sorry i haven't updated in a while, i wish there was a valid excuse, but i can't currently think of one. i've just been too lazy/uninspired/oh and did i mention that everyoe i thought i loved desserted me?
not that that has anyhting to do with any of you...
well, you know what they say, what doesn't kill you makes you a better writer ^^
actually i decided to write this after a few reveiwers asked me too. i felt like a major jerk for simply abandoning you this way. so i wrote a longish chapter just for you guys ^^ you can expect regular updates from now on and i promise i wont abandon you anymore until my next story.
just out of curiosity (and totally unrelated) does anyone else think of megamind and minion, as the evil version of Ed and Al?
Deidara found himself alone in his room, staring up at the roof and wondering when he had ever been, that person. The person who had written so much about hating life, wanting to die, wanting to escape. He wondered distantly is it was ironic that, as an escape artist, all he wanted to do was get away.
He wasn't entirely unhappy here; not like he'd been when he first came here.
Konan had done a good job of making him feel welcome, by treating him like dirt to snap him out of the depression he'd been in. it took him a long, long time back then, to realise that even though he'd been caught, he wasn't exactly in trouble.
Now, whenever he looked back at it, he wondered how he'd ever gotten the nerve to steal from Konan, knowing very well who she was and having heard rumours circulating his village about her.
But he found it better not to think about such things.
He'd been saved back then, from a terrible situation. He should be grateful.
They'd be moving on in the morning. Not as early as the last time, no they'd have to wake up at some annoying, ungodly hour and pack up before they could go to Taki which would be a drag, but then straight after that, they'd be heading to Konaha. That was probably the best village to visit, not only because there were so many people and so much stuff, but because most of the children, as well as Itachi, got to return to their families. It was nice seeing them happy.
The door to his room opened. Right, it wasn't just his room anymore. He kept forgetting that.
Which brought him to the actual matter at hand.
He'd seen Sasori's act.
He definitely was in no position to call anybody a freak. And yet, Deidara didn't think he was one either. Sure, he was crossing the lines between puppet and man – or you know, he'd already crossed and destroyed them – but that wasn't to say he wasn't… he couldn't be… uh…
Deidara completely lost his train of thought and settled instead for just staring up at the ceiling. Something about this village was slowly making him lose his mind.
Sasori didn't think any differently of the silence that filled his room that night. Deidara hadn't spoken to him in a while and though it was beginning to become annoying, he made no move to speak to the blonde.
They'd be moving on in the morning.
He supposed he should simply focus on what the new village would think of him and be happy that he no longer had to be final act.
He lay down on his own bed, his side of the room was much emptier than the other side and he thought it lacked the characteristics he'd expect from a real home. But this wasn't a real home; it was only a place to stay while he got his life together.
He closed his eyes, expecting to fall asleep undisturbed but was interrupted in the middle of his fading thoughts.
"Weird, un," was really all the blonde said, and even then it was quite hard to hear him.
"Never said I was normal," Sasori said just as just as quietly. Without looking, he knew the brat was wearing a lazy smirk.
"It would've been so much better if you had, un," he said.
The light sound of shuffling filled the room and Sasori opened his eyes, looking slightly to the side only to see azure eyes staring back at him from across the room. Deidara lay on his side, curled up slightly with his hands beneath his head, looking like a child watching him carefully and with great interest.
Somehow Sasori felt like they were worlds apart and turned onto his side if only to get a little closer.
"So what happens now?" he asked tentatively.
Deidara took a deep, tired breath. "I'd planned to call you a freak un," he said, "and a bunch of other mean things, once I found out what you really were. I thought maybe it was really bad un, and maybe I'd be scared. But I'm not."
Sasori wanted to ask him why not, but knew it was a dumb question because of the place the blonde lived and the people he chose – or not – to associate himself with. Hell, his best friends in this place were equally, if not more so, messed up.
So he dropped it.
"Do then, you forgive me?"
"For now, un. You make Konan and the kids happy and you saved mini Uchiha. You seem like a nice guy when you're not being a hypocritical, xenophobic jerk."
"Wow, are you sure you don't have anything bad to say about me?"
Deidara laughed a little, his eyes drooping closed.
"Shut up, un," he said. There was a pause, presumably where he fell asleep before being jolted awake, "Un, how did that happen to you anyway?"
Sasori couldn't help the growl and harsh words that escaped, "none of your business, brat," he said.
