It was midnight, and Deidara was amazed and how nice the mansion felt now that most of the people were gone. Oh, sure, there were a few stragglers, and then those who actually belonged there (himself not included), but it was essentially empty. The hallways and rooms were still lit with the soft, warm glow of Christmas lights. In the living room, the Christmas tree still stood, radiating hospitality and holiday cheer.

Deidara wandered aimlessly into the room, surprised that he was alone. He had expected Hinata to beat him here. He walked slowly over to the couch where the three girls had sat hours before, amazed that it didn't look nearly as perfect as it had when they were on it. He glanced down under the tree, not surprised that more, unopened presents were already there, awaiting the family in the morning.

"Oh!" A soft voice jerked him out of his thought, and he turned to find Hinata standing in the doorway. She was clutching a box-less Sasori, but was still in her party ensemble. Alone, and framed by the darkness of the hallway behind her, Deidara was again forcibly reminded of a china doll. She smiled nervously, and padded into the room. Her bare feet were the only things that had changed, apparently. Deidara felt bad for ridding himself of his tie and own shoes, now. At least he'd only unbuttoned the first button of his shirt (for comfort, of course); otherwise he'd just feel utterly scruffy and unworthy to be in this doll's presence.

Hinata seated herself on the couch, patting the cushion next to her. She was still smiling nervously, and clutching Sasori to her chest. "I'm glad…that you came."

"Of course I did," he replied on reflex, wondering if she had honestly expected him to stand her up. "You wanted a drawing, so I'll give you a drawing, yeah."

"Y-Yes, of course…" she murmured, setting Sasori gently in her lap and wringing her hands. "I-I'm so sorry, but…"

Of course; now she didn't want to give up the doll. Deidara had seen this coming, and couldn't blame her. He couldn't hide his disappointment from himself, though.

"Hanabi had broken him earlier…" Hinata said shamefully, hiding her face with her hair. It was still up in the curls and pigtails, and fell forward off of her shoulders to hang near her chest. Deidara blinked in surprise, numbed by this revelation. "Ma-Madara fixed him, of course! See? He's good as new…! I-I just wanted to tell you…in case you didn't want him anymore…"

Deidara sat down beside her, gently taking Sasori from her lap. She looked up at him, seeming ready to cry. The artist turned the doll over in his hands. He honestly couldn't tell that he'd been wounded in any way. Madara knew his stuff, then. "It's fine, really. He looks good as new, yeah."

Hinata relaxed, and smiled at him. "G-Good…Though I still am sorry!"

"Don't worry about it. If he's fixed, then he's fixed. No worries, yeah. Now, about that drawing you wanted…?"

Hinata had brought him a sketchbook and a few pencils, which wasn't exactly the best, but Deidara could definitely make due. He was drawing in snow earlier. He had her seated on the far end of the couch, so the Christmas tree back lighted her slightly. Her hair shone from the light, and her dress sparkled.

Half an hour later, he showed her the finished product. Hinata's eyebrows shot up in surprise as she exclaimed, "Really? Already? You're fast…!"

"I'm impatient with things like art, yeah." He just grinned at her in reply, wondering if she was really as pleased as she seemed with it. It was only a pencil drawing, but he felt he had at least captured some of her beauty with it. Finally the doll could see how pretty she really was.

"Wow…" she breathed, running her fingers lightly over the paper. Deidara took it that she really was that impressed with it. Well that was a nice ego boost. "Thank you so much! …Oh! A-And now, Sasori is yours."

Ego back down again. Deidara ducked his head, frowning faintly. "I just did a sketch, yeah…I don't feel like I deserve that gift. You keep him."

"No." She shook her head firmly, curls bouncing. "That was our deal. This is more than enough payment for him, and you'd value him more than I ever could."

-

-.-.-

-

Deidara wasn't sure how long they talked, but it was nice. Hinata was a nice girl, if a bit shy sometimes. The Christmas tree beside them twinkled into the night as they conversed, until finally, Deidara gave in with a yawn. A moment later, Hinata yawned as well, and soon they were both yawning and laughing and apologizing for yawning so much.

