[LOG] Deidara and Shisui
Characters: Shisui and Itachi. Always Itachi. Deidara :D
Setting: The castle and the dead garden behind it
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Shisui making little to no sense at all and gory memories.
Summary: Shisui does The Bad and leaves his room (omigod) to explore and is promptly caught by Deidara, in which Shisui confuses him, but successfully convinces him to not kill him, and they go out for tea. (Yes this remains IC stfu. >>)
Shisui had always been somewhat curious in nature. (-Curious may not even be the word. Interested. He didn't take hollow answers to be accepted. Even if it meant to go find the answers himself.) The Vanity mirror told him he didn't look any more (Self) battle-scarred than usual, and the longsleeved outfits and thick pants kept him warm and (-protected. From the eyes of those who see too much.) He touches his bottom lip gingerly, the small bruise formed upon the cherry flesh making his lips even darker against his pale. (He wonders if he'll ever have his summer tan again. Eleven years with no light. How dark it is indeed.)
He pulls in hood of the sweeping cloak over his head, letting the stray strands of black cascade in his face, around his cheeks and keeping it tucked. (If he is in danger, all he has to do (can do) is run. And he can run forever if he has to. He'd always been so fast.) The door feels much too hard against his palm when he presses against it, and the sound of hinges twisting and the wood unhooking from the frame was a clockwork of pleasant sounds, something free.
He eyes the corridor and smiles.
Ah, the burnt smell of explosives and coppery odor of human blood, a wonderful aroma indeed. Deidara’s lips were curled into a satisfied (and sadistic) grin as he ascended the stairs, fingers curling in excitement. It was great. Bird v.3.0 was his greatest masterpiece yet. Just remembering the explosions and the screams and bright fire and charred human flesh made his toes curl in delight. The artistic value of it all, the beauty of it all was incredible. Oh how he wished Sasori could recognize it.
The hem of his sleeves smelled like smoke. And sulfur. And blood. His boots were probably stained with dried blood and explosive powder. He decided that he loved the life of an artist. Eyes glinted in glee as light fell into sight, Deidara made a run for it, the thrill had yet to be calmed inside his body.
And then, right there, at the corner, was somebody he didn’t know.
“… Who are you, un?”
Eyes narrowed as he stepped toward the boy (A very young boy, too, probably still in his teens.) who had half of his face hidden behind the hood of his cloak. Definitely somebody he didn’t know. To think that this person had infiltrated into the castle was ridiculous. The boy looked so pale and feeble. Probably would collapse under a breeze or something. Too weak.
Shisui's eyes squint together in a small amount of agitation (Already-?!) as he turns to the stench of burning flesh and clay reaches his nose and his eyes begin to water in reflex. (Shisui hates fire. The smell, the heat, the pain, the burn- because, in essence, Shisui and Itachi are just the same. Itachi is only frozen.) His lips, (-everyone had always told him they were far too feminine) tighten a little, and his black eyes sweep to the figure before him.
For a fleeting second, the blond is ignited, and he forces back initial horror as the fleeting moment of hallucination flies past him. (Ohmygodohmygodohmygod-)
Exhale.
(I'd sing for you, stranger~
You were always a strange one.
Maybe so.)
He smiles in his strange little way.
"Depends."
Curious. As Deidara steps closer to the boy, and the more he takes in the kid’s appearance, the more he looks like Itachi. But it can’t be. The Uchiha family was wiped out. Nobody was left. So probably dark eyes, dark hair are just common traits in Konoha. Yes, just a random stranger.
A stranger that could infiltrate the Akatsuki, no less.
The boy’s answer irks him. While Deidara has no qualms about puzzles, there is something about this kid that feels so strange, yet so familiar. He doesn’t seem dangerous, though. There is no threat that the blonde could feel coming from that small body. No malice, no hatred, no killing instinct. Nothing.
Like a dead man.
A horrified corpse. (That pale skin had almost no color to it.)
“Who let you in here, un?”
His curiosity is peaked now. How this strange person could get in the castle, how he could move around without anybody noticing, it intrigues Deidara. And he takes another step forward, closing the distance between them.
Shisui raises a hand and takes a few locks of hair behind his left ear, the bangs at his right curving around his chin and resting at his lips in the locks ragged and uneven from when he'd cut it himself. His gaze remains fixed on Deidara with a gentle to it, a gaze unthreatened by hard tone or what he'd heard of the Akatsuki.
(Shisui, in essense, is the most chaotic form of calm the world has to offer. A river can never be still.)
"-He did."
There is a Universality to the answer in which Shisui knows it will work. Because everyone has a He. (For Shisui, Itachi is He. Itachi is He because he is closest to him. This blond man has his He. Everyone in the castle has a He. Someone to fear, hate, or even love, under circumstance.) He knows it's cruel to use such a tactic, but as it is, is.
And he isn't lying.
(Nomoreliesnomoreliesnomorelies.)
Black into blue.
"Ara? Who are you?"
A corner of Deidara’s eye twitches. He is getting a bit irritated. This boy would not give a straight answer. But at the same time, he is entranced. That absent look in those dark eyes, the marred skin, that voice, they are haunting. It’s like this stranger is not of this world. It’s like he was some other being that looks the same yet so different from others.
“Who is he? I need a name.”
The blonde growls, a hand coming to rest on his hip and his eyes harden. If the boy wasn’t going to answer, he would have to get the answer the hard way. But then, if they tortured him, the kid probably wouldn’t last… with that body…
Or he could be deceptively frail.
Deidara can’t trust anyone. Not even in the Akatsuki.
They are all murderers and liars.
"But doesn't that bring us back to the beginning? A name only depends on the situation."
Shisui knows he is irritating the man, but he knows that, in the same sense, the man is enjoying to hear him speak. (Because if he wasn't, Shisui would be running, and he would run and run and run until he had lost himself in the pulsing stones of the castle and the man is long, long lost.) "I am authorized to be here, and I have absolutely no ill intent. I am merely on a walk to somewhere probably you know, though I do not. These walls aren't remembered yet."
Shisui smiles softly, the deep, covered sadness in his eyes almost visible for a second or two. (Come back to me, cousin. I'm lonely here.) Ache, and that sadness is gone, replaced with a dull throb to run up his right arm, tugging at his barely reformed veins and tendons and sending a burn once the pain like a snap of bone had dissipated. (He never cries out. He waits for it to pass.)
"Would you come with me?"
He eyes the man with a questioning.
"And tell me your name-? I will return such with glad."
He can’t.
He can’t let himself be strung along by this boy’s words. He is a member of the Akatsuki. He is strong and hardened. Nothing can affect him. He keeps telling himself that. He knows that. His eyes narrow even more. This kid had promised reassurances, but there is no guarantee that any of what he said was true. Deidara isn’t going to trust somebody he just met, much less somebody in the castle without his knowledge (Deidara knows things, he is naturally curious like that, but not very openly about it. He is sneaky, yeah.)
“Deidara.”
But he answers.
Maybe the best way to get an answer is to give them one in return. He doesn’t like it, but it works, most of the times. Yielding may be the best offense, a better way to gain information.
Oh yes he would love to know who is shielding this boy.
“Where exactly are you going?”
And another question of his own.
Shisui smiles. (A curve of the lips and the ring between them shines merrily, one of three metals pierced into his skin, one of far too many stories of needles in Shisui's room, hiding under covers and "ITACHI THAT HURT-" But he loves them all. Every piercing. Every tattoo. Every scar. Every last bruise.) "Deidara…" The name rolls off his tongue like water as he tests it, and he finds such a name suiting. Deidara. "I am Shisui. It is a pleasure to meet you."
Taking the hood of the cloak now deeming it safe to let the man see him completely, he let the cool air of the corridor brush his now warm cheeks, flushed slightly from compacting in his thick clothing, and bowed his head slightly to the new acquaintance. Shisui was far too used to hardened, suspicious eyes on him to care much about it.