Deidara wasn't deterred or even affected though.
"I was born like this, the way I am, un," he said, "my parents didn't want me after they figured out there was no way to fix me. That was when I was about three, un."
"You've been here since you were three?" Sasori asked incredulously.
He felt guilty for listening to Deidara's life and yet not sharing his own, but at the same time, he felt he wasn't even near ready to share his own story. He didn't feel like making fresh wounds feel worse and thought maybe he'd simply rip them open later when he forgot how much it hurt to think about home.
"No un, I lived in an orphanage until I was about five. Then another orphanage until I was seven. I was in foster care for two and a half years after that un, until I just gave up on ever finding a loving family."
"Then the Akatsuki found you?"
"Not quite un; I was twelve when they found me. Well technically, Konan found me." or I found her, whichever way you chose to look at it.
"You spent three years on your own?" Sasori was beginning to dislike hearing about Deidara's life. It seemed awfully sad and he didn't like the idea of Deidara not smiling, now that he'd started doing so again.
"Yeah un, but it was no big deal. Tons of idiots in Iwa and my situation wasn't as bad as some of the others in the Akatsuki, un."
"So how did you get here then? How did they find you?"
"You mean besides Konan's psychic powers. Un?"
"Yeah brat, besides that."
"Okay un, it's a bit of a boring story, poverty, crime, me being a really bad kid. I'll just stick to the important bits, un."
He paused to yawn again, tears coming to his eyes which he quickly rubbed away.
"Okay brat, whatever works for you."
The sun shone down hot and bright over the market place where people roamed unsuspecting of his earlier ploy and the items missing from their pockets. He'd been doing this for a total of three years – though it had been longer if you counted the years where he was in the custody of a negligent caregiver – and so it was no wonder those idiot tourists didn't stand a chance.
They would've been better off travelling to somewhere nicer, like Konaha, because at least crime rates there were higher for murder than petty theft, but the travelling circus seemed to be cause for a lot of new people in town and that simply couldn't be helped.
He was actually trying to save up for a ticket, having no parents to take him there and no actual job to help him, he was left with only his talents as a pickpocket and patience.
He could've resorted to the tricks he'd learnt as a street performer, like he usually would, only this was a different day and the money was for a different cause. If he spent the entire day tied up or upside down, he knew he'd simply spend the money on matches and end up burning something down.
Many locals referred to him with the word arsonist next to his name no that was by no means true. Sure, most of the burnt out buildings in the inner city were his fault and 75% of all fires were because of him but he'd never been paid to do it. That simple fact would later lead to Pein's use of the word pyromaniac, when he would be forced to speak of his past, upon revealing the numerous burn marks up and down his arms.
It had been a good crowd that day and he sat on a roof overlooking the still flooded market place and staring at the total amount of crap he'd gotten his hands on that day. It was sorted into piles of money, jewellery and fake gold as well as one ring stolen from a woman who was really quite hard to forget and had stood out not only to him.
She'd been wearing a black cloak with red and white clouds scattered across it in no particular pattern, her dark blue hair was adorned with a white origami flower and she stared on with clouded amber eyes. He knew she was a part of that circus that was travelling round, because he'd seen that posters at least twenty times that day and yet it seemed like there was nothing particularly odd about her. This ring though, it was plain silver with a circular white bump on the top, with a bold black Japanese character on it.
It meant nothing in particular to him, he didn't think it would sell for much and it wasn't even nice but he couldn't help but feel a sort of call pulling him towards it the moment he first saw it.
He twirled it around his fingers for a moment before slipping it on, it was really loose and kept slipping off when he moved his hand, but was always quickly caught by the ever helpful tongue protruding from a cavity in his hand, that some may call another mouth – well that's exactly what everyone called it and he had another one just like it on the other hand, precisely the reason he was stuck doing this sort of thing.
He watched the people in the marketplace walk around like nothing had happened and as though he didn't even exist. It was a sad, almost unreal existence he had, anyway.
"You must think you're pretty clever, huh kid?"
"Un, you're back for your ring?" he didn't have to turn around to know who was speaking to him. He hadn't even heard her voice and yet he automatically knew what that blue haired woman would sound like.
"It's dangerous for a child to be going around doing things like this, if I don't kill you now, no doubt somebody soon will."
But he wasn't about to listen to her. He had a show to see. He had to know there was something else out there, people who were just like him.
