Sasori
"Hey!" Deidara called as he followed Sasori out the front door. Ordinarily, Sasori would have slowed out of courtesy. Ordinarily, he would have offered Deidara a short explanation of where he was going and why, because the blonde seemed worried. Ordinarily, he wouldn't have been leaving in the first place.
"Hey," Deidara began as he fell into step beside Sasori. "You look like you usually do before you work a long shift, yeah, and you never tell me why or what's happening. What does it mean?"
"I think while I work," Sasori replied as they crossed the last few parking spaces to reach the shed. "Working a lot means I need to think. It's relaxing."
"Oh, hm." Deidara absorbed this information. "So...you want me to bring you a sandwich around lunchtime, or anything?"
Sasori swung the door open and entered, followed by Deidara. He was briefly very annoyed by this. Fortunately for the blonde, Dei did not have an inclination to touch everything in sight. He stayed near the doorway, looking around.
Sasori drummed his fingers on the wooden table. "Just direct Kakuzu over here. I asked him to get one of those money boxes for me."
"Huh?" Deidara was not up to date on happenings in the basement. "I thought we opened all the boxes."
"And then Konan needed space, so she used her paper powers to make the money into boxes for easy storage," Sasori explained. He drummed harder. "A sandwich might also be useful at some point."
Deidara looked at his restless fingers. "What kind of thinking do you need to do, exactly?"
Sasori's other hand curled. "None of your business, go away," he snapped. What part of "'other people' and 'thinking' are not compatible" did you miss?
Dei took a step back. "Okay, yeah, thinking. I just...really don't want to do all the thinking I would have to if I didn't have someone to talk to, yeah."
Sasori stopped drumming. He knew exactly what part of last night's discourse the blonde was most likely bothered by, down to the very sentence. "No use waiting," he consoled sympathetically.
"Yeah, hm." Dei looked like he wanted to say more, but he didn't know exactly what, and in order to find out he would have to think about it. Vicious cycle, that one. He shrugged helplessly and turned to leave.
He stopped after a few steps, just outside the door. "Hey!" he called to someone while waving. "Kakuzu figured you'd be out here," he said to Sasori. "Grumpy minds think alike, yeah."
I'm not grumpy, just not friendly. I might get grumpy in the next five minutes, though. Sasori realized he was already sounding pretty grumpy. Just...leave me in peace and quiet for a while.
Kakuzu came in with a green and white block in his hands. The way he shifted as he put it on the table Sasori was standing next to betrayed that it was much heavier than it looked. Kakuzu looked at Sasori and nodded towards the block, as if he thought Sasori would find it of great interest. "You aren't going to get anything out of this brick unless you use a blowtorch," he warned. "Its structural integrity is better than most metal I've seen."
Sasori did find that very interesting. "That's helpful, actually. I'm mostly using it as inspiration." He moved the money brick over to the optimal viewing position.
Kakuzu nodded. This was a wise disciple indeed. "You need any more inspiration, let me know." He left.
Sasori was shifting the box back and forth to find its best angle when his back went up like a Fourth of July sparkler. "Oh crap," he heard himself say before he knew he was going to say it.
"What?" Deidara was instantly on alert.
Sasori's mouth had gone dry. It might soon be crusted with salt. He shook his head. "Don't know. Something."
Deidara was very confused, as was Sasori. Neither of them were familiar with this phenomenon.
In town
The auto shop's manager stared at his empty billboard. His eyes were scary and his face was tight. He kicked the chair behind him into the far wall. "F -"
Sasori
"Probably nothing," he concluded. "My own thoughts. I just need to face them."
"Good luck…" Deidara tried to enthuse. He closed the door gently behind him, finally leaving Sasori alone in the dark and dusty quiet. He closed his eyes and stood, breathing quietly and softly.
Ah. Oh. It was heavenly. The bank of small windows above him might have been dirty, giving the light that shone through a yellow tint, but it was softly tinted light. Hell, it was soft light in general. Heaven doesn't have florescent. Sasori knew this as fact.
