Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Light created freckles between blades of grass, and the melodic breeze sent waves tumbling down the gentle hill. Another summer day caressed the small mountain valley, and from where you sat, you saw your small cottage happy in the center of it all. The day was perfect, another crowning glory in your life, every day seemed to be a new high, you were learning the truest meaning of peace it seemed. 

Ever since you broke down, you have felt scattered in the changing world. You had searched and traveled looking for something to fill the void life had given you. You filled your life with the creature pleasures: flesh, booze, drugs, you subsided on a life of mindless nights and thoughtless days. Another one of these days came and went, you had woken up still drunk, sick as a dog beside the bar you had been thrown out of, in the middle of a pastoral farmers market. Children ran around together, mothers adorned soft fabrics to secure newborns to their chests or backs, green vegetables lay green from the caress of early spring, and you lay rotting as always. 

Of course, I’m miserable. Look at them, look at how happy they are with regular life. Now, look at yourself, gods, I disgust myself. 

It was that seminal moment of introspection that signaled you to get it together. You didn't; know how to be complete, but you saw those people and their happy little lives and knew you needed to be like them, you needed to change. 

It started small, you found a place to stay, drank less, tried to see the smaller things, and decided to learn a new trade, something to get you out of your purposeless life. For the first year, you were still miserable, life was hard as ever, but gradually you found help. The small room you rented was more of a closet than a room, but the tatami mats were clean, and you had a small window, so it wasn’t rank or moldy. Each day you woke with the sun and stretched to the tune of your mind’s complaints before heading outside. The room you rented was the unnecessary closet of an older spin stress. Granny, as you called her, took you in, taught you how to take care of yourself again, and even found you a small job working behind the counter of a traditional medicine shop. 

The town you stayed in was small, and the richest businesses were the necessities: the bars, hostels, and medicine shops. The medicine shop was a safe new environment, as well as a steady source of, meager as it was, income. After your long days of work standing and reaching and sorting, you went back ‘home’. It was a familiar feeling, but completely new, this home was one you came to that was warm and comforting, it smelled like residual cooking and tatami mats. Granny cooked for you in exchange for your presence at the dinner table, she was lonely, so you got both the familial affection and banter you had missed for the past, who knows how long.

It was a simple life, and through it you learned how to become fulfilled. You needed your own work, good meals, and a home to go back to when it was all too much. However, you knew this wouldn't last, this wasn’t permanent. You couldn’t always live off of granny’s love and food. You had to leave, you knew, and it hurt.

That day approached, and you decided to find your own life, this time with a different set of comforts in mind from your last travels. You found an older cottage in a secluded mountain valley. The forest was lush and full of medicinal herbs you had learned about, the sky was clear and the wind fresh, it was new and scary. The first day you got to your new home, you cleaned all day, working all day to put the home into a livable shape. That night, however, you sobbed, you missed the meals with Granny after working, the public baths and the familiarity of routine, you even the small closet room you called home. 

Life however has a way of looking clearer after crying all night, and you found yourself a new routine. 

There were days of work to be put into the house, and life flew by through the work. You picked and dried herbs to bring back to the village and sell, and made trips into town for bulk necessities. Soon enough you were coming home to your own house. Warm and cozy, decorated with dried flowers and old patterned rugs, you remembered how Granny cooked and made stews with freshly picked tubers and wild onions.

Almost a year since you moved in. It's another soft early summer day. The light reaches you before the warmth. Humming lightly as you trace your everyday currents, you set the water to boil and pick dried tea leaves. The day warms slightly and you sit out on the porch sipping silently, all alone. 

There is peace in solitude, but the lack of presence has been digging into you lately. The sighing sound of summer bugs does only so much to keep you company. You make your way over to the couch inside, making sure you open the window, and pick up your sketch papers.

You had never drawn before coming to the valley. You would have never described yourself as ‘artistic’, but there was a longing in your heart in the middle of all of this beauty to try and capture some of this changing life. Your drawings look childish and a little ugly, but they convey the movement of your life, the changes in your mood and hobbies, it was something new, something was changing in you and these papers were proof. 

Today, you decided, you will have a picnic. You made a small bottle of iced tea and packed rice and fresh summer vegetables. Around noon, the weather was perfect and the world was calm and lethargic in the soft heat. On your favorite small hiss, you could see your whole valley, the small cottage, the sea of grasses, the winding stream, and the hem of the woods behind you. The light cotton blanket held you gently and you gazed at the sky lost in the nothingness of peace and light slumber. 

That is, until, one of the light clouds drifted lower, and lower, and it wasn't an oncoming fog, and lower, and then it wasn't a cloud but some sort of bird. It is Icarus , you thought. He is crashing down from his battle of will.

You wouldn’t know this until later, but you were closer to the truth than you ever could dare. This falling figure was the remnants of human folly, hubris incarnate falling from his fight against a greater force. He was his own destruction.

Far off over on the other side of the stream, this… thing landed with a large resounding thud. It took you a while to make it over to investigate, you had to pack up the picnic, but when you did you saw something very peculiar. The ‘cloud’ was indeed some sort of bird, a huge bird, something the size of a large lilac bush. 

It looked strange, it wasn't precisely feathered, it almost looked like a large white rock or some sort of strange cloth monstrosity. This texture was concerning, but not nearly as concerning as the prone body that lay on the ground a couple of feet away. The person looked badly mutilated, likely dead, but when you worked up the courage to check if this person was actually dead, you were met with a faint breath and a light and quick pulse. 

You would have to ponder on the nature and origin of… well all of this situation, but only after you got this injured soul back to your cottage for extreme care.

The person looked like a young man and had gorgeous silky blond hair that matched the golden grass it passed through as you heaved the body homeward. Once securely in your bed, you hated to see your sheets dirty but it had to be done, you began to perform a basic analysis you had learned in the medicine shop. Some injuries were immediately obvious: both arms seemed to be reattached at the bicep, the right arm however had a large patch of scar tissue between the bicep and forearm, you shivered at the thought of such an operation. 

He had light abrasions and punctures from various sharp implements, serious burns, and he had lost a lot of blood. This was serious, worse than anything you had ever encountered at the medicine shop, but you had to help, he would die otherwise. 

The next days you spent at his bedside, tending to his wounds, spreading salves, and forcing broth and water down his throat. On the second day, no matter how hard you had worked to keep his wounds clean, he broke out with a fever. You felt lucky that you didn’t have to work every day so you could tend to this person, but you were worried that this was someone very dangerous. 

What could you do? You were all alone, knew no martial arts, and had nothing other than kitchen knives, this man once he awoke could take advantage of you easily if he wanted. You noticed his strong but lean muscles and had discovered, very disturbingly, lips on his hands. This was probably a dangerous nin of sorts. Despite your internal fears, you kept tending to him.

The night of the third day you had just finished making another batch of broth and preparing medicinal herbs for the next morning when among the chirping crickets and light rustle of wind in leaves, you heard something else shift. You were no idiot. You knew it was probably the strange man, but you were scared, so you stayed stuck still like a frightened rabbit. You nervously hummed to yourself.

It’s alright! You can do it! It’s not scary at all, he’s just another human, he’s my patient and nothing else!

You were used to this, you worked with many people and patients in the medicine shop, and this was no different. None of those townsfolk were obviously dangerous, wounded, and extremely, terrifyingly gorgeous.

You turned around to check on him, he was completely gone. The bed was perfect. You couldn't have missed him leaving? Right? You looked around frantically, was he still in your house? If he was up he shouldn’t be, he had just beat his fever and was likely still exhausted and hungry as anything. It would be okay, you were going to be fine, just fine.

He was right behind you. You just knew it. Nothing in the air felt different, but you were sweating and your pulse shot up in some sort of primal fear. You were no more than a rabbit in the gaze of a hawk. You couldn’t move, you just stood there. You needed to do something… anything.

“Hi,” Your voice sounded so small and weak. You laughed nervously, still paralyzed, “Ha– how ar-re you?” You were stuttering a little and you forced a crazed grin. 

The presence moved and you heard a chair move and the person’s weight settle onto the wood furniture. “Relax,” He said. His voice was… nice. It was deep and commanding, he had some sort of strange accent and it made you want to hear him speak more. He was hushed and it made the power in his voice sound like a tempered blade. Don’t get distracted! You were just terrified now was not the time to blush and think like a schoolgirl!

You turned around to see his blue eyes meet yours. In the days you had taken care of him, you had gotten to know his body strangely well. You had been constantly watching for signs of infection, taking in the steady rise and fall of his chest to make sure he was breathing, and wiping sweat off of his fevered and flushed skin. Meeting the open eyes of a living figure, you remembered in full force he was not just a body, nor a patient, but a strange man.

The night seemed loud with activity, and you could hear far-off the familiar low sonorous owl call and the hint of a summer thunderstorm approaching. The air outside was pregnant with expectation and tension; the stillness in the house contrasted with the activity of the night. 

“Hn,” He groaned softly before bringing a hand to his temple, “Do you have any food, un?” Despite your fear and the obvious aura of danger from moments above, the man wincing from a headache and blinking away sleep looked completely harmless, if anything he just looked confused.

“...uhm , yeah, sure.” You took the broth you had prepared and put over some day-old rice in a bowl for a quick soup, he had to eat light or else his stomach would rebel after so many days of drinking broth. 

You sat down at the dining table, placing the bowl in front of an open seat. He sat and ate quietly but vigorously. You had no idea what to say, you couldn’t go right into questions, but you had so many to ask… How does one even start a conversation? It had been a couple of months since you spoke to someone, so you were rusty.

“Thanks, hm.” He also seemed to not know what to say.

“Yeah, of course.” Gods, this is so awkward! “You should probably go back to sleep, just because you’re conscious doesn't mean you should be up…” That was a cop-out and you knew it, but you could deal with this in the morning.

“Un, yeah.” He gave a brief affirmation before stalking off to your bed.

You watched his back as he wandered back to your futon and realized you had only really seen the front of his body. This whole situation was so wildly different you almost laughed at the sheer change from normal. You knew you wouldn’t be able to sleep that night so you made a medicinal tea that might knock you out for a couple of hours. Gods, you needed rest. The emotional and physical strain of taking care of someone for days on end caught up to you and you tumbled to sleep on the couch.

The next morning, when you woke up, you were not alone. The blonde man was sitting in the armchair catacorner from you. At first, you didn’t move, you just opened your eyes and watched this anomaly in your space. He was rifling through your amateur sketches. You would normally be embarrassed for anyone to look through your art, but he had a fascinating look on his face. He seemed intrigued, not in awe, but appreciative nonetheless, he studied the drawings passively. 

When he reached the last of your sketches, the oldest and crappiest, he gently set the pile down to gaze out the large window. His eyes glowed in the new light of morning, you hadn’t noticed how clear they were last night, but in this light, they glowed with confidence and a far-off thoughtfulness. His eyes were light and matched the color of summer storm clouds, a pale blue-gray. You noticed his beautiful stature over the days, but now you were struck with the near androgynous beauty of his features. The light contrast between blue eyes and yellow hair with his lissome and toned physique… You were getting very distracted.

