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in
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FIC - Bluescreen - part six
Title: Bluescreen (part six)
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: made-up slang, some swearing. AU.
Length: 2400 words or so
Characters/Pairing: Currently gen. The only characters likely to appear extensively in the near future are Akatsuki, particularly Deidara and Sasori, but a fair few others are due to worm their way into things as time goes on.
Summary: Deidara-centric Akatsuki-fic set in a dystopian sci-fi/cyberpunk AU - that's pretty much all there is to say, really.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
All of a sudden everything's darker. Kisame's gone and so is Sasori, it's just me standing there with Itachi in front of me and this ache in the left side of my head like something's pressing into my brain with a million tiny drills. I'm trying to look at Itachi but I sort of can't and I can only see out of my other eye even though using it hurts and it won't focus properly except on those damn eyes - they're still spinning, like hell - and then I realise everything's spinning, everything's red, behind me, above me, right in front of me ... behind Itachi, bright spinning red darkness, everywhere.
I'd think I'd want to be sick, yeah, except I don't. There's something in my head saying, yes. There's something in my head saying this is some kind of perfect, and I'm finding I want to, like ... grasp this, whatever it is, and if I could just understand it I'd see ... yeah ...
I can't, but ... I'm so close togetting it, so close to seeing that this ... that ...
"This is art," I'm hearing myself saying, and I think, yes.
And then I see his face and it's so blank and it does not give a damn and it's like I've suddenly realised something and the seeing is gone and the next moment the spinning is gone and I can see properly again, and I'm fucking exhausted, but I manage to hiss out, "No - That wasn't art."
Itachi's still in front of me and he still looks like he stepped straight out of some kind of uncaring hell where everyone's just as apathetic as he is, and I'm sort of aware Kisame's behind him and Sasori's off to the side somewhere but I can't bring myself to look at them, yeah.
"That wasn't fucking art and I'm not joining your fucking gang or whatever, yeah."
I can hear Sasori making this annoyed noise like he's about to talk, but Itachi cuts him off.
"I'll fight you," he says, and he doesn't even sound like he's the kind of guy who'd enjoy it - it's just like he thinks it might be necessary or something, yeah, and he doesn't give a shit one way or the other.
It's then I decide that I hate him.
"If I win, you'll join."
He doesn't say what happens if I win. Arrogant fucker ...
... but he's right. If he can do that ... I can't. If he does that to me again, yeah ... I know I can't win.
But I reach into my pocket for a handful of my little beetles anyway. I lick over the dried clay on their backs with my hand so the moisture can activate them, and I scatter them across the floor round Itachi with one little flick of my wrist. I know what I'm doing, yeah - and I've got a chance if he doesn't. Most people don't. Someone throws tiny robots at you, you don't generally figure on them being bombs.
In retrospect the mistake I make is looking at his face to see if he figured or not, yeah, cause his eyes are spinning again and I think the bombs went off but it's dark, and probably if they had the floor would've fallen through. I don't think the floor's fallen through. It might have. I'm not really sure of anything all of a sudden, except that I can see his eyes again, and it's like this spinning is everything there is.
Something hurts. I don't know anything. My right eye is blind again, and everything I can feel or see or do is focussed on the implant in my head. It's like I am the implant and the rest of me is all gone and that's the most horrible thought in the whole fucking world, ever - especially when the clock in it's stopped, just a row of zeros, and when I try to reach out for the internet or anything that would let me into something outside, I can't, I'm blocked, it's like trying to break through this burning fiery wall.
But I keep trying. I keep trying and trying even though I don't even know what I'm trying to do and even though it's not working just because if I don't do anything then the spinning and the darkness and the red will just close in on me and I can't think of anything worse than that even though I don't know what would happen so I keep trying and trying but I'm not getting anywhere and it feels like hours or days Jah knows I can't tell any more ... and then suddenly it's light again and they're all standing above me ... above me? I've fallen. I'm on my knees.
Shit.
I get to my feet but it's way more effort than it should be, yeah. I'm totally fucking drained. I want to fall down again but they're all looking at me and like hell ... Iike fucking hell ...
I'm not gonna say I passed out, 'cause I didn't. Years since I last passed out, yeah. But there's like a moment or two where I actually just don't have a clue what's going on - like I'm falling or something, except I'm not, I just can't tell where my feet are, and I don't have enough eyes to be able to see anything. That doesn't make any sense but right now nothing really does. I'm reeling. I can hear their voices, the others, but I can't tell what they're saying. Kisame sounds a little bit worried. Stupid bastard.
