Pein held a meeting on his office, but only five of the whole organization were attending: Deidara, Sasori, Kisame, Itachi, and Konan.

"Do you know what's the downside of living in Ame?" Pain asked. Konan was calmly stood next to him, looked kind of like his secretary (or his mistress?) in that situation.

Kisame was the one who answered, pretty innocently, "Uh… it's raining? All day, all year?"

Pein quickly nodded and slammed the table. He pointed his finger to Kisame, "You felt it too, didn't you? You think the rain was a hindrance?" Kisame had no choice but to trust his instict when he answered, "Uh… yeah?"

"That's right!" Pein nodded again, much eagerly, "Do you know what rain does?"

"Uhh…" Kisame stole a glance to his left, seeking for Itachi's help, but his partner seemed to be unaware of his problem, "Uh… it's… not healthy?"

"No!" Pein shouted, and stood up from his desk impatiently.

"It may cause flood." Sasori offered. Pein clapped his hands, "That's it! That's it!" he walked a few steps, circling his desk so he's now standing directly in front of his Akatsuki.

"We need to build a dam some distance downstream on the river flowing in our region." he said suddenly, commandingly and decisively. For a moment, his members were unsure what to make of this and only returned his look, but after a while, Itachi decided to politely inquire.

"Leader-sama, what do you have in mind?"

"I want Deidara to blow land and make a lake some kilometers downstream." Pain said firmly. Deidara eyes widened as he digest his 'mission'. "You want me to blow some piece of land… and make a lake… that's… AWESOME, yeah!" Deidara was more than eager, he was grinning, literally glowing, and if he didn't remember that Pein was their leader, he might have grabbed both of his shoulder and shook them in excitement.

"Good good, if you understand. Go now, go. Don't return before you build a nice big lake."

Deidara quickly went through the door and half-run to his room. But in second thought, he went back to Sasori's room and took out his blanket. Sasori watched his partner's move with only slightly amused. Deidara brought his blanket into his room and rolled it out there on the corridor.

"What are you doing?" Sasori asked him.

"Getting my bombs, of course! With these many clays I can build a huge lake." he carefully moved a handful of his sculptures on top of his blanket. Sasori kept quiet and only watching as his partner put more and more clays into it. "You sure it's okay? They won't be detonated accidentally, right?" his voice hinted with concern when he saw a snake bomb moved itself a little to the side when Deidara put a handful of spiders and birds on top of it.

Deidara grinned. "I hope they recognize their master, danna." but afterwards he seemed to think about it, tilted his head to the side as if debating whether or not it's actually dangerous, and stopped putting more clay animals on it. "For god's sake, Deidara, you don't know it for sure, yet you fused your chakra beforehand on those clay animals? Have you been keeping a ton of ticking bombs right here, in your room, all this time?" Sasori now practically shouting, a part angry, a part irritated, and a part just dumbfounded for his partner's unwariness.

Deidara smiled sheepishly, "Well, I thought it would be fine as long as there's no friction." He said airily, carefully folding the sides of the blanket and carefully lifted it up, went outside of the tower and flew on his bird.

The red haired shinobi couldn't shake the feeling that it's a stupid, risky move his partner was making, and it's best to be stay away from Deidara right then (and stay away from that heaps of moving clay bombs in that stupid blanket!). But somehow he felt like he couldn't leave Deidara. Sasori believed this is the so called "sense of responsibility". No matter what, he was still that blond's partner, and he was still older than him. It made him feel like he was supervising… or so he let himself believe. So he jumped in right before Deidara took off.

The explosive expert grinned and told him, "I'm happy you'd want to fly with me again, Danna."

"Not by choice." Sasori snapped. "Better don't mess, Deidara. If I died because of this, I swear I'll see you in the other side and I'll kill you all over again."

Deidara just laughed and told him, "You won't die, Danna. I might not look like it, but I won't let you die, yeah."

-,-,-

A few kilometers away, Deidara stopped in midair above the troublesome river, "I think about here will do?"

