A/N:

Inspired by but not identical to the movie 'The Boy (2016') because the first thing that came to mind when I saw that doll was Sasori.

If you haven't seen the movie, you can still read, just be cautious of spoilers and what not.

Set in Deidara's perspective because who else goes this well with Sasori?

England was... well grey, that was the first thing that spoke to me as the black taxi left the airport and drove down the surprisingly narrow roads.

Well, at least anything I decided to explode here would look extra bright. The fourth of July for sure would be...oh wait. That's right. It wouldn't be celebrated here.

I sighed. "Hm..I guess I have a lot to get used to."

"What was that ma'am? Hey, are you from the states?"

I cringed, not realising I'd spoke out loud when the taxi driver turned to looked at me intrigued. Rolling my eyes, I spoke boredly, conscious of how strong my accent sounded in contrast to his.

"Real funny man. You and I both know I'm a male."

The car nearly screeched to a stop, making me jerk forward and grip onto the sides frantically as he faced away from the road to eye me up and down. "You sure about that?"

He asked, genuinely confused.

"You don't want me to prove it do ya?" I stammered, throwing my hands behind my head trying not to let my twitching eyebrow of annoyance be too obvious.

He laughed. "I don't know whether or not you mean that seriously or if I should be flattered."

"Seriously. Un. Now let me sleep. Wake me up when we get out of the city alright?"

"I don't blame you. We have a long journey ahead of us."

Long indeed. My blue eyes blinked shut on the sights of the bustling rainy city and all the people and cars moving in it, only to re-open once more to see a now brighter blue sky shining over nought but grass and cows through the trees alligning the roads we drove along.

"How long was I out?" I groaned, sitting up to find us still driving and my leg feeling absoloutely bloodless.

"Oh, you're awake are you lass-"

"I thought I told you I'm not a girl!"

"Lad then," He apologised stretching his fingers out around the steering wheel. "I'll say nearly three hours now."

"Three? I thought I told you to wake me up when we left town!"

"I did. Well I tried anyway, I turned the music up loud and even poked your cheek but you wouldn't budge. I tried giving you a little slap but you grabbed my wrist even in your sleep and threatened to blow me up if I didn't let you get your rest. You passed right out after that, so I though you must deserve a little extra. No harm to it."

"You're damn lucky about that. I'm about to go to a job interview, you know that right?"

"Is that so.."

"If I just stumbled out the car into their home half-asleep with drool down my chin, there's no way I'd get the job. Do you know what that'd mean?"

"What would it mean?"

"It would mean I came all the way to this country for no goddamn reason because of you un! Hey! Stop laughing it's not funny!"

"You are a lively one." The old driver chuckled. "But surely you can't have come all the way here just for a job your not even sure you'd get."

Brushing hair from the reflection of my eye, I scowled. "There were other reasons, okay?"

I hated the way my voice sounded so drab suddenly, after just being called lively, it made me feel cheating and undeserving of the compliment.

"Cheer up lad. They'll be happy to have you I'm sure."

We drove on in silence for a while before I grew sick of being alone with my own thoughts. Even on the plane here I'd annoyed just about everyone there just to keep myself occupied. With no other distractions, I asked the man about his own personal life, triggering him into a rant about his wife and son who just turned high school age.

In my condition, I was happy to listen.

Suddenly, the driver whistled. "I don't think you're gonna have any regrets moving to a place like this."

"Why's that un?"

"Just take a look."

Though my windows still showed the forest bordered path we had been driving through for the past hour, the front windscreen before us had lit up with a sight I thought had to be taken from either a fantasy or Disney movie.

"No way... this can't be the right place - I heard Lady Chiyo was rich but this is just ridiculous!"

I couldn't contain it anymore. My stomach had lit up with fits of giggled and nerves that made me feel like a little brat on the first day of high school once again. Maybe he was right and life wouldn't be so bad here? Either way, I had to get this job.

It was a literal castle before us as we pulled into a driveway that could house twenty times as many cars. I looked up at the grey-stoned medieval mansion like a bug in comparison, jaw dropped in admiration for whichever architect designed something so majestically regal and artistic.

In my head, I repeated an internal mantra of don't blow it up, don't blow it up, don't blow it up.

But I had to admit, even after repeating that, the temptations left me rubbing my hands together giddily.

"What job did you want here again? I'm tempted to look for one myself."

"Babysitter." I responded quickly, reminded that this was his new life and career now, and that I would live up to it even if it meant leaving my old self behind. "Nanny, caretaker, what ever you want to call it. That's me."

"I would have never guessed that looking at you." The man snorted.

"Hey!" I wailed, frantically searching for my reflection in the other window. "I look decent. I'm even wearing a shirt un."

