Disclaimer: The series Naruto and all of its characters do not belong to me. I am merely borrowing them for the duration of this story, and receive no profit from it.

Chapter Three

Observations

The room was pitch black. Deidara couldn't be sure how long he had been sitting in the chair, but it felt like hours. The light from the evening's sunset had given shadows to the walls until the night had consumed them, and he knew the moon would remain hidden as it had the night before - no light to creep through the windows, no light to leave shapes on the curtains. No way to truly mark the passage of time. But the blond did not notice the dark, lost as he was in his thoughts.

Deidara had not seen Sasori again that day. He wasn't sure if it had been intentional or not, but he wasn't worried either way. The redhead would show up when he wanted to, regardless of Deidara's wishes. No, what worried him was the boy. Sasuke was turning out to be piss poor with a gun.

He'd become frustrated the day before by noon. The boy, after their chat, had been more willing to listen... but it still hadn't helped. His grip on the weapon remained awkward, and he wasn't hitting anywhere close to his targets. Deidara had finally told him to get lost around dusk. He knew if Sasuke had remained around him any longer he would have killed the little bastard for all of his wasted effort.

It shouldn't have been a surprise, considering the boy's background. Guns were still relatively new in Japan, and not many would know how to handle them. But Itachi was as much a genius with a gun as he had been with his old world weapons, and from all accounts had been considered a natural. Deidara had placed his hopes on Sasuke being the same. Disappointment was a bitch, and made Deidara a bitch in turn.

His finger tapped against the arm of his chair as he stared, unfocused, into surrounding darkness.

Why was he so bad, though? The blond couldn't help but think he was missing something about the boy, something he had overlooked. But what? And then it clicked.

What weapon was he used to? His dart blade.

And what was something a person who uses a manual weapon not have to worry about? Recoil.

Fuck. The boy had no idea how to compensate for it... which would make his aim off every single time.

"Che," Deidara said, hand coming up to cover his smile. "I really am stupid."

It was only after dawn that Deidara saw the note pinned to the kitchen door.

Left food. See you in a week.

It wasn't signed, but the knife holding it to the wood was classic Sasori. He wondered if the other man was still pissed, or if he had thought the kitchen door was the best place for it. It did annoy him that the man had arrived and left again without saying anything to him, but it was strange he had shown up so late. He shrugged and walked out into the morning sun.

It hadn't escaped his notice, the day before, that Sasuke had already begun his weapons practice when he and Sasori had come out. And despite it not being long after dawn, he was not surprised to see the boy out already today. What did surprise him was the gun.

He still couldn't shoot for shit, though. As the young man missed his target yet again, Deidara chuckled. Sasuke looked ireally/i pissed.

"Oi, brat!" Deidara shouted as he walked out towards him. "How does futility feel?"

"Shut up!" the boy snarled, whirling to face him. The gun came with him, moving in an arch until settling in a way that might get one thinking that Sasuke was aiming at him.

Deidara grinned. "You shouldn't point things at people unless you mean it."

Sasuke's eyes narrowed. "What makes you think I don't?"

Deidara cocked his head. "Well, if you really do prefer Sasori to me..."

Sasuke turned bright red at that, something Deidara found interesting, and lowered the gun. "Why are you out so early?" he snapped.

"I kept hearing all these shots, and wondered why there was no screaming. I just had to find out why."

"Asshole," the boy muttered.

"Tsk," Deidara said, sauntering over to the young man. He stopped right in front of Sasuke, with barely a foot apart. "Is that any way to talk about your teacher?"

"No," Sasuke said, looking at him with a small smirk, "but you couldn't even teach a rock to sit."

Deidara looked at him. That was almost catty.

And almost surprisingly, the boy had yet to back away.

"At least I can hit the rock," Deidara replied, with a smirk of his own.

"Maybe if I was taught better, I could perform better," Sasuke said, with a challenging look.

Deidara chuckled. "Turn around, then."

Sasuke looked surprised for a moment, before turning to look back at the post he had been aiming at.

Deidara leaned over the boy's shoulder. "I want you to try again, but pay attention to the movement of your hand this time," Deidara said, softly, aware of how close he was to the young man. Sasuke had stiffened, obviously aware himself, but refusing to move.

Deidara wondered if he could get him to blush.

"I can't shoot with leaning over me," Sasuke said tightly.

Deidara laughed softly. "How better for me to observe than to be right where the action, so to speak, is happening?"

"Fine," Sasuke snapped, but Deidara had clear view of the red creeping up the boy's neck.

