KissMeDeadlyT-T: I don't even know where I come up with these ideas ._. It's just something that popped into my head while I was waiting for a certain someone to PM me so we can get started on the side-stories to my fic recently finished NaruSasuNaru fic thingie :3

-I just wanna mention that I couldn't choose which of Deidara's little sound thingies to use, so I just used all three ^^' That's how I roll O.o Also, I'm no good with the suffixes, you know, like –san and –sama. So I just didn't use them! Yeah fanfiction! You rock for letting me do whatever the fuck I want with these characters 8D

-I don't own Naruto! *sighs sadly*

-Edit: I reread it and corrected writing errors on every chapter on March 21 2012, hopefully I didn't miss anything...

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Intro

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"Deidara-senpai!" a way-too-happy for this early in the day, overly-exuberant voice sang loudly, its owner skipping hyperactively down the barren hallway of the Akatsuki base and throwing open the door to Deidara's room, which happened to be the last one in the hall. The masked man looked around for a few moments, trying to locate the bomber in his messy room. In the corner, a digital clock flashed 7:19 AM in bright red numbers over and over, and being Tobi, it distracted him. He shook himself out of it and resumed his previous scanning of the room. The first few rays of sunlight that managed to get past the thick trees outside streamed in through the thick black curtains. Tobi examined the bed closely; sometimes Deidara liked to curl up right in the middle and bury himself in blankets, despite the abnormally hot temperature at which he always kept his room. However, this morning that wasn't the case. "Senpai?" he called out again.

"The fuck do you want, Tobi? I'm busy, un!" Deidara's voice, muffled and irritated, came from behind the closet door. Tobi stared at it for a moment. He couldn't fathom why Deidara would be in there. He was about to walk over, through the mess of clothes and whatnot on the floor—Deidara was really quite an unorganized person—when he heard a sinister, pleased laugh come from the very closet he was headed to.

"Senpai?" he asked in alarm, his eyes widening behind his orange mask. Last time he'd heard that laugh, the kitchen blew up. "What are you—?"

"One sec, idiot, I said I was busy! Hmm!" Deidara snapped, however his voice was excited. "I'm so close to getting this right—" And then suddenly, Tobi heard an ear-shattering BOOM, and the closet doors flew open. Coughing, a barefoot Deidara ran out, followed quickly by a large puff of black smoke and the strong scent of burning.

"...Senpai?" Tobi asked once more, his mouth failing to stay closed. Thank goodness he had a mask on to cover the expression of pure amusement and shock on his face, lest Deidara beat him up for looking like an idiot or something. Deidara's sapphire eyes looked up at him as the shorter man coughed once again.

"What do you want?" he demanded as though he wasn't standing there in his pyjamas—which consisted of boxers and a tight black muscle shirt, wiping soot off of his tanned face with mouthed hands, slightly singed blond hair falling loosely down his back to stop just above the curve of his butt. His stitched arms were nearly black with soot and smoke continued to pour from the closet. Tobi stared for a moment, not knowing what to say.

"Uhhmm... er, oh yeah!" he exclaimed. "Leader wants to see you, and he said to make it quick, senpai!"

Deidara narrowed his slanted eyes. "No, I'm busy." There was a mischievous look about him, and it sort of worried Tobi. He grabbed a shirt off of the floor, what he assumed was a dirty one, and handed it to Deidara. The blond murmured a thanks and wiped the soot off of his arms and face, before throwing the shirt into a basket in the corner. "I don't want to go right now, un," he concluded, crossing his arms.

The chocolate haired man tittered. "He sounded urgent..." When Deidara glared icily, he squawked and exclaimed, "Tobi is just passing on the message! Tobi is a good boy!"

The blond sighed. "Fine, then. I guess I've worked on it enough for now. Hmm." He grabbed his coat from a hook on the back of his door, sliding it over what he was wearing at the moment. He didn't bother putting his scratched hitae-ite on, and simply pulled his long hair into a ponytail at the nape of his neck, in a style somewhat reminiscent of Itachi's—Not that Tobi would mention that, he valued his life too much. The artist was smiling widely the whole time. It worried Tobi. A lot.