"Well…I should be getting to bed. I don't want to wake Ino and Sakura up when I return…" Hinata stood up, smoothing out her gown. Deidara stood up as well, resisting the urge to crack his back. The couch looked nice, but it wasn't exceedingly comfortable.

"Goodnight then…yeah," Deidara called after her as she departed.

He wasn't sure what time it is, but his internal clock told him quite simply that it was late. He was pretty tired, though he hadn't exactly done anything particularly strenuous that day. Maybe being in the presence of a doll so long had worn him out. With that thought, however, Deidara looked at the doll Hinata had left behind. Sasori was propped up against the couch, staring lethargically ahead. It just so happened that Deidara was directly in his line of sight.

"What an odd doll…you look so serious for a toy, yeah." Deidara picked him up, grinning to himself. "At least you're a very handsome doll. I doubt even those life-sized ones are as pretty as you."

The clock in the hallway tolled, making him jump and nearly drop Sasori. After fumbling slightly, he laughed sheepishly, lucky that no one had caught him acting so jumpy. The clock pealed again, signaling that it was at least two in the morning. Deidara's laughter turned into a groan, especially as it rang once more and then was silent. Three in the morning. Lovely. And he'd have to wake up early, too, if he wanted to get out of the house with Sasori without causing some sort of scandal.

As he walked out into the darkened hallway (who had turned off the Christmas lights?) he thought he heard something. Deidara turned in time to catch a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye. "Hinata?" he called softly, as to not wake anyone else up. No reply.

The noise sounded again, and this time he caught something scurrying back into the living room. Deidara stepped back into the light of the doorway, peeking around the corner. Oh, great. A mouse. The rodent looked up at him from its spot near the couch, narrowing its eyes calculatingly. It was completely unmoving. Deidara caught movement in his peripheral vision once more, though he wasn't fast enough to catch whatever it was. So it wasn't a mouse; it was mice. He never would have pegged such a stately mansion as the type to have pest control problems.

As he turned back towards the original mouse, Deidara froze. There was a massive snake right behind the mouse, poised to strike. He managed to look away just in time to avoid the unfortunate rodent's demise. "A snake…? In the middle of December?" he murmured, backing up.

It didn't help that the snake was rather large, too. With a mouse-sized lump in its throat. It was snow white in color aside from dark rings around its golden eyes. Deidara unconsciously clutched Sasori a bit tighter to his chest, grimacing as the snake, done with its meal, fixed an unblinking eye on him.

The artist turned to walk away, but three mice were guarding the door (and his way out). Only these weren't tame little mice; now they were knee-high. One of them even appeared to have a miniature sword on a belt around its waist. Deidara smiled in relief, bending down to look at them better. "Oh, so you guys aren't real, yeah. More of Madara's little toys?"

He reached out to pet one (mostly to test how soft the fur was, because they looked so real) but it hissed and bit his hand. Hard enough to draw blood. Deidara straightened and pulled his hand back, scowling. And now, instead of knee-high, they were waist-high. He backed up nervously, blue eyes widening at how huge they had just gotten. He looked over his shoulder, towards the snake, just to make sure it wasn't sneaking up on him.

The snake was larger now, too. It was probably at least as thick as his waist, and was sticking its tongue out in his direction, tasting the air around him. Deidara's breath hitched as he noticed how big the Christmas tree was; these things weren't growing, he was just shrinking!

By the time he turned back around to the mice in front of him, who were now up to his shoulder. Deidara took another few steps backward, nearly tripping on the edge of the carpet. He flung out his hands to steady himself, and then realized that he didn't have Sasori anymore. Deidara looked around for the doll (really, it was a comfort thing at this point) but couldn't find the redheaded soldier.

