"Clay is a Poor Substitute for Earplugs"
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or anything else.
Warning: there is sex in this…more like…sounds instead of an actual scene, but just FYI. And no, it isn't DeiTachi or whatever way you'd say that. It's…PeinxKonan, which I find slightly alarming, because in reality I think they're siblings, because of how similar they look as kids.
It was a quiet evening at the Akatsuki Lair, and for some reason, only four people were there. Pein and Konan were doing paperwork upstairs in their office, Itachi was reading in his room, and Deidara was sculpting little clay scorpions (mini Sasori!) and slipping them into Tobi's underwear drawer.
When seven o'clock rolled around, Deidara wandered into the kitchen to get a bite to eat. He made himself a ham sandwich and sat at the table to eat it when Itachi entered, book under his arm.
"Hey, un," Deidara said between mouthfuls of sandwich. Itachi nodded and set to work making ramen on the stove. Ramen was perhaps the only food that everyone had learned how to make without considerable damage to the kitchen or anyone who happened to be in the immediate area, and it was also a favorite among missing S-class ninja.
"Where's Kisame, hm?" Deidara asked when Itachi had sat across from Deidara to eat his ramen. The Uchiha slurped quietly (a feat only an Uchiha can do) and took a sip of his Coke before answering.
"Shark Week," Itachi said, as if that explained everything. Deidara nodded. Apparently, it did.
"What about Sasori?"
"Doll convention."
"Ah."
Itachi slurped at his ramen again. Deidara munched on some chips. Yep. Just another day.
Deidara and Itachi. Alone in the same room. The silence was deafening. Itachi liked awkward silences. Deidara did not.
"I think I'll just…go to bed early tonight, yeah," Deidara said, and after tossing his plate in the sink, he left Itachi alone to his book. Itachi couldn't have been happier.
Deidara didn't go to sleep, however. He lay in Sasori's bed thumbing through one of Sasori's anatomy books, particularly the sections covering female anatomy.
At about ten o'clock, Deidara was startled awake. He'd dozed off while staring at a diagram of the female torso, and it took him a moment to realize where he was (he'd been laying in Sasori's bed, after all).
Then he heard the noise that had woken him. Deidara closed the book and pricked his ears, listening hard.
There it was again! It was faint…but it sounded a lot like…a moan. Deidara hoped to any God that would listen (hell, even Jashin) that that wasn't what he thought it was.
'Itachi's probably just watching TV,' Deidara thought, trying to convince himself.
He heard it again…and again…and again. Now he was also hearing a dull thudding noise, as if something was being shoved against the wall repeatedly.
Deidara ran into the hallway. He could still hear it. He looked in the other rooms, listened at Hell's door (Itachi and Kisame's room), and there was no noise from within.
Deidara looked up at the ceiling.
Another moan. This time a deeper voice. Oh God.
Deidara rushed into the living room and crept up the stairs. The noise got louder as he climbed higher. He stopped and ran back down the stairs, understanding now what the noises were.
Pein and Konan were doing paperwork, alright. Well…Pein was doing some kind of paper, and some kind of work…
The noise couldn't be heard in the living room, Deidara discovered, and he grabbed his blanket and pillow and camped out on the sofa.
Deidara tried to fall asleep, but he couldn't, so he ended up playing with his clay. He made tiny lady bugs, stuffed them into the holes of Fruit Loops and detonated them all over the coffee table.
He amused himself this way for several hours, fine tuning his mini bomb creations, before finally deciding to call it a night. Unfortunately, at the moment he stopped blowing up cereal, he heard the sound of a woman shrieking. Deidara was puzzled by the sound, because to him, it sounded like whatever had…provoked the shriek…was pain rather than sex.
Deidara wasn't taking any chances. He stuffed clay into his ears, wrapped himself up in his blanket and lay down, humming a Madonna song.
He fell asleep despite the discomfort of having clay in his ears.
