Found
P is for Point-Blank
O O O
Morning came with a ragged weariness that almost had Deidara rolling over and throwing up. He'd been away from the harsh conditions of the nomadic "outlaw" life for so long that any manner of mattress harder than a futon made him physically ill and aching all over. He was growing soft, he realized, but it didn't bother him as much as it probably should have.
It was still mildly dark outside from what he could see, though the grey touches of first-light were slowly creeping their way across the various peaks and large boulders in their canyon-like place of residence. The fire had long since gone out, of course, but it hadn't really been much needed during the night. It was dry and hot already; they didn't need a campfire to up those factors any more.
Carefully shifting onto his other hip, since his back was practically screaming in pain and his injured hip wasn't doing the best, either, Deidara groped along the rock wall until he could lift into a sitting position.
One glance around the small room gave him the information he needed: Sakura was sleeping against the opposite wall, spread out on her stomach. No shame, that woman.
As soon as he stretched out one leg to begin rubbing the life back into it, he heard her speak.
"Deidara, tell me about the war."
She sounded groggy. He wondered how long she'd been up. "Why?" he asked, annoyed at how scratchy sleep made his voice.
"Because I want to be able to talk to you for as long as possible."
He remained perfectly still for a long moment, watching her. The only movement she made was to breathe, and though her face was pointed in his direction, her eyes were closed and her expression was passionless. Some small corner of his mind was amused at the thought of her sleep-talking.
But she wasn't. And he knew that. "…I don't know much about it," he admitted, clearing his throat in a vain attempt to rid himself of his fatigue-clogged tone. "I just know that Akatsuki wanted to do everything in their power to stay out of it, yeah."
"Why?"
"Because we're not politicians, we're criminals," he answered, as if it were the most obvious answer in the world. Nevertheless, he elaborated. "Our leader didn't want to meddle with the affairs of other countries. He had his own goals and aspirations for Akatsuki, and it didn't involve conquering territory or capturing other ninja villages, yeah."
"What were his goals and aspirations?"
Deidara picked idly at a fringe on his pants. "I don't know. I just went along with whatever he said. It's not like I…was privy to all of this information, yeah." And just as an afterthought, he added, "You'd have to ask Kisame about that kind of stuff."
"Why do you think Sound finally rebelled?"
"Power-hungry assholes?"
"Or just jealousy over Konohagakure?"
At this Deidara snorted. "Jealous, yeah? I doubt it. Sound may have been sort of a minority on the continent, but it definitely wasn't jealous of anybody."
"How so?"
"Well, look at it. It had no government. If Orochimaru hadn't marched in and fucked it all up, it might have had a chance at reform. Could have been something better, yeah." He cleared his throat again, pleased that his voice was returning to normal.
"So you don't have an inkling of a clue as to why they decided to wage war with Konoha?"
"Nope."
"Okay, so who do you think will win?"
He studied her for a moment. "Are you worried?"
Her eyes snapped open at this, and she settled a hard glare on him. "Of course I'm worried, you idiot. It's my home country. When I was back there, it seemed like the casualties just kept piling up."
"And you don't expect that, yeah? I'm sure Sound's lost far more."
"Well, yeah, I expect it. I just didn't really…"
"Didn't think your friends would be the ones to go?"
"…Exactly," she relented in a quiet, whisper-like voice.
He sighed dramatically and managed to crawl his way over to her, where he stared obstinately into her face. "Yes, Sakura, I think that Konoha is going to win."
She nodded and put her head down. "Okay."
Things were silent for a long time after that, and he contented himself with playing with her hair, first braiding it and then simply twirling it around his finger, watching little ringlet curls form, tighten, and then let go in a simple wave. He didn't want her to leave. He really didn't want her to leave…
"Deidara?"
"What?"
"…Would you think less of me if I said I kind of didn't want to go home?"
And this had him taken aback. "W…what?"
"I mean…" She sat up and rubbed her knuckles anxiously. "There's nothing for me there. If Naruto and Sai and Yamato haven't found me yet, then they must be…"
"What about your other friends, yeah? And your Hokage?" He couldn't believe he was debating for her to leave him. Why was he doing this?