"No, no, you look great. What I meant was that this isn't really the scene for someone as young as you are. Won't you get lonely up in there all day?"

His words were spoken knowingly. They struck deep in me, as I knew he was probably right, but I brushed it off anyway. "Lonely. Please, not with some brat in there to look after. I'll probably start losing hair with how little time I'll have to myself."

And for me, that was just perfect.

A blur of undefined time later, my first Taxi in the country had turned it's back to me and was now driving away in the opposite direction out the rusty iron gates, leaving me alone beside this monster of a building.

The porch alone looked a few hundred years old, and the door seemed like it would eat me.

I swallowed, resting the weight of my suitcase on my leg.

I opened my mouth to speak, lifted my hand to knock. Before I could manage either, the door clicked right open without a single touch from me. The startled gasp that left me seemed to be extra loud in the silent loneliness of the countryside.

I peered into the open door in front of me to see an interior just as vast and open as to be expected. Strangely, nobody there.

"Hello?"

That was more than a little creepy. But no creepier than the shocking emptiness and self-consciousness I got from having all angles open up to the fields and forests behind. Back home, I only saw houses like this one in horror movies. Horror movies where cannibals or serial killers would come barging out of the trees with a chainsaw.

I stepped into the home quickly, clicking the door shut and noticing how frustratingly dark the room was after being surrounded by the light of day.

There was no denying it was massive, however, and full of things. The kind of things old hoarders in their seventies would have kept since the sixties that made someone young and restless as myself want to grab as many items as I could and throw them into the nearest fire.

I wheeled my suitcase into the darkness, resting it in the corner over the carpets beside a large oak chest of drawers, covered by a mantle, covered by photo frames and ornaments with expensive photo's hung above and a tall coat hanger beside.

"Sheesh. "I whispered, catching myself before I swore and got caught by someone from behind me. Although England had so far been pretty mild, I could have sworn at that moment, despite having just come in from the outside, I'd felt a chill.

I turned, but like before, no one was there.

Come on Deidara, impressions, impressions. What would a decent person do? Someone who hadn't been raised the way I had but someone who went to school and finished their homework and went to class?

I was in a stranger's home alone and unsure of where or how I should wait for them.

"Of course!" Shoes, off. I kicked them with as much calm as I could muster and placed them beside my other things, letting my socks touch the incredibly thick rug below.

"That must have cost a few hundred." I muttered to myself, deciding that waiting here politely would be the best option for me.

I took the first step towards the stool opposite int he hallway to where I currently stood, only to stop dead in my tracks when I came face to face with the glassy eyes of a decapitated moose, looking lifelessly towards me. It was way to realistic to be fake, and made me went to hurl right there and then, backing up.

I was in no way a scaredy cat, but even to me that was disturbing, and not worth the extra stress and concern on my first day of the job. For all I knew, there were camera's behind those eyes testing me to make sure I wouldn't steal anything.

"Fuck this.." I whispered, backing away with my bare feet until my back hit yet another wall. This time, with the head of a deer.

"Why would anyone want to collect this shit?" I thought aloud, pulling back with more caution this time as I was lead down the wide yet seemingly narrow hallway filled with dark walls, dark carpets, cluttered items and various preserved dead creatures too it seemed.

A door clicked shut upstairs.

"Is anyone home?" I called again, holding my arms to repress the shiver as I turned towards the direction of the mahogany stairs. Wherever the light was coming from, it needed drastic relocating or reinvigorating. It was so dim in here..

I stepped onto the first step, feeling like I would be whisked away. The walls resembled tiles of dark chocolate to me, calming me a little enough to restore the nerve to call out again, as I headed towards the sound, desperately ignoring the horrible sensation of being watched I felt as I turned my back to the taxidermy and walked hopefully nearer to another living, breathing being to talk to.

The way the stairs and walls were coloured the same, I thought my foot would sink right through it like melted chocolate. It made me look away from the steps and instead look around nervously at the many paintings on the walls.

It was far too silent in here for my liking.

That's when my eyes met with vivid, slanted hazel. My heart stopped for a second. Paralysed with fear that I had been caught, an uncanny sense of surprise washing over me at being caught off guard without hearing a thing.

But then I realised the eyes weren't seeing me at all. I blinked, and they remained still, allowing me enough time to calm and realise that they belonged to a large, lifeless painting, eerily looking over the stairs. The eyes belonged to the painting of a boy, a boy with combed red hair and an uncertain, shy close mouthed smile.

