"You shouldn't be here, un"

Deidara wasn't sedated. Sasori stopped his footsteps and scrunched his hands. He sounded…slow. Sasori inched forwards.

"Don't un" He heard shuffling, the metal of chains clinking together. As he rounded the counter that held most of Kakuzu's odd things, he found Deidara lying on the marble slab that was a spare countertop, or operations table. He was bound by chains, his wrist and ankles looped, chained and bolted to the solid counter itself, though there was a little slack.

He had no shirt on, his hair a loose mess around his arms and the marble top. His eyescope was lying on Kakuzu's other table and Sasori was struck with a sudden bout of alarm. Deidara hadn't got the thing fixed since the attack. His hair had kept it hidden and Sasori couldn't quite recall ever seeing it or not seeing it attached. Hadn't Deidara been wracked with headaches?

He reached for it and ran his fingers over it, the familiarity soothing his nerves. It was an old one.

"Don't want you here" Deidara breathed, his brows furrowed with pain as he turned his head gingerly away. "Don't want to be here" His body shuddered and the chains rattled as his body went taut and rigid, a groan escaping his throat.

"I want you here" Sasori said softly. "Doesn't that count?"

"No"

Sasori rounded the counter with the scope on it and approached the one that Deidara was tied to. Another groan sounded and Sasori found the taps and a cloth. The running water made Deidara at least look in his direction, but as soon as Sasori moved back towards the blonde - he looked away. He reached the cloth closer to Deidara and the vampire hissed a warning. Sasori snapped his hand back and tried to calm his heart.

"I'm trying to help, brat"

Deidara didn't calm, instead straining against the chains (though they held fast) and mumbling under his breath. Sasori sucked up his courage and firmly planted the cloth on Deidara's forehead, at which the vampire stilled completely.

"You're playing nurse, un" He said softly.

"I'm the only one who will" Sasori reasoned, now dabbing the cloth over Deidara's forehead. "I can't imagine Kakuzu as hospitable" He tried to keep his voice neutral, but it was undeniably unsteady.

"Un" Deidara sighed, and Sasori was glad when he leaned into the touch just a little. When Sasori pulled the cloth back with the idea of washing Deidara's dirtied torso, the blonde's eyes pinned him.

"Are you done?" He asked, his voice quiet. "Will you go, now?"

So he'd been playing along for his own amusement? Sasori grit his teeth.

"Why do you have to be so stubborn!" He punctuated his anger by tossing the cloth across the room. "I'm trying to help you"

"I don't have a bug, stupid" Deidara hissed, his eyes darkening with threat. "I've not got the flu" He caught his breath; breathing was quickly becoming difficult and Sasori didn't know what to do. He wasn't aware that Deidara breathed to begin with - he just…was.

"How have we been together this long and I've not noticed anything?" Sasori murmured quietly to himself. They'd met when he was eight - he was now twenty years old and he'd never once noticed or paid attention to whether or not his boyfriend had made any kind of breathing movements. "You breathe?"

Deidara began to choke, blood pooling at the corner of his lip before it ran out completely as he turned his head. He started seizing, his body tensing and clenching at intervals, straining so hard that the chains left marks. His eyes rolled back and Sasori stood, transfixed in shock. For the first time in a very long while, he wanted to cry.

The shuddering stopped and Deidara went slack, his body glistening with sweat while his nose, ears and mouth had track lines of blood.

Deidara was either asleep or unconscious, but both were unsettling in Sasori's stomach. It was night outside, Deidara should be awake. It felt wrong, so so wrong.

He turned to leave; Zetsu said ten minutes - he was usually prompt. But he couldn't seem to make his feet inch towards the door. Is this was his relationship would be like, again? Sneaking secret meetings behind his family's back?

Not again, he fisted his hands and looked at the vampire's motionless body. It had never looked like a corpse before, but Sasori felt a chill that it now came close.

Zetsu wasn't back and if he had somehow managed to hide in the shadows, he wasn't interrupting Sasori's actions. Either way, he was thankful.

