wordsworn: My clockwork heart counts the seconds; I have no time for anyone but myself. (So very true.)
★ Writing Journal for Wordsworn ★ ([personal profile] wordsworn) wrote2009-01-11 09:52 pm

"Just So You Know, I Still Hate You (A Lot)" - Sasuke + Deidara (semi-AU)

Title: “Just So You Know, I Still Hate You (A Lot).” [2/5]
Author: [livejournal.com profile] alory_shannon
Genre: Gen. Some might say slight crack. Semi-AU, but *I* think it all makes sense, so not really I guess. :]
Rating: T.
Pairing: None. THAT THREAT OF A VERBAL BITCHSLAPPING? YEAH THAT'S STILL IN EFFECT.
Characters Featured: Sasuke, Deidara. :]
Summary: A few months after Akatsuki is defeated, Sasuke is captured by Cloud-nin and thrown into prison…and who happens to be in the next cell over comes as a pretty big surprise.

A/N: Phase, you might recognise a certain passage of the dialogue…but then again, it’s been a long time, so maybe not. :3
…Also, before anyone comments on this, I KNOW IT WOULDN’T BE CALLED MORSE CODE IN THEIR WORLD, but anything else I could’ve called it just sounded stupid and/or I couldn’t be sure people would understand what I meant. So whatev, deal with it. =P



--
Deidara has been tapping away at the metal wall of his cell for well over three hours now. Sasuke had succeeded in ignoring him at first, but every now and then the supposedly random tapping would slip into Morse code, and Sasuke hadn’t been able to keep himself from automatically translating the messages. He’d taken the taunts about Konoha and his own person with stoic impassivity, and though it had been more difficult, he hadn’t responded to the slights concerning the Uchiha clan as a whole and Itachi in particular either; but when the blonde artist dares to insult his mother, a line has been crossed, and Sasuke finally snaps.

“SHUT UP.” The snarl hurts as it tears its way up his raw, swollen throat, and it is only through sheer effort of will that he doesn’t dissolve into a coughing fit afterwards. He wants to add some sort of threat, but the knowledge that his voice will be ragged and gravelly and hardly intimidating since it will most likely crack prevents him from doing so; he’s forced to settle for simply glaring at the other shinobi.

Deidara meets his gaze straight on, giving him an insufferably droll grin and finishing the word he’s tapping out before lurching upright on his bunk. “Fine.” His voice is light and clear (despite the fact that he spends most of his time largely exposed to the frigid air with only his prison uniform to ward off the chill rather than wrapped in his blankets, the blonde doesn’t even have the traces of a cold, and Sasuke loathes him for it), and he leans his back against the wall coolly, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’ll stop…” His inflection adds a conditional element to those words, leaving it a dangling, pointed if.

But if he expects Sasuke to press him for those conditions, he’s going to be disappointed; the Uchiha simply continues to give him the same flat glare, one that promises that, should he ever get the chance, revenge will be swift and merciless.

“…I’ll stop if you’ll actually say something every now and then, yeah,” Deidara finally continues. “I don’t know how you can stand being so boring, but it’s annoying to talk to someone without getting any sort of response.” The blonde gives him what is probably intended to be a winning smile, though there’s far too much smirk and latent hostility in it for him to quite pull it off. “Do we have a deal, hmm?”

Sasuke’s scowl doesn’t lighten, but he doesn’t say no or look away, which Deidara (correctly) takes as grudging nonverbal agreement. But that’s not good enough for him at the moment—he wants it in words, wants to hear Sasuke give in, because as always even this is about winning.

“I said, do we have a deal, hmm?” Lazily he raises a hand to begin tapping again, but before his knuckles can make contact with the metal, Sasuke speaks.

“Yes, we have a deal.”

His voice is low and quiet, slightly rough with sickness, and, despite the fact that he is giving in, that this can only be seen as submitting, there are still shreds of pride in the way he’s closed his eyes to the blonde’s smirk, the way he’s so calmly refused to let this mean anything him.

And Deidara’s smirk turns to a snarl as he realises that once again, he hasn’t really won at all.

--

Sasuke does keep up his end of the bargain, though for the most part Deidara seems glad enough just to hear the sound of his own voice and know someone’s listening. Considering the fact that his “art” is all he ever really wants to talk about, Sasuke is content to let him carry the conversations, only giving a response when the blonde’s expression makes it clear that he expects one. Regardless of that, they’ve still managed to get into more than a few arguments, the entirety of which have ended with Deidara fuming and sulking and Sasuke realising all-new levels of apathy.

Their current conversation is warming up to yet another fight (it had started with “You know, you really should have died when we fought before, yeah, and I’ll tell you why” and things hadn’t really had anywhere to go except downhill from there), and really Deidara should know better than to bring up this particular topic (some genius, but then again intelligence and common sense often did tend to be mutually exclusive, oddly enough), but Sasuke has more than vague suspicions that the blonde chooses touchy subjects on occasion just to get a rise out of him.

But two can play at that game; so this time, Sasuke gives his opinion without waiting for it to be asked for:

“Nothing you’ve said changes the fact that killing yourself to kill me was stupid and meaningless.”

“Wrong,” the blonde says, a feral grin snapping into place to cover his flash of irritation at being interrupted, though it’s just a second too slow. “The sight of fear shining in THOSE EYES, even just for an instant, for that flickering fraction of a second, was well worth the price I paid. Because it made you look, made you pay attention, made you notice and appreciate my art in all its glorious, deadly power. Because it made you feel. Because for once in your dull, boring, screwed-up life, that implacable too-pretty porcelain poker face of yours cracked, and something real and honest and worthwhile shone through, yeah.”

