AN: I really hope this isn't going to get too complicated . enjoy anyway! As usual, I own nothing!
OOO
When he woke up, Sasori was in a familiar bed that wasn't North Dakota and he realised he was Home. Gaara was sitting at the end of the bed in an arm chair looking a tad apologetic, if possible, and fiddling with Sasori's ring on a small broken chain. Had he torn it away from Deidara?
His family were around him, all with arms crossed and severe expressions on their faces except Konan. He fought the urge to cry in despair. Deidara wouldn't be here.
"You need to explain" Kisame ordered. His body looked tortured, and Sasori was briefly reminded that his brother had been on a mission. Was it over?
"Deidara's sick - I have to go back" Sasori tried to get up from the bed but his body was paralysed, numb from the neck down. His eyes welled up with frustration. "Zetsu!" He groaned.
"We're sorry" The schizophrenic sighed apologetically. "We're fixing your…injuries"
"And vampires don't get sick" Kakuzu explained; Sasori felt his tears threaten but held them back out of anger; he wouldn't give Gaara the satisfaction.
"Konan, please" He appealed to her, their matriarch of the family. "I need to go back to him; something's wrong"
Sasori caved. He told them all about the original attack, recalled to the word the exact account that Deidara had given about the vivisection, how he'd been fine and then little by little, things had started to happen that were…odd. The strange animalistic quirks - the seemingly insatiable desires…
And then finally in the woods…where he'd gone looking for Deidara and the blonde had been lying in the snow half-conscious with sickness or hunger. How he had tried to wake him up, how Deidara had reacted and swiped Sasori away, attacking him like he would his prey. How, between the blood-loss and his ripped and shredded clothing, Sasori had succumbed to the cold and it had caused him to shift.
Hidan seemed annoyed at the whole thing, Kakuzu perplexed, Kisame angry and Zetsu intrigued. Konan was neutral as ever and Gaara was quietly raging in his chair. Sasori scowled at him.
He should've just told them when he'd first suspected something was awry.
"I'm willing to work with whoever wants to chop the vampires head off" Gaara nodded seriously at his plan.
"You're not killing him" Sasori glared. "He's sick. He needs my help - I have to-"
"If he is sick," Kisame frowned, folding his arms in concern. "You're not going anywhere near him"
"If it was contagious, wouldn't he have already been infected?" Hidan uttered quietly.
"No; it just rules out airborne as a suspect. It could be transferred via liquids, a virus or bacteria" Kakuzu replied.
"Did he drink from you?" Sasori chose to ignore his cousin's stupid question because of course Deidara had never done such a thing. Everything he had done had been for the sole purpose of keeping Sasori away and protecting him. He realised his silence might've been the wrong tactic when Kisame growled in warning.
"No - no, he's never…" But there was the incident in the shower. Would that count? Fluids?
"The wound" Gaara deadpanned. "The vamp did that with his own claws, right? What if that gets infected" Sasori gingerly touched his bandages and tried not to think about it. He doesn't have claws, he thought instead. They're just sharp nails.
"Gaara, what did you do with him?" Sasori asked concernedly. "What did you do with my boyfriend?" Because Gaara wouldn't have just left Deidara, surely. Did they put him somewhere else? The teen was much too sadistic to not play some sort of prank on a defenceless prey - disorienting him might actually work. But that glint in those blackened eyes…
"I didn't do anything" The red head sighed. "Which is to say, I left him on the floor in his own blood-vomit"
Sasori shoved his head back into his pillow and slammed his eyes closed.
"I did leave a note" Gaara supplied, as if it'd help any. "Telling him you were safe with us and that I wish him all the very best with his recovery"
"Fuck off, Gaara" Sasori muttered. "Just get out"
"I thought it was a nice thing to do, considering"
"Gaara!" Sasori yelled. "Get the fuck out!"
"No" The red head refused, slouching back in his chair with complete defiance.
The air was thick with tension and Gaara's aura of 'impending doom' seemed to spread.
"I'll keep an eye on the vampire for you" Kakuzu sighed. "I'm less likely to kill him, and if he did turn on me I'm more likely to recover" It was a sound argument - the demon was notoriously hard to kill.
"But we were going to fucking raid the-"
"You can find someone else or go alone, Hidan"
"You fucking know I won't" Hidan grumbled. "Fine - gimme' a job. We'll finish this up faster with the two of us"
"You can kill the vampire and have done" Gaara suggested.
