A new, updated summary to incorporate Shikaku's importance. A new character is introduced and Deidara returns.
This marks the end of the Police Interlude Arc. The fic can finally begin.
They don't understand. He's not crazy. He's not. There are no voices in his head, no otherworldly being commanding him to do the things he does. He just acts. It is all his own will. Nothing controls him, will never control him. That's just who he is, a resistor. A reactor. You bite him, he bites you. It's simple, common cause and effect. Like science. Like logic.
Why don't they understand? He's not out to kill anyone. He wasn't really going to hurt that pretty nurse—he just hates pills. Needles, syringes—can't they see he can't stand medication? Stop feeding! Please. Pretty please? He just wants to leave, go home—home? Home? Where is home?
He's not injured. He's not supposed to be here. Where is here? Not padded white walls. Simple, sterile white. Hospital. All right, he's in a hospital room. Admitted, but not committed...
He will never be committed. He will never subject himself to their loony bins, their padded whitewashed walls. Knobless doors, straps, IV drips, and days in and days out of nothing to think, feel, act but it's all in your head, yes, all in your head.
He can't stand it! He doesn't want to think of it.
Dead. All of them. Mama and Papa and...and...
The rest don't matter, just focus on the past!
Mama...Mama, don't die. Please don't die.
I'm sorry, dear child, but I'm already dead, you see?
He remembers vividly the events of a decade ago. He can see them, the pretty swirls of his papa's face, the memories. No, not papa, never 'papa.' Father. Just...Father. Father, who painted beautiful things. Father, who painted a stranger's face...
Stranger's face...
Glorious hair of fire's breed. Silk, sheen of white flesh.
In his madness, he remembers.
As a child, delirious with the agony of a rutted eye, he'd forgotten much of them. Memories. Like delicate, crinkling slits of glass, they crumbled into dust at his feet. Forgotten—but not dusted. Not swept under the rug, only merely, temporarily forgotten.
In his madness, he remembers. Some, most, all? Does it even matter so long as he sees the face of the stranger?
Because he refuses to communicate with them, only using the most basest of eye gestures, lidless—for he never blinks or closes his eyes—and wholly unresponsive. He stares, he does. He stares a lot. All day, all night, he doesn't respond to the doctors' questions. He looks away from the nurses and hisses at her clothes.
Pearlwrinkle blue. Perwrinkle? Periwinkle. Blue. A very nice shade of blue.
He hates her. He hates all of them. Their uniforms—
...perwinkle dress remains around her womb, and the clothes swathe her hips in a mockery of purity as the cloth around there is absent of...
Of...what?
He hates her, he loves her. The nurse? The dress? The woman in his dreams?
And the little boy does not want to see what is under there...
One day, he wants to find out. One day, he will see.
For now, though, he waits. They think him unstable. They don't like leaving him in a room unattended—or alone without cameras? Security measures absolutely worthless in the face of his unblinking eyes. Really.
He has nothing to hide. Nothing at all. In fact, he challenges them to see and discover what is waiting for them in the abyss. He wants them to find out. The abyss is him, in him, a gaping black hole. He thinks he knows one memory one day, but then it fades with the next. He realizes his memory is faulty and unreliable, but he likes conferring to experience's sake in matters dealing with the here and now. He doesn't care that it's all so skewed and that he cannot remember anybody's faces clearly. He doesn't care. He just acts. He just knows.
Meds. They have him on meds. Right. Of course.
But he is sure to remember the stranger's face if nothing else. Something about his father's image is cracked and shady, unhinged. Broken mirror glass? Fractured and fuzzy, faded and dusty...old photograph, curling and dying in centuries' old sunlight. Crackle, fizz. The picture is ruined! He cannot remember his father's place.
It's been replaced with his god's. His God.
He shakes his head, disperses the thought—the killer, a god?
Oh, but such a base term! Killer. Is that what he really is? Is that what his art has been dismissed as?
When he remembers Yamanaka's death, over and over he retches. Dry, heaving ones. Wet, sickly ones. Or does nothing come out at all? He doesn't want to remember, but he can't help in doing so. It is his last shred of reality in this godforsaken place—hospital? A ward? A barrier, a gate, a prison. It keeps the world away, just as he has proven to be unable to do so himself.
