Author's note: we're being slave-driven on this story. she's not even in the same state as we are right now, and she won't leave us alone... the things we do for our friends... anyway, on to the disclaimer!
Disclaimer: we own nothing, except erin and various teachers. well, we don't actually own erin. that would be dominatrix-y and creepy and illegal. she owns herself. but we own her character in this story. except that the character is her. so we don't even own that. -sigh-
Extra: oh, and we looked up the bits about woodworking. who ever said that we don't do our research, yeah?
--kyra

Woodwork

Sasori carefully unwrapped the miniature puppets, examining them for flaws this far into the procedure. He was supremely grateful that he had woodshop first on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It would be more than he could take to have to start every single day with an awful class. At least this way, he had something to look forward to every other day. It wasn't ideal, but it was better than nothing. Much better than nothing.

His eyes darted around the room, seeing other students bent over slabs of wood. It had been nothing more than sheer bliss to enter a classroom, one that was so familiar, despite the fact that he'd never actually been in it before, and get an actual assignment. He'd had to listen to so many boring lectures about how things were done in High School that he was ready to screw the entire thing and move on to college right away. Itachi could help him with entrance exams, right?

And then he'd come to woodshop, and right away the teacher had passed out blocks of wood and told them to make something. Some of the students, particularly the girls with long hair who were almost certainly only in this class because they needed the practical arts credits, had looked horrified at the idea, but, to Sasori, it was perfect. He immediately pushed away the wood slab, seeing it for the cheap stuff it was, and had removed his puppets, which he'd taken just in case. After all, there was no harm in hoping. This time, his hope had even been rewarded!

He picked up one of the school gouges and began to work on the finer points of his mother's cheeks and face. He would attach the hair and things later, but the basic head was all wood, and he wanted it to look as real as possible. He supposed it might not be as good as one his grandmother could make, but he was determined to try. After all, he was the last of the family; the talent was his to carry on as best he could. Being who he was, he knew in his heart that he would be the best.

The teacher, a burly-looking man with a mop of red hair, paused in front of Sasori, looking down in interest as the flame-headed boy worked. Sasori didn't glance up, absorbed as he was with the finer points of the cheekbone.

"That's some carving you've got there."

Sasori looked up at last, careful not to jar his knife and so destroy the balance that was the puppet. "It's not a carving."

"Oh? Then what is it? A statute?"

"A puppet."

The teacher's eyebrows lifted. He bent to examine the figures more closely. "May I?" he asked, nodding at the half-finished puppet of Sasori's father. Sasori shrugged, turning back to his work. The teacher gently picked up the puppet, carefully scrutinizing every inch of it. He put it back down with respect. "What's your name?"

"Sasori."

"Well, I'll say this right now, Sasori: I don't think this class has anything to teach you. Frankly, I'm amazed you're taking it."

Sasori shrugged. "There was a whole in my schedule."

"Tell me the truth: what do you expect to learn?"

"Nothing."

The teacher blinked at Sasori's bluntness. Sasori guessed that he hadn't been expecting such a frank answer. Well, he'd asked for it. Sasori wasn't one for mincing words, and he didn't believe in lying. It was far more trouble than it was worth.

"Right, well that's about right… So, why don't we do this? You can work on your puppets while I teach the class, and you'll check in periodically so that I can make sure you aren't goofing off. Not that I think you will. The way you work with those tools shows me that you know your way around wood. Incidentally, do you have your own?"

"Of course."

"You can bring them if you want. I wouldn't carry them around with you, but you can leave them here in the mornings. The ones here… might not be what you're used to."

"They're dull and cheap," Sasori agreed, putting the gouge down and blowing away the woodchips. "I'll bring my own." He reached for the sandpaper, finishing the soft curves and smoothing away the faults in the wood.

The teacher hesitated for a moment, then shrugged slightly, as if to say, 'he's odd and impolite, but not generally horrible.' He walked away, leaving Sasori alone at last. He sighed slightly in relief. He hated being watched as he worked. It made him uneasy, as though whoever it was was prying into his soul and exposing it to the world. Sasori guarded his work, as well as his soul, with a cold exterior, extending so far and so deeply that he almost believed it was all there was.

Far too early, the end of the period came, and he carefully put his puppets away, vowing to stash them in his locker at the soonest possible opportunity. It was one thing to sketch in class; it was quite another to be working on something like that. Sketching he could get away with. Carving, he couldn't.