But then Itachi's voice cuts in clear as you like: "You lose."
And suddenly everything snaps back to making sense. I can see everyone again, feel my feet on the ground. Normal ...
Well, nearly - it's been years since I lost to anyone, yeah. But there's this Itachi, not a scratch on his pretty pretty face, looking at me like he ain't got a clue what their boss wants with me, and here's me, basically froze to the spot, yeah, kinda shaking and I can't move.
"What the hell was that," I say, and it's the kind of talking where you hear yourself saying it and you can't really remember when you decided to say it.
"My eyes," is all Itachi says. "The Mangekyou Sharingan."
I tell you what, yeah - that means basically nothing to me. Nothing at all except one day I'm gonna beat it, yeah. Get him back for that. Yeah. I tell him so and the look he gives me is like the kind where you get the feeling if it was anyone else he'd be laughing, but he doesn't do that. He barely arches one of his thin black eyebrows like to say 'yeah, right', and I'm glad he didn't laugh, 'cause I think if he laughed hell would open up right under him and everyone in the world would go mad.
More mad, anyway. I don't figure most people've got their right thoughts about them in this world, yeah.
Sasori laughs, though, his grating grumbly superior laugh. I want to kick him in his stupid would-be robot face, but I can't get it together to move my legs properly still, so I just glare at him. He narrows his eyes back at me, and spits out words. "Brat," he says, derisive as hell, and then looks over at Itachi and Kisame. Kisame's a little behind Itachi now. It ought to, like, dwarf him, yeah, make him look little and weak, but it actually makes him look even more incriminating. Intimidating. That one. Whatever. Anyway Sasori's saying, "This is absurd. What possible use is this boy going to be -"
"He's older than Itachi was, when he joined," Kisame points out.
"Barely," Sasori replies. I wonder how old Itachi is, then, 'cause I coulda sworn he didn't look much older than me if he looked older than me at all. He does have these two like wrinkles on his face, under his eyes, though, and I'm thinking maybe he's surgically preserved or something.
"Still older," says Kisame. "You never complained about Itachi."
"That's because Itachi isn't an unskilled brat with a mouth big enough to put both his feet in it at once -"
"Hey!" I really, really don't like Sasori. I mean, I knew I didn't already, but every time he opens his metal mouth I hate him more. "Shut the hell up, yeah. I'm plenty skilled -"
"Oh, please, brat. You were owned. We all saw it."
"Stop calling me that! Anyway I gotta be good if your ... Akatsuki thing wants me, yeah?"
Sasori humphs. "Yes, well," he grumbles, "I'm beginning to question the Leader's judgement."
I grin, 'cause I've blatantly won, yeah, but then all three of them like hesitate a moment, like they're all reacting to the same thing at the same time. Itachi's the first one to speak, and it's like to someone who's not there or something.
"Yes. He is here." A pause. "No."
There's another pause, and then Kisame grins and says, "Oh, yeah. Like a house on fire," and Sasori makes this grumbling noise - there's silence and then he does it again, harsher, angry. Kisame looks from me to Sasori and back again and sort of shrugs, and then they all mutter 'yes, sir'. It's really fucking creepy, yeah.
For a moment Kisame looks about to say something, but Itachi gets there first. I wish he hadn't. He says, "Sasori, stay here with him -" before Sasori cuts him off.
"I know what the Leader said, Itachi."
Itachi looks at him like he's marking down Sasori in a little book of people who have ever defied him who he's going to kill insignificantly at some point in the future, and then just turns and leaves. The door swishes open for him, and Kisame goes behind him - he glances back at me a moment but he doesn't say anything, yeah. He just leaves.
"What the hell was that?" I don't wait for the door to shut properly. I'm kind of hoping Kisame and Itachi will hear. "What -"
"That was the Leader of the Akatsuki, brat." He sounds as annoyed as I do more or less. "We're to go to a meeting tomorrow morning. In the meantime ..." He stops here, just to pause to look more annoyed or something, and then goes on, like he's telling me he's going to have to get both his legs amputated or something (by the looks of him he's already been there, though), "In the meantime he wants us to stay here and ... settle our differences." I can pretty much hear the italics. I don't think I ever heard anyone say anything that scornly, yeah.
"What are you talking about? I didn't hear anything, yeah."