It had been too long since you met someone this beautiful, well, a while since you met anyone you felt attracted to in this way. You felt full of a shy curiosity only quelled by the fear of his otherness. 

His eyes shifted to you and met your eyes. “Hn,” He bobbed his head in a greeting, “‘morning,”

Chapter Text

When he regained consciousness, Deidara thought he was back in Iwagakure, back when he was a child. Of course, it was obviously not Iwagakure, but weakened from injuries and fever with the smell of hot soup and a soft humming in the air, it felt like home. He lay awake for a couple of minutes, trying to clear his aching and foggy head. He lay still, just looking at the ceiling, taking the moment in. It made him think of his mother and his father. How long had it been since he had last returned? He couldn’t remember… Why did he even leave? That was also a mystery. 

Deidara was no idiot and realized almost immediately after trying to think back on his old life, that there were significant gaps in his memory. This was bad, he had his instincts and training, but he couldn’t remember what his mission was. Why am I here? He needed to remember, but not now, now, he needed food.

When Deidara woke up the next morning, it was in the earliest hours of the morning, the light was pale and still emanated the cool colors of the night. The cottage was warm, but despite the homey warmth, a crisp mountain atmosphere purveyed the rooms. The sun broke above one of the mountains enclosing the valley, and for a moment, everything was gilded. The bright rays shook the valley awake and the signs of daytime creatures were revealed. 

He absentmindedly acknowledged the cardinal directions, the sun rises in the East, therefore… he mapped out his location; which could be helpful. It was these small things that would help him find out the biggest mysteries. If he knew where he was, maybe he could remember why he was there. 

Silent as a cat, Deidara strode through the house examining every little detail, the dried herbs hanging in the kitchen, only some of which he recognized, the clean wood floors, the shoes at the entrance, it all gave him a sense of the situation. Judging by the worn-in boots at the door, and traces of mud on them, he deduced that you spent a lot of time in the surrounding valley. He made a note that if you posed a threat, which he was almost certain you didn’t, you still knew the area well and had the advantage of familiarity.

The house was small, to say the least, but had a small loft with a workspace and a sitting room near the fireplace. It was safe to say that the most significant part of the house was the kitchen and attached living room leaving only the simple tatami floor bedroom walled off with shoji doors for privacy. Not that you’d need it in this secluded place.

Finished with his examination, he settled one of the armchairs, right across from your sleeping form on the sofa. He watched and waited, ready for anything, but you remained unaware and calm. He reveled in the ease of your closed eyes and the lightness of your body. There were no signs of years of fear and tense expectation of the next threat in your prone figure.

You remained asleep and Deidara got bored, so he poked around on the coffee table which was completely covered in papers and charcoal, and ink. The drawings were simple, childlike, and all-around bad. But, Deidara couldn’t help the emotions that sprung forth in his chest after seeing these sketches and relating them to your relaxed form in front of him. They were rife with the struggles of life and seclusion, but also with the mystified wonder imbued by the valley. These were good pieces of art, they made him feel . He wondered why someone so at peace and calm would have so much raw emotion in their art.

He knew he needed to create art as well. It was like the wolf’s urge to howl, primal and part of an uncharted consciousness. He needed to express those same emotions emanating from your drawings. His emotions felt locked behind the constant blinding ache of his head, trapped in his warring mind. He knew he had some message to share, something he needed to do or to say, but he couldn’t remember the message, only the passion. 

Frustration clouded his face and tightened his grip on the artwork. He forced himself to set the papers down before he took his emotions out on someone’s art, no matter how right it felt to destroy something.

He noticed your breathing change, he had felt your eyes for a while now but decided to feign ignorance, until now, he met your surprised eyes, nodded, and greeted what was to come.

One word stuck with you throughout that morning: awkward. It was seriously awkward. You went about preparing tea and light breakfast for the both of you, now used to doing everything yourself, you were perturbed by the watching presence but refused his help. After you sat down across from him, you decided it was time for questions.

“Alright,” You cracked your knuckles as if you were getting into some heavy interrogation, “Who are you? Why were you bleeding, and what was that white bird-thing?” Starting off slow… Gods, no need to overwhelm him! You recovered, “Sorry, ignore that, just give me a little introduction,”

He stared at you before cracking a small smile, well, more of a smirk but it came naturally. “Hn, yeah, My name’s Deidara,” he paused thinking of what to say, took a sip of tea,  added three sugar cubes, and continued, “I don’t know why I’m here, and I don’t remember much at all, but I am, hm… or maybe I was?” his face scrunched a bit in confusion, “A part of Iwagakure’s Explosion corps.”

This explained things, he was most definitely a shinobi and he was dangerous. Visiting shinobi would sometimes buy a thing or two while passing through town, so you were acquainted with the basic Hidden Village names. Iwa…. the Village Hidden in Stone… but where was his headband? You remember all shinobi wore them…. But these questions could wait.

“Do you have some sort of amnesia, do you think? You were bleeding and battered a lot when I found you, not to mention you did fall out of the sky. ” You put heavy emphasis, on the whole, coming down from the clouds like some sort of angel, scaring you half to death and back. 

“Hmn,” He shrugged nonchalantly, “probably.”

“Cool. Okay then.” This whole healing thing was going to take a lot longer than you had planned.

The rest of the morning went relatively smoothly, with you mostly avoiding Deidara by pretending to be busy, but by the afternoon you were forced to interact.

You had been running around being ‘busy’ and fixing up lunch when you nearly ran face-first into the shinobi.

“Woah, hn, careful there,” You blinked up at him, shocked by the sudden obtrusion in your path. You were used to being the only moving object around here. He had pulled his hair up and out of his face, but it hung loose and several strands drifted loose when you pushed off of him.

“Agck.” You clamped a hand over your mouth at the noise.

“Huh? What was that?” He said smiling in a way that would have been soft if not for the sharp mirth in his eyes.

“Ahh.” You fumbled for a transition, “So, do you like any particular foods?” Wow. Smooth. “I’m making lunch, so I thought I might ask…”

“Yeah? Well ‘Agck’ sounds fine if that's what you're making.” He teased before replying, “But I’ll eat anything yeah, I can guarantee it can’t be worse than the soldier pills I’m used to.”

The cheeky comment did not go unnoticed and you chuckled, “Good to hear… I guess. I’ll just…” You gestured vaguely towards the kitchen, “Continue preparing the…. ‘Agck.” You smiled sheepishly and trotted off in more-than-slight embarrassment.

You had just finished a brief lunch of not in fact, ‘Acgk’, but your favorite summer salad and tofu, when you decided to do a little sketching. 

The two of you sat on your small porch lulled by the cicada cries and midday heat into a stupor. The day was hot and you were sweating heavily, but you were comfortable, you felt alive but in the softest way. You worked on sketching a grasshopper standing a couple of feet away from you on the ground and when you turned back to Deidara, you found him staring at the blank sheet of paper.

“Hm,” He seemed frustrated, “It doesn't feel right, yeah? I can’t remember. My whole life… well, un, recent life, just gone. ” His voice went softer than he had ever spoken in the time you had known him.

“Hm…” You drawled in the heat mimicking the nin’s noise. You handed Deidara a sheet of paper and a charcoal stick, continuing your own drawing before speaking again, “Well, maybe you were escaping something? Maybe it's better that you don’t remember for now? It’s not unheard of for memory loss to stem from trauma… whether that's physical trauma or emotional stress… or both I guess… I’m just trying to say–” you floundered for the words to soothe the tender ache of pity in your chest, “-take it day by day? Rest, get better, then remember.”

“...Yeah, hm, I just…” He looked at you blankly before continuing, “I feel this urge, I knew it when I saw your art, I need to release this…” His voice tightened in his throat in frustration before growing colder, “The only thing I could ever release from this mind is already festering and vile, I can’t remember, but I can fucking feel it. Any emotion I could show is just pus seeping from infection, bound to get others sick trying to heal my own useless ‘damage’”

You sat in stunned silence. No longer sketching, but looking out on the beauty of the world while the man next to you writhed in an all-too-familiar hell. You saw too much of yourself in that to look over at him, you were scared if you looked over, you might just see yourself fall apart in his eyes.

You thought back, how did you deal with loss, with grief? You thought about granny, and learning and healing. You had also lost a part of yourself and although you were still finding it, you might just be able to help Deidara heal and find what he is missing.

“If the dog didn’t die, the doe wouldn’t be born.” You remembered Granny saying that to you as you threatened yourself with the knife of guilt. “Someone I love very dearly told me that.” While the aphorism had sobered you at the time, she had explained as you now did to Deidara, “You may love the loyalty that comes from ever-present negativity, but that familiar emotion dies, then something new and gentle can be born and take its place… something like love.”

You flushed at your words, feeling cheesy and slightly rude to preach at him, but the memory of Granny and out of respect for her teachings, you bit back an apology.

The words seemed to seep into the blonde’s mind registering in the way his eyes flicked to look up at you through threaded fingers. 

You got up and tugged his arm lightly ready to get off this topic before the both of you shattered, “C’mon,” He looked so young and broken you almost recoiled, but instead responded with a soft smile, “How about I finally give you the official tour.” 

You showed him around your cottage, walking him past the small garden of harder-to-find herbs and produce, and the small hand-built shed that took you an embarrassing amount of time to assemble. 

As you meandered through your tamed patch of the valley, you regaled Deidara with the silliest stories from the past year. Sharing everything from your mistaken mushroom scavenging that ended in a very fun salad... to the day you had walked out of your cabin in the early spring morning to find a deer nursing its newborn calf by the shed.

You walked him along the crystal clear stream that at one point carved this whole valley. You thought about the force of nature and trembled beneath the bluest sky and the bluest eyes that watched you with interest.

“I have a question.” You decided to bring up one of the many elephants in the room, “Do you know what that thing is?” You pointed across the valley to where you had found him at the white mass.

“Huh? I don’t think so,” He looked puzzled by it, but you decided to take a trip over to see if it might jog his memory.

The area where he landed was just elevated enough to call it a hill and was mostly a part of the encroaching mountain on one side, and forest on the other. The most distinguishing feature of the small outlook was the towering rhododendron bush that spilled over the crest like draping silks. The soft lilac-pink emanated a soft yet spicy scent that blew lightly down the hill as you approached.

The thing, upon closer inspection, was definitely in a bird shape with two wings, a tail, and a head, but it was strangely geometric. Still where you left it, or rather could not move it from, its giant mass was as large as the flower bush it lay beside. Different from the last time you had seen it, the bird now looked less… full? More slumped or melted. 

As the two of you approached, you watched Deidara’s expression for any possible hints of memories or clues into who he is, but all that he conveyed was the same curiosity he showed your drawings.

