Well my lovely readers, thank you all for the awesome reviews! i read and loved al of them! and i was highly amused by the content of some of them, you all have very interesting ideas and thoughts, some of which helped to shape this chapter, so thank you for that.

now i know this chapter is totally lame, but its completely important so bear with it!

I got to the pier in exactly twenty minutes, courtesy of one very expensive cab ride, and about five minutes running as fast as my legs would allow.

When I got there, I saw Deidara's car – or his drivers car, whatever – parked behind some buildings, but what really caught my attention were the fire engines and police cars, the bright red and blue lights filled the dark space to the point where it was almost blinding, and I felt my stomach sink at the horrible possibilities.

My first reaction had been that Deidara had gotten hurt by those friends he mentioned. Hurt. I didn't even want to consider the possibility that he'd been…

It just made me too angry to even think about.

But now things were getting a little clearer.

I raced to the storefront, the sea was on one side and closed off, probably abandoned buildings on the other side. I could smell fish and salt and the ocean, but most of all I could smell alcohol and smoke. A building had been put out and its blackened skeleton lay smouldering in its place. A few firemen were exploring the wreck, while police officers questioned two guys; they were a little older than Deidara, probably a year or two older than Konan and Pein.

The brat himself, was sitting mostly out of view, he was sat at the end of the pier, his feet hanging just above the ocean. It was a new moon that night so his figure was covered in blue and red, rather than pale white.

I made my way over to him, aware that my footsteps echoed against the creaky, splintering wood. The ocean was oddly quiet, and I was able to hear every broke breath he took.

Upon further inspection, Deidara was a mess. His shirt was torn up to the point where it was simply a few scraps of material clinging to his body. His right shoulder looked as though it had been burnt, as this a large portion of his right leg, I could see where the material had been burnt off, leaving only red skin to be seen. It didn't look too bad though, nothing that would scar – with Kankuro living in my house, I could've been considered an expert on minor injuries.

But worst was the look on his face, it was a mixture of I really fucked up and I want to die.

That look was quite familiar to me.

"Brat, what happened?" I cringed at the way my voice seemed so loud, as I reached out to touch his left shoulder hoping to get his attention. He immediately jerked away from my touch, as though I stung.

"don't touch me un," he said, like an automatic reflex. His voice shook and his words were uncertain. He looked up and saw me and seemed to sigh in relief, "oh, it's just you Danna, un."

"Of course it's me, now are you going to tell em what happened?" I sat down beside him, making sure to keep my distance and to keep my annoyance out of my voice.

"I got a little too close to the fire, un," he said.

"Okay, so who started the fire?"

He looked away, shame written all over his face and filling his eyes.

"It's alright brat. You can tell me anything," I reminded him.

"It's just, I was so angry un, because he always does this and I didn't know why I'd even bothered to get my hopes up in the first place. I left the game and met up with some friends I knew from private school… they're sort of in college now un, bt that's not important."

He was starting to babble now, and I realised he was just about on the verge of hysterics. I reached out and took his hand and said, "Slow down, tell me about the fire."

He nodded, maybe not even noticing that we were touching.

"There were like eight or nine of them before, a couple of girls as well, when I got there… they were already drinking and I didn't want to be the only one not doing it so I started drinking too… and I didn't really notice it but they all sort of left and it was just the three of us, and we were going to steal a boat un, I don't know why but it seemed like a good idea at the time and we ended up in that building and it was dark and I got a little lost and I heard them talking about stuff, and about me… and maybe they thought I couldn't hear them un, but –"

"Tell me they didn't do anything to you," I said, trying as hard as I could to keep my voice levelled and calm when I was about ready to kill whoever had hurt him and subsequently caused me to be woken at three in the morning.

"It was so dark un, and I was backed into a corner, I was really scared once I realised their intentions… so I set a fire, so I could get away… un, I didn't realise we'd gone in there looking for petrol for the boat, before they got… side-tracked. The place went up like nothing, un, I was lucky to get out alive, and so were they."

Lucky.

"I'm glad that you're alright," I heard myself say.