And then, at least, it appeared he was done shrinking. The mice were almost as tall as he was, and he didn't even want to know how large the snake was. Luckily it had just had a meal…

One of the mice ran towards him, and Deidara turned and ran. The rodent caught up to him in no time, though, and hauled him up by the upper arm. "Hey, this isn't that prince."

"Or the soldier," another mouse chimed in as it ran up. Deidara aimed a kick at it, but it expertly dodged the blow.

"Okay, I don't know what drugs I'm on or what kind of crazy dream this is, yeah, but you little rats need to let me go right now!" Deidara ordered in a voice higher than he would have liked. The mice all looked at him, and then at each other, and then started laughing. At him.

"Yeah, right--"

Something flashed and then suddenly one of the mice was clutching its bloody paw. Deidara's eyes widened, and he wondered what was going on now. "I believe that he told you to let go." He turned, with large eyes, to see a sword. He followed the sword up to a hand, and then the hand to a face.

It was the black-haired soldier from Madara's show and tell, from before. Only now of a neutral expression or an innocent smirk, he was grinning. Evilly. "Now, unless you want to lose the other hand," he said slowly, "Let the guy go."

The mice hastily retreated.

Deidara, chest heaving, stared at the newcomer. No puppet joints were visible under his uniform, but then again, they hadn't been to begin with. He had no idea if this was supposed to be an actual person or just another doll. "Who…are you?"

"The name is Sasuke. I assume you were waiting for Sasori to save you, but he has his hands tied at the moment, and he couldn't rescue you." Sasuke sheathed his sword again, after wiping off a few stray droplets of blood onto the carpet.

"You--You're a doll. Yeah."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "I'm sorry, but I'm taken."

Deidara scowled, but at least he was no longer so unbalanced with all of the events. "That's not what I meant, idiot. I met--um, saw you before, and you were a doll. A puppet. A toy soldier."

Sasuke stared at him levelly, not speaking.

Deidara stared back at him, unwilling to give any ground on the issue. That was, until Sasuke's earlier words finally sunk in. "Wait--Sasori? As in redhead, wearing a uniform like yours, looking bored?"

"That's Sasori, all right," he muttered, looking away with a smirk. He turned back to Deidara, and opened his mouth to speak, but unfortunately, the mice came back.

There were now five of them, one of them the one who had its hand cut off earlier. Now all of them, too, had small (well, not at Deidara's current size) swords tied onto the belts around their furry bellies. None of them looked happy.

Sasuke pushed Deidara behind him, his own sword out in a flash. "Go--I'll take care of them."

"Go where?" Deidara cried, rolling his eyes. But as he saw the mice advancing, he decided to take the black-haired soldier's advice, and he ran. Further into the living room, towards the Christmas tree.

And then he remembered the snake.

Deidara skidded to a halt on the carpet, looking around wildly. But there was no colorless serpent to be found. He cautiously started jogging again, now wary of any sneak attacks from snakes. He didn't fancy becoming food.

As he neared the couch, however, he could hear yelling. And the clanging of swords. Deidara sped up a bit, furrowing his brow. Soon, moving shapes became discernible amongst the presents under the tree. It appeared to be a widespread battle.

Mice, against a conglomerate of soldiers. At least, they appeared to be soldiers. They were wearing the same uniform as Sasuke (and Sasori), at any rate. All of them had swords, flashing in the soft light of the Christmas tree they were beneath. No one paid him any heed as he got closer, though admittedly Deidara did it carefully. He didn't feel like getting killed by a bunch of sword-wielding rats.

He was soon pressed up against the couch, watching the ongoing battle with a mixture of excitement and horror. Mice and men both were getting killed, and it appeared that not everyone was fighting. Here and there, there were people fleeing the scene, usually screaming. It must have been some sort of war, with the mice just having launched a surprise attack.

