Author's notes: Written for the 1sentence community at livejournal. I used theme set Epsilon.
Enjoy your DeiSaku!
[Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell; Yet Grace Must Still Look So
Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace,
1. Motion
They are still for an instant: then Sakura goes right, Deidara counters to her left, Sakura throws several shuriken ahead of his path so that he is forced to change course to dodge, and the fight is on.
2. Cool
Sakura is late, but she takes the time to bathe herself in a river before she meets up with her team: it's one thing to be late but it's another to be late with the smell of an S-class missing-nin and mutual pleasure mixed on her skin.
3. Young
Deidara is left with a boyish impression of her the first time he sees her—he knows she's a girl, obviously, but what girl busts up huge boulders with their fists?—so it's a bit of a shock when he next sees her, a doll on the arm of Deidara's contact's friend, dressed in a kimono and looking the definition of femininity.
4. Last
Their relationship, she knows, has an expiration date: the only thing left to wonder is whether either of them will survive the fallout.
5. Wrong
His voice is rough and low when he murmurs "I like it when you break things, yeah," and she knows something is very, very wrong, because her heart is pounding under her ribs and the battle cries in her head have gone silent.
6. Gentle
All the tender caresses by all the attentive boys in the world are nothing to his fingers tugging her hair when she goes down on him.
7. One
"Get out," Deidara takes one shaking breath, a failed attempt to calm himself, "get out now, yeah, before I remember myself and kill you."
8. Thousand
Deidara is a thousand miles away from her and he cannot get her out of his mind: he destroys an entire village out of spite.
9. King
Nothing turns him on more than knowing exactly how powerful she is when she's shaking and helpless and moaning and prostrate when he pins her down and fucks her.
10. Learn
In the dark he traces the lines of the swirling tattoo on her left arm while she traces the lips of his bloodline limit.
11. Blur
She's running as fast as she possibly can, but when she looks through the forest canopy he's still nothing but a flash of white wings and a rush of wind.
12. Wait
"I've waited a long time to meet you," he says (suddenly he's vanished from where she thought he was and she feels him behind her, he's so fast!), "I have to repay you for what you did to Sasori-danna, hm?"
13. Change
Sakura's eyes are not the same as they were, he realizes: she has seen more, done more, and they are wearier than they were when she was fifteen and a righteous agent of her spotless village.
14. Command
Cold dread slides down her throat into her stomach, betraying her to herself, when her captain opens a bingo book and names her next target.
15. Hold
A hand suddenly grips Sakura's wrist, hard, and yanks her backwards, and she watches a kunai fly right through where her head was a moment ago.
16. Need
Deidara is perfectly willing to lie and cajole to get her to come back, to satisfy his carnal need for the comfort of her body; it takes him by surprise to learn that Sakura's presense soothes a need he never knew he had.
17. Vision
Sakura's crying—little traitors running down her cheeks, she hasn't cried in years—so hard that when she whips her head around to see if he's pursuing her, she can't see, so she presses forward, knowing that at any moment he might change his mind and come after her, knowing she's said enough to make him want to kill her as messily as he can imagine, knowing that she'd deserve it.
18. Attend
How strange, the poetic side of him notes, that after all these years he should see the girl (woman, now) who killed his partner under such light- and civil-seeming circumstances; not so strange, his practical side points out, because she's probably here to investigate his contact's connection to Akatsuki; Deidara takes care to keep his identity concealed, but it is not without regret.
19. Soul
He drapes as much of him across her sweaty, sleeping body as he can without crushing her and wishes he could absorb her, right through his skin, like osmosis, and carry her with him always; Deidara suddenly realizes just how far he's fallen.
20. Picture
Sakura spends night upon sleepless night staring at her old genin team photo, tracing her teammate's faces and wondering what they'd think of her if they knew.
21. Fool
She pulls the neck of her turtleneck sweater a little higher, and tells them that she's fine: Naruto is fooled, Kakashi is not.
22. Mad
If he blows her up right now, she will fly in all different directions in a flash and a bang, and float to earth in a shower of gore and blood and singed pink hair, and she will be beautiful—the mouths in Deidara's hands are gnashing, and Sakura shoots him a guarded look because she suspects, and his lips curl in his best insane smile.
23. Child
Sakura shakes like she hasn't since she was a genin, but she can't help it when his hand closes around her neck and the teeth there clamp around her windpipe and she thinks that her lover's glinting, murderous blue eyes might be the last thing she sees before he rips out her throat.
24. Now
He teases her because he lives for the moment she'll breathe "now, Deidara!"
25. Shadow
The forest casts eerie shadows on his face as he looks down at her, an oddly contemplative look on his face; she finally stops fighting her hormones and stands on her toes to kiss him.
26. Goodbye
She closes her eyes so she doesn't have to look at him as she tenses to apply pressure and draw her kunai across his carotid artery.
