Work Text:
💛💥
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Deidara tore through the churned earth with frantic hands, fingers scraping against shattered stone and splintered wood. The battlefield still hummed with leftover chakra, the air warped bending light in thin, twitching ripples.
Time-space residue. He hated that feeling. It made his teeth itch. Explosions were clean. They roared, they burned, they ended beautifully. This wasnt like any of that. This was more like a wound in reality, still trying to close around whatever it had swallowed.
This was not how the mission was supposed to end.
If Sasori hadn’t been so obsessively insistent on adding this kunoichi to his collection and abandoned the mission back when they realized they had wildly underestimated the situation, maybe he wouldn’t be digging through a half-collapsed ravine like an idiot. Maybe they would already be halfway back to an Akatsuki hideout.
“If you explode any more pieces off her,” Sasori had hissed earlier from within Hiruko, his voice filtered through the puppet shell, “I will use your body parts to replace them.” The threat had been delivered as casually as if making a comment about where they should set up camp.
Deidara wasn't trying to damage Sasori’s precious ‘material’ on purpose. He rather liked all his body parts, thank you very much. But the kunoichi had been infuriating. One moment she was there. The next, her outline blurred, chakra folding in on itself as she slipped half a second out of sync with reality. Every time he thought he had a clean shot, she shimmered away like a mirage.
He couldn’t quite remember the specifics of her kekkei genkai. Sasori had explained it in his usual flat, lecture like way he always did. Something about temporal displacement. Folding the fabric of reality as if it were a sheet of paper or something. It had sounded unbearably dull at the time.
The kunoichi had lain crumpled on the ground, Sasori’s poison already racing through her system. He wouldn't say it out loud, but Deidara always found this stage of Sasori’s work strangely compelling. No where near as exciting as an explosion, but it was precise and inevitable. Slowly watching life gutter out, like a candle starved of wax. Humanity reduced to a measured interval. It was ephemeral art in its own sense.
He had been too preoccupied. That was his mistake.
He hadn’t noticed her fingers twitching through the paralysis, hadn’t seen the hand seals forming until chakra surged violently outward.
At that same moment Sasori had begun to exit Hiruko. The puppet shell cracked open along its seams, mechanisms clicking as Sasori prepared a sealing scroll. It was the one moment in any battle where his defenses dipped, just slightly. It was Deidara's job as his partner to cover them.
Deidara’s breath had caught painfully in his chest when he realised what was happening.
He didn’t stop to think.
Clay detonated at the exact instant the kunoichi released her jutsu. Space folded inward with a violent shriek, chakra spiraling wildly as the explosion slammed into it. Deidara had felt it in his bones. It was disorientating but when he came to the battlefield had been reduced to a rubble filled ravine. And Sasori was nowhere in sight.
Deidara's hands closed around something smooth and curved. The edge of Hiruko’s orange mask. Relief punched through him hard enough to make him feel dizzy.
The puppet was half buried, its wooden plating cracked and scorched. Oh god, Sasori was going to be so fucking pissed.
Deidara braced his feet and hauled, straining against the weight. His stomach twisted as he fought the thought clawing at the back of his mind. He refused to give shape to it.
Sasori did not get hurt.
“Danna!” he shouted.
No answer.
His chest tightened.
He clicked his tongue sharply and switched tactics, palms already chewing clay. Small grasshoppers skittered from his hands, their bodies packed with precise, controlled blasts. He sent them hopping along Hiruko’s joints, detonating them in quick succession to shear through the hinges of the shell without damaging what lay inside.
Wood split and finally, the mask shifted.
Deidara wrenched it free and instantly froze.
Inside was Sasori. But not the Sasori he knew.
Gone were the Akatsuki robes, the hollow stomach cavity, the visible joints of an immortal puppet body.
Instead, he saw flesh and blood. A deep, purple brown tunic clung to a smaller frame, torn and stained. A Sunagakure forehead protector sat crooked on red hair that fell messily around a very human face.
Blood streamed steadily from a gash along the side of his head, bright and shockingly alive.
Deidara forgot how to breathe. For a long moment, the surrounding sounds of the battlefield went silent.
Sasori looked younger. But it wasnt only that. He looked softer, somehow, vulnerable in a way Deidara had never allowed himself to imagine.
His hands hovered uselessly in the air, unsure of what to do next. A strange ache bloomed sharply in his chest which he quickly buried beneath his usual irritation.
“Tch,” he muttered, forcing a crooked grin that didn’t quite stick. “You better explain this, Danna. I don’t do temporal bullshit, hm”
He swallowed hard, eyes never leaving his partners face.
….
💛💥
Deidara had picked a shallow cave carved into the rock face a short distance from the battlefield. It wasn’t pretty at all, but it had a narrow mouth, decent sightlines, and was far enough away that the residual time-space chakra didn’t make his skin crawl.
Sasori lay unconscious on a bedroll, Deidara’s Akatsuki cloak folded beneath his head with care. He crouched beside him, brow furrowed as he worked.
He wasn’t a medic nin in the slightest, and having a partner who didn’t have a human body meant it had been a long time since he’d had to tend to anyone’s injuries besides his own.
Still, years in the Akatsuki taught you the basics.
He dabbed carefully at the gash on Sasori’s forehead, using water sparingly as he did so. The bleeding had slowed almost entirely.
Deidara paused. “…Huh,” he murmured. “You’ve got freckles.”
He stared for exactly half a second longer before clicking his tongue and forcing himself back to work. He rewrapped the bandage and checked for fractures. Bruising lined Sasori’s ribs, ugly purples already blooming at his shoulder.
This was human damage.
The fire crackled softly, shadows stretching, shrinking and dancing along the cave walls. Deidara settled with his back against the stone, knees drawn up, arms loosely looped over them. His eyes never fully leaving Sasori.
Now he understood, on a bone-deep level, why Sasori constantly bitched about waiting.
This was stupid, he told himself.
He’d guarded Sasori’s inert puppet body plenty of times. It usually while the redhead was between puppet bodies whilst working on upgrading or mending part of his main body. A few times Deidara had dragged pieces of him out of battlefields gone wrong, sitting nearby while Sasori rebuilt himself. This was…
A sharp inhale cut through his train of thought.
