "…Kill your cat?"
"He's kind of a psycho, okay?"
"Alright, alright—hold on…"
"Huh," said Shikamaru just as Ino put the phone back to her ear. "Your client messes around on the Darknet? What sketch-ass kinda client is this?"
"Pro bono case," said Ino with a prim little sigh. "Not my usual clientele…"
"Ten million for your dad's head," said Shikamaru, now sounding awake for the first time during this conversation. "Damn. Who the hell…?"
"That's what I need your help with. I haven't gone to the police yet but I—"
"Good," cut in Shikamaru. "Don't. Their so-called Cyber Threat Division is a bunch of incompetents with their keyboards up their asses sideways. Lemme trace this shit… but first, I need to trace some other shit…"
"What other shit?" asked Ino.
"Who's Deidara?" asked Shikamaru.
"Um – the client I just mentioned," said Ino. Deidara, who had again been listening in over her shoulder, exchanged a perplexed glance with her.
"So he's the one with you," said Shikamaru.
"Yes," said Ino. "How did you know…?"
"Just tracking your cell—and I saw his bleep up."
"Shikamaru. Stop being creepy."
"Don't lie to me and I won't creep on you," came Shikamaru's drawl through the phone. "Just wanted to make sure you weren't in some kinda trouble. Since when do you bring clients to your place? You never let anyone into your place."
"I know, but it's been kind of rock and roll around here, and we needed a place to crash so—"
"He slept there?"
"…Yes."
"Wow," said Shikamaru.
Ino turned away from Deidara so she didn't have to witness his bemused expression. "…Could you just get back to tracing that post?"
"I'm already on it," said Shikamaru. Ino heard the sound of rapid typing. "Uh. Do you know this Deidara guy's history?"
"Yes," said Ino.
"He's like, a bad guy."
"I know."
"Arson, arson, arson…"
"I know."
Clicks from Shikamaru's mouse reached Ino's ear. Then there was a little gasp. "He's the one who blew up Fat Bertha the Cow? That statue was a work of art, man. I used to drive by it all the time visiting my grandma…"
Deidara leaned over Ino's shoulder and said, "It was fucking ugly."
"Do you mind?" said Ino to Deidara, holding the phone to her chest.
"It was a masterpiece," came Shikamaru's voice, muffled against Ino's chest.
She brought the phone back to her ear. "Oh my god, can we not be talking about the cow—"
Deidara trapped Ino between himself and the counter so she couldn't turn away and said into the phone, "Fat Bertha was a papier-mâché piece of shit."
And Shikamaru, who never got worked up about anything, but seemed to care a lot about this cow, said, "She was an icon—!"
"Also," interrupted Deidara, getting way into Ino's personal space again to speak into the phone, "I was sixteen and it was funny—"
Ino pressed her hand to Deidara's mouth. "You, shut up. Shikamaru, I don't give a damn about the irrelevant cow. Track that post—and call me as soon as you find anything."
A languorous sigh rustled into her ear. "Yeah, yeah…"
VVV
As soon as Ino hung up, Deidara all but dragged her out of the kitchen. "Let's go, let's go… get dressed. Some of us have actual jobs to do."
"Manufacturing illegal explosives isn't a real job," said Ino as she was yanked into the bedroom.
"Pays my bills," said Deidara, throwing his few belongings into his bag, "And it's better than sitting around in a nightie on Monday morning, which is apparently your job…"
Ino disappeared into her closet. "This is a negligee. Nighties are what grannies where. And I do work on Monday mornings. Today is the first Monday I've taken off in three years, for your information. I'm supposed to be at the spa. Then you happened… god, what a fucking disaster."
"Hey—aren't you glad I happened? You wouldn't have a clue that your dad was merc fodder if it wasn't for me."
Ino pretended to be too busy dressing to concede the point.
A few minutes later, she and Deidara headed into the elevator, and from thence into the underground parking lot.
