"We should have been back days ago, you senile old fuck! Admit you're lost!"

"I don't get lost. Your slow ass is the problem. It's another day's walk, so shut your mouth."

"Just drop the fucking thing over the cliff."

"And lose the bounty? I'd sooner drop you off a cliff."

Hidan huffed and crossed his arms in contempt.

"You don't mean that." he snapped. "Without me you'd get jack shit done. And you'd be bored. And lonely. And sexually frustrated."

"Are you vain or just stupid?" the miser mumbled, shaking his head and shifting the weight of the corpse hung over his shoulder. It was the heat of the day and he was in no mood for this. Hidan glared at him for some time, but did not say anything. He did however open his mouth several times but nothing came out. Kakuzu smirked under his mask.

"You know what, bastard?" Hidan eventually said. "If I ignored you for a day you'd come crawling back to me begging for attention."

Kakuzu laughed aloud and the sound made a shiver run up the priest's spine.

"You want to bet?" the older man asked, seeing a chance to make Hidan miserable.

"You are fucking on." Hidan retorted. "If you can go a day without interacting with me at all, I will carry that sack of shit you call a bounty AND I won't complain."

"Done."

"I'm not finished." Hidan smirked. "And if you do lose, which you will, we go to the next hotel we pass."

Kakuzu tensed. Little bastard. Give him a yard, he would take a mile…

"If I win," Kakuzu began, thinking hard. What would match Hidan's ridiculous demands? "You firstly would have to be totally and utterly silent until we get back. And you will carry this corpse. And…" He pondered. "I get to say I told you so the next time you get decapitated."

Hidan scowled.

"Fuck you old man!"

"Deal?"

Hidan looked away and muttered something before responding.

"And we get to stay in a hotel if you break..?"

"Yes."

"Deal, fucker."

Kakuzu started walking faster. All he had to do was ignore him today and Hidan would be out of his hair tomorrow. No corpse to carry, no complaining about bounties, and no Hidan whining about having to sleep out on the road. Hotels were expensive.

Hidan glared at the back of Kakuzu's head, wondering if he could feel his eyes boring into his skull. He contemplated how he could drive him insane enough to blow. Just the satisfaction that Kakuzu would have to spend money on him was reward enough, but tormenting him would be extra fun.

"You know," Hidan began, catching up with the miser. "When I first saw your stitches I thought they were messed up sideburns. Every so often I feel like cutting them in your sleep."

Kakuzu did not twitch.

"You also smell like shit. We should probably go to a hotel anyway before you kill the birds in the fucking trees."

Again, nothing. Kakuzu kept a steady pace.

"Do you have any living relatives? Were you this weird looking as a kid? What would you say if you met Kisame's mother? What annoys you more, being called Kaku and Kuzu? Isn't it your birthday soon? How old will you be? A hundred and forty something? If you stop having sex will your dick shrivel up and fall off? Am I the only person who ever wanted to have sex with you?"

After a while Hidan had to stop talking to stock pile some more ideas. If random questions were not working he would have to take another angle… One along some more sensitive spots…

"You know you're not even that good in bed. You're just big. Your technique is crappy."

Kakuzu's step altered and Hidan broke out into a grin.

"You need to get more of a roll into your hips, not just in and out… in… and… out…"

He drawled over the last words and his grin widened.

"I'll have to show you again how to do it properly. Then you can practice on me."

Hidan then pushed his luck and put a hand on Kakuzu's back side. He had seen it coming because in two seconds flat Kakuzu had tripped the priest and sent him sprawling, without breaking his stride. What ever Hidan said during this time, he would pay for later. The younger man had clearly forgotten that was a possibility. But Kakuzu would not forget…

"Speaking of sex," Hidan continued. "Look what I found in the bathroom cabinet of that dead fucker you're hauling around."

He reached into his cloak and pulled out a tall slim bottle to wave in front of Kakuzu's face. Judging by the patterns on it and the name on the label, it was personal lubricant. Kakuzu looked away but the younger man had a gift for grabbing his attention.

"If you weren't so fucking cheap we could get some of this ourselves. It's way better than spit. Maybe you'd enjoy an ass fucking more with better stuff."

Not this again, Kakuzu thought to himself. Stop being a pushy little shit.

