Deidara
The next morning, Deidara was rudely thrust up from coma-like unconsciousness into bleary half sleep by the need to push his blankets away. He groaned and thrashed, throwing all of his blankets onto the floor. Every pore of his skin prickled with heat. He gasped for air, trying to sit up.
His breath shook as he did so. His body temperature felt fifteen degrees higher than it should have been, yet he couldn't stop shivering and shaking. Deidara whimpered again and searched the darkness for a fan. His room was pitch black. He could see nothing.
Suddenly, he gagged and leaned forward, bending low over his stomach. FIre. There was fire everywhere. In the nightmare he had just awoken from, Deidara had been trapped in his car, knowing that he was supposed to unbuckle himself and jump out.
He remembered doing so before, but this time, he couldn't seem to work the buckle. His hands were just too clumsy. So he did not roll to safety, Sasori was nowhere to be found, and Deidara was trapped with hands that he could not use to save himself in a burning car. He had tried to scream, but could not tell whether he actually made a sound or not. He tried to remember what Yahiko had learned about how to talk to the nature spirits, but his panic was too great.
He couldn't remember a single word. The fire spirits giggled in the demon boy's voice and whispered Your own funeral pyre, your own funeral pyre in a repeating loop, reminding Deidara that he was a terrible, stupid, thick-headed kid whose blind luck had run out. A bright white flame spirit grew curious, and sprouted legs, and hissed like a lit fuse as it crawled into Deidara's mouth…
He gagged again, and lurched as fast as he was able for the bathroom. It was too real. Deidara could feel it, the taste of clay filling his mouth, the brush of legs against the walls of his throat… He grabbed whatever he could find in the unlit bathroom and threw up into it. Afterwards, he was left choking and coughing, spitting out every drop of saliva he could muster to get the acid taste out of his mouth, but his mouth felt empty, and that was all that mattered.
Dei stumbled in the direction of the door, bumped his face into the doorframe, and felt around until he finally located the light switch. The thing he had vomited into turned out to be the sink. Deidara nervously approached and looked down. There was nothing white or solid in the sink, and its drain was blocked by a sievelike arrangement of holes so only fluid could drain.
He ran water to wash everything down the drain and turned away, sighing. His breath was still too fast, but his temperature was going down. Once the sink was mostly clean, Deidara ran cold water over his hands until his apparent temperature returned to normal. A feeling like a leg brushing against the side of his throat made him gag, but he pushed the feeling away, knowing it was false. He hoped.
Instead of checking to confirm that the feeling was false, he hold onto the sides of the sink and took deep breaths for several minutes. When he was only a little shaky, he left the bathroom and slowly made his way to the main door, where he found and flipped the light switch without hitting his face on anything.
Then, with very soft and stealthy steps, his feet automatically stepping so even though Deidara knew that he didn't have any reason to sneak and tried to walk normally, he approached his bed and peered cautiously around its other side.
His breath whooshed out of his lungs as he saw the little spider sitting exactly where he had left it before going to sleep the night before. Deidara slumped against the foot of the bed and ran his hands through his hair as he questioned his prior decision to keep the spider near him. I shouldn't have done it, hm.
I knew I wouldn't be okay forever, I even told Sasori that, but still, I kept it in my room just because I felt good last night. Why did I do that to myself?! He squeezed his eyes shut and banged the back of his head against the bed. Every time he thought he felt good and things seemed to be looking up, it wasn't true.
Dei had predicted last night that he would have a horrible nightmare based on that good feeling, but he'd been tricked by the feeling into thinking that maybe it would be different this time. He'd thought that even if the nightmare happened, he would be stronger, or some other bullcrap. Tears came to his eyes. It's always a lie. I never really know how okay I am. If even I can't know, who can?
There was a knock on the door. Deidara jumped and stared, his muscles tensing as if he was about to be attacked. "Who - who's there, yeah?" he asked. I sound so pathetic. Can I sound any more pathetic?
"Someone who's interested in not being on fire," answered Hidan. "May I come in?"
Deidara gave his head one final smack against the soft padding of the mattress. He should've remembered about Hidan. His failure to put the spider somewhere reasonable, like outside, hurt more than him alone. "Yeah. Sorry."
Hidan stealthily snuck into Deidara's room, not wanting to disturb anyone in a neighboring room. "I'm sorry too," he whispered as he sat next to Deidara. "I, um… Shit. I should've asked before." Hidan looked away guiltily, his brow twisted. "I don't really know what to do here. I've never done this before. I'm probably the exact opposite of helping. Shit, going on about this isn't either...Sorry."
Deidara stopped and listened. I've never heard Hidan talk like this before, hm. He always sounds so confident. Yet the way Hidan spoke sounded familiar, too. It sounds like...the way I think? Do I sound that unconfident? For the first time, Deidara started to really think about how he talked to himself.
That's not good, yeah. It's not helpful at all. Am I hurting myself by thinking like that? If I tried to think differently, would I feel better? A hopeless feeling came back over him. I do want to feel better...right?
Hey, stop it! He shook his head. That was no feeling to be inflicting on Hidan! Deidara swept his hair back from his face and refocused on Hidan. "What do you mean, yeah?"
Hidan lowered his head into his knees. "I've never stayed around people, like, long-term and shit." He tightened his grip on his knees and rocked back and forth. "I feel when someone's sad, I go up, they talk, they feel better. That's what I do. But if I live with them, should I do that? Should I just barge into people's rooms every time I feel bad? It's gotta be annoying. It's selfish of me."
Deidara put an arm around Hidan's shoulders. "Hey, no." He tried to think of something comforting to say that wouldn't sound fake as hell. Like the truth, yeah! "Thanks for coming over, yeah. I was thinking bad things about myself, and they weren't helping, and you broke that, hm. It's okay if you only come over when it's an unhelpful kind of bad, like that."