She shook her head. "All my other friends have either gone off or are dead. And the Hokage…"
"…The Hokage…?" Deidara prompted, curiosity glinting in that one visible eye. Which reminded him… He pushed back that thick fringe of bangs, shoving it behind his ear unceremoniously. Damn thing was always obstructing his view.
"She'd do fine without me," Sakura blurted, though it was more like she was asking Deidara for reassurance than stating a fact. "The war's almost over, isn't it? It's been so long—"
"It's only been a few years, yeah."
She punched him hard on the shoulder, and he withdrew with a surprised grunt. "Stop that!" she yelled, pouting in an angry frown.
"Stop what?" he defended, his voice raising a few octaves as he clutched his shoulder. "I didn't do anything!"
"Do you want me to leave?" she asked desperately, and he almost didn't notice that she'd begun crying.
"Not…really," he answered, mentally kicking himself for refraining. But it was so hard to answer straight when a ridiculous, childish red tinge was creeping tauntingly across his own cheeks. "I mean…no. Of course not, yeah."
"Then why do you keep giving me reasons to leave?" She sniffled and reached out to heal the bruise forming on his shoulder—an unspoken apology.
"I just…want you to be happy, I guess… I…I don't know! It's just what I do, okay? I try to refute things because it's second nature by now, yeah."
She moved those medic-nin hands from his shoulder to his jaw, giving him what very well could be the last little healing session with her. Ever.
Deidara suddenly hated the word "ever."
"Thank you," she mumbled, apparently over her crying fit. Thank God. "Are you hurt anywhere else?"
Usually he'd shake his head and comment on how she was always coddling him, damn it, quit with that, woman, but because that horrendous "E" word was looming over him like a bad habit, he nodded. "I think I slept on my neck wrong. And my hips and back are kind of sore."
She instructed him to lie down on his stomach, which he did, and from there she massaged his neck and the trapezius muscles at the base of it, infusing chakra to make it heal and feel delightful all at the same time.
He was almost asleep again when she told him to flip over.
He did so with half a mind.
And then she straddled him.
And Deidara's little relaxation session came to a screeching, grinding halt.
She put her hands at the base of his neck again, though this time she drifted to his collarbone and the edges of his shoulders, fingers kneading, rubbing, smoothing. One hand actually strayed to follow a line of muscle in one of his arms, giving him cold chills.
"That's not how you do it," he said simply, softly, and she smiled.
"I know."
He put the back of his head on the dirt floor, now, closing his eyes and keeping his hands obediently at his sides. Maybe he was unjustly reveling in her touch, maybe he was in some way inadvertently taking advantage of those tumultuous emotions tumbling around in her head, but either way, she was enjoying it. And so was he. So in the end, wasn't that all that really mattered?
She pushed the bangs out of his face and tugged out his hair tie slowly, and then her mouth was on his, and it was slow. Lips running smooth, lingering strokes, tongue curling around the other's, her fingers threading into his blond hair and his hand fisting her hair into a loose bun at the back of her neck, because he didn't want anything to interrupt. It wasn't the perfect conditions by any means—hell, they were in a cave and the world was falling apart all around them, but fuck, why didn't they just let it already? They'd done enough fighting to last a lifetime, quite honestly.
Her weight on his hips was suddenly the most prevalent thing in the world, especially when she shifted a little bit to the left or right. So he urged her off of him, shrugged off his over-shirt, and then almost sighed in relief when she caught the hint and lay down on it.
It was almost…invigorating, this feeling. This feeling of absolute power, of hovering over her like he was, knees trapping hers and resting his weight on his forearms up by her head. And her expression was completely priceless, eyebrows upturned and looking at him like she couldn't decide what to do next.
So he decided for her. And he kissed her again. Because who knew? It could be the last time and the first time all at the same moment, and he wanted to savor it while he could. His hands—artist's hands, long-fingered hands, hands that had sculpted and molded and been torn off and stitched back on again—took her by each side of her face, until all he could see was her and all she could see was him.
"I'm never going to see you again, am I?" she asked when he drew away, hands still on her face, and her lower lip quivered. "This is it, isn't it?"
He looked away for a moment and then gave a consenting shake of his head. It wasn't a "no" and it wasn't a "yes." It was more of an "I don't want to know anything at this moment." And he didn't.
"Deidara?" she persisted, voice pitching up a few octaves. "Just tell me the truth. I don't want to be in the dark."