You approached the mound, but this time, instead of the bird, you noticed the cloak laying by where his body had lay. You must not have noticed it in your previous panic, and you had been too busy in the following days to come back and look at the site. It now lay in the scorching sun, a menacing black and red against the pastel petals and green grass surroundings. 

You reached for the cloth but it disappeared before your eyes, or quicker than your eyes could follow, and reappeared in Deidara’s arms.

“Don’t.” He said the single syllable with so much menace you could have stumbled. His eyes cleared of menace and he looked confused at his own action, “Huh. Um, sorry, yeah uh, just I don’t want you to touch this… for some reason.”

You backed away with your hands raised, “Fair enough.” But you felt slighted by the killing intent he displayed.

“I think…” He trailed off looking at the towering bird with a far-away look in his one visible eye, the other one now hidden by fallen strands, “This is…”, his blue eyes caught the summer sun as he tilted his head upward. He paused for a while, lost in thought.

Joy and melancholy side by side. 

It all looked so familiar to you, those tumultuous emotions in his eyes. You knew nothing about the man in front of you, but you could tell by a glance how he was feeling. Hell, you could feel how he was feeling.

“... I don’t know.” He looked you in the eyes. “It’s mine, but I have no idea what it is , hn.” 

Chapter Text

On that hill, next to the rhododendron, among freshly fallen petals blown off branches by a summer storm, lay a glinting shard of metal. When you had turned to the bird… thing … and cloak, Deidara picked up a scratched metal headband. It felt cool from the damp earth but electric with memory. 

But no matter how he channeled the feeling of a memory, it refused to refine into actual experience. The emotions flooded him, but none of the memories returned. Only the bitterness, the ego, pride, fear, effort, strain, and joy. He clutched the metal in his fist its dull edges pressing into the lips on his hands, metal against teeth. He knew innately upon waking up that he was a shinobi, but the scratched hitai-ate confirmed his worst suspicions.

Why hadn’t he been home in so long, why he hadn’t heard his mother’s humming, or why he could barely recall the smell of the starchy and filling stews of Iwagakure cuisine? Why did this scratch bisect the world of home and the world of himself?

Why had he left them?

Evening descended angelically on your valley. Warm light coursed through your body from the day and you felt clear and quiet. This new lifestyle left you feeling peaceful by the end of every day. After the exercise of foraging or the numerous other tasks of your days, your body ached in the best way. 

Today was different. After descending the hill, you settled into your late afternoon routine of gardening in your makeshift produce farm, but instead of your peaceful solitude, Deidara offered to assist you. You spent the afternoon in a solitude of togetherness, just two people, with too much to say, no way to ask, and work on their hands. It was only when the swooping and diving meadowlarks came out to eat the bugs of the evening that you finally broke the silence, “Well, I guess I’ll go start on making some dinner.”  

Now you were inside, washing fresh vegetables you picked from the sun-warmed earth. You looked out the window above your sink and you could almost pretend like nothing had happened, like you were alone in this wide valley and free from all worries.  You hummed lightly, regaining the independence you had forgotten in just a day, and fell into your routine. Your hands worked steadily chopping up fresh food for dinner. You made a hearty stew and lettuce wraps.

The tense silence stretched through the whole evening as neither of you could figure out how to break the barrier of strangers.

When you woke now well used to the patchwork mending and faded lavender smell of the couch, life had changed.

Obviously.

You had grown familiar with the routine taking care of the unconscious Deidara, but now, he stood in your kitchen like it was his own. You watched him as he stumbled around, silently poking here and there looking at what you had to offer in terms of food. He seemed to settle on something and started preparing a porridge-like meal. 

It felt voyeuristic and to watch another person in your home, the simple kitchen looking suddenly quaint and homey with another figure standing in it. Deidara had dressed in a simple indigo jinbei top you had kept around for oversized sleepwear and gray pants you had found him in. It all felt entirely domestic.

“Hey,” You approached Deidara who was now peeling steaming sweet potatoes which made your mouth water. “What’s this?”

“A Iwagakure special, sweet potato porridge, hn.” He smiled nostalgically, “It’s really the only thing I can cook, yeah?” He grinned at you, and your stomach flipped. This was the happiest, or at least most at peace you had seen the man.

You smiled back, “Ooohh, sounds good, any for me?” He just laughed and set out your bowl.

The morning progressed slowly but peacefully. You found yourself outside sweeping the deck off and tidying up. Deidara wawa sitting beneath the large tree beside your house. He was occupying himself by flipping through an old artist’s biography you had on your shelves and occasionally setting the book down to sculpt little creatures out of the clay beneath the topsoil.

You approached him deciding that your life could not be put on hold just because a new person had walked into it. 

“Hey!” You waved cheerfully, “I’m going to go foraging. It’s y’know, my job… and I was wondering if you’d like to come.”

He paused, looked down at the small mud bird he was sculpting, out on the valley, and then back to you, “Yeah, sure, hn, why not.” As he got up, you failed to notice him turn back, and purposely step on the small bird. Smiling to himself at the small satisfaction the destruction gave him.

The forest that loomed before the two of you was ever-intimidating. The old-growth trees reached unfathomable heights with their wide arching branches. On the ground, below the nearly impenetrable foliage cover, was a welcoming layer of moss that muffled your tread and provided perfect fodder for all sorts of strange fungi and plants. The two of you stood before the wide wall of the forest before Deidara took the first step in, undaunted by the impenetrable wilderness. You followed. 

You walked silently through the woods. The environment was so sequestered away from the bright open valley, it felt subterranean, almost like a terrarium of overflowing life. You watched Deidara as he walked a pace or two ahead of you. He seemed so at home in the wilderness, his lithe form was so catlike in agility that if you didn’t know he was human from sight alone, you would have assumed otherwise. He stalked predatory even just on a walk, he was at the top of the food chain, just by standing near him, you felt at once protected and unnerved. 

His glossy blonde hair was tied up in a high ponytail secured away from his face by a slashed hitai-ate he had found near the crashed bird along with a long black and red cloud-covered cloak. Gone was the jinbei, he now wore the thin mesh shirt you found him in, which he had washed in the stream with some homemade lavender-lye soap and loose-fitting pants. You were not surprised to find the hitai-ate slashed, you had suspected as much, but seeing that stark division between loyal and rouge-nin sent a weight into the pit of your stomach. You feared to ask why he had left. Hell, he might not even remember. 

Occasionally you would encounter a bridge of root sprawling over a creek or a fallen tree housing perfect medicinal herbs. You would stop dead in your tracks and pick the best quality herbs and fungi with a practiced eye. You chattered about which plant does what and why others need to be avoided. You picked up one small mushroom, an innocent brown little thing, and chuckled.

“You see, this one is funny, it’s not poisonous, but it is hallucinogenic.” You looked at him from your crouched position on the ground. “Once,” you assumed a mock-serious tone, “I thought it was a normal mushroom, so I accidentally put it in a stir-fry, and let me say… I was in the clouds for a while, I did make some really cool drawings though” You laughed and plucked a few more for the bag, they sold for a pretty good price.

He laughed heartily, “Ah, that reminds me back in Iwagakure, yeah, some of the youth would sneak small amounts of tranquilizers used in combat and get high behind the rocky training grounds, un.” He laughed more, but you gaped at the casual remark. What the– not even you in your wilder days would have touched that stuff. Shinobi were a different breed of cat.

“Hn, yeah,” He continued, “A lot of the genin, hm rookies, that is,” at your slight confusion, “Used to try all sorts of shit to run from the fear and PTSD of the field.” He grinned and laughed a full-body laugh, “Weak, haha–ahh.” He wiped a faux tear from laughing from his eye. 

One day into knowing him, his personality was just now shining through. His confidence… no… arrogance astounded you. You had no clue what to say to his remarks so you just humored him with a light chuckle.

You kept hiking until you came out onto a small overlook point. From this view you could pretend you had climbed a mountain, not just a hill, you could see everything in the valley. You watched the birds dive down on unsuspecting fish in the lazily flowing river and watched as the disembodied shapes in the forest to the other side of the valley emerged as a small herd of deer. It all felt so calm. So perfect and utopian, well it would have been but the heat of the day had caught up to you and you were sweating profusely and could feel your shirt sticking to your back. 

And with that, and a quick look at the herbs you collected you decided it was time to head home for a large glass of water.

When you ended back at your cabin, the sun was falling into the last burning embers of the day, just glancing at the moon that sat across the sky, before dipping away for the night. Your bag was full and you were covered in sweat. Deidara looked– to your absolute chagrin –perfect. It was hard to get used to, having someone so objectively gorgeous around you almost all the time… No! He was just a man, just someone you were helping out, and he was arrogant and weird and lost and— He turned to smile at you.

“Un, today was really fun yeah. It's so cool that you have something you are so passionate about.” He looked a little lost at the word ‘passion’, but it was such a subtle flicker of emotion you could almost convince yourself it was never there. Almost.

You moved into the kitchen and placed the basket down on the island, “Hey, Dei–” You caught yourself at the nickname… maybe he hadn’t heard, “Hey, Deidara, can you do me a favor?”

“Huh? Sure I guess, what do you want me to do, un?”

“Can you tie twine to the ends of these sprigs,” You pointed at fresh rosemary from the garden, “And these,” you pointed at the foraged nettle you had stumbled upon, “Be careful the nettle burns a bit if you touch it wrong,” Although, I’m positive the pain is nothing compared to other things he’s been through if the scars that littered his body said anything. You shot him a thankful smile, “Thank you so much, I’m planning on cooking dinner while you do that.”

The evening felt warmer than normal, not necessarily in temperature, the valley had a cool breeze sweep through it every night, but in emotions. You couldn’t recall feeling this way since you lived with Granny, the sound of another person in the room was welcome and comforting, just his presence seemed to warm your life up a little more. Your little shack, no matter how wonderfully yours and cozy it was before, now actually felt like home. That’s odd, you thought, I already thought I was happy, but this is just something entirely different… the best way to describe the feeling was just warm. 

The night was like honey, or warm lantern light, steam rose from pots, and the steady sound of Deidara’s working lulled you through making the meal. You chose to make a simple bowl of rice, steamed pumpkin and lotus root, and egg yolks. You served edamame and assorted fresh vegetables along with the main dish. You felt a little bad you couldn’t provide him with any meat, it was a long trek to town, and you couldn’t trap or hunt for anything… and storing meat was difficult, even with your little self-dug cellar. The eggs were hard enough to find and keep, you considered it good enough. 

“Thanks for the meal, un!” Your heart warmed at his words. It’s nice to be thanked for your hard work.

You looked up and were astonished at the progress he had made with the herbs. All of them were tied neatly, neater than even you would, and hung up with the others.

“...Wow. Thank you for the help.” 

“Least I could do un, you kinda did save my life yeah,”

After the meal was finished, and you and Deidara finished cleaning, he insisted on helping. You sat on the couch facing Deidara, who sat on the armchair across from you where you had first really ‘met’, with a nice cup of hot tea. You dove right into the questions you had held back until now.

