Sasori stared out into the snowy forest with disdain. It never snowed in Suna, and Sasori found himself wishing for his old climate, albeit not the place itself.
The brat was making it worse.
Kisame stood beside Sasori, amused rather than annoyed. He found it rather funny, watching the blonde-haired, blue-eyed bomber run about in the snow. An S-rank missing-nin at thirteen years old and still making snow men and snow angels. Kisame knew better than to complain. He had no doubt that the kid would crash hard that night, on the small, worn sofa in the lounge of the Akatsuki Compound, which had been his bed for the last four months, and would continue serve as the boys bed until someone took the time to clean out a room for him. He remembered the children on Kirigakure. The used to go swimming for hours and hours, splashing about like hooligans, before returning home at just dark and sleeping until noon the next day.
Kisame elbowed Sasori lightly, "Lighten up."
Sasori glared, "He is a deadly ninja. Deadly ninja's don't make snow angels."
Kisame grinned, "That one does."
Sasori grunted and sneered. Outside, Deidara rolled a ball of snow the size of his torso across the yard. Kisame laughed.
"He may be a deadly ninja Sasori, but he is still just a kid, you know." Kisame couldn't help but see the irony in it. Four months ago this kid had stood in front of him, perfectly willing to kill him, Itachi, and Sasori without a second thought just for bothering him, and now he was struggling to lift a gigantic ball of snow onto an even bigger one without a care in the world that he was surrounded by equally careless criminals. It wasn't funny, it was hilarious.
Sasori took a deep breath, "If he is still 'just a kid' then why does he insist that we treat him like an adult?"
Kisame groaned, rubbing a hand over his face, "Because that's how kids are, Sasori. They are freakishly independent, self sufficient monsters that insist on making the adults in their lives miserable. And we think it's funny, because he's a kid."
"I don't think it's funny. I think it's annoying. And childish." Sasori turned to the shark man, looking up at the taller man from his own real puppet body, "How do you expect me to get anything done on missions if the boy can't hold his focus?"
Kisame sighed. He retreated to the other side of the room, pulling his thick cloak out of the closet. Pulling it on over his massive shoulders, he stood in front of the door, several fee to Sasori's right, and zipped it up, tying a scarf beneath it.
"Gently." He said, placing his hand on the door handle.
"Where are you going?"
"To be childish." Kisame stepped out into the icy weather. The cold instantly began to bite at his nose. Kisame shoved his hands in his pockets and shuffled forward, kicking up wet snow as he went. Deidara had just barely managed to roll the large ball on top of the other one, but it still teetered dangerously on the edge. He was bent back, supporting the ball with his body, pushing forward haphazardly as his foot slipped slightly in the pile of condensed snow. The cold had turned his face and nose red as a Christmas light, his blonde hair stuck to his forehead in strands, held in place by melted snow. Snowflakes gathered on his long lashes, falling into his eyes and making him squint and blink rapidly.
The condensed snow beneath Deidara's foot crunched, and the blonde tipped back, the snowball, if it could be called that, weighing him down. He flopped backwards, and the snow landed on top of him. It fell apart then, in large white powdery chunks that rolled off of him and covered him. He looked like something you'd see in a cartoon, with his limbs sticking out of the heap in all directions.
Deidara grunted, rolling out of the heap by throwing himself to the side.
"Well that didn't work, yeah." He muttered, glancing at the once a snowball around him.
Kisame laughed out loud, "Maybe if it hadn't been the size of a couch, it might've have been a little easier."
Deidara sighed, "I know. I got excited; it never snowed this much in Iwa. We were lucky to call it a drizzle, yeah."
Kisame laughed again and pulled the boy up from the ground, "It snowed more than enough in Kiri; I used to be able to make snowmen just as quickly as I destroyed them. Here, roll another one, I know a trick."
Deidara blinked at him for a second, frowning, before he turned and dropped to his knees, scooping up snow and compacting it tightly, eager and curious to see just what the shark man intended to do. He rolled the snow mostly around where the larger one had fallen apart, and the ball quickly grew to the size of a melon. Kisame waited until Deidara had made the ball about twice the size and stopped him.