"That makes one of us," he said quietly. "You know, I called everybody, every single one of my contacts, and you're the only one who even bothered to pick up."

"Well I don't have caller ID," I reasoned.

He ignored me and said, "Why'd you let me go with them? Why did you let me leave the school?"

"What?"

"I saw you in the hall, with your cousins and that Uchiha brat… why didn't you do anything to stop me?"

"I didn't realise that was my responsibility. Your old enough to make your own decisions now aren't you?"

"That's not the point, un!" he insisted.

"Then what is?"

Perhaps he had no answer, or maybe there was no point. Perhaps he was simply too shaken up to think completely straight. But he kissed me, and it wasn't like before, light and quick and sweet, it was more desperate and sloppy and sad.

I knew it was probably because he was more or less intoxicated and not thinking straight, and had just been through a traumatic – more or less – experience and was feeling vulnerable and scared and –

Eh, to hell with making excuses!

I kissed back tentatively, hoping I wasn't taking advantage of his state, though he seemed pretty in control. He leaned up against me, pressing his body against mine until we fell back.

He held my arms at my sides, his grip so tight I was vaguely afraid he'd break something, but it was understandable after what had happened, and so for a moment I didn't do anything about it.

But then I remembered it was four in the morning, we were out on a pier, one of us had been drinking and the other was verging on completely exhausted. I knew it would be better to stop before things got too far, so I pushed him away, with all the strength I had.

"Brat, let me take you home… you're not thinking straight, you need sleep."

He smiled down at me sadly and said, "I'm sorry un, I didn't mean for any of this to happen… I just…"

"It's alright," I assured him, sitting up carefully, supporting him and being careful not to touch his burns. "Are they going to charge you for the damages, or arrest you or anything?"

"Nah un, my father knows some people. This incident will disappear just like the last time, un. He won't even mention it when I get home… nothing I do has any effect on him."

"Okay, well do I need to take you to the hospital?"

"No un, these aren't so bad… I've been burnt worse than this before. It sort of comes with the territory."

"What territory, brat?"

He laughed, but it didn't sound anything like before. "There's a lot you still don't know about me, Danna, un."

I got up, pulling him to his feet with me. "Well I'd like to know to properly," I said, "but I'm actually a little concerned about the things I might hear. Something tells me you had a pretty messed up life, even before you started living with your father."

"You'd be right to think that, un," he agreed. He allowed me to drag him along the pier and back onto – more or less – solid ground. He yawned, stretching his arms above his head. "I don't want to go home just yet un, isn't there somewhere else we can go?"

"Everything is closed, brat. And the places that aren't, are not places we want to be right now," or ever, "if you don't want to go home, you can come back with me. My cousins will be expecting me to be there when they wake up, anyway. Will you be alright to drive?"

"No! I may not be drunk enough to lose conheren-coher-co"

"Coherency," I supplied.

"Yeah that, I may not be that drunk, but I'm not a very good driver, even when I'm sober."

"Wow, I never thought you'd admit it," I said, before realising we had no other way to get back, "Well I can't drive either, so I guess that means we'll have to walk." I had no money left for any type of public transport which might've still been in service. Not on me anyway.

With another yawn, and casting a glance back at the scene of the fire, Deidara said, "I guess that's okay."

It took us two entire hours to walk from the pier to my crappy apartment across town and by then, Deidara was pretty much dead on his feet. Throughout our journey through town, he'd alternated between tiredly telling me random facts about his life and asking me about my own, and practically sleepwalking.

"Un, why are there so many stairs!" he complained, "and why are they outside! It's freaking cold out here!"

I would've felt bad for him, if he hadn't tricked me out of my jacket an hour ago.

"Just be lucky that this is a onetime thing and you don't have to climb these stairs every day with three annoying little cousins," I told him, "besides, you're a fit guy, this shouldn't be a problem for you."

"But I'm tired!"

"Well, you should've thought about that before you woke me up."

He sighed, "I'm sorry Danna un, next time I'll just stumble home by myself instead of inconveniencing you un."

"So you should."

