Insomnia

Chapter 3

When in Rome (Do As Your Kidnappers Say)

Deidara dragged me through several hallways while quickly explaining what each door led to and what I would have to clean in said room. A few of the rooms had their doors opened a crack and wafting from them were various smells. None of these smells were pleasant and there was a definite smell of blood from quite a few of them. Finally though we reached an actual part of the base that felt lived in rather than used as a dead body locker.

I was thrust into a room with a small old television playing in black and white and I about died when I realized this room was occupied. Watching the TV (An old thing, a TV that was probably from the 90s in my world), a silver haired man was sprawled out on a couch and he didn't seem to notice me get thrust into the room.

Hidan, maybe?

Sitting at a large table with bar stools around it was a tall man with tan skin and a majority of his face and head covered by cloth. He looked up at me and I caught green irises without pupils with red sclera.

Kakuzu.

Oh boy.

"Is this your new slave?" Kakuzu drawled as he sorted through various stacks of bills.

"Yes, un." Deidara plopped a hand on my shoulder by my neck and pointed to Kakuzu, "That's Kakuzu. He's greedy and will kill you, so don't piss him off, yeah."

I went to respond but felt something warm and slimy on my neck. I jumped forward as my body shuddered at the feeling and I turned to glare as Deidara snickered and held up a hand. The palm of said hand smiled at me while licking its lips.

"Who the fuck is this?" bellowed a new voice. I pivoted and my eyes met a pair of bright violet ones. The assumed Hidan had turned around and was examining me with interest.

Deidara answered when I didn't, "Our new slave, Itami."

"You sound like you don't believe my name." I spoke up. Deidara only grinned.

"Your new slave, Deidara." Kakuzu butt in, "She's your responsibility."

Deidara rolled his eyes, "Details, hm."

"Whatever she is," Hidan suddenly said while making a cupping gesture at his chest, "She's got monster tits. Let me have her when you're done."

My mouth dropped and I looked down at my chest. Monster tits my ass, they were just Ds. Ds that were just shy of Es but shut up. Leave them alone.

Deidara wrapped his arms around me, "Nah, I like having food that Fishy didn't fuck up."

"Woah woah, you're actually fucking keeping her around?" Hidan questioned. He stood up and he was a bit taller than Deidara. Deidara was a bit taller than me, which was odd. Narutopedia put Deidara at five foot four but I was definitely much taller than five foot five (Probably 5'8?) so I was supposed to be over an inch taller than Deidara. I guess heights weren't accurate. But if those little details were wrong, what else was different?

Deidara nodded, "She's a civilian and can't get away, hm. Leave her to run around the base to cook and clean."

Hidan went to complain but Kakuzu silenced him, "Shut up. Both of you. I'm trying to count money."

Deidara dragged me out by my hair when Hidan turned to probably argue with Kakuzu. Out in the hall Deidara grinned at me, "That's Hidan and Kakuzu. They're partners, yeah. You won't have to clean their rooms. Hidan is the one who makes the biggest mess, un. He leaves bodies everywhere."

"Lovely. Bodies." I drawled.

"Yeah, you'll have to clean up what's left of them too."

Motherfucker.

I glared at Deidara and he led me to show me the kitchen. I gawked at some of the appliances when we entered. I fiddled around with them while Deidara watched after I fibbed that my family was too poor to afford appliances like these. The appliances, after I played with them, turned out to be similar to the things we had just a bit less advanced. Honestly though, it was a life saver that my family was half Japanese.

Anyway. Deidara then brought me two hallways down. Each pair of partners had a hallway where their rooms were connected inside by a door but the other rooms in the hallway were for their shit. Example being, Deidara had a separate room that was a bit crispy. I was given the duty of just cleaning the base except for the partner hallways. This meant I got to go through rooms and find dead bodies. Fun.

Time was an illusion in the base because there were no windows or skylights. I never knew what time it was unless I found a wall clock. I was tasked with making food at dinner and breakfast by Deidara.

"This is pretty good, un." Deidara complimented as we were the only ones to eat in the dining hall. The dining hall was pristine as it just wasn't used. The kitchen was connected to it and I watched from the dining table as Hidan ambled in and grabbed some of what I made, followed by Kakuzu and at one point Konan ghosted in and smiled when she saw the meal.

I nodded to show I heard and slowly shoveled rice into my mouth.

"So what were you doing out in the middle of nowhere when we found you, yeah?" Deidara inquired. Rather than the interrogation I had gotten earlier Deidara seemed genuinely curious. Inside the base Deidara didn't wear his cloak and instead had a dark blue-gray yukata styled top over his pants and mesh under armor. His hair was currently in it's usual style and his scope wasn't on his eye.

I chewed slowly to think of what to say, "Well, I actually have no idea." I shrugged, "I woke up out there."

Deidara stared for a moment, "You're lying... or, you're not, un?" Deidara was an S ranked criminal. He could read faces like a book.

"It's the truth. Went to sleep in my bed and woke up with the sky above me." I finished my rice. Deidara followed suit, shoveling it in and swallowing it almost in one go.