"No," said Ino when Deidara took a step towards the visitor's parking. "We're taking my car."
"What's wrong with my car?"
"Everything," said Ino as she led the way towards where her Audi TT—pristine white, obviously—shone in a quiet corner of the garage.
"Figures it's that one," said Deidara when the car beeped to life as they approached. "If you'd been the Lambo, I would've been impressed…"
"That belongs to the president of the New York Philharmonic," said Ino with a glance at the neighbouring car. "He had a midlife crisis a few months ago—used to drive a Lexus…"
Deidara didn't immediately join Ino in her car. He mumbled something about wanting to check it out, got her to pop the hood, oohed over the engine, then disappeared 'round the back.
"I thought we were in a hurry?" called Ino after a few minutes of this.
"We are," said Deidara, finally sliding into the seat beside her. "Drive."
"Finally," said Ino, pulling out of her spot. "I thought you were going to start making out with it…"
She guided the car towards the gentle slope that led to the exit. The garage door lifted soundlessly, flooding the passage with morning sunlight as the Audi glided out.
Both of them slipped on their sunglasses. Ino, in her summer dress of lavender so light it was almost grey, her gauzy scarf, and her Prada sunnies, looked like a Vogue model heading to a shoot. And Deidara, lounging in the seat beside her in his beaten-up bomber jacket and aviators, looked like a bush pilot off to climb into his Cessna and explore the world. (And perhaps, from the way he occasionally glanced at the Vogue model, he thought of inviting her along for the journey.)
They made their way through Monday morning Manhattan traffic without incident until a Camaro tried to cut Ino off. In the face of her categorical refusal to let him into her lane, the other driver rolled down his window and yelled at her to quit playing dumb and get out of his way—and oh, it figured she was a blonde.
Ino rolled her own window down, lowered her sunglasses onto the bridge of her nose, and fixed the man with her piercing eyes until he had raged himself into silence. Then she remarked that, you know, she might be blonde but at least she knew what a turn signal was, and at least she wasn't so devoid of style that she would choose to drive a shitty leased Camaro whose very sight was offensive to anyone with taste—not that he would understand, because he was obviously blind. And did the letters 'DH' in his license plate stand for dickhead? They did, didn't they? Accurate. Okay, but, real talk, was his suit actually made out of the carpet from a Holiday Inn?
First the man opened his mouth as if to answer, then, as Ino's invective increased in volume and cruelty, it simply hung open, and by the end, when Ino informed him that she'd rather be blonde than whatever shade of diarrhea he was rocking with that bad dye job, he was close to tears.
Ino put her sunglasses back on, buzzed the window back up, and cut in front of him to the tune of dozens of impatient horns.
And Deidara, who had wisely sat back during this exchange, observed her in a dreamy kind of silence.
"What?" asked Ino when she stopped glaring at the Camaro in the rear-view enough to notice Deidara's wistful stare.
"You're kinda… explosive," said Deidara, slowly, looking at her, but not really looking at her, because his eyes were a little out of focus.
"…What?"
Deidara blinked out of whatever daydream had just captivated him. "Nothing. Forget it. Left on 42nd. And maybe we can make it to my place without making any other grown men cry."
VVV
Other than an argument about Ino's lawful adherence to the speed limit and where Deidara could shove his opinion about it, the remainder of the journey to his place was uneventful. They stepped into the apartment to find Sasori hadn't arrived yet, to Deidara's evident relief.
He threw himself into packing explodey-looking things into boxes while Ino watched and didn't offer to help him in any way whatsoever. However, now that Deidara was the one who was harried and stressed and she was the one with nothing to do, Ino took pleasure in getting into his hair. She hovered around him as he worked, made unsolicited observations about his packing technique, and flicked styrofoam peanuts at him until he snarled at her.
Ino backed out of biting distance. "So," she said as the stack of boxes beside Deidara grew, "what's your business model, anyway? You do all the work and Sasori's the delivery boy?"