With an almost-silent cry of frustration, he pressed his cheek against hers. "I don't have all the answers, Sakura."
She clutched him by the collar of his shirt, voice trembling like her body. "Then lie." A tear fell.
And so he did. And his voice was nothing more than a whisper.
"Do you remember that tornado, yeah?" he asked, lips right beside her ear as he buried his face in the crook of her shoulder. "Remember? He laughed and picked you up and dropped you right beside me?"
He heard it—felt it—as Haruno Sakura broke into quiet sobs.
He smiled against her neck. "And remember the cloud? Who made me sit on that island?"
She hiccupped and nodded.
"Well," he drawled playfully, and his smile was apparent even in his tone, "I think they were in cahoots, yeah."
She tried to hide another hiccup.
"I think they knew, yeah," he whispered, smiling sadly into her hair, furrowing his brow. "And I'm glad they did."
Her hiccups and sobs and gasps abruptly died, and she settled for simply keeping herself wrapped around him, occasionally giving his collarbone Eskimo kisses or rubbing her cheek against his shoulder.
It was so blaringly obvious that she'd been stressed. They were both stressed, and it was taking its toll. All of the pressure building up would eventually snap, and then what would happen?
"Just forget about it," he murmured, pressing his thumbs just underneath her ears. "Don't think about it."
"How can I not think about it?" she protested, sniffling, eyes still teary and slightly puffy. "First I get tossed into a war, then I lose everyone I've ever cared about, then I get kidnapped by two ex-Akatsuki, then I befriend them, and one of them leaves me." She paused to rub agitatedly at her eyes. "And now you…"
He…didn't have much to say. "I'm sorry."
She punched him in the shoulder. Hard. "You damn well should be!"
"Ow! You bitch! What the hell was that for, yeah?"
She tugged away from him, kneeling on the cave floor in front of him as he held his injured shoulder, staring at her incredulously. "For being another Goddamned Sasuke!" she shouted, lips pulling back into a sneer. "You're just fucking like him! All of you! I can't fucking escape it, can I?"
"Sasuke?" Deidara yelled right back, pulling his hand away from his shoulder to curl it into a fist at his side. "Sasuke? Are you seriously fucking comparing me to that rat-bastard?"
"Shut up! He's not a rat-bastard!"
He scrambled to his feet and motioned at her angrily. "You just said—!"
"I know what I said! I said you're like him, not that he's some sort of—sort of—"
"Rat-bastard," Deidara finished, glaring holes through her. "Which is, you know, what he is."
"I said shut up! Don't insult Sasuke like that!" She kicked a rock his way angrily, but Deidara simply stepped out of the way of its trajectory.
"Of, of fucking course not! God forbid I insult the almighty Sasuke!"
"Shut up!"
"No!" The rage, the anger, the utter jealousy that there was no way Deidara could deny continuously pounded through him, making him clench his teeth and pop his jaw angrily, even though it hurt like hell to do so. He took three steps forward and then he was directly in front of her, and then her throat was in his hands.
She backed into the wall behind her, surprise evident in her wide eyes and her hands immediately reaching up to hold onto his, trying to pry them off.
He wasn't holding her tightly at all, but it was probably the shock value of his actions that had given her that visible electric jolt. He'd never been physical in a way to intentionally inflict harm on her in such a long time, and he could see her brain processing his actions just by the way her eyes flicked from his face to her surroundings.
The thumb on his left hand rubbed with an uncomfortable pressure across her windpipe. Not enough to hurt, but definitely enough to make her squirm. Which she did. "I am not Sasuke. I am nothing like him."
He felt her swallow.
"At this moment," she whispered back, slowly, dragging out her words, "you are exactly like Sasuke."
His grip on her neck tightened, and his lips twitched up into a deep, angry sneer. "You do this on purpose, yeah," he muttered harshly. "You do this to see my reaction—to get a rise out of me."
She shook her head. "I do it because it's true."
"It's not true!" he shouted, momentarily squeezing her so tightly that she grabbed the front of his shirt in warning. "I could mention a dozen women I've encountered or slept with, and it wouldn't do a damn thing to you. Because you don't know them, yeah. But everyone and their mother know who Uchiha Sasuke is. And if he was anything like Itachi, then you're a damn stupid broad for getting involved with him."