Sasori found a blanket and draped it over Deidara next, taking his nurse duties a step further as he went to see if Kakuzu or Zetsu had any blood in the fridge. Perhaps that'd help when the blonde woke up.

When he saw that there was none, he wondered. Maybe his strange brothers really did intend on killing his boyfriend.

Not so long as I'm alive, Sasori vowed.

He tested the Threat Theory, brandishing one of Zetsu's plant-cutters and waving it about near Deidara. When the blonde didn't stir, Sasori acted.

He walked back over and pressed their lips together - his lips feeling aflame compared to the coldness of Deidara's. It was entirely surreal how cold they were, when his body was as warm - if not warmer - than a humans.

"I miss you," He murmured, quickly taking another kiss while the vampire was still unconscious.

Deidara's hand clasped around Sasori's wrist like a vice, the minimal amount of slack just enough for him to accomplish it. Kakuzu would never have gotten so close for it to be an issue, but Sasori…. It had just been enough.

The rest of his body reeled away and Deidara couldn't do anything but clamp onto the red head's wrist. It began to feel numb, and then tingly, and Sasori was sure that one sudden wrong movement would dislocate it altogether.

"You're hurting" Sasori sucked in a breath as the grip tightened, Deidara's eyes closed despite his rigid body. Was he asleep? No. Sasori recognised this; Deidara's body had finally recognised a 'threat'. "Dei, please. Wake up" He daren't move his wrist for fear of it snapping, but with a violent twist from Deidara and his bone popped awkwardly.

His vision filled with white-hot pain and then faded into a black blur. The long nails started to emerge, growing slowly and not as rapidly as they once had. Sasori bit back a shout as they pierced the skin where Deidara held his grip. He watched his wrist, hoping Deidara would let go or even loosen his grasp.

When he didn't do either, Sasori's eyes turned defiant. Deidara had already broken his wrist, but he'd probably work on the fingers too if he could. It was all for the sake of terror and Sasori refused to let him.

When Deidara finally opened his eyes, the chains straining as he tried to get up, Sasori's wrist was slowly released and he felt it pulse with pain. There was no reasonable way to explain its damage - nobody would believe he'd trapped it in a door, or fallen on it awkwardly. He might've punched a window, but it wasn't likely.

"Get the hell out, 'Sori" Deidara murmured, his body writhing, his slender back arching in a way that might've even been sexy if the blonde wasn't slowly dying. "Before I split your veins, un" The sweaty sheen was back, coating his fair skin.

Deidara's head lolled as he started bleeding again; exit points, nose, eyes, mouth and ears. It was horrible for all of a full minute (he'd counted), a violent rush of seizures and blood until he calmed, his eyes rolling back, his body going slack once more.

Sasori's head hurt. His heart throbbed more than any of his wounds could and he couldn't fight the urge to cry anymore. He braced himself against the counter, convinced himself that he was completely alone and slammed his eyes shut. He counted to ten and sighed, letting his feelings overtake him.

OOO

"You're not supposed to be here" A voice said, a blanket dropping down on top of him. Zetsu.

"I'm sorry" Sasori apologised, tugging the blanket around himself but making no move to leave. He'd sat on the floor when his knees hadn't the energy to keep him up, facing the counter that had Deidara's lifeless body on it. "I had to see…"

"We understand; we were gone longer than planned - it's our mistake" Zetsu knelt down, holding out a cup of hot herbal tea. Although Sasori didn't like it, he didn't hate it - and a friendly gesture from his brother wasn't something to be ignored. He took it with his good hand, hid his bad one, and sipped.

"It's not very good" Zetsu said, and Sasori frowned at the tea.

"It tastes alright to me"

"Not the tea" Zetsu's eyes drifted over to the blonde, the blood now dried and crusted in various places. Sasori didn't have the energy to clean it up anymore. "We've never seen anything like it"

"Why?" Sasori asked, before he was even sure that he wanted to know. "What's wrong with him?"

