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The Hitomi turns on, instead of breaking, when Deidara throws it against a tree. Maybe it didn't want to break. But it turns on and it lands and there's Deidara, back to the device, shaking with a desperate sort of fury. And he unleashes hell on the landscape around him
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Instead, he feels subdued, as he follows the train of though he'd started earlier to its natural conclusion.
The gods did this to Deidara, to get back at Sasori. This is his fault, because he'd acknowledged Deidara, because he'd reached out to him, and finally given in and accepted the connection he'd been resisting for two years.
They'd already snatched someone precious away from him once by revealing it to all be a lie, and now they were trying to do it again by destroying that person's mind.
He tries to focus on cooking, pushing down the guilt that is threatening to overwhelm him while he washes and drains the rice, rinsing it again and again until the water is clear, and his mind is clear.
This isn't a task he's particularly good at due to almost complete lack of practice after decades of not eating, although he's still capable of producing something edible enough.
Maybe they could both use a distraction.]
You can help if you're bored, you know. After all, I don't do this sort of thing particularly often.
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If he's nearer to Sasori, is he more sure he exists? Maybe. He'll stay close, then.]
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He is so used to the arguing, the bantering, the mockery, the teasing, that he doesn't know how to handle this.
His eyes keep flicking back and forth from Deidara, who's slicing a pickled radish so slowly and absently that Sasori is tempted to pull the knife out of his hands before his partner cuts himself, to where he's watching the rice simmer, and the only sounds breaking the awkward gulf of silence are the crackling of the fire and the soft bubbling of the rice simmering and the awkward thunk of the knife against the chopping board.
It's completely intolerable, and Sasori tries to break the silence as best he can.]
I-I'll reheat that leftover fish from lunch as well.
...Would you like to rest after you eat?
You can help me clean, if you aren't tired.
[He almost suggested that Deidara could help him with his puppets, but he doesn't want to go anywhere near the subject of art at all.]
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I'll help.
[He knows Sasori is worried, but he doesn't know what can be done about it.]
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Well, you'd better be willing to help. After all, it's your mess that we'll be cleaning up.
[Unfortunately, it is a less than successful effort. At least this time he'd kept his voice level.
This silence, it almost reminds Sasori of those first days of their partnership, those very early days.
Almost.
Then, it had been a glaring, sullen silence that Deidara had directed at him, a resentment at being forced to join the Akatsuki againt his will. Now it was listless, apathetic, a silence that came out of a complete lack of a desire to speak, rather than pure petulance.
It isn't long before everything is ready, and Sasori is spooning and plating rice and pickles and leftover fish quietly for his partner. He hasn't cooked for him in quite some time, only doing so during the rare times Deidara was ever injured, or ill.
It's the best he can do for Deidara at the moment, and it's immensely frustrating.
He will have to find out how to fix whatever that scroll did to his partner as soon as he can.
Later, when Deidara is asleep...he'll consider the problem more thoroughly. For now, he does what little he can.
He places plate and chopsticks and rice bowl on the low table that serves as his dining table (after it had been cleared of the puppet parts he'd been working on earlier.)]
Well, it's ready, so eat.
...You'd better not complain about the rice this time.
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I won't.
[He eats quietly--almost methodically, although it's not intentional so much as a result of hardly caring about the food. But Sasori told him to eat. So he finishes it and moves onto the cleaning.
It's easy to stop thinking when doing something like this. He falls into a pattern as he cleans, and his eyes dull even more as he falls into a thoughtless state of simply doing.
It's easier this way.]
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Even his puppets show more life than this, when he controls them. He sighs, and reaches for Deidara's hand to pull him towards the bedroom.]
I think you should get some rest now. Let's go.
[...There was a time, when he was young and still foolish, that Sasori would sleep nestled between them, those puppets that he'd made in the image of his parents. If he concentrated hard enough, he'd been able to pretend they were warm and soft, and it was comforting.
But they weren't, they'd always been cold and hard, and any comfort he'd deluded himself into deriving from them had fled the day the strings snapped.
He wonders now, while he quietly unfolds the futon and prepares for bed, how much comfort he can possibly offer to Deidara when his body is cold and hard, and his partner is far too old for such childish delusions.]
I'm sure you'll feel better in the morning, you're probably tired from all the excitement earlier. Come.
[And Sasori pulls Deidara down into their (it's not just his anymore) futon, and pulls him close, offering whatever comfort an embrace from a cold and hard puppet body possibly can.
Deidara hasn't smirked at him, or teased him, or tried to annoy him even once since he'd come back. Just like Sasori has always wanted, he's been quiet, he hasn't interrupted, he's listened, and he's obeyed.
And Sasori hates every second of it.
His arms tighten around his partner's warm body as he cuddles even closer, almost trembling from the distress that's eating away at him over Deidara's condition, and he wonders who's really comforting who here.
He'll fix it. He'd always been good at fixing broken things, puppets that had been smashed almost beyond recognition that were supposedly impossible to repair would be reshaped and remade by his hands to be better than they were to start with. It couldn't possibly be so difficult for him to fix Deidara, since all he wants to do is make him back the way he was.
He buries his face in Deidara's shoulder, and his lips tighten.
He'll fix it.]
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He has not made a habit of seeking comfort in others--people whose comfort is as ephemeral as they themselves are, people who he doesn't care about anyway. But his hands find their way around Sasori anyway, and his arms tighten, and he's not sure what he's doing, but he supposes it doesn't matter anyway, so he simply lays still after that.
Sasori's body is not something he thinks many would look to for comfort, but Deidara is not one who often looks for comfort, and so he thinks it fits.
But he doesn't want to think--not about anything, not after what happened. So he closes his eyes and stops. It's easier this way.]
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