She released his shirt to put both her hands on his biceps, holding him. "And if he wasn't?"
He pressed a hot, frantic kiss on her throat, exactly where his thumb had been, and he felt her fingers press into his skin. "…Just shut up."
"You never answered my question."
Another kiss, this time on the curve of her jaw, tongue flicking out to taste her skin. "And I don't need to." Just like that, the nervous, anxious tension in the air faded into something a little more nervous, something a little more uncertain, something a little more…familiar.
She made a noise that was something in between a groan of frustration and a moan of pleasure. "This is going to hurt, isn't it?"
He paused for a moment. The indications, the connotations, the mere thought behind that sentence had Deidara curling his toes. "Y—you a virgin or something?" He was surprised at the nervous squeak in his voice. Really. How old was he, now?
She snorted. "No. But if you haven't noticed, I can't see a bed for miles."
His toes promptly uncurled themselves. "If you're not going to go through with it, tell me to stop now, yeah. You have no fucking idea how frustrating—not to mention painful—it is when you just leave me like—"
Her deft little fingers unbuttoned his pants. "The floor, Deidara. The floor is going to be painful."
"You've been having quite a few mood swings today. Are you sure you—?"
She grabbed him by his collar, hauling him toward her with a sneer on her face. "I'm going to break both of your legs if you don't shut up. You have no idea how tired I am of talking to you." Her grip tightened and she leaned in toward him, lips barely feathering over his. "Now close your mouth and fuck me already."
Fair enough.
This sudden display of dominance she was showing in such a tense situation was making their cave an impromptu vacuum for whatever heat lingered outside, drawing it in and stuttering it around their bodies. And oh, but Deidara loved it.
He was dragged to the floor before he could blink, and Sakura was unbuttoning the second button, then the third, and then dragging down the zipper on his pants, the sounds of her actions giving him delicious shivers and aches in places that had ached for far, far too long. For how long had they been swimming in this sexual tension? Since Sakanamura, and those damn…something-shita drinks.
And in some way, he mused, arching into her touch when she brushed cool, small hands across his thigh, he was glad that he'd done what he'd done when he'd done it. If he hadn't pinned her against the window at that exact moment, if she hadn't taken his hand against her mouth and given him the most amazing rush he'd ever felt, if they hadn't tumbled onto the bed, if he hadn't brought her to orgasm by the touch of his bloodline limit, something that usually made other people wrinkle their nose or stare in disgust…
He didn't want to know where they'd be now.
He rolled her over onto her back, hovering over her again like a dark, ominous cloud. His hair fell in thick strands over his shoulders, and when he bent to unzip her shirt and press a kiss to her bare collarbone, that same blond hair pooled all around her. His mouth marked a burning path down, down, down her torso, following a straight line from her chest to her navel, him slowly unzipping her shirt in the process. He pushed it aside when it reached the bottom, and she pulled her arms out of the sleeves.
The plain, bland, ninja-issue bra—or "supporter," as all the female shinobi were wont to call it—was made short work of, and he set it aside, attention brought to her breasts, the pinkish areola, circling with his tongue and bringing it to a peak. And she was trying so, so hard not to be too loud underneath him, knees drawing up to curl around his body, hands clenching his old t-shirt long-before laid down beneath them.
He brought one hand underneath her to ground the both of them, and the other dragged listlessly to her neglected breast, the tongue and teeth and warm wetness there—more of a blessing now than ever, he realized—teasing her into another point.
He looked up at her face through his eyelashes, heavy-lidded and lazy. She was clenching her teeth, occasionally wincing, and he pulled away only enough so that he could speak without slurring. "Make noises, yeah."
She opened her mouth as if to reply, but it cut off into a strangled gasp when the mouth on her nipple bit down gently and then laved over her with a curl of its tongue.
"Not until you do," she finally managed, pressing the back of her head hard against the ground.
Feeling oddly confident and contributing it to the fact that he'd reduced one of the most powerful medic-nin still alive into a panting, gasping puddle beneath him, he pressed his thigh between her legs impatiently. No interruptions now; this was for real, and he was going to see it through. And he'd be damned if she didn't do the same.
