Found
L is for Leonine
O O O
In spite of the circumstances, Sakura's rest had been anything but, well, restful. If she had any dreams, she didn't remember them. The only thing she could recall about the day and night before was that she'd all but ditched Kisame at the concession stand, almost slept with her kidnapper, was interrupted by the foreign cleaning lady, and then proceeded with avoiding Deidara until Kisame came in with food. And then after Kisame had made his grand entrance—and she knew that he sensed something was wrong, because he was a seasoned shinobi, damn it—they ate and slept.
Unfortunately, through much complaining on Kisame's end about having to share a bed with the girl once and how he didn't want to have to suffer through it again when he absolutely didn't have to, it had been established that Sakura should sleep with Deidara. Not in the sexual sense, of course. Though Sakura had been pleasantly surprised that he hadn't tried anything funny under the blankets. He'd simply bid her goodnight in a grunt and rolled over.
But now…well, now was decidedly different. Sakura had a habit of waking up slowly, and this morning was no exception. When she opened her eyes, she immediately noticed two things. One: Deidara was sitting up with something in his lap, and two: He looked absolutely delicious in just that tank-and-mesh combo that pathetically failed as an excuse for an undershirt. Not that she was about to say this aloud, mind. Hell, she could barely summon up the lack of shame to say it to herself.
She was able to place a less obscure noun on the object in his lap, and this noun was "sketchpad." She didn't know much about this man, granted, but she knew enough to know that she'd thought he'd stayed exclusive to clay and other moldable materials. But here he was, sitting beside her on the bed, sketching away on this pad of paper, complimentary pen making small scratching noises as he worked.
He glanced over at her and she took up the façade of sleep once more. When she knew that he'd turned away, she watched him again, slightly amused at the facial expressions he made.
And so this was how the situation stayed for a while: him glancing at her every so often as she pretended to still be asleep and her watching him when he took his eyes off of her. She barely noticed that he'd tied back all of his hair, possibly to keep it out of the way as he sat hunched over his drawing.
He apparently finished quite some time later, and he tucked the sketchpad securely under his pillow. And then he pulled out the tie in his hair, slipping the band on his wrist, slid himself back under the blankets, and curled up right beside her.
Sakura was, to say the least, somewhat befuddled. She sat up on her elbows, staring down at him.
He noticed the swift movement and then significant lack thereof shortly after, so he opened one eye to stare up at her. "What?"
She furrowed her brow. "What…were you doing just now?"
He pouted. And she could…she could swear he was blushing or something, but it might just have been a trick of the light. The light which was incredibly dim, now that she thought about it.
"I'm out of clay," he muttered grumpily, closing his one eye again. "And I felt like doing something, yeah."
She lowered herself quietly down to the mattress, arms stretched underneath her pillow as she stared at him. "What were you drawing?" she asked just as quietly.
Both of his eyes opened this time. "You."
Something in Sakura's heart danced for just a moment before it withered and fell to drop into her stomach. It was a sort of mix of sweetness and creepiness. She wasn't quite sure she could differentiate at the moment. "Why?"
"I just felt like it."
That wasn't very informative. "But why did you feel like it?"
"Because…I don't know! I just woke up to go get some water, and when I came back I saw you asleep, and I felt like I had to, yeah. So can we drop it?"
She shrugged and rolled over, where she came face to face with the alarm clock on the nightstand. Five forty-six in the morning. One quick glance told her that Kisame was still sleeping soundly, so she attempted to follow his example.
As her mind clouded with drowsiness, she heard Deidara strike up conversation softly over her shoulder.
"Kisame…he…told me that he was leaving," he said under his breath.
"Mm," Sakura said, only half aware of anything that was going on.
"And he told me what you said to him, yeah," he said even quieter.
Sakura replied with another noise that told him she was paying attention.
"Even if Kisame leaves," he said, slowly, carefully, and Sakura fought to stay awake and listen. She really didn't want to be rude. "And even if you eventually find out that all of your friends are dead or something…"
She almost ignored his last comment.
"Even if you do end up alone because of the war or for…for whatever reason, you have to know…" He paused and took this time to shift closer to her, placing one of his hands on her upper arm. "You can't leave me."
She was asleep before she could figure out if he'd meant that to be foreboding or comforting.
O O O
For how calm Sakura had felt when she'd fallen asleep for the second time, waking up was the exact inverse.