"You're not killing my boyfriend" Sasori reminded his cousin, if only because Gaara looked so intent on it. "You know what you can do?" He seethed. "Go and find Chiyo. At least she'll be useful"
"Tell me what to do again and I'll tear that freak into pieces and feed him to the rats" Gaara threatened. Kisame sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Find. Chiyo" Sasori backfired.
They both glared at eachother until Kisame clamped a hand on Gaara's shoulder.
"Go on" He urged softly, and Gaara rocked up from the chair and pressed his ring into the wall furiously.
"If you let that vampire anywhere near my cousin, I will make a move on that Uchiha boy" He threatened. Kisame nodded gravely.
"I understand"
"What boy?" Sasori asked once Gaara had left. "What's Gaara up to?"
"He's temporarily sheltering someone of interest" Kisame explained vaguely.
"But the Uchiha's?" Sasori frowned. They were renowned for their super-human abilities and intelligence - a whole different level of better. They could definitely put up a competent fight against any of the supernatural kind and win - if their tactics and unfair weapons were used. Although they weren't much of a threat unless provoked, they'd always seemed shifty with their exceptional defence mechanisms.
"Nevermind them" Kisame waved the matter aside.
"Where's the vampire at?" Kakuzu asked.
"North Dakota House" Sasori said cautiously. "Probably still in the basement, why?"
"Why do you think?" Kakuzu grabbed the medical bag and found the nearest wall, ring to it. "Don't worry; I'll try not to kill him" It wasn't a definite, but at least he sounded more sympathetic of Sasori's situation than Gaara had. "Hidan, are you coming?" The pale demon sighed, swore like it was the biggest inconvenience and then followed Kakuzu through.
"What's he going to do?" Sasori asked nervously to anyone who would answer.
"He'll probably keep the vampire in the basement - it's the best place for him" Kisame shrugged. "He'll gather the usual - blood samples, habits, symptoms…"
"What if he can't do anything?" Sasori panicked. "Would he kill him? Think he's putting him out of his misery? He wouldn't tell me, would he?"
Kakuzu was firstly a bounty hunter for the higher ups, collecting the demons and supernatural kind that had either escaped their clutches or who were quickly becoming a danger. As of late, half of them had been missing and he and Hidan had been trying to track them down.
When he wasn't working, Kakuzu usually did strange things in his lab - shared with Zetsu and his many, many botanical concoctions - which were sometimes medicinal and sometimes not. He did know a lot about fixing people, healing wounds and heavy trauma - so he was sort of the family doctor. But Deidara wasn't family. Deidara had been a possible job for him at one point, and as a vampire with no clan, well that was just asking for trouble in Kakuzu's mind. He'd been waiting for the vampire to slip up for a long while - but Sasori wasn't convinced he'd kill the blonde just yet.
"That's why we'll have Chiyo as a last resort" Konan said softly, her warm hand still holding Sasori's. She'd been quiet as ever through most of their arguing and Sasori felt immensely guilty. God knows what she must've been thinking, but her presence was enough to keep a fight from breaking out.
"You rest up-" Kisame stopped, suddenly looking alarmed. "Shit…I have to get back. Ko?"
The girl smiled and nodded and Kisame left.
"We'll be in the lab" Zetsu left a bottle of something at the table next to Konan. "Let us know if anything changes"
"I can feel the rest of my body now" Sasori twitched his fingers to prove his point and then flicked his ankle.
"We made it short term" Zetsu smiled with pride and then left. Usually his paralytics lasted long-term because it was more beneficial - short term was pointless and he'd not had the patience to try and bother with working it out. Now it seemed he'd had an excuse to make it work.
"I didn't mean to worry you" Sasori apologised to Konan. "I know how you all feel about Deidara and I keep getting told that vampires don't get sick and it just seemed too stupid to bother asking for help"
"Don't worry about that" Konan squeezed his hand comfortingly. She didn't have the tightest grip, but it had more meaning than anything.
OOO
The first day was the hardest, knowing that Kakuzu was gathering information and Hidan would be making jokes and Sasori was still in bed.
Konan stayed with him in silent company, probably to observe his recovery. It would take a while - he didn't heal very fast, but that didn't mean he was an invalid. He worked on sitting up for the day, eventually managing to help Konan help Hidan and Kakuzu by tracking down those disappearing creatures.
It kept his mind off his boyfriend and he found the work rather soothing, but Konan was looking tired.
"Are you okay?" He asked softly, after catching her eyes staring at some blank point on the wall without a break for a whole three minutes.
"Hm" She sounded, a brief nod appearing before she looked back at her maps and witchy devices.
"It's quiet, not having everyone around" He tried, and the smallest smile appeared on her face. "You must get so lonely now he's gone" He whispered, but she didn't answer and focussed more intently on her work. Sasori berated himself furiously and went back to his work, trying to ignore it. He'd talk to Kisame later, he'd know what to do.