"Kakuzu said not to tell you. The others agree that we're not meant to upset you"

"If my boyfriend dies I will be more than upset, Zetsu. Just tell me"

"Where to start?" He said softly, in that tone that indicated the question was rhetorical. The only issue with that was that Zetsu didn't ask rhetorical questions, and usually his 'other half' answered - either out loud, or in his mind. "It would be easier, wouldn't it?" Zetsu nodded and Sasori waited. When his brother got up, Sasori shuffled to a stand and followed when he moved to Kakuzu's counter. He fiddled with some of the equipment - most of which Sasori hadn't seen since his human-high-school years.

"This is a sample of your blood" Zetsu explained. Sasori looked through the scope, but he didn't know what he was really looking for. It was a blotchy mass of various pink and red shades with a few blobs of colour. "My blood" The slide changed, and Sasori found a slight similarity. A light tinge of silver that was in both his own and Zetsu's - it looked metallic. "And Kakuzu's" The slide switched and the silver circle was still present. "And the vampire's"

Sasori stared at the sample for a good few seconds and then pulled back.

"It's completely different" He murmured.

"No matter the supernatural being, we all have a common element"

"The silver blob?"

"It's the Supernatural Gene, so to speak. It's good that the vampire still has it"

"But that black stuff? His blood is black?"

"We think its turning" Zetsu said softly. "It's red when we draw it, red when we analyse it - an hour later and we find it black. It's the transformation that's interesting" Sasori winced. "We thought it was when it met oxygen, but it's not that. We tested, and we think it's decaying"

"Decaying?" Sasori echoed grimly.

"The vampire's supernatural ability allows for his healing process to continue. His body is trying to fix itself, which is good. But the contamination is decaying his blood supply. Now, vampires only have one blood system that feeds the others; did you know?" Sasori shook his head; he didn't know anything about vampire anatomy - Deidara didn't ever seem to have the interest to teach him.

"When blood is ingested, it goes through the main blood system and filters out into others; the immune system, for healing. The nervous ststem, for sharper senses and such. As long as the blood system is functioning, everything else should work. Your vampire's blood supply is decaying somewhere in his main blood system; most of it is rotting"

"Rotting?" He didn't like the mental image of that at all.

"The little blood that is getting through is working to restore health; his body is trying to heal. It's…exhausting. A vicious daily cycle. It's not good. He will use the blood to heal, the virus will cause it to decay. Again, he will try to heal, and again it will decay"

"Won't he build up some sort of immunity? Like humans do?"

"If he was going to, he would have"

After a few moments, Sasori voiced his most worrying thought.

"Eventually he's going to run out of blood to keep healing himself, isn't he?"

"Likely" Zetsu nodded. "The vampire can't drink" Zetsu added thoughtfully. "He's getting no fresh blood to replenish the old or refresh the decaying supply - so he shouldn't have the nutrition he needs for the healing process to continue - but it is. The virus gets used to circulating the blood system so the attacks happen quicker, as you know. New blood would slow it down, but every time he drinks, his body rejects it"

"He throws it back up" Sasori remembered the retching sound and then shook his head to forget it again.

"With the blood that he does have slowly decaying…eventually there will be nothing left to decay, Sasori" Zetsu said softly and Sasori glanced back at the unconscious blonde. "We aren't sure why he's still alive" He added factually. "Nor why his condition hasn't already proved fatal"

"He's running out of blood" Sasori paled, his body feeling boneless.

When another lull came, Zetsu moved around and gathered a few things, putting them in front of Sasori. He put something on a cloth that had a mint-like scent and then put the cloth to Sasori's lip. He flinched. While preoccupied staring at his half-dead boyfriend, Zetsu cleaned and wrapped his wrist, numbing the hand completely before he snapped the bone back into place. Sasori barely felt a thing.

"You're getting good at sourcing the numbness" He noted softly.