"Now put it on top."
Deidara frowned, "But it's not big enough."
"Just do it." Kisame bent down and scooped up two handfuls if wet snow and stepped up to the incomplete snowman. He took one handful of snow and pressed it into the space in between the balls of snow. He pressed the second one in beside it. He repeated this process until he had packed snow into every crevice he was able to. Then, he went around and smoothed it all out with his palm. Deidara watched with fascination, his eyes following the shark mans every move. When Kisame was finished, he stood back and revealed the completed torso of the snow man.
Deidara's grin could've split his face, "Oh, I get it now, yeah!"
He bent down and started rolling another ball, making it about the size of a large cantaloupe before setting it on the snow mans 'shoulders' he packed the snow just the way Kisame had done, but his smaller hands were more nimble than Kisame's large, awkward ones, and he finished in half the time.
He went over to a pile of pebbles that he had spent the morning collecting. Grabbing two handfuls, he gave one to Kisame and kept one for himself. Standing back a few feet, Deidara stood as though he were going to skip a rock on water. He hoisted up a pebble, and let it fly. The rock embedded itself into the snowman, buried deep in the sculpture. He motioned for Kisame to do the same. Kisame did as instructed, not quite understanding the exact purpose for their actions, but Deidara seemed to have a pretty good idea, so he just followed instructions.
In a few minutes, the pile of pebbles was gone, save for about twenty, and the snowman looked on the verge of collapsing. Kisame opened his mouth to question the Deidara on the point, but the blonde didn't give him a chance. He pointed behind them, at a large oak tree.
"Starting building a wall there." Kisame grunted, and stood still. He watched with interest as Deidara began to pack snow over snow man again, filling in the holes and reinforcing its structure. Kisame walked over to the oak tree and began to build a wall along one of the dark roots. He felt a little nostalgic, standing there, patting snow into place like a kid. How long had it been since he had done anything fun? Well, besides mutilating people?
He had gotten nearly half way down with the sculpture when he heard the hinges creak, and Sasori's angry shout of, "Close the damn door!"
He looked back to see the door to the base standing wide open, his blonde companion nowhere in sight. Kisame stood. Had he just left him out there? Trying to have some fun with the kid and he just left him there? Sasori's face disappeared from the front window, and his puppet arm reached across to close the opening, when a flash of yellow appeared behind him and Deidara ducked beneath the wooden limb, jumping back out into the snow. Sasori grunted and slammed the door with all his might, looking very much as though he was going to leave them to their devices, but not a moment later he stepped out onto the porch and sat down, watching the blonde bomber with interest.
Deidara held his clay pouch in his hand (and another dark object tucked under his arm), and he pulled off his mitten and shoved the other one in. After a moment, he pulled it out and stuck in the other. When he seemed satisfied with the amount of clay his hands chewed, he closed the pack and went and set it on the porch next to Sasori, who looked at it with disgust. He walked back over to the snow man. Standing there, he stacked his hands, one on top of the other in fists. Then, slowly, he drew them apart, and a long, white rod formed in the space. He made it roughly three feet long, shaving one end flat and sharpening the other to a point.
Standing on his toes, he stabbed the rod straight through the snow man's head.
Kisame winced. Violence like that shouldn't be seen in a thirteen year old.
"Deidara," He asked, putting his hands in his pockets, "Is there a reason for all of this?"
Deidara looked back at him, "Yeah, just build the wall, you'll understand when the time comes."
Kisame turned back to his wall building as Deidara took the remaining pebbles and gave the snow man a face, and raped the dark object around its shoulders. Kisame packed and compressed the snow until the wall reached his waist, and was as long as the sofa in the front lounge. Sasori had come up to stand beside him, and the puppet master watched with detached interest as the shark man steadily progressed. Satisfied with hi work, Kisame turned to Deidara.
"Perfect," The blonde said, eying the wall, "It should hold up pretty good."
"Against what?" Sasori asked. Deidara cracked a grin.
"What time is it?"
"Three fifty in the afternoon."
