The circus

Chapter three

Dei's POV

Thank god that's over, Deidara thought, rubbing the back of his head where he had gotten hit by something sharp. It was bleeding, but looking after it could wait. Right now, all the blond wanted to do was collapse in his small tent and fall asleep. He didn't sleep as often as some of the members of the circus, but that didn't mean that he was like Gaara. That boy never slept.

Deidara didn't mind, though, as it allowed him to have someone to talk to at all stupid hours of the night, as he was working on his next performance. In fact, he was so grateful to Gaara that he had made him a little teddy bear.

Actually, the little teddy had a small bomb inside it, and Deidara had been going blow it up, just to see the annoyed and murderous look on the petite redheads face. But then he had looked down to the teddy bear in his hands, and back up, incredulously, at the blond.

"For . . . me?" The words were spoken in a way that was so unlike Gaara, soft and vulnerable.

"Of course," Deidara had replied. That was the first time Deidara ever saw Gaara smile. Heartbreakingly slow and hesitant, but there, nonetheless. Deidara had decided right there on the spot that he wasn't going to blow the toy up. Even he, freak and abomination, had received gifts.

To make sure that he never gave into the temptation of making the teddy into art (of the Gaara-annoying kind) he had snuck into Gaara's room one of the rare nights that the redhead slept. He had quickly cut open the seam of the bear and pulled out the blob of clay containing the explosive powder and flint that, if activated, would blow up.

If Deidara remembered correctly, he had blown it up in Inuzuka Kiba's favourite dog's face. The look on the dog trainer's face had been comical when the loud bang was heard, and his precious Akamaru started to whimper. It was even funnier when he realised that he would never be able to get all that glitter out of his dog's fur. Deidara would still have preferred to see Gaara glitter bombed, but such is life.

Deidara had become a big brother figure for the acid tongued insomniac after the teddy bear incident. He had watched as Gaara grew up, and became friends with the blond clown Naruto, and became his protector. He watched as he met his first love, had his heart broken, became a skilled performer and started to be… less murderous. The ice walls surrounding him seemed to have gotten thinner and warmer, though Deidara suspected that they would never fully go away.

He knew because he had walls too. Deidara's weren't made of ice, but they were probably far more effective. You can melt ice, but you can only get through blinding light if your blind, and in that case, you wouldn't see anything anyway. Deidara's bright smile and laugh gave him protection and kept away most of the nasties. After all, he was friends with Hidan and Kakuzu.

Hidan and Kakuzu were known for being even scarier than Gaara, if that was possible. Hidan would do anything for his god, including killing, and Kakuzu would do the same for money. Hidan was a magician, and Kakuzu preferred the business side of things. They were total opposites, yet they were somehow the best of friends.

Okay, maybe 'friends' was stretching it a bit, but they certainly weren't enemies. Far from it. In fact, the only time when they were enemies was when they were having rough, kinky, angry, sex. Then that, of course, called for rough, kinky make-up sex. It was at times like those when Deidara became very glad that Madara, the ringleader of the circus, had seen fit to put Deidara in a tent by himself. Of course, this only came about after six attempted rapes, and the inability to work because Hidan was very . . . loud. All night. For TWO GODDAMNED MONTHS! How Kakuzu and Hidan continued to function with only half an hours sleep per night was a mystery.

Most people, save for Deidara, Madara and Gaara, thought that Kakuzu and Hidan couldn't stand each other. Oh, the looks on their faces would be priceless if they knew the truth. The zombie twins (as their best friends called them) knew that, and were saving that particular piece of information for a special time. If Deidara knew them like he thought he did, it was probably for their unofficial wedding.

You know; 'we are gathered here to witness the joining of two souls, Hidan and Kakuzu,'

'WHAT THE FUCK?'

Deidara was looking forward to the day that they finally came clean with everyone, and had informed Kakuzu that he was willing to pay big bucks to be there when they did. Basically, he was guaranteed a front-row seat.