He cannot ward people away.
It's a tragedy. He craves interaction. He cannot do without socializing. He is desperate, cravingly desperate, for love and affection. Not. Those things die with horrific deaths, but his future is not so cold and grim. Is it?
For now he waits. When the good doctors see that he is well, they will leave him be. They will release him. Such an institution can't handle his treatment. They don't know the cure. They wouldn't be able to handle the pressure. Something will leak and the media with latch onto the place like leeches, sucking and lapping and sucking away until someone finally breaks and reveals. Like a well cracked coconut. He's a nut, ha ha. Not funny.
What is the best approach? his fevered mind thinks.
How shall he greet the world?
He will smile, he thinks. He will smile happily and the world will reel back in horror.
He looks down at the carefully predulled crayons in his hand and smiles. Oh, those silly, silly people. He wouldn't stab a man with a toy!
It is the only entertainment he is allowed inside. They refuse to give him the pens and pencils he so needs. He vaguely remembers the frenetic artist's pace he once had with one particular pen...pencil? When? When has he last used those materials? It has felt so long since then. Only faintly twitching hands remember their touch, the heady grasp of clacking utensils truly worthy of the subject. Red, fire red. Never magenta.
He settles for these colorful crayons more befitting towards children. And he has never felt so demeaned, not even when they strap him to his bed as he screams and screams...
Is he a child? Do they think him incompetent or stupid? Brief thoughts of irritation that sweeps away as he looks up into the face of his Warden and smiles.
A skip, a beat, a pause. And then The Warden awkwardly smiles back, and then notices the wildly erratic picture. Sloppy and childish—but with an artist's touch. Always, always with an artist's touch. Yet there is a peculiar realism for blunt materials that can only produce crude child things. No one ever said crayons were adequate. What is the picture about? What has he drawn?
Leaning back, Deidara is satisfied.
The Warden is horrified. As well he should be—Deidara is tempted to giggle aloud.
Although crude, the unmistakable figure of a man with fury twisting his face...
Red.
Such, such glorious red. All over. Blood, hair...? Blood red hair?
And although crude, the unmistakable figure of a man with fury twisting his face...blood splatters across the page and a sexually maimed choir sings and crows his name.
But something is missing. To the boy's eyes, it is such an imperfect creation. It is intolerable.
And all too suddenly, he is irate, no longer proud.
Crayons, he dismisses after a thought. How stupid he was to think this childish medium would suffice.
Well, then. What shall he use next?
And the bright, wide eyed stare he fixes upon his Warden is both altogether hungry and inane.
Ah, he thinks. This is what it means to be feared.
--
Some time ago or some time later—in years? Months?—the darling man comes to him on his own, finally, without the pretense. Their first interrogation! Their first meeting! How exciting—it would be if it were truly their first meeting.
How many times have they met now? How many times has the thoughts of his mind been shifted through and wrenched away by the man?
Oh, the man is no warden. He does not care to keep him down, hold him by straps and meaty, roving hands. He is not such a man.
Instead, instead! An officer! Oh, the irony! The irony kills him, positively kills him.
And what's taken him so, so long? To come back? The room is dull! His guest livens it up. The hunger in the man's eyes, blanketed by a severe disinterest, and yet a severe distaste? He wants to know, Deidara knows. The silly man wants to unwrap him, peel him around and around...get to the core of the fruit, the orange. The citrus. The lovely, lovely food.
Unpeel him.
"Deidara-kun," Shikaku says with a tired familiarity as he holds up a crudely drawn picture. He leans forward slightly. "Is this supposed to be your biological mother's death?"
One picture in a million, he feels—that is, unless he is given something other than crayons!
And when the boy in pallid clothes with a pallid face cocks his head, he does so in such a childish way. Single dull eye wide and unfocused, Deidara's lips are stretched wide in a smile. His lips are chapped, to the point of dry bleeding. "Of course," he says, so matter-of-factly that his interrogator sighs. "Mama always loves her Sunday's best, never mind that we are not Christian or Catholic or...or even religious! The blue sets off her body, doesn't it? I think she's pretty, but her yellow hair is ugly...maybe I drew it wrong? It's all wrong! Goddamn crayons," he suddenly hisses out, breaking the abnormal spell of youth.
