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L O N G I N G
Her front door closes softly, and Sakura presses herself against it. She releases a long-winded sigh, head tossed back and eyes towards the ceiling. She doesn’t know what it is about Wednesday evening shifts, but they never ran smoothly.
Maybe it was just her continuous lousy luck, or perhaps something in the hospital's ventilation system. Still, every patient was needier than usual, not a single chart was filed correctly, and any alternate nurses were nowhere to be found when they were needed.
She shakes off her despair, happy to leave work stress behind her. Kicking off her shoes unceremoniously, she doesn’t bother to turn on the lights as she pads into her kitchen.
It’s only when she’s half-buried in her open refrigerator, sniffing at a container of take-out that she realizes that she’s not alone.
The kunai is out of her hand before she turns around, the fast-food container now a discarded pile on her hardwood floor. Her weapon misses its mark, and judging by the muted ‘thunk’, it’s embedded into the wall. She scowls slightly at her skewed aim – and the fact that she will have to patch a hole – but her secret visitor has stopped skulking around in the shadows of her living room, so she considers it a small victory.
When his chakra washes over her, Sakura relaxes – only slightly. She flicks her ankle, discarding some of the mangled mess of beef and broccoli spilled on her foot, then stomps her way to the closest wall and slaps her hand against the light switch.
“What the hell are you doing, Deidara!?” She seethes.
Should she be surprised that an ex-war criminal had broken into her apartment? Probably.
Is she? Not really.
They fought side by side during the war, and despite not being within immediate proximity for most of it, Sakura can still hear the resounding explosions of his bombs connecting with their targets. She wouldn’t admit it out loud, but from how he revisits the memories during their late-night tirades, she is sure he kept a close eye on her while she was fighting. He knows too many details of her shining moments and the enemies that she took down. She doesn’t know if she should have been scared or exasperated by his interest in her, but she chooses not to ask herself that question often.
These little midnight visits started when the village was rebuilt and a sense of normalcy washed over the nation. Most of the time, they were to avoid getting into immediate trouble within his home village – he did have a knack for blowing things up, after all. Some were for healing minor wounds he received on his probationary missions; others were for absolutely nothing but to annoy her in her free time.
She couldn’t tell if he was on the right side of genius or the wrong side of crazy, but she enjoyed herself in his company. Most of their visits were spent with her listening to him talk about his art and medians. She couldn’t help but be enthralled by him, as he was enthusiastic. Sakura thinks she’s the only one who truly listens to him as he rants and raves, hence why he keeps coming back.
Though, there is something different as of late. It’s the way he looks at her. It’s guarded and apprehensive, like he wants to tell her something but is holding himself back. She never asks about his change in demeanor, hoping that he would figure it out on his own.
Her interloper has one hand raised, brows high on his forehead like he’s shocked that she would throw a sharp object in the general direction of his face. The lone blue eye not tucked behind his bangs slides to the kunai next to his ear. Sakura silently preens at noting it cut off some of his luscious blonde hair.
“You could have killed me, yeah!”
Sakura scoffs at his dramatics, eyes-rolling. “More like barely maim,” she says. She points a finger in his general direction, wiggling it up and down. “Doesn’t answer my question. What’s with the cloak and dagger routine?”
Much like his fighting style, Deidara is not the quiet type. Typically he makes his presence known while sneaking in her window or breaking in through her balcony door.
Deidara raises his other hand, the one pressed against his side, and Sakura catches the site of his palm covered in sticky, crimson blood.
“I need your help, yeah. Otherwise, I might bleed out on your carpet.”
“Bleed out on my –,” Sakura pauses, taking the time to skirt around the island in her kitchen to peer into her living room where Deidara stood. “Might? Might? You’re already leaking all over it!” She takes in the muddy red stains marring her yellow rug and growls, “I just bought that last week!”
Deidara winces slightly at her screeching and presses his coated hand back to his hip. “I’ll buy you a new one, yeah? So help me out here.”
Her gaze turns into a hate-filled glower, and Deidara grimaces again. He steps towards her but stops mid-stride when Sakura crosses her arms over her chest, anger not diminishing. He knew that look and what it meant.
“You do realize that you’re on probation, right?” Sakura questions. “You’re not even supposed to be within fifty miles of Konoha, let alone bleeding on my carpet.”
Deidara makes a noise that makes Sakura believe that he doesn’t particularly care about the aspects of his sentencing. “Hasn’t stopped me before,” he says. “And it won’t stop me in the future. You should start coming up with some new excuses. Come on, pinkie, help me out.”
He cocks his head to the side, bobbing it slightly, eyebrow raised and a sad pout plastered on his face. He knows she won’t last long with him begging; her good-natured heart would never turn down someone in need. It’s only a matter of time and a waiting game.
They lapse into prolonged silence, their stare-off becoming a battle of wills. She thinks she might have him beat, but the longer she stands there, the more exhaustion creeps into her bones. All she wants to do is take a shower, wash the day away, and crawl into her bed. Deidara, for his part, is starting to hunch in on himself, breath coming out in short parts – the pitter-patter of his blood continuing to stain her carpet. The last of Sakura’s stubbornness subsides when she takes in the twist of his mouth and the pinch between his brows. She doesn’t know what he’s done, but clearly, whatever it is bothering him enough that he’s wobbling on his own two feet.
