Why?
What the HELL?!
Pain. A slow dull-beating agony slipping quietly through the dreams of a young redheaded boy. He whimpered as he opened his eyes and struggled to keep his throbbing wrists elevated from the dirty, frigid ground. As the memory of the previous day returned to him, he pushed himself up, using his right hand, and glanced around the boring, grey cell that was his prison.
The place was dark and slightly damp. A dark, grey stone seemed to be the building material used for the floor and ceiling. Silvery metal bars made up one wall and when Sasori looked more closely, he could see that the door was set into the metal bar wall. The door bore an old-looking lock. From where sasori sat, he could see just how dirty the floor was. It was covered in a light layer of dirt accompanied by a few months worth of wet, grimy dust. This was lightly accented by a thick layer of moss that grew along the part of the floor and two of the three stone walls. The room was dimly lit by a single window at about his eye level that was also barred. Most of the metal was coated in a light layer of rust. In short: the place was a dump.
Sasori shifted so that he would be able to see out of the window. The sky was a beautiful, bright blue permeated lightly with clouds. Occasionally, a bird would fly overhead and Sasori would be struck with a pang of envy. If he could fly then maybe he wouldn't be in this hell-hole. Afterwards he would mentally laugh at himself. He wanted to try to see some of the scenery that might be out there. He craned his neck, scooted forward, and looked outside.
The same picture greeted him. Birds flying overhead. White clouds. Blue sky. Blue eyes staring at him.
As he focused he saw the bright blue eyes and pale face that had been there the entire time staring at him. His tired eyes had seen the blue eyes, pale skin, and bright blond hair and decided that it was the sky, a cloud, and the sun shining on the cloud. It wasn't. It was a girl, staring down at him like he was a bug under a magnifying glass. Sasori was so shocked that he stared right back at her, completely unfazed by the fact that he hadn't seen her originally.
She smiled. The smile split her face in two and narrowed her eyes making them sparkle more. It seemed like she was laughing silently at Sasori with her big, friendly, open-mouthed smile. He couldn't help it. He smiled back. She seemed nice.
Her facial expression slowly changed to concern as she surveyed his predicament. Her eyes grew a slightly clouded look and she chewed her bottom lip, as she thought about something. She leaned foreword, pushed her head through the bars, the bars were wide enough for her head but not her shoulders, and motioned him with a finger. He attempted to stand up. After that attempt failed, he scooted forward on his butt, getting close enough for them to whisper to each other.
"Hi, I'm Lili," she whispered through the bars. "What are you doing in here?"
"Oh, I'm just on vacation. This is my penthouse suit. What do you think I'm doing in here?! I'm in a locked cell!" He whispered all of this fiercely at her while shifting forward to sit on his knees.
"Finally! I can rescue someone with a sense of humor! Yes, score!" She said quietly while laughing and smiling her big, face-splitting smile.
"What?" Sasori was getting more confused about this girl than ever. "What the HELL do you mean?! Are you crazy or something?"
She looked him straight in the eye and whispered: "Maybe. Listen, I'm going to get you out of here. Hold on just one second." With that said, she disappeared.
"Wait," Sasori called after her, "Don't leave me here!" It came out a second too late. She was gone.
He leaned back, shifting onto his butt again to wait for her to come back. The minutes ticked by slowly, stopping to chat with one another before they slipped by, one by one. Sasori grew lonely. Where was that weird girl? Why had she thought that she could get him out of this place, it seemed like a fortress!
He heard a distant, metallic groaning sound, like ancient metal being bent out of place by some unstoppable force. Sasori froze. Was this someone coming to check on him? Were they coming to torture him? Was the building going to fall in on him? When he heard no more noise from that direction, he calmed down. He began to answer his own questions. Yes, someone would probably come and check on him soon and take him to the creepy old man. And yes, they would more than likely torture him. Most likely the building he was in was old enough to fall down, so it was a possibility that it would collapse on him, though he would rather not think about that. The thought of never being able to see Deidara again made him shiver in fear.
