Found
K is for Kaboom
A/N: So not Titanic.
O O O
Deidara could easily count on one hand all of the times that he'd woken up and been crying. Actually, he could easily and honestly say that those times did not exist, because it had never happened before.
Well, not before this.
He sat up, thumbing away the wet track of a few tears. And for the life of him he couldn't remember why he'd been crying in the first place. It was especially odd because a girl was in the same room. Well, a girl and Kisame. His pride was delicate, damn it.
A hand on his shoulder caught his attention, and he turned, only to see Sakura, holding a cup in the hand that wasn't on him. His jaw twitched painfully.
She smiled brightly. "Feeling better?"
He raised an eyebrow cautiously and shrugged. He didn't even want to risk speaking.
She showed him the cup, and he glanced inside. Pink slush.
"Kisame and I went to get you breakfast this morning. I explained to the cook that you were post-op, and he made this just for you."
He leaned over and sniffed it.
"Kisame's still checking out the boat. Oh—it's just a strawberry-kiwi slushy. It'll feel good going down, though, and you have to have a soft diet for a few days."
He took the drink from her gingerly and took a dainty sip. "…Not bad."
Her smile widened, if possible. "Good. I'll start getting around to checking your jaw."
And so she did: prodding here, poking there, pulling his lower lip down with her thumb to check his teeth. He sat patiently through it all, left hand growing numb from holding the cold cup, eyes following her movement. She really was thorough. No aspect of his jaw went unchecked, and she even examined his entire face for him, eventually moving to gently probe the area behind his ears with her fingertips for missed damage.
When all of that was done, she allowed him another sip and then rested her hands firmly on either side of his jaw. That cool sensation was back again, then, ebbing away the pinpricks of pain that were starting to surface. He set the cup down on the nightstand.
As he watched her he thought, because it wasn't often that he was forced to close his mouth and not say a word. Deidara didn't like introspection; Deidara liked to talk. He gained information, experience, and many more things from speaking. But then…he supposed that in the same respect, he also missed out on little details, as well.
Such as when she'd clung to him directly after the kiss not too long ago, nose against his neck, lips brushing over the tendons there, her hands a distracting presence across his chest. So maybe she'd wanted more. Maybe she'd wanted him to…do it again.
His gaze flicked automatically to her lips, casually together, relaxed. Unsuspecting.
Well. He couldn't talk; that was a given. And he couldn't very well express his thoughts any other way than through action.
With not much more than a glancing thought as to how she'd react, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers. It was light. Nothing intense. After all, he was still recovering.
The chakra filtering through him stuttered slightly, giving him the chills and making him roll his shoulders in, and he made a strangled noise in his throat that could have been a groan.
Her fingers slipped behind his head, threading into his hair, and he realized—briefly, for he was a bit distracted at the moment—that his hair was down and his bangs pushed out of the way.
She muttered his name and pulled back, eyes averted to some undeterminable point on his arm. She continued checking him, even moving so far as to check the beating of his heart, and he watched her the whole time, slightly entranced, slightly fuzzy from just waking up.
Maybe that's why he was acting so weird?
She finished and looked up at him, face open and unguarded, and a spark of something made Deidara's gut ache. Because he suddenly saw what Sasori saw in her, and he suddenly wanted to finish up what Sasori had probably hoped to begin.
"Can I ask you a question, yeah?" he asked carefully, eyes following her every movement, so very, very thankful that it didn't pain him to talk any longer.
She scoffed. "Since when are you so polite?" She waved a hand. "Ask away."
"Can I mold you?" The second it was out of his mouth, Deidara realized how it might be misconstrued, and scrambled for an explanation. "I mean—I mean clay. Sculpting and, you know, well, molding, yeah."
She stared at him like another mouth had just sprouted from his chest and waved its tongue at her.
And he couldn't blame her, really. In fact, he didn't think she'd ever seen him create any art besides the bird at all. But things had been so hectic, and he'd been busy, and his muse was just being non-existent lately, so…well, there was nothing he could do about it.
She sighed. "Don't joke around like that. It's not funny."
He furrowed his brow. "What makes you think I'm joking, yeah?"
She rubbed her temples. "You don't even have any clay."
He huffed and reached into his pants pocket, pulling out a small pouch. "I have just enough for a miniature bust."