She clicks her tongue, brushes a hand down her face, and states, “You know where the bathroom is. Go get the kit and sit down.” She waves him away with a hand.
Deidara is off before she could even second guess her discission, trotting down the hallway to her restroom, a trail of blood following behind him. She joins him at a much slower pace, taking the time to inspect the damage done to her rug. She will have to throw the whole thing away; what a pain.
By the time she’s reached the bathroom, he’s sitting on the lip of her tub, shirtless, wound oozing openly. It’s not the worst thing she’s seen; a decent-sized chunk of skin is missing close to his hip. It looks like someone or something took a bite out of him. She steps into the room, grabbing bandages from the first aid kit he kindly left next to her sink. She kneels on the floor, trying not to think about the fact that she is trapped between his thighs, and closes in on the wound.
Her hands start to glow a soft green, and she hovers them over the injury.
“Do I even want to know how you got this?” She asks.
Deidara sighs almost blissfully. “It was beautiful, beautiful art. You should have seen it, yeah.”
Sakura snorts, “I’m good. The last thing I need is to be caught interloping with one of the world’s reformed criminals.”
He chuckles, “Hasn’t stopped you from locking your windows or balcony door. Also, the key word in that sentence is reformed, yeah.”
She grumbles, caught red-handed, and heat blooms in her cheeks. “So, you blew yourself up by accident?” Sakura retaliates, trying to distract them both.
He smirks, knowing he has her beat. He leans further back on the tub’s edge for her to access his injury better. “A piece of debris clipped me when my newest formation exploded.”
The wound has closed enough for her to consider him out of any immediate danger. She doesn’t heal him entirely, just enough for the damage to be scabbed over and the skin to be mended.
Sakura considers it payback for her rug.
She reaches beside her, where she discarded the bandages, and motions for him to sit up straight. He does as she asks, and they lapse into companionable silence as she wraps his torso. She is so focused on her task that she doesn’t even bother to push her hair back as it falls into her eyes.
Sakura starts when she feels his fingers brush against the skin of her forehead, sliding down the side of her cheek to brush that hair behind her ear. Her eyes dart to his face, taking in his relaxed smile. It makes him look younger and boyish. It’s something that she would like to see on him more often. She bites her tongue, stopping herself from saying anything as that look starts to bleed back into his features. The one that she can’t place an emotion for. She turns from him and finishes her task, tying off the bandages with a small knot.
“There you go,” she says as she sits back on her knees. “All finished.”
He flexes the muscles in his stomach once, twice, then twists from side to side, judging the strength of her healing.
“As always, pinkie, you’re the best, yeah!”
She smiles at the nickname. “Yeah yeah,” she boasts, “Tell me something I don’t know.”
He immediately reaches for his undershirt and cloak, discarded on the toilet seat next to them. He slips them on quickly before standing and moving around her towards the door. Sakura fights the jolting disappointment at realizing that he is most likely not staying tonight.
She stands slowly, and some of her emotion must have slipped into her expression because Deidara's smiling again when he turns towards her. It’s a cocky twist of his lips, and he's leaning towards her before she has a chance to ask him what’s so damn funny.
It’s a shock to feel the brush of his lips across her cheek. It feels like someone had dumped a cold drink over her head; she went still and frigid, face freezing in place. She looks up at him with her mouth agape; all the while, he looks like the cat who got the canary.
Eventually, when Sakura’s brain can formulate coherent thoughts, she smacks her hand against her cheek, where his lips were only a few seconds before.
“What the hell are you doing?” She tries to sound affronted, but her voice fails her, and her challenge comes out more like a shocked, subdued whisper.
“Saying thank you, yeah,” Deidara simply replies, roguish smile still in place.
“The hell you are. Are you out of your god damn m –,” Sakura begins to say, but then his hand is on her hip, and his other is at her cheek, and his fingers were warm and callused, and he smelled a bit like gun powder and his cloak was worn against her hands and—
He kisses her, and it’s gentle and a little unassuming, like he is asking her a question. It’s just a brush of his mouth against hers, but she feels it from the top of her head down to her toes – Sakura could feel them curling against the tiles of her bathroom floor. There’s only a second’s hesitation before she’s kissing him back, and the world goes a little quiet, a little away. She likes everything about the kiss: the soft press of his body against hers, the slowness of it, the way he draws away, if only for a moment, as if to check she is all right with this.
He dips back in quickly for a second kiss, this one lasting a little longer than the first, but she the one pulls away this time, much too soon than she would like, but she feels like she needs to get her head on straight before she gets lost in the feel of him.
She doesn’t know how the night’s events have turned to this, nor when Deidara’s infatuation turned from curiosity to friendly to extremely fond, but she can now place that look in his eye: longing. She adds some questions – and a lot more – to the steady-growing pile in the back of her mind. There’s a time and place, and she’s immensely enjoying herself right now.
“This doesn’t get you out of buying me a new rug, you know,” she says, her voice breathless.
Deidara laughs, a loud, hearty sound rattling his chest, and leans down to claim her lips again.
Sakura pulls back once more. “And you’re cleaning up the mess in the kitchen.”
“Whatever you say, pinkie. Let me finish saying thank you, yeah?” He murmurs, dipping his head once more.
-o-
Sakura finds that Deidara’s definition of ‘thank you’ is much more thorough than she anticipated.