He sighed, long and tiredly. The air smelled of mustiness, but beneath that mustiness, it smelled of old shed. Sasori belatedly realized that his fingers had already mapped out the grain of the wood in the table. He shivered. He didn't know why he shivered. It felt good in a bad way and bad in a good way. The only comparable feeling was yesterday's realizations that he didn't actually like the environment he had to work in. Every coin has its flipside.
Remember the silver linings. His near-disembodiment with the incubus had helped him defeat it in the end, and he was trying to remember to be grateful for that. Now, Sasori reminded himself that on an ordinary day, he would have been comfortable enough to try doing these calculations in his room like before, and therefore would not have discovered how comfortable this shed was. He had never taken the time to just stand in it before. There's a song about that. The fact that he could even think of such trivialities was testament to the power of soft light through a dirty window. It was like the dry equivalent of a warm bath.
Sasori opened his eyes before he could relax too much. He would have liked to keep thinking of trivialities, just for a few more minutes, but the out-of-nowhere terror was convincing proof that he would have to take those few minutes some other time. Sasori pulled the stool in the corner over to the table, and sat facing his brick of green inspiration. From his pocket, he took out an old piece of paper, unfolding it across the table. It was the price sheet he'd stolen. I really need to return it before he notices. For some reason, that thought produced a number of minor physical reactions Sasori couldn't identify, but felt as negative. What? I've had other things on my mind the past few days.
From his other pocket, he took out another piece of paper and unfolded that beside the first. It was the piece of paper on which he had jotted down estimates, guesstimates, and guesses. Sasori's eyes flicked from one paper to another and from each paper to the brick. He had gathered before him all the raw material of inspiration: vague money numbers, exact money numbers, exact money, a couple lines that hinted at something he might build someday, and his memory of having seen what he would build in his head (even if he had no memory of what the actual vision had looked like). Now all he needed was - a pencil.
He groaned, got up, and went to get a pencil. Thankfully the reception desk had been stocked with writing utensils, and nobody else was in the lobby at the time. Sasori returned to the shed and closed the door, this time taking care to memorize the way the thick door muffled all sound. It was like a mute button had been pressed for the whole space. He returned to his seat. Okay, now that he had a pencil, he was ready. It was time.
Sasori turned the price sheet over and started doodling while he thought.
Two lines met to make a little V. What the hell, Other Me. What the hell. A horizontal line cut off both lines towards the bottom where they met. So not only did you somehow manage to turn yourself into a puppet - not physically possible, by the way, unless you transferred your soul somewhere else and worked on your body from the outside - not only did you manage that, but at fifteen years old, too.
He abandoned the lines, and drew a curve. Why? Why would anyone do that to themselves? He drew a second curve behind the first. Konan said you wanted eternity, and I guess that is one way to get there, but why did you want eternity? What were you waiting for? Three diagonal lines came down from the right side of both curves. What was missing that you needed all the time in the world to get?
Sasori propped his head on one hand as he drew a set of smaller curves, bent in the opposite direction, in front of the first ones. What is the purpose of having time? What is the point of being alive? He drew one line through all of the curves, linking them. The point of being alive is to be alive. It's its own point. Process and goal together. It's one of those things where you like the journey more than the destination, and in this case it's both journey and destination at once. Two lines, parallel to the spine, crossed the smaller curves in front. There's a cliff at the end, but you get to enjoy the view for a while before that. I guess enjoyment is the only purpose life has by itself. All other purposes are given to it, and people enjoy having purpose, so all those other purposes are like subgoals that help get to the main one. If you get right down to it, there's only the one.
