It was two o'clock in the morning and Deidara couldn't sleep-and this was the fourth night in a row like this. Pein had them shacked up in this large house in Amegakure while they waited for further orders on their plans.

He hadn't seen Pein, Konan, or Zetsu for three of those four days now, which left Kisame, himself, and Itachi (unfortunately) to amuse themselves until leader returned. It was excruciating. Being around the Uchiha was bad enough-but fish breath just made Deidara want to puke. He was so goddamn obnoxious and so blue.

Regardless, being up at this hour had its advantages; Deidara was fairly certain that neither of his other two current irritating roommates and associates would be awake. And, thankfully, being part of Akatsuki, the house was one of the most well equipped in the entire city: multiple televisions on each floor, video game systems, a pool table, an excellent training facility and fitness area, and each of their rooms had private and fairly ample bathrooms. Even with all those luxuries, none of them had made much use of any of the finer bits as they were most often out on missions-that was until recently.

Now, Deidara found himself under house arrest with two of his most irritating compatriots and it was so boring it was making him suicidal. He even thought about performing his ultimate jutsu just to get out of being trapped inside the house. But, then he would be dead and the brooding emo Uchiha and the giant walking piece of sashimi weren't worth the power of his ultimate jutsu anyway. Nope he was saving that for someone special.

Leader had given them strict orders not to leave the house under any circumstances. Deidara groaned inwardly when he had accepted that order. He was never one to sit still and now he was paying the consequences in the form of insomnia caused by the most deadly illness in the world-to him at least: cabin fever. Plus, there was only so much 'exercising' one could do in an enclosed space. There wasn't nearly enough room for proper explosions in that excuse for a broom closet that leader called the 'training room.'

"Tch. Time to rot my brain with some TV, hmm."

He slid off his bed like a zombie and puttered out of his room in his flannel pants that had little cartoon bombs decorating them-some in the process of exploding and others not. They were a gag gift from Tobi that Deidara had actually really liked. His hair hung loose around his shoulders and was rumpled and standing up in places and at odd angles on top of his head-from all the thrashing in an attempt to induce sleep. He didn't care enough to do anything about it. It amazed him that with the incredible amount of boredom he didn't instantly fall into a coma when tried to sleep; alas, it would seem, he was so bored that he couldn't fall asleep.

He didn't bother turning on any of the lights; he knew his way around the area of the large house that housed all the Akatsuki members' bedrooms, which included the hallway he was now shuffling down in slippers that looked very much like the clay sparrows he created-another gag gift from Tobi. He was halfway to the stairs when he tripped over something in the middle of the floor.

"OW FUCK. WHO LEFT THIS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE HALL, YEA?!" Deidara yelled as he bent over and threw the offending object; it felt like a shoe. Then it occurred to him that he didn't particularly want to rouse his two housemates.

In the dim light he realized with a cringe and an eyeroll that he was next to Itachi's and Kisame's doors. They were across from each other right next to the stairs. The shoe was probably one of theirs.

"Figures." He squinted his eyes and realized with further exasperation that both doors were ajar and appeared to be unoccupied. Deciding that he was now committed to going downstairs to try to appease what was a growing headache, he progressed.

Once he reached the main floor, he headed for the kitchen first-which was, thankfully, also unoccupied. He opted again to leave the lights off and rummaged in the large pantry with only the light from the city outside coming in the through windows to see. His eyes had mostly adjusted to the dark anyway and he could almost see everything. He found a bottle of painkillers and popped two to numb the headache. They had enough drugs and herbals in this house to kill an army-they were criminals after all.

Seeing as he couldn't hear the signs of his housemates anywhere he assumed they were either out, or way over in the other wing of the house where the televisions and games were. He hoped for the former, because the latter area was where he was planning on heading.

Finally finding what else he had been rummaging for, Deidara emerged from the pantry with a box of Lucky Charms Cereal that he thinked Konan had purchased.

"Nothing like pure sugar at 2am, hm." He went to the fridge next and found a bottle of water and grabbed a banana from the counter to compensate for the cereal he was about eat and headed toward the other wing. The level of 'normal' in this house he shared with some of the biggest and baddest S-ranked criminals in the entire shinobi world was just bizarre. But he was too tired to ponder these finer details and continued to shuffle down the large central hallway and made his way to the biggest TV in the entire house.