Shikaku does not bother to hide the brief closing of his eyes, the tiredness hidden inside. But his voice is steady, as always. "I am talking about the man in this picture. Who is he?"
"But Mama never, ever wears her Sunday's best when alone," Deidara continues, reverted to a child once more. "Who would she wear it for? Who shall she impress? Father is in his studio, the stranger in his rooms...and the little boy lost away from there."
Shikaku stills. He does not ignore the seemingly pointless rambling, but stares intently into Deidara's eyes, watchful. Watching. Waiting.
Deidara does not seem to notice, but the glimpse in the corner of his eye is coy. "...that man, you see? He was there that day...I think. Maybe?" He drawls out the last word like an outstretched lover.
"When you drew me a picture of Sasori before," Shikaku says with a vague gesture of the hand, but Deidara can see the interest in his eyes, "his hair was red. Now, this man is covered in red...but not his hair. Care to explain?"
The boy tilts his head once more, giddy, giddy smile breaking out—that does not unnerve his guest! How disappointing. The smile tones down to match his all too whispered voice. "But aren't you more interested in Mama's pretty whites?"
It does not take even a glance to know that the mutilated woman on the page is not wearing any white. But Shikaku is patient and does not yield. He matches the boy's apparent smirk with his own. "No, I am interested. Very."
And the boy's eyes gleam in a way that is not quite right. But he doesn't say a word.
But the darling officer obliges him. Shikaku drawls aloud, "Don't tell me you want to stop our session already? Do you want to know you're dreaming again?"
And then Deidara realizes he is not Quite Awake.
Blinking, smiling, he doesn't quite understand. "But I like this."
"And you can talk," the man points out. "You haven't even met me yet."
"Untrue, untrue!" the boy sings. Single visible eye curved with his smile, it suddenly slams open as he lunges forward.
And when Deidara throws himself at his guest and wrangles the man's throat, throttling the bastard, he knows now how he shall handle their First Meeting.
"Wait for me," he hisses in the man's ear. "Wait for me...!"
But no matter how much he tightens and tightens and tightens his hands, Shikaku only smirks faintly into his one feverish, glowing eye. Mocking him.
Terrorizing him.
--
She raises a hand and rests it on his cheek. "Oh, Kabuto," she says. "Have you been well? You're so thin..."
He closes his eyes. "Whereas you glow. You're beautiful."
"Pregnancy," Yoshino says, amused, "brings out the glow in all women. A healthy flush of hormones, as it were."
"Yes."
She tugs his hand and brings it atop her swelling belly. Kabuto stiffens. "Feel him, Kabuto," she murmurs. "The child Shikaku and I've made."
"Nara-san..." Kabuto says, quiet.
"I want him home. I want him back." Her face softens. "How is he, Kabuto?"
Disheveled clothes, haggard appearance. A pack of cigarettes a day. Kabuto stills, the image fading away. "He is busy, but he's fine."
"Precious boy. Don't lie to me." She smiles, a sad upturn of the lips. "Of course he's bad off. I know this. I'm sorry to have asked this of you. It's not fair to you."
"Will you go?" He gently extracts his hand from her grasp.
She regards him with curious eyes. "Will you stop me? I will go with or without your help."
"Yes, I know. You have already sneaked in many times. It's dangerous and foolhardy."
"The only danger is if I trip and fall." Yoshino's voice cheerfully lilts. "Well...that and if I crash the car. But if I go with a policeman, security will be gentle with me, won't they? As if an expecting mother needs a reason to enter a hospital! You will come, won't you?"
Kabuto's mouth is at a displeased slant. "He'll not be pleased."
"My husband already knows what he can and can't do with me." She shrugs delicately. "He can bark all he wants, but I'm going to see Inoichi. No tenuous relationship between my husband and he is going to stop me from going."
Kabuto sighs. "Now I have to come with, don't I? To keep you from doing something foolish."