"We can see the advantages" Zetsu nodded. Sasori's eyes flicked to Deidara's eye scope on the counter top - either an old one or a new one, because Deidara hadn't ever gotten it replaced since it had been taken during his attack. Zetsu must've caught him staring. "He can't wear it - we've tried"

"Why?" Sasori murmured.

"The headaches distract him"

The next time the conversation fell quiet, Zetsu took away Sasori's barely-drunk cup of herbal tea and walked to the door with it. Sasori could take a hint, but he really didn't want to leave.

"Konan will be back soon" Zetsu said, his voice sure.

"Where did she vanish to?" Sasori asked, opening the door to leave the lab and then turning to take the cup back.

"We don't know" Zetsu said, too happily. A lie. He'd let it slide, if only because he'd let Sasori stay.

"Will you tell her I was here?"

"…If it becomes a habit, yes. If your life becomes endangered, yes. If it becomes important, yes"

"Great, thanks" He muttered, taking the cup and shuffling the blanket further around his body - he now had two. "Any instance where you won't?"

"If the vampire dies before anything significant happens, then we have no reason to tell the others"

Sasori sighed, but it was typical of his brother.

"About your wrist, we'll break something for you as a cover"

"That's….nice of you"

"And we'll try not to kill the vampire, if we can help it"

Sasori thanked his brother and left, heading back to his room with a gut wrenching feeling. Their hopes for Deidara pulling through were slim; everyone was sure he'd die.

OOO

Sasori still wasn't strong enough to eat Chiyo's soup. It had everything nutritious in it and though Chiyo vowed it would speed up his recovery, he couldn't yet build up enough appetite to eat it. She brought it every day and he'd try and sip at it, but he didn't feel like forcing it down his throat - even if it would allow him to see Deidara.

"You know you're not better yet" Was her conclusion, drawing away the soup container and setting it on the side table. "It'll seem all the more appealing once you get your appetite back"

As it was, he'd been living off water for the past few days and hadn't felt too down because of it. Hidan had made him some toast because Kakuzu had kicked him out of the lab, but he could only nibble at it and it was cold before he could manage even a half slice.

He didn't want to annoy Zetsu so he stayed away from the lab, even when a few opportunities presented themselves. He was thankful when he got updates, but he could tell they were sugar coated and lightly-put.

"He's not in pain" Kakuzu had said, which was a nice thought, but Sasori quickly assumed that if Deidara wasn't in any pain, he was either spending more time unconscious or too near-dead to feel it.

"We've located the source of decay in his blood" Zetsu had said, and Sasori hadn't bothered to hide his hope. "We're working on isolating it" But that didn't mean a cure was in sight, only that they'd found what it was they needed to fix.

When Sasori managed to eat Chiyo's soup and a full slice of toast, he did feel much better. His wounds had healed, traces of his fever had vanished and his body felt almost full strength.

He'd showered and changed into something half decent when Hidan had tugged him into the dining room.

His family were sat around the table, Konan at the top next to Kisame, with Kakuzu and Hidan opposite eachother, Zetsu sat next to Kakuzu with Chiyo opposite Konan on the other side. Sasori took the empty seat next to Hidan silently, his heart thudding against his chest.

Please don't be dead. He chanted to himself. Don't be dead.

"We can't fix it" Zetsu said bluntly. There has to be something, Sasori thought irritably. "It's nothing we've ever encountered before, it's bordering the very foundations of bio-molecular mutations"

"That doesn't mean anything to the rest of us, Zetsu" Kisame added, his hands knotted together on the table.

"It's new science. It's something we don't have the capabilities to counter. We can't reverse the effects, or stop them. It just keeps destroying"

"Then what can you do?" Sasori tried to keep the anger from his voice. When Zetsu didn't answer straight away, he was torn between thinking that his brother might have another plan, or that he simply didn't want to say what they were all clearly thinking, which was 'nothing'. "You're supposed to be good at this" He didn't mean for it to sound accusatory. "What good are you if you can't fix it?"

