Found
N is for Nautical
O O O
Dinnertime came around too soon, and Deidara still hadn't decided.
He'd discovered by flipping through the brochure out of boredom later that day that the ship was to dock in a remote harbor in Earth Country, stay for a day, and then make the return trip tomorrow morning.
He, Sakura, and Kisame, of course, wouldn't be staying for the return trip. That harbor in Earth Country was where Kisame would ultimately part from them, heading off to that island to make do with the rest of his life. And then…Deidara would have to carry through with whatever plans he had for Sakura.
A stray something bounced dumbly off of his head, landing in his lap. He glanced down with a blink, finding a small green grape there.
Scowling, he picked it up. Sakura met him with a playful smile.
Too bad he was feeling anything but playful.
With a roll of his eyes, he plopped it into his mouth, teeth pressing down, tart flavor satiating him but not really. He hadn't eaten for damn near all day, but for some reason he wasn't that hungry. Sure, the food all looked delicious—that he most certainly didn't deny, and even though his stomach growled and rumbled incorrigibly, he just didn't feel like it.
"What's wrong?" Sakura asked from across the table, getting ready to flick another grape at him from her fruit salad, but then changing her mind and eating said grape herself. "I thought you were hungry," she continued when she'd chewed and swallowed.
He shrugged. "I thought I was, too. I guess I lost my appetite, yeah."
She gave him an odd, quizzical look. "Why?"
He shrugged again and pushed some broccoli around his plate idly. Kisame had very graciously left the two of them to their own devices, having already eaten. He'd actually meant to give Deidara and opening and an opportunity to speak with Sakura about their plans.
In other words, Kisame had stepped outside to allow Deidara the time and space to craft this elaborate lie and then feed it to Sakura. The only thing he'd really be telling the truth about would be Kisame's departure. And for some reason, this bothered him.
He didn't really…want to lie to her. He wanted to tell her the truth. He wanted to ask her what she thought about it. He wanted her opinion; her input; her irrational outburst; her anything.
He was probably just beating around the bush, he realized, picking up the piece of broccoli and eating it. Bland, but not unsatisfying. He'd just forgotten the salt.
"Deidara?"
Her voice brought him forcibly back to reality, and he forced himself to chew and swallow quickly. Which he did.
"What's wrong with you?" she asked, and this time worry was apparent in those pretty green eyes of hers. She held her chopsticks resting on the plate before her, cocking her head to the side.
He sighed and rubbed his temples with his free hand. "I just have a headache."
"Oh," she said, sounding like she just realized something, and set down the chopsticks. The next moment she was walking around the table to stand beside him, holding out her hands in a seemingly placating movement. "Here, I can take care of that for you."
He pulled away his hand and looked at her, and she seemed to take this as an okay to start, because she pressed her hands to either side of his head, healing his headache and smiling in the process.
"I thought you didn't want to heal me in public places?" he questioned, closing his eyes and leaning into her touch.
"I don't usually, but this is minor. I doubt anyone could tell the difference between me just consoling you and me healing you."
"And if they could, yeah?"
"Then we'd beat them up."
She sounded so blunt and so serious that Deidara couldn't help a short, barking laugh. He opened his eyes, staring at her with a mix of incredulity and amusement. "We'll what?"
She pulled away from him, apparently finished, and frowned. "Yes! We'll beat them up. What, did you expect me to say we'll kill them?" She scoffed and returned to her seat, pouting. "I'm not that merciless, unlike some people."
He rolled his eyes and was finally able to stomach another piece of broccoli, this time with salt and teriyaki sauce. It tasted good, and he took another.
The smile she shot him as he was looking down didn't escape him, though he pretended, perhaps for her sake, that it did.
He set in on devouring his chicken not moments later, over-abusing the sauce dispenser on the table. He kept a mild eye on Sakura and her movements, watching her pick her stir fry to pieces, eating everything in increments according to whatever category they fell into: First the peppers, then the broccoli, then the string beans, then the chicken, then the rice. It was almost nerve-wracking, really, because Deidara was so used to seeing people shove whatever meals they could come across quickly into their mouths, either because they were in a hurry or because they were simply Hidan and Kakuzu.
