The next month consisted mostly of the majority of the Akatsuki sitting at a table with their lawyers and Tsunade, going over the charges they'd be pressing and the charges being pressed upon them while eating pizza and guzzling sodas like they were going out of style. Foolery began reading off the charges, while Nanigans helped himself to another slice of pepperoni and sausage pizza. "Ok, we're facing charges of reckless driving and endangerment of nearby citizens, breaking and entering in the home of Mr. Senju's family-"

"Zetsu, for the hundredth time."

"Wait, your last name is Senju?" Sasori asked in surprise.

"Yes, why?"

"It's just…never mind."

"Continuing on," Mr. Foolery interjected before the conversation could get too far off track, "We dodged one count evading arrest at that park, since Konan paying in cash means that there's no paper trail (meaning you people are best off never speaking of that again) but we're still working on getting the police to drop the original charge, so that's the main battle we'll be fighting. Oh, and there's the small matter of Itachi being charged with assault-"

"WHAT?!"

"Yes, apparently he bludgeoned a mandolin player with his own mandolin," Nanigans explained, looking over the case file beneath his can of root beer. "I've never seen a case like this before, so points for originality, Mr. Uchiha."

"Why that little-"

"Easy angel," Kisame began, attempting to soothe Itachi. Back on good terms with his boyfriend, Kisame had returned to fulfilling an Akatsuki member's explicit task of keeping his partner happy and under control, which was becoming increasingly difficult as the group's trial date came ever closer and closer.

"Foolery and Nanigans will handle it," Pein assured the weasel. This bout of legal trouble had brought out a surprisingly capable side of Pein, and for once the Akatsuki members were obeying their leader's orders without much arguing. "Just go back to doing our homework. That's our number one concern right now, and you know it."

Due to their imminent prosecution/prosecuting, Tsunade had given the Akatsuki an extended absence from school, seeing as they'd only draw more fame and renown from their fellow students for actually ending up in court this time. The absence was contingent on one important factor, however: they still needed to turn in their homework on time, lest they fall too far behind in class and needed to be help back (something that Tsunade was sure would cause half the teachers to revolt against her, and was more of the driving force for this decision than anything else).

To no one's surprise, Pein interpreted these terms and conditions of their continued enrollment as "dump everything on Itachi because he can handle it", and as a result the weasel had spent the past three weeks at a desk in the kitchen, typing up papers and filling out take-home tests like there was no tomorrow.

"You know, if you are going to undermine my school system's rules, you could at least try and hide it," Tsunade grumbled, more than a bit miffed at the teenager's blatant lack of respect for her authority.

"Itachi's just maintaining our current GPAs," Pein assured the principal. "I need everyone else to focus on behaving themselves and not getting us into more legal problems, and quite frankly most of them have difficulty multi-tasking if it involves staying on the good side of the law."

Tsunade couldn't really argue that point; these kids were bright, but most of them had definitely come into the world lacking the average amount of common sense. Besides, living with the Akatsuki for these past few weeks had greatly reduced her will to fight any idea which didn't involve blood or fire, as the woman had quickly learned that those were really the only two things you needed to concern yourself with when picking battles in this house. "Just don't make it blatantly obviously that the group genius is handling your homework, got it?"

"Hn," Itachi agreed as he handed a finished essay to Pein. It was a very fortunate thing that Itachi had the willpower to persevere through carpal tunnel, otherwise the Akatsuki would have been in trouble days ago.

"He wants to know if it's C+ quality," Kisame translated. "For Hidan's English class."

"C'mon Itachi, at least make it a B!" Hidan begged. "For Jashin's sake, I can't do my own work right now, I've gotta deal with all those fucking fangirls!"

"And all 12,432 cases of assault we're pressing against them," Foolery added. "Although it would probably be easier and cheaper to just charge the JRCH for poor security and endangerment of visitors."

"Done and done!" Nanigans concurred. "Last, we no longer have to deal with a charge of kidnapping Deidara, but, er…child services might possibly kinda sorta be planning on looking into his family situation-"

"WHAT, UN?!"

Sasori knew his partner well enough to sense that a verbal explosion was imminent, and did his best to cut it off before it was too late. "Deidara-"

"Why the hell are they investigating, un?! The police didn't find anything here-"

"Thank Kami," Pein murmured.

"And I'm better living with you guys, un! Danna gives me more love and attention than my parents ever did, and hell will freeze over before I leave again, un!"