Hidan stopped rocking and started thinking. "You mean… I could tell when to come over and when to not?"
Deidara smiled at the hope he heard in Hidan's voice. "Yeah, hm. It's not just random. If someone feels bad, but normal bad, the kind of bad that they can deal with, you don't need to. But if it's something that changes the way you think or it feels like the kind of feeling that's a trap you can't get out of by yourself, then it's good to come in and break the trap, yeah." Deidara was struck at the effect his own words were having on himself. I sound so calm, yeah.
There's a problem, I see it, I talk about it, I make a plan. I can do that, hm. He felt powerful and competent. I can do it. It's just like what I said to Sasori about the fight. Deidara's eyes widened. Could that be his way out?
Hidan looked up and wiped his nose. "Hey… That makes sense. Most people just need someone to bust them out of weird thinking. I never thought about it before, though. Thanks." He gave Deidara a light, friendly elbow to the ribs. "And welcome."
Dei smiled back. "You too." Talking to him isn't magic, though. I still need to look after myself and not think that everything's magically gone away. Deidara's heart started to beat faster. He already knew part of what looking after himself meant. "Hey, as long as you're here, can you help me with something?"
Hidan was chewing on his hand in an effort to keep himself from compulsively scratching at his hair from nerves. "You sure this is a good idea?" he mumbled around a mouthful of thumb.
Deidara nodded. "I'm sorry you have to worry about your hair, hm. But he didn't do anything to deserve this kind of attitude. I feel bad."
Hidan held his hand with his other hand. "How do you know it's not a she? Why are all of them he?"
Deidara looked at the spider he held in his outstretched arms differently. It is really round, with long legs. Adorable as hell. Kinda unisex appearance, yeah. Why do I call it he? "I guess… It might be because I made them, so I think of them being like me, and I'm not feminine, hm," Deidara presumed.
Hidan looked closer at the spider. "Makes sense. If I created shit, they'd be different depending on what they were doing, or maybe nothing at all. Totally understand."
"Yeah." Deidara bent his arms, eventually bringing the spider close enough to cuddle. Shivers ran up and down his back as he remembered the nightmare. He swallowed and cuddled it harder. It's adorable, cute, waves its little legs in the air from a single knife, hm. Cute and helpless. I made it. It's like a baby, I guess. He looked down. Thinking of this little spider like a baby was kind of comforting. Then again, it was a comparison he could only make because of its size, which was exactly what was making him nervous in the first place.
Deidara held up one palm and opened his mouth as far as it would open. He saw with his own eyes that the spider was much too big. It looked huge next to the mouth in his palm. Deidara shuddered and carefully brought the spider up to touch with his lips. A stray thought snuck in - What if my chakra accidentally makes him start moving - and Deidara flailed wildly with his chakra to get it to hold still.
Panic shot through him. He stopped walking and stood there, shaking. Yet, the spider was clearly larger than his mouth, a fact he could feel for himself. He returned it to his heart and took deep breaths, then started walking again.
Hidan whined, but followed. Even the cold night air of the forest at Way Too Early o'clock could not soothe him. Of course it couldn't. That was a sensation that had to be felt in his skin, make its way up his spine to his brain, and make several more connections from there to be felt as pleasurable. His other sense skipped all of these steps. He sighed and looked up, deliberately focusing on the darkness and the whispers of breezes passing through unseen branches.
The demon kid was probably out somewhere. Hidan imagined what the little snake would look like in the dark. He searched for the moon, which was uncovered as the treetops thinned. It was a very ordinary moon, no longer full and shining as it had been little more than a week ago.
It was still nice to look at, the curve of its non-circular side almost resembling the curve of Nagato's cheek. If Hidan thought of all these things at once, their combined power easily matched Deidara's nerves. Hidan said "Oooo" as the full night sky came into view over the lake.
Deidara decided he'd tested himself enough. "Okay, so, you take him. He can go on his feet, I guess." Deidara handed his little spider to Hidan, who carefully nestled it on top of the owl's feet. He gave Dei a thumbs-up. The spider fit very well.
Oddly enough, now that he was with his owl, Deidara didn't feel nearly as nervous. Maybe I get more comfortable with them the longer I have a creation around, he reasoned. Or maybe it's because I know he's very stable. Kakuzu had stitched up the little spider first, though, so that shouldn't be an issue. He had spent a lot more effort and been much less careful sewing up the owl, though, and Itachi hadn't watched that the whole way. Those were very minor justifications. Deidara was convinced it was his familiarity with the bird.
Hidan tapped him on the shoulder. "I didn't like the grammar of that sentence," he stated, "so you should totally name them."
Deidara shrugged and grinned. "Yeah, I have kept him around for a really long time, hm. He deserves one by now."
"Aaand…?" Hidan pressed. "C'mon…" He leaned in, imploring Deidara with large adorable puppy eyes.
Deidara leaned away. "And…?"
Then it clicked what Hidan had really said. "Huh? Both of them?" Hidan returned to his former position and nodded at a pace to match the world's bounciest bobblehead. Deidara worried about the concussion risk of doing that before he turned and looked at the spider and bird he'd made. "Why would I name the spider? I'm not sure I want to keep him or anything. He can't really do anything but blow up, hm."
Hidan's hand came up. "Tape a knife to his belly and send him to deliver a weapon to a buddy. Tape something else to his back and have him deliver a surprise to someone attacking your buddy. Attach a camera and spy on someone's hideout. Scare the shit out of someone. Smuggle him in your clothes and throw him for a distraction. Tickle him because he's fucking adorable, you shitheel." Hidan kept his fingers ready. "I can count off more if you want."
"Okay, okay," Deidara conceded. "But admit it, you just want me to keep him around as a pet, hm."