With the water bottle and banana held awkwardly in one hand and the cereal box in the other, Deidara slowed down as he approached the wide opening for what, for all intents and purposes, was basically a giant theater room with a massive flat screen TV. He stopped entirely when he heard that the TV was already on.

"Tch." He stayed just outside the doorway so whoever occupied the room wouldn't see him. The lights were off anyway, so the only light generated was from the images flickering across the big screen.

What he heard, however, threw him for a loop.

"You can tell that this particular Great White was here last season because you can see where we tagged him. He seems very healthy and happy. As scientists we are thrilled to see them coming back to feed here again. . ." The voice one the TV was saying.

"What the fuck?" Deidara whispered to himself and craned his neck a bit more to see that, apparently, Kisame was the one watching some sort of nature show on Great White Sharks.

Kisame was laying stretched on his side facing the TV on the largest leather sofa situated directly in front of the screen and he was wearing a two piece set of pajamas (matching top and bottom and the top buttoned up) that were deep blue in color. He looked ridiculous-like someone's grandpa; not to mention, with how loudly the volume was on the TV, the whole grandpa thing was even more fitting. Talk about deaf.

But, Deidara of course knew better than to think Kisame was anything other than the S-classed shinobi that he was; Kisame was the oldest among them but he was also incredibly strong and fearsome and had the chakra reserves of a monster. But something about this scene made him look so domesticated and almost cute. It was downright disturbing.

Deidara lazily turned his head away from Kisame and back to the screen as the team of scientists on the boat had apparently caught another Shark and were inspecting it and taking blood samples or some crap.

"O! This one is a female and it seems like she's pregnant! How wonderful!" The damn scientists looked like they were about to piss themselves in happiness. Deidara turned back to Kisame.

"Is he crying?!" Deidara muttered a little bit more loudly than he meant to; but with the TV turned up the way it was-he didn't think Fin-man would hear him. Kisame sniffled and rubbed at his nose and Deidara could plainly see glistening streaks on Kisame's cheeks. He sniffled again and actually sighed in happiness.

Deidara was thunderstruck and no longer able to keep from either pointing and laughing at the giant blue beast or from vomiting all over the floor in sheer madness, so he did the next best thing and fled the scene.

"Time to find another TV, hm."

He shuffled away from the theater room and further into the entertainment wing and closer to where most of the video game systems were kept-and the room that housed the library and pool table. He knew he could find the second biggest TV in the house in there.

He stopped momentarily and dropped his goodies on one of the small tables in the hallway and scarfed down the banana and had a bit of the water. With a snicker he left the banana peel on the floor for someone to slip on.

Something about seeing Kisame all emotional and cuddly made him hungry and very uncomfortable. After sating himself, running his fingers through his unruly hair, and rearranging his balls (his pants were riding up, damnit), Deidara continued down the hallway toward the game room. He shoved his hand into the cereal box and dropped a few pieces into his mouth. The sugar woke him up a bit more-which he knew was counter-productive, but yup, didn't care. He just wanted to get the image of Kisame out of his head as fast as possible.

As he neared the large double oak doors to the adjoining library and game room, he paused with his hand on the door to push them open and turned the now near empty box of cereal upside down above his head as he angled his mouth to receive the crumbs. He heard a few scatter onto to the floor beneath him and thought he felt one or two lodge in his hair. The contents of the box now thoroughly gone, he chucked it over his shoulder and onto the floor with a smirk. He also didn't bother to clean up the crumbs and pieces he no doubt left everywhere. Maybe he could blame the mess on Kisame. He did, however, carefully run his fingers through his hair to pull out the stray pieces of marshmallow and flicked them onto the floor.

Satisfied, he pushed open the double doors and found himself in the library. He would have to go through the second and adjoining set of double doors and down a small set of stairs to get into the game room-which was one of the biggest rooms in the house. He eyed the high stacks of books in the shelves.