"You can have it back un, just don't tell anybody I'm up here."
Because if she'd come all this way for the ring, it must've been special to her as well.
He held it out to her, without turning around and smiled slightly when he felt her snatch it from the teeth that held onto it tightly.
"I really don't like you," she said sounding almost thoughtful, "but if you have the guts to steal from me, I'd say that at least gets you a free ticket to tonight's show. That's what you want."
It wasn't a question, because somehow, she knew.
"Un, thank you ma'am, for the offer, but I don't need your charity."
Again, he didn't have to look back to know she was scowling, glaring a hole in the back of his head.
"My name's Konan, not ma'am and if you know what's good for you you'll never call me that again," she growled in a rather un-ladylike way, "now you're coming with me, whether you like it or not, you got that?"
And that had been that.
It was some ungodly hours of the morning when Sasori was woken up.
He didn't remember having fallen asleep, but he remembered hearing Deidara's story. It seemed that, in a literal sense, Konan had saved his life, even though he'd done something bad. He remembered laughing at Deidara's stubbornness, and finding a strange sense of understanding in his words and the way he said them.
It was like, why me?
Why waste your time?
Can't you see I'm a freak?
Don't you understand that I'm better off dead?
Those things had been running through his mind when he'd been saved by Pein and he was sure the same thoughts ran through Deidara's mind.
Suddenly, he didn't really mind being here and so far away from home. He didn't feel so alone. He didn't feel unwanted, he didn't feel unnatural or anything. He was happy for the first time in a very long time.
So he helped to pack up without complaint, even when he couldn't find the brat anywhere. Konan wasn't around either so he assumed they'd gone off somewhere together.
He was told they'd be going to Taki. He had no idea what that would be like. He was excited to try something new and apparently, it was Kakuzu's hometown. He wasn't too happy to be going back, but Sasori could understand that. When and if they went back to Suna, he would do everything in his power to simply stay in his room.
His thoughts strayed quickly to Deidara and he looked out through the darkness that suddenly surrounded the camp, ignoring the tired demands of the children who had decided to follow him around.
He hoped the brat was alright.
Deidara stood silently in amongst the trees, wishing he could do something to console his friend but knowing deep down at the same time that nothing needed to be done. She could sense his sympathy and either appreciated it or found it annoying.
Either way he was covered.
Konan sat on the ground, legs crossed, arms folded, head bowed.
This was probably one of the only times he'd ever see her looking this small and vulnerable.
A cross was embedded in the ground directly in front of her, formed out of weathered rocks, unmoved since the last time they were here. Untouched since the first time Konan had come here.
Deidara leaned back against a tree and let himself fall slowly to the ground.
The silence was interrupted only by the rustling of the trees, the chirp of crickets and the slight, concerning forest sounds.
"How many years n –"
"Thirteen," Konan answered in a voice that sounded so dead. Her folded arms tightened around her stomach and Deidara wondered briefly if – "I'm not crying you idiot!" she yelled. Her body shook in a way that contradicted her words. "I don't even care! It's not like I didn't see it coming anyway!"
Indeed, Deidara often wondered what a curse it must be to not only see the fate of everyone around you, but to see your own terrible future just ahead with no way to stop it.
"Why didn't you just try again, un?" he asked carefully, surprised when he didn't get cut off.
"You don't know what it feels like," she whispered harshly, "to see something terrible around every corner. If I tried again, I'd only end up with the same results; I'm sure of it."
Deidara thought he heard her laughing, though it was almost demented and certainly not the happy type of laughter.
"My body wasn't made to support life," she said. "I kill everything I come into contact with," she rose to her feet, blue hair hanging in her eyes. Now that she was up, Deidara could see fresh tear tracts down her face, "you're all dying, all of you. And I can see it and there's nothing! Nothing I can do about it!"
Deidara tried to smile, but really couldn't while his friend was falling apart this way.
"Everybody dies un," he said, "except for Hidan," he guessed that was why Hidan was her favourite. Because nothing bad would ever happen to him. "You me, and the rest of the Akatsuki are going to die someday, un. It's inevitable."
"Yeah," Konan said bitterly, turning back towards the camp. They'd be leaving in around five minutes. "But you don't have to carry the burden of knowing exactly when and where."
She couldn't bear to look at Deidara right then, because his fate hung over him as a constant reminder and she couldn't stand it right now. Not when she knew the end was suddenly so close.