A/N: Over the next week, I'm gonna try to pull off a maneuver that I've only done once before outside of school: writing something creative under time pressure. But this time, the time pressure is less defined. I might have only a week, maybe up to a couple weeks. And the story I have to write is long enough that it can't be hammered out all at once. This will be a much greater challenge for me than writing a short story for a contest was. I'll let you know how it goes.

Now for the plushies! :D

.

Sasori's tale went something like this:

Yahiko had woken up super early that morning and left the base for obvious reasons that did not need to be stated aloud. He hid himself in the library to get a jump start on his research. But there were only a couple of books about golemancy on the ghostly shelf, and going over them again did not reveal anything new. To pass time until he could safely return to the base, he talked with the books about his desire for living plushies.

He expected sympathy. What he got was much more. One of the books he had been reading slid out of the shelf. He caught it reflexively. A commanding aura, at least as powerful as Konan's, convinced him to take the ghostly book out of the reference room and up to the main desk. "I think this book wants to come home with me," he told a librarian there.

The librarian looked down at the book. Gently, she laid a hand on it. She closed her eyes and asked, "Is it your true and honest wish to go with this human?" After several seconds, during which Yahiko felt nothing, she opened her eyes and took her hand back. "Alright. You may take him with you."

(Hidan interrupted at this point to say, "How the fuck did that not occur to us? Some of the NPCs around here might not be NPCs. They might act like magic is normal because, hello, duh, they come from worlds of magic themselves." He shook his head ruefully.)

("Not that world," Yahiko replied. "I didn't recognize her.")

Anyway, Yahiko took the book home. He walked, fearing that using the teleportation seal might damage or destroy the poor tome. By the time he got home, he'd realized that the books must intend to help him create living plushies, so he sought out Konan and explained what was going on. With her permission and oversight, he gathered three plushies: his, Hidan's and Konan's. They assembled the plushies in the middle of the sunroom. Yahiko took the book out from the crook of his arm and held it in both hands. "Now what?"

He got the impression that he was supposed to hold it out, but was still confused. So he placed one hand flat on the book's cover, like the librarian had done, and closed his eyes. "Tell me again." This time, he got a murky mental image. His familiarity with the book's home world allowed him to recognize the action depicted despite the murkiness. He opened the book, held it with one hand cradling the spine, carefully used chakra to grip it, and turned his hand to face outward. Pages flipped as the book began to glow. Yahiko realized he was channeling chakra into it. Or was the chakra being pulled out of him? Either way, the pages soon stopped flipping and the glow increased. Konan backed away; she had of course circled around to see what was happening. The glow reached out, sparkling dust motes and twirling strings of light coiling around the plushies. They soaked in. The plushies glowed blue for a second or two. Then everything returned to normal.

Konan came back to Yahiko's side. They both held their breath. They both let it out in a rush as one of the plushies turned its head. It looked around the room. Another plushie rubbed a hair off its cheek. The third stood up.

Yahiko was overcome with adorableness. He picked one up and held it in his lap. The plushie wriggled, trying to escape. Then its eyes landed on the book. It stopped wriggling and reached out to the book. Yahiko let it pat the book with a plushy, fingerless hand. Then he lifted the book out of its reach and told Konan, "I'd better return him. Look after them while I'm gone?"

Konan glanced at the plushie that was jumping up and down on the stuffed chair. "I don't think that will be very difficult."

Kisame

"We've given them a tour of the base so far and run a couple of tests," Yahiko chirped. "One of them used a bit of wind magic to propel himself onto a bed, so they can use magic like we hoped. The tour took forever 'cause they kept climbing onto beds and toilets and pulling clothes off of hangers and opening drawers. Don't worry, Konan and I put back everything they moved. Um, they don't seem to respond to verbal commands. I don't know if they can hear. They have ears. Maybe they just don't care."

"This was not posted in the group chat because they didn't want to distract everyone who was at work," Nagato explained. "Konan did her best to catch everyone in person. I don't know how she missed you."

"I used the seal," Kisame murmured. "Hold on. These books have been giving you psychic commands?"

Yahiko looked confused. "It feels similar to the couple of times I've talked to bushes, actually."

"You've been practicing your psychic communication."

"Uh…"

"Oh dear fucking christ." Kisame rubbed his forehead. "Well, what about those black rods? Are those ready?"

"Kisame would like to use your black rods to take control of the plushies," Konan told Nagato.

Nagato paled. "Uh, okay. One rod for control, and three to insert. I can do that. Not in front of witnesses."

"Understood," Kakuzu said.

"Ah - after the meeting's over."

