Naruto Moneo

Sasori lied face down, continuing to play dead. He'd been there for almost an hour, at least six eternies from his point of view, and he was lucky as hell none of the lingering shinobi noticed his body was wooden. This was the closest he'd ever come to death, he had to reveal his true body and all. Faced with shinobi with way too many fire style moves and nowhere to run, he had no choice but to pretend the blast from when Hiruko was broken open killed him somehow. Those shinobi weren't smart enough to check for more than his pulse, which he never had to begin with.

Left with nothing better to do, Sasori thought. He fantasized about ripping the people who "incapacitated" him apart. He planned exactly how he would repair Hiruko, down to every little detail. He thanked a few gods he didn't believe in for his luck. That last thought brought him to Hidan, and the thought of a loudmouthed idiot brought him to Deidara. He allowed himself to reminisce, as he had nothing better to do.

When he'd first heard of the boy, he was almost excited. His new partner was going to be an artist, like himself. As soon as he saw Deidara however, his hopes had immediately left him. He figured he would settle, and maybe even try to be respectful to the kid, since they shared similar interests in art. Their interests then, just as quickly, turned out to not be so similar. The kid turned out to be more of a brat, and his use of "oira" to refer to himself made it difficult to take the blond seriously.

True art was eternal, Sasori knew that. He knew it as a fact, and anyone who disagreed with him was simply wrong. It seemed Deidara had a similar mindset, but for the opposite side. He saw art as an "explosion," and emphasized his point with just that: an explosion. The sculpture he'd nonchalantly crafted in mere seconds was beautiful, probably flawless if Sasori had the chance to look at it, but Deidara just as unceremoniously had thrown it into the air and made a handsign. The brat smiled at the explosion, while Sasori frowned at the loss of a perfectly good piece of real art.

Deidara asked if Sasori had seen and understood, followed by the low grunt that the brat tended to make. Sasori scowled, responding that he wasn't even looking, and then walked away. Deidara's mouth hung open slighty behind him, the redhead could see that out of the corner of his eye, but the kid just sighed and grunted again. Sasori hoped it was just some sort of nervous tick that would stop when Deidara was more accustomed to their organization.

Several days passed and Deidara had made friends with Kisame and that kid Kakuzu had as his partner before Hidan. That one had only lasted about three months, Haru-something or other... or maybe it was Naga-something. Sasori didn't find it important that he remembered such an insignificant person. He hadn't blamed Kakuzu in the slightest for killing the kid. Despite Deidara's apparent friendship with that brat as well as Kisame, the tick stayed. It continued to stay even after Deidara had been there for a month.

He'd asked into it once, and Deidara seemed to be experiencing some sort of emotion at the question. He could have been offended, or embarrassed, perhaps, but Sasori was never known for his ability to read people's emotions.

"It feels good on my throat, mm," he said, then explained something about it being compulsory, and that he couldn't stop even if he wanted to. Sasori had coincidentally found a book on mental conditions a few weeks later during a mission, and he vaguely remembered the tick being described by the book as self-stimulation, but he hadn't gotten much further than that before the blond he was admittedly "researching" had called for him, having found the scroll they were looking for. Sasori quickly replaced the book and never looked for it again.

Sasori was becoming frustrated at how foggy his memory was before he heard the shinobi finally beginning to talk about leaving. He stopped reminiscing and paid attention, resisting the urge to sigh loudly and angrily as they discussed bringing his body back with them. A faint explosion coming from the woods distracted the shinobi, and Sasori almost apologized in his thoughts for insulting that brat's art as they finally left him to go investigate.

Sasori waited one minute, an entire, grueling minute, just to make sure nobody had stayed, before he quietly stood up. His stomach cable immediately lashed out and silenced the source of the gasp that Sasori had never been more angry to hear. He was sure they'd all left and it was annoying that one stayed, but he was thankfully able to take care of him in no time at all. He took Hiruko and jumped up on a tree branch, rearranging the puppet's parts so they would be less likely to fall off as he continued moving.

"How come I only saw one corpse on the way here, hm?" Sasori sighed and stopped, looking up to meet the blond. He was grinning, sitting atop the type of bird he always used when he needed to store things from their missions. Sasori wordlessly jumped up behind the blond as he lowered the clay avian for him, noticing a grunt he was able to recognize as amused as opposed to annoyed.

"You know, usually I'm the distraction while you sneak in and grab the things we need, hm. What made you-" Sasori cut him off by quickly wrapping his stomach cable around the blond's mouth. It was something he'd done before, so he wasn't worried that Deidara would be stupid enough to somehow ingest the poison on it.

"I'm already going to have to explain what happened in the report to our leader and I'm in no mood to explain this twice." Sasori found his mood was still awful even after he was able to move again, something he assumed he would be thankful for. Deidara grunted again, signalling that he wouldn't push for an answer, and then rolled his eyes and crossed his arms as Sasori didn't remove the cable.

"I'm also in no mood to hear you talk," the redhead explained. Deidara reached for his clay and, though reluctantly, Sasori let the cable snap back to him so he wouldn't have to repair anything else. Hiruko was already going to take all night. Deidara smirked at his small victory before looking ahead again, apparently having agreed to sit in silence with his partner. Until he broke it, of course.

"You could thank me, you know," the blond informed, putting off his stim for an extra second before it became too tempting and sounded itself anyway.

"I could," Sasori agreed, refusing to speak any further. It wasn't like this exact conversation hadn't happened before, so Deidara accepted it as the closest thing to gratitude he would receive.


End file.

Naruto