"Worked on what, senpai?" Tobi asked meekly. Deidara was in that mood; the one he got whenever he had some sort of 'genius' plan, or when he planned to do something rash. Either one usually ended up with things exploding. Tobi really didn't want to provoke him when he was like this, since as mentioned before, he liked living, thank you.

"Hmm? Oh, just this." Deidara turned to him. He held out one of his hands, and the mouth there grinned jeeringly at Tobi; the masked man looked at it with a certain amount of curiosity and bemusement. Moments later, it opened, and out popped a tiny little clay butterfly, no bigger than Deidara's black-painted pinky finger nail. It just sat there on Deidara's palm, fluttering tiny, little, intricately-designed wings every once in a while.

"So..." Tobi said. "What is it, senpai?"

Deidara frowned in annoyance, but for once he didn't punch, strangle, kick or blow up Tobi, in a strangely good mood. "It's my art. Obviously, hmm. See that?" he jerked his head towards the closet, which was still smoking, waiting for Tobi to nod before continuing, "Well, this little, tiny, beautiful thing," he cooed, and Tobi swore it was the weirdest thing he'd ever seen, "created that huge explosion. Isn't it beautiful?" he asked, his voice full of admiration and love.

Tobi didn't want to make Deidara change into a bad mood, so he quickly nodded, biting his lip behind his lollipop swirl of a mask. "Oh, yes, senpai!" Out of curiosity, he put aside the leader's request for a moment and asked, "What are you going to do with it, senpai? You seem very excited! Tobi wants to know!"

"It has to do with that Uchiha bastard." Deidara smiled happily. It was chilling. "I'm going to make him appreciate the beauty of my art, un." The clay butterfly sunk back into his palm mouth, and Deidara watched it go almost sadly. Tobi was a little weirded out, but he had to admit that the blond's passion for what he did- for his art- was amazing.

"Why do you care so much what Itachi-san thinks of your art, senpai?" Tobi asked before he could stop himself. Oh, crap. I'm in for it now.

Deidara's face turned multiple different shades of red, and for a moment, he just stared at Tobi with wide blue eyes. Then he growled, and thwacked Tobi a good one across the back of his head. Tobi groaned and rubbed at what he knew would soon become a huge lump as Deidara snapped, "Because he lacks respect for my art, yeah! He treats me like scum, and looks down on me with those goddamned eyes of his! I'm going to make him respect it, and make him show some fucking emotion for once!" He turned to storm away, but Tobi didn't miss the fierce blush that spread across his senpai's nose and cheeks, all the way up to the tips of his ears. It could have been mistaken as anger, but something told Tobi that wasn't entirely it.

He may have been known as the Akatsuki's idiot, but he wasn't completely stupid; Deidara must not hate Itachi as much as he thought he did. Or rather, he still hated him with a burning passion, but that wasn't all that he felt. Deidara was probably just too stubborn to admit it, or even to see it. Maybe it was envy? No, it seemed different. Tobi sighed, he was still standing in Deidara's room, rubbing at his head.

Owie, what a pain, he thought, and then he remembered. Oh! Pein! He ran after Deidara, who was still storming away to who knows where. He passed a door, and then another, and yelled, "Wait, senpaaaiii—oof!" He tripped over his own foot, landing hard enough to make him see stars and go cross-eyed for a second. When he could see again, he realized there was a pair of feet by his head, toenails painted dark purple. He shot to his feet, ignored the head rush, and met a pair of cool black eyes gazing solemnly and warily up at him. Why was everyone so short around here?

"Itachi-san!" he said loudly. Too loudly, as per usual. He did a little mock-salute. "Good morning!"