He used the locker stop to check his schedule. Psychology. Lovely. Like woodshop, he was only taking it to fill a hole in his schedule. Imagine his surprise, and partial dismay, when he realized that Itachi was also taking the class. Itachi, despite his lack of communication skills, was one of Sasori's good friends, but there was no denying that being in a class with the black haired Uchiha genius was a bit of a blow to one's ego. One had to realize that there was no way in Hell one would be able to beat him, and the battles for grades were always for second highest spot. Ever since kindergarten, when Itachi had turned in his drawings colored perfectly within the lines more quickly than anyone else, no one had been able to beat him. Sasori, who was more competitive than he liked to admit, wasn't particularly happy about that. Still, having class with Itachi was better than having class with no one he knew at all.

Thankfully, his locker was close to the classroom, and he entered it with time to spare. Itachi, of course, was already there, but there were certainly many empty seats. Itachi didn't look up as Sasori sat down next to him, but the redhead knew that he'd been noticed and greeted. He nodded slightly in return and pulled out the sketchpad, flipping to an empty page and staring at it, wondering what to draw now? He'd reached the state of artistic voidness where he was pleasantly drained of all inspiration. He had no idea what to draw, but it was a soft not knowing, like when you've been running for a long time and stop to rest. In a few days, he would reach that state of crippling artist's block that consumed his very being until he could think of nothing else but the need to create, but he wasn't there yet, and he allowed the blankness of the page to lull him into a half-hypnotized state, broken only by the entrance of a familiar figure.

The blond girl sat down a little ways away and extracted her composition notebook from her backpack. She didn't seem to suffer from any kind of artistic voidness, plunging as she did directly into the writing. Itachi's eyes flickered up once, then away, but Sasori guess that he'd seen and registered everything he needed to about her. He knew instantly that the black haired boy viewed the girl as no threat to him whatsoever. Sasori was inclined to agree. With as much attention as she paid to the actual classes, she would be lucky to pass, much less vie with Itachi for top spot.

Once again seeming to sense that she was being watched, she looked up from her notebook and met Sasori's eyes. She closed the notebook, though she kept it tucked into her arms, and went over to him.

"Hi. You're in my Chem class, aren't you?"

Sasori nodded.

"I'm Erin."

"Sasori."

She smiled, then nodded at the sketchpad. "You too?"

"Excuse me?"

"Clinically obsessed with what you do?"

Itachi, usually the quiet, stoic one, grimaced slightly, though whether it was a grimace of irritation at having his concentration interrupted or a grimace of amusement at Erin's description of Sasori's condition, Sasori couldn't tell. He didn't bother to ask. All he'd get in return would be one of Itachi's trademark glares.

"I suppose you could say that, yes," Sasori agreed dryly. "Why do you ask?"

Her smile turned to a full blown grin as she replied, "Oh, I'm just relieved to know that I'm not the only one." She gestured to her notebook. "I've lived with this for over a year now."

Sasori nodded. "I see. And it's all the same story about vampires?"

She nodded back. "Yep."

The bell signaling the beginning of the period rang then, and she flashed him a slightly apologetic smile as she scurried back to her seat. He nodded back slightly, then turned back to his paper, wondering what to draw. Artistic voidness was all very well, but there was no denying that being able to draw something would certainly kill the boredom creeping stealing towards him.

Thankfully, the teacher arrived moments later, her brisk step and business-like attitude enough to quell all cracks the students might have made about her being late. Even Erin poked her head up from her notebook, though she didn't go so far as to close it.

"Shall we get started?" Despite the question mark at the end, it clearly wasn't a question, and there were no answers. There was, however, an awful lot of paper-crumpling as people hastily tore out pages from notebooks that shouldn't be seen by teachers. Sasori wondered, with slight irony, whether any of the students were called up and studied by the class as test cases. If that were the case, maybe Zetsu should have signed up. Though, come to think about it, Itachi wouldn't make a bad lab rat… if he didn't kill the people trying to study him. Though it was probably that very psychotic tendency of his that would make him so interesting to study.

The paper rustling gradually faded to a hush, and the teacher smiled at them. "Thank you. My name's Miss Dunston, and I'm sure we're going to have a wonderful year together." Sasori knew already that he would hate her.