Sasori stirred.
Deidara was on his feet instantly, heart leaping into his throat.
Red lashes fluttered. Brows knit together. Sasori’s eyes opened, sharp and alert despite the pain, scanning the cave in a practiced sweep.
They landed on Deidara.
And stayed there.
Sasori’s eyes were sharp despite the pain, already dissecting him piece by piece as he pulled himself into a sitting position.
“…Who are you?” Sasori asked.
The words hit harder than any explosion ever had.
This wasn’t the first time Sasori had looked at him like a stranger. His Danna had perfected emotional distance long ago. But this was different. His gaze was empty, void of any recognition at all. There was no familiar spark of annoyance that usually warmed into something softer if you waited long enough. In its place was mistrust.
Deidara blinked, then barked out a laugh that came out a little too loud, a little too brittle.
“Wow. Okay. That’s new.”
Sasori pushed himself up on one elbow with a sharp hiss, clearly cataloguing the condition his body was in as he went. His gaze flicked over the bandages, the campfire, the rocky walls of the cave. Then snapped back to Deidara, sharper now.
“You’re not from Sunagakure,” he said flatly. “And I don’t recognize your chakra. Where is this place?”
Straight to interrogation. He swallowed the surge of relief and fondness before it could show. This wasn’t his Sasori. He was technically a stranger. But the familiarity of his tone and actions calmed something down inside Deidara he didn't even realise he was worried about.
“This is gonna sound kinda insane, yeah.”
“Be concise then.”
“Well…short version. You’re about… twenty-ish years forward from your timeline. This timelines version of you got hit by a time-space ninjutsu from an incredibly annoying Mist kunoichi. I’m your partner. Name’s Deidara.” He said, passing him a cup of water.
Sasori accepted it cautiously. His eyes never left Deidara’s face.
“Partner in what?” Sasori asked.
Deidara hesitated.
That question had a lot of possible answers.
This Sasori was young and Deidara remembered all too well how badly his Danna had initially reacted when feelings first entered their partnership. The man was brilliant but, to put it lightly, had the emotional intelligence of a doorhandle. It had taken astronomical levels of patience on Deidara’s part to finally chip through all of Sasori’s hangups regarding emotions.
He kept his voice measured “…A group,” Deidara said. “The Akatsuki. Missing-nin. Contract work.” It wasn't a lie.
“Mercenaries?” Sasori supplied.
“Yeah. Something like that.”
“…I see,” Sasori said, though his expression suggested he absolutely did not. “I’ve abandoned Sunagakure?”
Deidara grimaced. “From what you told me? They were a bunch of tasteless fucks who didn’t appreciate your art. Same reason I left Iwa.”
Sasori’s brow lifted sharply. “Puppetry is a respected art form in Sunagakure.”
Deidara’s brain screeched to a halt “Wait.” He squinted. “You have done it, haven't you?”
Sasori’s grip tightened around the cup.
“Done what?”
“…How old did you say you were?”
“Almost thirteen.”
Deidara choked on absolutely nothing and had to turn away to cough into his sleeve. He didn't look that much younger than the Sasori he knew.
“Wow,” he managed after a second. “Okay. That explains… so much.”
He risked a glance back at Sasori, who was watching him with growing suspicion.
“I mean,” Deidara said quickly, waving a hand. “Uh. Have you started your collection? Human puppets. Preserving jutsu. Eternal art. That whole thing.”
The reaction was immediate.
Sasori’s gaze widened and quickly dropped to the water in his hands. His shoulders went subtly tense. The slight inward turn that told him Sasori's mental gears were whirring faster than words could keep up with.
Sasori scowled, then sighed. “I have… experimented,” he admitted “Not that I’ve shared that information with anyone.” His fingers tightened. “Most people would consider it monstrous.” He looked up, eyes sharp but uncertain. “You likely think the same.”
Deidara blinked. Then laughed.
“What? No.”
Sasori stiffened. “You don’t know the details then.” he huffed
“I know enough,” Deidara said easily, he'd never imagined Sasori giving a shit about what people thought of him “I’ve literally seen you elbows-deep in a corpse arguing with yourself about joint placement and weight distribution.”
Sasori made a strangled noise. “That’s-”
“And your work?” Deidara continued, words spilling out freely now. “It’s incredible. I don’t agree with your whole eternity obsession thing, but you took your craft and pushed it further than anyone else ever dared. That’s genius.”
Sasori stared at him, eyes going round.
“Besides,” Deidara added with a grin, “I’ve blown up hundreds of people for my art. If you’re a monster, then I’m right there with you.”
The silence stretched, thick and fragile, as Sasori tried and failed to come up with a response. Then, Deidara noticed the color creeping into Sasori’s cheeks, freckles blurring with the red.
Deidara stared. “…Oh my god are you blushing?!”
“I am not.” Sasori huffed petulantly, turning his face away.
“You absolutely are!”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Deidara leaned back against the cave wall, a grin slowly spreading as something clicking quietly into place.
The stiff posture. The clipped replies. The way his Sasori froze whenever Deidara flirted just a little too sincerely or stroked his ego in just the right way. It was the exact same, just minus the flush of human flesh. It sure put a lot of past interactions into perspective.
“…Huh,” Deidara murmured.
Sasori glared at him.
“Nothing, sorry” Deidara said quickly, waving it off.
Sasori drank deeply from the cup before speaking again. “The kunoichi. If she is still recoverable-”
“She is,” Deidara said quickly. “Sealed while still paralyzed by your poison. Mostly in one piece.”
“Tch.” Sasori raised a brow. “You work with explosives, yes? So I assume that was your doing?”
“Hey!” Deidara protested. “I had to deal with you first. You’re lucky I didn’t leave her in the ravine, hm!”
Sasori rolled his eyes, and Deidara felt it in his chest like a bruise. It felt so familiar but also so wrong.
“If I convert her into a puppet,” Sasori continued, “I should be able to access the technique and reverse the effect. Though my success rate preserving jutsu is still… variable.”
“Please,” Deidara scoffed. “I’ve watched you solve worse problems than time itself.”
The blush came back instantly much to the blonde's delight, who knew it was this easy.
Deidara swallowed his grin. “You make the puppet. I get my Danna back.”