"...Hello, Tobi," Itachi responded coolly. Even so early in the morning, he was already fully dressed as he usually was, with his cloak undone halfway and his arm resting in the crook there, looking like he'd been awake for quite some time. He had no lines, no bags of sleep on his face, nothing except for the natural lines under his thickly lashed eyes that went down to his cheeks. His hair was in its usual ponytail, not a single hair out of place. Tobi wondered how someone could look so dang perfect all the time. The Uchiha was looking down the hallway, his black eyes falling on Deidara, who'd stopped upon hearing Tobi trip.

"What do you want, Tobi, hmm?" Deidara demanded, completely ignoring Itachi's existence. The brunet was looking almost bored, and damn if that didn't piss Deidara the fuck off. Would it kill him to display some sort of emotion, even just once? Sheesh. He clenched his fists, his heart throbbing uncomfortably hard against his ribcage. He didn't understand why his heart and stomach always felt so funny around Itachi—he hated the man, and that was that. He couldn't think of anything to describe the weird butterflies in his stomach besides 'annoying'. He almost felt tingly, but he supposed that must be the adrenaline from the explosion he'd created earlier and how fun—insert sadistic grin here—it would be fun to... show it to Itachi. Yeah, that had to be it.

Right?

Of course. Duh.

Tobi's goofy voice called him back to reality. "Oh, uh, remember, Leader wants to see you, senpai," Tobi said weakly. For some reason, the air had become thick with tension, and there seemed to be a sort of invisible crackling electricity between Itachi and Deidara. The blond seemed more irritable than usual, and even Itachi looked somewhat unsettled. Deidara's eyes narrowed and moved to Itachi for barely a second before they flicked quickly away. He scoffed and grunted.

"Yeah, yeah." He turned on his heel and started off. Tobi giggled nervously; there were waves of something dark roiling off of Itachi, he could practically see them.

"Okay, bye-bye, senpai," he called, giving a little wave.

"How interesting," Itachi said flatly, in a tone that clearly stated that he didn't in fact find any interest in the topic, "I was called to see him, as well." He looked at Tobi, and the taller man understood why Deidara was afraid of him; Itachi was scary, even though he wasn't doing anything wrong. "Do you know what this is about?"

"Ah! No, Itachi-san. Sorry."

"That's fine," Itachi walked past him dismissively, and Tobi swallowed. It hadn't ever been this tense between Deidara and Itachi before—something must have changed on one of their sides. They were snippier and snarkier to each other than usual. He didn't know what else to do, so he quietly and uncharacteristically scurried off down the opposite way of Itachi and Deidara, as quickly as he could without actually running.

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Deidara's jaw dropped, his blue eyes widening almost comically and flooding with disbelief. Itachi sat there calmly and silently next to him, but his brow was furrowed. He shifted on the couch in front of Pein's desk (yes, he had a desk- as though this was actually a civilized business, and not an organization of S-rank criminals). He wanted to protest, but there was no use. Pein's word was... well, his word was law, unless you wanted to get killed off, or hurt badly, or anything along those lines. Plus, he was Itachi, and he didn't argue unless he absolutely needed to. He stared at Pein and Konan, internally cursing them, but not wanting to start a fight.

Deidara, on the other hand, didn't seem to feel this way. He slammed his hands down so hard on the couch that Itachi felt a sort of detached pity for the mouths on them; that had to be the equivalent of a slap to the face. He felt the couch bounce as Deidara stood and kicked it in frustration. "No," he spat. "No way. I am not giving my room to Kisame and rooming with Itachi, un! Why is this even necessary?" he shrieked. He looked at Itachi, scowled, and glared back at Pein. "If you need to give my room the Kisame, move me with someone else! Please! Heck, I'll even take Tobi!"

Itachi had never heard Deidara beg before this. He felt a tiny twist of resentment in his stomach and frowned. Sure, he wasn't the most sociable or friendly guy around, but he'd never done anything to make Deidara hate him, at least from what he could remember. To be honest, the blond's anger towards him sort of pissed him off, but mostly it just intrigued him. He would have rolled his eyes, but Pein spoke.

