Thank you to everyone who has reviewed, faved and/or followed this little fic so far. It's nice to know that others are enjoying reading it as much as I am writing it!
Xxx
Wham!
"Ah!" Deidara jolted awake, pain radiating across his face. Looking down, he noticed blood on his chest and immediately became defensive, glancing around his room. He heard Sasori groan beside him and snapped his head to look at the boy. He blinked. Sasori's hand was balled into a fist, a bit of blood running down his tiny fingers. The blond lifted his own hand to his face, wiping the blood still coming from his nose. "Oh."
He relaxed as he realized that Sasori had hit him in his sleep. What a relief. He'd had a dream that Pein had found out about his little experiment, and the leader hadn't wasted any time making Deidara regret it. He still felt sore from the dream. But at least it was just a dream.
Suddenly his bedroom door slammed open, effectively ruining any chance the blond had at falling back asleep, not that he wanted to. Hidan smirked from the doorway, scythe slung over his shoulder. "The leader's called a meeting. Itachi said he seemed pissed so I wouldn't be late if I were you. And leave the brat here." The zealot left the doorway, probably to go start shit with Kakuzu before the meeting.
"Ugh," Deidara groaned. It looked like his nightmare was going to come true after all. Swinging his feet over the edge of the bed, he glanced back at Sasori, wondering how Hidan's big mouth hadn't woken the child up. Ignoring it, he went to the bathroom to wash the dried blood off his face and chest, and to brush his hair. Afterwards, he got dressed, pulling his Akatsuki cloak on, hopefully not for the last time. He wandered into the living room, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.
Itachi and Kisame, who were sitting on one of the couches, turned to look at him. He waved them off, not wanting any of their bullshit this morning. He found something to eat in the kitchen, picking at it as he wondered how the meeting would go down. Would Pein kick him out of the Akatsuki for this? Would he kill him?
There was only one way to find out. He pushed his plate of food away and stood up, walking to the meeting room and peeking in. Empty. Deciding to take Hidan's advice (for once), he went in and sat down near the end, farthest from where he knew Pein would be standing. Slowly, the other members started trickling in – even Zetsu made an appearance. His white half smiled at Deidara. "My, you've been quite the scientist, haven't you?"
Deidara ignored him, shoving his hand into one of his clay pouches and playing with it, the mouth palm chewing and forming the substance into different creatures. Finally, Konan entered the room, followed by Pein. The Akatsuki grew silent, watching their leader take his place at the head of the long table. Deidara tried not to shrink in his seat as all eyes turned to him, including Pein's.
Silence.
There was a long pause. Pein took a sip of tea from his '#1 Boss' mug. Kisame cleared his throat. Hidan shifted in his seat.
The silence was almost too much to bear; it was deafening. Deidara finally figured that maybe their leader was waiting for him to explain himself. He coughed.
"Leader, I-"
"You turned Sasori into a child?!" Pein's voice seemed to boom throughout the room, startling Deidara.
"Ah! Yeah, hm." He bit his lip, waiting for the organization's leader to speak first so he didn't interrupt him again.
"And you have no idea how to reverse the jutsu."
"No, but we're working on it, hm."
"Itachi and yourself, I know. Konan's informed me." Pein took another sip of tea before continuing, "I'm not going to ask why you felt the urge to render one of our valuable members useless. That's not important. What's important is returning him back to normal, and quickly."
"Itachi's been studying the Rejuvenation scroll that caused this, and he said he's found some clues," Konan spoke, turning to Pein. The orange-haired shinobi nodded.
"Itachi, your sole mission from now on is to decipher the scroll and inform Konan or myself of any clues you come across."
"Yes, sir."
"Deidara, you are to keep Sasori under lockdown until the jutsu is reversed. I don't want him leaving this base. With three members down, the rest of you will be expected to cover the missions I would've originally given to Sasori and Deidara. Kisame, you will go solo on missions until this mess is fixed."