If "falling asleep" and "waking up" were two variables, Sakura deduced, then adding them together would essentially cause them to negate each other. If she multiplied them, the boat would probably explode. If she divided one by the other, a black hole would rip open somewhere in the universe and suck everything in, turning it inside-out and then spitting it in some alternate dimension.
Then, Sakura almost screamed, and only then would she be able to describe how incredibly fucking annoying this alarm clock beside her ear was. She was about to reach over and pull the cord straight out of the damn wall, but an arm passed over her, pinning her to the bed momentarily, to grope around on the device before finally finding the "off" button.
She glanced at Deidara out of the corner of her eye as he retracted the arm in favor of rubbing agitatedly at his eyes. It was almost surreal, in a way, because who knew she'd be waking up beside an S-Class criminal? And hell, who knew she'd be so nonchalant about it? It was almost like everything was as it should be. Both were slowly rousing from their sleep, shifting under the blankets, bare feet absently brushing against each other.
She sat up and folded the blanket over her lap, groaning softly. When she looked at him again, he was yawning and stretching, hands and fingers interlocked as his arms extended above his head, face contorted into a half grimace for a moment before it all fell away and he sighed.
From what she could see, Kisame was already gone, so she acted upon a sudden burst of affection and draped herself across his lap, looking up at him when he started.
He blinked. "W—what?" he asked, voice still raspy from sleep.
She thought it was undeniably cute.
She shrugged lazily. "I don't feel like waking up yet. It's only nine."
He kept staring at her for a moment, whole body tense, before making a noise that wasn't quite a questioning groan and wasn't quite a huff. A bit of both, actually.
She snuggled into his lap. Warm, solid, tangible when she needed it most.
He made another noise. "Uh…" he began, going a little more rigid.
She sighed, stretched out over him like a cat, and then sat up with a snap.
He looked rather pale. "Did you feel that?"
"What?"
"Nothing."
She shrugged and got up, heading for the bathroom. "I think Kisame went up to get some food." She heard him climb out of bed. "We should go meet him and have breakfast."
He appeared behind her, setting one of the pouches usually at his hip on the counter. After a moment of digging through it, he produced a small brush.
She brushed her teeth with the disposable toothbrush that the boat offered as well as the small tube of toothpaste, watching him in the mirror's reflection. His hair was so long. Taking care of it must have been a task and a half.
He struggled through a particularly nasty knot before brushing through the rest of it calmly, smoothing it down, and then taking the hair tie from his wrist to tie it up in his trademark half ponytail. He pulled his scope out of the bag, stared at it, and then replaced it.
Sakura rinsed her mouth and turned off the sink, drying her hands on her pants when she found she was too lazy to simply use a towel. "Can I use that?"
He blinked at her and then frowned. "My scope?"
She rolled her eyes. "No, your brush. I don't have one." She held up a hand. "I've been using my fingers."
He nodded and handed it to her.
"Do you ever clean this thing?" she admonished with a huff, pulling out thick mats of blond hair. There was a little bit of blue in the mass of gold, and she inwardly chuckled. Seems this was the community hairbrush.
She tossed the hair into the trashcan beneath the counter and started pulling the brush through her hair without another word, grimacing a few times when she caught it in a tangle. She moved aside to allow Deidara to have full reign over the sink.
He picked up the toothbrush she had used and waved it in her face. "I'm using your toothbrush."
"Deidara, that's disgusting."
He scoffed and wetted it, then squeezed some toothpaste onto it. "Oh, please. It is not disgusting, yeah."
"That's just gross," she repeated, shaking her head. "It's one thing to just use someone's brush, but someone's toothbrush?"
He waved a dismissive hand. "As if your tongue hasn't been in my mouth before." He paused for a moment before adding, "And vice-versa," slyly. And then he stuck the toothbrush obstinately in his mouth and started brushing.
It took her a while to be satisfied with how her hair looked. It turned out a bit frizzy because of all the knots she'd torn out, but it otherwise looked fine. She cleaned her hair out of the brush—almost laughing out loud at the pieces of blond, blue, and pink hair left behind in the process—and then shoved it back into his bag.
He rinsed his mouth quite unceremoniously, and just when Sakura was about to once more scold him for being a dirty little man, he outstretched his left hand and starting brushing the teeth on the mouth there.
For a moment that startled even herself, Sakura was absolutely stunned into silence. It made sense, of course, that he would need to brush all three sets of teeth, but…but…
Hell, it was such an oddity. Deidara himself was an oddity—a freak of nature, though she'd never say this aloud. It was rude, not to mention dangerous. Who knew how he'd react?