Sasori gives me this annoyed look that's kind of baffled, actually baffled, at the same time. "You've got an implant, haven't you?" he says, like he's talking to someone retarded. "Surely you're familiar with instant messaging -"
"Oh shut up, 'course I am -"
"Then I don't see what has you so confused. Or are you just being wilfully contrary?"
"What I mean is, I know Kisame hasn't got any implants, yeah! Or Itachi - I never got any reading off him, my other eye -"
"Obviously isn't as reliable as you thought it was," he interrupts. Jah, he's smug! I want to ram a C4 down his stupid steel throat. I would if I could. Seriously, the only thing stopping me from trying right now is that damn Sharingan thing left me so weak ... Ugh, The battery's low on my other eye, too, I figure all of a sudden, and I glare at Sasori.
"There's nothing wrong with it, yeah. It works fine."
Never mind the checkup. Never mind the labs.
"Well, obviously not: that's four implants you failed to pick up."
"Shut up. It's fine."
Sasori rolls his eyes. "You're trying my patience, brat."
"If they've got implants, tell me where they are, yeah."
One of his weird-looking eyebrows arches. "Oh, no. If your implant's fine it ought to be able to detect them. Perhaps I'm wrong." I open my mouth to snap something at him, I don't even know what when I'm opening my mouth, but he stops me. "Or perhaps," he says, smirking, "you just need to look harder next time. Hmm?"
I glare at him. Stupid smug bastard. I bet he's running Mac.
*
We don't talk to each other for a while. Mostly I just can't be fucked with trying to talk to him, and he obviously doesn't give a damn about it either. It's so damn' boring, though, yeah ... I pull out one of my beetles, after a while, and set it crawling back and forth over my fingers and hands.
Sasori pays attention, then. He fixes me with this suspicious look and says, in this stern voice that makes me think too much of how the doctors back in the labs talked when they wanted you to do what they were saying, "Isn't that dangerous?"
I look up from the beetle. "What?"
"That ... thing. You used them against Itachi. They're explosives, you idiot. What do you think you're doing?"
I grin then - heck, I laugh. He doesn't look like he thinks it's all that funny, so I tell him, "They're moisture-activated, yeah. I gotta lick 'em for them to work."
He narrows his eyes. "That's ridiculous. I never saw you lick them."
I just grin wider at that, yeah. I hold my hands up, grinning with those mouths too, and open them and stick my tongues out at him. He pulls a surprised, disgusted face, which is really really satisfying. He wasn't expecting that, yeah. Stupid bastard.
"You're modified," he says.
I roll my eye. "Well, duh."
"Hah. And here I thought you were just a pyromaniac nutjob who'd got lucky with an implant." He tilts his head, curious but his voice is mocking me. "Labs or back street surgeon?"
I shrug. "Labs. Beta. 'Bout seven years back, yeah."
"Seven years?" He narrows his eyes, peering at me suspiciously. "How old are you?"
"Seventeen."
He looks a little surprised again there. I dunno if it's 'cause he thought I looked older than that or 'cause he didn't think any of the labs took volunteers that young. I reckon it's the latter, yeah, 'cause most of the voluntary ones don't. Kisame doesn't talk about it much but I know he didn't go into any labs 'til he was like twenty or something, yeah.
Anyway Sasori wipes the surprise and just says, "Seventeen? You could have fooled me. I've met fifteen-year-olds more mature than you."
I glare at him. "Yeah? How old are you, anyway?"
"That's none of your business, brat."
"Hey! I told you how old I was, yeah -"
"You chose to answer. I don't."
"Why, you embarrassed of being a crusty old man or what?"
He gives this horrible snort of laughter that sounds like someone dragging a dead rat across rusty corrugated iron. "It's none of your business."
"It's not like anybody'd be able to tell, yeah."
"I said it's none of your business. This discussion ends here."
"Yeah, well -"
"Deidara." In the same breath he says my name he's got the tip of that long jointy scorpion-tail hovering like a couple of millimeters from my throat.
".. What."
"For his own reasons, whatever they might be, the Leader has seen fit to make you my partner as member of this organisation, and partner you might be but I would like to make one thing clear: you are not my equal. I am your superior. You are my subordinate. You will take my instruction and you will do as you are told." He fixes me with this stern, stern look and it's like I'm back in the labs again, getting the rules laid down to me while they branded the back of my neck. "Is that understood?"
I can hear his voice echoing with the doctors'.
All I can do is nod.