I grinned back. He was pretty cute. It must have been the boy I'd been sent here to look after, though the soundless, 2D painting barely told me a thing about his personality, I had a feeling we would get along. I barely had the time to focus on the parents at his sides, not when the same subtle clicking sound as before caught my attention. It wasn't coming from this floor, but the one above.

I grimaced, sure it had been coming from this one when I was below. How else would I have heard it?

I followed the bend of the stairs and headed rapidly away from the picture, paranoid that if it fell, it was so huge it would bury me under it and push me down to where I had just risen from.

"Excuse me?"

I knew I had to be near the top of the castle by now. This was the third floor, and with ceilings this high, I had to be. But still, there was silence, not even the creak of floorboards as walked down yet another narrow, yet spacious hallway.

"I know there's someone up here..." I trailed off. Why were they engaging me in a messed up game of hide and seek? What was the meaning of this? Tryna psyche me out?

It was only several steps down towards the darkness that I really started to doubt myself. In a big house like this, I'm sure every single little sound echoed and amplified to trick me into thinking someone was up here.

My cheeks burned red. Had I been talking to myself the whole time?

I sighed, giving up and turning three-sixty on my toes, ready to give up and head back downstairs, when the door in front of me creaked just an inch open.

If it weren't for me facing this way, I might not have noticed it.

It was almost as if it had been timed to when I'd turned.

Alright. Enough of this.

I barged through the door to find myself in yet another unbelievably spacious place, this one appearing to be a kids room, if the many toys were an indication.

I sighed. It wasa empty. Maybe there was a kid hiding under the bed, but I wasn't willing to look, not when there was so many creepy ass dolls facing me with their glassy rainbows of eyes. So many faces and so many mouths, so many eerie little hands and flammable silk dresses and clothes.

"Someone has a hobby..." I muttered, walking forwards and resting my hand on the nearest one, hand colliding with cold glass and even knocking my fingers agaisnt it just to make sure it really was as cold, hard, and lifeless as it appeared.

It really was, even more freezing, rigid and dead than I thought. A shiver ran through me yet again, this time though, I didn't back away from it, I squinted my eyes to what was so special about something like this, why it's hair was so soft and real like, why it's fingers were so tiny and intricately carved, and who had put so much effort into such a creature that when I stared into the toy's polished brown eyes I could just about see the dark, blurry images of my own reflection peeking in desperately, and in the darkness of they room surrounding me, the silhouette of a man looming behind.

It couldn't be.

"Hello-"

"Shit!"

I jumped around, ready to throw a karate kick and fight of a monster if I had to, but what I saw instead, was a fairly befuddled looking black haired man with his palm outstretched towards me, holding the expensive looking doll I had nearly dropped and smashed to bits as he looked up quizzically, one eyebrow raised.

"Did I scare you there?" He asked with a voice perfectly amused to contradict his stoic expression. His attractiveness was practically radiating from him, but to me, he gave off an incredibly smug vibe.

"I'm sorry, would you react any differently if you thought you were alone upstairs found some guy standing in the doorway behind you un?"

"Is that anyway to talk to your employer?" He gasped in mock shock.

I halted, looking the young man up to down. He had two strange marks down the sides of his slightly smirking face, but other than that, there was no way he was old enough to be affiliated with Lady Chiyo.

"You are NOT my employer, un."

"You're right, I'm just playing with you." He winked, placing the doll back where it was before. "I'm Itachi, the groccery boy."

"Groccery boy huh?" My eyes scanned over him once more, making sure he noticed as I was doing it. "And what exactly is a groccery boy doing so far from the kitchen?"

"I couldn't just ignore the sounds of a damsel in distress lost upstairs. It is a pretty big house."

My face flushed, remembering the sounds of my own nervous voice calling out in false politeness. It must have been readable, as Itachi's mouth curved into a slightly wider smile than before.

I laughed along with him to hide my shame.

"Jokes aside, I'd better get you downstairs. Lady Chiyo will be returning pretty shortly, and she instructed me to make sure you didn't get lost."

He held his arm out to me in a handsome-prince sort of way, but I only scoffed, waltzing right passed him out of the door. "Just so you know un, I'm not what you think."

"Oh? And what's that?"

"A woman, un. I'm a man. Male."

Itachi smirked, this time he was the one doing the glancing over. "I know that."

"Y-You do?" I stuttered, unnused to not being fought over this matter. "What a nice surprise, un!"

"Not used to it, un?"

"Don't do that." I deadpanned, glaring into his bright red eyes. "That's a certified way to piss me off."

"I didn't catch your name-"

"Deidara." I spoke breifly, brushing my hair over my shoulder for dramamtic effect, only to worry that I'd ruined all the effort I'd put into brushing it.

"Hm. It's nice to meet you Deidara, I have a feeling the young master will to."