("Shisui, can I talk to you for a minute?" The deep voice of Fugaku stops the brunette in his tracks, and he turns slightly, eyeing Itachi in a way to tell him that he'd catch up (Shisui always did.) "Mm, yes sir?" And he knows it's somewhat disrespectful to treat his clan elder with a loose fashion, but it is the fluid in his voice, and he cannot stop it. "Now you listen here-" And the voice gets quieter and angrier, and Shisui flinches somewhere deep inside, underneath his skin and ink and far past his heart. "-I don't want you rubbing off on my son." Shisui gives him a look. (Irritated, it says, but in that place past Shisui's heart, he screams painful melodies.) "Sir, your son is already the best in the clan. I can rub off nothing further-" A glare that penetrates close to that place. "You know exactly what I mean, boy. I know your type." An uncharacteristically malignant pause before Shisui's gaze returns to his uncle, a look of knowing in his eyes that he is well aware angers the man. "It's alright sir." A pause and Shisui's eyes soften somewhat. "-But I'm afraid I have nothing more to rub onto Itachi." The smirk on Shisui's face lasts even as Fugaku tries to beat it away. I'll catch up with you Itachi.)
"Well, Deidara, I guess that depends." (He doesn't mean to annoy everyone like he does. Perhaps it takes a genius to understand and tolerate Shisui completely.) "Do you see any stars outside?" He raises a finger to the window at the end of the corridor, his skin dry and depleted of color (Like a fresh corpse. The color had barely returned to his cheeks since that day.) though glossed with honey colored sunlight from the open windowpane.
For a full minute, Deidara studies the face that was revealed before him, eyes keenly fixated on the intricate work of nature. This boy... bears such a close resemblance to that man… so similar that the alchemist almost mistook him for the other had he not heard the voice (Itachi’s voice had a little more of life in it.) There is no doubt about it, this boy was related to Itachi. By blood. Only by blood. Deidara can swear by his life that there is no other bloodline in this world could produce such offspring that looks so much like another’s.
His other eye rolls to the left then immediately returns to glue on the boy’s face and stature. “Yes, I see a star.” Deidara is technical. His golden threads of hair shield his eyes from the light falling from the window
Shisui isn't oblivious to the stare. (He got that look, or one similar, by most of the townsfolk after he spoke. But something about Deidara's stare didn't make him feel awkward because yet another person had mistaken his gender, but more of penetrating interrogation. The stripping of layers from face value, and the widening of blue eyes as they stare into black.) But he doesn't make mention of it. He doesn't need to.
He extends a hand, offering it to Deidara and exposing the corner or a very deep scar on his mostly covered right wrist. (Hunting knife. Two in the morning. Insomnia and the taste of poison on his lips. Itachi away. Too far away.) "Deidara, how many do you see?" (And Shisui's hand shakes slightly, because he doesn’t usually touch anyone but Itachi, but he wants to have someone with him for the now, not love him, but just be there. He wants someone.)
Come with me, and we can go to Neverland.
(Shisui believes in everything.)
The alchemist eyes the hand, pupils scanning the pale surface of the skin, looking so smooth and silky yet marred with ghastly wounds. His expression indifferent. He had seen much worse, had caused much worse, several gashes that had frozen into scars will not faze him, nor make him feel any sympathy for this boy. If any, there are curiosity and intrigue that draw him towards the other. The desire to know more, to learn more about him, the surprisingly warm atmosphere radiating from a dead-looking body. They are there, pushing Deidara towards Shisui with invisible force.
He doesn’t take the hand.
“Where?”
His voice is cold. He offers no comfort, no support, no warmth. The only warmth that he provides is the scorching explosion heat. Art. (The heat is art, what it does is art, what remains is art. Everything is art.)
Deidara's tone reminds him of the first time he met Itachi. (The day had been cold and Shisui's mother had dropped him off for Mikoto to watch over him, and he doesn't know how old they had been, but he knows it had been when his mother was still trying to convince herself that Shisui was a girl and would doll him up in dresses and matching shoes and style his hair in curly pigtails. "Hi!"
Itachi looks up at Shisui with a momentary mixture of confusion and irritation. (-Like "How dare you interrupt my time in the sand box?" But the sand wasn't erratic blobs of oddly shaped earth, they were precise, and steadily, they formed something towering, and Mikoto couldn't be more proud of her son's artistic abilities.) "Hello."
And Shisui flinches a little at the hard of the tone, but sits down, pulling the petticoats of his dress under his bottom as to not get sand in his shorts. He smiles at Itachi, bowing his head, before gazing at the sand castle with a fleeting set of emotions marked with amaze and comprehension. "Who are you?"
Itachi takes a twig and digs it into the top of his castle, eyeing the piece with something like detest. (Why did I waste myself creating such nonsense? Is it really~? Yes-) He flicks his eyeline to Shisui, putting his chin in his palms where his elbows rest neatly on his knees. (They aren't scraped like most boy's. Itachi never falls.) "Itachi."
Shisui smiles. "I am Shisui. Do you want to play with me?"
Itachi eyes him somewhat warily, standing up and dusting sand from his jeans and not really waiting for Shisui to follow suit. (But he does.) "Isn't that a boy's name?"
"Ara?" Shisui tilts his head. "I am a boy." (And he expects Itachi to hit him like his mother does when he says this, but Itachi never does, so he lets one of his squinted eyes open a little more to see his cousin's reaction.) Itachi stares. "Why are you wearing a girl's clothes, then?" Shisui shrugs. "My mother gives them to me." Itachi holds his stare for a little longer and turns his back to Shisui, putting his hands in his pockets in annoyance. "You are strange.")
"Outside of course." Shisui says, the enthusiasm in his tone long driven away from beatings and cuts and scars. (Such an enthusiasm is rarely there.) "-How many stars do you see?"
The foreign feeling weighs too much over Deidara’s mind. He feels strange being around this Shisui, not exactly unpleasant, but there’s a ethereal aura surrounding the boy, making Deidara a little uneasy. He smiles, but the smile looks dead, almost like Sasori’s puppets, alive but dead at the same time. The blonde’s thin lips press together. There is no visible chance of threat, the boy doesn’t look dangerous, but Deidara is still suspicious.
Because again, if this is a relative of Itachi, then he is an Uchiha. Uchihas are known for their superb fighting and magic powers. Uchihas are strong. (He remembers, that one afternoon where he had gotten a taste of the Tsukuyomi, the horror, the mental pain, the mere pressure of it had left Deidara frozen in fear.) They are strong, but not immortal. (Itachi isn’t immortal, he isn’t all-powerful. He has weaknesses. He never reveals them, but they are there, and Deidara notices.)
The angle of the sunlight is now twenty-seven degrees relative to the ground. The sun has almost set.
“One.”
Shisui sighs.
"Then we can't go there." (Second to the right and straight on till-) He turns his gaze from down the corridor into the setting sun outside to Deidara's face, features somewhat feminine, but the feel of pain and growing up too fast while still carrying a sense of… ("It's my life and I'll do whatever the hell I want, yeah!") -rebellion in it, perhaps? (That word was tense in these walls.)
"Will you take me to your favorite place?" (Everyone has a favorite place. Even if they are imprisoned, they have a place they like more than any other.) "Will you take me there? His room gets cold when he isn’t with me."
And Deidara was inflamed. (-Shisui always saw things different from everyone else. Deidara's hair is streaked with a million different shades of flame and his eyes are the blue strike of deep within a campfire, where the fire is at it's hottest, and his speech is the way the air feels freezing after you've been burned once, where the wind is suddenly so much colder in comparison, and, and-) And Shisui is water, in contrast. Shisui cannot be burned.
He smiles softly, testing a reaction.
("-I am Shisui, do you want to play with me?")
But if you play with fire…
Is it any wonder I can't sleep?
The blonde stares.
Favorite place?
Does he even have one?
His right index finger twitches. (The ring. He remembers the day he was given the ring, right after being accepted into the Akatsuki. The ring was loose. It slipped right off his finger and fell on the stone floor with a clatter. He was a skinny boy.) The kanji gleams in a bluish light, unknown that it is caused by the actual color of the dark ink or the meaning of the letter itself.
“No.”
He does. He has a favorite place. Deep inside the inner chambers of the castle, filled with chemicals and recipes and fire. His haven where he escapes to and pursue his art. The place where he can be in control and free of restrictions. (The leader has an invisible leash on all of the members. It is suffocating. Deidara likes to be free. Just like the birds. He flies.) Nobody. Absolutely nobody can intrude in his privacy.
"You’re speaking of Itachi, aren’t you?”