As it got darker the miser had blocked the priest out almost entirely, but that was because he was lost in his own thoughts and looking around him for possible enemies. Luckily it was quiet. Hidan was going to suffer for this. Once he had won this bet at midday he would make the priest so sore he would rue the day he made a deal that involved him being quiet. Hidan suffering silently would be priceless. The day slipped into the night and Hidan began to whine again about feeling tired. Some more inappropriate questions followed and Kakuzu tucked them away in his mind for use later. He contemplated Hidan's teasing. Some of the questions had quite clear answers. No, he had no living family after his brother was killed in the Second Shinobi War and they had never really been close. He had looked like a normal child from Waterfall once, he instated his first stitches in his mid-twenties – into his forearms. If he met Kisame's mother he would throw her back where she came from. Neither Kaku or Kuzu annoyed him much at all, it was the suffix "chan" than made him want to punch someone. His birthday was August 15th and he would be ninety two. Would his manhood shrivel and die if he was no longer sexually active? He had no idea. After about seventy years he was fairly confident he could get action when he wanted it. Hidan being there just made it easy. Yes, the pale bastard had a full fist wrapped around his heart strings but he had a better head than to let his lusts determine everything he did. Sex, money, violence. He ran on the same things most countries and empires did. Regardless of power, civilisations were still run by men. Love could make or break anything.

The sun began to peak over the horizon when Kakuzu decided to stop and rest. The increasing sunlight would encourage him not to fall into too deep a sleep so they could head off again soon. He hung the corpse high in a tree and settled into a wide forked branch to relax. Stretching out he estimated it would be another five hours or so until midday. He could sleep through most of that. Hidan had picked out his own thick branch and laid out flat in the dappled sunlight. This high up no one would see the black and red cloaks and no animals could track the body. Safe as he could want for the time being. He dozed with one eye open, watching the pale man shift uneasily on the bark. Hidan did not fit the mould of shinobi that he had grown up with. Kakuzu had been raised in the way of the samurai, Hidan had run amok and still did. He would always favour a feather bed over an open sky. Only his religion brought him honour. Somehow, the younger man was from another world than he was. Sometimes Kakuzu wondered if Hidan was his last connection to the real world out there. Mad, savage and uncensored. Better than going quietly insane, surely?

After closing his eyes for what felt like a few moments he opened them again to see the sun high in the sky and a cloakless Hidan shimmying up to his tree fork. He hung his scythe from a branch and then straddled his lover's lap.

"It's been a day. You fucking won."

"Did I now?" Kakuzu said slowly smiling, contemplating his next move.

"You know you did, asshole." Hidan leered. "You- ahh…"

His eyes suddenly closed in bliss as he felt his lover's fingers ghosting up his thighs. Kakuzu watched him melt at his touch through the fabric. The older man shifted a little in the tree so that the Jashinist could feel his rising manhood. Hidan groaned as it bumped his inner thigh and quickly pressed against the hard flesh. His hand disappeared into his waistband and began to massage his flesh hastily. A pink haze coloured his cheekbones and his breathing had increased to a pant.

"You could have picked a better spot." he muttered, grinding against his lover.

"I'm not moving." Kakuzu replied, deciding to be difficult.

"Fine." Hidan said with a stubborn glare. Instead of giving up he leant back and put his feet on branches either side of Kakuzu's tree fork. From there he pulled the lube from his pocket and then his loose pants down to his knees. He pressed his bare skin against the older man, breathing heavily. He unfastened the front of Kakuzu's pants and rubbed the excited limb affectionately with his free hand. There was something deliciously exotic about the clash of skin colours, or maybe it was just the impressive size the older man was compared to his hand. Hidan popped the top off the vial and dripped a few generous splashes onto his lover's swollen length. The warm skin heated the gel giving off a fruity scent and Hidan took his time massaging it on and licking the spare from his fingers. A soft moan escaped Kakuzu's lips encouraging Hidan to rub harder. He guided Hidan into position and slid steadily inside him. Hidan gasped suddenly and pulled back, perhaps a little too eager. He slowed down, still desperately trying to let his lover enter him as deep as possible. He dragged the miser into a passionate kiss until his body finally met his partner's. He let go and began to move his hips and build a rhythm, the breath being forced from his lungs mercilessly in groans and cries. Kakuzu's hands gripped his hips assuring nothing but deep and hard penetration. It should have been hurting to go so hard so fast, but not like this. Hidan did not last long. He continued to bounce on the miser's length as he came, forcing every last orgasmic throb out of his body. White splashed on his lover's dark stomach and he let out an animalistic groan when the pleasure ceased.

"Jashin, lord, that was good…" he whispered as he caught his breath. He returned his feet to branches below and redressed, still buzzing with afterglow. "That stuff is insane."

"I can tell." Kakuzu mused.

"Come on. The sooner we get back to base the better."

"And the sooner you're quiet the better."

Hidan flipped him the bird and started to climb down the tree back to earth.

A hand suddenly clamped around his mouth and his back was slammed into trunk. Kakuzu was stopping him. Forced brutally against the tree Hidan let out a whimper against his lover's hand, had his legs pried apart with tendrils and was thrust inside of callously. Kakuzu was nowhere near done with him yet. He would be punished now for his actions before, face to face, trapped between a rock and a hard place. The tree was the rock, and the hard place was Kakuzu.