He pressed his mouth to hers, and the kiss was sloppy and hurried, he admitted, but that didn't mean it wasn't nice. It was almost charming to have her lips glossed over with his own saliva, in some kinky, raunchy manner that Deidara barely knew he possessed. Then again, that night at Sakanamura, as well as his many other adventures as a nomadic S-class criminal-slash-artistic genius, had proved that he was a bit…uncontrollable when the moment called for such.
She returned his endeavors in kind, though his demeanor was very easily overtaking hers, and she was sauntering vaguely downward into this submissive role that Deidara adored so much.
He rather liked being the dominant one. Then again, he couldn't deny that her little "love taps" turned him on like nothing else at times.
The kiss turned open-mouthed somehow, and the only things involved were tongues and the occasional, brief brush of lips. He was panting before he knew he'd even begun to lose his tight grip on self-control, so he grabbed her by the jaw, thumbs pressed just in front of her ears and on the hinges, and deepened the kiss all that much more, his hips thrusting into her automatically, pulling her bottom lip between his teeth once, twice, and then slicking his tongue along the underside of her own, making her so blatantly dizzy that she couldn't quite keep up.
He jumped on a gasp and a very prominent throb from his erection when he realized that she'd managed to slip a hand between them, her fingers barely grazing the tip.
She paused when she noticed that he wasn't moving, and on a deep, stiff breath, he rested his forehead against hers.
"What—?" she began, worry evident in her tone, but he cut her off when he rocked against the flat expanse of her palm, telling her without really telling her that yes, he would like it if she continued down this tangent, and that no, he didn't want to give up his dominant role just yet.
She prompted him to lie on his back, and he did, propping himself up with his elbows planted firmly behind him.
The next thing he knew she was crawling in front of him, no shirt, no supporter, but medic skirt and skin-tight shorts beneath that still intact. Hell, she even still had her boots on.
And he was completely naked. That wasn't entirely fair.
Her right hand fisted around the base of his length, thumb idly tracing a vein for a moment.
He choked on a noise that would undoubtedly have been very, very embarrassing.
"Never done this before," she confessed, shrugging and giggling nervously. "So…go ahead and—?"
"Go."
So she did, pumping him once, watching his reaction, and then doing it again when she saw he was in favor of such actions. It took him a second to really process what the hell was just going on here and why the hell he wasn't waking up right about now, but when he did, that intense desire for release, sanctuary, something fucking solid, hit him like a wave of concrete. He bit down another one of those little noises.
He hadn't been watching her, because really, if he did, it'd all be over in less than five minutes, maybe ten minutes at the maximum. Because the mere glimpses he'd stolen of the act had been enough to have his head spinning and his senses reeling, scrambling for a hold on reality. And that reality just happened to be that the woman he'd slowly been developing a relationship with and lusting after for so, so long was actually fulfilling some sick fantasy he'd conjured up in the late hours of the night.
Something warm and wet and absolutely evil and perfect all at the same time made its grand appearance on the underside of his erection, and he just had to see what the hell she was doing.
And there he was. Bowled over again.
He felt rather than watched her slick the tip of her tongue on the underside, maddeningly along the slit and then she closed her mouth around him—whatever could fit, anyway—while one of her hands pumped and teased the rest of him.
His toes curled again and his fingers clenched into whatever was underneath him. He couldn't tell if it was still the shirt or if they'd rolled off onto the dirt floor. His mouth dropped open a bit, her name just barely skirting his lips on an inaudible whisper, and there was just the incredible feeling of her tongue and her lips and sometimes her teeth—dear God, her teeth—working to bring him to that terrifying edge. He was breathing heavier, now, chest heaving and shuddering, toes and fingers and muscles in his gut all clenching and tightening in unison, and—and—
She pulled away abruptly.
He actually cried out.
He opened his eyes, still gasping for breath, and saw her sit placidly back on her legs, wiping pre-cum from the corner of her mouth.
His erection twitched painfully. Pleadingly. He'd been so, so close to…to…
She crawled herself over to where his shirt lay crumpled and forgotten—so they had rolled off of it—and lay down on it, slipping off her boots and then her medic skirt and shorts in a matter of seconds.
He still couldn't find the capacity to move. He only stared.
She rubbed the back of her neck nervously. "All the way?"
