Chapter Text
Itachi’s hands crumpled the paper slightly, hands feeling cold. He had never liked a mission he was assigned by Danzo, but this was something else. Deidara, formerly of Iwagakure, deemed too dangerous to be allowed to continue as a rogue. After several medium to large-scale attacks in the Land of Fire, he was done. Itachi squeezed his eyes shut. He took two breaths, then banished any hesitation. So what if Deidara was only fourteen? He had a kill count higher than most full-grown men, and that made it Itachi's role to take him out. He was a threat to Konoha. To everyone living there. To Sasuke.
Itachi opened his eyes, sighed, and pulled the lighter from his bag. He watched the note go up in flames. It singed his fingers, and he let it. He turned to return to the main base. There was a right way to deal with this assignment, as much as he hated it.
He should start with a cake.
"Deidara?"
The boy jumped at Itachi's voice then shot him a death glare.
"Eh? The fuck do you want?" he snapped.
"I made cake. Would you like some?"
Surprise shot across his face, and he looked away. As expected, a hint of pink was on his cheeks.
"Why the fuck would I want cake, from you, of all people, huh?"
Itachi knew why. He would want it because he had a crush on him. Most everyone knew, no matter how much he pretended to hate him. Or, if not, because it was cake, and no fourteen-year-old had ever turned down cake.
"Well, you've had a birthday or two since you joined, right? You ought to have at least a little celebration."
Deidara bit his lip and scowled, then mumbled something under his breath.
"Hm?" Itachi leaned forward just a touch.
"I said, what kind of cake is it, hm?"
"I made one lemon raspberry and one chocolate."
Deidara crossed his arms.
"Tsk. Fine. I'll give it a shot."
Itachi put on a small smile.
"Great!"
Itachi tugged his hair into a ponytail and splashed his face. His reflection in the mirror didn't look right. He shook the water droplets off his face and ignored the feeling. Deidara had enjoyed the cake. Good, good, all according to plan.
Keep going with the food, then on to the next phase. The path of least resistance was bringing down Deidara's walls. Drop his guard. Easy.
Itachi swung out of the bathroom, out of his room, and nearly collided with Sasori.
"Ah, I was looking for you, boy."
Itachi made a slight noise questioning Sasori's intentions.
"I wanted to ask what you're doing with Deidara."
A flash of panic shot through Itachi's mind. No, he didn't know. That would be crazy. Crazy, and not possible.
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know. But he's been on and on, ranting about you, even more than normal. 'Stupid perfect Itachi' and blah blah blah."
"Ah," Itachi half nodded, "I guess I'm being nicer to him? I made cake and thought I'd offer him some."
"Hmm. I see. Maybe you ought to start ignoring him again, for what's left of my sanity." Sasori laughed, "Whatever. Just thought I'd ask if you knew what you were doing. The boy's a mess for you."
"Hmm. I guess we'll just have to see how it goes."
Sasori nodded, or at least, Itachi was pretty sure it was a nod, and continued past him.
Down in the kitchen, Itachi started his next meal. Omurice: easy to throw together, and hopefully to Deidara's taste. Onions, peppers, rice on the stove; Itachi fell back into the comfortable rhythm of cooking. He'd been cooking almost as long as he could remember. Food was a good communicator- it brought it a natural kind of vulnerability.
He plated the rice and egg mix then grabbed the bottle of hot sauce in the fridge labeled with 'D'S! Don't touch’. Itachi couldn't relate to wanting to half drown every meal in the stuff, but it did suit the loud blond.
Itachi knocked on Deidara's bedroom door. It swung open almost immediately. Deidara's face was loud, surprise followed by a mild flush, covered by a glare, telling Itachi everything he might've wondered.
"Wha- what do you want, eh?" Deidara stumbled over himself in surprise.
"Well, you haven't been out of your room all morning" -very normal, Deidara tended to keep late hours and stay to himself- "so I thought I'd make sure you got some food."
"Hm?" he scrunched his nose, "You think I'm a child or something? What are you trying to pull with me, motherfucker?"
Itachi pushed a subtle hurt onto his face.
"No, of course not. I just wanted to make sure you're not burning yourself out going hungry."
"I-uh. Uh- fine. Whatever."
He snatched the plate from him and slammed the door shut before Itachi could say anything. A few seconds later the door creaked open again. Deidara grabbed the hot sauce from Itachi's other hand, glaring.
"Fuck off. I bet it tastes like shit anyway."
