Bursting Red

“You bastard.”

My eyes were tightly shut, waiting for the pain to strike my nerves and kill me as I knew they would, but nothing came. I wasn’t the one who got stabbed I realized as a grunt of pain invaded my mind. A flash of yellow caught my sights when my eyes flew open in panic, “Deidara-kun, you-” The blade stuck out of his shoulder, a deep wound to say the least and as the light shone through the window I could see the shine of blood on his cloak. He caught the knife barely, sparing my life. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t speak, and when my eyes caught sight of another person I trembled even harder.

Tobi stood to my left, his hands to his head and bouncing from one foot to the other, panicking. He did it, he got Deidara for me but how was he able to move that fast? “Dammit! Tobi what the fuck did I tell you?” Hidan snarled, crouching down into a defensive stance while his eyes never left Deidara’s obvious rage. The blonde shinobi yanked the knife out of his shoulder and dropped it to the floor. Blood pounced up and fell back down in perfect round droplets.

“Her life is worth nothing to you. What have you got to gain, hm?” Deidara growled, throwing his left hand deep within the pouch he held on his hip.

“And it’s worth that much to you that you’re able to go and nearly sacrifice yourself?” Hidan laughed loudly, throwing his head back and clapping a hand to his forehead. “That’s a fucking riot, you people are so pathetic. And to think they took a kid like you in…what were they thinking?”

“Deidara, refrain.” All heads snapped towards the voice in the doorway, there stood Itachi with Sasori behind him wearing a skeptical expression on his face. “Hidan, leave now. This is not the time nor place for that.” Itachi’s voice cut through the tension like a knife, all seriousness in his tone. I noticed those scarlet eyes were back, he wasn’t playing around and he made that clear. His eyes briefly flashed towards me before he stepped forward.

“Tobi went and got help for Nezumi-chan.” The masked man was standing near my shoulder and he whispered it to me as if Hidan hadn’t already noticed what he had done. I nodded, my voice not wanting to speak up and say thank you aloud. The silver haired nin stood up straight, cast a dirty look at Itachi and rounded out of the kitchen without another look back. I didn’t regain my awareness until Deidara clapped a hand onto his wounded shoulder.

“Dammit, that asshole really got me,” he muttered angrily. I turned on my heel as fast as I could, trying to hold back the tears that were quickly welling up.

“Itachi-san please, you have those bandages in your room still right?” Deidara stopped me short with a look that could kill.

“I don’t want those, hm. I don’t need anything, now what the hell just happened?” He snarled at me and for a second I figured I would burst into tears just from his tone. But I didn’t, I straightened my back and held my hands tightly clasped in front of me.

Tobi raised his hand eagerly, waving about in front of the Angry blonde. “Tobi saw the whole thing! Hidan-san was hurting Nezumi-chan while-” Deidara whipped around and glared nastily at Tobi who shrank back in fear.

“I wasn’t asking you!”

“Be nice to him!” I yelled suddenly, catching everyone in the room off guard. “If it wasn’t for him I would be dead right now. You’ve no right to yell at him like that.” Deidara’s eyes went wide, staring at me in disbelief. Almost like he couldn’t believe I had the nerve to speak to him like that. Once I realized my mistake however, I quickly recovered. “As for you, arigato Deidara-kun. You saved my life as well and for that I am endlessly in your debt.” I bowed, keeping my head down until he spoke. I couldn’t stop the tears from slipping out and they fell to floor almost loudly as the whole room was dead quiet.

“Cut that manners onna, hm. Tell me what happened, now.” I looked up at once, his eyes were daring me to backtalk and quickly I averted my eyes away.

“He…he came after me. Like last time, except this time Sasori-san wasn’t there to handle it.” I heard the puppet grunt at me, trying to make sure everyone knew he hadn’t handled anything, more or less he did it for his own benefit. “Tobi-san saw everything, that man…he implied that I would be his sacrifice. I didn’t know what to do!” My eyes shut and I yelled, the whole room stayed quiet. “I stabbed him first but I had no choice! I can’t protect myself here, from anything.” My legs felt weak and I dropped to the floor in a pathetic pile. I felt more like a scolded child than I did an almost dead pile of meat. I couldn’t even make myself look up. “I would have been better off with just getting stabbed by him.” Deidara’s free hand wrapped around my hair and yanked my head back, his face a mask of rage. He ignored my cry of sudden pain and crouched down lower to see eye to eye with me.

“Don’t you say that!” His hand loosened and let go and he stepped back looking almost afraid. “You can’t die, you can’t leave.” I dropped my head just in time to see him mouth the words, I’m sorry. I can’t deny I didn’t deserve that.

“Let me tell you something, brat.” Sasori’s bored voice said over the now quiet room. “If she becomes a burden, or better yet a distraction to you. She will be cut loose. And not on any of our orders, let it be known that her death is starting to feel inevitable. Whether you like it or not.” He turned on his heel and started walking away, turning his head slightly to give a few more farewell words. “Better start thinking of a plan.” He smirked and walked out of sight. Deidara glanced down at me, pained. He couldn’t willingly, he had brought me too far.