“So…” You tried to act casual, “Have you remembered anything more?” His expression stayed the same, but his eyes flickered with uncertainty.

“Well, hm.” He paused, “I’m remembering more about why I left my home…” He was obviously reluctant to share, so you tried to tenderly pry.

“Oh?” You tried gently.

“Yeah, hm, my uh…” he looked for an appropriate word, “...goals and passions didn’t align with my village.” Ah, Shinobi mind tricks and non-answers.

“I suspected as much,” You gave him an encouraging smile to get him to keep talking.

“I remember now, yeah.” His eyes blazed with emotion, finally opening up, “My village didn’t support all of my passion, all I wanted, the power and fulfillment I craved… they wanted to keep me from what I could achieve”. His voice turned bitter, “They were pathetic. They didn’t recognize true skill, they were scared .” And you could see why. For the first time in the nin’s presence, you felt terrified. The fury and emotion radiated in volatile waves from the man’s eyes. His tone made you shiver and shrink into the couch.

He continued, “The moment when you watch something begin and end, hn. The catalyst and the explosion, you create and then you destroy, un. That’s life, that’s all I wanted and knew how to do. For a Shinobi village they were disgustingly afraid of that truth that permeates power, hm.” He looked you dead in the eyes and you could feel the hairs on your neck raise like a cornered cat. “Every creation comes with destruction. You get nowhere if you don’t sacrifice anything. That’s the beauty of life, it all is so fleeting.” He tsked in disapproval of the natural fear of death. “And they hated watching it all explode.”

His eyes burned with his truth. He believed in the weakness of others and the truth of the world so vehemently you’re not sure anything could convince him otherwise.  He was so fully convinced of this that you fully believed him for a moment, forgetting your own ideas due to his conviction. His dogma consumed him so fully, like a wildfire, or as he had said an explosion. You could see it on him, the traces of this life, the way he went from manic to depressive, quiet to loud, creator to destroyer. The scar of the explosion in his lost expressions and the burning of his remembrance