Sasuke, meanwhile, had raised his right arm and pointed it towards the distant post. Deidara watched as the younger man seemed to become lost in his concentration before firing... and wasn't surprised when he missed.

The recoil, however, had been obvious, and Deidara mentally patted himself on the back for a successful theory.

"Happy?" Sasuke grumbled, leaning away from Deidara in order to look at him.

"Very," the blond said. "I know why you keep missing."

The young man snorted. "You mean besides being a 'poorer shot than a drunken dog'?"

Deidara smiled. He felt that had been one of his better insults the day before.

"Yes," he replied. "I want you to shoot again, but this time, pay attention to your hand."

Sasuke did. His eyes widened after his shot.

"Oh," he said.

Deidara grinned, smug.

Sasuke looked at him. "How do I compensate for this?"

Deidara pointed to a seldom used outhouse, on the far edge of the field, beyond the enclosure.

"Follow me," he said, and walked to it. Sasuke followed, with a curious look. Deidara was struck by it for a moment, surprised at how inormal/i it looked on him.

When they arrived, Deidara told Sasuke to aim at the wall.

"What?" Sasuke said, incredulous. "I don't ineed/i to aim to hit this."

The look Deidara garnered would have had Sasori laughing for sure, he thought sourly.

"Step further back," Deidara said. "Aim at a specific spot... oh, like this one." And snatching a blade from the boy (which had Sasuke snapping at him to give it back...), he made an X in the middle of the wall.

"This is stupid," Sasuke stated.

"You're the one who wanted me to teach you," Deidara replied cheerfully.

"I'm not doing this."

"Then I'll just go back and you can find your own way home. Or to Itachi. Whichever."

Sasuke continued to look stubborn for another moment, and then he took his stance. Deidara watched him, as he had watched him earlier and the day before, and watched as he missed the spot by inches.

"You compensate by judging how much the recoil affects your aim," Deidara said. He walked up to the wall and pointed at the X. "You aimed here," and then his finger moved to where Sasuke had hit, "but instead hit here. You already know how hand movement affects aim. Now you need to be able to calculate for movement you can't control."

Sasuke was looking at the wall thoughtfully, and then looked at Deidara. For the first time, he saw something like respect in the young man's gaze.

It bothered Deidara, but he couldn't pinpoint why. He stepped back and motioned for the young man to try again.

Sasuke did. This time, he hit closer.

Deidara smiled.

"Where's your friend at?" Sasuke asked Deidara later in the day as he followed the blond into the house.

"Away on business," Deidara replied, heading to the cupboard to see what dry foods Sasori had left them. He grimaced at what he found.

"How long?"

"A week."

Sasuke fell silent after that, though Deidara could feel his eyes follow him as he headed to the cellar to see what kinds of meat (if any) Sasori had brought. He went in and was relieved at the selection. Looking around, Deidara decided on a large bundle of what appeared to be ham.

"Why did you make me come in here?" Sasuke said at last, after Deidara had reemerged from the cellar with the bundle in his arms.

"Thought you might be hungry," the blond replied before dropping his load on the kitchen counter. "Start the fire, will you? I like my meat crispy."

Sasuke grimaced, but didn't move.

"Not hungry?"

"Not in this house, no."

Deidara shrugged and turned back to the counter. He began rifling through the drawers looking for a carving knife. It didn't take him long - Sasori owned a lot of knives. He was amused at the assortment, and not sure which to use.

"Aren't you disgusted?" Sasuke burst out a few moments later while Deidara was comparing knives.

"Oh? You're still here?" he said, not bothering to look back at the young man. He lifted out what appeared to be the largest knife in the drawer, held it high and began to inspect it.

"This place is filthy!" Sasuke continued, a mixture of disgust and alarm in his voice. "How can you eat..."

"Sasori cleaned it before he left," Deidara replied absently, still concentrating on the knife.

There was silence for a moment. "I had wondered about the smell..."

"Ham?" Deidara asked again, deciding the knife would do.

"I suppose."

The blond began to carve the meat as Sasuke moved further in and sat down on a chair.

"That ham is bleeding," Sasuke said. "Is it supposed to bleed?"

"Gives it flavor. Fire now?"

It didn't take long after that for Sasuke to fix the fire, or for Deidara to roast (or burn as Sasuke claimed) the ham.

"Is this it?" Sasuke asked doubtfully as Deidara handed him a plate full of blackened meat.

"Vegetables are for women," Deidara replied, and threw a fork at Sasuke.