Sasori make a quick assessment on the terrain beneath before nodded in agreement, "Yes."

"Yosh."

Deidara opened his blanket and pour ALL of the clay animals from that height. "This should be fun, yeah!" he shouted, laughing hysterically in anticipation. The clay animals won't defy gravity and fell right on the terrain below them. Some of them hit the water, but a lot of them hit the river bank. The ones which actually hit the land were exploded in contact… And that means, probably thirty to forty explosions at once.

Both artists were deafened by the explosion, even from such height. Deidara needed a moment to let his ears regain their function. "Whoa! Sasori-danna! That was what you called fun, right!" he laughed, his face blushed in delight.

"You psycho, lunatic, crazy pyromaniac…" was the only remark Sasori offered.

-,-,-

Deidara sat on his bed. Now he could actually rolled around on his bed, after he made a total of seven trips to the new-built lake and used up almost all of his clay animals. That was fun, Deidara enjoyed it a lot. Besides, for a reason he couldn't really comprehend, Sasori was with him in every single trip.

"Danna! Welcome to my room!" he chirped, showing Sasori his room and puling chairs from his desk for his partner to sit.

Sasori stood for a moment before entering his room.

"Ne, danna. It looks like I can sleep on my bed again, yeah." he chuckled sheepishly, and toss his weight on his bed. Sasori's face was unreadable, but after a moment he replied, "That's just great. Don't forget to get your stuff from my room later, Deidara. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll go back to my room and make some improvement on my plane model." The Suna artist nodded formally and turned.

"Ah – danna…" Deidara tried to call him, but he didn't seem to hear him.

The blond shinobi frowned. He looked around in his empty room… and suddenly felt very alone. He stood up immediately and followed Sasori back to his room. He didn't know what to expect, but he guessed it was just about normal that Sasori handed him his sketches, pillow, and the rest of his belonging the moment he moved passed his partner's door.

"Go back to your room." Sasori said flatly, and close the door right on his face.

Deidara looked like a kicked puppy when he walked back to his room. His danna was so mean… does he really hate him that much?

When the night fell and the kitchen talk had ended, (Deidara had developed a new habit to hang out on the kitchen on the evenings with some random members, usually it was Itachi and Kisame, and sometimes it was Hidan or Kakuzu or Zetsu), Deidara went back to his own room.

His room felt surprisingly empty after he stopped living in it for weeks and even months now. He missed Sasori's room. It was clean and smelled like wood.

"Am I getting soft, yeah?" he mumbled to himself, eyeing the ceiling without the least motivation to actually sleep. Sasori was mean, and boring, and all too serious. Sometimes the redhead pissed him off like no other and made him wanted nothing more than leaving him and never to see him again. Some other time he felt like his presence was only natural and expected, and that he enjoyed his company more than anything. He missed him.

'What?'

Deidara sat straight. 'Did I just say to myself that I miss him? Pfft.' Hechuckled and shook his head. 'I wanna see him, yeah.'

After debating for a moment or two, Deidara stood up and marched to Sasori's room. He didn't even bother to knock; instead he kicked the door open.

He was expecting Sasori to sit on his desk as usual, but he was surprised to see Sasori was lying on bed, apparently just woke up.

"Do you fucking hate your life?" the Suna artist snapped dangerously, his voice rather raspy. His hair was a mess and he looked more tired than he usually was.

Deidara couldn't believe it. "Danna… did you just sleeping?"

"Didn't I tell you I can use some rest once in a while?" Sasori growled.

Deidara was still standing on the door, staring at Sasori. His eyes saw a kid with messy red hair, looking so tired, so harmless, and… so…

"Cute."

'What? Did I just say it out loud?' as realization dawning on him, Deidara's expression turned into that of horror.

Sasori too, his look turned into something 'cute' to something 'demonic', and that was a point where Deidara felt afraid of his life even more than when he was transporting those heaps of clay bombs earlier that day.

Not waiting for a cue, the Iwa-nin took a flight and ran for his life with a fuming Sasori on his hair.