Itachi sank to the ground against his door. Ew. Fuck. He wanted to pull his skin off. This was such a disgusting thing to do. Every day made it harder to stifle the feelings that Danzo was the last person he should trust, much less take orders from. But what else was he meant to do? Deidara was a threat. That was all he needed to remember.
But he was just a kid.
Itachi shoved the thoughts away, standing up to grab a kunai. He could still rely on pain to drown it out if nothing else.
“Oi, Uchiha.”
Itachi spun around to the kitchen door. Deidara stood there, hair loose around his shoulders.
“Hello Deidara,” Itachi smiled at him, “What are you doing down here this late?”
“Eh, I don’t know, what are you doing, huh?” Deidara snapped back in his usual manner.
Itachi turned back to the vegetables he’d been chopping. He’d been making an omelet, having finally reached the point where he couldn’t keep going without eating anything. Usually, he could measure his limits a bit better than this, but his work with Deidara had been distracting. He hadn’t planned on Deidara being here. Had he come to see him? That would mean things were working better than expected.
“Making some food. Would you like some?”
“Why the fuck are you cooking at two in the morning, hm?”
“Well…why are you here to swear at me at two in the morning?” Itachi made his tone a touch teasing, not what he was used to, “Just wanted to see me?”
Itachi watched Deidara turn red out of the corner of his eye. He really had.
“Wh-I-No, fuck that. Why would I wanna see you? You piss me off.”
“Ah, alright.” Itachi kept the lightness to his voice, “Well, regardless, would you like some food?”
Deidara hesitated, crossing his arms.
“I…shit, fine. I’ll keep your lonely ass company for a bit.”
“Thank you, Deidara.”
He flushed again, scowling, then pulled up a chair and sat at the counter. It was barely a moment of silence before Deidara started talking again.
“Why’re you always cooking, eh? Seems pretty stupid and girly to me.”
Itachi paused before giving his answer. Should he begin with something soft? He wasn’t exactly sure if Deidara would be put off by it…but he was already coming to see him unprompted.
“I…find it comforting,” a soft voice this time, almost tender, “And I like being able to- to, uh.”
He cut himself off, waiting for Deidara to prompt him to answer.
“Being able to what, huh?”
Easy.
“Well, to, uh-” stutter, be nervous about it. You said too much. “-help people I…care about.”
He ended at little more than a whisper, forcing Deidara to strain to hear.
“O-oh.”
He could hear how flustered Deidara was.
“Aren’t you the-” Deidara cleared his throat. “-Y’know, sappy type.”
There was a weak venom behind the words, but it had faltered too much for it to be convincing.
“Maybe a little.” Itachi half-laughed.
The quiet was awkward and nervous. He was sure Deidara had more to say, just couldn’t put it into the right words. Itachi tipped the omelet onto a plate and presented it to Deidara.
“Would you like the hot sauce?”
“Hm?” Deidara seemed caught off guard by the question, “I don’t know. ‘S it any good?”
“It’s one of the only things I put it on.” Itachi offered.
“Ah, sure, I guess.”
Itachi smiled, grabbing both the one labeled as Deidara’s and the one he could stand from the fridge.
“Eh? That’s yours? Pussy.” he snorted.
Itachi laughed sheepishly, taking a seat next to Deidara.
“Maybe. But why didn’t you know whether it was good?”
The question was more genuine than he’d planned for, but it intrigued him. Deidara never talked about his past much, as expected of an Akatsuki member, but he was the youngest. There was at least a little story behind it.
“Huh? The fuck do you mean?”
“Well, just…haven’t you had an omelet before?” Itachi’s voice was light, but the answer made him nervous. Dropping a guard was dangerous on both sides. The more he learned about this boy, the more he would have to drown to kill him.
Deidara was uncharacteristically quiet.
“Nah, not really. I ate whatever the hell I got fed, ‘cause otherwise, I didn’t get fed.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
Deidara’s head snapped up from facing his plate to staring Itachi down.
“What?”
“I’m…sorry. That you had to go through that.”
Deidara turned away from him, just as quickly as he’d turned to him in the first place. He pushed the food around.
“Whatever. It’s not like it matters, hm.”
Itachi took a few bites of his food. He wasn’t tasting it, which was better anyway. Should he push more? Deidara was volatile. He could snap at any moment, and it could ruin all of his progress.
Deidara stood up abruptly. Itachi looked over at him, only a touch surprised. He’d finished the food, faster than he’d expected.
“I'm going to bed. Later, dumbass.”
