Akatsuki Shorts And Other Unmentionables

Chapter 2

Mardi Gras/St. Patrick's Day

By A Clockwork Pumelo

I'm going to do two holidays in this chapter because, well, I couldn't think of enough stuff for Mardi Gras alone. Like seriously, it's just the party before the beginning of Lent. Easter? I might get around to it eventually. But Mardi Gras and St. Patricks Day come first.

As usual, this story is not suitable for anyone who's mind has not already slipped off the gutter and is on its merry way to the sewage treatment plant (which by the way, my mind owns and operates), and contains disturbing content, lots of words that had to be replaced with asterisks, and semi-graphic disgustingness and depravity. Read at your own risk.

"DEIDARA! Get you hands out of the f***ing cookie dough, you fat little b****!" Deidara's hand-mouths came out of the tub of Chocolaty Fudge-Blasted Goop-Cookie Dough (limited edition, from Grass country), slobbering and gasping, tiny jaws glued shut with chocolaty goodness. The blond bomber turned big, blue goggle-eyes up to Sasori and let his lower lip stick out in a perfect puppy-dog pout.

"But Sasori-danna, you're not gonna eat the cookies 'cause you're a puppet. Why do you care, hmm?" In the blink of an eye, Sasori was out of his armchair, and the tub of cookie dough was shoved onto Deidara's head like an oversized, chocolate-filled hat.

"Because you're a fat b****, that's why." The redheaded puppet flopped back down in his new Lazy Boy and raised a pungent smelling bottle to his nose taking a big huff. Itachi stumbled by, plate of dango teetering dangerously in one hand while the other lit the hastily-rolled-cigarette-of-random-materials dangling from his lower lip. Seeing Deidara, he giggled and stretched out a leg, pushing the struggling blond over onto his back and splattering globs of cookie dough on the carpet. Seeing Sasori, the Uchiha found a place for his plate of dango and hopped up to perch on the arm of Sasori's Chair, eyes locking onto the flickering television screen.

"Ohhhhhh Wooden Chef... I didn't know you could do that with a rolling pin..." Sasori turned his head nearly all the way around like an owl, glaring at the interruption of his favorite food-porn show.

"Why are you sitting on my Chair?" Itachi finally succeeded in lighting his joint, and blew a billowing cloud of smoke into the puppet's face.

"Just because... Why shouldn't I?" Itachi leaned back onto the cushion of the chair and began to blow smoke rings, waving his joint and getting ash on the upholstery. Deidara squirmed on the ground, trying in vain to free himself from the sticky mess of cookie dough.

"Because, f*** you Itachi." Sasori pulled the reclining lever and dumped the red-eyed nuisance, lit rollie and all, onto the floor with a crash.

"Get your dango and leave me be. You're welcome to take Deidara-baka too while you're at it." The bottle came out again, and Sasori took another huff, spreading the solvent smell around him and slumping farther into his chair. As Itachi got up to find his dango, Sasori's arm flopped out and sent the plate falling to the carpet, where Itachi promptly stepped on one of the skewers and screamed.

"Oww! OWW OWW OWW!" the lit joint fell to the floor, where it too was promptly stepped on, doubling the volume of Itachi's cursing. Deidara, meanwhile, had freed himself from the cookie dough container and was laughing, mouth-hands licking and chewing on his hair as he held them over his ears.

"Haha Itachi, un! I thought Kisame was lying when he said you were blind!" As if on cue, the heavy footfalls of the blue menace rang throughout the Akatsuki sitting room, followed by the azure man himself in a wafting miasma of vodka fumes. Scooping Itachi up in one arm, he glared drunkenly at Sasori, swaying on the spot.

"F***in' puppet..." He muttered before pulling the skewer out of Itachi's foot and throwing it at Sasori, missing by a good four feet. The puppet and the bomber just stared in silence as the huge shark-man disappeared up the stairs with Itachi over his shoulder, muttered profanities drifting in his wake. The moment of silence was broken by Zetsu as he emerged from the ground... directly under Deidara.