"Of course," Yoshino says, smiling.
--
"Inoichi?" she whispers. With a slight shrug, she seats herself beside him. She tugs at his inert arm. "Silly man. What were you thinking?"
"He can't answer you."
"Oh, shush, Kabuto. Can't you see I'm talking to Inoichi? Why don't you go outside?"
Kabuto holds up his hands as if he were exasperated, but he leaves. The door closes shut behind him, and the room becomes quiet with his fading footsteps.
Now alone, Yoshino's face falls. Her grip on the comatose man tightens. "Hey...you can hear me, can't you? You have to know how stupid you've both been. How stupid you both are. Honestly, do I have to be surrounded by stupid men my entire life? Don't argue with me. You know Shikaku's stubborn nature outweighs his genius."
Her eyes lower, and her voice falters. "I miss having my boys around. Stupid or not, I liked it. It was nice. Don't you think so, too?"
Tentative, she looks up. She brushes yellow hued hair from his face. "When Shikaku came home that night, he was frightening. I bet you didn't think that lazy man of mine could ever be scary, could you? But he was. And I'm not talking about last week when...when this happened. I'm talking about back then, years and years ago, when all of us were together still. You remember, don't you? It was the night my husband came home to me, a stranger. He was so angry..."
Drawing up a forceful breath, she stretches her lips into a pained smile. "You're an idiot, Inoichi. An utter fool. What kind of person does this to his friends? Didn't you say you were doing it for family? Didn't you argue back at Shikaku, saying how you were going to adopt boy no matter what? Idiot Inoichi—a really big idiot!"
Yoshino clenches eyes shut. Tipping back her head, she mutters, "Che, now look. I'm going to cry. Stupid Inoichi. This isn't good for the baby either. Have to—have to get back control."
Standing shakily, she drags a chair next to the bed. She doesn't want to look at the prone man anymore, much less sit beside him. She is smiling, but it is tremulous and it hurts. Looking down at her hands, Yoshino sounds worn.
"I'm tired all the time," she says. "My back aches. Second trimester, and my dummy of a husband still doesn't know how to deal with me anymore. Says all my complaints are troublesome. Can you believe that, Inoichi? Why can't he be as well mannered as you?"
"But, you know," Yoshino continues, smile becoming less strained, "I'm happy. I'm...I'm really happy right now. Remember when Ino was just born? Remember how that felt? Remember your wife's smile?"
Flushed and hopeful, she clasps his hand and strokes it. Her eyes never leaves Inoichi's closed lids as she searches his face for something only she can see. Her smile has become genuine. "I can't wait for my boy to be born. You don't know how long I've waited for Shikamaru. Ever since—well...I was also hoping for her to see him, too. But she can't, can she? Because she's dead.
"Inoichi...Inoichi, if you don't wake up you're going to hurt a lot of people. You're going to leave behind your child. You're going to leave behind Ino. And yet, at the same time, I have a feeling you don't ever want to get up. You don't want to face what that monster has done to you, your family, to...to Chihiro."
Hands tightening into fists, Yoshino murmurs, "But I'm worried about Shikaku. If you don't wake up, what will happen to Shikaku? You don't understand. He's hurt. I don't know how much more he can take before he breaks."
She bows her head, feeling sick. "Ten years ago, he was going to quit the force. Did you know that? Work is always rough on him. He's not as detached and cool as he makes himself out to be. Everybody thinks he's this untouchable genius who can shrug off anything.
"But, you know, after I had that miscarriage Shikaku was really afraid. Remember? He was working on that murder case with the triple homicide, but the killer was never found. Three children were killed, and my husband couldn't figure out who had killed them. He was shaken. He had never failed a profiling before, much less a case. And then, you know what? The killer was found, but not by Shikaku. The guy went to court, got seventy-five years, but Shikaku never had the closure he wanted. He was also grieving for our lost child."
Yoshino's expression turns ironic as if she were enjoying a private joke. "I was angry, too, when you decided to adopt a boy like that. Think of all the grief it would put you through! Now, I don't care. But my husband is different. He can't forget the past. He broods too much, thinks too hard...don't you think it was stupid of you to have ignored his warnings? Taking in the victim of a Sasori case, not bothering to rebuild the trust you had with him—I think you were very foolish indeed.