"Okay," Kisame said. "What the hell is that thing doing?"

Yahiko had, of course, turned his attention to the story, so he had stopped sitting up the nonliving plushie. The living one was now dragging its counterpart by one arm around the perimeter of the room. The other living plushie, in the chair, hung over one side and watched.

"Go find out," Sasori said.

Kisame treated the plushies like they were walking bombs. He circled around the room the opposite way, crouched in the plushie's path and waited until it came to him. It stopped and looked up. "What are you, uh, doing there?" Kisame said, gesturing to the nonliving plushie.

The living one looked at its counterpart. It tilted its head. It picked up its counterpart and shook it, stopped and waited for a few seconds, then shook it again.

Kisame was caught off guard. He had never expected to feel bad for them. "No. He's not like you are. He's not going to…" But the living plushie didn't seem to hear him. It smacked its counterpart on the head. When nothing happened, it grabbed one arm and went around Kisame, resuming its futile attempt to take its companion on a tour of the room.

Yahiko sobbed. "Oh, no!"

"That is sad," Sasori murmured.

"Hold up," Hidan said, raising a hand. He brushed tears off his face. "I'll take them outside." He picked up the plushie and its companion, told them, "I'm gonna take you and your friend somewhere extra special," and left the room.

The other plushie hopped down off the chair and tried to follow him, but the door closed too soon. It jumped a few times, but was unable to reach the handle. Then it spread its arms, and a circle of glowing runes the color of fire appeared above it. "No need for that!" Kisame yelled, bounding across the room. "I'll get it for you." He opened the door. The plushie dropped its arms and ran out.

"I didn't realize they would feel companionship!" Yahiko exclaimed in horror. "What have I done?"

"Oh, man, at least my spiders don't do that, yeah," Deidara said while cringing. "I still feel responsible for them, yeah, but it's my choice to. It's kinda abstract, yeah. This is totally different."

A sudden thump from the door made everyone jump. Kisame opened it in a hurry. The third plushie stood outside. It turned and picked up a small pile of wallpaper flakes it had peeled off. It walked in, looked around, and held the pile out to the nearest person. That happened to be Kakuzu.

Yahiko moaned. "And they have interests and hobbies."

"Excuse me while I track down the expert on this." Kisame left the room. He left the door ajar. Where is Samehada? He found Samehada in the video game room, having turned the console on and currently working out how to use the controller. "That looks like a lot of fun, Same. But something way more important has happened. Yahiko brought those dolls of his to life. There's one in the meeting room right now."

Samehada gasped and raced out the door. Kisame turned the console off, then followed. He and Same returned to the room to find Yahiko cradling the plushie in his lap while it played with its wallpaper peelings. Samehada made a deep, gentle sound and sidled up to the doll. It looked up at him, then picked up its pile and showed it to Sasori. The engineer frowned. "Some of these have torn edges. Did you rip them up? So that they would be the same size?" The plushie put its pile down and scattered all the peelings. It examined them. It found one with a corner to it, so it ran its fingerless hand over the corner and somehow tore it off, giving the flake a more rounded appearance. It put the torn-off part on Sasori's knee and reassembled its pile.

Hidan returned. "After a deep examination, I conclude that these things kind of have feelings, but not the sort of feelings we have. More abstract, not as strong. So it's not, like, going to cry or mourn that its friend is refusing to play." He paused. "But I don't think that matters, because fucking shit is it sad to watch. Cheesus. We've gotta do something." He put the living and the nonliving plushie down. The other one peeked between his legs.

"I knew it. I fucking knew it," Kisame said. "I knew trying to bring these things to life would introduce all kinds of unexpected complications that we're going to have to work around, and who knows what more that will lead to, and so on. Is nobody going to learn? Enough is enough. We already have vampires, bicycles, internal division, and so on to deal with. Why did you people want to add more instead of staying with and resolving what we've already got?"

Yahiko looked ashamed. Konan averted her eyes. Samehada made worried sounds as he watched the living plushie attempt to interact with its nonliving companion. "That other stuff was old," Hidan muttered. "These guys were new and exciting."

"Isn't there enough excitement for you?" Kisame asked, gesturing in Nagato and Yahiko's approximate direction. They still sat next to each other, though they hadn't spoken or looked at each other all meeting.

Hidan looked down. "They're cute." He sniffled. The living plushies were absorbed in patting Samehada's snout now. The nonliving one lay abandoned on Hidan's foot.