"The delivery boy?" snorted Deidara. "Yeah, you should definitely call him that when he comes around..."
Ino narrowed her eyes. "You know, I don't think I will. So what's his deal, then?"
"Intelligence," said Deidara, snipping off some masking tape with his teeth.
"Ooh. Like espionage and stuff? Cool."
Deidara paused in his packing to give Ino a hard look. "Bombs are cooler."
Ino made a noncommittal sound, which garnered her an even harder look.
"Bombs are cooler," repeated Deidara.
"...Okay, okay, yes, they're cooler," said Ino before his steely blue stare actually skewered her.
"Damn right." Deidara shoved over the box he'd just closed up and started on another one. "Sasori gets into all kinds of circles with his spying and information selling gig. So here and there he'll find someone who needs to blow something—or someone—up. He puts me in touch and he gets a cut. And he's on delivery duty ʼcause he's an anal control freak who wants to be the point man on the deals. Apparently I run my mouth too much and offend the wrong people..."
Deidara's phone beeped and up popped a text from Sasori. "There in five," read Deidara. "Punctual-ass nerd…"
"Punctuality is a quality," sniffed Ino.
"Whatever." Deidara hoisted a foam-filled box onto his work table. "Now quit distracting me. I've got work to do before that dweeb gets here."
"I'm not distracting you," said Ino as she took aim at him with another styrofoam peanut.
Deidara snatched her hand out of the air and pulled it down. "Hey. I'm boxing up grenades. Live grenades. So why don't you stand around and look pretty over there and stay out of my hair, so we don't both dietoday."
Ino peeked over the flap of the box and discovered that yes, there were, in fact, live grenades in there. "...Fine," she said, pulling her hand out of his grasp. "I'll go be pretty elsewhere."
So Ino meandered around the apartment in a bored kind of way, texted Shikamaru for updates with no response, and said unkind things to a passing rat. Her aimless steps took her to the far wall, where she drifted to a halt and flicked through the canvases that leaned there. Most featured Deidara's preferred subject matter of fiery explosions of paint, but tucked in here and there among the explosions were paintings of skies—of wild blue yonders lingering unfinished, half-dreamt firmaments, and birds in flight to nowhere.
There was something sad about the birds winging their way to blankness: something about wasted potential, about what could have been...
Between two paintings of sky, Ino found a loose sheaf of paper stuck to dried-up paint: a charcoal sketch of a woman. This, like most of the canvases here, must've been produced after Deidara's accident: the lines were thick, frustrated, unrefined—and yet, thought Ino as she looked at the woman, they so captured the spirit of her that she felt she might be able to pick her out in a crowd: the gentling eyes, the softness of the mouth, the wisps of wind-blown hair… in fact, she felt like she'd seen her before, this woman...
"Who's this?" asked Ino, holding the dusty sketch up to Deidara across the room.
Deidara looked up from where he was nestling grenades into foam. "Huh? Oh. No one. It's just a drawing."
"It's nice." Ino held the sheaf at arm's length and tilted her head. "Why does she look so familiar to me?"
"Dunno," said Deidara, turning back to his packing.
"It's that saint of yours, isn't it?"
Deidara's jaw tightened in an irritated way. "Why do you ask questions you already know the answer to?"
"Validating my conjectures," said Ino with a smirk. She tucked the picture away between canvases again and dusted off her palms.
Deidara muttered something that may have been, "I'll validate your face," but Ino couldn't quite make it out from the bathroom, where she was now rinsing her hands.
Sasori the cat joined Ino there and proceeded to rub his fluffy orange bottom on the bath mat.
Ino watched him at it with raised eyebrows. "You know," she called to Deidara over the running water, "I'm concerned. I think Sasori might have worms."
The remark was greeted by the sound of choked-up laughter. Ino poked her head out to find that the real Sasori had arrived during her bathroom interlude—and had, of course, heard the comment.