Deidara yawned. The whole day hadn't been tiring, but the past few hours had been hell. Meeting after meeting, after meeting. Deidara did not appreciate that. He was sick and tired of all the fuss and bothe- oh, shit.

His train of thought was cut off as a familiar pair of yellow eyes came into his line of sight. What did I ever do to deserve this?

"who'ss thisss I sssee?" an unpleasantly . . . hissy voice invaded his ears. Deidara winced. He did not want to deal with Orochimaru at the moment. He wanted to go to his tent and sleep, or, if that was impossible, find his way to Madara's huge tent and hog the ringleader's gigantic bed.

"It's the 'artistic' idiot," another voice sneered from behind him. Deidara groaned, and re-assessed the situation. It wasn't just Orochimaru, the perverted snake charmer that had tried to rape him. Someone else was with him as well. Creepy-maru, the first person to share his tent, and his bitch, Kabuto of the lame glasses had blocked off all of his exits. Kabu-bitch of the glasses of absolute nerd-dom was tapping something heavy on the floor, and Oro-pedo was smirking in a way that made the bond feel uneasy. In fact, everything about the snake charmer made him feel uneasy. Orochimaru was just special that way.

Deidara kept his eyes locked on Orochimaru's knowing from experience that if Kabuto were to try anything, the signal would come from his ex-tent partner. After all, Kabuto was nothing more than Orochimaru's bitch, no matter how much Madara hinted otherwise. Madara was too optimistic.

Deidara's hand crept slowly towards the small pouch he kept in his pocket, attached to one of the many chains that jingled as he moved. His breathing had started to get faster, and his heart was racing. He wasn't sure if he hated these situations or if he loved them. After all, showing off his art was worth being molested and almost raped.

Deidara had to stifle a grin at that thought. His art was what he lived for, and everyone knew that. Bt Deidara's passion wasn't confined to one art exclusively, not that many people knew that. To most, Deidara was just the crazy circus freak, obsessed with flying. But he had one other passion that he felt like indulging himself in. it had been months since he had been able to demonstrate his talents outside of his tent, and he had been feeling restless recently. The artist knew that if he did what his body was urging him to do, Madara would have his ass, but he couldn't find it in him to care. Madara was always mad at Deidara for some reason or another.

Orochimaru's smirk started to gain an edge that Deidara liked even less than his original one, and he became aware that his attempt to make sure that his smile never reached his face had failed. A small grin had made its way up onto his pouty pink lips, and, since it was already there, Deidara felt no need to deny it.

His smile filled his whole face, and his blue eyes danced with delight. Deidara knew he looked like a girl when he smiled, so he avoided it at all costs, but his art was his exception. If he had a chance to put his art to use, he would smile, girly-ness be damned.

"You know Orochimaru," Deidara spoke for the first time, his voice deeper than a woman's, but not too deep. It was no rumbling bass. His eyes didn't stray from Orochimaru's slitted ones, and it occurred to Deidara that Orochimaru spent a little too much time with his snakes if his eyes looked like that. "I don't like you, yeah?" it wasn't really a question, but Deidara preferred to talk like that. At least it wasn't as bad as when he was little, and he had added a damnable 'un' after EVERY SINGLE ONE OF HIS SENTENCES.

It had annoyed the fuck out of everyone, including the mild mannered Minato Namikaze. His son, Naruto, didn't seem to mind, but he had seen fit to add 'believe it' after nearly all of his sentences, until he had made friend with some civilian boy from some place or another. Deidara only knew about the hyperactive pranksters' new friend because Gaara was another close friend of his.

Orochimaru's grin had faded nearly completely off his face, and was replaced with a sneer.

"I don't care if you don't like me," he hissed. "All you have to isss lay sssstill like the whore you are, and Kabuto and I will do all of the work for you." Deidara was no longer smiling. Rape was not funny business, and he already knew . . . he stopped that thought halfway.