She seemed to contemplate it for a moment, for she stared at him intently, biting her lower lip. Finally, after what seemed like forever, she sighed. "Fine."
That thing in his stomach lurched happily again, and he all but jumped out of the bed. "Okay! Okay." He took her by the shoulders, guiding her to the opposite bed. "Just sit there, yeah."
"How long will this take?"
"Not long," he reassured, sitting himself down directly below her on the floor, his forehead almost touching her knees. "You have all day, anyway."
She folded her arms.
He produced a lump of clay from his pouch and began to mold it into the beginning shape of what would soon be Sakura, that spark in his gut ebbing into something a little more sated as he worked. It had been far too long since he'd been inspired to create anything just for the sheer fun of it, and his mediocre destruction of that city was proof of this.
He wasn't really able to put a thumb on his train of thought any more as he got a little more into his creation, only occasionally glancing up at Sakura so that he could see the particular shape of something. The art was only in its earliest stages, so it barely resembled anything more than the curves of a head, shoulders, and breasts.
"You know," Sakura began after a moment, scratching at her ankle so that he was forced to lean back a little bit, "I wouldn't mind if you made me a little more…voluptuous."
He peered up at her from under a few stray strands of hair that had fallen around his eyes. "Do you want me to, yeah?"
A pale pink blush dusted the edges of her cheeks. "Well—I mean—no, only if you want to, I mean…"
He bit the inside of his cheek and turned back to his work. "Honestly, I think you're fine the way you are." He hadn't really meant it to be a compliment; it was more of an observation that Deidara made. Any larger and her breasts would be overbearing, any smaller and they'd be far too small.
And that wasn't to say that he'd developed some sort of idea of the perfect woman or anything. He'd never really had time to daydream about fantasy women and the perfect wife through his travels. He'd been far too preoccupied with his art and the pursuit of a career with said art.
Needless to say, he hadn't found one that really let him do anything he damn well pleased, but… Well, the Akatsuki had been close enough. Especially since he'd been wandering around doing odd jobs here and there before they came along.
She was still flushed when he looked up again to see the exact slope of her shoulders, staring at the clay in his hands.
A tongue darted out from his left hand to lick some clay to one spot.
Her blush darkened, and he took note of this. She'd never been this embarrassed before. Just…mad.
He huffed softly to himself and used his thumbs to smooth out her clay shoulders, leaving indents for the fabric of her shirt.
Actually…
"Do you want to be naked?"
Her eyes widened. "What?"
"In the bust, I mean. Do you want to have a shirt on, or no?"
She furrowed her brow.
"Nothing's going to show, yeah," he sighed. "Just your cleavage."
She snorted. "What cleavage?"
Another glance up at her. "You have cleavage. It's just not the kind where your boobs are smashed together, yeah. It's, uh…" He struggled for the right phrasing. "It's nice."
She stared at him for a moment as though she were contemplating whether she wanted to uppercut him straight into the ceiling or just brush it off.
Fortunately for Deidara and his yet-to-be-finished creation, she did the latter, turning her head to the side and crossing her legs.
"Naked it is," he muttered to himself, and even though he was sure that she heard him, she said nothing.
He was able to get out most of her facial features by the time she had something else to say. Or ask, rather.
"Did you do this in the Akatsuki?" Her voice was soft. Sympathetic, if he had to take a wild guess.
He shrugged and used his pinky finger to carefully shape her nose. "Sometimes. I only did it with certain members, though."
"How come?"
"Some of them didn't like me to, yeah. And some just didn't appeal to me."
"So…who did you make busts of?"
He bit his cheek again. "I made a bunch of Sasori, yeah."
He heard her shift uncomfortable. "I…I see."
He stopped sculpting to glance up at her again, the replication of Sakura cupped gently in his hands. "What?"
She refused to lock eyes with him; this he could blatantly see. "Sasori was…your partner?"
He nodded. "Yes? And?"
"Ah…" She opened her mouth to say something more, but it closed it again, shaking her head. "Nothing."
He sighed and went back to work. "You think I'm holding Sasori's death against you or something?"
"Y…yeah."
His lips twitched into a smirk. "Obviously I do, yeah."
She shifted again.
"But this isn't some grudge I'm going to take out on you." He waved a hand dismissively—quickly—for he was anxious to finish the bust. It was starting to look exactly perfect. "I'm over it, yeah."