Sasuke snatched the fork before it could land. He poked at the meat with it, grimacing at the cracks that resulted from it. He used the fork to cut off a piece before bringing it to his mouth.

"I'm surprised you know how to use that," Deidara said, observing him.

The young man shrugged, his hand paused with the bit of meat still on the fork. "I had to get used to it. I was down in that city for a while before I came across you." He bit into the ham and grimaced.

"Ah," Deidara said, amused.

"This is the worst food I've ever had," Sasuke snapped, pushing the plate away.

"Next time you can cook it then," Deidara said, using his own fork to dice the meat in front of him.

Sasuke looked at him. "I didn't realize that was an option."

Deidara ate.

The young man sighed. He stood and made his way out into the front room, and Deidara watched him, chewing thoughtfully. He listened as he ate, to the curses the young man let out whenever he stumbled over something, to the movements of different items in the room.

"Deidara?" Sasuke called out. He came back into view, holding a familiar portrait in his hand. "Who is this woman?" he asked, holding it up.

Deidara froze, fork hovering midway between the plate and his mouth. "Why do you asked?"

Sasuke looked at it curiously. "It was the only thing clean in that other room." The look on his face when he looked back at Deidara would have had him bursting out loud if not for the picture in his hand. It was a look that clearly said, "I thought you said this place was clean."

"A woman Sasori knew," Deidara said flatly, lowering his fork to rest on the plate.

"Where is she?"

"Dead."

Sasuke's gaze changed to one of calculation. "You knew her, too."

It was not a question.

Deidara simply returned his gaze before nodding once, sharply.

"What happened to her?"

"That," Deidara said with narrowed eyes, "is none of your goddamn business."

Sasuke stepped back, his own eyes widening at the fierceness in Deidara's voice.

The blond man stood.

"I'm going to clean our mess up, and then we're going to clean house." He looked pointedly at the portrait. "You can start by putting that back where you found it."

He grabbed the plates and what remained of the cooked food and turned his back on Sasuke. Behind him, he heard the young man move away.

He only saw the boy a couple times after that. It didn't take Deidara long to clean up the mess he had made in the kitchen, and the only time Sasuke spoke to him was to ask where he could find what he needed to clean. After that, they went their separate ways: Sasuke, to clean the front room and whatever else that might be done the first floor, and Deidara to the second floor to start clearing out some of the rooms.

He'd known that Sasori had had more than enough room for the both of them, but even he had been wary of seeing the state of the second floor with the utter disaster the bottom floor had been. Safer, he had assumed, to remain sleeping near the front room fireplace than to possibly deal with whatever else could be roaming the upper floor.

So to say that Deidara had been shocked at how iclean/i the second floor was would be an understatement.

"That fucking asshole..." he breathed as he roamed from room to room, seeing the immaculate state it was all in. He wondered for a moment if this, too, might have been part of Sasori's cleaning spree, but he really doubted it.

Obvious, now, that Sasori spent a great deal of time at the house. Obvious, also, that he didn't eat at home much.

Curious, then, why he wasn't there now.

Deidara chose a room for himself. He remained there, until he heard Sasuke yell for him from the bottom of the stairs.

Closing Notes: I wasn't expecting this chapter to take as long as it did (considering I've been going at it, in some form, off and on since October), but I am glad that I didn't sit on it once I felt it was done.

This chapter came easier towards the end, with the last two scenes pretty much writing themselves. I plan on heading straight into chapter four (and all I'll say about that is that it'll be the last time those two will be at Sasori's home), so cross your fingers and hope it comes out sooner rather than later. I'm hoping not to get stuck again (which happened with this chapter... I started a rough in October that I scrapped in December, and the first scene of this story has been written since then, with the last two scenes having been composed in the last week. I work really quick when motivated), so I'm going to take the steam I got from ending this chapter and head right into the next.

On another note, I appreciate all of the feedback I get so very much, and I can't tell you how much I love hearing from everyone. I like hearing from people as well (on IM!), and all of my contact info is in my profile, as well as a (not even barely used) forum. I've also got a fic comm on Livejournal, for those with LJ's, and I usually always post the rough drafts of what I'm currently working on there. It's locked to the comm while it's in progress, but the comm is open. I do it that way as I often write on break and on lunch, and it's easier not to have to drag around a flashdrive with me.

Right now, the thought is that this fic will be twelve chapters long. As I get closer to the finish, that number could go either up or down, but I think I have it narrowed pretty well.

Again, thank you all for the feedback and wonderful comments, and I hope you like this chapter.