Chapter Text
Sasori assumed that the reason he was paired with you was because no one else could stand the smell. His sense of smell had recently been replaced with hand-made sensory tools, so he had no idea what odor your concoction gave off. But judging from the thick, black smoke that oozed from your cauldon, Sasori assumed the scent to be absolutely foul. Hopefully, by the time he completes all of his body modifications, he will have gotten rid of you, but that wouldn’t be for a while.
He propped himself up against a log at the edge of the forest clearing, a ways away from you. A puppet laid draped across his lap. Despite the sun directly on his head, Sasori couldn’t help but feel cool air on his semi-synthetic skin, reminiscent of evenings in the desert. Sasori’s shoulders slumped, his eyes intent as he took to tinkering.
You sat, legs crossed as the fumes enveloped you like a sleek, fur coat. The smoke continued to travel through the clearing, devouring the fallen leaves and twigs on the ground. The blackness creeped up Sasori’s leg. He gave it a swat as his narrowed eyes, quickly glancing up at you.
You weaved your hand signs and mouthed the incantations silently to yourself— likely a quirk picked up from your academy days. It was a horrible habit, Sasori decided. Reading your lips was just another thing for an enemy to pick up on in battle.
The smoke swirled around your rapidly changing hands as it continued to pour out of your summoned pot. Usually foul tempered, Sasori couldn’t quite bring himself to feel annoyed. And so in his oddly tolerant mood, he returned to his work without a word.
He carved and tapped at his latest project, paying little attention to you as you gradually rose off the ground. That was until the smoke eventually enveloped Sasori’s lap and his puppet along with it.
At that point, Sasori clenched his jaw, head snapping up to glare at you in contempt. But you didn’t notice, eyes still closed as you now hovered a few inches from the dry dirt below. Your Akatsuki robes dragged on the ground, falling a bit off of your left shoulder. Sasori’s grip tightened on the tool in his hands. The puppet disappeared and the white smoke was quickly enveloped by the black.
“Is this really necessary?” he gritted. You hummed in response.
“Mm… making a love potion… for the mission, remember?” you muttered, almost as if you were half asleep. You shushed Sasori with a sharp hiss before returning to your incantation. Your forehead crinkled with tension. Sasori, however, did not take well to being hushed.
“I’ve had enough of waiting.” He rose to his feet, snatching his robe from a nearby branch. His sleeves snapped as he slipped them on, sauntering across the clearing where you floated a tad higher. “I’m taking care of the mission myself since you make it impossible to—”
Sasori glanced away for a second and he recoiled instantly as you placed your feet on the ground to stand by his side. You said nothing, looking at him expectantly with a ladle in one hand and the other cupped below it. He instinctively took a half step back. The cauldron on the ground had since calmed to a mild simmer and the smoke had begun to dissipate.
“So?” you pushed, holding the ladle up to his face. Sasori jerked away, nose scrunched up in disgust. The area under his eye twitched, the vexed tension in his face swiftly dissipating. “What does it smell like?”
“Get that shit away from me.” What was intended to be a harsh push turned into a light knock against your arm. Unconcerned, you maneuvered the ladle over the cauldron and a bit of your potion spilled back into the batch.
The vapor that rose up into the air felt hot compared to the coolness that Sasori felt earlier. It had a brownish tint to it and the more he looked at the black liquid, the more it came to resemble the traditional spice drink of the Sand. What he thought appeared thick and black, began to look thin and transparently brown upon further inspection. In fact, it didn’t look dissimilar to the way that Chiyo made her batches.
—“just smelling, so if it works on you and your stunted senses, then I feel more confident using it on the target. What do you think? Is it strong enough?”
Sasori didn’t even realize that you had been speaking. He pursed his lips, sucking on the inside of his cheek. A prominent cinnamon taste had formed on his tongue. He turned his head to split on the ground— much to your confusion and disgust— but the cinnamon taste remained. He paused, studying you with a resentful stare, wondering if a splash managed to make its way into his mouth. He knew it didn’t.
