It's high school AU tiem!
Well. sort of.
He wakes in darkness and falls asleep with darkness.
When he wakes again, he gets up and starts to walk through the night, looking for a star or a moon or something else to guide him.
A foot nudges his bruised ribs a few times and he stirs and moans, his eyes crusted shut with sleep.
"Wake up. Wake up, Hidan."
A heavy person crosses the room - he notices the quakes in the floorboards, though they seem like miles away - and tears the curtains open. Sunlight pours onto his body and squeezes red into his eyes. "Motherfucker!" screeches Hidan, hands scrabbling to pull a nonexistent blanket over his face.
The footsteps approach again and pause disdainfully above him, not blocking the light in the least.
"You're missing the morning services," says the owner of the feet coolly.
"T'hell with that," says Hidan, but he manages to prop himself up with an arm and runs one hand through his dirty hair. "Close the goddamn curtains, will you? I'm a motherfucking albino. Did the hair not tip you off, asshole?"
"Grow up," says Kakuzu, tossing him a bundle of cleaner-looking clothing and a towel still damp from its last use. "And clean yourself up. We're running a job, you remember that, right?"
"Yeah, yeah."
"Hop to it."
"Man, we have got to get this project done."
"We should go over to someone's house after school," said Itachi, looking over the rubric to see what was left. There are very few checkmarks. "Kisame?"
"My house is in absolutely no state to have company, sorry guys," says Kisame, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly. "Itachi, how about you?" "I don't think so," says Itachi. "My brother is having a party today. Pein?"
The redhead looks up and stares at Itachi, looking a little uncomfortable, his grey eyes shifty.
"I guess so," he said. "I'd have to call ahead, though."
"Whatever works, man," says Kisame. "Where are we meeting after school?"
"Under the flag," says Itachi. "I'll have to stop at my locker to pick up all the stuff. Who drives?"
"I drove this morning," says Pein. "It's cool."
"All right! See you guys after the final bell, then."
Pein bounces his cell up and down on his palm as he waits outside the school. The reception was poor, and he couldn't even phone home. Oh well. It wouldn't happen again, that he would be sure of...
Kisame and Itachi emerge from the front door of the school, each carrying bulging bags. "We in the clear?" asks Kisame as Itachi sets down the bags and rubs his hands together to get the blood flowing again. "Oh yeah," lies Pein. "My car's over here... this is all of it?" Itachi nods and picks up the bags again. The three of them start walking towards the student parking lot. "Shotgun," says Kisame. Itachi pauses for a second, but then catches up. "Whatever."
Pein's house surprises Itachi and Kisame. Large and sprawling, it has an even larger and more sprawling lawn, well-tended and filled with beautiful gardens.
"Man-oh-man," says Kisame as the car stops and Pein pulls the keys out of the ignition. "Do you have your own movie theater and everything?"
"What? No." Pein looks momentarily distracted. "Madara isn't... well... this house is more for the clients than us. It gives a good impression or something."
"Madara?" murmurs Itachi, slipping out of the backseat and following the other two up the front walk and onto a porch that wrapped around the house.
"Yeah." Pein opens the door and holds it for the other two. "Let's work in the basement... so we don't annoy him if he's here..." He leads them through a foyer and down a flight of stairs. He leaves Itachi and Kisame to set down their backpacks uneasily against the posh leather couches and ottomans. "I'll go get some snacks, and you can get the stuff out of the car. I think I left the trunk unlocked."
"Okay." Itachi exchanges a look with Kisame as Pein retreats up the stairs. "Kind of an odd duck," says Kisame out of the corner of his mouth. "Don't be rude to our host," replies Itachi. "Let's just go get the stuff."
Their conversation begins to flow more freely as they emerge into the afternoon air. "Madara," says Itachi. "That name is... very familiar." Kisame shrugs. "Whatever. This is probably the only time we'll ever be let in here. Did you see how reluctant he was to let us in? What's he got to hide, huh?"
"It's none of our business," says Itachi, opening the trunk and reaching in for the luggage.
Two hours, three cans of Monster and a boring physics project later, a bathroom is the only prospect of relief. "Hey, where's the can?" says Kisame. Itachi is still fiddling with the measurements of their structure and Pein is weighing some blocks with an unusually alert eye. "Upstairs, on the right," says Pein vaguely, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration.
It's amazing how quickly he becomes lost. On the right. Good God. He'd somehow gotten lost in a maze of tastefully-decorated halls and carefully-closed doors, and something about the way Pein mentioned Madara - his foster father, or adopted father, or something, Kisame remembered - made him keen to avoid confronting him. "Madara isn't... well..."
A shiver runs up his spine and he twitches. Just when he spots a door to what looks like the outside and is about to make a run for it, the sound of soft feet padding across the floor around a nearby corner makes him stop. He's paralyzed until he hears the quiet whish-whish of a broom sweeping - Madara, whoever he was, would not do housework himself. A cleaning person would probably be safer to ask directions from.
He leans around the corner and is taken utterly by surprise by what awaits him.
It's a girl, maybe a little older than him, dressed in nondescript clothing. Her hair (a shade of black that shines blue, not unlike his own) covers her downturned face, and her stick-thin arms push the broom weakly. A pair of large, feathery wings extend from her shoulders. They might have been white at one point, but dirt and something else has smudged them to grey. The lower halves of her wings seem to be caked in blood, and weights rest on their crests.
As Kisame watches, jaw slack, she turns around, eyes glued to the floor. She approaches him, broom sweeping listlessly, until only a few feet in front of him - then, at least, she seems to notice his presence. Her look of shock mirrors his own.
"Oh, um... hi," says Kisame, unsure of how to address a mythical creature. To his bemusement, a look of recognition dawns across her gaunt face.
"What are you doing here?" she whispers, voice hoarse and creaky.
"I got lost on the way to the bathroom," he says dumbly.
"Oh," she says, as though she would never considered that. "Where were you coming from?"
"The basement." She nods and seizes his hand and starts pulling him along with a strength he never would have guessed she possessed. They skid along a few corridors until she deposits him in the foyer. She makes a "sssh" gesture with her hands and points to one room, mouthing, "bathroom," and then to one open ajar - the stairs to the basement.
"Thanks," whispers Kisame. "How can I-"
She shakes her head, gives him a slight push towards the doors and hurries away.
Oh my God, I'd forgotten how much I adored this idea. Mostly because it's so Diana Wynne Jones influenced. Konan is an angel, assigned to look over several different individuals, including Pein. Madara, Because Of Reasons, learns of this and sets about capturing her. (He might have lost his years ago because he damned himself somehow. Idk.) Pein falls in love with her, and tries to keep her a secret from the world. This works until Kisame, whom she is supposed to be looking out for, runs into her, and takes an interest in freeing her. (Secret KisaKo shipper here.) Hidan figures into this by being an atheist grifting as a religious student, until he somehow runs into Konan too. (Kakuzu is one of her wards, and they've met; he rejected her help.)
I have absolutely no clue how it pans out. But goddamn I adored this plot.
You see, you like? PM ME FOR THE LOVE OF YOUR DEITY OF CHOICE.
Naruto and all affiliated characters belong to Masashi Kishimoto, not to me. Or else all this shit would have already happened good Lord.