"I…oh. Okay."
And then there was more silence that Deidara was grateful for. He liked to work in quiet, ironically enough. Creations made in a hush that ended in an explosion.
He was done sooner than he expected, and he held it up for Sakura to see.
She took it from him carefully, a small smile falling across her lips. She passed it between her two hands, face lit and absolutely enraptured with the little thing.
Deidara felt overwhelmingly proud. "Like it, yeah?"
Her smile spread until there was nothing but teeth and bright green eyes and slightly red cheeks. "It's so cute!"
He rubbed the back of his cheek with his hand, spreading some clay to his face. Time to wash up. "You should probably get rid of it."
Her smile broke. "What? No, why? I don't want to get rid of it."
He made a move to take it from her, but she pulled away. He frowned. "Okay, really, give it back."
"No! I don't want you to trash it! Maybe you don't like it, but I do!"
"It's not that I don't like it—" He made another grab, but she moved it from his grasp. He stood and leaned over her, knees resting against the side of the bed. "You're going to get hurt, yeah!"
She scoffed. "By who? You?"
"No, by—shit!" He crawled over her, only half aware that his hips were quite literally pressed against hers, and batted it out of her hands. It rolled off the bed, across the floor, hit the opposite floorboard, and exploded with a small amount of clay shrapnel.
Sakura watched it, head turned at an extreme angle to be able to see. "Oh…it's…"
"My clay explodes, yeah," he deadpanned, glaring down at her. "And you apparently forgot this little fact."
She turned back to look up at him, folding her arms across her chest. "Can't you control it?"
"This one was sort of timed," he said, staring at the remnants of the bust. "Right after I finished, I set it to explode."
"Why?"
He shrugged. "Because that's what I do."
She stared up at him for a while after that, and her expression eventually softened to one that was a little less frustrated. He couldn't identify it exactly.
She unfolded her arms gently so that she could rest her hands on his biceps, clay rubbing off from her palms to stain the sleeves of his shirt. She started up some rhythm she probably didn't even know she was doing, fingers pressing into the inside of his elbow, her thumbs smoothing over a tendon in his forearm.
He swallowed thickly, following the movement of her gaze from a point on his chest to his lips. A thin strand of his hair fell over his shoulder to brush against her collarbone. "Sa—" he began quietly, but she cut him off.
"Deidara?"
"Huh?"
She flicked her stare from his lips up to his eyes, eyelashes fluttering prettily. And Deidara silently wondered if the recovery process had anything to do with him describing anything as pretty.
"Why…did you kidnap me?" she asked, and there was no malice in her tone. No killing intent; no ill will toward him that he could detect, and he found himself slightly at a loss for words.
"I…I needed a medic-nin, yeah," he said, and it sounded lame even to him.
Her fingers dipped down to his wrists, barely ghosting over the top of his hand.
He clenched the sheets under them, bits and pieces of memory coming back to him. Her reaction to the mouths on his palms, the heat, the complete and utter blind brevity of an act such as hers…
"Why," he asked, leaning forward only enough so that more blond hair fell over him, different lengths pooling over her sternum and hovering above her, "did you sit next to me that day?"
She held his hands firmly where they were, thumbs pressing down into the top of them to keep them in place, and arched up, looking hesitant as to what she wanted to do. "I was scared," she whispered.
He murmured a low, "Then why didn't you run?"
Her answer was the demanding presence of her lips on his, barely touching, feather-soft, tickling but not nearly enough to satisfy.
He slipped his hands out from under hers and behind her head, rolling so that he lay on his side, brushing his thumbs over the tops of her ears. The waterbed made a splashing sound that had him inwardly laughing at, but the situation was just too perfect for him to ruin by letting out even a huff of mirth.
She moved so that she could easily drape an arm across his chest to steady her on the other side of him, laying half over him. He remembered the kiss in the outskirts of the harbor, then, and he desperately tried to recreate it, running his tongue under the curve of her upper lip and then her lower until she finally met him touch to touch, stroke to stroke.
He swapped positions again, tugging on her arms until she relented and settled beneath him, and he pressed his thigh between her legs quite innocently. Really, he was only trying to get comfortable, but she made a muffled noise and pulled back a bit.