It may have been several hours later, but when Deidara saw bright flashes from beneath his eyelids, he woke with a jolt, feeling as if he'd just fallen asleep seconds ago.
Itachi was curled in the love seat, gazing absentmindedly at the television. The sound of it was muffled nonsense to Deidara, and he plucked the clay out of his ears. Some of his hair was stuck to it.
Better invest in some real earplugs, Deidara thought. He glared at Itachi, who turned to stare back at him.
"What the hell is wrong with you, hm? I was sleeping!"
"Lucky you," Itachi droned and turned his gaze back to the TV, channel surfing. The volume was awfully loud for so late at night. Deidara peered at the clock on the VCR. It was two in the morning!
"Wait, you mean those two are still going at it?"
Itachi looked back to Deidara again and his surfing stopped on an infomercial about natural male enhancement. Deidara blushed and gestured at the TV.
"Hey, can you change it, please?"
Itachi changed it to channel 0, which was just snow and static. It was too loud for the annoying noise, but at least it drowned out the thudding and moaning coming from upstairs.
"I think we should move to another house…a larger one with thick walls…" Itachi said, and went back to channel surfing.
Deidara turned his back on the Uchiha with a 'hmph' and tried to will himself to go back to sleep, minus the clay ear plugs….
The morning dawned bright and cold. Deidara woke with a stiff neck, feeling cranky. He stretched, feeling his back muscles pull painfully.
Itachi was no where to be found, the TV off, remote set back neatly on the coffee table amidst the clay dust left over from Deidara's cereal experiment the night before. Deidara scratched his unruly head, and smelled something good coming from the kitchen.
He shuffled in to find Itachi sipping tea and reading the paper while Pein bounced about the kitchen, humming something while flipping bacon and scrambling eggs.
Pein was practically giddy. It was totally unfair, considering how stiff and tired Deidara felt. When he sat down in his usual seat at the table, however, Konan entered with a stretch and a yawn, sitting on Deidara's left side and grinning at him. That grin snapped something inside of Deidara. He pointed an angry finger at the paper kunoichi and shouted at the top of his lungs.
"HOW DARE YOU GRIN AT ME, HM! I HAVE A STIFF NECK FROM SLEEPING ON THE COUCH AND ITACHI HAD THE FUCKING TV ON SO LOUD I COULDN'T HEAR MYSELF THINK AND IF YOU DON'T KEEP QUIET NEXT TIME I'M GOING TO STUFF CLAY BUGS IN YOUR EYESOCKETS AND BLOW YOUR FUCKING HEADS TO BITS!"
Deidara huffed and puffed, but he didn't blow the house down...or up. He fell back into his seat, seething. Konan blinked. She looked to Pein, who had frozen while buttering toast. Pein looked at Konan. Then the two of them burst out laughing.
Deidara's left eye twitched. How dare they laugh at him!
When the two love birds had stopped laughing, and Pein wordlessly set the table and sat beside Konan, he looked to Deidara with an apologetic smile on his face.
"I suppose it's my fault, really."
"Your fault?! She's the one I heard, screaming like a banshee!"
Deidara's face turned red and he fell into silence. Konan blushed as well.
"Well, she was screaming because of my…actions," Pein said slowly, grinning at the last word. Deidara turned a deeper shade of red, but kept his mouth clamped firmly shut. He suddenly wanted to flee the room.
Itachi said nothing as he ate his eggs. Damned Uchiha must be writhing inside, Deidara thought.
Konan had a mischievous grin on her face, and Deidara leaned away from her in case she ruffled up his hair or…kissed him or something.
"Invest in some earplugs then, if it bothers you."
"Next time Sasori goes to a doll convention…I'm going with him, un."
Itachi continued to eat in subdued silence, wondering exactly where Kisame went during Shark Week.
A/N: Um...yeah. You know, even I don't know where Kisame goes during Shark Week. But Crackfics don't always have to make sense, right?