"Oh, fuck." It was more of a statement than a complaint. He'd never even thought that she wanted to—
Before the moment was lost forever to wherever her little female mind wandered during what very well were the most sexually-charged times of his life, he wasted no time in recreating what had made her climax in the first place: a hand on her sex, a tongue playing with her, toying, teasing until she made one of those noises Deidara hadn't wanted to utter in the first place. Though he had to admit that they sounded entirely too endearing coming from her, and he tried every damn trick in the book he knew.
A flick of the tongue, his free hand occupying her inner thigh with hand-mouth kisses and the occasional lick, and he closed his eyes.
Presently, a soft, "Deidara," was heard, and his attention snapped up to her.
"Deidara," she repeated, arching and bending and twisting under his hands.
And it was the most heart-wrenching and exciting and insane moment of his life, because it was strange that coming from her mouth, with these specific connotations and these specific emotions, it was all that much more important.
He steadied himself over her, hands moving from her legs to her arms, running over her shoulders and up along her neck, leaving kisses and love-bites and small, almost unnoticeable red areas of wet skin. There was only one really important thing racing through his mind at this moment, besides the obvious one, of course, lying less-than-patiently beneath him.
And that was the matter of protection. Medical jutsu were convenient most of the time, but he only wished they were lucky enough to be graced with a jutsu to protect from pregnancy.
Something lightning-fast and briefly pleasing passed through his mind, something akin to a little boy with green eyes and dirty-blond hair and itty-bitty mouths on his itty-bitty hands, and stop fucking thinking about Kisame when you're about to have sex with Sakura, God-fucking-damn it. He'd been right, okay, so if Sakura got pregnant they would have a little baby with his mom's eyes and his dad's hair and his clan's bloodline trait and—
"Deidara?"
His erection throbbed at the cradle of her thighs, and he pushed in, and it was so warm and so tight and so wet and so everything, and oh, he'd wanted this for so long that it didn't matter if she got pregnant and had his kid and they moved to the countryside with a white picket fence and a small dog and a lawn that was always green, even in the winter, because this was all that was important at this moment.
She reached up to clutch at his shoulder blades, fingernails digging into his skin almost painfully.
He pulled out halfway and pushed in again, eyes shut tight and trying not to clench his fingers into her skin. "I know it's not the best time to say this, but fuck, Sakura, I really do think I love you, yeah."
"That's nice," she breathed, "now just move."
So he did. And he did. And he did again. And the more she panted and tried to meet his tempo but couldn't really do it and scraped her fingers and nails down his back and muttered his name and then screamed his name, the more his mind was both enthralled and extremely frightened of the prospect of actually impregnating Sakura. Sure, it was a nice thought, what with the whole "I'm always going to be a part of you, now, and that kid's a mix of the both of us, so shut the hell up and just kiss me already so we can live happily after," and all, but he had to think of this logically. He was an ex-Akatsuki and a missing-nin, and she was—
Well. She might have been dead to her country, hadn't she?
He slammed into her particularly hard, angling the thrust in such a way that she cried out something incoherent.
So who was to say that they couldn't settle down? Who was to say that they couldn't have that—
He repeated his previous action, and she released him in favor or holding onto the shirt beneath them for dear life.
—white picket fence lifestyle and—
Dear fuck, what was he thinking? Sex made him crazy; he needed to take due note of this.
Frustrated that she wasn't quite about to climax before him, he grunted and stuck his hand at the very top of her sex, where a tongue flicked her—
Her inner muscles clenched around him, pulling him in, deeper, tighter, faster, and everything was suddenly tunnel-vision for Deidara, even as he was half aware that she was coming before him, and even as he was half aware that oh, God, oh, God, he really loved this woman, and what the fuck was he going to do with himself and her after this? His fingers dug into her shoulders and he pounded into her, his breath labored and uneven and erratic until he felt it, finally, and he could feel the release, the tightly coiled pressure all dying in a snap and a warmth spreading from the tips of his cold fingertips to the tips of his numb toes, pooling in his belly. He stilled and let it dwindle out in a buzzing downward spiral of pleasure, and he finally let himself rest.
He was still panting quite hard when he felt Sakura reach up to play with his hair.
He opened his eyes and moved back a little bit to look at her. She looked…confused. Lost?
"Um…" she began, some cute blush dusting the edges of her cheeks. "So…what now?"
He pulled out of her, a sticky, messy…mess. And he grimaced. "…Oh."
She glanced at him, and then down at herself. "Oh, my God."