He snorted at himself and shook his head, taking a clump of teriyaki-soaked rice. Like hell he'd miss those two. He couldn't stand them when they were around. Really the only members he'd been able to deal with were Sasori, Tobi, and sometimes Zetsu. Leader was an absolute prick all day every day, Itachi didn't really give a damn about anything, Kisame had been the biggest wise-ass bastard of the bunch, and that in and of itself just pissed him off to no end, he never even saw the blue-haired member, and the Zombie Twins, as they were so fondly referred to, had just grated on each and every one of his nerves.
And sure, he'd had his little moments, too, but all in all, he'd been content staying out of the song-and-dance snafus that went on within the Akatsuki. He'd kept mainly to himself, happy with just working with the love of his life: art.
And perhaps, in retrospect, that was why he and Sasori had been drawn to each other in the first place. Sasori was always so stoic and uninterested, but he didn't hesitate to throw his piece in for a debate. All their squabbles and frivolous art quarrels aside, he'd really respected Sasori as his superior and someone he looked up to—someone he strived to surpass. It had been a major blow when he'd been defeated, both to his emotions, which was a given, and to his self-confidence. Because if Sasori had been defeated in battle, what did that say about him? Simple: He didn't have a chance.
He flexed his fingers experimentally before taking a drink of his water.
But then again, who was sitting here now? Who was still alive, still practicing his art whenever possible, still—?
He glanced at Sakura, then, and felt a pang of resentment, if only for a second.
Murderer of his master, sure, but he couldn't blame her. She'd been threatened to be killed—to be turned into a puppet. And if Sasori couldn't hold his own against her and that old woman, then…
Well, then that was essentially his own fault.
…Okay, if he was making excuses for him not to be angry at the woman-child—nevermind that she was only six years shy of him—who killed his partner, then there was definitely something wrong with him. Either he was in too deep or he was merely tired and frustrated from their earlier endeavors, and something told him it was more the latter and not so much the former.
With an inconsolable sigh, he set down his chopsticks on the side of his plate and pushed it away from him. There went his appetite again.
Sakura stopped chewing her last bit of rice, swallowed, and then furrowed her brow. "What's wrong?" she asked, cocking her head at him.
He scratched the bridge of his nose. "Kisame's leaving tomorrow."
"Yeah. You didn't know that?"
"Of course I knew, yeah," he scoffed, glaring at her. "I was just stating a fact."
"…Okay?"
"And…" He waved a hand as if to try and scoot along the conversation. It was moving sickeningly slow. "And we need to discuss our…plans."
"'Our?'" she sniffed, leaning back and folding her arms. "When have you ever included my opinion on any of your plans?"
He rubbed his palms over his face.
"And since when do you care what I think about anything, anywa—?"
"Since you stopped being a captive and started being a comrade," he said without really thinking, and he immediately regretted it. She drew back further into the booth seat, lips pressed into a tight line.
A moment of uncomfortable silence passed before he suddenly found himself annoyed with that thick fringe of bangs over his eyes again. He pushed it back deftly, where it fell along his temple in haphazard strands.
"Look," he began, not quite sure how to redeem himself as a kidnapper. He apparently failed in that area. "I don't…I mean…" Getting frustrated, he rolled his eyes to stare up at the ceiling, and then back at her. "We're both adults. We're all adults." He folded his hands atop the table and leaned forwards. "We have the ability to make rational decisions, but we also, unfortunately, have the ability to make poor decisions based on split-second impulses, yeah."
"What are you talking about?"
He licked his lip and then bit the bottom one gently. The teeth on his hands ground together anxiously. "I'm guessing subtlety isn't going to work on you."
She frowned.
"What I'm trying to say is that you're free," he muttered, leaning even closer to her, hunched over the table. "You can go home, Sakura. You can leave."
By the way she stared at him with wide, unblinking eyes, he guessed this came as a complete surprise to her.
"But," he amended, straightening himself and flicking his bangs back again, "there's a catch."
Her expression turned dark.
"You can't tell anyone about my or Kisame's existence," he said under his breath, suddenly concerned with keeping his voice low. It didn't really matter, though, seeing as the chatter of the customers and the almost rhythmic clink of eating utensils drowned out any voice lower than a normal speaking tone. "You can't tell your friends you were kidnapped. You can't tell them you saw us. You can't tell them anything, yeah."
She didn't talk for a long time, just stared at him, still looking absolute incredulous and untrusting. And maybe…disappointed? "Are you…you're not just messing around?" she asked softly, and he shook his head.
"Do I have any reason to mess with you?"
She looked down at her plate. "So…when?"
"When what?"
"When can I leave?"