Although the library was certainly one of the most impressive that Deidara had ever seen, he still didn't appreciate it. Reading required patience and remaining still, neither of which Deidara had ever perfected. Frankly, he could care less.

He made his way to the second set of double doors and descended the stairs.

Rounding the corner and almost walking smack into the pool table because none of the lights were on down here either, he could hear that the second TV way at the other end of the game room was also on. He rolled his eyes and audibly sighed in exasperation.

"Uchiha. HM." Begrudgingly, Deidara made his way to the second TV to make sure Uchiha was in fact using it and someone hadn't just left it on and forgotten to turn it off.

Once the screen for the television came into view, Deidara's level of boredom increased 100 fold. The channel was set to the Home Shopping Network and the flippant and obnoxious ladies on the program were talking about how "glorious" this particular handbag was.

"Looks like shit to me, yeah." Deidara mumbled. The bag had some grotesque plaid pattern on it and was bedazzled with entirely too many charms and shiny things. Really, it looked to Deidara like a junkyard had thrown up on a piece of rotten hide.

"You know, Becky, I told my husband that I just had to have this and he ended up buying me three, all in different colors, can you believe that!?" Deidara was gagging listening to this woman's voice.

"That's incredible, Samantha! You know that your husband got an incredible deal as just one of these bags is only $895 right now! You should have asked him to buy you four!" This second woman's voice wasn't much better and now those two toads, with the most disagreeable voices Deidara had heard in his life, were both laughing. He was dry-heaving now.

"Why would someone pay so much for something that couldn't be further from true art?!" Deidara said in a stage whisper. This wasn't good, if he kept watching this, he was liable to blow up the damn TV just to shut these two cows up.

"O we have got to change this, hm." Deidara muttered through gritted teeth as he moved to do something, anything, about this show. It wasn't until he started rounding the couch to find the remote that Deidara noticed that someone was watching it.

He had to use his ninja skills to dive stealthily back behind the couch and out of his line of sight. It was lucky that he hadn't been seen yet, although he had heard that Itachi was technically going blind; but, he must be tired or something because there's no way he didn't hear him-especially when Deidara was starting to raise his voice just now. Whatever, it didn't matter why because he didn't seem to be caught. Phew.

His eyes inched over the back of the couch as Deidara rose up onto his knees to figure out why the hell Uchiha Itachi was watching this garbage. As Itachi's form came into focus, Deidara noticed just how closely he was sitting to the damn TV, which explains why he hadn't seen him until he was almost standing on him.

The idiot was sitting right in front of the TV like a five year old watching cartoons. What Deidara noticed next disquieted him even more. Itachi seemed enthralled with the show and he actually had a phone ready in his hand like he was going to order one of those hideous bags!

Some part of Deidara felt that he had to prevent anyone-even Itachi-from committing such an act of treason against true art by ordering such a hideous monstrosity. The rest of him had to keep from laughing at the idea of Itachi being suckered into commercialism. Serves him right.

Just as Deidara heard Itachi start to dial a number into the phone, he also heard very heavy footfalls that could belong only to Kisame descending the stairs.

Fuck. He was about to be caught. Moving like a kid sneaking away from his parents, Deidara hid in the only place he could, under the pool table.

As long as they didn't turn on the lights and Itachi didn't decide to activate his Sharingan, he should be fine. He would have to chance the fact that because Kisame's incredible sense of smell hadn't alerted him to Deidara's presence earlier in the theater room, that he wouldn't smell him now either.

He froze under the center of the pool table and waited. Kisame's feet came into view as he rounded the corner by the stairs and aptly avoided the pool table. Apparently, Kisame walks around down here in the dark a lot.

Kisame's feet made their way over to the other TV and Itachi; when he rounded the second corner, Deidara could no longer see him-but he strained to listen.

"Itachi. Don't order another one of those! You already have one upstairs in your room." He heard movement and assumed that Kisame had snatched the phone out of Itachi's hand.

"Is your show over?" Itachi asked with cool exasperation.

"Yeah. You ready?" Huh? What the hell were they talking about and why did they sound like an old married couple?

"Hn." Itachi sounded like he was standing.

