Well, it's official: this and the previous chapter are cheating! Both under 1,000 words! I think I just made these to entertain myself... Not that this chapter entertains me, just... argh, never mind. The point is that Isuki is a little more messed up now, and needs serious cuddles, people. Send her cuddles!

That Deidara Incident...

Isuki cracked an eye open drearily when a thin beam of light fell on her, but she dismissed it and started to go back to sleep when it went away

Isuki cracked an eye open drearily when a thin beam of light fell on her, but she dismissed it and started to go back to sleep when it went away.

She subconsciously curled up into a tighter ball and shifted slightly, moving to the other side of the mattress. It was the middle of summer, so she tried to find cooler spots on it every once in awhile in her sleep. She got so stiflingly hot she didn't want covers, or even a sheet; it was just her and the bed.

Isuki half woke up again when a lack of light hit her closed eyelids like a cold shadow. She opened them again and saw the source. It was a shadow, and it was the shadow of a person.

It was the shadow of a Deidara.

Isuki tried to catch up to her mind, which was so asleep it was blindly running in circles. She knew sometimes she woke up when he'd get up in the middle of the night and pass by her room to get something to eat – or did she always wake up and he only did it sometimes? After all, his room was the one next door, her parents on the other… She sort of lost her train of thought when he landed on her.

Isuki floundered when he pushed the breath out of her lungs with his elbow and wormed his way down her, like he was aiming to completely crush her into the fibers of the bed. She might have tried to say something, make some kind of sound, but she was still puffing to get some air back.

She considered it a relief when he stopped, but he just proceeded to hug her waist and bury his face in her stomach, like she was some sort of giant pillow or something. He was grumbling something, but she didn't catch what he was saying, didn't care enough to catch it. After the initial crippling shock, she realized it wasn't that bad.

After all, he was in the room next to hers, right? He was probably just sleepwalking or something, or he had walked into the wrong room, right? Of course. She tried to wake him up, but when she did he glared at her.

So he was awake.

Or he wasn't really fully awake and he had no idea what was going on… or he slept with his eyes open… And glaring? Yeah, right.

He had pushed her shirt up a little with his forehead, and he was breathing deeply through his nose, like he was breathing her, and his nose was cold. Not wet, but cold, like that mangy flea-bitten mutt she had dragged home once. Either he was completely out of it or he was fully conscious, and either way it was beginning to scare her.

'Um, Mom? Dad?' she asked, mentally seeking them out and trying to withhold the panic.

'…What?'

'…Whaaa?"

'Um, Deidara's in here and I really don't know what's wrong with him.' She managed to put an immediate request into that uncertain statement, but it didn't seem like they picked it up.

'Go back to sleep…'

'Please…'

'Um, no, I was wondering if you come over here 'cuz he's really starting to creep me out!" Her voice jumped on that last word when his left hand started to run a little farther up her back and the other loosely tugged on the leg of her pants. 'Ohgodsmom

pleasegetoverherehe'sreallystartingtocreepmeoutandhelpmehelpmehelpme!'

It was silent for a few seconds until her door bashed open and her eyes couldn't adjust quickly enough but someone swooped down on her and maybe kicked Deidara in the face? She couldn't be sure… And someone was holding her and telling her it would be okay and it would get better but she really didn't think she'd be able to forget. Even if he was asleep.

She could hear someone screaming, it sounded like her mother, and she could see in the light and she was hitting him, again and again, and he looked so pathetically disoriented.

She clung to her dad and stared.

He didn't fight back. He just got the living daylights beaten out of him and she didn't do anything to stop it.

Had that been wrong? He stopped playing with her, even when she asked, so she stopped asking. She had done something wrong, hadn't she? He ignored her for a while…

Until he had started saying she looked like her mother…