OOO
Interlude.
Sasori's parents had been happy with their lives in the Human Realm despite their bloodlines linking them to the Supernatural ones, more specifically the Arcane Territories - the more peaceful and co-habitant of the supernatural worlds.
When they realised that their son had inherited his mothers odd, arctic ability, they instilled in him the importance of keeping it quiet and controlled around the humans - Sasori's grandmother was the one to teach him how, along with the laws of the Arcane Territories and the right that Sasori had to be there, if he wished.
Being six years old and having just lost both of his parents, Sasori was more content familiarly playing 'human' than he was comfortable about leaving.
His grandmother took care of him for a long while in the human world, reinforcing more of the supernatural teachings into his every-day life and spending weekends meeting his 'extended cousins' - Gaara, Temari and Kankuro in the Arcane Territories. Sasori was eight years old when a chance run-in with a pretty, long haired and very charming blonde vampire had him feeling much better about the place.
He spent more time in the Arcane Territories after that; his grandmother took him into town with her every weekend from his eighth birthday and he exused himself to play with his new 'friends'. Of course he had a few, a couple of little demons and a few witches and shifters, but he spent the afternoons with them and then the few hours after nightfall with Deidara. More often than not, things worked out okay if Sasori was kept warm and - as he'd suddenly learned - not to drink too many cold drinks. Apparantly internal body heat was something else he'd yet to fully comprehend.
He always met Chiyo at the same spot bang-on nine o'clock human-time and she'd take him back to the human realm and order him to bed.
By the time he was eleven, he was much more optimistic about his new life and place in the Arcane Territories. He continued his school teachings in the human realm during the week and spent the weekends away in the territories with his grandmother, in her small apartment there, sneaking out during the night to find Deidara.
When he was thirteen, that ended abruptly once she finally caught on and she quickly changed their 'weekend trips' to Suna instead - which Sasori knew was still in the Arcane Territories, but far enough out for him to not be able to contact his vampire. He knew she'd done it for a few reasons - his 'hormones' being one of them and something about vampires being able to use it to their advantage. Sasori really didn't care.
He liked his cousins well enough, but their little village in Suna was known for its long daylight hours and blazing heat. Chiyo hadn't taught him about how to make portals yet and he always felt slightly stranded there - and there was no possibility of Deidara coming to get him because of the conditions. There had been that one escape attempt, but that had angered everybody involved.
OOO
Flashback.
"Please don't" Sasori begged, eyes wide and overloaded with unshed tears. His chest was moving up and down frantically, his voice choked with panic. "Deidara, please" The blonde's apartment was still with quiet anger, and Sasori thought it was worse than anything.
"Why the fuck did you think this was a good idea?" Deidara's fists clenched as he paced steadily, the flushed and panting red head sat huddled safely in a nest of his blankets.
"I'm sorry" The thirteen year old refused to let the tears fall, but his face was flushed out of despair. His rapid-fire explanation had left him breathless. "I'm sorry. Just let me explain"
"You can explain to your grandmother when I kick your ass straight back to Suna and get my place Sealed from you completely - for good"
"Why won't you listen?" Sasori's hands clenched the blankets as he glared through the tears. "I want to stay with you; I don't need her, I don't want them. I just want you"
"That's not a reason to lie!" Deidara shot. "You told me she was okay with this, un - that they were all okay with this; I believed you"
Deidara had been totally convinced that Sasori had told his family that he was staying with the vampire for the night. When Sasori had been unable to sit still, restless and unable to hold in the lie, Deidara had caught onto it with both teeth and his jaw locked and Sasori had caved. He'd packed his bags and basically run away - finding some willing asshole to portal him to the Arcane Territory market from Suna, where Sasori then walked up to find Deidara's apartment and they'd enjoyed a whole four hours of ignorance.
"I'm sorry"
"You're going to get me killed and more, Sasori"
"No" He whined. "I won't let them - we can just-"
"We're not doing anything; I told you, I'm taking your ass back home to your cousins. Daylight be damned"
"Don't you love me at all?" Sasori wriggled, uncomfortable.
"You're just a child" Deidara snapped, scooping up Sasori's things and tossing them back into his bagpack.
"I'm thirteen!" He fired back.
"It's illegal and wrong in all kinds of ways - I know you understand that"
"But I love you"
"No you don't" Deidara had the bag packed in seconds and then refilled his own. Once they were together on the bed, Sasori was watching him with more hurt in his expression that Deidara ever wanted to see.