"But I don't think that anymore. I understand now. Inoichi, you..." Yoshino shakes her head. "You were always too soft. Between Shikaku and Chouza, how did you become so thoughtful, so wonderful? Shikaku is not perfect. He is flawed. And Chouza is much more bitter, much more angry, than he lets on...
"But, Inoichi, you're different. You're unchanged. I wonder how you will react when this is all over. What kind of world do we live in? Things were so much simpler back then. I can see why Shikaku totes around that phrase, and I'm scared. Does it make any sense to say that while I feel deliriously happy at times, I'm also afraid? I...I don't know where you found that strength, what compelled you to take in a broken boy and raise a wonderful daughter. Weren't you afraid?"
She falls quiet. "I met a wonderful young man a few years ago. Shikaku's trained him to be a profiler. I guess you can call it irony that this young man is also connected to that monster Sasori. His manner is very polite and though he and my husband share a peculiar relationship, he very much respects Shikaku. But he is cold. He's been hurt, too. We all have. I wonder if I've done right by him, he's been so distant lately..." Eyes softening, a smile plays at her lips. "Honestly, he reminds me of Shikaku. Isn't that funny? Someday, I hope little Shikamaru won't take after those two. Dealing with one genius is enough, and Kabuto is frighteningly smart already. I am surrounded by interesting men." Glancing at the clock, she frowns.
"Inoichi," she says, standing. "I will be back again. I'll check on Ino for you, although she probably doesn't remember me, it's been so long. Kabuto must be impatient with me by now..."
After patting the prone man's hand, she carefully moves past the chair she'd pulled up. As she reaches the door, though, she slows to a pause.
"That's funny...the door's open."
Peering outside, she blinks, wondering why she feels suddenly uneasy. "Kabuto?" she calls, unsure.
But no one is there.
"Maybe he's not back yet?" she muses aloud. Turning to gently shut the door behind her, she jerks back when she finds a boy standing behind her.
Lank, frayed blond hair draping over slumped shoulders, bangs that cover one eye, revealing a world weary other...
And then the boy blinks, and he becomes a mask. No expression at all.
"Oh...hello." Yoshino's unease stirs, although she doesn't know why. "Are you a visitor, too?"
He begins to walk away.
Startled, she takes a step forth. "Ah—wait! Where are you...?"
But his gait doesn't pause at all. Glancing back at the room's door, Yoshino bites into her lower lip, nibbling, wondering what she should do.
Absently, she rests a hand on her swelling belly. That boy looks like Inoichi...
When she looks up, she finds he has stopped and is staring at her. But his expression is strange. Despite herself she blushes, realizing that he is staring at her stomach. He is doing so with such scrutiny, it is almost impolite.
But when he glances up and catches her eyes, she sees that there is nothing but childlike curiosity in his gaze. He is a child. She must have been imagining things when she thought he had a strange expression before. His face is so open, how could he be anything but a boy?
Immediately, she relaxes; honestly, what had she been tense for? Taking several steps forward, her smile is warm. "Hello," she says, surprised that he is taller than she. "I'll ask again, are you a visitor here? Are you a relative of Inoichi, perhaps?"
And then she sees why he seemed so small before. Even now, he is hunched over and his head is bowed—no, dropped. She cannot see his face properly because his hair is in her way, but his expression is lost. When she stops in front of him, he seems to shrink back. Concerned, she leans over, trying to meet his eyes.
"Boy?" Yoshino murmurs. "What is your name?"
But he shakes his head vigorously. She is taken aback when he clasps his throat and opens his mouth to soundless words. His single visible eye is open and wide, earnest.
She cannot read lips like her husband can. "I'm sorry," she says. "I can't understand you. What are you trying to tell me?"
And then she sees that he is clutching his throat.
"Boy, you...?"
--
And some time even later, Deidara slips past the guard of The Warden, pills dropping at his feet like a whimsical Hansel and Gretel recreation. He doesn't quite know if The Warden will be all right. He doesn't think any of his jailers will ever be all right.