I had to do something to convince him otherwise.

I didn’t want to leave him but the truth was becoming clear. I would either die here and be forgotten, or get away and be able to remember him the way he once was. It seemed like an easy choice but ultimately, I had never faced one so challenging. “Please Itachi-san, let me have some of your bandages.”

“Hn.” He walked away from me but I knew he wouldn’t ignore me so easily. He didn’t want it to be seen but I knew, there was a softer edge to him. Maybe only I saw it because I was the only one here with a heart that could still feel pain and sympathy. But no doubt, he was hurting deep under that layer of ice and a part of him desperately wanted something different.

Different from this chaos they called the Akatsuki.

My head was heavy on my shoulders and slowly I forced my legs to move and hold my weight. I didn’t look at him nor speak, but I took his limp hand in mine and led us back down the corridor to our room. Once I opened the door I noticed a vile of medicine and a roll of bandages on the bed and a small smile appeared. He was different, but not different enough. I knew as well as he did he would die still tied to this place. Just like they all would. We sat wordlessly and I slipped his cloak off to expose his arm, he had a tear straight through the fishnet portion of his sleeve. Understanding, he took it off and held his arm out to me. “Look at me.” I managed to say, he tilted his head at me and form under his hair I could see those bright eyes I fell in love with somehow dulling. He gave a small laugh and shook his head.

“For once, what do you want?” Lifeless fingers brushed against his skin as I wound the bandage around his medicated arm. Tight enough to stop the blood but open enough so it could breathe. I didn’t know what to say and so I didn’t. Before he could pester me for not asking, the door to our room flew open.

“Tobi brought Nezumi-chan tea. We wouldn’t want you getting sick!” He shouted happily, holding in his hands a tray with two tea cups and a steaming tea pot. Deidara grumbled but politely didn’t say anything, on both our parts I bowed nicely and took the tray away from him.

“Arigato Tobi-san. I have to apologize for earlier, I didn’t mean to put you on the spot asking you to get help for me.” He shook his head about, as kind as he was I still could not imagine what someone like him would be doing here.

“No, no, no. Tobi did what had to be done, and look at the bright side, now you can play with Tobi all day long tomorrow!” I smiled as best I could and told him I would, he left happy and loudly as I expected.

“I have a question,” I asked once we were alone again. “How did you get there so fast?”

“Hm? What do you mean? Tobi came flying out of a tree and told us that you were being attacked by that other guy. I mean, I ran as fast as I could, yeah?” I shook my head, letting him know that wasn’t was I was talking about.

“Tobi-san left and you appeared in less than a minutes time. I know you’re ninja and all but there are some things even ninja’s cant do. And that’s defy time.” He shrugged his shoulders and looked away, wincing as I tied the bandage shut. “ Deidara-kun?”

“Hm?”

“I want to go home.” His eyes dropped a level and he glanced at his hands, the tongues of each palm were licking about and almost appeared to be grinning. Angrily, he clasped his palms tightly shut. With another stifled grunt he laid down, putting his hands behind his head and staring at the ceiling. Unwillingly I glazed my eyes over his long, lean figure and noted mentally how low his pants were slung on his hips.

Now was definitely not the time for this.

He quirked an eyebrow at me and grinned, “having problems onna?” My arms were quickly crossed and I looked away defiantly, replying with a short ‘no’. I received a sharp jab in the rib for that and I fell back with a yelp. The sound of his laughter was like music and I found myself laughing not too long after that. Everything went away then. The pain, the reality, it was just us now and this only made us laugh harder.

It was so ridiculous but damn, it felt nice.

I wiped a tear from my cheek and hummed, rolled over and looked at his red face. He grinned at me before he came down to my level on the bed. Side by side with me he kissed my nose and told my boldly, “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Sharing smiles his lips crushed mine and he rolled onto his back. Using the last of my strength I forced myself up on my elbows and stared over him, by short copper hair didn’t even skim his cheeks. “I missed this.” His hand found it’s way up to my cheek and kindly, he brushed his hand along my jaw.

“So did I, hm. Why can’t we do this more?”

“Maybe it’s because we’re trapped in a cave with a bunch of blood thirsty shinobi.” We stared blankly at each other before bursting into another fit of laughter. It was the truth but every now and then a little bit of denial felt good. When we contained ourselves once more we laid down side by side, hands clasping hand and legs dangling off the short side of the bed. “Tell me, have you got a plan?”

“More or less, un. I’m thinking we need to go out with a bang,” he grinned at his own pun and brought his hand up to his face, eyeing his palm curiously. “It has to be believable, how fast can you run?” A small bite of laughter left my mouth and he frowned, taking the hint. “Well then it’s settled. We’re going to fake your death, yeah?” Curiously I tilted my head in his direction. Did he really think we could trick everyone here into believing I was dead?

“Sounds complicated.” I murmured, losing some faith as I thought this over. He laughed himself and looked at me full on, his blonde hair falling over his shoulder so I could see his entire face.

“Faking a death can be no harder than covering up one.” With a flat face I glanced him over, earning a rather childish grin in response.

This was going to be some scandal.