Someone falling off of the couch in front of Deidara snapped him out of his musings, however. He tried to back up, but the couch prohibited his movement, so he just stood there. The unlucky person picked himself back up, holding his shoulder. Deidara inhaled sharply when he saw scarlet hair. The sound startled this soldier, and he looked up. With cinnamon brown eyes and a lidded (if sharper than it had been) gaze. Those lidded eyes widened very slightly as recognition took over, but neither of them had time to say anything, as a massive, ivory snake slithered down from on top of the couch. Sasori jumped back to avoid it, and Deidara just pressed himself into the fabric more, close enough to feel the wind from the rushing serpent.

"Sasori, you can't keep running forever!" a low voice taunted. Deidara looked up, half-expecting to see the snake talking (after all, if mice could, then why couldn't snakes?). But it wasn't; there was a man perched on top of the snake's head, his own sword out and laughing. He had long, black hair that shielded him from Deidara's eyes, and then, both snake and black-haired man were gone.

Sasori just shifted from foot to foot, holding his sword at the ready. He glanced around him anxiously, waiting for the snake to reappear. Deidara edged away, still pushed up against the couch, until he felt the fabric behind him shift slightly. He looked up in time to see a giant white tail slither down from the edge and wrap itself around his middle, hauling him back up onto the couch itself.

"My, my, what do we have here? You certainly aren't Sasori." It was the black-haired man again. Only now he was just a few feet (or what Deidara assumed were scaled-down feet) from the artist, and was looking at him curiously. He had golden eyes that matched his snake, even his skin color and the markings around his eyes were the same as the animal below him. The man peeked over the edge of the couch, supposedly down at Sasori, and then looked back at Deidara. "Certainly not Sasori at all. But you're not wearing a uniform of any sort. Whose side are you on?"

"Considering your rats tried to mug me earlier, I'm on Sasori's, yeah," Deidara spat, trying to wriggle out of the snake's grasp. The man atop it laughed, and then grinned down maliciously at the captive blond.

"Then you'll die for his sake," the man hissed, suddenly matching his snake even more. The white beast under him opened its mouth, rearing back for a strike. Deidara could only close his eyes, and then--nothing.

Sasori was there, suddenly. On top of the snake's head, like the black-haired snake-man. His sword was in the serpent's head, and a small trickle of blood dripped down its scales, off the tip of its snout, and onto Deidara's head. Sure, he was thankful to be alive, but he didn't want blood in his hair. He shook it to try to get rid of most of it, but the movement only caused the dead snake to suddenly fall over, dropping him in the process. He landed on the couch, thankfully (it would be a long drop otherwise).

"Orochimaru, you are an idiot if you think you'll win this war just by taking prisoners!" Sasori shouted. Deidara swallowed; Sasori certainly had a nice voice. It was the first time he'd heard him speak. Wait, what was he saying? Sasori was a doll!

Unfortunately, Sasori couldn't get his sword out of the snake's head. Orochimaru, if that was what the other's name was, advanced on him with an evil chuckle, his own sword completely free. And ready to kill. The redhead just turned and ran, towards the nearest dead body--they were even up here--taking the mouse's sword for his own. Orochimaru's chuckle turned into a laugh, but even that was erased when they started their struggle. Their swords both clanged as they glanced off of one another, neither of them able to actually tag the other with the metal.

Deidara looked around for something to help with. He spied Sasori's sword, still in the dead snake's head. He ducked low and carefully shuffled over, watching their sword fight out of the corner of his eye. Sasori certainly was skilled with a sword. But unfortunately, so was Orochimaru. By the time he made it to the snake's head, his ears were ringing from the clanging sound of the two swords' repeated contact.

It took a bit, but after a few moments, Deidara managed to dislodge the sword from the head of the carcass.

He pulled it out with a grin, waving it around a few times. Sure, he'd never used one before, but it couldn't be that hard, right? Deidara crawled over the snake's body, fully intent on sneaking up and stabbing Orochimaru, when Sasori tripped.