"Fuck yes I do," Hidan admitted. "C'mon, do ya honestly think you're gonna get Kakuzu to agree to put decorative stitches in another one? I woke up from my nap earlier because I heard him cursing, which he doesn't do unless he's seriously ticked off. Other stitches wouldn't be the same anyway."
"True…" Deidara didn't actually have any objections to naming the spider. I am getting kind of attached to him. Maybe I just didn't want to admit that. He put a hand on his chin and assumed a thinker's pose. He looked at his creations and cleared his mind, allowing the inspiration to flow unobstructed.
Your bird is not ripped in half, Sasori had said. He has a hole in him, but he's clay. He'll live. "You might hate me for this," Deidara said slowly, "but I think I'll call my bird Clay."
Hidan carefully scrutinized the bird. "No, no, I think you're on to something. Clay. Just from the sounds it's made of, it sounds plain but dependable, not fancy. Reliable. Like a buddy. I approve this name," he declared with a decisive nod.
Deidara chuckled. "Okay, hm. I have a couple ideas for the little guy. Legs?"
"Not cute enough."
"Legsy?"
Hidan thought for several seconds. "Sounds weird. Not quite cute, closer to creepy territory, like if he had legs the length of a lawn flamingo's. Doesn't sound like the name of something natural."
"Um...Feetsy?"
"Cute, but not in the right way. Doesn't suit him."
"Dammit." Deidara sighed. "I'm going to have to go with Stitchy, hm. I was trying to be a little more original than that."
"Stitchy, like Itchy, which fits because of his tickly little spider legs," Hidan reasoned. "Oh yes."
Deidara walked up to Clay and traced the new stitches cris-crossing his back. "You know, I was just thinking that I might be more comfortable with Clay because of having him around for longer, yeah. Giving him a name could help me get comfortable with Stitchy." He kneeled down to pet the spider as well. It still made him feel uncomfortable to do so. It's okay, yeah. I'll get used to him.
When Deidara straightened up, for no obvious reason, he experienced a sudden impulse to look up at the stars. He raised a hand to Clay's back, then leaped up onto the bird. Wow. The stars were captivating from this perspective. Deidara realized he could hear the wind whispering in the trees, too, and feel the cool night air. His throat squeezed as though he were about to cry from relief.
Being alone under the cool, dispassionate glow of infinity felt nearly medicinal. The stars gave nothing and demanded nothing, not even that he accept their gifts. They were in ignorance that he even existed, which had this way of taking all pressure off of him. He sighed and laid back, stretching out on top of his clay bird. Deidara discovered what Konan had discovered several days ago, which was that the bird was very nice to lie on staring up in the dark.
Hidan crept up, placing each foot carefully on the loose soil so as not to disturb anything. "Just wanted to say, you're not alone," he whispered.
"I know already," Deidara replied. "Sasori's always reminding me of that."
Hidan shook his head. "No, I mean you're really not alone. When you were there just after the fight, just after I got my scythe back, my vision turned strange. It felt like I was looking at something else, except I wasn't. I don't have anything else to be looking at, so I wasn't, but I felt like I would be seeing something else if I could."
"Huh?" Deidara turned to look at him. "You can feel that, too?"
Hidan nodded. "Emotions, but also sensations, and other things that are tied into emotions like attitudes and the way you think of things, shit like that. I can pick up that feeling of being somewhere else that you had."
Deidara swallowed. He can even feel flashbacks? The blonde turned to face upward again. He had never wanted to inflict any such thing on Hidan. "Sorry," he whispered.
"Don't be," Hidan reassured. "That feeling doesn't freak me out in the slightest. I know it. I've felt it before."
Deidara's mouth fell open, and his attention narrowed to focus on that one, extremely important sentence. "You have?" Like me?
"From Konan," Hidan told him. "Like that time Yahiko joked about his brutal death when y'all had the cards; my vision went all wonky. I think it's happened other times too, also around him."
Deidara threw himself into a sitting position. What? "Konan?" He looked at Hidan with horror. "She does that too?" I thought, after she told us about our powers, that maybe it could be true. But then all the craziness happened, which wasn't similar at all. But then… "She feels the same?" Deidara had thought she might be the same as him, and she had understood him that one time.
He had said as much to Sasori. He'd changed his mind when she began acting unlike any way he had ever acted, even at his worst. After the funeral, though, he hadn't known what to think, but he'd already begun to hope she wasn't the same as him. If it was the same, that would imply very bad things about both himself and her. His mouth dried. Could I get like that? Could I have helped her? The second possibility was the worse of the two.
"Kind of," Hidan attempted to describe. "Like, yeah, but more. It's fucking...fucking…" He put a hand against the bird, which immediately clenched. He shook in a way that frightened Deidara. It wasn't pained shaking. "It's terrible," Hidan growled. "The worst thing. She told me she couldn't tell truth from lies anymore, and when I was around her, neither could I. It was the worst trapped feeling I have ever felt."
He took his hand down and glared up at Deidara. "I hate that shit. I can't stand to have my head messed with. If my very fucking thoughts aren't working, what the fuck else is there?! I can't leave her, and furthermore, I won't. It's horrible and bad and shitty and wrong. I won't stand for it. Anything that can make lies look like truth and truth look like lies is wrong. Lies are lies."
His breathing was harsh and his shoulders tensed as they rose and fell. Hidan gritted his teeth as if to drive away the monster right now. Deidara stared at the determined look in his eyes with awe. Lies are lies. That was so true.
Deidara thought of everything he had thought about himself since watching his campfire buddy joke his way into death. How much was true, and how much was lies? The bad thoughts he had about himself were lies, but so was the good thought that he was strong enough to push through everything after one battle.