Itachi took a slow breath, mussing his hair by running his fingers through it. It’d been almost a month and a half of meals shared with Deidara, and he was definitely more open by now. He barely even remembered to insult him these days. Which meant he had to move to the next, potentially final phase.
He swallowed and put on a subtly distressed face. He knocked on Deidara’s door, and it swung open almost immediately.
“Oi.” Deidara looked him up and down, “What’re you doin’ here?”
“I-um,” Itachi hesitated, “I was…having trouble sleeping. Could I… stay here for a bit?”
Deidara blinked slowly, then flushed.
“Yo-you mean, stay in my room?”
“Yeah…If you don’t want to, I can go and not-”
“NO-I mean, uh,” he stumbled over his words, still blushing, “Sure. Whatever. I’m not gonna sleep for a while though.”
“That’s fine.” Itachi gave him a tiny smile.
“Whatever. Come in, hm.”
The room was as messy as Itachi had expected it to be, with clothes and shinobi tools thrown haphazardly across the floor. There were bags of clay also taking up a significant amount of space, and the bed pressed against the wall in the back of the room looked like it hadn’t been made in months, if ever. The one thing Itachi hadn’t expected, however, was a huge canvas spanning half the room. It was covered in paint and singes, all of which, Itachi realized, currently matched the mess on Deidara’s clothes.
“‘S a mess in here. Sorry, I guess. You can sit over there, mk.” Deidara pointed lazily to his bed, “Toss some stuff off.”
Itachi nodded, shifting the mess to the side as he was told. Deidara was still blushing but seemed to have decided the best way to deal with having his crush in his bedroom was just to ignore him. He turned back to his painting and grabbed a tube of paint from the ground, then smeared a streak of it across the canvas.
“I didn’t know you painted, Deidara.”
“Oh, uh, yeah. It’s not my favorite kinda art, but it gets the itch out.”
Itachi took a half second to consider, then tossed himself into it.
“The itch?”
“Mhm. I don’t know how to describe it, y’know?” Deidara rummaged through a pile of paint tubes and supplies, pulling out a sponge that he used to splatter a bright orange across the canvas. It wasn’t calming to watch, but there was something that felt consistent, even steady about it. “S’like an itch. I have to do it.”
“Do your art, and all that?” Itachi asked quietly. This was painful. Sitting here like a friend, sitting here like he meant good.
Deidara bobbed a nod, stepping back to gaze at the painting. If Itachi could have kept that one moment, he would have.
Itachi started to visit his room more often. He kept expecting Deidara to say no, but he didn’t. The pleas of being unable to sleep weren’t a lie, but he hated being so manipulative. It took five weeks for the night that he had been dreading to arrive.
Itachi sat on Deidara’s bed again, leaning back on the headboard. There was tiredness tugging at his eyes, and he was starting to feel safe in Deidara’s room.
The blond shot him a look from yet another canvas, this one in shades of black, purple, and red. “What’s up with you?”
Itachi ran a hand through his hair again, resisting the urge to tighten his ponytail to the point where it almost hurt.
“Tired,” he mumbled, voice almost softer than he intended.
“Well, duh. Do you ever actually sleep?”
What a good question. Not really.
“Sometimes.”
“You’re such a dumbass.”
Itachi gave him a soft, slow smile. Deidara’s face softened, then he turned away, cheeks burning.
“Kind of.”
Deidara stared at his canvas for a long moment, then sat down on the bed next to him, close enough to make it feel intimate. Every alarm bell in Itachi’s body went off, both for his safety and for Deidara’s. He didn’t move.
“You… can sleep here, I guess.” Deidara bit down a yawn.
“What about you?”
“...I’ll sleep here too.”
All according to plan. Fuck.
Deidara’s eyes drooped, then he leaned into his body drowsily.
“You’re… warm.”
“Mhm. Fire chakra,” Itachi murmured in response. Before he could think better of it, he reached up and stroked Deidara’s hair. It was in need of a proper brushing, but surprisingly soft.
Deidara made a little noise and just about cuddled into him. It almost broke him.
“I hate you,” Deidara mumbled, though it sounded like he meant just the opposite. He was asleep before he heard the response.
“I hate you too,” Itachi whispered, little more than a breath, with nearly the same meaning. He let Deidara sleep for a while until he reached a deeper sleep. Then he slowly shifted a kunai out of his cloak. He hoped it wouldn’t hurt.
They never found the body.
But,
Just outside the Hidden Rain stands a mound of earth planted with yellow zinnias. And at least at some moments, Itachi does not curse his near-perfect memory, the memory of a loud, obnoxious, messy blond boy who deserved better.