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” he grumbled before trudging off to get some fresher air. Hopefully with some distance, the taste in his mouth— he shouldn’t be tasting things at all— would dissipate.
“Hm?” You hummed, completely oblivious to the effects of the potion on your partner and with a brain occupied only by mission plans.
“It’ll work.” And Sasori disappeared elsewhere.
***
The potion worked well, just like Sasori said.
He watched from among the trees as you slipped a vial of your potion into your target’s drink. You managed an invitation to the political party and the plan went without a hitch. The droplet of potion that you rubbed on your neck was enough to get the target alone, but the amount spiked into the man’s drink would ensure that you’d get any information you’d need. A small, cracked-open hatch sat at the top of the tall windows in the room where you sat, allowing Sasori’s chakra strings to float a few feet above your head. And as you talked your way into classified information, Sasori’s squad of bug-like puppets quietly rifled through drawers for the documents that you had tipped him off to earlier.
You lounged on the couch with your hand resting on the forearm of your target. You leaned into the other arm that he had around the back of the cushions. Sasori didn’t even know that he had been staring until your gaze met his, piercing through the window and right into his almost-mechanical core.
The crash that came from around the corner wasn’t loud, but prominent enough for your host to jump up from his relaxed state. You shot up with him, pushing his drink back into his hand. Sasori cursed to himself, barely restraining an instinctual curl of his fingertips as he quickly worked to remedy his mistake. He didn’t pay any attention to what you said to your target and he didn’t look at you for the rest of your operation.
***
The two of you had skipped town before the end of the night. After slipping out of the vast estate, you quickly retreated to the next village over. Sasori was already waiting for you in the small motel room. He sat on one of the twin beds, stolen papers and scrolls scattered along the comforter. Sasori spared you a single glance, but there wasn’t time to criticize his lack of greeting. You made straight for the desk just opposite of Sasori’s bed. You pulled out a series of papers and took to writing. Every so often, you’d start a new page, making a small pile to your right.
You sat like that until the night reached its darkest. Sasori finished his reading before you finished your writing. He took to reclining against the bed’s headboard, ankles and arms crossed as he leaned his head back. He glanced down at the papers that were neatly scattered across the comforter, replaying his mistake from the mission over and over. Sasori stared intently at the back of your head.
You were seated facing away from him. Your focus was completely on your writing.
Thin, chakra threads mobilized at Sasori’s fingertips.
He wouldn’t even need a puppet. You were exhausted, distracted, and it would only take a quick swipe of his fingers to strangle you from where he sat.
Sasori pondered on the thought for a moment. Yes, you were the one responsible for distracting him on your mission. The chakra built up, stretching over to you. He thought back to how you shoved your concoction in his face, wondering if the gesture was purposeful. If he just killed you—
You let your shoulders fall as you finished and the chakra threads immediately disappeared from Sasori’s fingers. You cracked your knuckles. And with a heave of your shoulders, you collected your notes and sat at the edge of Sasori’s bed. He watched on as you scooted his papers more towards him to make room for yourself.
“I have news on strikes on the outskirts of the Land of Stone. Lots of political unrest there… sounds like a power vacuum to me. Very promising.” You lazed on the comforter, a drawl to your voice. Sasori made little effort to move, exerting himself only a bit to thumb through the assortment now scattered around his lap and extended legs.
“Sounds like rumors and speculation. You know better than to offer me rumors and speculation.” Sasori frowned, eyes fluttering closed. “I have the invoices for the renovations anyway.” You scoffed.
“Nothing compared to the blackmail material I got on several of the Sand’s ANBU members,” you said with a certain amount of triumph in your tone. Sasori’s eyes flickered upwards to meet yours, interested. “Identities and everything. For your personal bingo book. I know you well, don’t I?” Sasori ignored you as he shifted to sit higher against the pillows piled behind his lower back.
“I have evidence of fraud and foreign smuggling accounts.” He thumbed through one of his stacks of papers again. He plucked one out and tossed it onto your lap. You threw it back to him with a shake of your head.
“Fraud? Really, Sasori?” You rolled your eyes, but Sasori said nothing.