He had known when Orochimaru had approached him that something was going to happen, but he had thought the snake charmer more intelligent than to try to rape him again. Despite all his faults, Orochimaru was not unintelligent. He knew now that he had to get out of there quickly, no dragging the fight out, so that he could attract attention and show the whole circus the beauty of his art.

Knowing Orochimaru and Kabuto, they had some kind of drug all ready for him, not deadly, but enough to paralyse him. It would probably freeze his tongue in his mouth, so that he couldn't scream. That was his ultimate fear, absolute helplessness. Even death didn't scare him as much.

His hand had reached the pouch in his pocked without knocking any of the chains he wore, and Deidara made a mental note to not wear so many. If this happened again . . .

His heart was pounding harder than ever, and he was sure that Orochimaru could hear it. Is breath seemed to have gathered at the top of his chest, and it became harder to exhale.

Adrenaline rushed through him, and he knew that now was the time to act.

Deidara brought a small clay bird out of his pocket, as well as a lighter. I hope this kills you, bastard Deidara thought, as he flicked the lighter on and brought it up under the little bird, the flame flickering against a small indentation at the birds' stomach.

Not waiting for longer than two seconds, he turned and lobbed the bird directly at Kabuto.

"ART IS A BANG, YEAH!" he shouted, as he ran through the smoke that his little 'birdy bomb' had caused, his eyes tightly closed. By the gasps coming from the direction of Orochimaru's little crony, he had not only inhaled the smoke, but had gotten it in his eyes, too.

A clatter was heard one large one, that was presumably a bat of some sort, and the other was a smaller sound, metallic. I was right about the drugs.

Deidara suppressed a shudder and continued to run, eyes closed, nose and mouth covered by a hand. He knew that he had gotten past the smoke when he turned a corner, running into open air. The sound of a small water fountain drowned out nearly all the sounds from nearby. It was a beautiful space.

But Deidara didn't notice that. He was too busy staring at the redhead in front of him. His skin was so pale that it looked like ceramic. Eyes that drifted on the edge of brown and red bored into his head, and, the crowning glory, was his head of messy red hair. It was the colour of fresh blood, dropped on spotless snow, like a streak of crimson against black. This boys'-no, mans'-whole appearance was that of a doll. Beautiful, flawless.

Then he had to go and ruin it all.

"What did you say?" his voice was soft and smooth, but there was something in it that made Deidara gulp. What had he said recently? Oh, yeah.

"Art is a bang, yeah." Deidara didn't bother lowering his voice. An insane grin crossed his face. Adrenaline was still racing through his body, and he didn't want to control himself. He wanted tto show his art to the world.

"No, it isn't." the redhead told him in a superior voice. "Art is eternal beauty, unreachable and untouchable. Art is what everyone strives to be, but never quite reaches." The grin faded from Deidara's face, and he looked at the shorter man incredulously.

"What are you talking about? Art is fleeting, a moment of transient beauty, there for only one moment yet, remembered forever." The blond artist didn't like the redhead's arrogant attitude. What he was saying was blatantly untrue.

"I dare you to say that again." The redhead's eyes flashed dangerously, but Deidara didn't care. He would never admit that his art was second best.

"Alright, asshole" the redhead had clearly indicated that that was what he was. "Art is fleeting, a moment of transient beauty…" Deidara stopped speaking, shocked.

Who the fuck punches someone because their artistic views are different? Deidara stopped that thought for a second. Apart from me . . .

Deidara glared into the red-brown eyes.

and, more importantly, who actually believes that art is eternal? Asshole.

Then the shock from being punched by a complete stranger, all because of his screwed up artistic beliefs set in.

Deidara's blue eyes narrowed.

This is war.

Say yay for Dei!

The first part of this chapter was really hard to write, so sorry for any jerkiness. (OMG thae bit that I found so hardd to write looks so short)

I have, like, two minutes to finish this, soooo . . .

Disclaimer: because 'Kira' is obviously another form of 'Kishimoto', so I own naruto (can you hear the sarcasm? 'cause I can)

Anyways, see ya.

Nychta is OUT

Night night