As Kisame looked around the room and saw the effects of his words, a strange feeling stirred inside him. This is why I'm here. They would be lost without me. "I may not have the rods," he said, "but we already agreed I'm in charge of these plushies. Yahiko, if he goes back to his friend after he's done with Samehada, if it wasn't just a temporary thing, then you and Hidan will take him and his friend to the library first thing tomorrow and get his friend enchanted. I expected that we would have four of them anyway. Also, make up some way to identify them. I want to know which one shouldn't be allowed near peeling wallpaper at a glance. And as for the rest of our still important ongoing projects…" He turned to Konan. "We need to talk."

The rest of the group stared at him. Sasori smiled, just a little. Hidan went back to his seat at Konan's side. Itachi raised a hand. "I have a proposal. Shall we name them?"

Kisame nodded. "That would be a lot more convenient."

Yahiko pointed to the plushie that roamed around the room, looking for some place to put its collection of peelings and not finding one. "I think of him as Little One. And I'll get the markers." He left the room. Kisame requested names from Hidan and Konan, since they were the original owners of the plushies. Konan decided to call the one with the unresponsive friend Warlic, and Hidan chose to call the one that sat in the chair and followed along Manta. He explained that it was a modification of the name that had actually come to mind, which he thought might hurt some people's feelings. "Isn't Warlic the original name of the character they're based on?" Kisame asked. Konan explained that said character spent the whole game trying to repair his relationships with his friends, and failing. The plushie that tried to give a nonliving friend a tour seemed a worthy heir to that name.

Yahiko returned, was told this, and nodded. "I will give Little One a green circle on his forehead and the top of his head." He held the doll still and did just that. Little One tried to rub his forehead clean, but couldn't. He soon seemed to forget all about it. "What about the others?"

The other two plushies were riding Samehada around the room. Kisame waved. Samehada gave them one more ride horizontally along the wall, then stopped by Kisame's feet. The nonliving plushie lay on the floor just a few feet away. They both got off of Samehada's back. Everyone held their breath, wondering if the plushies remembered friends at all. They did; one of the plushies went over to the nonliving one and looked down at it, while the other stood by Samehada and watched. Yahiko approached with markers. "Warlic gets a blue X, and Manta gets a red star. And the other one?"

Everybody looked at Kisame. What? Why me? They didn't take that one from my room. "Uh, where'd you get him from?"

"He's one of the extras."

"..." It took a long, long time to think up a name. He reminds me of myself. "Solis." Alone, apart.

"Solis gets a big, yellow…dot. Sorry, I'm running out of shapes."

"That's fine." Kisame pulled his eyes off the doll he had named. "So. Is there any food planned, or are we going to sit around talking all night?"

.

He insisted on having his chat with Konan over dinner so that there was no time to forget about it. "When was the last time you messaged her?" he asked.

"When Hidan had that foolish idea of his to visit a vampire in their own home," Konan answered. "I believe that was a couple of days ago."

"You should find out what was the result of that. Also, vampires probably have the same issue I do with unpredictability. They need to know a bunch of dolls are going to be part of everything this weekend. Speaking of, have you invited everybody that you want to invite? I remember something vague about talking with Sakumo and his group, but I don't know if that actually happened, and what about Shikaku's group?"

Konan pulled out her phone to send herself a reminder. Kisame let her do that, then asked, "What are we doing this weekend, anyway? Who's fighting who, and when?"

"After the sun has gone below the trees," Konan answered. "As for the matchup…" She sent a message to the group chat. Who wishes to fight this weekend?

I'd rather not rush myself, Sasori replied.

I would be happy to, Kakuzu said.

If you need someone, I'll fight, even though I've already gone twice, Hidan said.

I'm out, Deidara said.

"Looks like it's me and Kakuzu," Kisame said. He repeated this in the group chat. "And you and Same. We're the only two pairs available."

What about me and Itachi? Nagato asked.

"Oh, shit, I totally forgot about them." Sorry, I forgot about you guys.

Aren't you supposed to be remembering stuff now? Hidan sent a skeptical emoji.

Hey, that's partly my job too, Nagato replied before Kisame could think of an answer.

Yahiko? Konan texted. There was no reply.

Parenting. Kakuzu sent an eye-rolling emoji.

Sorry! Looking after the plushies! Can't talk right now!

"I'd better go check with Nagato about those rods." Kisame finished his dinner, took his plate over to the sink and went to Nagato's room. He knocked softly on the door. "Hey, how's it going?"

"It's fine. You can come in."

Kisame went in. Nagato was scratching at the palm of his left hand. On the bed beside him lay five rods, one of them a good length for Kisame's hand and four very short. Kisame was surprised to see how pointy they were. Those would make good weapons.