He laughed lightly. I was glad that he was already returning to himself, though I wasn't too eager to see him return fully to himself just yet. I was enjoying this new side of him, it was like every time I looked, he had a new personality and I was fully enjoying this latest one, however I knew it wouldn't last long and I could only really hope that the next side he decided to show, wasn't too bad.

Once we'd reached my floor, I unlocked the door – thankfully I'd remembered my key – and let us in.

I was expecting to find my apartment quiet and orderly with my cousins sleeping in their bed – was it weird that they all shared one bed? But I found almost the exact opposite.

"Dude, put that out your gonna burn the entire building down!" Temari yelled, coming out of the bathroom to see Gaara staring blankly at the microwave, which he'd managed to set on fire, probably trying to make boiled eggs again – sadly, this had happened before.

"I'm trying to stop it with my mind!" Kankuro insisted; even though he was on the other side of the room, watching really early morning TV, not age appropriate TV either.

"Idiots!" Temari yelled. She flipped the main switch which powered everything in the kitchen, causing some of the flames to die down, before throwing water over it. It was effective enough not to make an even bigger mess.

I'd made the right decision leaving her home with the boys.

"What are you guys doing up?" I asked, once I'd closed the door loud enough to get their attention.

"We could ask you the same thing," Gaara said quietly.

"Yeah, how do you think we felt waking up and finding out you weren't here?" Temari asked, "For all we knew, you might not have been coming back!"

"Yeah and where would I go? I hate to break it to you kid, but this is as good as it's going to get for any of us till one of you makes it big."

Kankuro, having decided to ignore most of our conversation, said, "I thought you said we weren't allowed visitors."

Sighed audibly, I said, "That's because the last time you brought somebody home with you, the two of you decided it would be a good idea to systematically turn everything upside down. Do you know how annoying that was?"

"We were trying to practice our –"

"Your telekinesis, I know. Just, not another word, alright?" All three of my cousins nodded obediently, "good. The four of you are giving me a headache and the sun isn't even up yet."

Kankuro frowned and took the time to actually count out the extra people in the room, before coming to the conclusion that there were in fact, four people there besides me.

Sometimes I really didn't know with that kid.

"You kids go back to bed, it's too early to be dealing with you right now," again, they immediately obeyed, stopping to turn the television off before disappearing into their room, leaving just me and Deidara, who looked like he was going to fall asleep.

"So, you're not going to say anything?" I asked him, noticing his tired eyes warily taking the place in, "nothing about how you'd rather be at home right now?"

"Are you kidding? This is a lot like my real home un," he said, "you know, I didn't grow up living in that big house. When mum was still alive, we used to live in a shithole just like this, except it was by an airport, and above a bowling alley un."

He didn't seem to realise that he'd just shared two significant facts about himself. He'd never previously discussed that his mother was no longer alive, though I had suspected it for the longest of times. I knew I shouldn't bring it up again.

We were both seated on the couch by now, both too tired to want to stand any longer, and the couch, despite it's obvious lumpiness, was the most comfortable looking seat in the room.

"There aren't any airports in this town," I said, rather than bluntly pressing for more information.

"Yeah un, because I didn't live here growing up. I moved here exactly two weeks after mum died… I never felt right living in that big house with all those people around to do things for me un. I never liked having money… is that weird?"

"Yeah brat, that's weird. You know how many people I'd kill to be in your position?"

"Hm, probably the same amount of people I'd kill to be in yours un. Isn't it nice having people depend on you, people who care about you and need you?"

I thought for a moment about my cousins, they were a handful at the best of times and were always doing stupid things. Sometimes they were mind-numbingly stupid and other times I just wished I could get away from them. They were basically good kids though and it was clear – most of the time anyway – that they meant well enough.

I opened my mouth to answer his question, only to find that he'd fallen asleep. I could feel his full weight on my shoulder, and I could see the less-troubled look on his face. I was exhausted as well, so I just laid back, allowing him to fall back as well. I closed my eyes and once again, I let darkness take over.

I seriously just couldn't resist putting his cousins in for a little while! i love them!