He had to verify everything he believed, but at least that verification was a thing he could do, because aside from occasional flashbacks and times of panic he tended to be in his right mind. To not be able to trust anything… The very idea opened a pit of dread in Deidara's stomach and brought tears to his eyes. It's terrible.
He and Hidan shared a look of understanding. Hidan's eyes sparked with anger and refusal to allow lies to make life more complicated than it was and should be. Deidara's eyes were filled with certainty that he would not be able to live with himself if he allowed anyone else to die in the same trap he had worked so hard to get free from. They blinked at each other. An agreement was made.
Hidan glanced up at the stars, then walked away from the lake and made his way back to Konan's side. Deidara returned to lying on his steadfast clay steed to pass the time until the dawn came.
Yahiko
Another person was awake at this time of the early morning. He was alert, not because of nightmares, but because of a natural awakening probably caused by determination to get to his studies as soon as possible.
To Yahiko's delight, each chapter of this particular book began with a basic overview of common nature spirits, including what they liked and disliked and how to avoid their anger. Yahiko bookmarked the table of contents and skipped from chapter to chapter, highlighting the relevant portion of each chapter opening. Once he had visited every chapter, he closed the book and looked at its cover. What kind of book is this anyway? It's written really weirdly. The book was titled A Beginner's Guide To Paganism. Yahiko had no idea what to make of that.
He looked at the title of the next one before skimming it. The Complete Encyclopedia of Forest Fairies. Now this was much better. It was thick, but at least it didn't assume Yahiko's religious leanings, which he wasn't too sure of at the moment. He opened it, and immediately went running for a notebook upon seeing the length of the table of contents. If this wasn't a complete encyclopedia, he didn't know what was. At least it's probably, maybe, possibly a little less than what actual med students have to go through. Yahiko wondered what Nagato would say about the workload. Then he thought of what Konan would say. She wants to keep me from being hurt.
Does that also include being hurt mentally? It had to. Yahiko looked down at the Complete Encyclopedia and took a deep breath, exhaling firmly through his nose. The determined look in his eyes could have knocked Nagato to the floor. I promise, then. If I reach a condition where I'm seriously thinking of having a breakdown of any kind, I am right now ordering myself to take a full day of rest, relaxation, and company.
I will not allow myself to be driven to any kind of anxiety or panic attack. He challenged the encyclopedia's enormous table of contents to say otherwise. It remained silent. He grinned, flipped back through the other book to write down everything he had highlighted, then proceeded to dive into The Complete Encyclopedia of Forest Fairies.
He withdrew a long time later when a part of his forehead just behind his eyes ached too much to be ignored. Yahiko pressed a hand against his forehead. "Ow, ow, ow," he whispered. Eye strain. Another thing that's technically an injury, so I should avoid it. That was going to be difficult, though. This book was just so interesting.
He had no idea where it could possibly have come from, and the name of the author didn't ring any bells, but there was much more to The Complete Encyclopedia of Forest Fairies than its title indicated. Yahiko kept his eyes closed (it hurt to even blink) and visualized to himself the different images he had seen in the book of many different spirits, of many different species, all of which the book insisted on categorizing as "fairies." Yahiko had never thought to question his definition of fairies before, but soon after reading the first several entries in the Encyclopedia he had seriously questioned his previous definition.
Why were most images of fairies human or at least humanoid? If they belonged to natural environments, then it really did make more sense for them to resemble creatures who depended on those environments, not a species that visited many environments but mastered none. The same reasoning could apply to any other thing that was supposed to belong to natural environments, like dryads.
The Encyclopedia was opening Yahiko's eyes very wide to how anthropocentric many parts of his worldview were. He would have to get very, very used to nonhuman species if he was going to be successful at negotiating with them.
Luckily, the Encyclopedia included a map right at the front showing different kinds of forests, and was careful to specify that this was the complete world encyclopedia of forest fairies and, of course, any specific area would hold only a fraction of the creatures listed therein.
It was good that Yahiko found the material intrinsically interesting and would happily keep reading for fun; otherwise he might have become frustrated at his inability to determine which creatures he could safely ignore.
The map did not tell him what kind of forest he was dealing with. In fact, he could not locate his region on it at all. What is with that map? It corresponded to no known geography, at least not of this world. Yahiko wondered if the book had come from a different world. Why does that other world speak our language? Another mystery.
The pain behind his eyes began to let up, but Yahiko had no doubt it would return if he dared open them before it was completely gone. He took deep breaths to distract himself from the waning pain, only to discover a new source of pain he could occupy himself with. "Ohh," he groaned as he creaked his neck from side to side. I should not read in this position for long stretches of time.
I wish I had known this before. The facts that he had not been conscious of his position, anything else in the room, and even time passing were all irrelevant facts that he dismissed.
Yahiko got to his feet, with much stretching of his back, and stumbled his way blindly to the door, where he turned off the lights. The darkness was an instant relief. He then fumbled his way back to bed and eased himself into it, lying straight and flat and resolving to lie that way for a long time.
Yahiko wondered where else he could study that would be more comfortable. Maybe I could use that chair in the sunroom. It's large enough to kind of curl in, and soft, and the room itself has really good lighting and a soft atmosphere. It's perfect. Does the door have a lock? It wouldn't be perfect to be distracted anytime anyone wanted to use the sunroom. He imagined Hidan coming in to lie on the carpet in the afternoons when the sun shone into the room, and decided that was alright.
He imagined how the room would be in the summer, if it would be uncomfortably hot. Then, for a long time, he imagined many things, not thinking about or deciding about any of them. They just passed before his eyes: soft rolling visions.
Summer had arrived, and it was hot. The cement pavement scorched Yahiko's feet as he peered down into the cool blue water. He dripped with sweat and exhaustion, and longed for the water that promised to relieve all of it. If only he could jump in!