“Danna?” Sasori echoed, his eyes going wide. “You seem remarkably invested.”
Deidara's gaze drifted to the fire. “Yeah. Well. He’s one of a kind and would be a pain in the ass to replace.”
Sasori accepted that. He pulled out a notebook from a pocket within his tunic and began working on a blueprint, muttering his train of thought quietly to himself as he wrote.
Minutes passed. Then hours.
Deidara watched as his blinks slowed. His posture sagged. The notebook dipped.
“Oi,” Deidara said, stepping closer. “You’re gonna pass out.”
“I’m fine,” Sasori muttered. “Just need to-”
Deidara gently but firmly pushed the notebook down. “You’re still injured. Sleep.”
Sasori frowned sleepily “I hate…needing to sleep” he yawned deeply “such a waste of time” letting himself be guided back onto the bedroll.
“Noted” he said quietly “I’ll keep watch,”
Sasori hesitated, then closed his eyes.
Deidara stayed beside him until his breathing evened out.
“…Yeah,” he murmured softly, “You’ve always been terrible at knowing when to stop, Danna.”
A fond, aching smile tugged at his mouth.
….
💛💥
By the next day, Sasori had fully commandeered the area like a seasoned shinobi.
Tools were arranged with exacting precision, each spaced just far enough apart to be reached without looking. A fallen log had been stripped of bark and converted into a workbench. Sealing scrolls lay unrolled and weighed down at the corners, their edges perfectly aligned. It was methodical in a way that made Deidara’s chest burn with familiarity.
He sat on a nearby rock, palms chewing idly on clay as he watched Sasori work on the kunoichi’s body.
He hated that he recognised the posture instantly. The slight forward lean. The way Sasori’s shoulders locked when he sank deep into focus, as though the world narrowed until there were only joints and mechanisms only he could see. His Sasori did that too. Had always done that. It made his heart ache.
Except his Sasori never hesitated.
This one did.
Sasori had been working for hours before he paused midway through inscribing a fuinjutsu array along the woman’s spine, sweat beading at his temples. His fingers hovered, uncertain, just for a fraction too long.
“If I misalign the chakra channels here,” he muttered, mostly to himself, “the temporal technique might collapse in on itself.”
“You won’t misalign it,” Deidara said easily. Too easily. “You never do, hmm.”
“Tch.” Sasori huffed. “Bold assumption.”
Deidara blinked. That…wasn’t right.
“Just saying,” he shrugged, beginning to mould the clay he’d been chewing into a small, abstract figure without really looking at it. “You’re a genius, Danna”
Sasori’s head snapped up.
“Don’t call me that.” His eyes were defensive and bright.
“Oh?” Deidara paused, lifting his gaze.
“That’s your version of me,” Sasori said tightly. “Not me.” He hesitated, jaw working, then added more quietly, “He might be a genius, but—”
“But what?” Deidara pressed.
“But he’s not here,” Sasori finished.
The words landed like a blade slid neatly between Deidara’s ribs. The cold fear that he had been pushing down bloomed to the surface. That this jutsu might not be able to be reversed, and his Sasori might not be able to be saved. The feeling twisted in his chest, hot and panicked, before Deidara quickly slammed the floodgates shut. He couldn't let himself think about that right now.
“Obviously” he hissed, sharper than he meant to.
“You keep talking to me like I’m crazy for having my concerns and it’s pissing me off. Don’t put your misplaced faith in me when you don’t even know if I can follow through.” Sasori's voice cracked just slightly, raw around the edges.
The words hit hard.
Silence slammed down between them, thick and suffocating. Sasori looked startled by his own outburst, then defensive, then shut down entirely, shutters drawn tight against the storm he’d just let loose.
“I need to work,” he said stiffly, turning back to the body like it might shield him.
Deidara stared at his back, teeth grinding. He wasn’t used to this wall. Not anymore.
Not after years of chipping away at the puppet’s silence.
This felt like being struck across the face by a ghost.
“I’m gonna patrol the perimeter,” Deidara muttered, already on his feet. “Make sure no one’s tracking us.”
Sasori nodded without looking up. “Do what you need to.”
….
Deidara leapt into the trees, bark splintering under his sandals as he vaulted higher, higher, as if altitude alone could outrun the noise in his head.
His thoughts were louder than any detonation he had ever crafted.
Branches blurred past. He scanned automatically for movement, for hostile chakra signatures, for anything that would justify the tightness in his chest. He almost hoped something would attack. An enemy would be simple. Clay in his palm. A flash of light. A clean ending.
Instead there was only forest.
He landed on a high branch and pressed his back against the trunk, breath sawing in and out of him. The wind dragged through his hair, tugging the loose strands across his eyes. He forced himself to slow down.
Deep down, he knew he wasn’t being fair.
The kid back in the cave was doing everything he could. Deidara had seen the way those small hands shook after stabilizing the seal array. The way he refused to rest, jaw set stubbornly as he recalculated formulas meant for someone twice his age. Not even thirteen yet, and already carrying the weight of something that should never have been his to fix.
But if Deidara let himself believe, even for a second, that this Sasori might fail… that the jutsu might be irreversible…
Then he would have to face the other possibility.
That his Danna was gone.
The word felt like stepping off a cliff.
He swallowed hard and stared out over the canopy, vision unfocused.
His Sasori. The infuriating, meticulous, sharp tongued bastard. The steady presence constantly by his side. The one who harped on constantly about wasting time while indulging Deidara’s chaos more often than he admitted.
The one who knew exactly how Deidara took his tea and would never acknowledge it. The one who looked at him like he was not a weapon or a liability, but something valuable and chosen.
He loved him.
The thought was simple and sat in his chest like a live coal.
And he missed him with a violence that felt unfair, because technically, Sasori was only a few meters away.
Just not the right one.
Deidara kicked the trunk hard enough to jar his ankle, pain flaring bright and immediate. He welcomed it. At least it was something tangible.
He was dumping fear and grief onto a version of Sasori who was barely old enough to carry his own bitterness. This Sasori did not have lacquered limbs or years of calculated detachment. He had scraped knees and freckles and too much pride stuffed into a body still growing into itself.
He was raw. Human in a way Deidara had not realized he had grown unaccustomed to.