No more riddles. He wants an explanation. He will get it. No matter what it takes. He wants knowledge. He drinks it in like water. He hates being left in the dark. Sunlight is the source of life for all beings. Deidara is alive. He thrives. He thrives under pressure and even in the darkest pits of hell. He lives to create art. Life is short and fleeting. Art is the same way, burning fiercely for a moment of glory and then disappearing from existence.
Shisui shakes his head, in a way a mother would to her child (Tsk, tsk.) "Ara? This again…?" He sighs, crossing his arms over his chest and eyeing Deidara with an almost annoyance. (-But he is never really annoyed. Not with people. Because people all function in the same way. They eat, they sleep, they breathe. This makes them completely and utterly predictable.)
He raises a hand, his palm (-scarred like the rest of him) before Deidara and his five fingers obvious, pointedly before Deidara for all of the total stranger to see. "Deidara." And his voice, though soft, seems to edge with a certain seriousness that is awkward for Shisui. "-Isn't it beautiful?" He returns his hand to his own line of site, staring at the scars somewhat listlessly. "The body…" (-and he presses his nail into his other palm, pressing it hard until he can feel his flesh tear and blood begin to drip-) "-It's so wonderfully predictable. If we are hurt, we bruise. If we are tired, we sleep. If we are hungry, we eat…" He raises his palm again, the one devoid of blood, followed by the second that stains something beautiful and smells of that vivid scent. "-but Deidara, there lies a world underneath innate reactions. A world of emotions. Dreams. The things we see and do when we are unconscious." (The blood coats his palm, and he eyes it warily.) "The world of our blood. Underneath the skin. The world of attachments and regrets and memories, because in essence, what are we but our experiences?"
He sighs, lightly, watching the blood begin to streak one of the tattoos on his knuckle for a moment before taking a cloth from the inside of his cloak and wrapping it around the wound. "My cousin had such a hard time seeing this world after what his father did…" And he smiles softly. "-Did something happen to you, as well?"
Water, water-
The scars flashed before Deidara’s eyes, and suddenly his other eye hurts. Deidara didn’t wince. (When the old man swung the knife and the red sticky liquid spurt from the hole that once held an eye of his, Deidara didn’t wince. When the blood leaked past his fingers and spilling on to the ground at his feet and the blonde was still standing there with murder in his eyes, he didn’t wince.) The ball rolls in its socket, trying to ease the irritation that sometimes acts up. (Oil. He needs to oil the screws and bolts and the iris itself. It’s just a simple mechanism, just a simple device, it’s easy to fix, easy to destroy.)
“It’s none of your business, un.”
He has an urge to cross his arms, to be defensive, to be intimidating, but he doesn’t do any of that. Deidara knows his own ability and power. He doesn’t need to try. If he doesn’t want somebody to know something, they won’t. Knowing too much can be a double-edged sword. He knows it best. He had cut himself many times before, but old habits die hard. (The melting flesh burned, and the young boy stared at it with awe, not realizing what he had done and what pain he was causing to himself. It was strange. It was exciting. It was pretty. It was art.)
"Is it not…?"
Shisui wonders if anyone has ever asked Deidara these questions. (He doubts it. He doubts it because when he met Itachi, the boy was carved out of stone. But Shisui knows that, in time, rock hard facades erode as winds and rains (-water-) crack and break them. And in time, Shisui stripped Itachi. But Deidara is not carved out of stone.) He lets his lips curve into a genuine, soft smile, and it is different from most of his smiles, because his others rarely show true happiness. (…Stone cannot burn.)
"Ara…"
He brushes some hair behind his ear where too many earrings from too many different memories of himself and Itachi in the tiny library they had found amongst a million rooms in the Uchiha manor with one of them lying on the bed while the other burns a needle and pierces one more something for every memory that need be. ("What is this one for?" "Ara?" "This piercing?" "Oh…" "Your grandfather?" "…Yes. It is." "Alright.") He sighs softly and eyes Deidara once more.
"…Will you have tea with me?"
(He likes Deidara. He'd always liked what others reject.)
For the hundredth time, Deidara’s brow arches as he fixes a skeptical gaze on the boy. He is beginning to think that Shisui isn't as mysterious as he thought he was, but merely not mentally stable. True, he may be biased. (He had thought Itachi was mad too, these Uchihas… they are too alike. Itachi is aloof and distant, and does things that no one in the Akatsuki knows. Deidara had tried to find out, but those attempts ended badly, and sometimes, bloodily. Murderers protect their privacy. Deidara isn’t an exception.) But dealing with one Uchiha is a frustrating thing already. And now he is facing another, presumably not killed during the massacre.
A special person.
A lover.
Suddenly the fire in Deidara grew, fueling the curiosity clawing at his insides. If this boy… this Shisui was Itachi’s lover… he might know something secret about the other that nobody does. A valuable resource. Information.
Not to mention the magnetism.
Shisui is like a magnet.
And Deidara is caught.
“… Where?”
Shisui presses his lips together in thought, pacing about as he does and occasionally twirling in circles ("…Shisui, what are you doing?" "Spinning." "…why?" "Because you see the world so much better when you're moving too fast to comprehend it.") until the corridor began to fade out of focus, in which he would stop and force his feet into the unmoving floor. (And even it seems to rock and roll-)
"…Mm, will you come outside with me? I can get the kettle and all of such…" He darts his gaze back to his room, his mind's eye sighting the box of tea leaves, the kettle full of water on his bedstand, the matches in which he could light a fire… (Can I save it…? If it pleases you.)
(Breath hanging in the air and the cold wind against his cheeks and the
ONE TWO THREE
ONE TWO THREE
It hurts it hurts ithurts ithurtsithurtsithurts…
"'Ta-san…")
As his curiosity grows, his patience wears thin. (The begging. The refusal. The slightest narrowing of an eye. A movement. A grunt. And a thump. It was always quick. A routine. A routine that he didn’t hesitate in following. After all, humans are only temporary.) His fingers curl into a fist, a corner of his mouth drops to a scowl. (Patience. Deidara. Patience.)
He steps closer, but doesn’t make a move towards Shisui. Anything may frighten the boy. (That frame, that face, that voice. Weak. Vulnerable. And such is life. But he never treat it gently. Art is not created through weakness. The strong feeds on the weak, that is the way of life - art.) He nods, eyes never leaving that pale, delicate face. (A girl’s face, it looks like. This boy is too effeminate, and that adds on to the sense of vulnerability he strongly emanates. Bad, Shisui. Bad. You will fall prey to the world if that goes on. And it looks like he had already fallen prey more than once. Pitiful.)
Somewhere out there, a crow cries and a gust of wind shakes the trees, bursting through the open window.
The gesture is one of affirmation in Shisui's mind, and he smiles, opening the door of his room and taking the kettle from the hanging bar above the flickering flames, grabbing the tea set and the box of tea leaves, and returning to the corridor with Deidara, a naïve appearing excitement in his eyes. (Though such would be an incorrect assumption. Shisui is not naïve. Though such a pretty little face could deceive as such.)
The trip through the castle and out through a relatively hidden exit on the east wing is relatively quiet, for Shisui admires the scenery and dances without moving to the steady, living heartbeat of the castle, and as they cross from the uncomfortable (-his room is warm, but no other is-) into the cold light of day, where the cold can bite as his skin and the vapors rising from the lukewarm water are suddenly steam in contrast.
(-Tomorrow's only okay.)
("Itachi…?"
His nose is pressed against the glass, and fog glows against the rippled stained colors.
"Shisui?" (You shouldn't be up. You're hurt.)
"The garden…" Cascading away from the Akatsuki castle lies a greenhouse of dying plants, and every day Shisui wakes up to see them a little more dead the morning before.
"-What of it?"
Shisui presses harder into the glass to get a better view. "…Can you hear it?"
(Itachi pauses and stares at his cousin, listening for a few moments to the sound of life throughout the castle and Shisui's shallow breathing.) "…No."
Shisui looks back at the flowers. (Why do you look so sad…?) "They're screaming…")
"Let's go listen to the flowers."
(-Whistle away.)
At this time, Deidara has pretty much given up on trying to make some sense out of the gibberish that this boy utters. He talks in a dream-like way, a stream of consciousness that only he can understand. (There is a pretty good chance that Itachi understands. You never know how the Uchiha's minds work, maybe very similar. Deidara had tried to figure out just what was always in Itachi’s mind, but it was all in vain. He is an artist. He knows how artists feel, he knows how artists act, but there is a limit to everything. When you speak of something that makes no sense, that is not art. Sasori would scorn, but their points of view are different. Deidara has no qualms.)
