Sasori poured the water into the pot and placed it on the stove. He was reaching for the bag of rice when he was stopped by a hand on his wrist. He followed the wrist up its arm and onward to the blonde head of his teammate, Deidara. Amused gray-blue eyes looked down at his brown ones.
"What are you doing, using boil-in-a-bag rice? Kakuzu bought the real stuff for a reason, un."
Sasori sighed. "Because, using the traditional rice takes too long. I'm hungry now. This stuff only takes ten minutes to make, brat."
Deidara stared at him. "You're hungry?"
The puppetmaster blinked. "Yes..."
The blonde bomber only looked confused. "Do you even have a stomach?"
Sasori sweatdropped. "No, not really. But I do get cravings once in a while, now let me cook my food."
Deidara released Sasori's wrist and stepped back to let him cook, watching him drop the bag of rice into the pot and turn the burner on. He walked past Deidara to sit in one of the worn chairs in the dining room. When Deidara stood in the same spot staring at him, Sasori looked back at the boy.
"You going to stand there staring all day?"
Deidara shook himself and laughed. "No, un. I'm just stunned that you actually want to eat. I mean,"
he paused to sit across from Sasori, "Where does it go, if you don't have a stomach?"
Sasori stared at him. He had known that someone would ask this eventually, especially since he had stopped using Hiruko so much... he sighed, deciding to get it over with.
He unbuttoned the front of his cloak, pushing it aside to reveal his bare chest and stomach cavity. He slowly uncoiled the cable and showed Deidara the pole inside.
"You see that?"
Deidara nodded, watching intently.
Sasori pinched the base of the pole, and pulled away from him so that the pole split itself in half lengthwise. Deidara inched closer so he could see properly.
Sasori smirked and pointed at the hollow space. "That's where it goes."
The blonde blinked. "Oh."
Sasori retracted his stomach cable and buttoned his cloak. "Yes. I did that so I could eat when I wanted to. Satisfied?"
Deidara nodded. He walked back to the pot of boiling water and rice and poked at it with a spoon.
Sasori rolled his eyes. "Now what are you doing, brat?"
Deidara looked at his teammate like he'd gone nuts. "Testing it. You gotta make sure it doesn't sit on the bottom, or it'll burn the rice, un."
Sasori nodded. "I know that. If you hadn't distracted me by asking silly questions about my anatomy, I would already be checking it."
Deidara stopped prodding the rice bag and looked over his shoulder at his partner, an amused expression on his face.
Sasori knew that look. "What. What did I say that could possibly be considered 'dirty'?"
Deidara snorted and pulled the rice bag out of the pot. "You said, 'my anatomy', un."
Sasori blinked once, processing what his teammate had said, then rolled his eyes when he realized what he was getting at. "Baka."
Deidara grinned and cut the bag of rice open, spilling the slightly damp grains into a bowl.
"Well, you're the one that said it, un."
Sasori glared at him. "That's not the point. You need to get your mind out of the gutter. And I can handle the preparation of my own food, brat."
Deidara grinned even wider, his expression turning Cheshire cat-like. "But Danna! You said that you don't like to wait. I'm doing the waiting for you."
Sasori had no answer to that, so he watched as Deidara rifled through the refrigerator for more ingredients.
"What do you want on your rice, un?"
Sasori thought for a moment. This is going to be my last meal for a while. Better make it count.
"That sweet and sour sauce that's in the door will do." The redhead couldn't believe that Deidara was actually cooking for him.
Deidara pulled the correct bottle from the fridge and shook it, making sure that it wasn't all settled at the bottom.
"Ooh, we need to get more of this, un. This is the last of it."
The bomber poured the sauce onto the rice, and handed his teammate the plate and a pair of chopsticks.
Nodding his thanks, Sasori picked up the chopsticks and took a bite of the rice, chewing slowly with his eyes closed.
After giving his partner a chance to taste it and watching him swallow it, he couldn't take it anymore.
"Well? Is it good, un?"
Sasori opened his eyes and gave Deidara a rare smile.
"It's delicious. I should have eaten sooner. I had almost forgotten how good food could be."
Deidara blinked, surprised. "Are you sure it tastes good? The last time I cooked for someone it made them sick..." He trailed off and ran back to the kitchen to grab a fork.
Sasori stared at him. "And you tell me this after I've already eaten some?"
Deidara ignored him and scooped up a forkful of rice and popped it in his mouth.
"Hmm... It's...not that bad, actually, un."
Sasori quickly scarfed the rest of it down at an inhuman rate and was rinsing his plate at the sink before Deidara could say anything else. "Thank you, brat." The puppetmaster said as he brushed past him.
"For what, un?"
Sasori stopped at the door to the kitchen and glanced over his shoulder. "For reminding me what being human means."
Deidara, for the umpteenth time that night, could only stare after his partner with a small smile on his face.
"You're welcome, un..."
A/N:
Yeah, I had a little thought. In a lot of fanarts that show the Akatsuki eating together, Sasori is usually But yeah. And yes, I got this idea because I made rice for lunch today ^^
(a) not there at all or
(b) he's there but not eating.
So what if he gets cravings once in a while?
And if he follows through on that craving?
Idea.
I don't own anything relating to Naruto, that is all property of Masashi Kishimoto.
Songs I listened to while writing (most) of this:
Let Me Go by Hello Control
Collide by Anarchy Club
Supermassive Black Hole by Muse
And the old favorite... Hare Hare Yukai by Aya Hirano
Please read and review!