Sasori drew circles in the smaller curves beyond the two lines, and stopped. That wasn't right. He started over, drawing the long line that would be the spine first this time. His train of thought turned accordingly. Or were you maybe running from something? The view can hurt, too. Did you ever realize that you can't enjoy the view and hide from it too? Maybe some part of you did. You kept your heart, after all. The two large curves in back were redrawn, as were the diagonal lines coming off of them. In place of the smaller curves in front, Sasori drew a single line. I have no idea why I'm feeling bad for a terrorist, but you're also me, so thanks for that. Thank you so very much for that. Now I feel a little scummy, like "Is that how she's been thinking of me this whole time?" Do I want to be seen as a guy who turned himself into a puppet? No I do not.
More lines joined the spine, and more curves joined the first two. Sasori stopped, took a deep breath, and tapped his pencil against the page. His fingers weren't moving on their own anymore. Tap, tap, tap. His mind wasn't moving either. What am I doing?
What am I? He left the third drawing unfinished and began sketching little blobs of lines and curves around it. I'm not a terrorist. I'm not a puppet. I'm not a guy who uses puppet strings. I'm not a guy who lets people I know and am starting to care for be picked off by a demon. I'm Laurie's friend. I'm her training partner. I'm Deidara's friend. I'm an engineer. One of the little sketchlets was all straight lines. He crossed it out. No, more than an engineer. He drew a new one with curves that tapered gracefully towards the end. I'm a creator.
Yes; that's it. I like to make things. He thought of Deidara's clay bird, which the kid was still too afraid to keep anywhere near the base. Fortunately for everyone, he was no longer keeping it in the garage. Sasori suspected Dei had taken his advice and put it back out by the lake. Scratch, scratch, scratch. 3 little lines linked up in a row. Sasori wondered what Dei was going to do with the bird. It looked like flying lessons were scheduled in every training slot from now on. A wide, looping arc described the edge of a wing. If training even happens.
Sharp, jagged lines appeared at the ends of his little sketches. Sasori fought to relax his grip on the pencil. If anything happens the way anyone thought it would. He had said he wasn't a puppet, said he wouldn't be just a part of someone else's plan. But now, there was no plan. He couldn't be part of whatever Konan wanted from them, because she was too busy trying to keep from following everybody in her life into the abyss, apparently. She could hardly even keep her head above water. There was no plan, no certainty, no stability. I can't be a puppet, just because there's nobody to hold the strings. So now what do I do? What do I create, and why?
He dropped the pencil, got up, and picked up the brick. It was very heavy. Sasori lifted it up and down, exercising his arm muscles. If nothing else, this demonstrates some surprising uses for paper. He would never have thought of paper as a construction material, but then, he had never met anyone who could control paper before. It's novel, if nothing else.
Novel. Sasori stopped lifting the brick and just held it, looking into its marbled greenness. There was one corner where the bills had somehow been arranged so that it repeated, In we trust we trust we trust. He had no idea what to make of that, but again, here was an arrangement he would not previously have thought possible. Novel.
Who would have even thought of applying paper jutsu to money? Until necessity had forced it, nobody. And the origin of that necessity was the coming together of two worlds. This world required creativity, and Konan's world had some very interesting material to supply.
Sasori's lips twitched. I bet he never even thought about the uses of string. Sasori recalled what he had done with the puppet strings in order to bind the demon. I don't need to think of what to create; I've already done it. What else can those strings do? He put the money brick down and sat staring at the wall. Ideas were popping into existence in his head. The benefit of not having a plan is that I get to just make things up. There's a song about that too.
He shook his head and looked down at the paper, to discover that he had filled the page with beetles. Some were longer, some were shorter. One of them was in his first sketch, which had been turned into a water glass. All of them had sharp claws on the ends of their jointed legs.
Sasori returned to his third sketch, adding wide circles to the ends of its feet, and sharp claws. The resulting image looked a little familiar.
Haha. Yes! Suck it, Other Me!
All else was forgotten.
Deidara
Samehada licked at his face and chirred, sounding worried. "No, I'm fine," Dei mumbled. Samehada licked at his face again. Deidara's cheek was starting to get very raw from the constant licking.