He licked his lips nervously.
"Deidara, you didn't pull out? Tell me you—"
Much too tired to do anything more than fall beside her in a defeated pile, he did exactly that. "Sorry."
A few moments later, she sighed and played with another strand of his hair, twirling it around her middle and index finger, entwining it, almost, almost tangling it. "Okay."
Later, he figured, closing his eyes for a short nap, still fluttering with ecstasy and amazement and sheer emotion, they'd sort this all out.
O O O
Admittedly, Deidara hadn't slept quite so much as mediated between a state of half-awareness and flaring arousal. His subconscious kept flitting eagerly back to prior events, playing out every scene in as vivid detail as he could remember, making him promptly tell his libido to shut the fuck up already and let him get some rest. He'd just had one of the hardest workouts he'd had in months, and all he wanted to do was lie down and sleep. Or maybe eat something. He couldn't decide whether he wanted to be lazy or to get up and be productive. It was quite the conundrum.
So it was with little regret that he sighed into Sakura's shoulder, having shifted so that he lay behind her during their "nap," before pushing himself to a crouch and then standing up.
Right. First order of business.
Pants.
…Where the hell were they?
He suddenly felt terribly self-conscious, what with standing there naked and all in front of Sakura, and he scrambled to find said article of clothing, stealing an occasional glance back at her to see if she was still sleeping.
He finally found them, crumpled in a defeated heap near where they were sleeping, and he pulled them on, zipping the zipper and buttoning each button.
Next came the shirt.
He found his undershirt easy enough, but he realized, albeit a bit belatedly, that Sakura was sleeping on his actual t-shirt.
He dismissed it and pulled back all of his hair, tying it up into a high ponytail. No bangs hung down to obscure his eye, no fancy 'do was involved. Just Deidara with a very messy mop of blond hair. He'd rather not bother with it at the moment.
Gathering up his black bags on the way, he left the cave, intent on finding some of that wonderful natural clay—and he was being completely sarcastic here—to mold into his own.
O O O
And then all hell broke loose.
Well, within Sakura, anyway. Because something like this could just do that to a person.
She'd woken up, quite grumpily, she might add, to the site she was seeing now: nothing. And normally, nothing would have been good. Nothing would have meant that nothing had gone awry during her slumber, and she had no mess to clean up afterward.
However, this nothing meant trouble. Heaps of it. Because nothing meant no Deidara, and no Deidara meant that the bastard had used her for sex and taken off.
Anger, frustration, hurt, and everything in between bubbled up into her throat, making her furrow her brow and punch the ground. A small crack formed, and she immediately told herself to keep her chakra in check.
Dutifully and quietly gathering her belongings, she got dressed, although begrudgingly, since she was absolutely dirty and sticky and—ew. Just ew. It was a horrible feeling. It really was.
The sunlight was her worst enemy as she stepped outside, squinting into the bright sunlight and using her hand as a visor. All around, she could still see nothing but canyon, rock, rock, canyon. And the occasional bush, but that hardly counted for anything.
It was mid-afternoon, she figured, and the sun was just barely listing to the west. Konoha was west, she figured, so she followed the droop of the sun. She was already planning out her route back to Konoha, following the sun in the day time until she reached familiar territory and sleeping when it went down, when a rather loud flapping noise sounded somewhere above her. A gust of wind that blew her hair all around hit her almost at the same time.
She whirled around, intent on kicking whoever's ass was daring to come near her, but her fists dropped and her lips curled into a sneer when she could clearly see Deidara, perched atop his clay bird—slightly discolored, granted—with a quizzical expression on his face. His surprisingly clear face. All of his hair was tied up, waving behind him like a thick yellow ribbon.
"What are you doing, yeah?" he called, hovering the bird a few feet above the ground. Every time it flapped, a new gust of wind rushed past Sakura, agitating her more by the second.
"Going home!" she shouted, switching the sneer for a disappointed frown. "You left me alone."
He blinked. "Was I not supposed to? I needed to get clay for the bird and the trip ahead of us, yeah."
"'Us'?" she asked, approaching the floating bird. When she got close enough to its left side to touch it, Deidara reached a hand out to her.