"Oh, hi," said Ino.
Sasori did not respond to Ino. Instead, he pinned her with a look that conveyed to her that, if it was up to him, tomorrow morning her body would be found in a garbage bag on the side of the road, cut into small pieces.
And Deidara—well, Deidara was on the ground, gasping with laughter.
"I meant the cat," said Ino as the cat scooted out of the bathroom beside her, butt-to-floor. "Obviously."
"Obviously," repeated Sasori in a tone that nevertheless suggested impending dismemberment. He turned stiffly to where Deidara had collapsed on the floor. "Why is she still here, wandering around loose?"
Deidara gurgled out something breathless about Sasori's ass-worms. However, upon noticing Sasori's offended fixation on Ino, he sobered the hell up and pushed himself back to his feet.
"Because—because shit's more complicated than I thought."
"I told you this was a bad idea," said Sasori. "More complicated how?"
Deidara stacked a few packages into Sasori's arms. "None of your goddamn business, worm-boy. I already have Kakuzu riding my ass about it, I don't need you there too. I'll have the cash in a few days and this shit-show will be over and I'm never borrowing money again in my life."
"Hmph."
"That's the last of it," said Deidara, hefting up a stack of boxes in his own arms. "Let's load 'em up…Where're you parked?"
"Two blocks down on Carson," said Sasori. He paused to watch Deidara's blond topknot bobbing towards the door. "...Where are you going?"
"Your car. Duh."
Sasori stared at Deidara, something like disbelief etched into his otherwise expressionless face. "You're going to leave her here? By herself? Free?"
Deidara came to a sudden halt and pivoted around, like he totally hadn't just been about to do exactly that. "Of course not."
He dropped the boxes and made his way towards Ino, who could only sigh because oh my god, he really was the worst kidnapper in the whole world. Deidara pulled zip ties from his pocket and yanked Ino towards the radiator.
Sasori shook his head and turned his flat stare to the ceiling. "I'm used to a certain amount of incompetence from you—but leaving your hostage to wander around is just another level…"
"I was getting to it," said Deidara.
"She's your meal ticket, man."
"I said I was getting to it."
"Right." Sasori pulled open the front door and stepped into the hallway. "So tie Venus up and let's go. I've got shit to do."
"I've got shit to do, too," snarled Deidara at Sasori's back. Then, to Ino, "You, stop moving."
"No stupid zip ties," said Ino in a fierce whisper. "I hate them—just let me pretend to be tied up—"
"So he turns around and finds you loose? Fuck that," muttered Deidara. "I'll be back in ten. Stop looking at me like that…"
Ino did not stop looking at him like that until he had tied her up, picked up his boxes, and slammed the door behind him.
Then she was left to contemplate the paint flecking off Deidara's radiator in pouty silence.
After some time of this, Sasori the cat meandered over in that way he liked to meander over just when he was not wanted the most. He rubbed himself against Ino's thighs where she knelt on the mattress, leaving puffs of orange fur on expensive satin. Ino opened her mouth to tell him to get his wormy self away from her when the cat's fluffy ears pricked up at the sound of footsteps in the hall.
For a moment he stood frozen, whiskers quivering and ear-tips almost touching each other—and then he was off like a shot. He skittered across the parquet and launched himself into a half-empty box of wires at the other end of the room.
This was Ino's only indication that something Bad was about to happen, before the lock on the front door was smashed in.
VVV
Ino felt that she would've liked to scream, but some greater instinct told her to make like the cat and shrink down in petrified silence instead.
Kakuzu stomped into the apartment. A silvery-blond man strolled in behind him, cupped his hands around his mouth, and announced, "Honey, we're ho-ome!"
"Shut up, Hidan," came Kakuzu's throaty growl. When there was no movement in the form of, presumably, an irate Deidara, both men advanced further into the apartment.