He was also an explosion. He was a life force. A quiet statue and a burst of emotion. You felt the warmth of his destruction on your heart, and though it was dangerous, it was warm.

~~~

That night, you lay on your futon, giving the couch to Deidara, and you pictured your own life, your art. The scribbles of emotion, collections of memory on paper, and you thought about tearing them up, burning them, spilling ink all over them. Thought about the destruction Deidara preached was inevitable with all creation. It made you uncomfortable. To you, the fire of Deidara’s explosive passion was wonderful to see and feel, but you couldn’t live it. Now, alone, you felt the vast chasm between you and the rouge-nin. 

You were a simple forager, someone who found and dried medicinal herbs for a small village. You were a reshaped ball of clay, someone who had brought themselves up from the ground of desolation and despair. Into a normal life. So in that regard, you were another pawn to his beliefs, you were creation from destruction.

He was dangerous. Someone trained to kill, someone who had abandoned his old life for gods knows what twisted passions. He was an enigma. The more you learned the more you knew he should leave, but gods , you couldn’t help the human need for company. You couldn’t ignore the invisible threads of life that had pulled you together. No, you wanted to grab the ends of that thread and pull it tighter, making this moment of human connection last longer. 

You didn’t realize how lonely you were. You had grown so used to the cold until you felt the warmth.

Chapter Text

The early summer was quick to burn its mark into the grass, a golden ocean, burning fresh growth into the ripe grain of summer. The heat became more intense and you found yourself sticking to loose linen pants and tank tops.

Deidara was standing in the kitchen making the both of you some iced tea, his long blond hair shone in the sun and as he noticed you watching him in the doorway, his eyes crinkled in recognition. His skin had tanned slightly after helping out in the garden to “earn his keep”. You had spent hours earlier in the garden definitely not getting distracted by the fluid movements of his toned arms and slightly sweaty skin… It was a common occurrence these days, for you to space out nearly drooling at the sight of him. Of course, you chalked it up to a lack of any intimate contact for… what felt like forever. You hoped he hadn't noticed any of the looks you shot at him and thought you were some perverted sex-hungry hermit. Which was only a half-truth…

The two of you had grown into quite a little routine together. It was still awkward at times, but mostly the two of you spent time apart until meals where you would talk and laugh for hours on end whenever you stepped out of the solitude you sought during daytime. Today however, when you worked together in your garden, you had settled into a content silence and had finished work hours earlier than ever before. Rouge nin made great gardeners.

Now, the two of you sat on the porch, enjoying the cool breeze meandering through the mountains. Hard work paid off and the harvest from today’s work would provide some delicious meals in the days to come. But that is pleasure, you had been worried all month about making sales in town. The hot summer weather patterns had been different, and the herbs you needed had been devoured by insects when you reached your regular patch a couple weeks ago. You sat, lazy, taking in the summer day knowing you would have to get off your ass and find these medicinal herbs sooner rather than later. In the distance you could smell the odor of livestock blowing in from the north, this was a sure sign a storm was coming, and it would be a rough one.

You sighed audibly, drawing Deidara’s attention.

“Hm?” he questioned.

You sighed performatively before answering, “I need to forage before this storm blows in. I can smell the livestock from towns up north, when weather blows in from that side it always wreaks havoc.”

“Ugh, what a pain. There are so many nicer things to do…” Deidara complained as he stood up. You were confused at his movement before you understood he planned to come with you.

“Oh! Uh, you don’t need to join me.” Please, please, please, pretty please come with me! You plead internally. His quiet company earlier had made the work feel so much, and go by so much, quicker. Having him join you on a hike would be amazing. As wonderful as nature was, you were craving the contact of another.

Deidara stretched, arms reaching up and exposing him midriff, he yawned like a cat, cracked his back, and held out a hand in a gesture for you to get up.

“I’m bored anyway. It’s not like we’ve been doing much.” You smiled at him and he silently noticed the gratitude lining your eyes. “C’mon, where are we headed?”

The two of you set forth into the treeline. It was immediately steamy and muggy under the cover of the trees. What you would expect as a nice break from the scorching sun just turned the entire forest floor into a hothouse. Well this was not the best for you, it made for a perfect place to find herbs and plants. The birds sang loud overhead, calling out to their lovers in the flings and flights of summer air. A magpie spirited across a gar in the foliage, the light shone through its wings, illuminating the black lining on the feathers. The light shimmered bright on its blue plumage and you were struck by the color. You turned to point this out to Deidara, but saw him already looking.

His own eyes, lined in black, shone in the sun with a ray of light falling across his face. He squinted and his face bunched up in a silly way, but you remained ensnared by the blue of his eyes. Lighter than the magpie’s wings, but with a depth you feared. You caught yourself from falling into the ocean of his eyes, dangling between admiration and fear. Who was this stranger?

The two of you moved differently but with practiced skill, his from years of rigorous training, and yours from sheer fear of tripping over a root and sprawling into hot earth. As the day wasted away, you started to feel changes in the atmosphere, a rising heat here, as change in humidity there, and you began to second guess your decision to head out right before the storm. However, you were full of hubris and believed that Deidara, a strong shinobi, could probably help you through some weather.

The day wore on and your skin dripped with humidity and sweat. You felt disgusting, but this was how you kept rice in the pantry and the small luxuries in your house. It was only making you feel slightly better that when you turned your head, you noticed Deidara was also sweating profusely. See? You weren't weak, it was just a muggy day.

You wandered into the area you usually scavenged and began to survey the area for new growth. Thankfully, you found a patch of lemon balm yet untouched by the mass of mint plants devastating the area with all encompassing scale. You also picked some of that, it made a lovely salve for sore muscles. Deidara watched at first, but quickly caught up and began to aid your harvest. He asked questions while you roamed the area, and you answered to your best ability.

“Why did you pick that?” He said, gesturing to a dirty tuber.

“It is an anti-diarrhetic, you can create fiber biscuits with it and even put some lemon in it. They don’t taste great, none of my work really does, but damn if it doesn’t work” You stopped over to unearth another couple tubers.

“Well, I think your food tastes good, hn. Revived me, so no complaints, yeah?” You laughed the compliment off and smiled to yourself. “Oooh! What’s thata one?” His excitement broke through and an accent broke through. He sounded Northern with the harsh consonants and extra vowels. You filed that away.

“Chamomile, real common, I’m sure you’ve had tea made from it before. It helps with stress, anxiety, and sleep. It’s a natural relaxant. You can drink tea, use it in cooking and baking as a flavor, and even smoke it with other herbs for a more potent effect.”

“You’re telling me you get high off of tea, huh?”

“I mean, if you combine it with other herbs. It’s not a high, but more of a relaxant.” You went full professor on him, it wasn’t often people showed interest in your work… unless they wanted some problem of theirs fixed.

“Coooool.” He looked at the plant with new interest.

You rolled your eyes but laughed anyway.

At this point, your bag was filling with herbs, roots, and all sorts of items, and you were feeling better about your income security. You breathed a sigh of relief, but as you exhaled you noticed that the birds were growing louder.

“Shit, that’s not good, yeah.” Deidara had noticed it too. The storm was quickly approaching. You had gotten distracted by the questions and bounty that you hadn’t noticed the change in the breeze overhead.

“Yeah, I guess we should head back… I only wish I had found some red clover, I need to make some more of a bestseller.”

“What’s that for?”

“Hot flashes.”

“Oh.” He grew embarrassed. You thought that was silly, had he never been around women? Maybe shinobi were gender segregated or captured from their mothers or some other socio-emotional torture. You grew even more curious about his upbringing, how could someone know cardinal directions by feel alone, have extensive knowledge about the social and political climate, and walk quieter than a cat, but grow embarrassed talking about a natural occurrence.

“Un, What’s the issue, are these not the plants?” Deidara asked innocently pointing to a patch of regular flowering clover. You had to hold back a snap of frustration. The cloying heat and sudden uproar from the birds had set you on edge, no matter how calm and collected you could explain the functions of a plant, you were rolling with anxiety.

“No, these are just regular grasses and foliage.” You sighed, “Well, whatever, we collected enough. I guess we should head back.” Deidara looked conflicted, wanting to help but deprived of any useful knowledge of plants whatsoever.

“Well, hn, we can keep looking if you want!”

“Thanks, Deidara, but–” and right as you were about to say something about the oncoming weather a thunderclap boomed viciously, you laughed dryly and shook of the fact you had leapt into the air in shock, “The weather.”

Ending on disappointment left annoyance radiating from your form as you trudged back to the house, all of that sunny weather and perfect conditions, and you couldn’t even find red clover. What kind of medicine forager were you? You felt so idiotic dragging Deidara with you and letting him down. Or at least it felt like you had let him down. You shifted the heft of your bag and tried to reassure yourself that he didn’t think you were a loser.

Emerging from the now boiling sauna of foliage cover, you were hit by a gale wind that almost knocked you off of your feet. All of the sweat on your body left you shaking from the sudden cold. The protective trees had blocked the sharp winds from you, and you realized just how bad of a storm this could be.

“Hey, Deidara,”

“Yeah?”

“I need to go secure some stuff before the storm comes in full force, could you take this inside and make sure everything is held down and sturdy at the house?” You handed the bag off and started to jog away.

“Yeah, do you need any help though? It’s pretty damn bad out already. I can do anything you need, hm.” Deidara called after you

You laughed in gratitude, “In that case, would you mind covering the garden in a tarp and staking it?”

He gave a mock salute before running off to your home. You were left facing the wild winds on your own.

Alright, just a couple things and I’ll be okay to go inside.

You sprinted to your tool shed behind the house and grabbed a tarp of your own and some stakes. The world was picking up dirt and leaves and tossing them around you like confetti. Your eyes watered as you hurried across the field to your workshed. This is where you dried, smoked, and cured all sorts of herbs and plants to make them into proper medicine. The place was rickety and tightening it with a tarp and some stakes would put your mind at ease, considering this was your almost entire livelihood.

You set to work, only stopping to glance at the already tarped garden. Deidara is ridiculously fast at these things. You fumbled with a tie and a new wave of fear and adrenaline hit you as a gale shoved you against the shed. Your hair whipped at your face and stung your eyes.

That’s going to have to be good enough.

You crouched low trying to avoid being a human kite as you made your way back to the cabin. You were just about halfway back when you saw the forest bend from an especially large gust, you were just bracing for the oncoming gale when out of nowhere a gust hit you from behind, you whipped around just in time to see a branch flying towards you.

Chapter Text

All around the house seemed to move in great waves of wind that tossed shrapnel around like spittle. The world was swallowed in a blue-gray hue, the grass bent to the ground as if bowing to the wind, and the garden fence quivered under the punishing gales. Everything seemed in motion.

Deidara surveyed the tempestuous landscape for your form in a bid to help you, but as he searched, nothing came up. Deidara’s eyes seemed to sharpen and the muscles that had been lax and complacent in comfortable farm life sprung to life. Tension built immediately.

Over the last month or so you had become someone special. He didn’t know how to phrase it, but he wanted to talk to you more, he wanted to see your face under the summer sun, and even autumn, winter, and spring, he wanted to tell you about art, he wanted to help you do chores for hours, he just liked being around you. He liked passing time at your side.

In the waves, a lifeboat. His savior. Stark, human, motionless, a form without a purpose, a statue, a letter with no reply, there you were. Still as death and with as much tenderness as life.

Suddenly he was in motion. He didn’t know what siren song called him forth to come and rescue you. Duty? Obligation? Did he feel such an obligation to pay you back for saving his life that his muscles ached and tore into the ground at the force of his fear? He was sprinting and dodging. He ran to your prone body. Within seconds he was there, at your side, a mockery of the time you had just spent at each other’s sides.

You were laying still, too still. Surrounding you was a wreath of whipping summer grasses and a halo of blood. Blood crowned your head and fell to the damp earth.

Like a crying kid reaching for comfort, for a stuffed animal, he reached for you. He clutched you to him.

The howling wind died out in his ears and all he could hear was the rushing of his blood. The entire world was writhing around the two paused figures in the field. Neither body moved for what could have been an eternity. A branch flung madly towards your figure and Deidara finally moved. He hunched over your body, taking the blow, which to him was nothing. His pale hands held your bleeding head off of the ground; the blood leaped down the valleys of his fingers and made rivers down his forearms. He was stuck.

He remembered this feeling, the blood, the violence, the screams that howled like the wind in his ears, and the silence that came after. How many people had he watched die? How many people had he killed?

Your pulse was weak and fluttering in his hands as they moved to your neck, to feel the life you had. How many pulses had he stopped? Was this who he was? No. It couldn’t be. This was not a rush he craved. This was slow and agonizing this was torture. This pain was like nothing he could have trained for. Why had he not felt this way before? Had he never loved? No– he never could. He never would, he was trained he was better than that. How many years had he fought and killed and survived without feeling this way? You could not change him like this. You hadn’t beat him in battle, you hadn’t broken his bones or ripped his heart out with your hands, you hadn’t gutted him alive, torn off his limbs, you hadn’t done anything. Nothing. Nothing but heal him.

Why did it hurt so bad? Why was he the one afraid?

There were no loud noises, only the incredible silence of wind and rushing blood. There was no one moment of destructive ecstasy, he felt the slow march of hot blood through your body and onto his arms.

He felt sick. He wanted to scream. This wasn’t artful, skillful, he didn’t kill like this did he? This was torture. He felt stuck in an inescapable genjutsu, some sort of…

A red eye flashed through his mind.

His eyes went wide, mouth agape in a scream he could not, did not know how to produce. His breath came in gasps. He was the dog dead in the ditch. He was the hour between the sun and the wolf. He did not exist the way you did. He lived under the rule of that blood-red eye; he was pathetic and miniscule under that stare.

His blood ran cold, he didn’t want to remember whatever that was. He was scared. It was this fear, this new fear of memory that snapped him together. To escape the fear he would have to move.

Your body was limp in his arms as he carried you slowly through the summer storm. He was not scared of this natural world, he could handle being hit with branches and gales of wind, he could handle physical pain and torture, someone could break his mind and he would make it out alive, he probably had, but not this. Not this torture, the anguishing nightmarish fear of his past, the fear of that slow nature, the dread of caring.

If he was scared of anything, it was the long wait as a predator stalks or the inescapable nightmare that repeats inevitably… and maybe… losing you. His nature was quick and explosive, it was about the moment of release, not the build, not the horror of seconds drawing on forever as he held a bleeding body.

He kicked the cabin door open. Everything felt so slow to him, his motions were practiced and quick, but he felt weighted. Placing your bleeding body on the futon felt heavier than anything, each swipe of a wet rag against your forehead took what felt like hours of watching blood mix with water.

He knew which of your salves to use and where you kept the medical supplies. His work was professional from years of training he couldn't remember, he only helped you through sheer muscle memory. How long had it been since he had tried to heal someone…

His mind was silent, eyes unblinking, he did not feel his body. This at least was a familiar feeling.

You lay there. Still and breathing. Alive. The task of cleaning and bandaging had returned Deidara to a state somewhat closer to normal. Seeing the blood, the wound, the reality of life bleeding and moving and healing… He was breathing, and you were breathing. He was breathing and you were breathing.

Outside the wind howled. And his face felt wet. Why? Why? Why was he so scared of the creeping nature of time, the reality of loss of time and love? Why did your blood on his hands scare him so much? As the rain began its torrent down on the cottage’s roof, only then did Deidara fall to his knees and cry.

He was scared, he clawed at his skin and hair, as he watched your body breathe in, and out. In and out. In and out. He heaved in and out. Wracked breaths shook him. He was glad you were out cold, he was glad no one could watch his shame, his weakness. He was strong. He knew himself, and his art. He was powerful. He was young and useful. But why was he so afraid? Maybe he was still just a kid in this big world of emotions.

The rain beat monotonously into his head, drowning out all thought. Strangely, unlike the fear he felt at the monotonous breathing, the wind, and the blood in his ears, the harsh pounding rain and cracking strikes of thunder calmed him. He came down from his fear into sleep. Slumping beside your bed in a curled knot drifting into a dreamless sleep.

Chapter Text

When you woke up, you felt as if you were cleaved in two and sewn back together with cotton swabs. It took you at least a minute of pain before you opened your swollen eyes to look at the ceiling. You felt warm and comfortable even despite your headache, and shifting onto your arms you found out why. Deidara was lying beside you, in your bed.

What. The. Hell. Happened.

Between the headache and confusion, you were damn sure it was some sort of head injury. But that didn’t explain why Deidara was softly sleeping next to you. With utmost confusion, you watched the gentle wave-like motion of his back as he inhaled and his shoulder rose slightly with the breath and exhaled his body sinking once again into the futon. It brought you peace to see the calm continuous motion of his existence. You lowered yourself back to the comfortable slightly cool sheets, your head crying out at the movement, before settling to watch him sleep.

You could have been convinced this was creepy or weird, but honestly, you were in pain, and like many others who are in pain, you sought out the comfort of another living being. Like a child hugging their mother after falling and scraping a knee, you found a sense of ease facing Deidara’s sleeping form.

The next time your eyes opened, the wooden house had the glow of midday and Deidara was nowhere to be seen. Your head felt mildly better, so you got up to make tea and a quick herbal rub for your temples and the base of your skull to aid the headache relief.

After tea, breakfast, and aspirin you were feeling slightly more up to the day. You had not seen Deidara since you woke up earlier and worried that you had talked or jostled him while asleep. You remembered friends telling you that on occasion you would say strange things or throw your legs out. As you pondered this amidst a patch of the midday sun shining through the windows, you turned to catch Deidara coming in from the bathroom. He looked freshly showered dressed only in loose pants with his wet hair loosely pulled back. His face flushed from the heat of the shower.

Not a bad sight first thing in the morning.

“Hn, ‘morning, how do you feel?” He asked casually while grabbing a glass of water.

“Like I got cleaved in two, thanks for asking.” You were in a sour mood thanks to the constant headache, you could tell it would still take a week or so to feel completely fine. “What happened?” you asked, still oblivious.

“A windstorm hit, and well, hm, more specifically it hit you.” You must have looked confused because he continued, “With a branch,” he pointed at his forehead, “You got knocked out by a flying branch, yeah.” He looked like he was holding back laughter, you must have made some strange expression.

“I see.” You had no memory of this happening, so it must be true. The last thing you remembered happening was leaving the heat of the woods to face the wind.

You both went silent, and an awkward tension filled the air. You didn’t know if he knew you had been up and saw him in bed with you… And you didn’t want to indicate that you had been pretending to sleep or anything. It was all so confusing, why had he been there?

He looked conflicted as well, but you couldn’t tell why.

The day went by in a strange but lazy manner. You decided to let your body rest, meaning you broke out your old cassette deck and listened to music in the living room while idly tying up herbs. You kept your eyes closed for most of the day due to the irritating needles the sun drove through your head, but you were awake most of the day, just thinking.

All sorts of futile questions spun in your mind, the kind of questions that required asking, which you didn’t feel inclined to do, to know the answer. Questions like: Why had Deidara been in your bed? Why had you felt so at home when watching him sleep? Why had he acted so strangely this morning? And most of all, had you grown so fond of this man as to crave the comfort you found earlier?

Hours Earlier~~~~

The morning light danced through the clouds of last night’s storm, which thankfully passed. Rays of sun slipped through the open shoji doors of your bedroom and caught Deidara's eyelashes. Still caught up in his dreams his face twitched in flushed emotion. Unbeknownst to you at the time silently watching him, you appeared in his dream.

You were standing in the kitchen with a cup of hot tea, he approached and you looked surprised, and then happy, to see him. You looked sun-warmed and lovely in his eyes. Everything seemed so real, but in the same dream-like state all of these days held.

Your skin looked so soft and welcoming to him, these feelings sprouting in his subconsciousness were raw and rare to the rouge nin. Desire was no stranger to the young man, his days on the run had been filled with desire for flesh, he knew this feeling, but he didn’t know just how strong it could be when directed at a person…When it was fueled by emotions. He hadn’t been close to anyone like this… since well forever. Not this way, he felt like he wanted to know you, not only your mind and body but your emotions and soul.

“Good morning,” You smiled lightly, glancing through your eyelashes. You seemed different to Deidara, you were so… beautiful, so… sensual. You looked at him with clear intention. He saw it in your eyes, you felt so at ease around him. You had the look on your face, when you looked at him, that you had when you picked a fresh tomato off the vine, with a soft pride, your eyes held respect, not fear, and your body was relaxed and open.
You walked over to him and, to his utter shock, draped yourself on him. He stood stock still as you tenderly clung to him, your arms were thrown around his neck and your body pressed so solidly against him. He felt grounded next to you. Your presence felt like the calm after the explosion, like the euphoria without the destruction. He hadn’t realized that was possible.

The house was ablaze in morning light and he wanted this moment to last forever.