Orochimaru had the advantage of height on Sasori, and had been forcing him backwards long enough to make the redhead trip just trying to keep up. Orochimaru cackled, and stepped on Sasori's sword hand to completely immobilize him. "This ends now, Sasori. This kingdom will be mine, as it so rightfully--"

"Hey, snake king!" Deidara shouted. Orochimaru half-turned, looking around venomously for whoever had interrupted. His yellow eyes alighted on the blond artist, and narrowed.

"What?"

"Catch, yeah!" And with that, he threw his sword as hard as he could at him.

Orochimaru raised both hands to catch it, but just a bit too slow. It hadn't hit him with the point or the blade, but it smacked him in the face with the hilt instead. It threw him off balance just enough for Sasori to wrench his hand free, roll around, and then reach up with his own sword and stab him through the heart.

Orochimaru's eyes widened, and he looked down at both the sword protruding from his chest and Sasori. The redhead grinned, and let go of the handle. Orochimaru fell over the edge of the couch, landing with a sickening thump on the carpet below. Sasori peered over the edge, returning to his former lethargic expression.

Deidara came up behind him, also looking out over the edge. "Is he…dead?" he asked, surprised.

Sasori looked up at him, slightly taken aback that Deidara had snuck up on him so easily. "Yes." Deidara grinned, and couldn't help but notice that the redhead didn't look so bored when he was near him. Maybe that was a good thing.

Below them, the battle was slowly dying down. The mice were staring in amazement at their fallen leader, and Sasori's side were one-by-one looking up to the couch, just to make sure that their own leader was still alive.

"Come on," Sasori straightened, smoothing out his uniform a bit. He turned around and retrieved his sword (the one from the snake) and then extended his hand towards Deidara. "The fighting is over, thanks to you. Even if it was a stupid way to end things."

And here Deidara had almost been feeling good about killing a man.

"Uh, one, I just saved your life."

"I saved yours first," Sasori pointed out. He crossed his arms, looking mildly impatient.

Deidara narrowed his eyes, and moved on, "Second, I didn't see you doing much. It's called a distraction, yeah."

Sasori studied him for a brief moment.

He decided to continue before the redhead did. "And third, I don't think a living human could survive falling from this height."

Sasori's eyebrows shot up, and his mouth opened slightly. Deidara flushed, and realized maybe he shouldn't have used the term 'living human'. But then, the redhead closed his mouth again, and just grabbed Deidara's wrist. "We're not falling, we're jumping. There's a difference, idiot. Besides, do you really think I'd let you get hurt after all that?"

And then he jumped, pulling Deidara along with him.

Before the blond could do so much as scream, they were landing softly on the ground, by the dead body. The mice and men were already crowding around it, several of them dropping their weapons gratefully. Sasori sheathed his sword as they landed, letting go of Deidara's hand.

Head spinning slightly, he couldn't help but notice how cold his hand felt suddenly. Which was odd; why would a doll have warm hands?

"This war is over," Sasori proclaimed to the crowd, gesturing towards the body. "Orochimaru, the Snake King, is dead. Mice, you may collect your leader and your dead, but you are not welcome here any longer."

The mass around him was silent, until a few mice came forward and gingerly picked up the body. As soon as they'd carried him out of sight and the rest of the rodents left, the crowd erupted into cheering. Deidara looked around, startled by the enthusiasm the soldiers seemed to invest in this celebration. Had the war had that great of an impact on them?

Sasori turned to him, eyes closed with his own grin on his face. Deidara couldn't help but grin just seeing that. It was such a change from the lidded almost glare-like stare that the doll had had previously. And for a moment, he really did look just like a doll again. "It's over."

"Yeah…" Deidara said, for lack of anything better to say. He looked up as someone familiar pushed his way through the crowd. Sasuke smirked at them both, giving them a little salute as he sauntered off into the mass once more.

Sasori took Deidara's hand once more, this time just holding it. "Shall we go?" he asked as he turned to him, something almost mischievous entering into his previously angelic smile. The blond couldn't help but be amazed at how warm Sasori's hand was, and wondered just what kind of doll he had gotten.