"Why can't you just go in?" asked some kind of voice. It probably belonged to someone he knew. Or maybe not. It was that kind of indeterminate voice.
"I don't have a tampon for my female form," Yahiko whined. Everyone knew the pool rules: All female swimmers must have a tampon with them. No exceptions.
"I have one," Sasori said while holding up a box. "Go nuts." The engineer reclined in a sun chair, wearing briefs with wrenches all over them. His skin was pasty white. He wore sunglasses.
Yahiko dove in. He cried out with joy as soon as he did so. It was glorious. He could feel all pain, all exhaustion, all sweat lift from him instantly, and cool soothingness take their place. He closed his eyes and gave himself over to pleasure.
"Oh no, oh no," Yahiko whispered. The swimmer on the screen before him had closed his eyes. This wasn't the kind of movie where that was safe to do. He saw the water darken and heard the orchestral music rise. He silently urged the swimmer to get out of there, open his eyes and swim away, though he knew the character couldn't hear him.
Out of the darkness swam a sinister figure. It was wreathed in black, giving the impression of having an aura of darkness. Its white skin seemed deathly pale. Its yellow snake eyes glinted as it hunted. It swam right toward the swimmer.
Yahiko found in his hand a white paper pole and, leaping high over the pool, speared the water with it, stabbing it into and through the concrete of the pool directly in front of the snake, interrupting the creature's death charge. The swimmer opened his eyes and swam away, emerging from the water safe and sound. Yahiko landed on top of the water and stared down at the snake. The beast turned up to look at him, revealing that what he had taken to be long black hair in the water really was an aura of darkness, and the beast's true hair was white and spiky. Its mouth was a dark void. He was terrified. He tried consoling himself with the knowledge that the creature could not breach the surface of the water, which was cool and glassy beneath his palms. He was not consoled. He was not very good at consoling himself.
"I got this," declared Hidan. The white-haired man dove through the water, using the blades of his scythe as a tail to swim down to the beast. It attacked, brushing against Hidan as he barely avoided its teeth. Yahiko gasped as Hidan screamed. A touch! It was too late. Before Yahiko could move, Hidan shuddered, and invisible miniature blades sliced everything to pieces. The beast contorted in agony as its long, streamlined body started leaking blood from many places, the cloud of red replacing its shroud of darkness. The water gave a tremendous splash in protest at being so injured. The ghostly ducks on its surface cried and swam away, taking the water with them toward the far end of the pool. Said far end was built of concrete, which had also been slashed with miniature blades. Its bonds were broken on a very small fundamental level, weakening its structure. The crying ducks took the water with them, because they were water spirits, piling the water up against the weak end of the dam.
"No!" Yahiko screamed. He left the demon-snake-fish thing to its death throes and, by squeezing one of his sliced hands, generated a trail of blood he could move on until he caught up to the water. He handled the controller very carefully, staring at the television screen in front of him, aware that he was supposed to be playing a racing game but not wanting to guide his racer off the liquid track.
If he beached his player on solid ground, the game would be over. Yahiko whimpered as the avatar he controlled skidded from side to side, threatening to careen onto solid ground. During a particularly critical turn, the controller slipped out of his hands and down the stairs. Yahiko looked back and forth from it to the screen anxiously, before diving down the stairs after the controller.
"Did you drop this?" Nagato reached down from his seat on the couch and handed the dropped controller to Yahiko. The flickering light of a disco ball crossed over Nagato's features as shadowy silhouettes of dancers and party goers laughed on the other side of the couch.
"Yes!" Yahiko took it back. "Thank you!"
Nagato waved him off. "Don't thank me. Just please get around to emailing my dad a shark like you promised."
"I know, I'm so sorry!" Yahiko looked back upstairs anxiously. "I'll get it, I just - I'm so busy…" Everyone at the party had stopped talking and was now staring at him. Yahiko cringed from embarrassment and ran back upstairs. Those looks were why he hid in his room all the time.
Was his room on the left, or the right? Yahiko couldn't remember. He ran through the long, coiling hallway, trying door after door. More than a few of them opened to reveal someone showering, so he got screamed at. Yahiko berated himself for forgetting about that door; he'd seen Hotel Transylvania before, he knew where the door with the skeleton's wife was. Eventually, after receiving a multitude of tips that turned out to be wrong, Yahiko collapsed against a wall, panting.
He could almost hear his player crashing onto solid ground, and whimpered. A dumbwaiter heard his cries of despair and rose through the wall, opening on the wall he was leaning against to speak to him. "Your room is on the first floor, to your right," it informed him in a British accent. He thanked the dumbwaiter (What was his name? Malcom?) thanked Malcom, and raced downstairs.
He raced to plug the controller back in, which took several tries thanks to his shaking hands, and managed to turn his player away from the edge at the last moment. Yahiko breathed a sigh of relief.
The dam was so close, so close! He strained to reach it, strained to run faster, but accidentally strained too hard. He crashed into the dam, causing it to break catastrophically and spill all of its water downstream. Oh no, I destroyed the Hoover Dam! He cringed to imagine what Nagato would have to say about this. He'd destroyed the Hoover Dam, and still hadn't gotten around to emailing Jiraiya a shark. Maybe there would be a shark in the Colorado River he could use. Yahiko waited to land in the Colorado River and find out, but he never did.
Oh! It's another part of the pool! He raised his hands above his head and screamed with joy as he raced down the water slide. How did I never find this part before? It's awesome! He screamed happily all the way down the many twists and turns of the water slide.
It emptied out into the same pool he had dived into before. "This is why I bring 'em," Sasori commented, shaking his box.
Yahiko would have nodded in agreement, if he didn't have a duck perched on top of his head. "What's this?" he asked as more and more ghostly water ducks came to surround him.