"Sasori uses them by resonance," Nagato said. "Right now, they respond to my chakra. If you run your chakra through them enough, they'll start responding to yours. When you channel chakra into them, they vibrate and give off a chakra signal. Other rods will resonate with that signal. So you would hold this big one and channel chakra into it and use that to control the others."

"Do I need to attune all of them to my chakra?"

"I think so."

Kisame picked up the large rod. "How do I do that?"

"I believe Sasori ran his chakra down the length of it, like this. He said he was inspired by magnets. Apparently you can run a magnet over an iron bar to turn it into a magnet itself." Nagato showed him how to hold it with one hand on each end. Kisame sent chakra from his right hand to his left. "You'll know it's ready when it vibrates."

"Judging from how pointy these things are, I'm guessing the little guys will have to be impaled?"

"Yeah. Thank goodness they're not flesh and blood."

"I'm thinking…back of the head. For discretion."

Nagato shuddered. "That reminds me of how cows are killed. But you're right. Wouldn't want to see it every time we looked at them."

"How are cows killed?"

"Bolt gun to the back of the head. So it only leaves one hole."

"Huh, that makes sense." Kisame suddenly remembered his original goal. "Hey, how are you doing?"

"With Yahiko?" Nagato ran a hand through his hair. "I'm still processing. I'm in a weird state of suspension where I am simultaneously bothered by it and also not. Like my mind is split. It's uncomfortable."

"Are you not bothered because you can't be, because there are things happening? I'm literally just sitting here running my chakra through rods for who knows how long. Nothing's happening. You can be completely bothered."

Nagato swallowed. He sniffled. "I never thought about what I would do if he looked at anyone the way I wanted him to look at me. I don't know how I feel about it. I love seeing him so happy. It's when I'm not with him that it hurts the most, because then I have nothing to comfort me."

"Don't Hidan and Konan stay with you and comfort you?"

"It's different. I don't know how to explain."

Kisame grunted. "Well, all I can say is, it's time to face facts. He's not into you. There's nothing stopping him from being into you. He's just not."

Nagato sobbed. "After everything…"

Kisame shrugged. It's killing me to be so nonchalant right now.

"I just want to know why. It's killing me to have zero explanation why. I know closure doesn't always exist, and it's not up to him to explain what can't be explained just for my benefit, but…"

Would an explanation really help? If it can, it's worth a shot. "Maybe… Maybe with guys, since he's not drawn to them physically, they have to have something else going for them first. That character is a super powerful mage. Power. Charisma. A strong and compelling backstory. We all know he's an out of sight, out of mind kind of person. The number one requirement for him to fall in love with anyone is that they have to be memorable. You've been with him since childhood. You don't have any unique accomplishments to your name. Maybe he just can't focus on you long enough to develop that kind of feeling. And since you've already know him for your entire lives, it's a bit late to develop something memorable about yourself, unless you were to go away for several years."

Nagato sniffled again. "That… That makes sense. That's why he doesn't look at me that way. I'm not memorable." He rubbed his eyes. "I could become memorable if I left him. I can do something. I have a choice." He looked down at his lap. He and Kisame sat together in silence for a long, long time. Kisame channeled chakra into the large rod. It buzzed. He picked up one of the small ones and hoped it would take less time. Attuning a small rod did take less time. Kisame finished it and picked up a third. He was a couple of minutes into that when Nagato said, "I won't. Resetting our whole relationship for a chance at a better one is tempting. But what if it doesn't work? The cost is so high that I couldn't afford to fail. But that's the sort of thing with a very high failure rate."

"Don't destroy yourself," Kisame told him. "We like you."

Nagato smiled. "It feels better to have made a real choice. Thanks, Kisame."

Kisame grinned back. "You're welcome."

.

A/N: Huzzah!

Hopefully I can finally, finally, finally, keep myself together long enough to accomplish the things I want. I can't help but think it would have been easier to be diagnosed as a child, like other people are. But other people don't have entire families that are also disorganized messes. So on the one hand, I wouldn't have had to go to all this effort by myself, but on the other hand, I would have missed out on the benefits of growing up with people who understand me, who work the same way. Hmm.

Not worth thinking about. That's not my life, after all.

Hopefully by the time I publish next week, I will have written my first ever Self-Insert fic. It is (of course) for Dragonfable. Hey, you know what? Telling you, whoever reads this, that I was going to publish every Sunday worked wonders to get me to publish every Sunday. So I'll just go ahead and tell you that by the time I publish next Sunday, I will have finished the self-insert fic. This will force me to actually do it, since promises I make to others are unbreakable but promises I make to myself barely exist. Yahoo!