"Deidara, the lawyers are handling it," Pein promised. "Please settle down; you're scaring Ms. Tsunade."

"It's just…un!" Deidara growled, hurling his can of soda across the room. Tragically for the bomber, his can bounced off the wall and rebounded onto Itachi's desk, spilling soda all over the laptop and shorting out the device. Everyone stood stock still as the weasel stared in disbelief at the wrecked laptop, and all the unfinished work that he'd now lost because of the blond's foolish mistake. "Um…whoops?" Deidara offered with a nervous chuckle. "Sorry Itachi, un."

The weasel set his lips in a grim line, abruptly stood up and knocked his chair back, and stormed out of the room with a final, "Hn."

"Angel!" Kisame scolded, blanching from the weasel's comment.

"What did he say?" Pein asked, worried that the message had been some sort of veiled threat against Deidara. The last thing he needed right now was dissention among the ranks, but with his luck that would be where things were headed now.

"I'm not repeating it," the shark answered. "I'd have to scrub my mouth with soap. In a minute, I'm gonna scrub out his mouth with soap!"

"Jashin damnit, it can't be that bad," Hidan snapped. "Just fucking tell us."

"Fine. But…Zetsu, can you cover Tobi's ears?"

"Tobi wants to hear!" the masked teen protested. Nevertheless, Zetsu clamped his hands over the younger man's ears, and nodded to Kisame once he was positive that the Uchiha couldn't hear a thing.

Tobi had to admit, not getting to hear what his cousin had said was almost worth watching as the other Akatsuki members, the lawyers, and Tsunade gaped at the shark with every increasing horror, turn various shades of pink, green, or pale, and finally sank into a zombie-like state when the shark finished. Translation complete, Kisame rose from his seat and exited the room, presumably to wash his mouth out with soap as he'd previously promised to do.

"Right," Pein finally said after taking a long sip of soda. "From now on, when Kisame says we don't wanna know what Itachi just said, we should probably listen to him. Agreed?"

The concurrence of this sentiment was unanimous.

-later that evening-

Deidara sat on the couch in the living room, flipping through the channels in a bored manner. The blond would have much rather preferred to be in the attic with Sasori, but the Akasuna was doing a bit of sanding right now, and sawdust had to be in the top five on the list of things that are unbelievably difficult to get out of your hair. Thus, Deidara was currently confined to the living room, and Kami knew when he'd be able to go back upstairs.

Deidara's lamenting was temporarily halted by the sound of the doorbell ringing, followed by a knock on the front door. Curious, the bomber got out of his seat and approached the door's peephole to see who it could be. The lawyers had already gone home and promised not to come back until Itachi was in a better mood, and the media had given them a wide berth, so who could it be? Squinting, Deidara stood on his toes and looked out, shocked to find- "Mom? Dad?!"

Completely flabbergasted by the appearance of his parents, Deidara hastily unlocked and opened the door to get a better look, and demand an explanation for why the two adult Iwas were standing on his porch. Legally they were to be kept apart until child services could figure out what to do with Deidara, and their presence, however well meaning, could only hurt their cause.

Unfortunately for the bomber, Deidara never got a chance to voice these concerns in an articulate manner. As soon as the door was opened he was assaulted by a hug from his mom, who appeared to be on the verge of bursting into tears. "Oh sweetie, we've missed you so much!"

"Mom?! The lawyers said you can't be here, un! It'll skew-"

"We know, Deidara, but this needs to be said. And not over the phone; your father and I agreed that this needed to be done face to face, and the sooner the better." Stepping back, Deidara's mother took a deep, cleansing breath, and gave her son a loving look. "We understand why you ran away. We should've figured it out a long time ago, but we needed to see it in plain ol' black and white in the papers, I guess."

"Son," Deidara's father picked up, "why didn't you just tell us you're gay?"

"…What, un?"

Deidara's mom continued giving a rather baffled Deidara a look of pure love and understanding, completely oblivious to her son's confusion. "Oh sweetie, after reading about you and this Sasori fellow, we finally saw the truth! You were too scared to admit that you were gay to us, so you let us send you away to boarding school to hide it! But then I guessed you missed your boyfriend too much and didn't want to hide, so you ran away with your friends to escape from it all."

"That's not-"

"Honestly, Deidara," Mr. Iwa continued, "it was reckless and stupid of you to act like that, but I suppose I can see why you thought it was necessary."