"You went into something you didn't know anything about?" Hidan shook his head incredulously. "That's either really brave or really stupid. The water's an initiation ritual, dude. You just passed the initiation rite to become one of them."
"Oh…" Yahiko panicked as the ducks began to chant. He didn't know what water fairies did. How could he do a job he didn't know anything about?! He looked for a duck to ask about his new responsibilities, but they were all busy chanting.
A tremendous crash awoke Yahiko. His eyes flew open in the darkness, the chanting of the ducks still in his ears. His eyes complained, but very little as they adjusted to the light shining through Yahiko's door. He raised a hand to block out the light for a few seconds, then remembered the crash. "Huh?"
"Oh…" Nagato became very, very still as he looked back at the book he'd tripped over, the other books scattered around, and Yahiko lying on the bed. "You were asleep?"
Yahiko blinked. "I guess so." He remembered his dream. "You won't believe what I was just dreaming about."
Nagato stood up, looking sheepish. "I'm sorry for waking you; I thought you'd already be up." He flushed at his failure to take into account Yahiko's new studies. He couldn't expect to know anything about Yahiko's sleep schedule now that he was probably going to be studying into the night. Nagato promised to remember that for the future. "What was it?" he asked as he sat next to Yahiko, on Yahiko's bed.
Yahiko tried to describe it as best he could. "...so the snake kid was a monster, and attacked me, except it wasn't me because I was all of a sudden watching this on TV, but then I stabbed through the water like Konan stabbed through the demon, because I was suddenly back in the scene somehow, and it stopped his attack…" Nagato listened to the whole adventure, his facial expression growing more fascinated and disbelieving by the second.
Yahiko finished with, "I could still hear the ducks chanting for a few seconds after you woke me up. Thank you for waking me! I have no idea what I would have been asked to do as a duck cultist."
Nagato had been silently laughing for the past two minutes, but at the words "duck cultist" he burst out into full laughter, his vocal cords joining the fun. He bent so far forward he fell off the bed onto the floor, where he curled up, still laughing.
Yahiko burst out laughing too. It was infectious. As Nagato finally started to get his diaphragm under control, Konan walked in. "What are you two laughing about?" she asked as she observed the unlit room and scattered books. Footsteps could be heard from the hall behind her.
Nagato opened his mouth to speak, burst out laughing again, then got himself back under control and tried again. "Duck cultists!"
By this time Yahiko had recovered. He nodded to confirm Nagato's report. "Duck cultists, and emailing Nagato's dad a shark, and Hidan beating a snake monster while using his scythe like a fish tail." He considered those the high points of his adventure.
Hidan appeared behind Konan, along with Deidara. Konan tilted her head. "I take it this was in a dream?"
"I beat a snake monster?!" Hidan asked. "How? How? Was I awesome? Did I use cool powers?"
"Kind of?" Yahiko replied. "You swam down to meet it, and it tried to attack, but it only brushed against you. Dream Me freaked out because touching you was really bad, and you screamed, and then everything was sliced up. The snake monster started bleeding everywhere, the water was cut up, and even the concrete was sliced up. But not in the normal way. The slices were really, really small, so they somehow cut up the concrete on a level that made it weaker, but I don't remember any seeable gashes," Yahiko explained with a frown. Now that he actually tried to describe what had happened, it no longer was funny. It felt very serious. Kind of familiar, too…
Hidan shrugged. "Not the kind of cool power I has hoping for, but hey, I'll take it."
"Huh." Deidara had a matching frown on his face as he pictured the scenario. "That sounds kind of…"
"Familiar? You too?" Yahiko asked.
"Yeah, yeah, what's it…" Deidara mumbled. "It does feel kind of familiar…"
Hidan grumbled. "I don't remember it feeling familiar before you guys said that, but now it does, but that's probably because of you guys, so I don't know. Fuck!"
"That's because you don't remember," Konan finally said, after being silent the whole time. Her eyes were concentrated on Hidan almost enough to pierce his skin. "You didn't see the people at the bar start bleeding from nowhere after the succubus touched you, or the chair break over someone's head when you told me wood was supposed to be stronger than that." Her eyes were aglow. Hidan felt a sense of tremendous personal satisfaction.
He stared back at her. Had that really happened? It felt vaguely uncomfortable to think about, but not so much that he couldn't push through it. "So, wait, that really happened? Not a dream?"
Yahiko and Deidara both stared at him. That was it! They both remembered people bleeding, shortly before they'd gotten caught up in other things. Yahiko's face lit up. "Yeah, I remember that! I guess Dream Me figured out what was behind that, even though I haven't thought of it at all actually." He hadn't remembered the bleeding since the night where it had happened. Even the day after, he had only been thinking about Hidan and the succubus, not the bystanders around them. Yahiko was amazed to discover that he was capable of losing track of people that were hurt so easily. It wasn't a good kind of amazement.
Hidan scratched his head. "Okay." He looked uncomfortable. "That's cool, when Dream You has shit figured out and shit. Maybe you should keep a journal or something."
Yahiko rubbed his neck. "Maybe. I already have a lot of studying to do…" He eyed the Encyclopedia.
"Do not worry," Konan counseled Hidan. "I am suddenly in the mood to occupy your time." She scratched right at the base of his neck, causing Hidan to purr.
"Maybe I could help you study?" Nagato asked as he sat next to Yahiko again. He really hoped Yahiko would say yes.
Deidara looked at Konan with an analyzing expression. He decided Hidan was doing a good enough job putting a smile on her face and relaxed.
"Don't you all have day jobs?" Konan asked with a dismissive wave of her hand.
The room turned dead silent aside from the sounds of fingers brushing through hair and purring. "Shit," Deidara said. Nagato facepalmed. Yahiko groaned in intense aggravation. This reminder was very unwelcome. After the past weekend, when they had made so many new and fascinating plans for their futures, the idea of leaving that behind for eight hours of the day was an obstacle, a nuisance. Just as they reached forward into their new lives as ninjas, they were dragged back. It was nearly unbearable.