And that terrified him too.
Deidara was standing there helpless, his heart in the hands of a child. Waiting to see whether the most important person in his world would return to him or dissolve into a paradox.
He pressed the heel of his hand to his eyes and let out a slow breath.
“You better be fighting your way back,” he murmured to the wind, to whatever fracture in reality had swallowed his partner. “You don’t get to leave me with your teenage self as a consolation prize.”
The wind carried the words away.
After a moment, he pushed off the branch and turned back toward the cave.
…
Later that night, the fire burned low while Sasori adjusted the puppet’s seals long past when his hands began to tremble.
Deidara watched him push through it, jaw set in stubborn frustration.
His Danna wasn’t much better when it came to stopping either. Even with a puppet body, Sasori’s mind still grew tired after a long day of working. He’d complain about inefficiency, about wasted time, but he always knew when to stop before sloppiness crept in.
This one didn’t. This one just kept going.
“Sasori, hm” Deidara said, walking up behind him.
Sasori startled, fingers slipping on the knife. He hissed, flexing them.
“Shit, you’re bleeding.” Deidara eyed the small amount of blood trickling down his wrist.
Sasori glanced down, blinking in surprise. “I… didn’t notice.”
Deidara exhaled slowly, reminding himself again that although his Danna only looked a few years older, he carried decades more experience.
Softer, Deidara said, “Take a break, hmm. If the artist drops dead, his art isn’t gonna move anyone.”
Sasori scoffed immediately although allowed Deidara to pull him away from his project towards the small medkit by the fire. “That’s ridiculous. Art is meant to outlive the artist into eternity as his legacy. That’s the entire point.”
“Oh, here we go,” Deidara sighed with a smile as he began dressing Sasori's hand. “You’re really gonna start this now?”
“Yes,” Sasori said flatly. “Because you’re wrong.”
It hit Deidara then, sharp, strange and fond all at once.
He’d had this argument a hundred times in a hundred different variations. Around campfires. In ruined temples. Once in the middle of a battlefield while something was still on fire. But this was the first time he’d ever had it with this Sasori.
His grin spread wide.
“Legacy is meaningless” Deidara said, leaning forward. “Art should punch you in the gut. Big, loud, unforgettable. Like an explosion. And then it’s gone. That moment is what matters, that memory is what the audience will carry with them for the rest of their lives.”
Sasori stared at him like he’d just suggested eating his tools. “Your ‘audience’ aren't going to have very long lives to cherish that memory if they are also combusting in those very same explosions”
“Thats when the memory is going to be the most impactful!”
“That’s not art,” Sasori said dryly. “That’s just romanticised terrorizum”
Deidara laughed. “As if your art isn't romanticised mutilation of a corpse?”
“My puppets last,” Sasori snapped. “They tell a story to thousands who witness them. They don’t just… vanish in smoke.”
“Smoke is part of the beauty!”
Sasori pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’re impossible.”
“I prefer visionary,” Deidara corrected cheerfully.
Sasori held his glare for a second longer, then huffed despite himself. He flexed his hands more carefully this time as Deidara finished wrapping.
“Come on! I found a place that makes Takoyaki, it’s only fifteen minutes away if we fly” Deidara grinned standing up “you gotta eat to power that big brain of yours, hm.”
Sasori blinked up at him with round eyes as his mouth parted slightly, closed, then finally said “okay”
He wouldn't mention that his Danna always gave that same longing look whenever Deidara ate takoyaki in front of him. Deidara had guessed that he was probably fond of the food when he used to eat.
The tension seemed to ease, just a little, something unspoken settling into place between them.
Maybe not trust. But an understanding.
And for now, that was enough.
…
💛💥
By the third day, the puppet had begun to look like something.
The kunoichi’s body had been cleared of unnecessary muscle and organ, reduced to what was necessary for structure and aesthetics. Her torso lay open now, ribs spread to reveal a careful lattice of metal supports that Sasori was still fine-tuning.
Deidara dropped the supplies Sasori had sent him to scavenge and circled the work from a safe distance, arms crossed.
“Oooooohh, she’s got all her limbs again,” he mused, peering over Sasori’s shoulder. “You can hardly tell she was missing half her lower body. That match is clean, hm.”
“You’re lucky your version of me had the forethought to carry a scroll of premade replacement limbs.” Sasori didn’t look up as he slid another thin metal rod into place along the exposed spinal column.
“Oh?”
“Otherwise,” Sasori continued calmly, “I would be repurposing yours.”
Deidara grinned. “Threatening bodily harm already, hm? I knew you were warming up to me.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Sasori huffed, but the corner of his mouth twitched.
Deidara felt his chest flood with an unreasonably triumphant warmth. He’d worked for months to earn those from his Sasori.
“Can you hold back that side of the ribs and open it further?” Sasori said, not looking at him. “This angle is wrong.”
Deidara blinked. Then brightened. “Oh. You want me involved now.”
“Don’t read into it.”
“Too late.”
He stepped closer, careful not to jostle anything, and braced his fingers against the reinforced rib plating. He pulled gently, just enough to widen the cavity.
“Like this?” he asked.
“Two millimeters more,” Sasori replied immediately.
Deidara exaggerated the movement “Control freak.”
“Pay attention,” Sasori snapped, though there was no real heat behind it.
Deidara held the position, watching this Sasori work. He noticed the tiny crease between Sasori’s brows when something didn’t align perfectly. The way his tongue pressed briefly to his teeth when he recalculated. The faint tremor in his hands he stubbornly ignored.
God, he was young. Not just in age. In the way he carried all that brilliance like something fragile and uncertain. His Sasori had long since traded fragility for certainty well before Deidara had first met him. This Sasori was so painfully human.
They worked like that for a while. Sasori directing. Deidara holding, handing tools, occasionally offering commentary that ranged from mildly helpful to deeply unnecessary.
At one point Sasori sighed sharply. “If you jostle the support again, I will sedate you.”
Deidara gasped. “Violence in the workplace.”
“Focus.”
“I am focused,” Deidara said, grinning. “On how amazing this is.”
Sasori paused despite himself. “What is?”
“This,” Deidara said simply, gesturing between them, the work, the half-built puppet.
