I do not own Naruto or any of the characters. Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

'Come on, sit up,' Sasori said, helping Deidara into an upright position. 'Lift your arm.'

Deidara obediently did as he was told, raising his arm up into the air and holding it there while Sasori placed an axillary thermometer under his armpit.

'Okay, you can put it down again.'

Once again, Deidara did as instructed.

'Now keep it tight against your body.'

While they waited for the thermometer to beep, Sasori set about making their bedroom into a sick room since he doubted that Pein would want anyone else in the Akatsuki to catch Deidara's flu. He had already supplied the room with plently of bottled water, tissues, and an easily located rubbish bin. He had also hung a sign on the door that read "Quarantine. Keep out. This also applies to you, Tobi."

Deidara watched as Sasori opened the window to allow some fresh air into the room. Words couldn't express how grateful he was to the Sunagakure ninja for everything he was doing to try and make things just a little easier for the sick sculptor.

'Danna...'

'Hm?' Sasori looked over at the younger ninja.

Just then the thermometer beeped. Sasori came back over to the bed and removed it. He looked at the reading and smiled, lsatisfied.

'Looks like you're fever's starting to go down,' he said. 'Now, what was it you were saying?'

Deidara blushed a little and lowered his eyes so that they had no chance of meeting the puppet-master's.

'... Thank you...'

Sasori was momentarily taken aback, it was quite rare for Deidara to thank anyone, let alone him. The Sunagakure ninja let a small smile flicker across his face before putting a hand on Deidara's forehead.

'Wow, you must be really sick,' he teased, 'you don't even know what you're saying.'

'Shut up, hmn,' Deidara muttered, sulkily.

'That's more like it,' Sasori chuckled.

Deidara hastily covered his mouth as he began to cough violently for what felt like the hundredth time. His cough was dry and hacking and did absolutely nothing but make his throat hurt even more.

'Here, have a throat lozenge,' Sasori said, offering a packet of reddish coloured sweets.

Deidara took one and placed it in hiw mouth, letting it start to dissolve on his tongue. Sasori seemed to have thought of everything. The young ninja wondered what he would have done without Sasori. Probably go insane, he thought.

'Right, you can take as many of these lozenges as you want, you can take two of these painkillers every five hours, and one of these painkillers every hour,' Sasori informed his sickly partner. 'You've got bottled water here, tissues here, and there's some more blankets by the side of the bed if you want them. Do you need anything else?'

At that moment, Deidara's stomach began to growl. He realised that he hadn't eaten anything all day.

Sasori had obviously heard because he raised an amused eyebrow and asked, 'Are you hungry, by any chance?'

'A bit,' Deidara said, smiling.

'Alright, I'll get you some toast.'

As the pupeteer left, Deidara couldn't help but chuckle to himself as he sucked on the lozenge; he and Sasori may argue a lot, but Sasori was always thee for him when he really needed it. He really didn't know what he'd do if Sasori wasn't around. He was already feeling much better after only about two hours of Sasori's care. The red haired ninja had insisted that everyone else was to come no nearer that six feet to Deidara's room lest they run the risk of catching his illness. Since the puppeteer was unable to catch the flu himself, he had no problems taking care of Deidara while he was in quarantine and since nobody else was allowed to enter the room, Deidara had finally been able to relax.

Sasori returned with a plate of dry toast which, he assured Deidara, would not upset the younger ninja's stomach. Deidara smiled and swallowed his lozenge before making a start on the toast, starting to wish that he always had Sasori waiting on him hand and foot .