When A Marionette Is Broken

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Sasori would still say he didn't care for physical touch. Mostly because he had often felt it had some sort of expectation attached to it. A romantic partner touched you, you were expected to respond accordingly. A person hugged you, you were expected to hug back. That and it brought back memories of when people had touched him that he wanted to reciprocate and no longer could. His parents, though long gone were among the last people he had allowed to hug him., no that he had hugged back willingly. 

His grandmother, who he still carried a smidge of affection for  in his warped evil heart, was the other one. Unfortunately he had failed to truly understand her grief, and though he was never lacking in food, shelter, or education, she distanced herself from her only grandson as she was grieving the loss of her only son and never tried to hug him again.

He went back and forth between loathing the human touch and wondering about it these days. And he blamed his partner completely for his uncertainty. He sort of understood it, the need to touch your environment and shape your world, specifically when it came to art. However, why did Deidara touch him as often he did and in the way he did? The hand touching during movie night had seemed appropriate as a tool for comforting at first but he noticed that the blonde did things like that more frequently now. It was always innocent enough, casual, fleeting, to the point where Sasori often felt he was imagining something more to it than there was.

It was usually during movie nights, but occassionally when he'd show Sasori something or hand him something, the redhead swore his fingers lingered on his slender paler ones longer than necessary.

Deidara had hit a wall though and lately his mood had been particularly foul.

"I'm so fucking sick of this! It's been over two months and I still can barely move my hand correctly. I can't lift my arm hardly at all and it appears my hand mouth is just dead for lack of a better phrase! At this rate, I'll have to become a fucking civilian which is truly worse than death yeah!" 

Sasori had been whittling away at a puppet appendage passively while Deidara's voice and frustration rose in equal measure. "Are you even listening to me danna?!"

"It'd be impossible not to with how loud you're screaming."

"Ugh! You can't possibly understand what this is like. I may never get to perform my jutsu or my  art again. Do you have any idea how I feel?" The blonde's face was red as he was quite literally shaking with rage. He really wasn't even thinking straight due to  his anger. 

Sasori was irate now but more than that he was concerned about how he had said worse than death. "Do you really mean that?" His voice had dropped an octave.

Deidara was taken aback at his change in tonality. "What?"

"About how you'd hate to live as a civilian. Would it really be that horrible? You could have someone who cares about you aside from members of a criminal organization. Maybe have a job of some sort to go to, one that doesn't involve possibly having your limbs blown off or death. Sure, art is eternal and always valuable but maybe you could find a new art form." He couldn't resist the not so subtle dig at his artistic view.

Sasori seemed distant despite sitting right in front of Deidara.

"I don't like the idea of grunt work, but a different kind of art, yeah, that's an interesting concept. I guess I always assumed our art was set in stone but that seems redundant considering I believe my art is fleeting." He knew to tread carefully when Sasori was like this and his anger had mostly fizzled out.

Sasori was a bit surprised that he was giving it any thought, but grateful, maybe he'd calm down and let it go now.

"Someone to care about me. Sometimes, I feel-nevermind. I was thinking nonsense."