Deidara heard the crunch of leather as he assumed both of them sat down on the sofa. Deidara felt a face twitch coming on. This was getting more odd by the second. He didn't hear anymore movement, but he did hear the channel change. The curiosity was killing him and damn him for his boredom. He crawled out from under the pool table and inched his way back over to the sofa. He kept as far back as he could and used his ninja abilities again to be deadly silent.

He cautioned a glance at the TV first. What in the hell!? They were watching freaking Downton Abbey!? It was a chick show that Deidara knew Konan liked.

He stood up slightly to see what they were doing on the couch. Their heads were side-by-side and close together. Deidara had to stop himself from fully collapsing onto the floor and stood again, unable to not look. It was the most ridiculous thing he had ever seen-it was very subtle, but Itachi was leaning his head on Kisame's chest and Kisame had his arm casually around Itachi's shoulder-like it was the most normal thing in the world. They were cuddling. CUDDLING!

Deidara had had enough. His head was literally going to implode if he kept watching. At least he wasn't totally bored anymore. He made his way quietly back upstairs, through the library and back out into the hall. His eyebrow twitched when he stepped on the cereal he forgot he had strewn all over the floor. He was about to pass the theater room when he felt his left foot slip out from under him as he slipped and busted his ass on the floor.

"TCH! Got myself at my own game, HM." He had forgotten he left that banana peel in the middle of the floor.

Not focused enough to question why neither the banana peel nor the pieces of cereal had been disturbed or stepped on by Kisame, Deidara continued on his way back to his room, climbed into bed and promptly fell asleep-thank god. He thought absently as he was drifting off that he hoped he didn't have to witness something like that to keep himself entertained in this house until leader returned.

Deidara opened his eyes and finally felt a little bit more rested than he had in a few days-but he still felt thoroughly disturbed by what he had witness the night before. He felt like he had a glimpse into something he was better off never, ever seeing. EVER.

As he climbed out of bed and took a shower, he noticed that it was probably around lunch time. He dressed and put his hair in its usual topknot and decided today might be a good day to give reading a chance. No more TV for a while.

He made his way downstairs while purposely not looking at Kisame's and Itachi's rooms, walked into the kitchen and started to make himself some tea. He had his back to the small table, so he didn't notice when both of the individuals he was trying to avoid came in silently and sat at the table.

"Mornin' sunshine." Deidara twitched and turned to find Kisame smiling the biggest, most toothy grin he had ever seen and looking at him. More disturbing than that, Itachi had a slight look of mirth in his eyes too.

"Did you get any more rest last night?" Deidara almost spilled boiling water all over himself at that question. Itachi never asked him how he was doing.

"I slept a bit better, yeah." He answered slowly.

He poured his tea and kept his peripherals on the two at the table like they might bite him. His eyes widened when Itachi casually pulled a brand new box of Lucky Charms out from under his Akatsuki robe and eyed him. Deidara stood stock still and sipped his tea-burning himself because it was still too hot.

He saw Kisame pull a banana out of his robe and casually start to eat it.

"You're welcome to watch with us next time." Kisame mumbled through a mouthful of banana. Deidara cringed.

"Right, yeah." He casually put down his teacup and walked slowly out of the kitchen, once he rounded the corner-he all but ran up the stairs and into his room and shut the door.

He felt himself panic when he saw there, on his bed, was a hideous purse with a gaudy plaid pattern and that looked like a junkyard had thrown up on it.

Deidara passed out.

Back downstairs, Kisame laughed and Itachi smirked.

"Do you think his royal artfulness up there will ever realize the whole thing was a practical joke we played on him?"

Itachi shrugged.

"It was pretty damn good though." Kisame laughed again.

"Hn. You aren't a bad snuggler." Itachi deadpanned.

"I know." They both laughed at that.

*************************Came up with this idea while I was falling asleep one night. LOL. I made myself laugh writing it. Hope you laugh too. Also, For those who don't know Downton Abbey it's basically a very highly evolved soap-opera-esque show about a wealthy british family and their servants during WWII-lots of drama/hookups and generally silly things. For what it's worth, it's good ;). 3 Kisame, Itachi, and Deidara :3