“Watching you do what you love. It’s… kind of terrifying. In a good way.”
Sasori opened his mouth, then closed it. Color crept faintly into his cheeks as his eyes darted downwards.
“…You talk too much,” he muttered.
Deidara laughed, soft and fond, and held the ribs steady.
…
They ate a little later, sitting on opposite sides of the fire. Deidara passed over a skewered fish he’d finished cooking.
Sasori inspected it with open suspicion before taking a small, cautious bite “…This is acceptable,” he conceded with a nod
Deidara grinned. “High praise.”
Sasori didn’t respond, but the corner of his mouth twitched before his gaze drifted away from the fire and toward the half-finished puppet resting nearby.
The torso was still open, but after a long day of work it had finally crossed the line from parts to purpose. It was unmistakably becoming something beautiful.
“You keep looking at it like it might run away,” Deidara said lightly.
“I’m assessing it,” Sasori replied. “Figuring out what to do next.”
“Mm,” Deidara hummed around a mouthful of fish. That sounded familiar in a way that made his chest ache.
Sasori studied the puppet a moment longer before speaking again. “Is my work… very different? When I’m older.”
“Hmm, yes and no,” Deidara said after a pause. He leaned back on one hand, eyes flicking between Sasori and the fire. “Danna definitely perfected the human puppet jutsu. But he never stopped pushing himself as an artist. Always looking for the next way to improve something. To overcome a weakness, hm.”
“Like that puppet,” Sasori said slowly, indicating the pieces of Hiruko that Deidara had recovered and stacked nearby.
“A puppeteer’s greatest weakness is being exposed in combat.” He tilted his head, thoughtful. “A puppet like that would eliminate the weakness entirely, provided the puppeteer is skilled enough to manipulate it from the inside.”
Deidara blinked. “You got all of that from those pieces?” He cringed inwardly, he would undoubtedly be reprimanded for the damage he’d caused when his Danna inevitably returned.
“It’s obvious,” Sasori said. “The thickness of the shell, the angle of the limbs. Everything about it prioritizes protection while maintaining mobility.” He frowned faintly, already reconstructing it in his mind.
Deidara’s chest warmed despite himself. He really shouldn’t have expected any less.
“When we first met,” Deidara said, forcing a casual tone, “Danna basically lived in that thing. I think it took almost a year before he trusted me enough to show me his actual face.” He groaned and took a large bite of fish. “You’d have thought I was asking him to peel off his skin.”
Inwardly, he remembered the first time he saw Sasori’s real face.
He had been younger. Definitely dumber. Freshly inducted and determined to prove that explosions solved ninety percent of problems and the other ten percent could be negotiated with an even bigger blast.
A mistimed detonation had corrected that theory.
The ground had collapsed under him, a slab of rock pinning his right leg. It was his first major injury since joining the Akatsuki.
Hiruko’s tail had punched through the debris with mechanical efficiency, shoving the boulder aside like it was an inconvenience.
Deidara had been ready for the usual routine. A snide lecture about recklessness delivered in that dry, unimpressed tone.
Instead, the puppet split open and Sasori stepped out.
Red hair catching the light. Sharp features set in a scowl that could have sliced glass.
Deidara did not remember feeling the pain in his leg after that.
He remembered thinking, with startling clarity, that the grouchy old man he thought he had been saddled with was not an old man at all.
He was an extremely hot, grouchy not-old-man.
Sasori had crouched beside him, hands glowing faintly with medical chakra, expression severe and entirely uninterested in the existential crisis detonating behind Deidara’s eyes.
“Stop staring,” Sasori had said flatly. “You are not dying.”
“I’m not?” Deidara had croaked, dazed. Then, because he had never once in his life chosen the sensible option, he added, “Then why am I being looked after by an angel?”
There had been a pause. A slow blink.
Sasori had very calmly finished resetting the bone in Deidara’s leg.
Then, without breaking eye contact, he pricked him with a poisoned senbon.
Totally worth it.
Deidara had spent the next hour alternating between mild paralysis and feverish admiration while Sasori set up camp, unimpressed and devastatingly beautiful in equal measure.
And that was it.
He had walked off with a healed leg, mild toxin exposure, and a brand new problem that no antidote was going to fix.
They ate in companionable silence for a few moments before Sasori spoke again, his voice more hesitant now, like he was testing the ground before stepping forward.
“You said you were my… partner.”
“Mm.”
“And that we worked well together.”
“Yup.”
Sasori glanced at him sidelong. “I find that difficult to believe.”
Deidara snorted. “Rude.”
“You’re loud,” Sasori continued. “Impulsive. Annoying.”
“You forgot handsome.”
“…Debatable.” he mumbled, not too convincingly.
Deidara laughed, the sound came out easily. “We butt heads all the time, that’s for sure. Especially over your twisted view on art.” He waved his stick vaguely. “But where it matters? We’re solid. We balance each other out.”
Sasori was quiet for a long moment before speaking again.
“I’ve never really had… friends,” he said carefully, like the word might splinter if handled wrong. “People in my village tolerate me for what I can do for them. But they don’t…” He gestured vaguely, frustration tightening his fingers. “I don’t know. Not even my grandmother wanted much to do with me.”
Something twisted low in Deidara’s chest.
It had taken him years to chip away at Sasori’s armor in his own time. Years to coax fragments of a childhood out of him, always delivered clinically, stripped of emotion. Sasori had sworn he was rid of it all, that his human life meant nothing.
But Deidara had long ago realised that his whole ‘emotionless, unfeeling puppet’ speech was bullshit. Sasori had his tells even if he could expertly control his expressions. Like the way he’d throw himself into hours of menial puppet maintenance when he was upset, or fidget with anything he could get his hands on when he was anxious or absentmindedly twist the ends of Deidara’s hair when he was happy.
Seeing those feelings laid bare now, raw and unguarded, on Sasori's very human, freckled face, sparked something fierce and protective in Deidara’s chest. This Sasori wasn't talking about his past, it was his present. It reignited his deep-seated hatred for a certain wrinkled sack of bones with a vengeance.
“Well,” he said, poking at the fire with a stick, deliberately keeping his tone light while reining himself in, “I didn’t really have anyone either. Not really. Not until I met you.”
The words landed heavier than he’d meant them to.