He says nothing, and only follows Shisui’s footsteps, leading out to the grounds outside the stone walls of the castle. It is not the place charred by Deidara’s explosives. (He has a special field only for himself, littered with burnt trees and charred human remains. The earth smells of sulfur and copper and blood, and Deidara takes the air in readily as if it’s oxygen. It’s refreshing. It makes his blood pump. No matter how grotesque other people think, it is his haven.)
(Screams. Bang. Crackles. Silence.)
The dying garden makes Shisui's eyes soften in sadness as they reach the area, and for several moments, he only observes it, ears listening in to the horrified wails of the dying plants that he knows perhaps only he can here. (Shisui wonders if he is human. His mother worries he is crazy.) He nods to Deidara and crouches down to the ground about ten feet from the frost bitten roses, clearing the dead grass to a ring of earth and surrounding the space with stones.
"Ah, a fire…" He leans over to the mass of vine and snow, taking a few of the (silent) dead sticks and debris from the tangle and setting them into the ring.
(Hunched over his bed, legs spread and the stone of a kettle fresh from the flame pressed into his skin, and he moans as his flesh burns and twists, and as he tips it and the boil of the water washes over him, he screams a desperate one, the agony of the moment and the heat (-what terrible scars they will be-) to make him breathe in short gasps and tears blink into the corners of his eyes.
But for a second he can forget-
"Shisui?"
The kettle drops to the floor with a loud thud.
"…I-Itachi?!")
He smiles softly at the blond. "Do you want to alight it? I will prepare the tea."
Deidara’s cloak billows behind him as the winter breeze sweeps by, the high collar flapping against the lower part of his chin. He glances around the clearing, eyes idly taking in the sight of dead trees and barren ground with insipid indifference. The sky is filled with darkened clouds, the black curtain of night creeping up swiftly in silence. A storm is coming, he can feel it. He can sense the electric in the air, the wet taste of water vapor, the rustle of scattered wings seeking shelter. He can hear the sky roaring in the distance, the tremors that will shake up roots and tear up trunks.
(A fire that burns in a storm never dies.)
Feet step closer to the little space where Shisui had made a neat little circle with stones, Deidara studies it for a second, before kneeling down himself and snapped the calloused fingers. (Fingers that are scarred and burned so many times during his life. Playing with fire has its toll. Art has its toll. Deidara never complains. He revels in it. Trophy of his devotion and skills. It has a price. And that price is never too high.
Art is priceless.)
A flame flares, catching on to the limp, dry twigs in the middle of the ring, and gnaws on it with orange toxic. It flickers in Deidara’s eye, and the iris dilated. (It grows. It feeds. It destroys. Flesh melts. Fat sizzles. Bones crumble. Sparks. Firework. Colors. Beauty.) It slowly spreads over the twig, quiet cackling and devouring the feeble stick. (Life is a battle of the fittest. When you are weak, you lose. Humans are weak. Fires can be reborn. And when they are reborn, they burn fiercer than ever.)
For a moment, Shisui looked like a child.
(His eyes go wide and fill with excitement, and his dark eyes always seeming black (-unless of that, of course. The red.) shine with the reflection of the flickering oranges and reds and yellows. (And blue. Like Deidara's eyes.) And as he watches the twig curl up as the flame eats away, the light in his eyes is something that hadn't been seen in much too long.)
"Deidara-" (It's more of a question than a statement.) "-You're an alchemist?!"
Shisui smiles, watching the fire crackle for a few moments before taking the kettle and setting it upon the flame, balancing the heavy material on the circle of stones and grinding the tea leaves against another set of stones. (-Crunch, crunch, crunch. Until they're okay, and he scoops them into the small bag and sets it into the kettle.) The Uchiha had a magick of their own, but such becomes orthodox after a while. "-What can you see in it?"
(A river can never be still.
The reflection is never to be seen.)
The blue kisses the underside of the kettle, and he watches it with fascination. (Never been partial to flame. But it can be just so pretty when appreciated.)
Said blue eyes glance over at the suddenly chipper boy. (He had seem so calm and peaceful just a moment ago.) He watches the boy crushing the tea leaves silently, the fire forgotten for a minute as eyes study the frail form, muscles rippling as those skinny arms work. Shisui looks too weak. The black, long strands of hair fall over his face and past his neck, thin threads framing that delicate face like a portrait. Shisui is like a portrait. A marred, beaten, but innocent portrait.
“Yes, I am, un.”
He returns to the fire, throwing more twigs and small branches and feeds the fire that dances around the black kettle, watching the water inside ripple as the wind disturbs its surface. There is a heavier gust, throwing golden strands to different directions. Deidara doesn’t care. He watches the fire, eyes fixing intently on the yellow and orange and blue, growing stronger by the minutes. (Wind gives life to fire. Wind and fire create harmony. Storms are just fuel for fire. The flame reigns over all with scorching heat.)
(That day, there was a storm, too. The drafts of air carried the flame high, letting it corrode the wood and consume the flesh. The sparks were sent spiraling to the heavens, illuminating the dark night as bright as stars.
And there was a bang.)
Bang, we want it-
Shisui sighs into Deidara's silence after the statement, the calamity returning to him and the momentary excitement fading into the spitting flames that lay so close to his hands. (-Shisui is weak, but in the same aspect, he is stronger than most give him credit for. He strikes to kill when necessary, and when such is, he strikes fast. Too fast for pain. Too fast for thoughts. Over. And such an appearance as his makes it easy to forget.) But he doesn't mind.
The tea finishes brewing, and Shisui pours Deidara a small cup of the scalding liquid, the steam rising heavy and thick into the cold air as it begins to cool. Sugars are in the box with the tea leaves (-expensive sort. He had found it in his room, in one of the desk drawers. Amongst incense he'd burned and opium he didn't touch.) and they lay open if the man wanted it, Shisui taking a sip and letting the drink burn his throat and warm his lips from the cold sting of the morning.
"But you avoid my question…"
The flame crackles with life, open and free from the kettle that had threatened to douse it. Shisui stares. (He sees things. Things that people aside from himself probably cannot see. And once again does Shisui find himself doubting either his humanity or his sanity. Because he'd always been able to see the beauty of the world more than others.)
A soft, delicate sigh.
"-What do you see in the flames, Deidara?"
The blackened twig snaps and breaks in two, the halves crackling inside the burning flame. (A rat on fire. A tree on fire. A building on fire. A town on fire. A forest on fire. A country on fire. A soul on fire. Fire draws out the beauty on everything it touches. What does he see in the flames? He wonders.)
Eyes drift over to the dark green liquid simmering in the cup, and instinctively, he takes in a sniff of the smell. One can never be too careful. There are poisonous snakes hidden underneath the greenest, most lush patches of grass under a blue endless sky. (He remembers it too well. The toxic. The sick feeling of his insides being turned upside down and inside out. The taste of bile and blood on his tongue, the coughing, the veins popping in his eyes and crimson tears leaking from torn cornea. He remembers it all.)
One word.
“Beauty.”
The wind hisses, hammering on windowsills and wooden planks and tearing through everything. The fire burns. The kettle rattles. His fingers feel hot against the heated china, steam rising from the cup for a second before being swept away, cooling and dying in the icy gust. He brings the tea to his lips and tasted the bitter sweet liquid that feels strangely comfortable on his tongue. (His mother made tea. He tried it. He hated it. His father loved it.)
There is nothing that has purer of a taste than tea. They said.
(Wrong. Mother, father, you’re wrong. The taste of blood mixed with phosphorus is better.)
Shisui smiles softly. (-Gently. There's a certain fragility in it, constantly, because his smile has seen everything for worse, and it can be easily broken and easily faked.) And his gaze darts over his shoulder to a spot on his back where he'd burned himself so much he'd harbored one of the most distorted scars in the entirety of his body. (-But Itachi worked around it. The sutra remains untouched.)
Taking a sip of his tea and letting the brew warm his insides, he eyes Deidara, something calm and almost sentimental in his eyes. (Not pity. Never pity. Just… relation.) A person can always relate to another person. (No matter how sick and inhuman they may seem.)
"… To create beauty is art."
A pause. (He presses his lips together and smiles into the ring.)
(- A liquid peace.)
