Everybody's Tired of Something

Untitled Part 5

The next few days passed mostly uneventfully. Sasori had mapped out Orochimaru's old hideouts and had narrowed down his location. "How are you so sure he would still be using one of these? It's been years." Deidara pushed his blonde hair out of his face as he scrutinized the map.

"Once again, he's so full of himself, he refuses to think his predictability would be an issue. He truly believes no one is a threat so he won't be using the exact hideout location but he would have spies in the nearby village. He's a creature of habit if a disturbing one." 

Deidara shrugged. "He sort of sounds like an idiot. No wonder my danna didn't like him." He elbowed Sasori teasingly.

Sasori cracked a small smile at the "my danna" bit. 

"So let's start at this one, about 15 miles southeast and branch out from there. Although, I'm almost positive he will be at this one." 

"Why that one in particular?" Deidara queried with interest.

Sasori took great pride in the fact the blond seemed to always have genuine interest in whatever he was saying. "Orochimaru's body is in a precarious state; the village of Hindagakure has always had a surplus of medical ninjas as well as many prodigies in that department. He will be using some of those as well as regular ninja and civilians as spies. He is big on dual purpose use."

"Alright. It should take us about a day to get there. I'm guessing we aren't planning to stay long."

"Correct brat. We will enter the village, stay the  night, make sure plenty of people see us, and then stay close by. If my calculations are right, he will find us within 24 hours of our jaunt in the village." Sasori leaned back looking satisfied with himself.

"You should probably practice before then." Deidara persisted.

"Practice? What do you mean?" 

Deidara smiled at the clueless expression on the redhead's generally more passive face. "Practice being human. Even you are out of practice after 20 years."

Sasori huffed but knew Deidara was right. The sensory overload alone could spell disaster if the first go at it was in a public place. Hinda was no small village; the population approached 50,000. Even someone like him wasn't immune to a panic attack or something equally embarrassing and debilitating.

"Danna, can I ask you something?"

He would have snarked back the response of 'you just did' had Deidara sounded so sincere and looked so uncomfortable. He instead nodded.

"When did you turn yourself into a puppet exactly?"

Oh. That. What was the point in being hesitant to ask something like that? "I was fourteen when I began researching the process but didn't complete the process until I was fifteen and a half. So I'm technically 35 years old."

Sasori wasn't sure why he added the last bit but he felt Deidara should know something like this about his partner.

"Ah, alright. And, uh nevermind."

"Nevermind what brat?"

"We don't ever talk much about our pasts. I know what's in the bingo book but not beyond that. I want to know more but I respect you too much to pry." Deidara pretended to busy himself with cleaning up the map details.

Sasori put a hand over Deidara's own to draw his attention back to him.

"You never read my file? I'm sure Akatsuki had most of that shit in there." A dark look came over his face.

"No, I did find it though.  I actually don't even know your birthday. That's the only thing I actually did try to snoop around and find out in Akatsuki, but it wasn't on the paper so I stopped there and put it back." He stared at Sasori's hand on his.