"Hey," Kisame scolded, his fist flattening on the table. Sasori mumbled an apology because he knew one was needed, but it wasn't helping. Nothing was helping and Deidara was clearly dying.

"We're not saying it's impossible" Chiyo said softly, with a quick glance to Kakuzu. "Just that we don't have the knowledge to counter it" Sasori's hope plummeted; If Chiyo was saying that she didn't have the knowledge - someone who was used to working with new, advancing and ground-breaking sciences in both the supernatural and the human world…

"Meaning?" Kisame prompted, keeping an eye on Sasori's growing look of hope.

"Meaning that somebody else might" Chiyo answered. "The science is new, experimental and extremely responsive. It came from somewhere, and someone will know"

"Responsive?" Sasori echoed.

"It changes on its own, depending on certain factors" Kakuzu said factually. "If we tamper with the original settings, so to speak, the symptoms change rapidly and the virus doubles. It doesn't just go away" Sasori felt his body chill.

"Did you tamper?" He asked, but again it might've sounded accusatory.

"We tried to fix it" Zetsu explained. "We didn't know it'd do this"

Sasori groaned and pulled his knees up.

"You're killing him" He murmured, convinced.

"They didn't know, Sasori" Kisame's voice was calm and reasonable. "You said somebody else might be able to fix it?" He asked, looking between Zetsu and Kakuzu.

"Hm" Kakuzu nodded. "We located all of our Bounty's, deceased with traces of chemical interference in their biology - someone is doing it on purpose. And if someone is doing it, someone understands it. What's worrying us is why. It's either for experimental purposes or as a way of slowing possible targets. A hunting technique, maybe? It's possible that the attack on the vampire was targeted to begin with" Sasori nodded slowly at that, thinking back.

"But if you're going to experiment on something, you do it to the things nobody will miss. Something worthless" Sasori frowned. "Deidara isn't wothless. He's old"

"We know this" Zetsu murmured softly to himself. "We know this, hmm….." The table waited, Zetsu mumbling to himself until - "The UCF"

"The Uchiha Corps Facility" Kisame frowned. "I've been there - my mission" He clarified.

"The Uchiha's" Hidan scoffed. "Uptight bastards; just because they're genetically superior to humans they assume they're worth a shit"

"They are worth a shit" Kakuzu argued. "They don't have supernatural abilities yet they can still rival us"

"They're the superior clan, right?" Sasori remembered. "They've always been genetically better than humans, made a lot of defence structures, but that's it. They're just glorified humans that are faster, better, stronger, smarter-"

"Crazier" Zetsu said, at the same time Kisame uttered "Shit"

"They have nothing natural to defend themselves with in an attack - not like Kisame or the vampire" Kakuzu explained. "In that respect, they are still very human. They rely on weapons, guns and tranquiliser darts and it would seem fitting for them to advance to chemicals" Zetsu had started muttering quietly to himself, not drawing too much attention.

"Why him?" Sasori frowned. "Why Dei?"

"Might've been random" Kisame offered. "The facility is known for helping and aiding security - their whole image is sold on that. Maybe the vampire was just in the wrong place"

"He was on his way home-"

"Out" Zetsu said loudly. "Of the facility. Out of …the facility. The experiments"

"If they were doing something like that, I doubt they'd risk it getting out into public knowledge" Kisame argued.

"Mmmm….a branch, then" Zetsu nodded. "Not the main facility. Not the main people"

Sasori's head flopped onto his knees.

So they'd run out of ideas to help Deidara. The one place that might've been able to help was actually running chemical tests to hurt instead of help and might make things worse, and was seeming -by the minute- to be the ones responsible for Deidara's illness. In all likelihood, he wasn't mean to survive for this long. The feeling of dread grew; Deidara was surely running out of options.