"Not a problem, Leader," the shark-nin smirked.
"Wait, just because Deidara fucked up, we have to do his work, too?" Hidan stood, planting his palms on the table in disagreement.
"Sit down, Hidan!" Kakuzu yelled beside him, his arm darkening in preparation for an attack.
"Enough, I won't tolerate violence between comrades." Pein glared at the two. Hidan grumbled, sitting back down and crossing his arms while Kakuzu leaned back in his seat, color coming back in his arm. "I will keep in mind your need to recuperate between missions, however we must keep up with the demands that come in. We can't let out that one of our members are out of commission, and that the Akatsuki is weakened."
"More missions means more money," Kakuzu said, signaling that he didn't mind the extra work. He turned to his still-seething partner. "And more sacrifices for your damned rituals." Hidan grunted but nodded to show his agreement.
"Yeah, alright, fine."
"Now that everyone knows what they're expected to do, I call this meeting over." Pein gave Deidara a meaningful look before walking out the door. "Don't do this again."
The bomber let out a long sigh of relief once he was sure Pein had left the base. That was pretty…docile of the leader. Deidara had expected death, not babysitting duty.
"Well, I'm going the fuck back to sleep before I have to do all these Jashin-damned extra missions." Hidan pushed his chair away from the table and stood up, giving Deidara a glare before storming back toward his room. Kakuzu rolled his eyes at his partner's attitude, getting up from the table and heading to his own room to count his money.
Deidara stretched before standing up, saying his farewells to Zetsu, who said he had to leave for an espionage mission.
"Deidara, wait, can I have Orochimaru's chest?" Itachi followed the art-enthusiast to his room, while Kisame went to make some tea.
The blond opened his bedroom door to retrieve the chest, but stopped short once he noticed that Sasori wasn't in the bed. "Oh, fuck." Well, maybe he'd gone to the bathroom. He turned to Itachi. "Go ahead and grab it, I'm going to make sure the little shit hasn't done another disappearing act, hm." He rushed to the bathroom, slamming the door open and, unfortunately, finding it empty. He ran to the other bathroom, giving it the same treating and achieving the same results. "Sasori? Sasori, where are you?"
"You lost him again?" Kisame called from the kitchen, and Deidara could practically hear the smirk in his voice.
"I didn't lose him, the brat's hiding again, hm!" But where?
A sudden, high-pitched scream from Hidan's room alerted them, and Deidara ran toward the zealot's room, busting the door open. The Jashinist was on the floor next to his bed, his hand clamped over his mouth, indicating that he must have let loose the girly scream. Sasori sat on the bed, laughing to himself. "You fucking brat!" Hidan yelled once he recovered from the shock of finding Sasori in his bed. "The hell's the matter with you?!"
"What's going on?" Deidara asked, stepping into the room and glaring at the child. Sasori quieted his laughing.
"It was just a joke," the red head explained, the smile dropping from his face when Deidara continued to glare. "I woke up alone, I was bored…"
"So you decide to mess with me?" Hidan growled, gripping the handle of his scythe tightly.
"Hidan, don't." Deidara sighed. "I'll take care of it. Sasori, let's go."
"Where are we going?" The former puppet climbed off of Hidan's bed, narrowly escaping as the zealot reached out for him.
"Knock it off, Hidan, hm!" Deidara grabbed Sasori's arm, pulling him out of the room and slamming the door. "We're going back to my room. We need to set up some ground rules, hm."
He led the child back to his room, ignoring the stream of curses still coming from Hidan's room. Once inside, he shut the door and sat Sasori on the bed.
"Okay, so our leader was here this morning-"
"You have a leader?"
"Yes, hm. Anyways, he was here this morning and he said that, uh, he didn't mind you staying with us, but there's one rule he wants you to follow: You can't go outside anymore. You have to stay inside the base from now on." He watched as Sasori processed the information, a frown appearing on the red head's face.