"What, you thought I was going to just leave you to travel all by your lonesome, yeah?" He scoffed and hauled her up, with her help, of course, where she took a seat behind him. This bird was significantly smaller than the one they'd traveled on with Kisame. "I have to at least buy you breakfast."
She rolled her eyes and wrapped her arms around his middle, face pressed into his back when the bird took flight, soaring up into the air and then skimming the tops of the craggy rocks and cliffs.
"Also," he said, lowering his voice to just the right decibel. The wind was roaring around them, but she could make out what he was saying just fine. Their close proximity assured that. "we need to take a shower. And get you some…things, yeah."
"'Things'?" she questioned, pulling her face from him. "What 'things'?"
"Well…pills," he tried to clarify, and from what she could see of his slightly turned face, he was blushing in a rather faint manner. But it might just have been the wind against his cheeks. "To…you know…make sure you don't get pregnant."
"Like a morning-after pill?" she asked, suddenly feeling awfully bashful, herself.
"Yeah. Like a morning-after pill," he muttered, turning back to the sky ahead of them.
She stared at the back of his neck in disbelief for a moment, keeping out of the way of his whipping ponytail. "Deidara, are you…? Do you really want me to…have your kid or something?"
"No!" he immediately answered, and when he jerked, the bird did, too. Sakura damn near fell off, and she would have if she hadn't grabbed his arm at the same time he bunched his hand around a fistful of her shirt.
"Try being a little more careful," she said, feeling far too shaken to argue.
He cleared his throat, though he urged her to slide one thigh around his waist, which she did. He kept one hand firmly planted just above her knee.
"Look," he started, fingers twitching against her. "The last thing I want is a kid, got it? I'm still not through being a kid myself."
"You're twenty-nine."
"So?"
"You're going through your mid-life crisis, aren't you?"
He sputtered at this, and the bird did a dodgy little hop through the air. "Of course I'm not! That's stupid, yeah. I never understood how people could get depressed about getting older."
She pinched his side, a little piece of skin there. "You should be worrying about kids. And starting a family. You know, all those things that you're entitled to in life, not this 'running around and putting your life in danger every ten seconds' business."
He sighed insufferably, veering the bird lazily to the left, toward some flat area in between the mountains. It looked like a valley town. "It sounds to me like you want to have the kid, yeah."
She snorted. "Yeah, okay. What a nightmare that would be."
He sniffed indignantly and straightened. "I'll have you know that our child would inherit a very proud bloodline, yeah."
"Our dentist bills would also skyrocket."
The bird began a steep descent toward a strip of farmland, and Sakura held on to Deidara for all she was worth. When it alighted, coming to a graceful halt, he jumped down first before helping her, as well.
The bird plodded off into the cornfield, situating itself in the tall stalks. It was nearly invisible.
He headed straight for the center of the town, dragging her along by her sleeve. It was a sleepy and small town, much like they'd seen millions of times before, and it was slightly difficult to locate a grocery store. But when they did, the vendor had just what they needed in stock.
The inn was significantly less of a chore to locate, it being the tallest building around. Deidara still had some leftover money, and he paid for a room for the both of them, holding the small black shopping bag on one arm.
It was all a blur from there, actually. Sakura took a shower first, taking the box into the privacy of the bathroom with her. Inside the box was a typical thin sleeve housing two pills, round and white and each smaller than her pinky nail.
She turned the box over in her hand. It was barely four or five hours after they'd had sex, and the limit was about seventy-two hours. So she was safe.
Take one now; take one again in twelve hours. Simple, painless, and effective. Well, mostly.
"'Emergency contraceptive,'" she read aloud, peeling away the plastic from the sleeve to drop one little pill into her hand. She swallowed it dry, and placed the sleeve back in the box, and the box back in the bag. She'd have to tell Deidara to remind her to take the last one later.
Only slightly worrying about the consequences of whatever it was that she and Deidara had suddenly and unexpectedly consecrated, she turned on the shower faucet and stepped inside.
The water was warm and refreshing, and it washed every bit of grime from her body. Even the soap wasn't so bad for a cheap little inn like this. She'd seen better shampoo and conditioner, but beggars most certainly couldn't be choosers.
Sex with an ex-Akatsuki, an S-class criminal, a missing-nin, Deidara. Sasori's partner and the almost-killer of Gaara.
She wondered why she felt so undeniably clean, and it had nothing to do with the soap.