Sasori narrows his eyes, lowers the tail. "Good boy."
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: made-up slang, some swearing. AU.
Length: 2400 words or so
Characters/Pairing: Currently gen. The only characters likely to appear extensively in the near future are Akatsuki, particularly Deidara and Sasori, but a fair few others are due to worm their way into things as time goes on.
Summary: Deidara-centric Akatsuki-fic set in a dystopian sci-fi/cyberpunk AU - that's pretty much all there is to say, really.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
All of a sudden everything's darker. Kisame's gone and so is Sasori, it's just me standing there with Itachi in front of me and this ache in the left side of my head like something's pressing into my brain with a million tiny drills. I'm trying to look at Itachi but I sort of can't and I can only see out of my other eye even though using it hurts and it won't focus properly except on those damn eyes - they're still spinning, like hell - and then I realise everything's spinning, everything's red, behind me, above me, right in front of me ... behind Itachi, bright spinning red darkness, everywhere.
I'd think I'd want to be sick, yeah, except I don't. There's something in my head saying, yes. There's something in my head saying this is some kind of perfect, and I'm finding I want to, like ... grasp this, whatever it is, and if I could just understand it I'd see ... yeah ...
I can't, but ... I'm so close togetting it, so close to seeing that this ... that ...
"This is art," I'm hearing myself saying, and I think, yes.
And then I see his face and it's so blank and it does not give a damn and it's like I've suddenly realised something and the seeing is gone and the next moment the spinning is gone and I can see properly again, and I'm fucking exhausted, but I manage to hiss out, "No - That wasn't art."
Itachi's still in front of me and he still looks like he stepped straight out of some kind of uncaring hell where everyone's just as apathetic as he is, and I'm sort of aware Kisame's behind him and Sasori's off to the side somewhere but I can't bring myself to look at them, yeah.
"That wasn't fucking art and I'm not joining your fucking gang or whatever, yeah."
I can hear Sasori making this annoyed noise like he's about to talk, but Itachi cuts him off.
"I'll fight you," he says, and he doesn't even sound like he's the kind of guy who'd enjoy it - it's just like he thinks it might be necessary or something, yeah, and he doesn't give a shit one way or the other.
It's then I decide that I hate him.
"If I win, you'll join."
He doesn't say what happens if I win. Arrogant fucker ...
... but he's right. If he can do that ... I can't. If he does that to me again, yeah ... I know I can't win.
But I reach into my pocket for a handful of my little beetles anyway. I lick over the dried clay on their backs with my hand so the moisture can activate them, and I scatter them across the floor round Itachi with one little flick of my wrist. I know what I'm doing, yeah - and I've got a chance if he doesn't. Most people don't. Someone throws tiny robots at you, you don't generally figure on them being bombs.
In retrospect the mistake I make is looking at his face to see if he figured or not, yeah, cause his eyes are spinning again and I think the bombs went off but it's dark, and probably if they had the floor would've fallen through. I don't think the floor's fallen through. It might have. I'm not really sure of anything all of a sudden, except that I can see his eyes again, and it's like this spinning is everything there is.
Something hurts. I don't know anything. My right eye is blind again, and everything I can feel or see or do is focussed on the implant in my head. It's like I am the implant and the rest of me is all gone and that's the most horrible thought in the whole fucking world, ever - especially when the clock in it's stopped, just a row of zeros, and when I try to reach out for the internet or anything that would let me into something outside, I can't, I'm blocked, it's like trying to break through this burning fiery wall.
But I keep trying. I keep trying and trying even though I don't even know what I'm trying to do and even though it's not working just because if I don't do anything then the spinning and the darkness and the red will just close in on me and I can't think of anything worse than that even though I don't know what would happen so I keep trying and trying but I'm not getting anywhere and it feels like hours or days Jah knows I can't tell any more ... and then suddenly it's light again and they're all standing above me ... above me? I've fallen. I'm on my knees.
Shit.
I get to my feet but it's way more effort than it should be, yeah. I'm totally fucking drained. I want to fall down again but they're all looking at me and like hell ... Iike fucking hell ...
I'm not gonna say I passed out, 'cause I didn't. Years since I last passed out, yeah. But there's like a moment or two where I actually just don't have a clue what's going on - like I'm falling or something, except I'm not, I just can't tell where my feet are, and I don't have enough eyes to be able to see anything. That doesn't make any sense but right now nothing really does. I'm reeling. I can hear their voices, the others, but I can't tell what they're saying. Kisame sounds a little bit worried. Stupid bastard.
