Now, as it has been mentioned, the apartment was small. One bedroom small. There were now eleven people living in it. Now, Mar was never all that great at math but even she could tell that those numbers simply do not add up. "Well, Pein can have my bed." Mar offered, only a bit reluctantly. It had taken forever to get it just the way she liked it. "What about the rest of us?" Kisame asked, noting the single couch. That Mar had been eying a bit possessively. "Gimme a minute, haven't gotten that far yet." Okay, one bed and one couch. Why did reality refuse to bend to her will? "We could do what my siblings and I used to do back in the day..." Mar started a bit dubiously.
"And what would that be?" Itachi prompted. Mar started at the sound of his voice, then proceeded to stare at him. "Whoa, he does speak. Sorry, anyways, we all had our own room in separate areas of the house. So occasionally we would all gather in the largest room, pile the blankets and pillows on the floor and make ourselves a nest." Ah, those glorious days when they'd turn an entire room into one giant fort. They could get pretty creative with yarn and paper clips. Actually, now that she thought of it...
Nodding decisively, Mar went into the back of her closet and grabbed all the blankets she was storing back there. Rooting through her desk drawers, Mar grabbed all the thumb tacks she could find and headed back into the living room. Dumping her building supplies on the coffee table, Mar reached under the couch and pulled out a basket. There, various balls of yarn in a multitude of colors were heaped in a pile. "Now we're in business."
Grabbing one of the thinner blankets Mar opened it up and grabbed the center. Twisting it a bit she then tied some string to it and placed it on the coffee table before heading into the kitchen for a chair. Placing it next the the coffee table, Mar climbed on top of it and looped the yarn attached to the blanket through a hook on the ceiling. The previous tenants had been big plant fans, and they had hung potted plants from every available surface.
Yanking on the yarn, Mar hoisted the blanket like a sail and tied it off when it was high enough. Moving the coffee table to the edge of the room, she then grabbed one of the corners of the now hanging blanket and stretched it to the wall. Liberal use of thumb tacks soon had the blanket transformed into a canopy, and Mar grinned at her handiwork. Making another trip into the kitchen, she grabbed the rest of the chairs and started spreading them around the room. "What the fuck are you doing?" Hidan asked, looking from the blanket to the chairs in confusion. Mar just grinned at him before draping more blankets over the chairs and studying the result before stringing them up to the ceiling as well. By the time she was done, the end result was a blanket palace, with more than enough space inside for every one to sleep. With dividers to keep some of the more argumentative boys separated. Not to mention the ladies.
Taking the remaining blankets, which were also the thickest, Mar made a series of nests by wrapping bunches of pillows in a couple blankets. "There. We can go indoor camping, because I want to. And it's my place, and my blankets, so it's my rules." Ignoring the various disbelieving looks she was getting, Mar crawled into her 'room' in the palace and snuggled into her little nest. Of course she had saved the fuzziest blankets for herself.
Some time during the night, all the dividers were torn down and Mar was soon surrounded by the others. It was routine, after all.
Humming in contentment, Mar snuggled farther into the warmth in a blatant 'screw you' to the very notion of waking up. It was only when the warmth snuggled back into her that Mar's eyes snapped open and roved the room to assess the situation. The weight she'd felt on her legs? Not the heavy blankets as she had thought, oh no, some how Sasori and Itachi had come up on either side of her and were lying mostly on top of them. The warmth she'd been hugging in her sleep? Yeah, Tobi had worked his way underneath her.
Mar had no idea how he managed that. Damn ninja.
The reason her back felt pleasantly warm was because Deidara had decided that he wasn't going to be screwed out of his turn simply because he was no longer a cat. Hidan was on her left, thankfully not on top of her but still close enough to share body heat. Kakuzu was on her right, again close enough to share body heat without climbing on top of her. Mar was fairly sure this was because Deidara had taken up more than all the space available on her small frame. Curling up was the only thing that saved Sasori and Itachi from getting kicked in the head. Kisame was no where to be found, actually, and Mar breathed a sigh of relief. At least someone in this group still had sense. I mean, cuddling? Really?
Determining that there was absolutely no way for her to extract herself from this rather compromising position, being literally sandwiched between two of the guys, Mar grunted before trying anyway. She was nothing if not stubborn, after all. A good solid minute of wiggling produced no results, other than Tobi's vice grip tightening reflexively, and Mar blew a stray strand of hair out of her face before giving up. A low chuckle from the palace entrance had Mar turning her head as far as she could to see who had just witnessed her second most embarrassing moment of the last two days. Kisame had crouched down to peer inside. "I see you just noticed the interesting situation you've gotten yourself into." Mar was impressed with how low Kisame could talk while still making himself heard. It was a skill she would have to harass him to teach her.
"Kisame! I require your assistance!"
"No, I think you can wait until your captors wake up." Kisame replied before giving her another toothy grin and disappearing from view. "But... What am I supposed to do until then? That traitor!" In the end she decided that she might as well go back to sleep.
A/N Do you have any idea how awesome it feels to come home from a very long day at work and see so many new reviews, and favorites, and alerts? You all made my night.