Deidara winced inwardly and hurried on. “I mean, the organization’s been great like that. Met a lot of… interesting people. Hidan’s… loud. Kisame’s surprisingly chill. Could’ve gone without meeting Itachi, but you can’t win ’em all, yeah?” He let out a laugh that sounded a little too forced even to his own ears.
Sasori hummed, eyes glancing away briefly. “What about your version of me made you want to stay?”
God. How does he answer that while not completely freaking the kid out.
Deidara averted his eyes and took another bite of fish, buying himself another precious second.
“Well, for one thing,” he said slowly, “you were the only person I ever met who could actually keep up in a conversation about art. I was always ‘too much’ for everyone in Iwa”
He felt heat crawl up his neck, though whether it came from the fire or the admission, he wasn’t sure.
“You challenged me,” he continued, more quietly now. “Didn’t treat my work like a novelty. You pushed me to be better. Took me seriously.” His fingers tightened briefly around the now empty skewer. “And… you noticed things. About the world. About me. You listened, even when you pretended not to.”
Sasori watched him in silence, that familiar, attentive stillness settling over him. The look that told Deidara his thoughts were racing, weaving patterns only he could see.
“I’m surprised,” Sasori said at last. “That I found someone like that. In the future.”
Deidara smiled, warmth threaded with something aching and carefully contained.
“Me too.”
…
💛💥
On the fourth day, Deidara woke to the unsettling prickle of time-space residue lingering in the air.
Sasori was already awake.
He stood near the work area, posture rigid with focus, chakra strings fanned from his fingertips as they held the puppet aloft. In his other hand was his notebook, the pages cramped with annotations and revisions.
The puppet moved fluidly, joints responding cleanly, chakra flowing through it in a controlled, steady hum rather than tearing at the fabric of the cave. It still lacked weaponry and Sasori’s signature poison but the jutsu was functional.
He'd done it!
Pride flared bright and immediate in Deidara’s chest as he pushed himself up from the floor, mouth already opening to say something suitably obnoxious…
And then he caught the look on Sasori’s face.
The furrowed brow. The tight mouth. The way his eyes flicked over the puppet again and again.
“It’s not working,” Sasori said quietly, seeming to sense Deidara had awoken.
He let the puppet settle back to the ground before severing his chakra strings.
“I mean, it is, technically. But I can’t replicate the swap.” He gestured sharply toward the scattered remains of Hiruko. “Ive been trying all night on that puppet but I must have miscalculated something. The seals might be misaligned. Or the chakra pathways aren’t resonating correctly. Or the temporal anchor is unstable-”
“Sasori,” Deidara interrupted gently.
The boy barely heard him, already spiralling deeper into his mind.
Deidara’s grin softened, pride twisting into something warmer and tighter in his chest.
For days now he’d watched this version of Sasori dissect every choice. He’d wanted to shove confidence into him by force but this wasn’t his Danna yet. This was the beginning. The fragile, human part that had to learn how terrifying his own brilliance could be.
Deidara stepped closer, stopping just at Sasori’s shoulder.
“Hey,” Deidara said, quieter now. “You remember what I told you when you first started building this thing?”
“…That it would work because I was a genius.”
Deidara nodded. “Yeah. And you hated that. Because I didn’t actually know you yet.”
Sasori exhaled through his nose. “…I didn’t hate it. I just didn’t like being compared.” but Deidara had years of experience reading between the lines of what Sasori said to interpret what he meant. I didn't want to let you down.
Deidara hummed, tipping his chin toward the puppet, sitting obediently where Sasori had left it.
“Well, I hate to say I told you so, but you stabilized a jutsu you’d barely heard of a few days ago. That wasn’t because of my Danna. That was all you.” His mouth quirked. “The jutsu is just how I remember it, you just haven’t figured out how to make it do the one very specific thing you want it to yet.”
Sasori’s gaze flickered. Just once. Then he looked up at Deidara properly.
“If he were here instead of me,” Sasori said, frowning slightly. “What would he do?”
Deidara considered it for a moment.
“He’d be pissed,” he said at last, blunt as ever. “Mostly at himself. He hates realizing he missed something.” A corner of his mouth lifted. “But he wouldn’t doubt he could fix it. Not for long.”
He shifted, leaning his hands against the empty workbench “He’d tear the whole thing apart. Not the puppet, he’d defend his art to the death. I mean the situation. Every assumption. Every angle. He’d keep pulling threads until something gave.”
Deidara looked out the mouth of the cave. “Sometimes, when he's desperate enough, he will come talk to me about it. I don't know if that's actually helpful but at least it seems to calm him down.”
Sasori’s mouth twitched despite himself. “That doesn’t sound like the ‘perfect Danna’ you’re always harping on about.”
“Oh god, he’s absolutely not perfect,” Deidara snorted. “He’s an impatient asshole most of the time. But when he messes things up. He recalculates. He keeps going. With the occasional tantrum or threats of bodily harm” His voice softened, just a notch. “But that confidence didn’t fall into his lap. It came from years doing exactly this. Trying something impossible. Watching it fail. And refusing to walk away.”
Sasori was quiet for a long moment. Then, carefully, as if testing the words before letting them exist, he said, “…You really think I’ll become him?”
Deidara held his gaze, steady and unflinching.
“I don’t just think it,” he said. “I can already see it. I could from the day I met you.”
Sasori finally looked back at the puppet. His shoulders settled. His hands lifted, chakra strings unfurling with renewed steadiness.
“…Then,” he said, “let’s try again.”
“Yeah!” Deidara grinned easily. “Worst case, I come to the rescue,” he added brightly. “Or blow something up. Or both.”
Before Sasori could make a snide comment about that being the worst-case scenario, something seemed to click.
“…You blew it up,” he said suddenly.
Sasori promptly reconnected his chakra strings to the puppet and raced outside the cave. “Hurry up!” He yelled behind him, not waiting for Deidara to catch up.
Deidara blinked, then followed without question.
“You’re gonna have to be more specific, hm” Deidara said when he finally caught up “I blow up a lot of things.”
“The jutsu,” Sasori said, quickly picking his way down the side of the rock face to the open field below.