He realized that that was the first time he had thought about the little blond boy since his capture. He really did like the boy, more than enough to be considered love. He was just a little stubborn and didn't like Sasori trying to take care of him. All Sasori wanted to do was take care of the boy. That proposed a bit of a problem. He was wondering idly if Deidara had been able to make it back to the hideout when he caught a flicker of movement in his peripheral vision. Sasori whirled around to see Lili standing in front of him on the other side of the barred wall waving with her too big-for-her-face smile and her eyes extra bright.
Sasori tried to stand again, only to stagger over and fall on his side. His previously forgotten sores broke open and began to ooze again. Tears streamed from his eyes as he sat up and gripped his wrist, trying to ease the pain a little. He heard a clinking sound, a few wheezing, grinding sounds, and a reverberating screech as Lili unlocked the door and slid it open with some difficulty.
She ran over to him and knelt down, gently pulling his wrist from his hand. She held his arm just higher up than where the wrist sores were. After looking over the scrapes on his knuckles and backs of his hands, she looked down and winced at the sight of his right wrist. Carefully examining every inch of the wrist, she noted that half of the sores were infected and probably deep enough to be spreading into his blood.
She gently set that hand down onto his lap and tenderly lifted his left hand noting the roughly repositioned finger, she would have to fix that later, and the other broken finger. That one would be a bit more annoying to handle. He had split it along the bone and would need a cast for sure. She moved down to the many sores on his left wrist, which were as bad as, if not worse than, the ones on his right one.
"How did you manage to do this to yourself, you reject?!" She exclaimed quietly. "Damn, these fingers of yours have to hurt. Hold on, I'll do what I can."
"What are you going to do?" Sasori asked suspiciously.
"I'm going to fix the disjointed finger and then try to bind up the worst sores of the sores on your wrists, o.k.? Please don't hate me." After saying that, she firmly grasped the finger that had been dislocated and gently pulled, keeping her other hand clamped tightly over Sasori's mouth. Slowly, Lili maneuvered the finger back into its proper place, narrowing her eyes in pity at Sasori's muffled but still agonized screams. Tears began to stream down his face as she finally let go of him, satisfied that the finger was in the right place.
"Are you alright?" She asked quietly, ashamed of hurting the boy. "Did I hurt you too much?"
"No, I'm fine," was the weak reply. It didn't do anything to make her feel better.
As she began tearing strips of cloth from her bright blue shirt, Sasori noticed what she was wearing for the first time. The shirt's sleeves came down to her elbows and the hem brushed her knees. She wore khaki pants that cut off a few inches below her knees and hugged her legs. Her tennis shoes were gun-metal grey.
The girl had experience at being a doctor, it was obvious from the way she tenderly wrapped his wrists in the cloth from her too-big-shirt. She didn't just wrap the worst of his sores, she bandaged them all. Sasori winced slightly as she pulled the cool fabric tighter around his wrist.
She clucked her tongue and looked around. She reached into her pockets and dug, reaching in deep trying to find what she was looking for. Sasori was too busy being in pain to notice her triumphant 'aha'.
"Hey, kid," she spoke softly, looking into his eyes. "Will you do something for me?" Without waiting for an answer she asked him, "I want you to tell me your name, o.k.? Can you do that?"
"Yeah," Sasori mumbled, dazed from pain. "My name's Sasori." He couldn't see her hands so he didn't anticipate what she was doing until she was doing it. She had gently grabbed his broken finger, pulled it straight, and begun the process of holding it straight with a small, thin stick on either side of the digit. Sasori grunted in pain but didn't move; he was far too tired.
"That's a nice name, Sasori," Lili was then quickly tying the sticks to his finger. "Do you have any friends?"
"Yeah, I have a bunch- OW! MOTHER FUCK!!" He exclaimed as she tightened one of the final knots. This one was directly over the break.
"How many friends, Sasori? What are they like?" She said quickly, trying to distract him from the pain.
The boy sounded tired and out of it when he spoke. "Yeah. There's Deidara. He's really great. He's got these hellish blue eyes that you can get lost in and long blond hair that's really soft. He keeps it up in a pony-tail high up on top of his head. When he smiles at you it's like the whole world stops… and you just get… lost and want to… want to go to sleep… and never… wake… up…" Nearing the end of his description Sasori began slowing down until he finally fell asleep.