Yahiko picked up The Complete Encyclopedia of Forest Fairies. "If I have to work, I'm taking this with me," he declared. At least for reading, even if I can't make notes! Yahiko found the time to wonder why he was so desperate. I need to read more. I need to. He didn't remember being this desperate before his dream. Did the duck cultists have something to do with his new fervor? They probably did.
Nagato sighed into his hand. "I guess...later?" he said in the voice of one who is about to serve a prison sentence. "When I get out, we can go over what you read."
Deidara bit his lip. On the one hand, he didn't have a day job to go to, exactly. But he did generally spend his days doing other things, and he remembered it'd been a few days since he'd seen Laurie so he should tell her about the fight and his new training program, and…
It was enough to make Hidan stop purring and hang his head listlessly. Konan looked around. None of them looked at all happy to be returning to their lives in this world. A week and a half ago, she would have thought that was a good thing. Now, Konan was of mixed mind about it.
She was happy that they wished to be part of her world again. But, at the same time, they had demonstrated abundantly over the past week and several days that they did live in a different world than she did. Were they, perhaps, going too far, as she had done when she went out with Yahiko and Nagato? Should she stop them from losing touch with their previous lives, like she had feared losing touch with hers? She saw in her mind's eye two worlds like circles, overlapping in the middle. Where was that middle? Where was the fence they could straddle in order to all be together safely?
She looked back at Hidan and wondered if it was even fair to ask them to be ninjas. The ninja life was a life all of its own. How could it coexist with anything else? A week ago, hell, yesterday, she had yearned for the trappings of ninja life. Yet, the way they talked at the party, as a bunch of civilians debating ideas freely without a care in the world, had also been very appealing. It was as if she wanted them to be ninjas and to be what they were now, simultaneously. That wasn't possible. Was it?
A little seed of an idea slowly, slowly began to crack open in Yahiko's mind. A little root wiggled out of its coat and reached down into the soil. Yahiko's brows furrowed as he stared down at the Encyclopedia. "Hey, Dei? Turn on the lights."
Deidara did so. Yahiko's brow furrowed further as he placed the book on his lap and looked at the cover. It didn't look very different from any normal book. Yet, the map inside showed lands he did not know. The idea sent shoots up into the air, spreading its first leaves.
He opened the book and looked at the map. If he was right, it was a map of another world. Konan had never mentioned her world having spirits, or "fairies" as this book called them. She had also been surprised by the presence of demons. The idea spread dark green, fully grown leaves.
He tapped the map with one finger. And to think, a book like this had been found just across town, in the library. The only library in the entire town. The library that had basically everything they needed. The library that was northeast of the park, which was filled with greenery and a small pond and moths that fluttered like ghostly spirits in the night air. The idea budded, bloomed, and closed its flowers.
Yahiko thought about his place of work, south of the library, and remembered that all the people he saw there were NPCs who did not react to the things they should react to, or in the proper way. The idea's fertilized blooms matured into fruit, and something clicked in Yahiko's mind. He understood.
"Hey." He need not have spoken, since everyone's attention was already on him. They had instinctual ideas of what an impending epiphany looked like, and knew they needed an epiphany. Yahiko held up the book. "This book is wrong," he declared. "It says it's the Complete Encyclopedia of Forest Fairies, but that's wrong. We don't have to be in the forest to find what it's talking about.
It's talking about cool things that we need to know about in order to deal with, and those things don't belong to the forest. They're all over town! Town is weird too, just like the forest is!" He put the book back in his lap. "There's no division around here between being ninjas and being regular people. We can be ninjas in the forest, in town, everywhere." Yahiko bit his lower lip. "I can study medical or spiritual stuff in town. There's no difference. I don't have a normal life and a ninja life. At least, I don't now. They're the same thing."
Nagato's eyes widened. "So...I don't have to save all of the important business for after I get out of my normal, not-supernatural at all day job," he summarized. "My job isn't any more normal than my time here is?" He wasn't sure he believed that, but he started to feel better all the same.
Deidara looked at his hands. They grinned back. "Laurie's going to love Stitchy, yeah," he realized.
Hidan resumed purring. "Well, yeah. What have you fuckers been doing? Keeping demons and ninjas and shit a secret from everyone? You don't have to. They're NPCs! They don't give a fuck."
"We're officially calling the normal people in town NPCs?" Nagato clarified. "Even though we're probably not in a video game?"
"They're not normal," Hidan argued. "That's not even accurate to call 'em normal! Just because they're not ninjas doesn't make them normal." He declared, "If it walks like an NPC and quacks like an NPC, it's an NPC."
That was sound reasoning. Nagato pulled out his phone to spread this proclamation all throughout the land. "Gotta love smartphones," he murmured. "They really cut down on the need for town criars." Hidan has officially declared that all the people who are completely human and do not notice or react to weird things are henceforth to be known as NPCs. They are not "normal," if such a thing even exists. If it walks like an NPC and quacks like an NPC, it's an NPC, Nagato texted. The last line reminded him of Yahiko's dream. After hitting Send, he wrote a follow up message that read, BTW, Yahiko had a dream about duck cultists.
After sending this message out to all the known lands, he turned and asked Yahiko something he should have asked from the start. "Wait a second. Were they duck cultists, or cultist ducks?"
Yahiko thought about this question. "I think they were both. They were ducks that surrounded me after I completed the initiation rite and started chanting," he recapped for everyone else. "So they were cultists that just happened to be ducks, but they were also ducks that just happened to be cultists, because I didn't know they were cultists until after Dream Hidan told me."