"Deidara, what if—"
"Kisame," he started, already knowing what she was going to say, "will not care. Kisame is only after his own ends, yeah. He doesn't give a damn about what you and I do or don't do."
"I wasn't going to…I mean…that, too, but…"
He stared at her obstinately. The familiar fringe of bangs had long since fallen to cover his left eye.
"But what if this turns into something it's not supposed to be?"
He groaned and let his forehead fall to rest against her collarbone. "What are you talking about?"
Her hands came up to smooth over the muscles of his back and then down his sides, counting ribs, it seemed, counting heartbeats, counting the breaths he took and how each was more of a struggle than the last. "I still hate you."
He rolled his eyes. "Apparently."
There was a shuffle of movement, and when he pulled away enough to be able to look at her, he was mildly surprised to see tears.
She sniffled. "I thought you wanted to kill me?" she said, and there was that spark back in her green eyes. She was getting angry again. Or maybe she was just sad.
Oh, fuck it. Deidara gave up. "What's wrong?"
She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. "I'm just confused," she snapped, half angry and half sad—some combination of the two that made Deidara grimace.
"What," he started slowly, gritting his teeth, "exactly is it that you're confused about?"
"You!" she shouted, sitting up to grab his shirt by the collar and sneer in his face. "You! It's you! One minute you can't stand me and can't wait to kill me, and the next you can't keep your hands off of me!" She shook him a little bit, more tears brimming around her lower lids, brows drawn together. "Which is it, Deidara? You think I don't know that something's happening between us! So what? Do you want me to leave or do you want me to stay?"
"I—I—you can't leave, anyway!" he said, expertly dodging the question. Yes, he knew he was just skirting around the subject. Yes, he was doing this on purpose. No, he didn't fully understand the situation. "You're a captive!"
She set her jaw angrily and rocked hard against him, grinding, pressing her hips tight to his and then rolling upward, and the friction made his now-persistent erection quite a bit more distracting than it was. He muffled his own groan and put one of his hands on the dip of her back, urging her to do it again, as his other steadied him on that ridiculous waterbed.
Her mouth was on his neck, moving up toward his jaw, and he tilted his head to give her better access, very much aware that he was once more panting.
"You are an indecisive bastard," she said against him, her breath fluttering over his skin and giving him delicious chills up and down the length of his spine, "and surprisingly easy to psychoanalyze."
He groaned for a completely different reason. No thinking of Kisame when being seduced by your captive, he had to remind himself. "Don't remind me."
"And you can't choose," she said, punctuating each word with the gentle movement of her fingers underneath his shirt and down his abdomen, playing with the waistband of his pants, "between this," –another roll of her hips into him, and he dearly, dearly hoped that he had the self-control to even last— "and just not having it."
"I can choose," he rebuked, pushing her tight against the bed and pushing her shirt up so that he could unclasp her bra. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been so brazen with any woman, let alone one that could and had demonstrated the latent ability to ensure the lack of children in his future.
With a knowing smirk, he shifted her medic skirt and shorts and the pants over it—he had no clue why she still wore her old outfit, anyway, when she was forced to wear civvies over that—to just below her hips. "It's not that I can't choose, yeah." He hooked his thumbs under her panties and tugged. "It's just that I don't want to."
"I'd break your jaw again if you didn't look so appealing right now."
A string of tension in his gut tightened, and he didn't stop himself from groaning this time. "You're not going to run away again afterwards, are you?"
"Nowhere to go," she said on a sigh.
He pulled his own shirt over his head, tossed it aside, and just went he moved to press the mouth on his hand to her breast and effectively render her a panting, mewling pile beneath him, the door cracked open.
If it was Kisame, Deidara was going to fucking kill him.
The back end of said person entered first, followed by them pulling in a cart of cleaning supplies.
"Oh, no," Deidara whined, refraining from just hauling her over his shoulder and carrying her into the bathroom to continue. "Damn it!"
Sakura gave an agitated sigh and pulled her clothes back together, slinking out from underneath her and dismissing the cleaning woman.
She locked the door and turned back around, and Deidara stared at her hopefully.
She stared back. "What?"
"What? What do you mean? Are we going to—I mean—you can't just—"
She bit her lower lip. "I'm not really…in the mood any more." She looked down at her hands, dirtied with clay. "And I need to take a shower anyway."
He made it into the bathroom before her, muttering something about priority under his breath.