"Just kill him" Gaara offered his opinion with a shrug and Sasori had never wanted to stab someone's face so much. He was stood at the end of the table, away from the others and had clearly just arrived. He pulled out the chair and sat on it. "How do you know the UCF isn't still collecting data somehow? You're helping them by keeping him alive - I'm positive he's supposed to be dead by now"

"He's right on that account" Kakuzu added, and Sasori shot him a glare. "He's supposed to be dead - we don't know what's keeping him alive. He's not drinking…" Sasori tuned out - he'd heard it all from Zetsu before.

In the meantime, an argument had broken out. Gaara was opting for death, Kakuzu wanted to run more tests and Zetsu was adamant that nothing good would come from it. Kisame was sure there had to be another way.

"Enough" Konan said, her motherly voice as soft as silk. All the tension dissipated as they fell into an obedient silence. "We need to find out more about the experiments this facility is running before we do anything else, that will be our next step. If the patient is stable for now then it'd be best to keep him that way, right, Chiyo?" The woman nodded her agreement.

"And the patient isn't in any immediate threat of death, that either of you can predict?" She asked, turning to Kakuzu and Zetsu. When they nodded cautiously, she looked to the table in thought. "So we leave him be. Sasori, there's nothing we can or can't do for him at the moment. Is this okay with you?" Sasori supposed that no interference was a lesser chance of death, so he agreed. Besides, if they left him alone, it might mean he could sneak in again.

"So we need information on the facility" She decided.

"I gained intel on it while I was there - I might be able to…" Kisame glanced to Kakuzu. "I'll see what I can find out. I can go back I have I have to"

"We just got you out of there" Kakuzu frowned. "Easy as it was, they won't fall for it twice. Surely Zetsu-"

"I can find out more about the experiments, I can get back inside the facility; there's another building. Kennex. I wasn't taken there but…I might be able to get in. It was the only building I hadn't found a purpose for - it might be related to the chemical tests"

"And that Damsel? Still got him chained up? What'll you do when-" Hidan frowned dubiously.

"I can work around the Uchiha brothers; They care for eachother, I can use it"

"The younger brother is willing to help with access" Gaara said. Kisame watched him for a moment before nodding slowly in agreement.

"You have more than one motive for going back there" Kakuzu's eyes narrowed at Kisame. "The eldest one" He murmured.

"Damsel" Hidan smirked.

"He's not a problem"

"Kisame," Konan looked worried.

"Not a problem" He said again, surely. "I'll see what I can find" Kisame promised, disappearing seconds later.

Kakuzu and Hidan left soon after to 'hunt', not seeming to care much that Deidara might be an issue. Zetsu was sure he could gather more information elsewhere and took to the shadows in minutes. Gaara had nothing kind to say to Sasori or about Deidara and they both knew it'd only make things worse - the younger cousin left silently. Chiyo came over to him while Konan disappeared into the kitchen.

"I don't want a world where he's not here" He uttered, ignoring how pathetic he sounded. Deidara had introduced him to everything he could remember about the supernatural everything. His grandmother had tried her best to teach Sasori and keep his optimism about it, but Deidara had been the catalyst for any hope of change. He'd done what his grandmother couldn't quite do. He'd made it seem like a world of wonders instead of an inhuman, scary place where monsters lived. If Deidara wasn't there… "If he dies, I'm leaving" He'd see how he could cope back in the human world, ignoring the supernatural realms completely. That was plan A.

"I thought you…." The old woman smiled a little. "I'd hoped your confidence would outweigh your emotions" Sasori frowned; that hadn't been the response he'd been expecting. His grandma always had wise words to offer, but had always been supportive of Sasori's decisions once he understood that he was responsible for the repercussions.

"It'd be just like before. I'd live there, pretend everything's normal and you'd visit when you're free"

"Do you really think you could? You have a family here, Sasori"

He didn't want to argue with her, but she was missing the point. He knew he wouldn't be able to look at the world the same way if Deidara died. I don't want to think about it.

Konan came back with a tray of home-made cookies and a pot of tea. Sasori took the opportunity to excuse himself and drag his weighted body back into his bedroom. He didn't think he could look at Deidara right now and not see him as a corpse.