"Dream Me is fucking awesome!" Hidan whooped with joy. "I am so honored." He wiped an imaginary tear from his eye.
"You're welcome!" Yahiko smiled.
"Um…" Deidara raised his hand. "Speaking of cults, I kind of feel like an outsider to you four," he pointed out. "Should I go?"
Konan did not say whatever she had been about to say and instead looked around. There were Nagato and Yahiko, practically one person with two bodies, and there was Hidan, who had elected himself to be her guardian. Guardian, brother, and Yahiko. She realized Deidara was absolutely right.
"Nah, I got shit to talk to you about," Hidan said while extracting himself from Konan's hand. He extracted himself very gently. "Of course I'm still on for that time-occupying you mentioned," he purred to Konan. "Just taking a teensy little five minute break first to get everything in order." He guided Deidara out into the hall.
"What is it, yeah?" Deidara asked him.
Hidan rubbed his hands together. "So, about what we said earlier, I'll take up her time today. She seems to want to do things for me, which should be a boost to her self-confidence. You hang out with Laurie, have some fun, show her your spider, all that," Hidan said with a wink. "I'll text you if she has spare time. The point is, have fun! See town. Hang with Laurie. That's real shit. It is not lies, it is not being cooped up with yourself. Those are things that really exist and are worth things. If she has spare time, you can bring it all back to tell us about it."
Deidara rubbed his chin. "So if I have real experiences, it'll help Konan have a better relationship with reality when I tell her about them," he interpreted.
Hidan nodded. "Go out and look around, see what the truth is. No lies."
Deidara shrugged. That was sound enough reasoning. "Alright! I'll tell Laurie you said hi, yeah."
"Don't waste your time with that," Hidan murmured conspiratorially. "Keep an eye out for what Sunshine mentioned, the weird things in town. They're better hidden, so bring Clay." He winked again. "Make a date out of it."
Deidara remembered flying with Laurie holding onto him and colored. "Shut up!"
Hidan giggled and ran off before Deidara could do anything to make him.
Kitty
Hidan sat back against the bushes bordering someone's property to enjoy his ice cream. He squirmed as the cold soaked into his pants. It was winter. He wouldn't have been eating ice cream if it wasn't winter, because eating extra sweets ruined the fun of seeking out the best berry bushes in the forest. Alternatively, ice cream could be eaten if he was in Kakuzu's house and Kakuzu wanted to give him a treat, but he wasn't in Kakuzu's house right now. Not being in Kakuzu's house meant winter, when there were no berries in the woods, was the only acceptable season to eat ice cream in.
Hidan's face was soon covered with brown from his chocolate ice cream. He considered relaxing his restrictions for chocolate. Chocolate wasn't like other sweet things. It made the taste of fruit stronger, instead of competing with it. Yes! He grinned and looked forward to summer days spent with chocolate and wild raspberries.
He had sucked out all the ice cream and chewed through half the cone when he detected a small noise out of the corner of his ears. Hidan stopped immediately and looked to his left. Out of the bushes crept a feral domestic cat, which plainly had not noticed him yet. When it did it froze, as feral domestic cats do, and stared at him. He didn't move, so it didn't. It tucked its legs beneath itself and sat down to watch him.
Hidan blinked slowly at it. The cat stared. He tilted his head. Hidan had no memory of domestic cats, except for the occasional feral he saw running away from him. Yet, he felt that domestic cats meant good things. Maybe, in the past, he had known some, and this feeling was the only trace left. He kept his hands on the ground at his sides so he wouldn't scare it, and asked, "Mrro?"
The cat flicked its tail. It was not in the mood for friendship. Hidan lowered his gaze to the pavement between them, then looked into the bushes, trying to be approachable. The cat blinked several times, and its tail lowered to the ground. Hidan continued to carefully investigate the bushes over his shoulder. The cat's ears eventually assumed a more relaxed position. Of course it wasn't fully relaxed and could get up and run quickly if needed, but this human's behaviors were reassuring. The cat looked down and licked a front paw once, looking right back up like a wary squirrel, just in case this human tried anything. Humans sent wrong, deceitful signals sometimes, so friendly behaviors did not mean a human was friendly.
Hidan blinked more quickly as his eyes warmed. He knew he wasn't a cat. But he wasn't much like a human either, and he was at least like a cat, so that didn't matter most of the time. It only mattered when he was with a cat, apparently. He kept acting friendly, hoping it would come to trust him.
The cat sat up. There was no reaction from the human. So, as if it didn't care and had come to fully trust him, the cat turned away and began to wash itself.
Hidan watched it lick its short-fingered paws, then turn and bend underneath its foreleg to lick its side. He curled his hand slowly, folding his fingers down. So this was how cats groomed when they were alone. He had wondered what to do without pridemates.
Hidan was surprised to hear the cat begin to make a low rumbling sound. Instinctively, he recognized that sound as good. Hidan swallowed incompletely, bringing moisture to the back of his throat, and tried for himself. A pleasant rumble resulted. He purred louder. It was a very good sound! Making it made him feel good all over.
The cat stopped washing. This human was... Well, it was still a human. But humans were only possibly dangerous, not always in this cat's experience, so it stood up and, slowly, turned its back on the human.
Hidan held very still and continued to purr to reassure the cat that he wasn't moving. The cat walked away, disappearing into someone else's yard. Hidan stopped his purr, because the moisture in his throat had gotten out of position, and swallowed to get it back. Before he resumed purring, he raised his hand with curled fingers, licked it, and brushed it against the side of his head as the small cat had done. It wasn't as good as rubbing the side of his head against something or someone else was, but Hidan found that his knuckles felt very good on his cheek.
He purred with happiness at having learned to purr, and spent the rest of that day practicing domestic cat behaviors. They were a lot like cub behaviors he'd already learned, and very good things.