Lili smiled as she picked the boy up and slung him over her back. She walked out of the cell, closing and locking it behind her. As she strolled leisurely down the hall, she felt the weight of the boy on her back and frowned slightly. He was much too light. While she searched for the place she had entered, Lili made a mental note to tell his friends to feed him more. She rounded the corner and saw the place where she had gotten in.
It was a barred window, much like the one in Sasori's cell, only with slightly more space between the bars. Also, two of the bars were bent horribly out of place. Lili calmly walked over to the window, then gently pulled Sasori from her back and carefully maneuvered him outside, pushing his unconscious form slightly to the left. She then grasped the edge, pulled herself up, athletically swung through the gap, landed on her feet, and then turned to face the window again. Grasping the two bent bars in a business-like manner she pulled them and effortlessly bent the bars back into, more or less, the same shape.
After picking Sasori up again, she began to walk away from the hideout as if she had all the time in the world. From the outside, the building looked like, and probably was, an old prison.
The sun was sinking lower in the sky when Lili sensed the strangers. The young woman remembered the feel of the footsteps of every person she ever met. These were all new. There were about ten of them, spread out and heading in the direction of Orochimaru's hideout. These must be Sasori's friends; she thought. But just to be safe… I should test them! This could be fun.
She began to run toward the group with the largest number of footsteps. She also felt the smallest set of feet there so maybe this might be Sasori's Deidara. As she neared a rock outcrop a good twenty or so yards in front of them, she slowed down. Hiding behind the large rocks, she listened.
A young voice, most likely Deidara's, was the first she heard. "Kisame, are you sure Orochimaru's hideout is near here, hmm? We've been walking for hours and I think we should have found it by now."
"Yes, Deidara, I'm sure," came a deep, grating, and slightly annoyed voice. Kisame.
"He may have a point, Kisame; we have been traveling for a long time now and found nothing. I doubt any of the others have found anything either. Maybe we should change course a bit." This voice was smooth with a dangerous undertone that was barely audible.
"No, Itachi! Pein said it was in this direction so we're going in this direction! I want to find Sasori as much as both of you do and the sooner we stop talking, the sooner we can get back to searching. This is the only direction we know to search in so I say we keep searching in it." So, Kisame was a bit of a control freak. It didn't bother Lili that much. She now knew the name of the third man. Itachi; sounded like an interesting kind of guy.
She decided that it was time to test them. She only hoped they wouldn't attack her; it would be difficult to defend herself and the still unconscious Sasori if things got hairy. With those last thoughts, she stepped from behind rock and confronted the people.
"Actually, I agree with Kisame. He's right. I just came back from that direction and there was definitely a hideout with a boy named Sasori in it. Looks like I was lucky to find you." She said all of this with a twinkle in her eye and a light, trust-worthy smile on her face. The twinkle intensified as she watched their reactions. The black haired one, she supposed it was Itachi, raised his eyebrows and stepped back. From the tone of his voice she had guessed that he was a pretty emotionless kind of guy. Something that did surprise her though, was the fact that he was blind. Go figure. Kisame, who else but the big blue man, leapt back and started sputtering something along the lines of 'how did you know my name' and 'only a demon could move that quietly'. The small, blond Deidara boy's reaction was her favorite. His eyes widened until they took up half of his face and he shouted a joyful 'Sasori! You saved him!' As he shouted the 'you saved him' part, he ran forward and hugged her waste.
Lili grinned, disentangled herself from the blond child, and moved forward to set Sasori down. After she did so, she told them about the infection that had probably spread to his blood and that he needed to go to a hospital to be checked on.
As she walked away she cried back aver her shoulder, still grinning "Oh and you'll want to feed him a little more! He's just skin and bones!"
Kisame picked Sasori up and headed in the opposite direction after saying, "Deidara, blow the whistle now. We need to let them know that Sasori is with us."
Deidara complied blowing a shrill little whistle whose cry would probably carry over miles.
They all headed back to the hideout with lighter hearts. Deidara could finally rest. Sasori was coming home!