"Why don't you…w-why…would you-…I j-just want-"
"You shouldn't have told me this was okay" Deidara murmured. "Going away like this, do you know what they're going to think? They're going to think I kidnapped you, un"
"No they won't" Sasori finally let the tears fall, slipping down his cheeks.
"Stop that, you're making yourself worse" Deidara took Sasori's chin, feeling it burning and clammy underneath his touch. "Calm down"
"It's not fair" He grumbled, thirteen years old and crying as much as he had the day they'd met when he was eight.
"We agreed to meet up when you came into town; you weren't meant to run away from them, remember? We need them to like me if they're going to trust me at all, un. They aren't going to trust me if you keep doing this" He chided.
"But they aren't planning on taking me into town any more - they're keeping me prisoner!"
"There are worse places to be than Suna" He ran his hands through Sasori's red hair.
"I want to stay with you"
"You can't. It's illegal. You like humanity, remember?" Deidara said calmly. "Now how do I call your grandmother, un?" It wasn't as if phones worked across the realms.
"I don't want you to leave me"
"Sasori, tell me how to-"
"She'll keep you away"
"Calm down," Deidara ran his cool hands over Sasori's face and neck, hoping it'd ease some of the heat he was emitting but not chill him to the point of turning. "This isn't healthy, Sasori, un. You're too young, you need to mix with other beings - get used to things. I can't be all you know, yeah"
"She wasn't going to let me spend any time with you" He scowled, his tears disappeared and his eyes were once again defiant. "At all. Ever. Probably forever - I wouldn't be surprised if she could-"
"You can't lie to your grandmother, un. You need to do whatever it is you do, and go back to your cousins in Suna. Now"
They both stilled when a dark feeling invaded the room. Sasori groaned knowingly and Deidara's fangs grew to attack, his nails sharpening, his eyes blackening by the second.
When Gaara stepped out of the portal, all of seven years old and containing one of the supernatural world's most uncontrollable demons, Sasori gripped the vampire. They'd never met before, but Sasori had explained Gaara's situation to him multiple times and was sure the blonde would understand. Gaara might be a child but he was severely protective of his remaining family members; his parents had been killed by a rogue bunch of vampires and he'd loathed them with intensity ever since. But holding onto his hand was Chiyo and she looked just as angry.
"Please don't kill my cousin" He whispered frantically to Deidara, then raising his voice to say, "Gaara, please don't kill my vampire!"
"It's not him you need to worry about" Chiyo held her free hand out, refusing to look at Deidara.
"He didn't know" Sasori tried to defend the blonde. "I came on my own, by myself. I told him you knew where I was"
"Then you're a fool for thinking you'd get away with it" She sighed at him and he felt immediately guilty. "Come with me now, Sasori" He hesitated and her eyes narrowed. With a light nudge from Deidara and and an encouraging nod, he eventually shuffled over to her side of the room. He noticed the glare that Gaara had pinned on Deidara and knew they'd forever be at eachothers throats.
"Try to steal him again, vampire" He threatened, and Deidara hissed in response. "And i'll have you buried before your fang touches him"
When Sasori returned to his cousins house in Suna, Temari was crying, Kankuro had his fist in the wall and the place was a wreck. He was yelled at by Kankuro for 'escaping', Temari refused to feed him if he wasn't going to 'cooperate' and Gaara had already started on the plans for Deidara's execution. He'd gone to bed convinced that the world hated him and his grandmother would never let him see the vampire again.
End of flashback.
OOO
After that, Chiyo accepted that Sasori had been influenced - whether for the better or not - by the vampire and had agreed that some contact must be maintained for everyone's sanity. For one weekend every month, Sasori would be allowed to stay in Chiyo's apartment as a mature fourteen year old and wander the common markets in the central part of the Arc-Terri on his own. He met new people, found a new circle of friends that his fourteen year old self could like and learn from and stayed up late with Deidara after his hunts.
Although he missed some of the simple aspects of the Human Realm, and humanity in general, he found himself a new family in them all - an extended family, of sorts - and although they weren't very keen on vampires, they made allowances and exceptions and he was attached to them just as he was his real family. He'd moved in with them as soon as he was sixteen and his education in the human-realm had been enough; Kisame had been the first to help him move his things into his room and he hadn't looked back since.
End of Interlude
OOO
Chiyo had always been there, for better or for worse and always for his own good. Now would be no different.
During his fever, he caught drifts of the same cinnamon smell she used to have around the house when she visited, and the odd touch of burnt wood.
"Do you know how to cure a sick vampire?" He remembered asking her, half feverish and his body feeling like lead. It sounded like the stupid line to an even stupider joke.
