Pairing: Vaguely implied SasoDei, rather more explicitly implied DeiTobi
Warnings: teen smoking? XD None.
A/N: A pic by Roko Epsilon inspired a sudden flurry of creativity, and here's the result. Rather more vague/subtle than I'd maybe intended, but if you're a good little reader you should be able to pick up on some of my silly authorly things. And yes, I've never actually smoked, but I find smoke very beautiful, so I wrote about what I did know, rather than trying to pretend. XD;

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Deidara stares at the smoke before him, curling and shifting, lazy, unfurling. Constantly changing. The smoke as beautiful as it is fleeting. This is art, he thinks. He tips his head back, letting out a slow and smooth exhale, another stream of smoking slipping past lips, slightly pursed but still smiling faintly. Killing himself breath by breath by breath. And he doesn’t care. His life is dangerous enough. He’s not stupid; he knows that the chances of him living past thirty are non-existent. So what’s the harm of a little smoke?

Deidara laughs slightly, legs swinging back and forth. It’s cold tonight, the crisp autumn air really more painful in his lungs than the smoke itself. He pulls his simple white tunic a bit tighter around himself, for once regretting the low ponytail that holds his hair back. He sighs, cigarette dangling from one hand while he reaches back with the other, tugging the tie loose and letting his long blond hair drape free. Soft and smooth against his neck and ears and slightly warmer now. He takes another drag off his cigarette once this minor task is accomplished.

He’s been smoking for years now, can’t even remember how he started. At first he had to sneak around his parents. But then they’d died. Certainly had solved that problem. It’s odd, how disconnected he feels from that time, that place. It’s only been a couple of years since. He was never that attached to his home, or his family.

Exhale.

Faces in the smoke; he can practically see them, sometimes. It’s easy to see whatever he wants in it. Artful swirls and designs and it flows so freely. Calming.

Inhale.

And years pass while he’s holding the smoke in his lungs; he’s recruited, his confidence is shattered by two red staring apathetic eyes, he gains a mentor, and he smokes.

He smokes while Sasori’s death is truly setting in, staring off into space with slightly wide, blue eyes. He smokes while pondering how absolutely terrified the thought of death makes him. He hasn’t accomplished it yet, hasn’t reached the stage of art that he wants to—hasn’t yet gained the respect he craves.

And he smokes when Tobi’s exuberant, obnoxious energy gets to be too much.

“Deidara-senpai?” comes a quiet voice, and Deidara shifts his gaze very slowly to Tobi.

“You know that when I’m smoking it’s quiet time,” he grits out. Honestly, it’s like working with a child, sometimes.

“You shouldn’t smoke. It’s bad for you.” Deidara realizes how suddenly close to him Tobi is. The orange and black swirl leaning in towards Deidara’s frowning face. Tobi plucks the cigarette from Deidara’s hand at the same time as he—it’s not a kiss. Deidara can’t possibly consider it a kiss. Cool porcelain against his cheek, practically nuzzling. Deidara lets out a frustrated growl, jerking back.

“Give me back my fucking cigarette,” he snaps, with a slightly petulant pout twisting on his lips. His only reprieve anymore and he needs it.

“I don’t think so, senpai,” Tobi says, practically a teasing drawl to the way he speaks the respectful name. He drops the cigarette to the dirt, grinding it out with his heel.

“Oh, yes, like I won’t just be able to get another.” Deidara rolls his eyes, reaching besides him for a small pouch with some of his personal items in it. But Tobi extends a black gloved hand, gripping Deidara’s wrist.

“I can distract you just as good as they can.” And Tobi laughs, his normal silly, childish laugh, that’s now so misplaced it’s sickening.

“Get away from me,” Deidara says, but his tone is more subdued, flat, and Tobi’s grip is tight. He doesn’t want Tobi’s distraction. Doesn’t want anyone’s distraction, anymore.

As Tobi goes to his knees on the forest’s floor, Deidara can do nothing but helplessly watch, fabric sliding away from his wrist and settling on one hip. The other hand is working at tugging asides Deidara’s black pants, the cloak already having been removed for the night.

“Stop,” Deidara breathes, but it’s halfhearted. He shouldn’t be hard and yet he’s getting there, for some ungodly reason. He’s sitting on a fucking log in the middle of a dark forest, the constant noise of leaves and animals all around him, and his partner, who he’s yet to gain any sort of affection towards, friendly or otherwise, is urging him to lift his hips, and—so help him, he does it. When he settles back down, bark digs into his ass, and Deidara lets out a noisy, irritated complaint about it. Which only really earns him that laugh again, still horrifically out of place in such a moment.

“Senpai,” a hushed whisper, losing the slightly sarcastic twist of earlier. Not until Tobi’s face is completely in Deidara’s lap does he lift a hand to the bottom of the mask, shifting it up just enough, and Deidara can’t see anything, not a single lip or bit of skin, which should be frustrating but. He doesn’t even care because hot moist heat engulfs him and everything falls away. His hands finding spiky messy black hair and burying themselves in it, gripping so tight his knuckles whiten. Shaky, hesitant moans dragging out of his throat, teased out by an expert tongue. He doesn’t like this. Doesn’t want it. His hips push up, though, urgent for more.

“Tobi.” A quiet murmur. He almost begins the sibilant hiss of that name, instead, but stops himself.

And afterwards, Deidara reaches almost desperately for his cigarettes, shaking one free and lighting it more quickly than should have been possible, ignoring the disapproving tilt of that mask towards him.

“Those things will kill you, senpai.”

Beautiful and fleeting, Deidara smokes.