He is careful to cling to the walls and the shadows, allowing them to part his way, leading him towards his goal. He is practically skipping, so giddy and full of glee is he.
And the grin on his face is no less insane.
But he jerks to a stop, slamming up against a wall. The hall is dimly lit and doesn't echo despite his presence. Peering, peering, he snatches a glimpse of a door—and is furious when he hears words. No one should be here!
And then the room falls silent, and Deidara is alarmed when he hears the door open. With a single minded focus, he slips into his hiding place and waits for the man to get through. Get out.
And he is vaguely familiar. Light hair, bespectacled eyes. And the vaguely dangerous gait of a predator.
A name lifts its head, but Deidara banishes it without a thought. He doesn't care. He only wants to get in there.
It is the longest minute of his life that he doesn't suck in a breath. And the fiercely stalking man, fiercely stalking away, does not ever notice him. Deidara grins and sticks a tongue out. He has run out of pills.
He has checked. There are none in his pockets.
A shame, too, he thinks. A pretty woman is coming out.
And he knows who is inside. He just knows. He can feel it. He's sensed her before.
Or maybe it's because he has heard her name spoken indoors.
Yoshino, he tries out, lips curving, single eye smiling.
Delighted, he dances forward with a soundless giggle and waits not too far from the door. Impatient, he pushes lank bangs away, hands twitching at the opportunity ahead.
He knows the should-be-dead Yamanaka is inside. His shoulders droops at the reminder, at the placard nailed to the wall.
But then he perks up. If the man isn't dead now that means he's been deigned to live. Comatose! the gossip mill has hissed in his ear, snatches of conversation from complacent nurses. Comatose!
And inside...inside is the dead man's most frequent visitor. The wife of his to-be-interrogator, the interrogator who must be killed. Killed. Killed? Stopped. Deidara can barely hold himself back, not when the door finally opens from the inside.
Her surprise is so pronounced she nearly jumps, gasping. And Deidara decides he likes such an expression. He wants to see more.
And then he sees her swelling stomach.
He has not known. He freezes, petrified yet enthralled by the sight. Tension thrums in his veins. He wants to get away.
Startled, she is startled. He is walking away? "Ah—wait! Where are you...?"
And he stops. He stops because he can't bring himself away, don't you see? He can't get away. He trembles as he turns, but he forces his body to still. Didn't he say he wanted more? What changed, what changed? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He will stay.
"Hello," the pretty woman says carefully, taking several steps forward. "I'll ask again, are you a visitor here? Are you a relative of Inoichi, perhaps?"
His head is ducked, his eye stretched so wide in his excitement. He doesn't know whether to smile, laugh, or cry.
"Boy?" Yoshino murmurs. "What is your name?"
Here she is! a horrid voice snakes inside of him.
His dull, empty eye is hidden away under a frenetic fall of hair. The other wells up, pleading for the woman to come for him, to understand him. He doesn't know what's real and what's not anymore. How has he escaped from his cell? He does not know, does not remember. What has he come here for? To throttle the dry husk his adoptive father makes. But even then he has swapped his motives. He'll not kill anyone here. The man is clearly meant to be alive—why else has he not been killed already?
Not even The Warden. Not even this pretty, pretty woman.
Not the babe—!
He's scared. So scared.
And when he looks up, the pained quality of his eye is not faked. The plaintive whine he wants to emit, the soft expression he clasps onto his face for mounting pity. A sight any heart would tug at!
He lightly grasps his throat, and at her horror he knows he knows he has her enthralled.
Ah, he thinks. This is what it means to survive.
My god, I'm finally done. The transitions between POVs are messy, and I don't care. Too long have I agonized over Deidara's mindset, and he is finally back! Yoshino's part of the Nara pair, so she's here to stay. I doubt anybody else will be introduced. All the players should be here on stage.
Because Deidara's clearly more than crazy, don't take his word for word. His POV shouldn't ever be completely trusted.
But damn does it feel good to write Deidara again. However, this chapter's spotlight is on Yoshino...I really, really love her strength of character and Kabuto's reaction towards her. And little Shikamaru is alive! :3
But you know that bad things will come, don't you?