"I guess I'll show you your room now, yeah?"

"Sounds good." I stood up and Deidara led me to his and Sasori's hallway. I got the spare room at the end that had a small futon and closet. Deidara showed me the bathroom down the hall that was primarily his as his partner didn't eat, sleep or need to bathe. And now it would be shared between me and Deidara. Afterwards Deidara showed me the closet that held all the cleaning supplies and told me that I would eventually meet the other members of the organization.

I found about this information much later, but I'll let you know this now ahead of time. There were several bases across the countries but this was the main one for the members. Personal belongings were kept in this base and this was where down time was typically spent. The main base in general for meetings and anything that required every member was held in Ame. As they didn't want to draw attention to Ame this base was located in the Land of Tea. I had briefly wondered why Konan was here then, wouldn't she be in Ame? But I didn't really think too hard on that at the time.

Deidara left me alone to go do his nightly duties and I entered my bedroom slowly while listening to Deidara's footsteps fade into the distance. I debated locking the door but decided that if they really wanted to do something to me then a measly door wasn't going to stop them. I sat down on the futon and wrapped my arms around my legs. The room was horribly bare and dark even with the meager light that was coming from the old lamp.

That night I eventually managed to sleep and as expected it was like I blinked. One moment I was dozing off and with a single open and closing of my eyes I was in my bedroom. I blinked at the ceiling for a moment before I sat up and looked around slowly. I sighed deeply and looked at the time. It felt like the time in the Narutoverse ran at different intervals. No matter how long I spent in the Narutoverse an equal amount of time had not passed in my world. I had spent at least half a day there but only a few hours had passed here.

I easily went into my daily routine from there despite having had no actual sleep. My day went by as usual and before I knew it, it was night and I was laying in my bed staring up at the ceiling. I had changed back into my previous nights pajamas, the same pair that I had been wearing for my trips to the Narutoverse. As soon as I closed my eyes with the intention of sleeping, the next time I opened them I was looking at a different ceiling.

Well, time to get to work?

.

The first day I worked for the Akatsuki was somewhat of a miserable experience.

The kitchen was pretty dusty so I attacked the pantry. I was mopping the floor when Deidara wandered in, hair tangled from sleep and yawning. When he saw me he blinked for a moment and I froze from my mopping, eyeing him back.

"How long have you been cleaning, yeah?" Deidara asked.

I shrugged, "Maybe an hour?"

"The sun probably isn't even up yet and you're cleaning." Deidara replied, then he snorted, muttered a "Weird person, un" and walked around the area I was mopping to open the fridge.

The fridge was a bit disappointing; there was no freezer. I had checked the kitchen for a freezer of some kind but couldn't find one and I tried to think back to what I had seen of the Naruto anime if there were freezers. Naruto had a fridge in his apartment, right? Were there freezers in the episodes that took place in flashbacks in houses?

I continued to mop and Deidara took a glass of orange juice, sitting down at the table and watching me work. When I finished mopping I got to work in the kitchen, putting rice in the rice maker and setting out a pan on the table. I grabbed eggs from the basket in the fridge and perused my options.

Finally Deidara broke the silence, asking, "So un, you like to clean and cook?"

"It's cathartic, household chores." I responded as I thought to cooking at home, then I smirked as I added, "Better than being dead, anyway."

"True." Deidara nodded, conceding to my point. A few minutes later Konan entered the kitchen, dressed and nearly identical to the day before except she wasn't wearing eye shadow yet.

She nodded to Deidara and then paused as she overlooked me. She gazed around the kitchen and remarked, "Already an improvement." Then she exited with two bowls of rice. I called after her, "Omurice in like half an hour!" She didn't say anything in response.

"Ohh omurice. I haven't had that in a long time, yeah." Deidara commented, leaning back in his chair, "Hey, do you know how to make bakudan?"

I paused. Wasn't that his favorite food? I smiled at the rice I was scooping out of the rice maker. They say the way to a man's heart is his stomach, right? I had the power of Narutopedia when I went back home, as well as Google.

"Yeah, I think so." I replied, "If I make up a grocery list, think that can appear in the fridge?"

Deidara grinned in response, "I can make it happen, un."

"Then bakudan is totally possible. I'll have some ideas ready by tomorrow."

.

Breakfast included Kakuzu and Hidan briefly ghosting in at separate times, Hidan smacking my ass when I was bent over and looking at what was stored under the sink. I had turned around, ready to fight him, but immediately stopped when he grinned back at me. We all knew who would win that fight. Kakuzu simply grunted at me when he passed to get his breakfast.

"That means smells good." Deidara stage whispered as Kakuzu was exiting. Kakuzu paused, glared at him, then continued on his way out.

Deidara snickered and I rolled my eyes. So far Deidara was the only one who hadn't bothering getting out of his sleeping attire. Well, I guess I was in my pajamas.

As I cleaned up the mess I made, Deidara watched me some more. Finally he mentioned, "You're pretty relaxed and accepting of all this, yeah."