He tapped his foot to keep his knee from acquiring a nervous twitch. "As soon as we dock in Earth Country. From there, you can…go wherever you like, yeah. Just remember: Do not tell anyone about us. I can…I can hunt you down and kill you if I found you—"
"I won't," she answered quickly. "I won't tell anyone."
He watched her fiddle with a fray on her sleeve.
"What are you going to do?" she finally asked.
He shrugged and swirled his straw around in his drink, and with his long, dragging exhale of breath, the tension surrounding the both of them seemed to melt, down into the carpet, down into the floorboards, down into the bowels of the ship, through the hull, and to the ocean floor itself. He'd never felt more comfortable, actually, and it was odd. "I'll probably just go with Kisame, yeah." He shook his head disdainfully. "There's nothing for me here."
"'Here' meaning…?"
"Meaning here, in the Land of Earth. Meaning here…well, in the ninja world, I guess." He shrugged. "I mean…after being in Akatsuki and living through all that…you kind of get a new appreciation for life, yeah."
More silence enveloped them, and as a desperate attempt to keep that tension down, he stood. "Come on. Let's go outside with Kisame."
And so they did, and he was only half surprised when she stopped him in the doorway to the exit. "Deidara."
He was completely surprised, however, to find tears building and collecting on her eyelids and then her eyelashes, and then there were a few running down her cheeks, one settling at the corner of her lips while another took residence under her chin.
"Deidara."
He glanced right and then left, and then at her. "Uh…eh?"
He was pulled into a crushing hug before he could say a word otherwise, her arms tightening around his ribcage and under his arms as she pressed her face into his chest, shoulders shaking when it became apparent that she was crying and that those tears hadn't been a trick of the light. Or lack thereof.
Awkwardly, he patted her back. "Um…?"
"I don't blame you," she mumbled into him, burying her nose further into him, and he felt her arms tighten around him. He pulled her closer accordingly, one hand resting against the back of her head while the other spread across both her shoulder blades, stretching from palm to fingertips.
"What do you mean, yeah?"
"I won't blame you."
And he didn't have much else to say but "Okay."
O O O
Kisame was there, of course, leaning against the railing of the ship, staring off at nothing, it seemed. The sun had already long set, and as Sakura and Deidara approached him, he inclined his head toward them.
Sakura strode beside him, her whole left side pressing into his right, and Deidara flanked the other side of her.
She looked up at Kisame, who offered a grin, and rested her head against his upper arm.
As a direct response, apparently, he wrapped that arm around her shoulder, tugging her closer. And Sakura took it in while she could: His body heat, the smell of him, however devoid of perfumes and all the pretty things it was, and the sound of his voice, because after all, this might be the last time she was able to see him.
And in one movement she put one arm around Kisame's waist and one around Deidara's, drawing the both of them closer. Both seemed very securely petrified that she was planning on tossing them over the railing and into the water by the way each of them tensed, but she laughed at this notion.
There was no way she'd ever hurt either of them. She was in way too deep.
Deidara's hand was on her lower hip, then, perhaps territorial or perhaps just searching the same kind of contact she was giving him, and Sakura smiled wide.
"You know," she mused, sighing contentedly and looking out at the ocean and then at the sky, "I kind of feel like we make a good team."
Deidara scoffed. "Don't get all sentimental on us, yeah. We kidnapped you. Remember?"
"Sure, sure," she replied, shrugging, her hands slipping down to the smalls of their backs. "But now that I think about it, I can kind of sympathize—"
"Never sympathize with the enemy," Kisame muttered, though it was said in nothing but good spirits. "It could be a major downfall of yours one of these days."
A short fuss of indignation speared through Sakura, but it was gone as quick as it came, and she smiled with a set jaw.
And for the time being, she simply drew her contentment from the way the water looked, so dark and the way it disappeared into the sky at the horizon. She drew her contentment from the two shinobi at each arm and how much each of them cared for her, no matter how they might deny it. The confused artist and the learned rogue, the two missing-nin with one alibi and a handful of excuses.
Haruno Sakura, the reformed captive, the girl taken from a rock and dropped in a hard place, drew her contentment from two men that she might have killed without a second thought not a month earlier.
And then the weight of her trusted dynamic came crashing down, crushing her lungs, tearing the breath from her throat, and she bit her lip.
After tomorrow, there would only be one ex-Akatsuki to draw her contentment from.
And the day after that, she'd be alone.
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