"I have a message from Lea- whoa... fancy that, Deidara is a boy."

"Ack! Get off me, un!" But it was too late. The barbed Venus flytrap had already shredded through his robe, as well as the crotch of his pants. As Deidara scrambled to cover what was left of his modesty, there was a crash, a bang, and the sound of Pein's voice, wild and giddy.

"Hey guys! Guess what Konan made for us!" In a flurry of paper the two of them appeared, completely naked save for the tiny paper hats they were wearing on various R-rated parts. Both of their pupils were huge, Pein's spinning in opposite directions and giving him a crazy, drug-addled look... exactly what he was going for. Konan was clinging to him, riding piggy-back and giggling over his shoulder, hair disheveled and dusted with some sort of white powder. Everyone stared, including Zetsu.

"Whoa... That's interesting... I probably won't want to be around for this... Nonsense, this is awesome..." Half of the plant-man melted into the ground, dragging the other half down towards the carpet, cursing. Both Pein and Konan stood, transfixed as the last teeth of the Venus flytrap merged with the ground, the silence only broken by the continued munching sounds that emanated from where Deidara sat.

"You. Fat. B****." Sasori peered, cross-eyed over his chair, glaring at the chocolaty mess in the corner. "Where the hell did you get those potato chips?" The puppet squinted, trying to focus on Deidara long enough to throw something at him, but to no avail.

"It's Mardi Gras, duh. We have to get rid of all the fatty stuff in the house. I'm just doing my part." He grinned with all three hands, potato chip bits falling to the carpet.

"What's that? It sounds fun! Can I take pictures of it?" Konan wrapped her arms tighter around Pein's neck, choking him in her white powder-fueled enthusiasm. "Nobody move, I'll get my camera!" Pein made a sort of choked laugh, and grabbed Konan by the waist before she could get away.

"Chill, paper doll... Mardi Gras is just a time to have..." He pulled her close, backing her against a nearby wall, "fun... ya know?" Sasori swiveled his head around to get a better view of what Leader was doing to the only female in the hideout, and caught sight of Deidara working his eye-scope madly, taking pictures left and right. Finally, just as things were getting really interesting, the Wooden Chef show ended, sending the television set into a screeching stream of commercials and queueing Pein to stop kissing Konan and look around.

"What are you two looking at? Konan... let's take this upstairs, like right now." He turned, gave the television one last disgusted glance, and began to pull her up the stairs with him.

"But I wan to take some friggen' pictures! Let me go or you'll rip me!" Deidara got in a few more shots of Konan's cleavage as she struggled to get free.

"Damn right I'm going to rip you, I'll rip you up like a phone book, Paper doll!" Their mad, intoxicated laughter trailed up the stairs as Sasori flipped off the television, reaching for another can of dust-off with his other hand.

"Ugh, look at them. Look at them, carrying on like that... like they're the only people who matter... I hate my life... I hate you, Deidara... but not really. You're always there for me," The puppet stuck the nozzle of the dust-off can up one wooden nostril, "You're like the girlfriend I never had... or a brother... or a hot step-sister... I don't even know. It's hard, being a puppet." He slumped, half-conscious, into the Lazy Boy and the remote dropped to the floor with an audible thunk. So sad, thought the blond bomber, being a puppet. I'll bet he'd give anything to be a real boy again. Brushing the golden locks from his left eye, he focused and clicked the shutter on the scope. He didn't know why, but he wanted to preserve that look on the puppet's face, the gentle frown and slack face. It was like a piece of art, fleeting and transient as emotions are, and yet the puppet and his loneliness were almost indestructible, eternal in his solitude and sadness... covering his friend in a fuzzy blanket, the bomber crept for the kitchen, hands in pockets to dampen the clicking of their teeth. As long as nobody was home, he was going to raid the freezer.

"I won fair and square. Fork over the cash."

"No. You bet on whether he was a 'man' not simply male. I'm telling you, that is by no means a man. A boy maybe, a man, no."

"You are such a liar. Quit arguing semantics and just acknowledge that I won the bet."