"I have a few ideas" She'd told him as she changed his bandages for the third time and then took his temperature.
"Don't let him die" He'd pleaded.
"I'm a touch more bothered about you at the moment, dear"
"Don't let him die" He'd repeated, because all he had in his head was the clear memory of them all hating his vampire.
"I'll do what I can"
OOO
That was also the day that Kakuzu came back through the portal with Hidan and Deidara. Hidan was yelling and swearing, apparently finding it funny. Kakuzu was focussed on getting Deidara to the lab, which he eventually achieved with Zetsu's help.
Sasori heard it all from his bedroom, but heard not a sound from Deidara. Chiyo was back again, fixing his dressings and monitoring his fever - which had gone down rapidly now the infection had been caught and tended to. He was healing, but not fast enough to warrant any permission to see his boyfriend. Chiyo herself had told him, 'Not until you're strong enough to eat my soup'. Which he wasn't just yet.
Zetsu and Kakuzu were working together, having secured Deidara in their lab and assured the household that he wasn't a threat. That led to the nobody-in-or-out-of-the-basement situation and Sasori resigned to the fact that he wasn't getting anywhere near his boyfriend anytime soon and Konan stayed as far away from the vampire as possible; Sasori couldn't be angry at her when she was the one who had the final stay on allowing the vampire into her home, and she hadn't left Sasori's side for longer than half an hour for the entire time he'd been bed-bound. There was also the fact that it was really hard to hate her or be angry at her for longer than a few seconds.
Kisame came back furious. He was already pissed off because he'd had to save his 'damsel' (Hidan had said so) from a death that he apparently welcomed - and then the 'damsel' revealed his complete and utter servitude to a 'fucking asshole' - which hadn't helped at all. On top of that, he'd come back to get an update on the progress at Home and instead found Kakuzu and Zetsu in the lab with 'the fucking vampire'. Kisame was usually calm, rarely swore needlessly and Sasori hated seeing the blue demon wound up.
"How's the infection?" He'd asked, storming into Sasori's bedroom with fury. "Horrible? Good!" Though it was clear he didn't mean it.
Upon seeing Konan wrapped in a blanket on the chair next to Sasori's bed, the blue demon calmed and then noticed Chiyo at the other end of the room.
"Sorry, ladies" He checked himself and took a few breaths. "But there's a vampire in our Home; do you want Gaara to kill him?"
"Gaara doesn't live here" Chiyo reminded them. "I've told him it's better if he stays away for now. And even if he did come back, he can't do anything in your home, or to that poor soul down in the lab. It's taken care of"
"Poor soul?" Kisame echoed.
"Hm" Chiyo nodded, indicated a finger and walked back out with Kisame confusedly following. Sasori didn't need good eyesight to see the concern on his face and the dread on Chiyo's. Deidara wasn't doing any better, and Sasori was beginning to think the worst.
"Let me see him" He asked Konan softly. She silently shook her head, her eyes on the maps bent over her legs. He supposed it was for the best; it wasn't as if he'd make much of a difference.
The next night, Kisame had gone back to the House in the south of France with his next Project (the one Hidan had dubbed 'damsel'). Chiyo had done all she could for the night and it was up to Sasori to rest. She'd already told Gaara to stay away because he'd only hinder Sasori's recovery time and there was nothing the boy could do to help. Kakuzu had left with Hidan to locate some of the missing creatures that Konan had managed to find. They'd be gone a while. Konan was nowhere to be found - her chair empty, her vigil abandoned, and as far as Sasori could tell, Zetsu was his only obstacle.
He grabbed a hoodie and tugged it carefully over his shoulders and over his bandaged abdomen. He wrapped a blanket around his upper half and shoved some socks on. He didn't care that his pyjama bottoms were too long, or that his socks were a mis-matched combo of green and orange. He shuffled as carefully as he could down to the lab.
His stomach flopped when he heard Zetsu talking to himself.
"You don't know for sure"
"But it's possible. You won't come?" -That wasn't Zetsu's othe voice. Sasori frowned and listened closer.
"We can't leave him"
"He's sedated"
"For now"
"Zet, it won't take ten minutes. Come with me"
Zetsu had friends? It was the only excuse Sasori could think of that would allow the person to get away with calling him Zet - even they never addressed him as such.
"Ten minutes, and then we're coming back" Zetsu sighed. Sasori counted to ten, presuming that Zetsu would use his ring to get out of their Home and to wherever it was his friend was leading him. Hopefully not into trouble, he thought quickly, before opening the door and wandering into the lab.