"Wait…that means we can't go outside and blow up your clay anymore?"
"Yeah, unfortunately, hm. I'm sorry." Damn, that really did suck. He cleared his throat. "Secondly, you can't keep hiding from us. It's annoying, but we have to know where you are at all times, alright? Hm."
"These rules suck," Sasori complained, swinging his legs.
"Just promise you'll stop hiding from us."
"Fine. I promise." The red head didn't say it with much conviction, but Deidara didn't press it further.
"Just one more thing – try to stay out of people's rooms, yeah?" The blond chuckled, remembering the look of shock on Hidan's face. "Some people like their personal space. But you're welcome in here anytime. This is your room, too, alright?"
"Okay…these rules sound really boring, though."
"I know. It's just as bad for me, too, hm." Deidara stood up, remembering that he'd barely eaten his breakfast. "But we have to follow them. Now let's go get something to eat."
Xxx
"Itachi?"
The Uchiha, who had been previously sleeping face-down on the table, bolted upright, scattering scrolls everywhere. He turned to look toward the source of the noise, noticing that it was Sasori. "Yes?"
"What are you reading?"
"Oh, nothing. Just something for a mission." He rubbed his eyes. "Where's Deidara?"
"In the shower. He told me to stay in the room but I got bored." The child eyes the scrolls and Itachi quickly gathered them up. He had to take a break, if he was falling asleep without realizing it. "Can you play with me?"
Itachi smiled tiredly, lifting his hand and poking the child on the forehead. "Maybe later, Sas…ori." Sasuke. He'd almost said Sasuke's name. He frowned, standing up and gathering the scrolls into his arms before heading to his room. "I have work to do."
Sasori sighed, completely bored out of his mind. There had to be something fun to do. The sound of Hidan and Kakuzu arguing down the hall alerted his attention. The zombie combo entered the kitchen a moment later, still cussing at each other.
"It's your damn rituals that always keep us behind schedule, you moron," Kakuzu growled, red and green eyes narrowing at his partner. Hidan's own purple ones looked up to the ceiling in annoyance.
"Oh, please, if we didn't have to go hundreds of miles out of our way just for your precious bounties, we'd be done with missions in record time. We're the slowest team out of everyone here! Even Deidara and Sa-" The silver-haired man broke out into a coughing fit after a swift punch to the stomach, courtesy of Kakuzu. When the Jashinist went to ask what the hell that was all about, the miser motioned toward Sasori, who was watching them intently. "Oh, it's the brat. Want to have another go with my scythe? That was funny as hell last time."
"We don't have time to waste, Hidan," Kakuzu grumbled. "We should've left over an hour ago." He glanced at Sasori, who was still staring. "What the hell are you looking at?"
"Why are your eyes like that? Did you get sand in them? Is that why you're always grumpy?" There were three seconds of silence before Hidan's burst into laughter. Kakuzu growled loudly, swiftly reaching forward and grabbing Sasori by the front of his cloak, lifting him up to eye level.
"What did you say, you brat?!" Sasori, who had no idea he'd done anything wrong, put both hands on Kakuzu's arm to balance himself.
"I'm sorry! Put me down!"
"You have three seconds to give me a reason not to kill you right now!"
"Oh, come on, you old bastard," Hidan laughed, punching the ex-Waterfall shinobi's shoulder. "You know what the leader would do if you killed the little fucker."
With a grunt, Kakuzu dropped the child to the floor. Before Sasori could even push himself away, Deidara came into the living room, panting and wet and holding a towel around his waist. "What the hell's going on out here? I thought I told you to stay in the room, Sasori?"
"You better do something about him, and watch that brat closely," Kakuzu threatened, glaring at the blond. "Because the next time I see him alone, I'm stitching his mouth shut."
"Oh, quit being so dramatic, Kaku-"
"The threat applies to you, too, Hidan!" The miser turned and headed for the front door. "Now let's go before we waste any more time playing babysitter." He stormed out the door, Hidan giving the two remaining a smirk before following after his partner, slamming the door behind him.