~~~

His eyes shot open quicker than if an enemy had attacked him in his sleep. His pants were painfully tight… which was an immediate problem, especially because you were sleeping right next to him. Innocent in sleep next to the man who felt guilty and gross for the dreams he had of you. It felt emotionally violating to your privacy, how could he dream of you loving him in a way that seemed so inconceivable?

He took care of you just as you had taken care of him, but here he was having strange dreams about you. He felt disgusted with himself. Gods, you were recovering from a concussion right next to him and all he could think about was how beautiful you looked in the morning light. He avoided looking at you while he got up silently and unnoticed, to make his way catlike to the bathroom.

Once in the privacy of the bathroom, he turned the showerhead on, stripped, and leaned against the cool tiles. And like the steam filling the room, his head was fogged with thoughts of you.

He turned the tap off and decided he would forget completely about the dream. How hard would it be to act normally around you?

~~~

“Hn, ‘morning, how do you feel?” He switched his headspace to think only of your injury, he was a trained shinobi, and it occurred to him just how beautiful you looked in a tank top, your soft shoulders tanned with sun and the curve of your strong body. He kept his eyes locked solidly on your forehead.

“Like I got cleaved in two, thanks for asking.” Your face wrinkled in mild pain, and he fought back a smile. You continued, “What happened?”

His mind panicked, were you asking about why he was in your bed? Was he asking why he was acting weird? No. You were confused why you were in pain, he mentally chided himself.

“A windstorm hit,” He was not functioning at full capacity, his mind kept seeing dream-you in you that stood before him… “and well, hm, more specifically it hit you.” He felt like he was crashing and burning, and he tried for a smooth recovery, “With a branch,” he pointed at his forehead, “You got knocked out by a flying branch, yeah.”

“I see.”

His mind went positively blank. What did you mean ‘I see'? What did you see? How stupid he looked right now as he stood in the kitchen looking like a drowned tabby cat? He practically fled, just in the most casual way possible.

He spent his day outside training, and of course, overthinking. He tried to focus on the exertion of training and not on the dream and what it may mean to him. He had no time for these feelings, he had his art, his memories to recover, and a life to –probably– get back to. He could hear faint music emanating from the cabin and it drove him far into the woods, he couldn’t be around you right now. He couldn’t act like this to the person who had saved his life. Even more so, he couldn't love when he was a monster and a killer and you were so beautiful, kind, and pure to him.

That would be wrong.

Then why did he feel so… happy…whenever you were around him?

Chapter Text

It had been days since you last saw Deidara, but that was the new normal it seemed. You often set the table for two and thought as you waited, maybe he left for good this time. But that was always right before he would walk in with a smile and some herbs or a flower for you as an apology for leaving you hanging.

He acted mostly the same around you, but he wasn’t around you a lot.

One day, you attempted to follow him, to see where he was going and what he was doing, but that was stupid and you knew it. He was a trained shinobi, and you were just a civilian, no way you could ever watch him without him letting you. So you accepted it and moved on.

Summer licked at the green foliage in your garden providing you with all sorts of delicious fresh foods and you were content to spend days tending to your produce, foraging, or relaxing with a book or a sketchbook under a tree.

This day was just like every other beautiful day. Deidara had just left for Gods knows what, and you decided to take the day off. You took a stroll and ended up at the rhododendron where you had found Deidara. You sat there, in the shade of purple and under the scent so sweet yet spicy, and wondered where he had come from.

As the clouds drifted over top, so did your thoughts. The first time you met Deidara was here. You smiled at the thought of the beauty of life, or rather the beauty of life now that he was in it. You hadn’t realized just how much he meant to you until he started spending less time with you. You missed his constant presence. The awkwardness and care he sometimes interspersed in your life was better than nothing, and you were grateful that he was at least still somewhat in your life.

And so, the afternoon passed, and when the bugs started to bite in the evening you sat up, just now feeling something hard under your ass. Assuming it was a rock you reached to chuck it off the small hill in annoyance, but instead, in your hand lay a ring. It was silver with a teal inlay on top with the character for ‘blue’ written on it.

Huh. Must be Deidara’s.

You slipped it on your finger to admire the beautiful green that shone in the light. The ring felt cool on your finger and felt almost electric. You wondered why Deidara had a ring that said ‘blue’ on it. His eyes were blue… But he wasn’t the type to be so self-absorbed…. Well, he kind of was… But if he would want anything representing his ego you guessed it would have something to do with his art. And his eyes were not an explosion unless you counted the emotions that burst inside you when you caught his eyes. Maybe it was a keepsake from his home, like a dog tag from Iwagakure Explosion Corps… but then again what did “blue” have to do with that?

Oh.

He could be married.

No, don’t be stupid! He’s a young rogue shinobi; there's no way he’d be married.

But the thought stung your heart. You smacked your forehead with your palm and flopped on the grass in frustration at your sudden jealousy. You weren't that close with him, he was going to leave one of these days. Yes, one of these days he would go into the forest to train and never come back. You hoped he would say goodbye before he left. You weren't sure you could take another person leaving you alone.

You slipped the ring off and stared at the molten puffy clouds above. The sun shone and you laughed at the brightness, there would always be another sunny day, you supposed. But the thought didn’t cheer you up, so you jumped up and decided to pretend you had never thought of anything upsetting. What harm could come of repressing emotions? Not like you didn’t have a painful past full of bad decisions and hurt from repressing emotions… no… not at all.

And so you trotted, slightly slumped from your thoughts, back to the house.

To your pleasant surprise, Deidara was in the kitchen. He turned and smiled at you.

“Hey,”

“Hi…” You blushed a little thinking about your emotional outburst, feeling stupid, but you continued, “I found this earlier today… I thought it might be yours.” You handed him the ring and his eyes narrowed. It was imperceptible to you but the sudden tenseness in his shoulders was.

“Oh, yeah un, thanks,” He faked a smile, and you could tell from the coldness in his gaze he was not happy to receive this. You kicked yourself internally, why would you meddle in his affairs, you felt so stupid and small just then.

Deidara had this whole other life, a huge and unknown past of fighting and trials, and maybe love. Your eyes flicked to the ring. Fuck. Your heart ached deeply at the thought. He had all of this other life waiting for him, and what did you have waiting for you? A farm? Herbs and scavenging? This valley? You no longer had a past, you had wasted that away, and you weren't yet sure you deserved to have a past at this point when you had fucked up your life so badly in the first place.

No, don't think about it. Stop. Pull yourself together goddamnit! You were healed, you were strong and you wouldn’t let your emotions control you like they always had.

But they had already started to fester.

Your eyes stung and you clenched your jaw near the breaking point. But you smiled and got to work in sync with Diedara making dinner. You had a light and nice conversation, comforting and familial, so normal… your thoughts felt alien to the physical world. You tried to focus on the fresh food and the conversation but you kept noticing the green ring on his right index finger.

That night you went to bed and the tears fell. You couldn’t help but feel useless and insignificant when you say that reminder of his life outside of the valley. The life he would leave for one of these days, and never come back from.

~~~~~

Deidara was fucked, or at least he was pretty sure he was. After you went to bed he slipped out and sat on the roof examining the ring you had found.

He could sense the chakra on the ring, and he knew which finger he wore it on, and he remembered what he was too scared to admit: he was a killer.

He had known this, obviously, but now he remembered the look in Shinobi’s eyes when they saw him. The fear that poisoned everyone around him…

He had scared you, he could see it in your eyes when you handed him the ring, he didn’t know how he scared you or what he had done, but the amount of emotion on your face for that split second was full of hurt and tense pain. Had you felt the negative aura around him at the sight of the ring? Of course, you were scared of him, who wasn’t? He was scared of himself.

And now, when he looked at you he felt almost every emotion possible, but mostly he felt guilt. The infection progresses past emotion and turns into a physical feeling. A rotten core he was afraid would seep out of his teeth with every smile.

What had he done to you, nothing but terrible things; he had upturned your life, and you had nursed him back to health with no hesitation. You had taught him so much about a calm life, and he now scared you and ruined your life with his fear and guilt. You fed him, laughed with him, shared moments of quiet and moments of fits of laughter with him, and he felt weird things for you… He had let you get hurt, and he sat by your bed taking care of you out of selfish guilt, or that’s what he thought drove him. And now instead of smiling eyes when he accidentally stared too long, he was met with your tenseness. He didn’t know what he had done to let you know what a monster he was, but you had picked it up, and now he was a thorn in your life.

But he couldn’t leave.

Every day he told himself, “today I’m leaving”, and every day he came back like a sick dog, like a cat bringing a dead bird to your doorstep. He took advantage of your kind, pure heart, and he knew you couldn't help but help. He was a poison, a poison who loved the way your eyes looked when you focused on a task or when you brushed your hair out of your face to look up from a sketch, a monster who stalked you with love.

Shit.

Love?

He had never felt these emotions before, at least not for anything unrelated to his art. And now here he was on your roof under the gaze of a million stars and the watchful judgment of the moon, and he was sorry.