Deidara's lighthearted grin turned into and evil smirk, "Hidan and Kakuzu are due back from their mission in ten minutes."
It was Kisame's turn to frown, "What does that have to do with anyth-"
It clicked. Kisame nearly laughed out loud.
This kid…
Was a genius.
On cue, voices were heard approaching the compound. Deidara looked back at Kisame and Sasori, "They're early. Kisame-san, Danna, hide behind the wall!"
Kisame and Sasori ducked on instinct, while Deidara bolted off in the other direction. Kisame stood to call after him, but Sasori pulled him back down as Hidan and Kakuzu came into view.
"I swear to Jashin it was like this fuckin' long." Hidan spread his arms wide, and Kakuzu rolled his eyes.
"No sword is that long, you moron."
Hidan growled, "Hey, don't call me a moron. I'm not lying; I swear it was fuckin' long!"
Hidan slowed down when he saw the snow man, "Hey, the fuck is that? Wait a minute-"
Hidan leaned forward to see the dark object that Deidara had draped over the snow mans shoulders.
"That little bitch! This is my altar cloth!" He burst out. Kakuzu walked right by him and continued into the base.
"Then bring it in."
Hidan shook his fists angrily, "That's not the point!"
Seeing that his partner had abandoned him in what he believed to be all alone in the snow, Hidan huffed, walking in front of the snow man and leaning over to pull the altar cloth off, "Pfft, whatever. I swear I'm gonna kick that little punks ass-"
"KATSU!"
The snowman exploded, sending pebbles and melted snow in every direction. Kisame and Sasori both ducked their heads, Sasori more out of not wanting his body damaged than to Kisame's need to keep his body in one piece. Hidan shrieked like a wild animal and flew backwards, his arms flailing. His back connected with the compounds rough metal wall with a notable thud. It wasn't over though. Deidara had set the rod up in sections, and three different explosions went off within seconds of the first one. The second one sent more rocks flying, and Kisame felt a pebble smack him in the ear, and pain exploded through his head, and he heard a few dull thwacks as they hit Sasori's body as well. The third one pelted the base, and the fourth one gave Hidan a big, thick rock right to the face.
When the explosions ceased, no one moved a muscle until Sasori slowly lifted his head up over the snow wall, which had, surprisingly, survived the explosion in relatively good shape. Kisame followed him a little reluctantly. The yard was a mess. Sticks and stones littered it all over, and Hidan's altar cloth, which had once been in a single piece, rained from the sky in little scraps like black ash. Hidan himself was propped back up against the base, eyes wide, franticly looking about as blood poured down his face from a long, jagged, ugly looking gash in his forehead. He didn't even swear. He just stood up slowly and walked stiffly inside.
Then the laughter started. Surprisingly, it was Sasori that had laughed first, a deep chuckled low in his hollow puppet body, before it turned into an outright guffaw. Kisame followed suit, laughed with his arms wrapped tight around his middle. Sasori snorted, sitting back in the snow and wheezing out another laugh. Kisame rolled onto his side. Tears were beginning to prick at the corners of his eyes, and when he thought he had had enough, all it took was a little memory of the look on Hidan's face and he was sent gasping again.
By the time the laughter began to subside, Kisame's sides ached, and Sasori would have been in tears if he had tear ducts. Kisame wiped at his eyes.
"Good god…" He wheezed, still out of breath, "Someone give that kid an award."
Sasori chuckled, "Tell me about it. I haven't laughed like that since I was little. Where is the brat anyway?"
"Probably hiding." Kisame said as he sat up, "He knows how Hidan is. As soon as he's over the initial shock of it he'll be out for blood."
Sasori stood, brushing himself off, "Well, we will just have to wait until he comes back."
He turned and made for the base. Kisame pulled himself up and followed after the short red head, chuckling to himself all the way.
Kick the punks ass, well, Hidan, I think that punk just kicked yours.
Deidara turned up some three hours later, a nasty purple bruise on his forehead and a long cut cross his cheek, but a the biggest shit-eating grin Kisame had ever seen on his red face.
Please R&R!
-PoisonBones