"Deidara, you're very... ah, reckless. Konan and I discussed it, and we agreed that you might become more... calm, if you stay with Itachi. Some of his obedience and silence might rub onto you." The words "We can only hope" were a slight mutter, and Deidara's left eye twitched.

Konan spoke up. "Actually," she said, fiddling with the origami rose in her hair, "it was Kisame's idea. Originally we were going to stick you with Tobi, since you two are partners, but Kisame insisted Itachi was a better choice."

"Oh, did he now?" Itachi murmured, but was ignored. Deidara groaned.

"Is this' cause of the kitchen? I said I was sorry, and it's almost done being fixed—"

"Not at all," Pein interrupted. "The kitchen is hardly a problem since we barely even use it, anyway. It's also that Kisame is a lot bigger in size than you are, and he wanted more space. You and Itachi are the youngest members, as well, so that's another reason he—and Konan and I- thought you two were the best to room together. I don't want any more arguing."

Deidara, of course, didn't listen. "That's so fucked up, yeah! Why the hell don't I get any say in this?"

"Watch your language, honestly, you're beginning to sound like Hidan," Konan said with a roll of her eyes.

"I don't give a fuck! This is not fair! Itachi and I don't get along, we never have, you know that—"

"Deidara," Itachi interrupted quietly, noticing the churning irritation in Pein's slightly narrowed rinnegan eyes. He really didn't want this to start a fight. "Give it a rest," he said as he grabbed the blond's wrist and forced him to sit back down.

Deidara looked at him for a long moment, his eyes narrowed angrily, but he didn't do anything but scoff and turn away. He glowered silently as Pein said, "Thank you, Itachi, for getting him to shut up."

Itachi nodded at him, sending a glare Deidara's way that clearly said he was going to get beaten up or subjected to some serious sharingan pain if he tried anything. The blond hissed back, all three mouths sneering, but said nothing. Itachi stood up, muttered a vague parting sentence to Pein and Konan, before turning to leave the room. He heard Deidara growl something and follow him, but he didn't pause to wait for the younger ninja.

"Itachi, wait, un!"

For whatever reason, Itachi listened to him, and stopped walking. He turned his head around to look back and was met with Deidara's fierce glare as the blond approached rather quickly. He idly noticed the familiar way the blond hair was tied at a tanned neck, and before he could stop it, he raised an eyebrow, smirked, and said, "Nice hair."

Deidara looked taken aback for a minute. Then his glare returned, twice as dark, and he yanked the elastic from his hair with such ferocity that it snapped. "I pull it off better than you anyway. Hmm." His hair fell loosely around his shoulders, contrasting vividly with the black of his cloak. It was a beautiful sight, Itachi had to admit, as were the angry ice-blue eyes that were narrowed at him oh-so-scarily. He's always found Deidara's looks... interesting, to say the least, and had always been somewhat fascinated with how graceful and pretty the nineteen year old was. Almost like a girl, but Itachi knew he wouldn't be so fascinating if he actually had been female. Of course, Deidara was so un-ladylike in attitude, no one could ever mistake him for a girl.

The way he felt around Deidara actually made him a bit nervous—he wasn't completely without emotion, despite how he acted. He just knew how to hide it well, which was exactly what he planned on doing with these weird, unwanted feelings for Deidara, especially since the blond seemed to hate him so much. Itachi realized he was staring, so he casually looked down and away.

"Stop making such a big deal," he said calmly. "I'll have my half of the room, and you'll have yours; Kisame's old half. I expect he's already moved his furniture out and yours in." Without another word, he turned around and headed to the room, feeling a sort of excited dread in the pit of his stomach as he heard Deidara follow, uncharacteristically silent, behind him. This was going to be Hell, for more than one reason.

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KissMeDeadlyT-T: Please read and review! If you're going to fave, can't you take a few seconds to tell me why you like it? Or why you don't? Constructive criticism, people! Plus, reviews make me happy.

Very happy.

So, please? :)