“Before the swap. You said that as the kunoichi activated it, you detonated an explosion. That surge of chakra might have destabilized the technique just enough to force it to anchor onto the nearest compatible signature.”
He jumped the last little way down and turned back to face Deidara.
“If we introduce an external chakra shock at the moment of activation, it might be just what we need!” A grin broke across his freckled face.
Oh god…Deidara’s heart ceased in his chest.
Sasori's human body has dimples. Dimples?! How dare his Danna discard those when making his so-called ultimate art?!
Deidara’s brain promptly short-circuited, unsure what to do with the overwhelming surge of cute aggression and pride.
He cleared his throat loudly, a sharp, performative sound meant to shake off his distraction.
“Genius! What do I need to do, hm?”
Sasori didn’t look up. He was already back in motion, chakra threads flicking out and retracting as he tested their tension.
“The exact same thing as last time,” he said briskly. “Wait for my signal. And don’t freelance.”
“I never freelance,” Deidara scoffed. “I artistically improvise.”
“That is exactly what I mean,” Sasori shot back. He crouched beside the puppet, adjusting a seal. “We may only have one attempt. If the puppet sustains too much damage, the chakra network could collapse. If that happens, the jutsu won’t be salvageable.”
“So,” Deidara said lightly, “no pressure.”
Sasori finally glanced over his shoulder, unimpressed. “Correct. Try not to vaporize anything important. Including me.”
“No promises, hm,” Deidara said, but softer than the words suggested.
He felt an urge hit him hard and suddenly, like a physical thing. To grab this Sasori. To tell him to stay. To not go back to a village that would leave him so lonely for so much longer.
Instead, he turned away before Sasori could catch the look on his face and shoved both hands into his clay pouches. The familiar kneading helped, grounding him firm in reality.
“Hey,” he said, forcing casual into his voice as he turned back around. “When you get back… make sure you find your version of me. Yeah?”
Sasori paused. Not for long but just enough that Deidara noticed. He straightened slowly and looked back, eyes searching Deidara’s face with that unsettling, honest intensity he hadn’t learned to hide yet.
“…That sounds like a hassle,” Sasori said. The corner of his mouth tugged up despite himself “From the short time I have known you I've gathered that you’re… loud and reckless. And from what I hear, you have an affinity to blow my things up”
“Ouch,” Deidara pressed a hand to his chest. “And here I was about to say something sentimental.”
“But, I think that you might be… useful to have around.”
Something warm and painful twisted in Deidara’s chest. He grinned anyway, wide and bright and a little unsteady.
Chakra strings glowed faintly as they latched onto the puppet’s joints. The seals carved into its body ignited in sequence, light crawling across the wood like veins.
The air vibrated. Pressure built. Time-space chakra prickled against Deidara’s skin.
Sasori drew a steadying breath. His shoulders squared as he positioned himself between Deidara and his puppet.
“On my mark,” he said.
Deidara rolled the clay between his palms, shaping it by feel alone. “Don’t screw this up, Danna.”
Sasori snorted. “You’re the one holding the explosive.”
“…Fair.”
The seals flared brighter, chakra roaring into alignment.
“Now!” Sasori shouted.
Deidara detonated the clay.
The explosion slammed into the jutsu at the exact moment the seals peaked, chakra colliding, warping, screaming. The ground lurched beneath them. The air folded in on itself like paper crushed in an invisible fist.
Deidara barely had time to grin before time collapsed inward.
❤️🦂
The first thing Sasori saw when he finally managed to reconnect his core to his body was Deidara.
Home.
The realization hit before sensation fully returned, before the last of the jutsu finished knitting his consciousness back into place. His awareness flickered and skipped, like a faulty mechanism trying to catch its rhythm. It was deeply unpleasant. If he still possessed a stomach, he likely would have vomited.
Yet beneath the disorientation there was no panic. Only relief.
It spread through him slowly, deliberately, threading itself through every reconnected pathway. The tight, brittle awareness he’d been holding since the moment he’d been torn from this time. He anchored himself to the sight in front of him.
Wild blue eyes, blown wide and shining dangerously close to tears. The familiar fall of blond hair around Deidara’s face, disheveled and beautiful. It fell like a curtain around him, narrowing the world down to just the two of them. Deidara was talking. Sasori could see the words spilling from him in a rush, but the sound hadn’t quite caught up yet.
Fuck that jutsu.
His chakra settled into his limbs with a final, grounding pull. The joints of his puppet body responded cleanly. The world steadied.
“...hear me!? Danna!? …Holy shit, what the fuck…SASORI are you–”
“Deidara,” Sasori said.
Deidara stilled. Then broke instantly.
He made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob before surging forward, grabbing Sasori’s face with both hands and kissing him hard. There was nothing restrained about it. Just heat and desperation, very Deidara.
He let himself lean into the kiss, his fingers curling into the fabric of Deidara’s top, letting the familiar presence press close enough to fully ground him. He catalogued everything in the way he always did. The tremor in Deidara’s hands. The damp tears against his mouth. The way his heartbeat stuttered before slowly evening out.
Sasori had long accepted that he was a failure of a puppet.
Not in craftsmanship. Obviously. But in purpose.
He had rebuilt himself with the precision of a master, all in the hope that if he replaced enough flesh with wood and steel, the noise inside him would finally quiet. Grief, longing, that dull ache he’d carried since childhood. He believed pain was a flaw in the design. Something to be carved away, smoothed down and rendered inert.
For years, he told himself it worked. That his heart had hardened into something clean and efficient, as unyielding as the rest of him. In truth, he had simply become very skilled at locking the door and throwing away the key. Every unwanted feeling folded smaller and smaller until it fit neatly out of sight.
He could have endured that. A quiet existence. Sharpened edges. No surprises.
Then Deidara arrived.
Loud, brilliant, reckless, and inexplicably gentle with the things Sasori thought were ruined beyond repair. Deidara didn’t recoil at the violence, or the calm with which Sasori spoke of it. Instead, he leaned closer. Touched him like there was nothing broken at all. Worse, he loved him there. In the gaps. In the imperfections. In the parts Sasori had worked so hard to cauterize.