The blonde was curled up next to Kisame's bed, his hands wrapped tightly around his knees and his jaw clenched shut. He stared at the tops of his knees, seemingly ignoring the outside world. Kisame and Kakuzu looked down at him with pity.
Kisame shook his head. "Right. What were we talking about again?"
Kakuzu shrugged. "I don't have any idea."
Samehada heard them and came over. He reared up on his tail and started licking Kakuzu. Kakuzu let him.
Deidara looked up. He swallowed, waited a few seconds to make sure his stomach would let that slide, and said, "You guys were talking about how your originals sounded terrible, yeah. At least none of them started and ended a war mostly by themselves!"
Kisame shuddered. "No, I can imagine it. You can fly high enough that you can't see anybody, remember? It's more difficult to hurt someone you can see, who you might even know…" His voice was shaking. "I don't understand how…"
Kakuzu thought of what Hidan would say if he were here. "We're a lot like our originals, even in personality," he recalled. "That means your original must have been similar to you, which means he was probably a wreck by the time he joined. If we're normal and decent people, and they were all much worse, then probably something happened to them."
"What the hell kind of trauma leads to serial murdering of people you have to work with, hm?!"
Kakuzu shrugged. That disturbed him too, but he would never admit such a thing. "Maybe it worsened my tendencies to dislike other people and gave him a stronger temper. Who knows?"
Kisame scowled. "You were freaking out about having tentacles, but this you'll defend?"
Kakuzu glared. "You heard what she said about Redhead. If someone like him could start leading a terrorist group, who knows what could happen to anyone else?"
Deidara swallowed again. He was growing increasingly pale. "Just admit it's terrible, and freaky, and there's no way in hell you'll ever be like that, yeah." He groaned and lowered his head into his knees.
Samehada turned from side to side, listening as best he could. So the humans thought they were different because other people were different from them? He groaned too. That was confusing, and he was starting to get a headache. Why did the actions of other people make them feel bad? They'd never known those other people.
Kisame gestured for Same to take a seat on the bed beside him. Same did, and made a series of questioning noises. What was wrong? Maybe Human Cousin could translate?
Kisame scratched the spot next to Same's dorsal fin, and the shark briefly stopped worrying about anything. He waggled back and forth with his tongue lolling out. Kisame sighed. Things were so much simpler for a regular shark. How could he make it simple?
"Same, it's like this. We are a lot like our originals. We have many qualities that are the same as their qualities. Therefore, hearing that they were able to be monsters makes us wonder if we are enough like them that we could be monsters too. We don't want to be capable of being monsters, so that would be a bad thing."
The shark made more questioning noises, and tilted his head at Kakuzu.
Kisame shook his head. "If you interpret the situation that way, there's no problem. If you interpret it the way I just said, there is a problem. Problems are more dangerous than not-problems, so we're naturally going to focus on and spend more time worrying about the version that is a problem."
Kakuzu crossed his arms and leaned further against the wall while he added, "I was imitating Hidan there, so Kisame's right. It is natural to think of the worst. Hidan's just not like everyone else. I have no idea what goes through his head."
Deidara tightened his grip on his knees. "I'm jealous, yeah," he admitted.
Samehada was more confused now. Why was Knowing Human different, but people they'd never met were the same? That made no sense. They knew Knowing Human, and agreed with him. They did not agree with Originals. So they had to like what was in Knowing Human's mind more than what was in Originals' mind, and how could they do that if they didn't know what was in Knowing Human's mind? His head was really starting to hurt now. Same let out a high pitched whine and curled up so his tail covered his head.
Kisame stroked Same's scales. "We're not making sense to him," he said. "He probably doesn't get why we don't just go with Hidan's interpretation and stop panicking over people we've never met. I'm wondering that myself."
"Good luck, yeah," Deidara offered weakly. "I can see it...blasts taking out buildings and things. I saw a car go up in the air once, and it came down scrap. Everything's so weak…"
Kakuzu got up from his position leaning against the wall and sat next to Deidara. "What else do you see?"