That night in Sakanamura filled her thoughts, and the reality of the situation crashed over her. It was a bucket of ice-cold water, dousing what had once been the smoldering remains of desire, turning the ashes into a sticky, sloppy mud that made her sick.
It was—she had—he had—with those mouths…
She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth to hide the grim twist of her lips and kept watching him. It was second nature to him. How long had he had that bloodline limit, anyway?
He caught her stare, apparently, or maybe the thick silence alerted him, because he scoffed and scowled. "What?"
She blinked up to look at him and then instantly looked away. "Nothing."
He rinsed the first hand and started in on the next.
"So, uh," Sakura started, feeling awkward. "How long have you had those?"
He shrugged. "For as long as I can remember. It's been a while." He finished up with the second hand and then rinsed the toothbrush, handed it back to her, and dried his hands on the towel next to the sink.
Something apparently caught his eye, because he smiled widely and picked up a small plastic baggy. "A razor! Finally!"
She quirked an eyebrow and pushed herself up to sit on the sink, watching him with interest. "You shave?"
He rolled his eyes. "If I didn't, I'd have a beard." He wetted the razor. "Or at least some major five o'clock shadow, yeah."
"But…" She cocked her head to the side, inspecting him as he pulled a small packet of shaving cream from the rack that held each disposable toiletry. "But you don't carry a razor with you and neither does Kisame. Come to think of it, you're both relatively clean-shaven."
"Not right now."
"Really?"
He nodded. "I can't shave with a kunai for shit. Kisame's pretty good at it, though."
She blinked.
He sighed in exasperation and took her hand with his free one, pressing her fingers to the line of his jaw. He forced her fingers to slide downward and then up, and Sakura pulled away.
"That's…ow."
"It's just stubble." He splashed some warm water on his face and lathered the shaving cream on. "Anyway, Kisame and I use kunai most of the time. But it sucks. You cut yourself a lot, yeah." He started with a clean line down his cheek.
She frowned. "Nobody ever taught us that at the academy."
"They only taught the males at my academy," he said, tilting his head up to get an area under his chin. "Which leads me to believe that they did the same at yours?"
She nodded, suddenly awfully glad that she'd found the other disposable razor just the night before. She rubbed an exposed area of her ankle thoughtfully.
He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. "I'm hoping you don't need to use this razor, 'cause it's going to be dull by the time I'm done, yeah. It's cheap."
She flushed and grimaced. "Of course not! I already found one earlier."
He finished shaving in silence, apparently unfazed by the way she stared at him ceaselessly. There was a certain pattern to his movements: up, up, up, rinse the razor and then bang it against the counter softly, up, up, dab at a section with a towel. It reminded her briefly of those fleeting memories she had of her father. He hadn't been around too incredibly long, but he still had those little consistencies that stuck out at her. He used to bang his razor against the counter, as well, and as a little girl, that used to be her alarm clock. It was right on time for the academy, too.
She kicked her legs gently—aimlessly. "Do you have family?"
He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.
"Alive," she amended, shrugging.
He was quiet for a moment. Then: "No. They died when I was young." He rinsed the razor again before asking, "You?"
She looked down at her knees. "No. I wasn't young, though."
"Was it recently, yeah?"
She shook her head. "My dad died when I was little. My mom died a few years back." She picked at a stray fuzzy clinging to her—now clean, thanks to Kisame's ingenious work of finding a washer and dryer the other night—civvies. "She died of…some disease. They couldn't figure out what it was."
"Is that why you became a medic-nin?"
She sighed. "No. I was a medic-nin even before my mom passed away. I was gone…on a long, long mission when she died. I must have been away for weeks. They never told me she was sick while I was away."
He was finally done when she decided to glance up at him again, cleaning the razor, setting it in his bag for use later on down the road, and then rinsing his face. He patted it dry and then huffed gently. "I'm hungry."
She smiled inwardly and was brought back to the first time they'd met in that marsh. It seemed so far away, now, but it had only been…what? A month? Four or five weeks, at the most? And even from the first time she'd spoken with him, she'd liked him. His personality was so friendly, even though he seemed off-handed. He seemed to be able to make someone feel better without even making it apparent that he was doing so.
Just like now, she figured, as he changed the subject. And for this she was grateful.
He zipped his bag on the counter and patted it, then turned to Sakura dutifully. "I'm going to go out and get some food, yeah. Then I'll meet Kisame."
"I'll come with you." She hopped off the counter and followed him out the door, grabbing the key on the way out.
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