"Whatever—the little fucker's not even here—" began Hidan, until he interrupted himself at the sight of Ino. "Ooh, hello—who's that?"
Kakuzu turned to where Ino knelt, wide-eyed and pale, on the mattress in the corner. He studied her for a moment before he could place her. "Deidara's whore from the other night."
"What? Deidara's got a whore?"
Ino's mind raced as Hidan looked her up and down. Yes, right, to them, she was a nameless prostitute, that's what she was, she was not Ino Yamanaka, in fact, she had never heard of that name in her life...
Kakuzu's interest in Ino was limited to that passing moment. It was the mess of papers scattered on Deidara's pallet-wood table that caught his attention. He moved there with heavy steps and began to rifle through the bills and unopened bank statements there.
This was unfortunately not the case for the one called Hidan, who sauntered over to Ino and peered down at her. "Huh. She must be some kinda favourite, ʼcause he's got her all tied up."
"...What?" asked Kakuzu, looking up from his rifling.
Hidan pulled Ino's wrists up as far as the zip tie permitted. "See? Kinky little bastard..."
Kakuzu dropped the papers onto the table. "Why are you tied up, girl?"
"H-he didn't want me to leave," said Ino in a tiny, yet truthful, voice.
"Where is he?"
"I don't know—he left with Sasori-"
"Left? Left where?"
"To deliver an order, I think—I'm not sure..."
"Did he pay you?"
Ino, not sure what the wisest answer was at this juncture, hesitated for a split second before shaking her head in the negative.
"Of course he didn't," laughed Hidan. "You put out for nothing. Deidara's a broke-ass bitch. He owes Kakuzu, too. That's why I'm gonna kill him."
To Ino's alarm, Hidan squatted down right next to her, so close that her field of vision was filled with his wide grin and violet eyes darkened by the promise of violence. "Who goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing, or whatever the old shits say… hey, since he owes you, too, you wanna watch when I do it? I got this new idea where I wanna, like, draw a dick with someone's arterial spray, I think it'd be funny..."
Ino pulled away from Hidan as much as her restraints allowed, unsure if this was godawful edgy posturing, or if this man was genuinely crazy—either way, she didn't want to feel his spittle on her face.
A hand landed heavily on Hidan's shoulder and pulled him away. He squawked out a vulgar objection as he was thrown off the mattress and now it was Kakuzu who towered over Ino. He studied her where she knelt, her elegant summer dress pooling around her knees, her Prada sunglasses perched on her head.
Between the hood and scarf that muffled most of his face, Kakuzu's eyes narrowed. "What is this?"
"What's—what's what?" asked Ino.
Kakuzu made an impatient gesture towards her attire—attire that was, Ino was slowly realizing, very much not in the same ballpark as what she'd been wearing when Kakuzu had first seen her.
Ino asked herself how the hell a random prostitute would respond to this question. Then she asked herself how the hell she'd know? Oh god, she sucked at this…
She looked down at herself as if still trying to understand what Kakuzu meant. Then, as the seconds ticked by and the pressure of his questing gaze on her increased, somewhere in Ino's head, a flip switched. She had been stared at like this a thousand times, really. This was just another trial attorney whose suspicions she had to allay—or just another judge she had to convince.
Ino shrugged. "He hasn't paid me yet, but he buys me nice things."
"He can't afford nice things," said Kakuzu.
"Maybe he steals them—I don't know," said Ino with a hint of impatience, like she couldn't understand the relevance of this line of questioning. "Can you untie me?"
Kakuzu ignored her question. His boots creaked as he squatted down next to her and peered into her face. "What's your name?"
Ino breathed out the first name that occurred to her that wasn't hers. "Kiyoko."
"Kiyoko what?"
"Sato," said Ino, throwing in a plausible surname. "Untie me, please. I don't want to be stuck here with him any more—"
Again the request was ignored by Kakuzu. Ino glanced up to find him studying her with eyes far too cunning for her liking. "Who do you work for, Kiyoko?"