Deidara closed his eyes, taking a deep breath before opening them again to glare at his partner.
"I'm sorry," Sasori quickly offered.
"When I tell you to do something, it's for a good reason!" Deidara exclaimed, running a hand through his soapy damp hair. "Why'd you have to bug Kakuzu, of all people? Hm."
"I didn't even do anything!" Sasori yelled back, crossing his arms. "He was just being a jerk."
The blond pinched the bridge of his nose, groaning. "Ok, whatever. Look, just get back to the room and stay there, at least until I'm done showering, hm. Can you do that?"
"Why am I in trouble? I said I didn't do anything!" Sasori yelled, surprising Deidara. When he didn't answer, the red head pushed past the clay user, running to their room and slamming the door behind him. Deidara heard him kick at the wall a few times.
"Hey, knock it off, hm!" There was a final kick and then he heard muffled sobs.
"Kids, huh?" Deidara sighed, ignoring Kisame as the shark-nin walked into the living room.
"I had no idea a six-year-old could have such violent mood swings, hm." The blond tightened the hold on his towel before moving past Kisame to go continue his shower. He finished rinsing the shampoo out of his hair and shut the water off, redressing himself and wondering what he was going to do with Sasori. He figured he was only acting out because he was bored, but there really wasn't much they could do inside. The base was for housing a bunch of S-ranked criminals – it was no place for a child. But orders were orders, and with Pein letting Deidara off the hook so easily, the blond was going to do his best to follow them.
He cautiously opened the bedroom door a crack, expecting Sasori to come out of the shadows and attack him. When that didn't happen, he opened the door fully, stepping inside the dark room and flipping on a light. Sasori lay sleeping on the floor, curled up in a ball. Deidara felt a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He walked over and gently picked the red head up before laying him down on the bed. Sasori stirred a bit, opening his eyes. "'M sorry, Deidara."
"It's okay, don't worry about it. Kakuzu's just a grouch, hm." He sat down on the bed to better tuck the child in. "Listen, I know that all these new rules don't seem important-"
"But I have to follow them, I know." Sasori sighed, turning over to face the wall.
"Yeah," Deidara said lamely. "I know you get bored, but don't worry, we'll figure out something fun to do. Maybe after you wake up again, you can write your grandmother and your parents a letter. I'm sure they'd like to know how you're doing."
Sasori nodded slowly, already falling asleep again. "Yeah…that'd be fun."
After he was sure he was completely out, Deidara stood up, leaving the room and closing the door behind him. He went into the living room and flopped onto the couch across from Kisame's. "I'm never having kids."
The blue-skinned man grinned, chuckling a bit. "It would be a bit difficult, wouldn't it? Trying to find time between family and assassination jobs?" he joked.
Deidara couldn't help but laugh a little. "Yeah, for sure, hm." He put his hands behind his head, thinking. "I guess I never really pictured myself living past my twenties, anyway."
"Oh? Do you have such little faith in yourself as a shinobi that you're so sure you'll die young?" Kisame smirked.
"Of course not." Deidara shook his head, sitting up. "If I ever die, it's going to be from my own, super ultimate art." He could see Kisame tuning him out, as everyone usually did when he spoke of his art.
"Since when is blowing yourself up considered art? What's the point, then, if you're gone? It seems like a bit of a waste."
"That's exactly what Sasori would say, my ma-" Deidara caught himself. "Eh, I mean that's the whole point of art. Art is fleeting, just like life. That's what I've never understood about Sasori, or those bastards Hidan and Kakuzu…even Orochimaru. Why would you want to live forever? There's nothing to be gained from it. Life is meant to be short, that's the beauty of it. If I were die before I hit twenty, I'd be more than okay with that, as long as it was by my own art, of course."
"Now I can see why you get on Sasori's nerves," Kisame chuckled. "But to each his own, I suppose."