"Well," I shrugged as I shoved a handful of dishes into a cabinet, then turned to grin at Deidara and said the first thing I thought of, "I'm a bit fucked in the head, I guess."

Deidara snickered, "Seem pretty normal to be fucked in the head."

"That's because you don't know me yet." I retorted, hands on my hips as I looked over the kitchen. The remainder of the omurice was left out for whoever wanted it and I left the kitchen. Deidara followed me out, and continued with me until I reached the hallway I was going to be cleaning today. Deidara paused briefly here, watching me as I opened a door.

I jumped backwards with an inhale I deeply regretted a moment later. I coughed as the smell of dead body hit me, "Son of a fuck!"

Deidara laughed, and continued on his way.

.

Cleaning bodies was... a learned skill. I attacked the rooms without bodies first. There was a bathroom that I got halfway through before opening the door to the tub room and immediately closing it when I saw a corpse in the bath. The smell leaked out and I abandoned that room to head to the next room. There was a living room that was completely abandoned and ransacked, what seemed to be some kind of large greenhouse, a laundry room that was overflowing with various kinds of clothes. All mens.

The laundry room I worked on first, making sure the washer and dryer worked before shoving as much of the gross clothing I could in there. I dumped a good amount of the available soap in, and I kicked the rest of the articles into a pile. Anything with a blood stain I put in a separate kicked pile to see if there was a ninja world bleach or stain remover.

Meanwhile, Deidara stuck his head in a few times. Even Hidan poked in once to see what I was doing. The Jashinist had whistled then ducked back out to go about his day.

The laundry room took the entire day, I found out when Deidara came to collect me.

"Dinner, yeah." Deidara reminded me from the door, walking in to admire the piles of folded clothes. He picked up a pile, "How'd you know whose was whose?"

"Didn't. I compared sizes." I told him, kicking the dryer door shut and turning it on. As I followed Deidara out I complained, "Put some clocks in this place. No idea what time it is when there are no windows."

"Shitty internal clock, yeah."

I reminded him, "Civilian internal clock."

Deidara snorted, "Same thing."

.

When I woke up in my bed, I promptly rolled out and wrote on a notepad; Bakudan. I googled how to make it, scribbling all that down too. I looked up the other favorites of all the members and put those together. After about an hour I went downstairs to make myself breakfast and I found Jack and Chris sitting at the table.

Both heads swiveled to look at me with puppy dog eyes. Jack jutted him lip out, "Please make us breakfast?"

"You're supposed to be the older brothers." I grouched in response, but as I turned the stove on I took out six eggs and the two whooped in glee.

Their whoops of joy were heard in the parent bedroom though, which slammed open after a moment. Jack and Chris, with dual expressions of 'fuck', retracted into the bench behind the table and tried to pretend they didn't exist. I went about cooking quietly, but Dad made a beeline for me. He put a firm hand on my shoulder, digging his nails into my skin as I held the hot pan.

As I transferred two cooked eggs to a plate, he reached forward and took it. In doing so, he firmly pressed my arm into the stove and I bit my lip as the heat seared me. It was a two second exchange, him leaving with the plate after grabbing a beer from the fridge. I retracted my arm as soon as his back was turned and I held it for a moment as it throbbed.

Chris hurried over, wincing as the burn blister developed.

I applied cream to it, then holed up in my room for the rest of the day. Sometimes, things like this happened. I preferred this, because usually, worse things happen.

.

I fell asleep at my desk, phone in my pocket as I tried to memorize the recipe for bakudan. When I woke up in the Narutoverse, I tossed my sweatshirt off and shoved it under my futon, pausing when I realized something.

My clothes, as I had thought, transferred with me. On my hands and knees I felt around in the sweatshirt pocket, eyes wide as I felt my phone. Pulling it out, I eyed it with some degree of fear.

This was not something that belonged here.

However, it had screenshots of the bakudan recipe on it. With that in mind, I shoved it in the pillow and went searching for a pencil and pad. I hadn't gotten any reception here, but I had my photos gallery. I could bring extra information here with me. I could bring anything that I could fit on my person.

Things were potentially looking up. Although, things hadn't been too bad to begin with if I was honest.

AN

Third chapter! Itami is pretty chill with the situation. Forming a tentative acquaintance in Deidara.

I uh, apologize for the *checks last update and chokes* three and a half year delay. Um, in those years, I started college! So uh, bear that in mind. I will attempt another update during this semester. Most likely March or May.

Fun Fact: Itami's last name 'Duncan' is a nod to one of my favorite Pokemon Fanfictions, A Little Night Music by Srgman. The story follows a girl named Angela Duncan who is reborn as her neighbor and best friends Eevee. Angela was the subject of abuse by her nicknamed parents, 'The Drunken Duncans'. Like Itami, Angela is loud, volatile, and has the mouth of a sailor. As one of my favorite OCs of all time, Angela was an inspiration to Itami who was essentially my first ever OC in middle school.

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