And slowly, infuriatingly, Deidara redefined his lifetime of disinterest. Reminding him that emotions were not just wounds waiting to reopen. That within the same unruly mess that birthed pain, there also lived something dangerously close to joy. And no amount of carving or clever construction could truly erase what someone else had already chosen to hold.
Deidara pulled away just long enough to breathe. “You fucking bastard,” he choked, forehead pressed to Sasori’s, the words rough and breaking around the edges. “You can’t just disappear like that. Do you have any idea what you put me through?”
The anger didn’t land like a blow. It trembled instead, threaded with something raw and barely contained. Sasori could feel it in the way Deidara’s hands were still gripping his sleeves, as if letting go might tempt the universe to snatch him away again.
Deidara had always burned brightly, explosively, but this was different. This was fire held under glass, contained only by stubborn refusal to shatter.
Sasori swallowed. He should tell him.
He should explain how the moment the jutsu had twisted wrong, dread had pooled low and heavy in his core. When Sunagakure had risen up around him, he felt as if he had landed back in a grave he’d already dug himself out of once before. Being trapped in the past had not been nostalgic. It had been suffocating. Time there moved cruelly, each day stretching while he worked and planned and waited.
He should tell him about the nights when the fear crept in quiet and cold, when the certainty he had always carried cracked just enough to let doubt seep through. About the thought that this time-space jutsu might not have an answer. That he might never find a way back. That Deidara would keep existing without him, while Sasori remained stranded again in a version of his life he despised. Eternity suddenly felt daunting rather than the comfort he always knew it to be.
Instead, he leaned forward, just enough that their foreheads brushed again, grounding himself in the solid reality of Deidara’s presence. He slid one hand up to brace Deidara’s elbow, thumb pressing just enough to ground him.
“You’re dislocating my leg,”
Deidara let out a wet, incredulous laugh and immediately adjusted his weight, swiping roughly at his face. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he snapped, voice still shaking. “Next time I save your ass from being stranded across time, I’ll make sure to be more mindful of your joints.”
Sasori’s fingers didn’t leave his partner as he pulled his body to sit upright. They lingered resting at Deidara’s wrist. His thumb traced a small, unconscious circle there, a quiet reassurance that said everything his words never would.
Sasori could feel the words lining up, insufficient as they always were when trying to be sincere. He opened his mouth, about to answer him properly when his gaze snagged on something just beyond Deidara’s shoulder.
A puppet lay discarded on the stone floor. It was small. The craftsmanship was earnest but uneven in a way that made something in Sasori’s chest tighten.
The chakra residue clinging to it was unmistakable.
“…Who made that?” Sasori asked, frowning.
Deidara followed his line of sight. The moment his eyes landed on it, his expression shifted to something fond.
“You did,” he said.
Sasori went very still.
“Well. Not you-you.” Deidara grinned impossibly wide “Kid you. Twelve. Angry. Smart as hell. Terrible haircut”
Sasori closed his eyes for half a second. That answered some questions at least.
“My younger self was brought here?” he said flatly “and he interacted with you?”
“Yeah,” Deidara replied. “We hung out. We talked about art. He even threatened to kill me multiple times! Real bonding experience hm.”
Sasori grimaced at the thought of his preteen self just as Deidara’s gaze flicked to his face, eyes narrowing with sudden offense.
“Oh and by the way,” Deidara added, jabbing an accusatory finger at him, “what the hell happened to your freckles?”
Sasori blinked. “My…what?”
“Your freckles,” Deidara repeated. “You had them. Across your nose. And dimples too! They were cute as hell when you smiled. I swear I had to physically restrain myself from pinching your chubby cheeks l–”
“I did not have chubby cheeks” he said, reflexive and far too quick, averting his eyes downward.
“You so di–Oh my god,” Deidara breathed out a laugh “You’re doing it!”
“Doing what?”
“That.” Deidara grinned, pointing to his face. “Haha yes! That exact look! That's your blushing face! Little human Sasori looked just like that but the only difference is he would turn as red as a tomato!” Deidara grinned his infuriating, stupidly beautiful smile “I know you would be blushing like an idiot right now if you were still human, hm!”
Sasori turned away sharply, mortification crawling through his body like a living thing. Deidara was never going to let him live this down. How much did he really hate Sunagakure again? Suddenly it didn't seem so bad.
“That is irrelevant,” he said stiffly, then glanced back at the puppet desperate for a distraction “His workmanship is… passable at best. The joints are uneven. The balance is off by at least three millimeters–”
“Hey none of that” Deidara snapped instantly, his face taking on a serious look.
Sasori paused.
“If it wasn’t for that kid,” Deidara went on, crossing his arms firmly over his chest, “you’d still be stuck in the past. He figured out how to stabilize the jutsu. He trusted me when he had no reason to. And he worked himself half to death over that thing cuz he's an idiot who doesn't know when to rest, hm”
The words hit harder than Sasori expected. He looked at the puppet again. Looked past the flaws, the rushed cuts, the hopeful overengineering. He saw intent now.
And Deidara sat there, unapologetically loyal to a version of Sasori that he himself barely remembered.
Something warm and dangerous unfurled quietly in his chest.
“…I see,” Sasori said at last. Then, because he could not sit in that feeling without trying to deflect it, he added mildly “It shouldn't need too much work to fix, will give me something interesting to do since the two of you interrupted me in the middle of an assassination attempt.”
Deidara grinned “Who?”
“The Third Kazekage,” Sasori said. “Not every day you get the chance to kill the same bastard twice.”
“Again!?” Deidara burst out laughing, loud and bright. “You’re kidding. Oh my god. I dragged your traumatized child self through time and space while you were trying to set a new personal best?”
Sasori allowed himself the smallest huff of a sound.
They gathered themselves after that. The tension eased into something familiar, lived-in.
Deidara scooped up the puppet with surprising care before slinging an arm around Sasori’s shoulders, steering him toward the cave entrance. The mouth on his palm pressing feather light kisses absentmindedly to his collarbone.
As they walked, Sasori found his thoughts drifting. To fragments. Half-formed memories that had never quite made sense. Dreams he’d had as a child of someone loud and warm and unyielding, someone who stood beside him no matter how sharp his edges became.
Someone who never gave up on him.
He leaned just slightly into Deidara’s side, anchoring himself there, and let the thought settle without trying to dissect it for once.