Instead, he sat, staring at you. One of his elbows rested on his bent knee, a bundle of his stolen documents hanging limply from his fingers. You met his blank expression as he meditated on the sounds that came from your lips.
Sounds, not words.
“What?” You quickly glanced to the side and then back at him. It was only then that he noticed his intense gaze. He scrunched his nose and scoffed.
“The day I get a new partner…” He trailed off with a huff. A shallow exhale puffed out your cheeks.
Sasori suddenly felt nauseated. Surely, no witchcraft of yours would sway him into giving you better information than you deserved. He hardly believed in such things in the first place.
“Black spice market and Jashinist cult activity in the northern mountains.” You pursed your lips, making a motion to hand over one of your pages before stopping short. Sasori cocked an eyebrow. “Specialty ingredients and rare scrolls.” He didn’t even have to express his full logic. You nodded to yourself before the both of you exchanged papers.
The Akatsuki got the information they were seeking and the two of you got yours.
***
It wasn’t long after the mission that you disappeared. Where you went, Sasori didn’t know. He asked once. His own inquisitive nature demanded an explanation. All he was told was that you had taken assignments elsewhere and there was no mention of you within the Akatsuki ever again.
Years went by and time further cemented you as simply a partner that Sasori once had. A small blip in the grand scheme of things. But now, as he sat in a forest clearing with Hiroko drapes across his lap for repairs, he couldn’t help but be reminded of you. His earliest partner in the organization. Briefly, for just a second.
It was less about you, he told himself. Rather, Sasori was always more at ease when nothing in his life was a mystery. He liked the control of knowing. He liked knowing that all things, even his very own body, were at his calculated mercy. No surprises.
“I’m falling asleep…” Deidera yawned from across the clearing. He stretched his arms above his head, the tongues from the mouths on his hands flexing as saliva dripped down his sleeves. “You’ll wake me up when we’re moving out, right?”
“We take turns on watch,” Sasori said sternly. He didn’t even look up from his repairs. Being out of his usual shell made Sasori’s shoulders feel heavy. His eyes darted around the clearing. He didn’t like feeling out in the open, and the sooner he repaired the damage from his previous battle, the sooner he could feel at ease.
“Now how is that fair?” Deidera exclaimed in exasperation. He plopped down on a makeshift nest of bedding, his hair fanning out across the moss. “You don’t even sleep.”
“We take turns on watch .” Sasori repeated, glaring into Deidara’s baby-blue eyes. He turned back to his work too quickly to see Deidara’s pouting face. How Sasori got paired with someone so young— a child — was another mystery to him.
A spring snapped under his fingers, leaving a black slash mark across Sasori’s knuckles. He gritted his teeth, now having to unscrew the whole section to replace the broken spring before attaching it back to the apparatus. Then , maybe he could finally get to the root of what he was trying to fix in the first place.
The leaves rustled somewhere behind him. And before Deidara could make another complaint, he was quickly yanked away from a colorful explosion by Sasori’s chakra strings. Deidara skidded to the far end of the clearing, grunting out curses as he took cover from a volley of kunai. He sank his hands into his clay bags, not wanting to be outdone in his medium of art.
Sasori took to the trees, having summoned two puppets to fight two of the members of the attacking three-man squad. It had been a while since he fought out in the open and not within the damaged Hiroko. He crouched on a branch, focused and frustrated as he exchanged blows with the enemy shinobi.
A series of explosions went off below. Colored and black smoke mixed together as Deidara soared up out of the fight on a clay bird. Sasori fortified the chakra output at the soles of his feet, bracing himself as the shockwave hit him. His red hairs blew around, fluttering around his eyes and nose as he continued to fight among the trees.
“Behind you!” Sasori barely heard Deidara’s warning over the wind.
His puppet maneuvered around him just in time to intercept the smoke bomb. It hit the puppet with a crash and exploded in a pigmented smoke.
Sasori’s senses were overwhelmed with the smell of cheap cleaner, like the scent of sheets in a cheap motel room.