Warnings: Male/male sex, male/female sex, language.

Characters: Kakuzu, Hidan, Yugito. (Kakuzu/Yugito/Hidan)

The thing about fucking Hidan is watching his composure fracture. The difference between the man who shouts and kills every day and the man who twists, pale face crumbling, reactions rising to the surface. Like stepping on ice and watching it break without wholly shattering, so that the shards can be pushed down and water rises darkly above them. The original structure is still discernable with a little imagination, and conceivably with time and patience could be recaptured; watching Hidan break is like that. It never happens all the way. He puts himself back together again each time, rises, regains his vinegary, painful personality.

There are many words for Hidan. Appropriate, as he has many words for everything.

Kakuzu is a simpler beast, although not, perhaps, to the naked eye. His history can be streamlined into a few defining events, many things that he's seen pass by, or calmly let go. Very little about the world actively concerns him nowadays, although he still enjoys money, enjoys having money, spending it. It separates weak men from strong ones, often, though not always. Power comes with it hand-in-hand. Better to have power than to lack it. Better to have cash than to lack it. Since he isn't precisely a man, he finds other ways to command the respect a human would. Terror and money. Both are reliable.

Common sense. Pragmatism. Qualities that he has, his partner lacks.

After breaking, Hidan storms. He loathes showing weakness. He storms out to find things and kill them. It is not a sad truth or a happy truth that watching him, hearing him, Kakuzu feels nothing. But it is a truth.

Kakuzu rests after sex. These days, he doesn't often sleep, and it doesn't bother him much to forego the illusions of humanity. He doesn't often sleep, and less often dreams.

So he's surprised to open his eyes to the water-stained ceiling with words in his mind. The breakwaters are falling. A sentence, floating like a bubble, no other connections. No emotion attached, either. He could have been satisfied, when he thought those words. Or furious. Something that either happened long ago or never did. If, by now, there's a difference.

Kakuzu's fucked a lot of people, for a lot of different reasons. Some of them theirs, some of them his. People have fucked him to try to manipulate him (not, generally, very successful. Not once he had the general idea of the idea behind the practice, at least. So in terms of all the years he's been alive, he's seen through the ruse more than he's been taken in by it. Statistical success). He's fucked people to try and manipulate them (very successful. He chooses his timing carefully, and he's had a long time to learn). He's fucked people to destroy them. He's fucked people to rebuild them. He's fucked people because he hates them. He's fucked people because he likes them. He's fucked people because they're interesting. People have fucked him because they like him, or they covet him, at least.

Someone, always, everywhere, will fuck him because they lust for power over his power. Or because they desire to bind. Or because they desire to push away. Because they desire to remember something sweet. Because they desire to forget. Because they desire comfort. Because they desire pain. Because they can.

At his age, everything reminds him of something else.

One memory leads to another. More complex than that: one memory binds to five or ten or twelve others, woven together, like chain mail. The land that slowly changes, the hot wind always blowing, soaked with scent, heat, memory. So many years. So much of being alone.

"-I mean, who do they think they're fucking kidding?"

Kakuzu blinks, squeezes the fruit in his hand, testing it for softness, deems it too hard and moves on. He is not engaged with Hidan's blather. Rather, he is on the lookout for the perfect persimmons, the ideal blend of hardy and ripe that means they'll be ready for eating on the road without being bruised to a pulp by the trials of harvest and transmit. He wants the best fruit he can find, the best value for his money. That's what he is thinking of, and also the tough leathery skin, the sweet trickle of juice on his dust-parched throat. How red the fruits are, red as luck. Hidan shifts beside him, makes a discontented noise, and then continues.

"Seriously. I mean, everyone ignoring all that? That's like ignoring god."

Maybe tangerines would be better… Kakuzu sighs, softly, and finally bothers to look at his partner. The priest glares back. His eyes are as red as the persimmons. Redder. Kakuzu looks away from him, down the sloping narrow street, crowded with moving people. The sea glimmers, incomparably turquoise, visible above the vermillion tiled roofs and cobbled streets. The sky is blue as happiness. The sun is hot and fat, tuning the town to a fine simmer.

"What?" he says, finally. Hidan twitches, shifts again. His face is full of irritable tics.

"All these fucking idiots. Walking around ignoring all that." He jabs his hand towards the horizon, looking resolutely away from the ocean, into Kakuzu's face. "How many fucking people you think get killed in that every year? And these shitheads aren't even paying attention. They line up like fucking sheep to get killed and none of them get it."

"Does it make you glad?" He steps down the street, glances over fat peaches as big as his hand, in a fist. The vendor stares past both of them. He has resolutely ignored them except for an acknowledging eye-flicker in Kakuzu's direction when they both approached.

"Sheep dying? Fuck no." Hidan sneers at Kakuzu's inquiring glance. "It's all unconsecrated. Worthless."

"Of course." Maybe, then, he would prefer persimmons to peaches, on this hot day. Or a mix of both. If he bought a soft peach now, he could buy a harder persimmon too, eat the peach and wait for the other to ripen. That means he must find a suitable peach. Difficult, as they are the more tender fruits, of the two. He could buy a soft persimmon and a hard peach. But even an unripe peach bruises more easily. It seems that tangerines and persimmons are the best bet, after all.

"Listen, asshole," Hidan says, following him down the piles of fruit, until Kakuzu stops at the tangerines. They are small and bright, fitting neatly into his hands like eggs. They look very good, round and juice-full. Kakuzu picks from the top of the pile, choosing carefully. "All that. Fucking out there. That's power. And these fuckheads don't even know it. They're too stupid. If they could just see… If I could just fucking show them…"

"The ocean is its own god." After a moment of thought Kakuzu takes three tangerines. They are so good. They feel right in his hands. He is already imagining peeling them, a precious task, like pulling the skin back and breaking the ribs to unearth a human heart. "It doesn't need your help."

Since his attention to his partner has slackened he bumps into Hidan as he steps back towards the persimmons. The priest glares up at him ferociously.

"That's not a fucking god. It's just a thing."

The man's fury holds his partner at bay, for a moment. Hidan is full of that. Boiling points, spit and snarl and bile. Kakuzu idles, feels a burn of something that could be anger but ebbs before it reaches the high point. Instead he stares at Hidan amusedly. "You know nothing of the ocean."

Hidan's face twists. "Fuck that," he snarls, and Kakuzu stops listening, because he does understand. All that quiescent water out there could storm up in an instant, wipe this little village off the rocks and out of history. It doesn't need human acknowledgment to have its power and in that way it's stronger than Hidan's god. It is beyond human life, it doesn't care; it gives and takes according to whimsy. If it took the town it would take husbands, mothers and children with it. It feeds on human life. It finds its own sacrifice. A crop of fishermen, every year, foolish swimmers, pleasure boats that run afoul of the waters. And yet it also has so much to give. Omnipotent, bestowing gifts and taking sacrifice at will, with many more worshippers than his partner's old, foul god. Of course Hidan would be enraged by it.

Kakuzu is the son of those dark waters, and if he thinks about the ocean, he thinks of origin but never home. The waters lapping at the land like a man giving love to a woman with his tongue. The starving depths. Growing up, but never being a child. Worshipping, hollowly, without devotion. A prodigal son, easily led astray.

Here he is, after all. Astride the land.

Because Hidan doesn't introspect – he barely thinks – he's hard to teach. And Kakuzu, automatically, is a teacher. Among many other things. Leader, lover – well, fuckbuddy - teacher, enemy. Personal and close.