"-Such beautiful things can be created when no one is watching."
Setting: The castle and the dead garden behind it
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Shisui making little to no sense at all and gory memories.
Summary: Shisui does The Bad and leaves his room (omigod) to explore and is promptly caught by Deidara, in which Shisui confuses him, but successfully convinces him to not kill him, and they go out for tea. (Yes this remains IC stfu. >>)
Shisui had always been somewhat curious in nature. (-Curious may not even be the word. Interested. He didn't take hollow answers to be accepted. Even if it meant to go find the answers himself.) The Vanity mirror told him he didn't look any more (Self) battle-scarred than usual, and the longsleeved outfits and thick pants kept him warm and (-protected. From the eyes of those who see too much.) He touches his bottom lip gingerly, the small bruise formed upon the cherry flesh making his lips even darker against his pale. (He wonders if he'll ever have his summer tan again. Eleven years with no light. How dark it is indeed.)
He pulls in hood of the sweeping cloak over his head, letting the stray strands of black cascade in his face, around his cheeks and keeping it tucked. (If he is in danger, all he has to do (can do) is run. And he can run forever if he has to. He'd always been so fast.) The door feels much too hard against his palm when he presses against it, and the sound of hinges twisting and the wood unhooking from the frame was a clockwork of pleasant sounds, something free.
He eyes the corridor and smiles.
Ah, the burnt smell of explosives and coppery odor of human blood, a wonderful aroma indeed. Deidara’s lips were curled into a satisfied (and sadistic) grin as he ascended the stairs, fingers curling in excitement. It was great. Bird v.3.0 was his greatest masterpiece yet. Just remembering the explosions and the screams and bright fire and charred human flesh made his toes curl in delight. The artistic value of it all, the beauty of it all was incredible. Oh how he wished Sasori could recognize it.
The hem of his sleeves smelled like smoke. And sulfur. And blood. His boots were probably stained with dried blood and explosive powder. He decided that he loved the life of an artist. Eyes glinted in glee as light fell into sight, Deidara made a run for it, the thrill had yet to be calmed inside his body.
And then, right there, at the corner, was somebody he didn’t know.
“… Who are you, un?”
Eyes narrowed as he stepped toward the boy (A very young boy, too, probably still in his teens.) who had half of his face hidden behind the hood of his cloak. Definitely somebody he didn’t know. To think that this person had infiltrated into the castle was ridiculous. The boy looked so pale and feeble. Probably would collapse under a breeze or something. Too weak.
Shisui's eyes squint together in a small amount of agitation (Already-?!) as he turns to the stench of burning flesh and clay reaches his nose and his eyes begin to water in reflex. (Shisui hates fire. The smell, the heat, the pain, the burn- because, in essence, Shisui and Itachi are just the same. Itachi is only frozen.) His lips, (-everyone had always told him they were far too feminine) tighten a little, and his black eyes sweep to the figure before him.
For a fleeting second, the blond is ignited, and he forces back initial horror as the fleeting moment of hallucination flies past him. (Ohmygodohmygodohmygod-)
Exhale.
(I'd sing for you, stranger~
You were always a strange one.
Maybe so.)
He smiles in his strange little way.
"Depends."
Curious. As Deidara steps closer to the boy, and the more he takes in the kid’s appearance, the more he looks like Itachi. But it can’t be. The Uchiha family was wiped out. Nobody was left. So probably dark eyes, dark hair are just common traits in Konoha. Yes, just a random stranger.
A stranger that could infiltrate the Akatsuki, no less.
The boy’s answer irks him. While Deidara has no qualms about puzzles, there is something about this kid that feels so strange, yet so familiar. He doesn’t seem dangerous, though. There is no threat that the blonde could feel coming from that small body. No malice, no hatred, no killing instinct. Nothing.
Like a dead man.
A horrified corpse. (That pale skin had almost no color to it.)
“Who let you in here, un?”
His curiosity is peaked now. How this strange person could get in the castle, how he could move around without anybody noticing, it intrigues Deidara. And he takes another step forward, closing the distance between them.
Shisui raises a hand and takes a few locks of hair behind his left ear, the bangs at his right curving around his chin and resting at his lips in the locks ragged and uneven from when he'd cut it himself. His gaze remains fixed on Deidara with a gentle to it, a gaze unthreatened by hard tone or what he'd heard of the Akatsuki.
(Shisui, in essense, is the most chaotic form of calm the world has to offer. A river can never be still.)
"-He did."
There is a Universality to the answer in which Shisui knows it will work. Because everyone has a He. (For Shisui, Itachi is He. Itachi is He because he is closest to him. This blond man has his He. Everyone in the castle has a He. Someone to fear, hate, or even love, under circumstance.) He knows it's cruel to use such a tactic, but as it is, is.
And he isn't lying.
(Nomoreliesnomoreliesnomorelies.)
Black into blue.
"Ara? Who are you?"
A corner of Deidara’s eye twitches. He is getting a bit irritated. This boy would not give a straight answer. But at the same time, he is entranced. That absent look in those dark eyes, the marred skin, that voice, they are haunting. It’s like this stranger is not of this world. It’s like he was some other being that looks the same yet so different from others.
“Who is he? I need a name.”
The blonde growls, a hand coming to rest on his hip and his eyes harden. If the boy wasn’t going to answer, he would have to get the answer the hard way. But then, if they tortured him, the kid probably wouldn’t last… with that body…
Or he could be deceptively frail.
Deidara can’t trust anyone. Not even in the Akatsuki.
They are all murderers and liars.
"But doesn't that bring us back to the beginning? A name only depends on the situation."
Shisui knows he is irritating the man, but he knows that, in the same sense, the man is enjoying to hear him speak. (Because if he wasn't, Shisui would be running, and he would run and run and run until he had lost himself in the pulsing stones of the castle and the man is long, long lost.) "I am authorized to be here, and I have absolutely no ill intent. I am merely on a walk to somewhere probably you know, though I do not. These walls aren't remembered yet."
Shisui smiles softly, the deep, covered sadness in his eyes almost visible for a second or two. (Come back to me, cousin. I'm lonely here.) Ache, and that sadness is gone, replaced with a dull throb to run up his right arm, tugging at his barely reformed veins and tendons and sending a burn once the pain like a snap of bone had dissipated. (He never cries out. He waits for it to pass.)
"Would you come with me?"
He eyes the man with a questioning.
"And tell me your name-? I will return such with glad."
He can’t.
He can’t let himself be strung along by this boy’s words. He is a member of the Akatsuki. He is strong and hardened. Nothing can affect him. He keeps telling himself that. He knows that. His eyes narrow even more. This kid had promised reassurances, but there is no guarantee that any of what he said was true. Deidara isn’t going to trust somebody he just met, much less somebody in the castle without his knowledge (Deidara knows things, he is naturally curious like that, but not very openly about it. He is sneaky, yeah.)
“Deidara.”
But he answers.
Maybe the best way to get an answer is to give them one in return. He doesn’t like it, but it works, most of the times. Yielding may be the best offense, a better way to gain information.
Oh yes he would love to know who is shielding this boy.
“Where exactly are you going?”
And another question of his own.
Shisui smiles. (A curve of the lips and the ring between them shines merrily, one of three metals pierced into his skin, one of far too many stories of needles in Shisui's room, hiding under covers and "ITACHI THAT HURT-" But he loves them all. Every piercing. Every tattoo. Every scar. Every last bruise.) "Deidara…" The name rolls off his tongue like water as he tests it, and he finds such a name suiting. Deidara. "I am Shisui. It is a pleasure to meet you."
Taking the hood of the cloak now deeming it safe to let the man see him completely, he let the cool air of the corridor brush his now warm cheeks, flushed slightly from compacting in his thick clothing, and bowed his head slightly to the new acquaintance. Shisui was far too used to hardened, suspicious eyes on him to care much about it.