After English, which he had with Deidara, much to the latter's surprise and pleasure, Sasori meandered down to the cafeteria, wondering what to do about Deidara. There were Pein's instructions to be considered, of course, but there was also Deidara himself. He might be physically Sasori's age, but Sasori was fairly certain that he hadn't seen half the things Sasori had, and couldn't handle any of them. There was character as well as ability to be considered when dealing with new members.

He sat down at the table, greeting Konan and Itachi, the only other ones there already, before examining the substance on his plate.

"It's supposed to be meat," Konan remarked helpfully, as he poked dubiously at a quivering gray mass.

"I know what it's supposed to be," Sasori assured her. "I just don't think that that's what it is."

"Don't think what's what what is?"

Sasori glanced up as Kisame sat down on Itachi's other side and gestured at the pile of gray matter. "This is being advertised as some variety of meat product. It probably is, but I don't want to know which variety."

Kisame shrugged and took a healthy bite of his own. Sasori winced at that. Despite the fact that Kisame could, and did, eat almost anything he came across, it was still unnerving and disgusting to see his friend dig in with such gusto to an unidentifiable substance.

Kisame chewed for far too long to make Sasori comfortable, swallowed, and nodded. "It's meat," he assured them. "Kinda rubbery, but eatable."

Konan looked at it with disgust, her pencil-drawn eyebrows scrunching together.

"Dude, that's fucking dumb ass," Hidan, apparently having caught Kisame's last remark, interrupted whichever scathing, but grammatically correct, remark Konan was about to utter. "I mean seriously! You don't know what that is!"

"Says the guy who drinks his own blood," Kisame snapped back, taking another bite.

Hidan scowled. "Will you all shut the hell up about that? You don't know what the fuck you're talking about, any of you. It's not suicide, and it's not vampirism. It's ritual mutilation to get in touch with God and nature."

Sasori grimaced. He didn't believe in God, and hearing Hidan go on about religion like that wasn't particularly pleasant, though it rated high on the entertainment scale, especially when Hidan and Kakuzu, even more atheist than Sasori, went at it with all they had. But Kakuzu was apparently thinking of something else, because he didn't retort with a biting comment about the futility of waiting for something you were never sure existed.

The conversation, lacking that crucial ingredient, lagged until Zetsu sat down. Sasori looked up as the boy sat across from him and smiled slightly. "I saw your friend today."

He blinked. "Who?"

"Erin. You know, the girl in chemistry yesterday."

Zetsu nodded, his face showing only the slightest trace of either embarrassment or excitement at the news.

"She's in our Psyche class."

"'Our' class?" Kisame leaned forward as Pein, the last of the group, joined them. "Who else is there?"

Sasori nodded at Itachi. Kisame turned to look at his friend. "You're taking Psychology?!"

Itachi nodded slightly. "Why do you seem so surprised?"

"It's just… you? You could write the whole textbook if you wanted to!"

Itachi grimaced, standing. "Thank you so much," he replied. In anyone else, the tone would have been flat, completely emotionless. Coming from Itachi, they all knew that he was getting more than seriously angry with his navy-haired friend. And when Itachi got annoyed, blood tended to fly. "I love having my nose rubbed in my issues first thing each day. I shall come back tomorrow for another dose of your miracle medicine. Until then, goodbye." With that, he stalked away, the people stepping aside for him without quite knowing why they did so, just sensing that this wasn't a person to be trifled with.

Pein snorted. "Now you've done it," he informed a bewildered Kisame. "He won't talk to us all day. If we're lucky, he'll have forgiven us by tomorrow. If we're lucky."

"What did I say?" Kisame demanded, scowling. "I don't remember saying anything!"

Konan rolled her eyes. "Oh, honestly! Can you be that dense?"

"Apparently so," Kisame snapped. "Care to enlighten me, oh elevated member of the female gender, since you seem to be so knowledgeable in the subject?"

Konan brushed a strand of cerulean hair behind her ear and replied, "Most people don't like being reminded of their personal issues. With Itachi, it's double, since no one's supposed to know about said issues. They're private, and he's bound to react that way to anyone or anything that seems about to jeopardize that privacy. Does that answer your question?"

Kisame was too busy staring at her to answer. Finally, he managed, "How do you know that? I mean, I'm his best friend, and even I don't know that much about him!"