Sasuke gives a low snort, unmoved by either the tirade or the passion with which it’s delivered. “Is that really the case? Or do you simply like the idea of seeing fear on my face because you’ll never see it on Itachi’s, and I was close as you could get?”

When that earns him an aggravated look from the blonde, Sasuke knows that he’s hit the nail on the head, despite Deidara’s immediate claims to the contrary. “Of course it’s really the case, yeah! What could be more perfect, what could be a better, more fitting end to an artist’s life than becoming one with their work, and making someone who’s never really given a damn about anyone but themselves actually CARE about something that’s important to someone else for once? Even if it’s for the wrong reasons, it’s still something, yeah.”

“But you didn’t die.”

There’s something strangely powerful about those four little words. Deidara gives an odd backwards jerk, a haunted look flitting over his face, settling in his eyes, his overconfident grin vanishing in an instant. He curls inward just slightly, defensively, and glowers with an entirely new sort of anger at the Uchiha, fresh rage over a still-tender wound rather than smouldering hatred over wrongs long past.

There’s no way he could know, the blonde tells himself and huddles in a little more, grasps his own arms a little tighter. There’s no way there’s no way there’s no way I haven’t told him haven’t said a word he couldn’t know there’s no way. But there is a way, he knows this, and it sets his teeth on edge to even consider it but after all he’s been through, he’d be a fool not to admit (just to himself) that those eyes could have seen something, could have seen through him, could have picked up on the true aftereffects of what he’d thought would be his final jutsu, his masterpiece, his magnum opus.

He thinks of asking, of having it confirmed, but the fading scars on his arms and the rapid growth of his hair and the fact that he’s grown two inches in the past few months and the way that he knows that it’s cold and he can feel the chill in the stone and the metal and the air surrounding him and yet it doesn’t touch him the same way it used to are more than convincing enough to be a confirmation and, what’s more, in his mind, a condemnation. Still he considers asking, just as he has fleetingly hundreds of times already, but his tongue feels as heavy and immovable in his mouth as the mountains he grew up in, and the capacity for verbal communication has utterly deserted him.

But you didn’t die.

Ironic how five simple syllables could scatter all his innumerable ones like so much chaff.

And while he’s grasping about in a vain attempt to get them back, trying to shut out his own self-doubt, his own self-loathing, Sasuke pins him with a red-eyed stare (the first time he’s used his Sharingan since he’s been imprisoned here, and he’s surprised he can manage it while wearing those cuffs) and deals the finishing blow:

“In any case…these eyes have never looked at you with fear.”

It’s a curious intonation, a strangely-placed but nonetheless unshakably firm emphasis on that fourth word, and it leaves Deidara curious, confused, and gaping. Sasuke almost thinks there’s something familiar about his expression, as if he’s seen it before; he can’t know it, but the blonde artist is looking at him now the same way he’d once looked at Itachi, something like surprise and dawning comprehension and awe rendering him unable to think, to speak, to move, only able to look on and wonder and envy and almost, almost admire.

Sasuke doesn’t expect him to understand those words--in fact, he rather hopes he doesn’t: it might earn him some peace and quiet if his fellow prisoner has a riddle to beat his head against. Closing his eyes, he lets the Sharingan fade away, bowing his head slightly, and though it has been a long time since he’s considered himself worthy of praying for anyone, Sasuke has no such reservations about indulging in a moment of gentle remembrance and remorse-filled gratitude towards the person who’d truly given up everything to protect him...and who watched over him still, had opened his eyes to the world once more in more ways than one. For Sakura had done him one last favour before he’d left her behind…

It’s the laughter that breaks his train of thought. He’s well used to being yelled at and having Deidara give him the cold shoulder, but this laughter, far more chilling than the frigid stone or the frosty air, is something entirely new. Wary of this, he slowly opens his eyes, not certain of what he’ll find himself looking at, not certain he even wants to know.

It’s that grin again, the one that’s just a little too wide and toothy and that makes Deidara look more than a little unstable (which he is of course) and that makes Sasuke feel more than a little uneasy despite the promised safety of the bars separating them. Sasuke hates that grin even more than Deidara’s smug little smirks, because this expression never fails to send a shiver down his spine that has nothing to do with the cold. Sasuke is fully aware that after everything he’s been through, he’s probably every bit as crazy as the blonde artist, but he also knows full well that their respective mental instabilities are decidedly different—Deidara’s makes him a great deal more unpredictable and therefore a great deal more dangerous, a fact his eyes alone make readily apparent; every time they catch at the Uchiha’s (especially when he’s wearing that unsettling grin), Sasuke can’t help but stare back just long enough to clearly read here there be monsters lurking in their depths.

Deidara is murmuring something now, legs drawn up to his chest, face buried in his knees, rocking back and forth a little. Muffled as it is, Sasuke can’t quite make out what he’s saying, which is irritating, but at the same time he can’t help but be relieved that at least the laughter has stopped. The murmuring continues, steadily growing louder, and Sasuke manages to make out what sounds like, “So blind, so, so blind” before the blonde suddenly goes completely still and silent.

He doesn’t move until the guards come to take them to the showers, and even then he’s silent, his face set and thoughtful.

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