But then Itachi's voice cuts in clear as you like: "You lose."
And suddenly everything snaps back to making sense. I can see everyone again, feel my feet on the ground. Normal ...
Well, nearly - it's been years since I lost to anyone, yeah. But there's this Itachi, not a scratch on his pretty pretty face, looking at me like he ain't got a clue what their boss wants with me, and here's me, basically froze to the spot, yeah, kinda shaking and I can't move.
"What the hell was that," I say, and it's the kind of talking where you hear yourself saying it and you can't really remember when you decided to say it.
"My eyes," is all Itachi says. "The Mangekyou Sharingan."
I tell you what, yeah - that means basically nothing to me. Nothing at all except one day I'm gonna beat it, yeah. Get him back for that. Yeah. I tell him so and the look he gives me is like the kind where you get the feeling if it was anyone else he'd be laughing, but he doesn't do that. He barely arches one of his thin black eyebrows like to say 'yeah, right', and I'm glad he didn't laugh, 'cause I think if he laughed hell would open up right under him and everyone in the world would go mad.
More mad, anyway. I don't figure most people've got their right thoughts about them in this world, yeah.
Sasori laughs, though, his grating grumbly superior laugh. I want to kick him in his stupid would-be robot face, but I can't get it together to move my legs properly still, so I just glare at him. He narrows his eyes back at me, and spits out words. "Brat," he says, derisive as hell, and then looks over at Itachi and Kisame. Kisame's a little behind Itachi now. It ought to, like, dwarf him, yeah, make him look little and weak, but it actually makes him look even more incriminating. Intimidating. That one. Whatever. Anyway Sasori's saying, "This is absurd. What possible use is this boy going to be -"
"He's older than Itachi was, when he joined," Kisame points out.
"Barely," Sasori replies. I wonder how old Itachi is, then, 'cause I coulda sworn he didn't look much older than me if he looked older than me at all. He does have these two like wrinkles on his face, under his eyes, though, and I'm thinking maybe he's surgically preserved or something.
"Still older," says Kisame. "You never complained about Itachi."
"That's because Itachi isn't an unskilled brat with a mouth big enough to put both his feet in it at once -"
"Hey!" I really, really don't like Sasori. I mean, I knew I didn't already, but every time he opens his metal mouth I hate him more. "Shut the hell up, yeah. I'm plenty skilled -"
"Oh, please, brat. You were owned. We all saw it."
"Stop calling me that! Anyway I gotta be good if your ... Akatsuki thing wants me, yeah?"
Sasori humphs. "Yes, well," he grumbles, "I'm beginning to question the Leader's judgement."
I grin, 'cause I've blatantly won, yeah, but then all three of them like hesitate a moment, like they're all reacting to the same thing at the same time. Itachi's the first one to speak, and it's like to someone who's not there or something.
"Yes. He is here." A pause. "No."
There's another pause, and then Kisame grins and says, "Oh, yeah. Like a house on fire," and Sasori makes this grumbling noise - there's silence and then he does it again, harsher, angry. Kisame looks from me to Sasori and back again and sort of shrugs, and then they all mutter 'yes, sir'. It's really fucking creepy, yeah.
For a moment Kisame looks about to say something, but Itachi gets there first. I wish he hadn't. He says, "Sasori, stay here with him -" before Sasori cuts him off.
"I know what the Leader said, Itachi."
Itachi looks at him like he's marking down Sasori in a little book of people who have ever defied him who he's going to kill insignificantly at some point in the future, and then just turns and leaves. The door swishes open for him, and Kisame goes behind him - he glances back at me a moment but he doesn't say anything, yeah. He just leaves.
"What the hell was that?" I don't wait for the door to shut properly. I'm kind of hoping Kisame and Itachi will hear. "What -"
"That was the Leader of the Akatsuki, brat." He sounds as annoyed as I do more or less. "We're to go to a meeting tomorrow morning. In the meantime ..." He stops here, just to pause to look more annoyed or something, and then goes on, like he's telling me he's going to have to get both his legs amputated or something (by the looks of him he's already been there, though), "In the meantime he wants us to stay here and ... settle our differences." I can pretty much hear the italics. I don't think I ever heard anyone say anything that scornly, yeah.
"What are you talking about? I didn't hear anything, yeah."