He would never admit it, but the stars began to run and curl like a wet varnish over the ugliest painting he had ever made.

~~~~~

Far away from it all, a spy watched the emotions of two people.

Zetsu was sent out by Pain once the chakra ring was activated on Deidara’s finger, and they found him. It had been too long, he had posed a liability to the sanctity of the plan. He was no longer helpful, and something needed to be done.

After a couple of days of spying on both him and the random person he stayed with, Zetsu was still uncertain about what measures to take. Pain did not issue executive orders, he was too busy cleaning up the aftermath of losing Sasori. Pain instead chose to leave the actions up to Zetsu and Itachi.

Of course, the logical thing would be to go up and just tell Deidara to come back to the Akatsuki, but this logic seemed to be flawed. Zetsu noticed the civilian manner Diedara acted with, he still walked and moved like a shinobi, but he smiled too much, looked lighter, and spent his days relatively carefree. This was a stranger, a civilian with the impulses of a monster.

If anything was a bad sign to the Akatsuki, it was happiness in other pursuits. Deidara had been a weak member in that sense, however valuable an asset he was to the Akatsuki, he was too focused on his art. He had a passion for something other than the organization’s plans. That was dangerous.

And here he was playing house with some civilian. Smiling as no shinobi should. As Zetsu watched the lone figure on the roof, he only saw weakness. This was no longer the asset the Akatsuki used, this was a human, not just a weapon to be used.

But Zetsu knew that love was the easiest thing to manipulate someone with. And no matter how cruel a person Deidara was, he was full of love.

Zetsu knew what needed to be done, and as he sunk into the ground, Deidara’s head whipped around to lock eyes with the sinking figure.

So sharp, he’ll return if he wants to continue his art. There’s no place for him in this calm world when he craves destruction.

A couple of days since the finding of the ring, you had all but blocked it out of your head and got back to work. You had just come back from a run into town to drop off a month’s worth of dried herbs when you stopped still. There was someone in your valley.

Their black cloak was striking against the golden grasses. At first, you thought it was some sort of strange animal or a murder of crows, then you thought you might have heat stroke from the long hot walk to and from town. But even after you took a deep gulp of cold water from your canteen, the figure remained.

The constant movement of summer seemed to halt. Your blood felt cold and instead of heat stroke, you felt frozen with an unknown primal fear. The grass, previously dancing in the pleasant breeze, was as still. The figure seemed to command respect and stillness even in the natural world.

Then, the picture broke, and the figure stepped forward. You watched entranced, from the perspective of a watcher, not a participant in this world. There in the field was an omen, the black goat, a storm cloud, the crow’s feather in a rose garden, a fortune of terror. A man.

You couldn't move even as he approached an arm's length away.

You were struck with a sense of deja vu at the sight of his face. He was strikingly gorgeous. Just like when you saw Deidara for the first time you felt in awe of a person so beautiful. But instead of confused fear and worry over a person’s life, you felt fear for your sanity. He stood like someone who ruined lives. And here was this messenger of the morose at your door.

“Hello, I am here for Deidara.” Blunt, simple, and terrifying. It took a moment to regain any sense of speech.

“Uh-” You hated how your voice came out in a pathetic squeak. “He’s out right now,” You swallowed the fear in your throat, “Can I help you with anything?”

“No. I will wait.” And he did. Under the shade of the tree where Deidara sometimes sat he sat for hours, impassive. You attempted to mind your business and get back to business, but you were practically pissing yourself in fear. In fear of this man, and in fear of what he might do to Deidara. Would he take Deidara away?

What if he was here to kill Deidara!? You had no clue what his life was like outside of this valley, and this guy looked strong.

The day marched on, and after hours of anxiety, your nerves were fried. When the sun started to wane you decided to make dinner. You started inside, but something stopped you when you looked back at Deidara’s tree and saw the stranger there. Like when you first spotted him, he was nothing but a silhouette against the last embers of the hot day. You felt a new wave of sweat on your neck, not from the heat, but from the imposing figure the stranger cut against the orange sky.

He had spent the day out, per usual, up to his usual distractions and bullshit. He would train, sculpt, blow things up, and generally terrorize the quiet solace of the forest. Today he left the scorched earth with deeper craters than before. He was working on something big, something new and unlike his other work. Not quite the true art, his self-sacrifice, but it bridged that gap between his other work and the end-all-be-all. Of course, he kept the sculptures small scale, not expanding them before exploding them, he was impulsive and loud but not stupid. He still knew not to draw that much attention, who knows what lurked for him.

And so, after a day of success, a smile lingered triumphantly on his lips. He still felt awkward around you, but he couldn’t pull himself away from the solace and comfort of your company. You felt like the center of a storm, or the moment before an explosion, the anticipation, calm, joy, and fear all wrapped into one. His art is his one true passion, and love in life, but he was damned if you weren't the next best thing. You were not his art, and it worried him to feel the growing passion for you.

The days he spent focusing on his art distracted and tamed his passion for you, only flaming up when he came to the cottage and saw a warm meal and you… Gods, he was captivated.

Today, however, when he reached the clearing, he was greeted with awe and fear. Backlit by the last dregs of sun, the kind that shines brightest before disappearing, was danger himself: a silhouette with red piercing eyes.

It was too late already, he had been too focused on the ever-present safety and comfort of you, and now it was too late. He locked eyes with a god, and he remembered.

Chapter Text

He couldn’t see above the counter, looking up he clutched at his mother's apron as she cooked. She was crying and he was helpless to stop it. He didn’t know why she was crying, why she was hurting, why she wouldn’t look at him, why she wouldn’t sweep him into her warm embrace. He was crying too, but only because he was confused, scared… and weak.

He placed the aloe gently on his mom’s skin. The burns crinkled and scarred her beautiful face. And that was the first time he experienced true anger. His hands shook with rage as he carefully replaced bandages with skilled precision. He had left for the Academy, for one day, and this happened, maybe it was his fault that his father was so angry. Was he the reason that his father lashed out at his mother? No. He knew now, that his father was even weaker than Deidara ever was, he was a scared fool stuck in the fear and memories of the past. Back when he fought in the Second Great Ninja War and watched as every friend he ever loved was cut down. He was scared of everything, but mostly his weakness, so he found someone who was weaker. It was not his fault, nor his mother's, it was the product of hate. The product of war. He was quiet as he finished applying the burn treatment on his mother's burnt flesh, but his mind raced, he knew he needed something to keep him from ending up like his dad.

The first time he touched clay was right before he started in the Ninja Academy. It was summer, distinct and hot in his memory, the wind shrieked against the sheer rocks of Iwa. He was no longer a child, or so he thought, and was starting to notice his reality. The way his father treated his mother, the way war was bred into the young children entering the academy, the real fear that comes with throwing your first perfectly aimed kunai, and realizing that one day would be a person, not a training dummy. He found art quietly, hoping it was imperceptible to those around him, and he found solace in creating because it was something that could never hurt anyone.

It had been a long day of harsh training and Deidara was drained of all his strength. Fully intending to lock himself in his room and sleep the chakra exhaustion off, he stopped at the open bedroom door. Because all of his sculptures were gone. He swallowed the terror of his art being found and moved to the kitchen to look for his parents, the likely culprits. There at the old wooden table sat both of them and all of his art. His mother was shaking and looked so paralyzed. His nerves were on fire with fear and when the first smash sounded from beside his head, he hadn't even realized he had dodged. On the ground were the shattered remnants of a bird sculpture, one of his favorites. The rest of the night was spent by his father throwing his “useless” sculptures, calling him weak and his art “a sign of weakness”. “Emotion is the enemy of strength, Deidara. I thought I showed you better. Learn from this.”

His father only successfully taught him two things: who he would never want to be, and how valuable his art was. If it angered his father, it meant it scared him. Every shinobi knows fear is power, and his art gave him power over his father. His art was his power, that’s what his father taught him.

As a genin, he learned how to manage and control explosions. He was fascinated with the beauty of the explosions and the strength of their destruction. He constantly experimented with different uses of chakra and bases for explosives. He never liked studying but he dedicated himself to chemistry to figure out combinations of chemicals that would enhance his work. He was good at it, he had something that made him physically strong, and people respected his skill. For the first time, Deidara felt appreciated.

The hard gray stone gave no shelter from the cold winds, it was after a training session and he was getting tea, per their usual custom, with his teammates. Akatsuchi and Kurosutchi sat across the table, chatting mindlessly about the new exercises in chakra control they had learned that day. Both of them were naturals, in Deidara’s eyes. They seemed to know everything and complete tasks so easily, they were so willing to do anything they were told. Hidden villages only wanted weapons, tools that they could throw away on a whim to go fight in another useless war. It was everywhere, this useless and dull pursuit of senseless violence. Without any justification, Shinobi will follow each other off the bridge to their deaths, how benign. It was an unjustified slaughter of thousands. Deidara had no disillusions about death and killing. He knew no matter what, to follow his art, people would get hurt or die, but that was justified death. They were dying gloriously, artistically, they would understand at the moment the world exploded how lucky a death he had granted them. He grew too desperate and began to crave the release of each explosion, so he joined the explosion corps. Eager to work with what he loved, however, it was getting tedious. He was strong, there was no doubt, but building inside of him since his father found his art and since he was diminished to nothing more than a tool of the Kages, was this indomitable spirit of individuality. In his mind’s eye, he knew exactly what his life was going to look like, and with every passing day, it grew harder to ignore. To be recognized for himself, not his abilities, but for his passion and art it was tantalizing. The fruit of life was ready to be plucked and savored. He was ready to show everyone the true meaning of art, what death and destruction should look like.

It was a regular day, morning, the sun was warm but the day was still cold with lingering frost. Deidara’s breath formed clouds in the air as he deftly traversed to the Kage’s tower. His team was a personal favorite little pet of the hidden village, such talented chuunin they praised, so it was a familiar sight to see him approach the building. The guards let him in without hesitation. He smiled at them like any other day and walked to the Tsuchikage’s office. He knew Ōnoki’s schedule, had inadvertently memorized it, and now it came in handy as he slipped in undetected. By now he had been in the office enough to scout the protection seals on the bookshelf housing his prize. He worked hard under the guise of wanting to know more about seals to make better explosion tags and to learn about the different types of protection scrolls. Replicating the seal turned out to be harder than writing on some paper he found, and the writing and breaking of the seal was the only thing that had kept him in this village for the past months. But here he stood, he placed his tag over the one in place and watched it disintegrate. It was quick, in and out, and took him less than five minutes total. The village had trained him well, too bad he was so dedicated to another cause than the village. There were bigger more meaningful things in this world, self-fulfillment, to be chased. Why die for a place you never loved? No, he would only die for what he loved.

The trickiest part of his escape from the village was the actual transfer of kekkei genkai from scroll to human. It was unnatural, and he sat in a training field, seemingly just training with seals and scrolls as he had been lately. He was brilliant, he crowed and smiled at the ruse he had built up and the prize he won. He put all of his chakra into his palms, consolidating into thin slits across his palms, then using a kunai, slit on the control chakra, and pressed his palms to the old parchment. He then made a long series of hand signs, before taking some of the blood of the wounds and scrawling his name below the lists of rightful inheritors. It's not like there were more alive, why shouldn’t he take what's not being used? Besides fuck the village and the bullshit lineage-based hierarchy, He thought. I am my own family, my birth and understanding, what did my mother and father do except stand by idle or hurt me more? Focused chakra was beginning to burn his palms, but he kept up the flow. The pain quickly grew agonizing and spread throughout his entire chakra network, his body was on fire it felt like each chakra point was exploding with a foreign feeling. It was his chakra, but it bent and rearranged, he felt the pathways in his body distort and weave back together, and when he looked at his palms, he was beyond relieved to see that the kekkei genkai had transferred. In response to his sharp grin were two on his palms. Suddenly his art was a part of his anatomy, as it had always felt to Deidara. It was like having a limb returned, it felt natural to infuse clay with chakra through his palm mouths. They were a new feeling and slightly hard to control, but his chakra network felt perfect. Gone were the days of putting handmade explosion tags on his sculptures, now he and his art were one.

And so he left. On a clay bird, he flew over his old village a changed man, leagues stronger than earlier this morning. He threw bombs everywhere raining down on the village with the parting gifts of beauty, art, and devastation.