It was like a dam broke. Deidara started listing off all the ways this plaster shell they called a base could come down and be reduced to nothing with no more than two or three spiders in the right places. Why am I talking about this? Why did I even think about this? But he couldn't stop talking, because he couldn't stop thinking. The visions just came from nowhere.
"Do you think we can control our chakra in our dreams?" he blurted out at the end of his list. His started to shake and sweat uncontrollably, and was breathing far more heavily than his activity level gave him the right to. "Ever since the bird, I've always thought that, what if I did, yeah? What if I sleepwalked or something, but instead of using my leg muscles I used my chakra, and I was dreaming about that and BLAM! And I couldn't do anything to prevent it, I mean unless she has a way to seal chakra, yeah…"
Samehada uncurled. Now that made sense. He understood that sometimes humans did stuff during sleep, and sometimes the stuff they did was dangerous. He leaped off the bed and curled up against Deidara's side, making a loud rattling noise to get the blond's attention.
Deidara couldn't see Same past his visions of terror, but he could hear. He shook his head violently, sending a blond ponytail flying into Kakuzu's face. "Y-yeah?"
Samehada rattled again, deeper and more authoritatively. Dei turned to look at him. Same snapped his jaws open and shut. His pointy shark teeth made Dei start sweating all over again. Why are his teeth so pointy? Were they that sharp yesterday? He didn't know. He did know that he didn't know Samehada very well, and his fear was probably annoying the shark, and -
"Hey, that's a good idea," Kisame said as he caught on. "Same eats chakra, and if he needs to eat it to live, he has to be able to sense it. So if you don't want to use your chakra accidentally, he could stay with you and slurp up your chakra whenever it started to act strangely."
Samehada made a whooping sound and dipped his head up and down. Experimentally, he took Deidara's hand in his mouth and sucked on it, careful to keep his mouth open after Deidara flinched. Scared Human must be really scared to start being afraid of Samehada after a week of knowing him. Even Scared Human's chakra tasted scared. But it did not taste bad, and that was the important part. Samehada turned back to Kisame and wagged excitedly. He could do it.
"Not to mention," Kakuzu added while putting Deidara's hair back where it belonged, "it would have to be one hell of a complex sleepwalk to make a spider in your sleep. You could blow up something, but I don't believe you can make something explosive in your sleep."
"Oh." Deidara realized that was true. "So as long as I keep that bird out by the lake, I'll probably be okay, yeah."
Samehada licked him again. Kisame nodded. "Do you even sleepwalk?"
"No, but it doesn't feel like very much to blow up a thing. More of a sleep twitch, yeah." But that was only if he already had something to blow up. Dei turned red and ducked his head. Obviously. Why didn't I think of that?
"If only all of our problems could be solved so easily," Kakuzu grumbled.
Samehada turned his head and chirred confusion. What problems?
Kisame looked at his friend with new eyes. "He's got a point there. Our originals aren't around anymore. They can't do anything. We could take what they left us, or leave it, or do something else."
Deidara took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "A clean break, yeah?"
"Yeah." Kisame growled under his breath. "Though I have the feeling I might have nightmares about killing all of my friends. Did she really have to share that?"
"I can appreciate that she's had troubles, but that doesn't explain why starting and ending a war at the same time qualifies as an amusing anecdote," Kakuzu agreed.
"God, you were right, yeah." Deidara shook his head. "If they had any of our same morals and things, they'd have gone insane living in a world like that. Who wouldn't end up in a mental institution after living somewhere where that's normal, yeah?"
"Lucky," Kisame murmured at nothing in particular. "I mean, not really, but… Definitely has its upsides."
"What?" Deidara asked. Same also wanted to know.
"Oh, uh…" Kisame looked like he'd been caught saying something he really didn't want anyone to know he said. "Nothing."
"If there are upsides, I want to know them. Out with it," Kakuzu demanded.