("Shisui, can I talk to you for a minute?" The deep voice of Fugaku stops the brunette in his tracks, and he turns slightly, eyeing Itachi in a way to tell him that he'd catch up (Shisui always did.) "Mm, yes sir?" And he knows it's somewhat disrespectful to treat his clan elder with a loose fashion, but it is the fluid in his voice, and he cannot stop it. "Now you listen here-" And the voice gets quieter and angrier, and Shisui flinches somewhere deep inside, underneath his skin and ink and far past his heart. "-I don't want you rubbing off on my son." Shisui gives him a look. (Irritated, it says, but in that place past Shisui's heart, he screams painful melodies.) "Sir, your son is already the best in the clan. I can rub off nothing further-" A glare that penetrates close to that place. "You know exactly what I mean, boy. I know your type." An uncharacteristically malignant pause before Shisui's gaze returns to his uncle, a look of knowing in his eyes that he is well aware angers the man. "It's alright sir." A pause and Shisui's eyes soften somewhat. "-But I'm afraid I have nothing more to rub onto Itachi." The smirk on Shisui's face lasts even as Fugaku tries to beat it away. I'll catch up with you Itachi.)
"Well, Deidara, I guess that depends." (He doesn't mean to annoy everyone like he does. Perhaps it takes a genius to understand and tolerate Shisui completely.) "Do you see any stars outside?" He raises a finger to the window at the end of the corridor, his skin dry and depleted of color (Like a fresh corpse. The color had barely returned to his cheeks since that day.) though glossed with honey colored sunlight from the open windowpane.
For a full minute, Deidara studies the face that was revealed before him, eyes keenly fixated on the intricate work of nature. This boy... bears such a close resemblance to that man… so similar that the alchemist almost mistook him for the other had he not heard the voice (Itachi’s voice had a little more of life in it.) There is no doubt about it, this boy was related to Itachi. By blood. Only by blood. Deidara can swear by his life that there is no other bloodline in this world could produce such offspring that looks so much like another’s.
His other eye rolls to the left then immediately returns to glue on the boy’s face and stature. “Yes, I see a star.” Deidara is technical. His golden threads of hair shield his eyes from the light falling from the window
Shisui isn't oblivious to the stare. (He got that look, or one similar, by most of the townsfolk after he spoke. But something about Deidara's stare didn't make him feel awkward because yet another person had mistaken his gender, but more of penetrating interrogation. The stripping of layers from face value, and the widening of blue eyes as they stare into black.) But he doesn't make mention of it. He doesn't need to.
He extends a hand, offering it to Deidara and exposing the corner or a very deep scar on his mostly covered right wrist. (Hunting knife. Two in the morning. Insomnia and the taste of poison on his lips. Itachi away. Too far away.) "Deidara, how many do you see?" (And Shisui's hand shakes slightly, because he doesn’t usually touch anyone but Itachi, but he wants to have someone with him for the now, not love him, but just be there. He wants someone.)
Come with me, and we can go to Neverland.
(Shisui believes in everything.)
The alchemist eyes the hand, pupils scanning the pale surface of the skin, looking so smooth and silky yet marred with ghastly wounds. His expression indifferent. He had seen much worse, had caused much worse, several gashes that had frozen into scars will not faze him, nor make him feel any sympathy for this boy. If any, there are curiosity and intrigue that draw him towards the other. The desire to know more, to learn more about him, the surprisingly warm atmosphere radiating from a dead-looking body. They are there, pushing Deidara towards Shisui with invisible force.
He doesn’t take the hand.
“Where?”
His voice is cold. He offers no comfort, no support, no warmth. The only warmth that he provides is the scorching explosion heat. Art. (The heat is art, what it does is art, what remains is art. Everything is art.)
Deidara's tone reminds him of the first time he met Itachi. (The day had been cold and Shisui's mother had dropped him off for Mikoto to watch over him, and he doesn't know how old they had been, but he knows it had been when his mother was still trying to convince herself that Shisui was a girl and would doll him up in dresses and matching shoes and style his hair in curly pigtails. "Hi!"
Itachi looks up at Shisui with a momentary mixture of confusion and irritation. (-Like "How dare you interrupt my time in the sand box?" But the sand wasn't erratic blobs of oddly shaped earth, they were precise, and steadily, they formed something towering, and Mikoto couldn't be more proud of her son's artistic abilities.) "Hello."
And Shisui flinches a little at the hard of the tone, but sits down, pulling the petticoats of his dress under his bottom as to not get sand in his shorts. He smiles at Itachi, bowing his head, before gazing at the sand castle with a fleeting set of emotions marked with amaze and comprehension. "Who are you?"
Itachi takes a twig and digs it into the top of his castle, eyeing the piece with something like detest. (Why did I waste myself creating such nonsense? Is it really~? Yes-) He flicks his eyeline to Shisui, putting his chin in his palms where his elbows rest neatly on his knees. (They aren't scraped like most boy's. Itachi never falls.) "Itachi."
Shisui smiles. "I am Shisui. Do you want to play with me?"
Itachi eyes him somewhat warily, standing up and dusting sand from his jeans and not really waiting for Shisui to follow suit. (But he does.) "Isn't that a boy's name?"
"Ara?" Shisui tilts his head. "I am a boy." (And he expects Itachi to hit him like his mother does when he says this, but Itachi never does, so he lets one of his squinted eyes open a little more to see his cousin's reaction.) Itachi stares. "Why are you wearing a girl's clothes, then?" Shisui shrugs. "My mother gives them to me." Itachi holds his stare for a little longer and turns his back to Shisui, putting his hands in his pockets in annoyance. "You are strange.")
"Outside of course." Shisui says, the enthusiasm in his tone long driven away from beatings and cuts and scars. (Such an enthusiasm is rarely there.) "-How many stars do you see?"
The foreign feeling weighs too much over Deidara’s mind. He feels strange being around this Shisui, not exactly unpleasant, but there’s a ethereal aura surrounding the boy, making Deidara a little uneasy. He smiles, but the smile looks dead, almost like Sasori’s puppets, alive but dead at the same time. The blonde’s thin lips press together. There is no visible chance of threat, the boy doesn’t look dangerous, but Deidara is still suspicious.
Because again, if this is a relative of Itachi, then he is an Uchiha. Uchihas are known for their superb fighting and magic powers. Uchihas are strong. (He remembers, that one afternoon where he had gotten a taste of the Tsukuyomi, the horror, the mental pain, the mere pressure of it had left Deidara frozen in fear.) They are strong, but not immortal. (Itachi isn’t immortal, he isn’t all-powerful. He has weaknesses. He never reveals them, but they are there, and Deidara notices.)
The angle of the sunlight is now twenty-seven degrees relative to the ground. The sun has almost set.
“One.”
Shisui sighs.
"Then we can't go there." (Second to the right and straight on till-) He turns his gaze from down the corridor into the setting sun outside to Deidara's face, features somewhat feminine, but the feel of pain and growing up too fast while still carrying a sense of… ("It's my life and I'll do whatever the hell I want, yeah!") -rebellion in it, perhaps? (That word was tense in these walls.)
"Will you take me to your favorite place?" (Everyone has a favorite place. Even if they are imprisoned, they have a place they like more than any other.) "Will you take me there? His room gets cold when he isn’t with me."
And Deidara was inflamed. (-Shisui always saw things different from everyone else. Deidara's hair is streaked with a million different shades of flame and his eyes are the blue strike of deep within a campfire, where the fire is at it's hottest, and his speech is the way the air feels freezing after you've been burned once, where the wind is suddenly so much colder in comparison, and, and-) And Shisui is water, in contrast. Shisui cannot be burned.
He smiles softly, testing a reaction.
("-I am Shisui, do you want to play with me?")
But if you play with fire…
Is it any wonder I can't sleep?
The blonde stares.
Favorite place?
Does he even have one?
His right index finger twitches. (The ring. He remembers the day he was given the ring, right after being accepted into the Akatsuki. The ring was loose. It slipped right off his finger and fell on the stone floor with a clatter. He was a skinny boy.) The kanji gleams in a bluish light, unknown that it is caused by the actual color of the dark ink or the meaning of the letter itself.
“No.”
He does. He has a favorite place. Deep inside the inner chambers of the castle, filled with chemicals and recipes and fire. His haven where he escapes to and pursue his art. The place where he can be in control and free of restrictions. (The leader has an invisible leash on all of the members. It is suffocating. Deidara likes to be free. Just like the birds. He flies.) Nobody. Absolutely nobody can intrude in his privacy.
"You’re speaking of Itachi, aren’t you?”
No more riddles. He wants an explanation. He will get it. No matter what it takes. He wants knowledge. He drinks it in like water. He hates being left in the dark. Sunlight is the source of life for all beings. Deidara is alive. He thrives. He thrives under pressure and even in the darkest pits of hell. He lives to create art. Life is short and fleeting. Art is the same way, burning fiercely for a moment of glory and then disappearing from existence.