"But son, we love you for who and what you are, not what you think we want you to be! Gay or straight, you're still our Deidara, and we love you no matter what!"

"We need to go now, honey," Deidara's father interrupted, touching his wife on the shoulder. "If the police find out about this-"

"Right, dear. We'll see you soon, baby; we love you bunches!" And before Deidara could get a word in edgewise, his parents had run off the porch and gotten into their car, before driving off into the night.

Wordlessly, Deidara shut and locked the door, walked up one flight of stairs and then the ladder to the attic (happy to find that Sasori was done with the sanding for now) and crawled into bed, pulling the covers over his head. "Deidara?" Sasori asked, giving his boyfriend a confused look.

"My parents are the biggest idiots on planet Earth, un," Deidara explained before pulling a pillow over his head.

"Might I ask what brought this on?"

Deidara poked his head out from under the pillow to give Sasori a flat look. "They think I ran away with you because I was scared to tell them I'm gay, un." And with that, he ducked back under the pillow.

Sasori blinked once, twice, and then burst out laughing, doubling over and clutching his sides as tears brimmed in his eyes. "They honestly…think…oh dear Kami, that's hilarious."

"It's not funny, un," Deidara pouted from under the covers.

"Oh yes it is, brat. Even if it's messed up for your parents to be so ignorant, the fact that their guess is so far off the mark is pretty funny."

Deidara turned the thought over in his mind for a moment or two, before grinning and snickering a bit. "Ok, maybe it's a little funny, un."

"I don't suppose they told you whether or not they accept me, did they?"

"Well no, but I don't think they hate you," Deidara reasoned. "Guess that'll be something else I need to talk to them about, un."

"So, you are planning on having a discussion with them?" Sasori asked, moving onto the bed and taking a seat by Deidara.

The blond nodded and extracted himself from the pillow, sitting up and leaning his head against Sasori's shoulder. "We really need to, un. Just a couple hours to clarify who I am and what I'm going to do with my life, un. You're part of that plan, so I need to talk about you, un."

"I'm sure they'll be willing to listen, provided you get them to be quiet long enough to hear what you have to say," Sasori assured the blond in the hopes of bolstering his spirit. "Just don't back down, ok?"

"Not a chance in hell, danna," Deidara promised.

"Hm, you know, I really like it when you act all feisty like that," Sasori murmured, leaning in to nibble Deidara's neck.

"Danna!" Deidara squealed, squirming away from the tickling sensation Sasori was causing. But the rest of the bomber's protests were quickly lost when Sasori flipped him onto his back and dove in for a kiss. Tomorrow they could worry about Deidara's parents; for now, it was high time for a little indulgence in the privacy of their own attic.

-n-

"Everyone's tucked in?" Konan asked as Pein snuggled in beside her on the couch's pullout bed.

"Mhm," the ginger answered as he kissed Konan's cheek. "Sasori and Deidara are still awake, judging from the sounds I heard, but they should be asleep soon enough. Kisame and Itachi are asleep, but all the soap they use is gone, so I went ahead and added that to the grocery list. Kakuzu and Hidan are in their rooms, and Zetsu and Tobi are coloring or something. and Tsunade, of course, is using our room for something, either sleep or paperwork, I'm not sure which."

"Sounds like everything's under control for once," Konan admitted with a grin.

"Shh, you'll jinx it."

The origami mistress smiled as she watched her boyfriend burrow under the covers, tugging her down to snuggle in his arms for a bit. Pein was taking this trial far harder than anyone knew, and knowing him he would die before admitting how stressed this mess was making him. "Pein, everything will be all right."

"Of course it will, Konan. Everyone knows that."

"Really? How exactly do you know that, Pein?"

"Because we established a very long time ago that whatever evil force controls the universe hates me. Therefore, they'd want me to suffer for a very long time, and the easiest way to do that is to ensure that nearly all of my time is devoted to managing the ninnies we know have living in our house. If we're separated by legal action or anything else, my suffering will no longer be so intense, and the dark evil powers on high simply won't allow for that. Therefore, we will go to court, we will come out fine, as always, and I will be that much closer to death via an Advil overdose."

Konan blinked in surprise, before staring up at her boyfriend. "You know, in the weirdest most impossible way…that kind of makes sense."

"I'm aware. Now please let me sleep before the next terrible thing happens, because it's always a matter of when the dark powers will attack me, not if." And rolling her eyes at the ginger's professed sufferings, Konan nuzzled into his chest and allowed the duo to drift off.