~~~~~

And now, the seraphim stood before him. Tranquility shattered and memory restored.

“No-” his voice cracked, he looked back at you with tears welling. Not with fear or any other possible emotion except hurt. You stood watching the ink spot and the beautiful boy who blended in with the soft swaying grasses, and you knew everything had changed.

“Deidara, you know you can’t stay here,” The intruder stated, and for a second Deidara looked like a caged animal, his head whipped around in search of comfort, landing only on you. You– everything pure in his life. All these years spent chasing explosions and art, and the one calm—kind– person he meets… he… loves.

And so like a wild animal, he runs from fear, from the Scylla of love to the Charybdis of fear, he chooses to brave the fear of the fight, rather than the fear of this swirling emotion.

“Hm, it was only time before you caught up to me, ha!” He masked his emotions and put on the arrogance of his time in the Akatsuki, “Well, finally, hn! I was getting bored here, with nothing to fight, no one to impress with my art, un.”

Maybe, just maybe, you could believe heartbreak was a physical thing. Because at this moment, you felt a taught cord pulled through your neck, burning, and your chest unable to breathe in or out. Not in the years of hiding from your emotions and drawing in self-loathing and pity, drawing in disgust, and here you were– what felt like rock bottom.

The tears didn’t come, but they burned in your eyes unshed. You would not let him humiliate you, or hurt you so much. No, you could face this pain.

“Ah, let me get my cloak, hn. I’ll be right back.” He said jovially to the strange man. Now that he said it, the cloak you found near the crash site was identical to the one this shadow was wearing.

He walked right past you. Not a glance. A smile plastered on his face, it looked so natural. How could you not believe what he said, after all the time he spent avoiding you, and now this confession, you knew. You were nothing to him. You were just another stupid idiot, another fool to appreciate his art, a faceless onlooker used for only compliments and help. God, you felt so fucking stupid.

And just like that, you were alone. Again.

You were stunned and stood still as Deidara returned with his cloak in hand and strutted to the man. No goodbye. No ‘thanks, hn!’. Only a glance back at you and a soft smile, and maybe that's what broke your heart the most. That he would dare to show you such tenderness, even for a millisecond when he has now upturned your heart.

You just stood still as they walked away. You knew no one would stop even if you ran screaming and crying, even if you tried to hurt Deidara in anger, even if you said—lied–that you had never cared either. Everyone leaves. It was you who was stupid to think he would stay. You knew from the beginning, how could you forget? How dare you let him care for you. How dare your heart ache so much when the cold breeze of night blew in and you stumbled inside, and you caught sight of the tree he used to sit beneath.

It was over. IT WAS FUCKING OVER.

No one cared for you. Suddenly you were the same as years ago and nothing had changed. You were out back on the streets, abandoned by everyone you thought had loved you. You ex-addict and ex-alcoholic, you walking heartbreak, you stupid abandoned coward...You were numb. And maybe for tonight, that was okay. You didn’t want to feel anything right now. The world looked far away, it didn’t feel real.

But as soon as you fell into your futon, and smelled the lingering scent he left-so warm and soft-, you screamed your voice raw.

Chapter Text

It had been a while since you last tasted the sting of reality.

This syrupy summer, a torrent of constant action, change, and blooming affection, had left your palette wet and wanting more, but none came.

When day after day, you prepared food for one, and mistakenly made food for two, or looked under the shade of the tree with words bursting forth, only to realize no one was there… you accepted the bitter reality.

Deidara was gone.

And so life continued.

Or at least you wished it would.

For someone who had only dropped into your life, oh so briefly, the crater left behind was catastrophic.

After he had left, things got worse. You spiraled mentally in a way you hadn’t in a while. All of your progress felt like paint swirling down a drain. And so did the booze swirl down the bottleneck.

You had broken out the sake you kept just in case you had guests or a celebration and drank yourself to sleep nearly every night. You tried to forget the loneliness by engrossing yourself in daytime work, creating a cycle of overwork which you would collapse from. Then you would binge drink and hide away from the world for days on end, before returning to punish your body and emotions with more hard work.

It was not a livable life, and that was what you wanted.

One of the tempestuous nights of solitude, you stumbled into the living room wanting to pass out when you saw something sticking out of the sketchbook you had not touched in weeks.

As you flipped through the book, looking at sketches and remembering each memory that went with the pencil lines, the soft worn pages fell to reveal a letter. There was one word written on the envelope in messy jagged handwriting, “Sorry”.

It was obviously from Deidara, but all you could think was, I’d not seen his handwriting before.

You flipped it over and messily tore the letter open, inside were pages of notes. You pulled the topmost one out.

“Hey,
it’s a little weird to be writing this I guess, but I thought I might write down my thoughts before I remember anything– Just to you know preserve my impressions?
Anyways. You are in the garden right now working hard. I’m “drawing” under the big old tree next to your house. But really I couldn't draw anything, I just gave up and began to write… I guess.
I never really write, so this is strange for me— even though I can’t remember who I am, I know these small details about myself, whether or not I write often, what I like to eat, my favorite colors and sounds,”

When did he have the time to write this? The idiosyncrasies in his handwriting made your gut pull with longing for the other human presence.

“But recently I love the sound of your laughter. I dont think iv’e felt this way before. Or if I have, I can’t remember.

“I dont know love nor peace. These seem to be truths deep inside me. I feel like you know this feeling. When I meet your eyes I see my loneliness reflected back. You are a mirror to my soul and Im scared of that.

I want to ask for help but I dont know how I dont know how to ask

I dont know what I need help with, but I know that some part of you knows me”

He found himself fighting, fighting to get back to you. He had always been fighting. It never stopped. That was until he met you. Gone were the torturous feelings of the need to kill and the guilt that would ever so often wreck his body, he didn’t remember it back then, but now even when he remembered you the feelings dissipated.

But then, they came back even stronger. He felt sick to his stomach at the thought of the heartbreak your eyes reflected onto him when he scoffed and turned away. After all you had given him, all the peace. You. Taking in a nobody, hurt and suspicious to say the least, and he had to give it all up.

You needed better, you needed safety, something he could never provide. Years ago he swore he would never feel love, after all the pain others had made him feel, after betrayal after betrayal, pain after pain, he swore he wouldn’t. The day he turned his back on his home, he turned his back on human love. He needed one thing only: his art. But now, in the cold hallways, echoing with silent footsteps and swishing cloaks, he realized how pointless all his art was without someone to witness the glory– his glory.

Now he used his art– and admittedly it was beautiful, how could it not be– But in the beauty, he could only see you.

He was an actor in one big fucked play. He was playing a game as a pawn for Pein, for some mission he never believed in, for something he couldn’t give a fuck about. It was all he had before. The only beauty he knew. But now, he knew more.

You were fighting, fighting to stay afloat in your sea of anguish. The afternoon shadows darkened over your eyes and each day– a simple blessing– night fell and hid your torture from life.

Why did you try? You had tried before, you had won and now you were back. Back to the streets and the bottles and the pain and the loneliness. Now you no longer felt the joy of solitude only the sting of betrayal.

How dare he. How dare he leave you. How dare he care. He had no right to own your emotions like this. He was just another person in this sea of humanity. He was the apple at the bottom of the barrel, rotting up to your life. But he wasn’t. You could try and convince yourself to hate him– and part of you found it easy to– but the rest was hurt, wounded by love.

Comfort be damned.

Life would move on. You needed it.

You spent a month festering. Another seething. One more crying, and another resigned to your life alone, yet again.

Summer was gone, your work was stored, herbs drying, medicines smoking and preserved in jars. Now you looked as the first flakes of snow drifted down on the valley that felt ever-cast in sun, and it was all a dream. There had never been a visitor. Deidara had never fallen into your life. The hill where he fell was a silent grave. The rhododendron was the angel guardian of the barren ground where he once lay.

Your angel. Oh well. You sighed, as always.

You would just forget about it.

“I dont know what I need help with, but I know that some part of you knows me”

You would forget about it.

You needed to.

You walked out into the cold. You heard the snow beneath you, crunching and hardening underfoot. You were alive and you would stay alive. He had probably protected you from some vast unknown danger. The snow was cold on your fingers but it molded easily. And there you were making the little animals he used to make. You traced the paths you watched his fingers follow through the snow making a bird. You smiled for the first time in a while, it felt foreign to your face, but seeing the traces of his art etched a longing love into your face.

The snow creatures abandoned, you wandered farther. To the hill, to the bush, to where he fell. You sat there, freezing but alive. What did he fall from, what was he falling away from? Did he see your cabin as he fell? How had he thought in his original mind, before you knew him? Did he wish he had fallen onto your home? Destroying something more in his wake? Or was he wishing for salvation and tenderness this whole time?

Laying down you faced the gray sky and the barren branches of the bush. Maybe you fell asleep, but when you next opened your eyes you weren’t alone.

Business was usual. He worked with the bumbling idiot Tobi by his side. He knew nothing of the pain he knew, he was convinced. That cheerful creep had no clue the torture Deidara had to endure everyday now knowing the life of a civilian. A life of peace.

But the idiot did. In shrouded secrecy Obito– Madara– told Pein of the lost look in Deidara’s eyes. The Akatsuki were not fools to the silence the once-bombastic man now threatened. His disloyalty was an issue, but his skills were too much of an asset to dispose of– for now.

“I am sure you understand what must be done before any… unpleasant things happen with Deidara, Pein. Do not jeopardize our mission.” The oppressively deep voice rang through the stone walls of the Amegakure headquarters.

“Rest assured, nothing will come of it. After the next tailed beast is captured we will find an apt replacement. He need not know for now.”

“Don’t make foolish mistakes after all of our work. Dispose of the liability with due haste, or I will take matters into my own hands. His allegiance faded after that little–” Obito’s voice broke with a sneer, “-honeymoon with that pathetic civilian. We will have peace one day, but until then any possible liability must be taken care of.”

Deidara felt the energy change. It was near imperceptible, and even for someone who seems so unbothered and loud, he was acutely attuned to the actions of those around him. And with very subtle changes in Pein’s wording, he knew his time was coming to an end. What could he do? Not run, they would always find him, he was powerful, but he was no god.

Slowly, on dusty trails and miles and miles of roads a plan formed. He just needed a little more time. He needed to get away for just a bit, with the prophecy of upcoming death a weight lifted from his shoulders. It was only a matter of time until he died, so it didn’t matter what he did at the end of it all.

He had always had a suicidal streak.