27. Hide
His cloak and body shield her from view, and he turns his back on the discordant roar of battle to press her into the wall with his weight; she wonders why he would ever do such a thing and the answer she comes up with scares her so much she tries desperately to forget it.
28. Fortune
Deidara is 28-years-old, and though he will cockily claim otherwise Sakura knows nothing but luck allowed him to reach that age.
29. Safe
There's a fatal sort of irony in being in his arms: on the one hand, he is a powerful man, and though she is a powerful woman who needs no saving there is a semblance of protection when his arms encircle her; on the other, he is a dangerous man, and in his embrace nothing protects her from him.
30. Ghost
Sakura will not allow him to keep her from seeing other, saner men (her own countrymen, come to that), but no matter how many times she tells herself this he seems to always be there, even when he isn't, and she was rejecting dates and offers without realizing she was doing so; her bed remains as cold as death.
31. Book
The first time Deidara tells Sakura that he loves her, she accidentally throws a book at his head.
32. Eye
There is a flash that literally blinds him, and then fire arcs into the sky followed sluggishly by a rolling cloud pluming inevitably up: it's the second most beautiful thing he's ever beheld.
33. Never
Her fingers drop the kunai, leaving only a thin line of blood on Deidara's neck, all she can bear to inflict—barely a papercut—and she is so, so angry: with him for manipulating her, with her for letting him; it should never, never have gotten this far.
34. Sing
When weapons are wielded correctly, they sing as they fly; Sakura is right in the middle of the tempestuous symphony when he finds her.
35. Sudden
Sakura wonders one day why she couldn't have fallen in love with a normal guy—then she realizes what she'd just thought, that she was in love with Deidara of the Akatsuki, and oh, she was in so much trouble; she knew then without a doubt that she had to cut him out of her life, no matter what the cost.
36. Stop
Four weeks after Deidara nearly killed the woman he loved, he is stagnant—nothing had meaning, nothing mattered, he'd lost pleasure in all things—and he knows he has to find her.
37. Time
Time seems somehow malleable: it seems hours pass in the span of time it takes her to look into Deidara's face as he shields her from the fight, a day for a real, genuine smile to break over his face, years for her to realize that God, he really actually loved her, a second for him to freeze and tighten his arms around her in pain; time is back to normal as he collapses to the ground with a kunai lodged clean through his thigh.
38. Wash
She can't heal the marks on her neck, the marks he'd put there, nor does she want to: she's realized that he has stained himself permanently on her skin and on her heart, and any desire to wash it away is long gone.
39. Torn
"You are an idiot, Deidara: an idiot for thinking your 'art' is anything other than pointless destruction, an idiot for thinking any of this mattered to me, an idiot for thinking I could ever love a lunatic like you!"—she knows she's struck all the right buttons when he grabs her violently by her shoulders and throws her to the floor, more enraged than she's ever seen him.
40. History
"Why did you become a missing-nin?" she asks against his naked shoulder, not really expecting an answer; but he surprises her by weaving his fingers in her hair and pausing a moment before telling her.
41. Power
Deidara tells her he loves her over and over and over again, dropping the confession casually, inadvertently stealing away the potency of the words, and each time he says it Sakura is more and more convinced it's a tactic to get her to put out.
42. Bother
It shouldn't matter that he's using her: she's only using him, right?
43. God
Blood blood blood on him blood on her oh God his blood on her oh God it's everywhere oh my God what do I do please someone God help—Sakura takes a shaking breath and yanks the kunai from his leg, arterial splatter soaking his pants, and presses her hands into his wound—God can't help him, I can do this myself!—and pours chakra into him.
44. Wall
The first thing Deidara sees when he comes to is the wall; the second thing is Sakura, her eyes heavy and drawn from lack of sleep.
45. Naked
It's with a shaking hand that Sakura presses fingers to the seal on his chest; "careful," he warns her with a grin, but his hand comes up to press her palm more closely to him for a moment.
46. Drive
He's used to dominating during sex, but the first time he sleeps with Sakura Deidara finds he doesn't mind allowing her the reins; during the course of the night they leave the dynamic of power behind altogether.
47. Harm
She looks dead tired: she'd probably drained herself stemming his bleeding and stayed awake while he slept; his eyes are drawn to the bruises that still circle her neck and for the first time Deidara truly regrets the harm he's caused another person.
48. Precious
He can't help but span the space between them with his fingers and trace the bags under her eyes down to her soft cheek with the back of his knuckles, but he doesn't expect it when her hand shoots up to grasp his—there's an odd sense of urgency, of desperation, in the gesture, though her face is calm; she turns her face enough to press her lips to the back of his hand and mumbles four words and suddenly he can't breathe because his heart is taking up too much room in his throat.
49. Hunger
He thought he was guiding her hips to keep time with his, trying to control even from the bottom, but then she moves just so and he's scrabbling for purchase, biting her with the mouths in his palms and arching off the bed and moaning as she cries out.
50. Believe
When he tells her he loves her this time, Sakura absolutely believes him.