Sasori gives me this annoyed look that's kind of baffled, actually baffled, at the same time. "You've got an implant, haven't you?" he says, like he's talking to someone retarded. "Surely you're familiar with instant messaging -"
"Oh shut up, 'course I am -"
"Then I don't see what has you so confused. Or are you just being wilfully contrary?"
"What I mean is, I know Kisame hasn't got any implants, yeah! Or Itachi - I never got any reading off him, my other eye -"
"Obviously isn't as reliable as you thought it was," he interrupts. Jah, he's smug! I want to ram a C4 down his stupid steel throat. I would if I could. Seriously, the only thing stopping me from trying right now is that damn Sharingan thing left me so weak ... Ugh, The battery's low on my other eye, too, I figure all of a sudden, and I glare at Sasori.
"There's nothing wrong with it, yeah. It works fine."
Never mind the checkup. Never mind the labs.
"Well, obviously not: that's four implants you failed to pick up."
"Shut up. It's fine."
Sasori rolls his eyes. "You're trying my patience, brat."
"If they've got implants, tell me where they are, yeah."
One of his weird-looking eyebrows arches. "Oh, no. If your implant's fine it ought to be able to detect them. Perhaps I'm wrong." I open my mouth to snap something at him, I don't even know what when I'm opening my mouth, but he stops me. "Or perhaps," he says, smirking, "you just need to look harder next time. Hmm?"
I glare at him. Stupid smug bastard. I bet he's running Mac.
*
We don't talk to each other for a while. Mostly I just can't be fucked with trying to talk to him, and he obviously doesn't give a damn about it either. It's so damn' boring, though, yeah ... I pull out one of my beetles, after a while, and set it crawling back and forth over my fingers and hands.
Sasori pays attention, then. He fixes me with this suspicious look and says, in this stern voice that makes me think too much of how the doctors back in the labs talked when they wanted you to do what they were saying, "Isn't that dangerous?"
I look up from the beetle. "What?"
"That ... thing. You used them against Itachi. They're explosives, you idiot. What do you think you're doing?"
I grin then - heck, I laugh. He doesn't look like he thinks it's all that funny, so I tell him, "They're moisture-activated, yeah. I gotta lick 'em for them to work."
He narrows his eyes. "That's ridiculous. I never saw you lick them."
I just grin wider at that, yeah. I hold my hands up, grinning with those mouths too, and open them and stick my tongues out at him. He pulls a surprised, disgusted face, which is really really satisfying. He wasn't expecting that, yeah. Stupid bastard.
"You're modified," he says.
I roll my eye. "Well, duh."
"Hah. And here I thought you were just a pyromaniac nutjob who'd got lucky with an implant." He tilts his head, curious but his voice is mocking me. "Labs or back street surgeon?"
I shrug. "Labs. Beta. 'Bout seven years back, yeah."
"Seven years?" He narrows his eyes, peering at me suspiciously. "How old are you?"
"Seventeen."
He looks a little surprised again there. I dunno if it's 'cause he thought I looked older than that or 'cause he didn't think any of the labs took volunteers that young. I reckon it's the latter, yeah, 'cause most of the voluntary ones don't. Kisame doesn't talk about it much but I know he didn't go into any labs 'til he was like twenty or something, yeah.
Anyway Sasori wipes the surprise and just says, "Seventeen? You could have fooled me. I've met fifteen-year-olds more mature than you."
I glare at him. "Yeah? How old are you, anyway?"
"That's none of your business, brat."
"Hey! I told you how old I was, yeah -"
"You chose to answer. I don't."
"Why, you embarrassed of being a crusty old man or what?"
He gives this horrible snort of laughter that sounds like someone dragging a dead rat across rusty corrugated iron. "It's none of your business."
"It's not like anybody'd be able to tell, yeah."
"I said it's none of your business. This discussion ends here."
"Yeah, well -"
"Deidara." In the same breath he says my name he's got the tip of that long jointy scorpion-tail hovering like a couple of millimeters from my throat.
".. What."
"For his own reasons, whatever they might be, the Leader has seen fit to make you my partner as member of this organisation, and partner you might be but I would like to make one thing clear: you are not my equal. I am your superior. You are my subordinate. You will take my instruction and you will do as you are told." He fixes me with this stern, stern look and it's like I'm back in the labs again, getting the rules laid down to me while they branded the back of my neck. "Is that understood?"
I can hear his voice echoing with the doctors'.
All I can do is nod.
Sasori narrows his eyes, lowers the tail. "Good boy."