Shisui shakes his head, in a way a mother would to her child (Tsk, tsk.) "Ara? This again…?" He sighs, crossing his arms over his chest and eyeing Deidara with an almost annoyance. (-But he is never really annoyed. Not with people. Because people all function in the same way. They eat, they sleep, they breathe. This makes them completely and utterly predictable.)
He raises a hand, his palm (-scarred like the rest of him) before Deidara and his five fingers obvious, pointedly before Deidara for all of the total stranger to see. "Deidara." And his voice, though soft, seems to edge with a certain seriousness that is awkward for Shisui. "-Isn't it beautiful?" He returns his hand to his own line of site, staring at the scars somewhat listlessly. "The body…" (-and he presses his nail into his other palm, pressing it hard until he can feel his flesh tear and blood begin to drip-) "-It's so wonderfully predictable. If we are hurt, we bruise. If we are tired, we sleep. If we are hungry, we eat…" He raises his palm again, the one devoid of blood, followed by the second that stains something beautiful and smells of that vivid scent. "-but Deidara, there lies a world underneath innate reactions. A world of emotions. Dreams. The things we see and do when we are unconscious." (The blood coats his palm, and he eyes it warily.) "The world of our blood. Underneath the skin. The world of attachments and regrets and memories, because in essence, what are we but our experiences?"
He sighs, lightly, watching the blood begin to streak one of the tattoos on his knuckle for a moment before taking a cloth from the inside of his cloak and wrapping it around the wound. "My cousin had such a hard time seeing this world after what his father did…" And he smiles softly. "-Did something happen to you, as well?"
Water, water-
The scars flashed before Deidara’s eyes, and suddenly his other eye hurts. Deidara didn’t wince. (When the old man swung the knife and the red sticky liquid spurt from the hole that once held an eye of his, Deidara didn’t wince. When the blood leaked past his fingers and spilling on to the ground at his feet and the blonde was still standing there with murder in his eyes, he didn’t wince.) The ball rolls in its socket, trying to ease the irritation that sometimes acts up. (Oil. He needs to oil the screws and bolts and the iris itself. It’s just a simple mechanism, just a simple device, it’s easy to fix, easy to destroy.)
“It’s none of your business, un.”
He has an urge to cross his arms, to be defensive, to be intimidating, but he doesn’t do any of that. Deidara knows his own ability and power. He doesn’t need to try. If he doesn’t want somebody to know something, they won’t. Knowing too much can be a double-edged sword. He knows it best. He had cut himself many times before, but old habits die hard. (The melting flesh burned, and the young boy stared at it with awe, not realizing what he had done and what pain he was causing to himself. It was strange. It was exciting. It was pretty. It was art.)
"Is it not…?"
Shisui wonders if anyone has ever asked Deidara these questions. (He doubts it. He doubts it because when he met Itachi, the boy was carved out of stone. But Shisui knows that, in time, rock hard facades erode as winds and rains (-water-) crack and break them. And in time, Shisui stripped Itachi. But Deidara is not carved out of stone.) He lets his lips curve into a genuine, soft smile, and it is different from most of his smiles, because his others rarely show true happiness. (…Stone cannot burn.)
"Ara…"
He brushes some hair behind his ear where too many earrings from too many different memories of himself and Itachi in the tiny library they had found amongst a million rooms in the Uchiha manor with one of them lying on the bed while the other burns a needle and pierces one more something for every memory that need be. ("What is this one for?" "Ara?" "This piercing?" "Oh…" "Your grandfather?" "…Yes. It is." "Alright.") He sighs softly and eyes Deidara once more.
"…Will you have tea with me?"
(He likes Deidara. He'd always liked what others reject.)
For the hundredth time, Deidara’s brow arches as he fixes a skeptical gaze on the boy. He is beginning to think that Shisui isn't as mysterious as he thought he was, but merely not mentally stable. True, he may be biased. (He had thought Itachi was mad too, these Uchihas… they are too alike. Itachi is aloof and distant, and does things that no one in the Akatsuki knows. Deidara had tried to find out, but those attempts ended badly, and sometimes, bloodily. Murderers protect their privacy. Deidara isn’t an exception.) But dealing with one Uchiha is a frustrating thing already. And now he is facing another, presumably not killed during the massacre.
A special person.
A lover.
Suddenly the fire in Deidara grew, fueling the curiosity clawing at his insides. If this boy… this Shisui was Itachi’s lover… he might know something secret about the other that nobody does. A valuable resource. Information.
Not to mention the magnetism.
Shisui is like a magnet.
And Deidara is caught.
“… Where?”
Shisui presses his lips together in thought, pacing about as he does and occasionally twirling in circles ("…Shisui, what are you doing?" "Spinning." "…why?" "Because you see the world so much better when you're moving too fast to comprehend it.") until the corridor began to fade out of focus, in which he would stop and force his feet into the unmoving floor. (And even it seems to rock and roll-)
"…Mm, will you come outside with me? I can get the kettle and all of such…" He darts his gaze back to his room, his mind's eye sighting the box of tea leaves, the kettle full of water on his bedstand, the matches in which he could light a fire… (Can I save it…? If it pleases you.)
(Breath hanging in the air and the cold wind against his cheeks and the
ONE TWO THREE
ONE TWO THREE
It hurts it hurts ithurts ithurtsithurtsithurts…
"'Ta-san…")
As his curiosity grows, his patience wears thin. (The begging. The refusal. The slightest narrowing of an eye. A movement. A grunt. And a thump. It was always quick. A routine. A routine that he didn’t hesitate in following. After all, humans are only temporary.) His fingers curl into a fist, a corner of his mouth drops to a scowl. (Patience. Deidara. Patience.)
He steps closer, but doesn’t make a move towards Shisui. Anything may frighten the boy. (That frame, that face, that voice. Weak. Vulnerable. And such is life. But he never treat it gently. Art is not created through weakness. The strong feeds on the weak, that is the way of life - art.) He nods, eyes never leaving that pale, delicate face. (A girl’s face, it looks like. This boy is too effeminate, and that adds on to the sense of vulnerability he strongly emanates. Bad, Shisui. Bad. You will fall prey to the world if that goes on. And it looks like he had already fallen prey more than once. Pitiful.)
Somewhere out there, a crow cries and a gust of wind shakes the trees, bursting through the open window.
The gesture is one of affirmation in Shisui's mind, and he smiles, opening the door of his room and taking the kettle from the hanging bar above the flickering flames, grabbing the tea set and the box of tea leaves, and returning to the corridor with Deidara, a naïve appearing excitement in his eyes. (Though such would be an incorrect assumption. Shisui is not naïve. Though such a pretty little face could deceive as such.)
The trip through the castle and out through a relatively hidden exit on the east wing is relatively quiet, for Shisui admires the scenery and dances without moving to the steady, living heartbeat of the castle, and as they cross from the uncomfortable (-his room is warm, but no other is-) into the cold light of day, where the cold can bite as his skin and the vapors rising from the lukewarm water are suddenly steam in contrast.
(-Tomorrow's only okay.)
("Itachi…?"
His nose is pressed against the glass, and fog glows against the rippled stained colors.
"Shisui?" (You shouldn't be up. You're hurt.)
"The garden…" Cascading away from the Akatsuki castle lies a greenhouse of dying plants, and every day Shisui wakes up to see them a little more dead the morning before.
"-What of it?"
Shisui presses harder into the glass to get a better view. "…Can you hear it?"
(Itachi pauses and stares at his cousin, listening for a few moments to the sound of life throughout the castle and Shisui's shallow breathing.) "…No."
Shisui looks back at the flowers. (Why do you look so sad…?) "They're screaming…")
"Let's go listen to the flowers."
(-Whistle away.)
At this time, Deidara has pretty much given up on trying to make some sense out of the gibberish that this boy utters. He talks in a dream-like way, a stream of consciousness that only he can understand. (There is a pretty good chance that Itachi understands. You never know how the Uchiha's minds work, maybe very similar. Deidara had tried to figure out just what was always in Itachi’s mind, but it was all in vain. He is an artist. He knows how artists feel, he knows how artists act, but there is a limit to everything. When you speak of something that makes no sense, that is not art. Sasori would scorn, but their points of view are different. Deidara has no qualms.)