Ino bought herself time to think by pulling at the zip tie in pretend annoyance. "Just cut this and I'll—"
Her tugging was stilled by a decidedly large and unfriendly hand crushing both of her wrists together. "Who."
"Just answer the fuckin' question," said Hidan, who had climbed back onto the mattress on Ino's other side.
Ino spared him a nasty look as she tried to remember that drunken conversation with Teruo in the club—he had said a name, some Italian, mobster-sounding name, when he'd guessed who her ostensible pimp was. God damn it, what was it? It started with a B, didn't it? What was it? Bianchi? Bellini?
A long second passed as Ino drew a hard blank. Knowing that she couldn't afford to look like she was hesitating, she took a breath and said, "Teruo."
The pressure on her wrists increased. This was, evidently, not the right answer.
"...Teruo doesn't hire girls like you," said Kakuzu.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You aren't some back-alley whore."
"Stop squeezing—"
"It's true, though," said Hidan, leaning in close to Ino as she struggled to keep him at a distance. "Teruo only pimps out gutter sluts."
Hidan reached over and pulled at the gauzy scarf that was unravelling at Ino's neck—and stuffed his face into it. "You smell too good to be a fuckin' gutter slut."
"Quiet, Hidan," said Kakuzu. "Girl, you think I don't know money when I see it?"
"I—I don't know what you mean—"
"Whose car is that downstairs?" asked Kakuzu, his grip tightening further. "The Audi?"
"I don't know—stop that—you're hurting me—" stammered Ino.
"Your real name, girl."
"I told you, it's Kiyoko—"
"Feel how soft this shit is," said Hidan, now attempting to rub Ino's scarf on Kakuzu's face. "What's it made of? Angel pubes?"
Kakuzu pushed Hidan off the mattress with a snarl and threw the scarf after him. "Not now."
"Grouchy old dick," spat Hidan from the floor.
Kakuzu's hand was now on Ino's throat. "You don't work for Teruo. Who are you?"
"I do," gasped out Ino, aware through rising panic that any deviation from her story would be a mistake. "My name is Kiyoko Sato. I moved here from Easton a month ago. I've been working for Teruo for three weeks. I chose him as my procurer myself, because he's not a complete asshole. Let go."
Kakuzu's grip on Ino's neck tightened. "Lies."
Ino opened her mouth to answer but, before she could, an orange blur had launched itself at Kakuzu.
"Fucking—" snarled Kakuzu in surprise. The cat had sank his teeth into Kakuzu's forearm and was clawing at him for all he was worth. Kakuzu grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and threw him across the room.
"Haw," said Hidan as the cat limped back into hiding. "Attack kitty."
Kakuzu's hand was back on Ino's throat. "Your name."
Ino found herself struggling for breath and incapable of answering one way or another. Her vision was blackening at the edges.
And then came Hidan's voice, disturbingly casual given that a woman was being throttled beside him. "I dunno, Kakuzu. I don't think she's lying."
Both Ino and Kakuzu looked at him. He lay on the floor among scattered clothes and bits of bombs and twirled something in his fingers.
It was a blue flower, dried up, and a little crushed—but nevertheless recognizable as the one that Teruo had given Ino at the club a few nights ago.
"This is one of Teruo's gay-ass flowers, isn't it?" said Hidan, holding it up.
Kakuzu glared at the flower, then turned to glare at Ino. She met his unnerving stare steadfastly—and sent up a prayer of thanks to Teruo, whose little act of kindness lent unhoped-for credibility to her story.
A fragile silence descended around them.
Ino's heart raced.
Hidan plucked a few petals from the flower and watched them fall to the floor with a detached look.
The fingers at Ino's neck twitched as Kakuzu's certainty wavered.
Then, unmistakeable in the silence, came the soft click of a handgun being cocked.
"Step away from my girl, Kakuzu."