Kisame sighed. "Fine. Yahiko. He's a decent kid. I'm not glad he died, but what would have happened to him if he hadn't? She was kind of right when she implied that time that he's not exactly suited for ninja life, if this is what ninja life meant."
Samehada whined. Nice Human certainly wouldn't be happy if he had to hurt people. That would be terrible for him. But Same felt differently, as if maybe that wasn't the whole case. He remembered Yahiko racing off to meet the demon, and coming back fine. Nice Human was brave. And hadn't Claw Person said everybody became less nice after he wasn't there?
The shark looked up and started to snap at the air and wiggle his body around. He growled in displeasure. Sometimes it was really frustrating to not be able to talk! He growled resentfully again and thrashed, hoping to at least say that there was something wrong with what they said.
"You don't sound happy. Is it what I just said?" Kisame guessed.
Samehada nodded, but whined to say that wasn't the full story.
Kisame growled. "Damn. You can't exactly tell me what part of what I said is bad. Does anyone know a shark to human translator?" he asked, semi-rhetorically.
Deidara shook his head.
Kakuzu shook his head as well, but added, "Hidan might be able to understand what he feels at least, and he thinks about things pretty simply as well. He might be able to tell us something."
"Wonderful. Where's Hidan?" Kisame asked skeptically. "Something about Deidara panicking not too long ago and him not showing up tells me he's not around. After Konan broke down like that, who could blame him? He's probably taking a mental health week."
Kakuzu frowned. "I think he does take the occasional break, but not a full week. We should write down what we were talking about anyway - it could be a whole day or more."
Samehada made a low sound that resembled purring and nudged Kakuzu's hand with his head. Stitch Human could be really nice. Kakuzu petted him back, and he started to make cheerful chirping noises.
Deidara smiled. "Same's really nice, yeah!" He reached out to join in the petting. "Never thought I'd ask who needs a dog when you have a shark, nope."
"A dog?" Kisame sat straighter and looked around. "Hey… She said there were wolf people somewhere around here. Wonder what they would think of this."
"Should we ask about them?" Deidara asked.
"Probably not," Kakuzu decided. "I believe Redhead mentioned having plans for Konan when he was talking with Sasori earlier. It wouldn't be a good idea to disturb them."
"Hm." Deidara grinned. "Y'know, who said we have to ask? We fought a demon! There's no reason we can't go get lost in the forest and have fun on our own, yeah!"
Samehada started wagging his tail and lolling his tongue out. Kakuzu had no objections to the forest. Kisame pulled out his phone first, confirmed that the weather was expected to hold out until late afternoon and early evening, then agreed after much piteous whining on Same's part.
"Who's least uncomfortable with flying?" Kakuzu asked. "Because if we're going to get completely lost, we might as well have fun while we're at it."
"Ugh, that's the weirdest thing you have ever said," Kisame muttered. "No way in hell am I flying."
"Alright!" Deidara cheered. "The bird seats two people without crowding, yeah!" He held up a fist for Kakuzu to bump. Kakuzu rolled his eyes and met it.
"Can you smell dog?" Kisame asked Samehada. "I tried to pick up some scent from the rock with the flowers, but I only have a shark's sense for blood, apparently. Can you smell other land-based scents?"
Samehada shook his head. He could have followed a reasonably fresh chakra trail, but the whole reason they wanted to go exploring was that nobody had been to the Wolf People's house before. Even if he could smell dog, he would've said no anyway because he wanted to get lost. Getting lost sounded fun!
"I'd better make something for Sasori first," Deidara said while getting to his feet. "You know how he gets, yeah. All 'burst of inspiration, forget to eat for a few hours' type of thing, yeah. Meet you guys at the lake."
Samehada rushed up and curled around Deidara before he left. Deidara returned the hug as best he could. He felt bad for being scared of Samehada earlier, but the shark was very forgiving. He could see why Yahiko and Samehada got along so well.
If only I can keep them safe, yeah. A coil of tension still lay knotted in Deidara's gut. He dared not think about who or what he wanted to keep them safe from.
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