He says nothing, and only follows Shisui’s footsteps, leading out to the grounds outside the stone walls of the castle. It is not the place charred by Deidara’s explosives. (He has a special field only for himself, littered with burnt trees and charred human remains. The earth smells of sulfur and copper and blood, and Deidara takes the air in readily as if it’s oxygen. It’s refreshing. It makes his blood pump. No matter how grotesque other people think, it is his haven.)
(Screams. Bang. Crackles. Silence.)
The dying garden makes Shisui's eyes soften in sadness as they reach the area, and for several moments, he only observes it, ears listening in to the horrified wails of the dying plants that he knows perhaps only he can here. (Shisui wonders if he is human. His mother worries he is crazy.) He nods to Deidara and crouches down to the ground about ten feet from the frost bitten roses, clearing the dead grass to a ring of earth and surrounding the space with stones.
"Ah, a fire…" He leans over to the mass of vine and snow, taking a few of the (silent) dead sticks and debris from the tangle and setting them into the ring.
(Hunched over his bed, legs spread and the stone of a kettle fresh from the flame pressed into his skin, and he moans as his flesh burns and twists, and as he tips it and the boil of the water washes over him, he screams a desperate one, the agony of the moment and the heat (-what terrible scars they will be-) to make him breathe in short gasps and tears blink into the corners of his eyes.
But for a second he can forget-
"Shisui?"
The kettle drops to the floor with a loud thud.
"…I-Itachi?!")
He smiles softly at the blond. "Do you want to alight it? I will prepare the tea."
Deidara’s cloak billows behind him as the winter breeze sweeps by, the high collar flapping against the lower part of his chin. He glances around the clearing, eyes idly taking in the sight of dead trees and barren ground with insipid indifference. The sky is filled with darkened clouds, the black curtain of night creeping up swiftly in silence. A storm is coming, he can feel it. He can sense the electric in the air, the wet taste of water vapor, the rustle of scattered wings seeking shelter. He can hear the sky roaring in the distance, the tremors that will shake up roots and tear up trunks.
(A fire that burns in a storm never dies.)
Feet step closer to the little space where Shisui had made a neat little circle with stones, Deidara studies it for a second, before kneeling down himself and snapped the calloused fingers. (Fingers that are scarred and burned so many times during his life. Playing with fire has its toll. Art has its toll. Deidara never complains. He revels in it. Trophy of his devotion and skills. It has a price. And that price is never too high.
Art is priceless.)
A flame flares, catching on to the limp, dry twigs in the middle of the ring, and gnaws on it with orange toxic. It flickers in Deidara’s eye, and the iris dilated. (It grows. It feeds. It destroys. Flesh melts. Fat sizzles. Bones crumble. Sparks. Firework. Colors. Beauty.) It slowly spreads over the twig, quiet cackling and devouring the feeble stick. (Life is a battle of the fittest. When you are weak, you lose. Humans are weak. Fires can be reborn. And when they are reborn, they burn fiercer than ever.)
For a moment, Shisui looked like a child.
(His eyes go wide and fill with excitement, and his dark eyes always seeming black (-unless of that, of course. The red.) shine with the reflection of the flickering oranges and reds and yellows. (And blue. Like Deidara's eyes.) And as he watches the twig curl up as the flame eats away, the light in his eyes is something that hadn't been seen in much too long.)
"Deidara-" (It's more of a question than a statement.) "-You're an alchemist?!"
Shisui smiles, watching the fire crackle for a few moments before taking the kettle and setting it upon the flame, balancing the heavy material on the circle of stones and grinding the tea leaves against another set of stones. (-Crunch, crunch, crunch. Until they're okay, and he scoops them into the small bag and sets it into the kettle.) The Uchiha had a magick of their own, but such becomes orthodox after a while. "-What can you see in it?"
(A river can never be still.
The reflection is never to be seen.)
The blue kisses the underside of the kettle, and he watches it with fascination. (Never been partial to flame. But it can be just so pretty when appreciated.)
Said blue eyes glance over at the suddenly chipper boy. (He had seem so calm and peaceful just a moment ago.) He watches the boy crushing the tea leaves silently, the fire forgotten for a minute as eyes study the frail form, muscles rippling as those skinny arms work. Shisui looks too weak. The black, long strands of hair fall over his face and past his neck, thin threads framing that delicate face like a portrait. Shisui is like a portrait. A marred, beaten, but innocent portrait.
“Yes, I am, un.”
He returns to the fire, throwing more twigs and small branches and feeds the fire that dances around the black kettle, watching the water inside ripple as the wind disturbs its surface. There is a heavier gust, throwing golden strands to different directions. Deidara doesn’t care. He watches the fire, eyes fixing intently on the yellow and orange and blue, growing stronger by the minutes. (Wind gives life to fire. Wind and fire create harmony. Storms are just fuel for fire. The flame reigns over all with scorching heat.)
(That day, there was a storm, too. The drafts of air carried the flame high, letting it corrode the wood and consume the flesh. The sparks were sent spiraling to the heavens, illuminating the dark night as bright as stars.
And there was a bang.)
Bang, we want it-
Shisui sighs into Deidara's silence after the statement, the calamity returning to him and the momentary excitement fading into the spitting flames that lay so close to his hands. (-Shisui is weak, but in the same aspect, he is stronger than most give him credit for. He strikes to kill when necessary, and when such is, he strikes fast. Too fast for pain. Too fast for thoughts. Over. And such an appearance as his makes it easy to forget.) But he doesn't mind.
The tea finishes brewing, and Shisui pours Deidara a small cup of the scalding liquid, the steam rising heavy and thick into the cold air as it begins to cool. Sugars are in the box with the tea leaves (-expensive sort. He had found it in his room, in one of the desk drawers. Amongst incense he'd burned and opium he didn't touch.) and they lay open if the man wanted it, Shisui taking a sip and letting the drink burn his throat and warm his lips from the cold sting of the morning.
"But you avoid my question…"
The flame crackles with life, open and free from the kettle that had threatened to douse it. Shisui stares. (He sees things. Things that people aside from himself probably cannot see. And once again does Shisui find himself doubting either his humanity or his sanity. Because he'd always been able to see the beauty of the world more than others.)
A soft, delicate sigh.
"-What do you see in the flames, Deidara?"
The blackened twig snaps and breaks in two, the halves crackling inside the burning flame. (A rat on fire. A tree on fire. A building on fire. A town on fire. A forest on fire. A country on fire. A soul on fire. Fire draws out the beauty on everything it touches. What does he see in the flames? He wonders.)
Eyes drift over to the dark green liquid simmering in the cup, and instinctively, he takes in a sniff of the smell. One can never be too careful. There are poisonous snakes hidden underneath the greenest, most lush patches of grass under a blue endless sky. (He remembers it too well. The toxic. The sick feeling of his insides being turned upside down and inside out. The taste of bile and blood on his tongue, the coughing, the veins popping in his eyes and crimson tears leaking from torn cornea. He remembers it all.)
One word.
“Beauty.”
The wind hisses, hammering on windowsills and wooden planks and tearing through everything. The fire burns. The kettle rattles. His fingers feel hot against the heated china, steam rising from the cup for a second before being swept away, cooling and dying in the icy gust. He brings the tea to his lips and tasted the bitter sweet liquid that feels strangely comfortable on his tongue. (His mother made tea. He tried it. He hated it. His father loved it.)
There is nothing that has purer of a taste than tea. They said.
(Wrong. Mother, father, you’re wrong. The taste of blood mixed with phosphorus is better.)
Shisui smiles softly. (-Gently. There's a certain fragility in it, constantly, because his smile has seen everything for worse, and it can be easily broken and easily faked.) And his gaze darts over his shoulder to a spot on his back where he'd burned himself so much he'd harbored one of the most distorted scars in the entirety of his body. (-But Itachi worked around it. The sutra remains untouched.)
Taking a sip of his tea and letting the brew warm his insides, he eyes Deidara, something calm and almost sentimental in his eyes. (Not pity. Never pity. Just… relation.) A person can always relate to another person. (No matter how sick and inhuman they may seem.)
"… To create beauty is art."
A pause. (He presses his lips together and smiles into the ring.)
(- A liquid peace.)
"-Such beautiful things can be created when no one is watching."