She laughed, tossing the rest of her locks out of her way with an adroit twist of the head. "I'm a girl," she reminded him.

"I had noticed that, yes," he agreed.

"Then you should know that we're more observant, more perceptive, and less stubborn than the common male." This was punctuated with a glower at Pein, who glowered right back.

Kisame raised his hands slightly in mock surrender. "Okay, okay. I get it. Jeez, you'd think I'd broken a cardinal rule or something."

"You did," Pein answered. "You insulted girls. She doesn't like that."

Konan's glower intensified. "I can fight my own battles, thanks all the same," she snapped.

"I'm not trying to fight them for you," he snapped back. "I'm trying to keep the peace so that we don't end up killing each other."

"As opposed to killing our 'enemies'?"

"Or severely injuring them," Pein replied seriously, oblivious to any undertones of sarcasm that might have leaked into her words. Zetsu, less oblivious, snickered quietly. Pein shot a glance at him, decided not to ask, and looked away.

They continued eating in silence, none of them really willing to antagonize anyone farther. The thing with being part of a group like theirs was that one had to learn when not to speak. One's life could depend on it… literally.

The bell finally rang, and they stood, gathering their things and disposing of their largely untouched meals. Only Kisame had eaten any of the meat, and even he hadn't attempted to consume the salad. Then again, it was Kisame. He was almost as much of a complete carnivore as Zetsu, who hadn't eaten anything other than meat for far too long.

Suddenly, Itachi's scowling figure appeared in the doorway, his red contacts only enhancing his dangerous aura. Kisame frowned slightly, and walked towards his friend. Sasori followed, staying slightly to the side, so as to avoid being in direct range of Itachi's trademark glare. Sasori would do many, if not most things, but crossing Itachi when he was in this kind of mood wasn't one of them.

"Where did you go?" Kisame demanded, also slightly to one side.

"Library."

"Oh?"

"And I got nothing done!"

"Why not?"

"I was… distracted." Well, that was certainly a first. Uchiha Itachi getting distracted? Sasori wasn't at all sure he had ever experienced that before. It had to be a new sensation and, if Itachi's rigidly controlled rage was any indication, it wasn't a pleasant one.

"By what?" Kisame was clearly curious. Anything that could distract Itachi was worth steering away from.

"Girl."

Despite the hubbub in the cafeteria, Sasori heard absolutely dead silence for the next three seconds. He and Kisame exchanged horrified glances, which translated to, 'This can't possibly be the Itachi we know and fear. It has to be an impersonation.'

"Irritation." Itachi had clearly noticed the distinct lack of anything even remotely resembling noise.

Kisame let out his breath. "Oh. That's a relief."

Itachi turned his glare on his friend, but it had toned down several megawatts. He didn't look at Sasori, for which the redhead was very grateful. Even toned down, he didn't want to face Itachi's glare.

"Who was it?" Kisame asked, his stance and tone indicating that whoever it was had very little time left to live. He was already fingering his inside pocket, which contained the wickedly sharp pocket knife which he kept on him at all times.

"The girl in psychology." Kisame didn't know her, but Sasori did. His eyes widened.

"Erin? What did she do?"

Itachi didn't reply. Kisame glanced at Sasori. "Who?"

Sasori shrugged. "She's in our psychology class. She also has Chem with me and Zetsu."

"Oh, the one he's talking to?"

Sasori nodded. Itachi glanced at him. "Zetsu likes her?"

Sasori nodded again. "I think he likes her. Or the voice does. I'm not sure which. They argued about it all period yesterday."

Kisame snorted. "This'll be fun. Has he ever actually talked to a girl?"

"He has now. They had almost a whole conversation yesterday. Besides, there's Konan."

"How much do Zetsu and Konan talk?"

Sasori considered it. "I don't believe they do," he said finally.

"See?"

Itachi made a sound which clearly said, 'I'm Itachi, and I'm pissed, and you guys aren't paying any attention to me here!'

Kisame turned back to him. "What do you expect me to say? You met a girl, you argued with her, and you lost. Nothing'll change that, and the only way you'll get over it is to go terrorize your brother and his friends."

"A temporary solution. No, this girl must be neutralized, and at once."

Sasori raised his eyebrows. "'Neutralized?' A little harsh, don't you think? What are you going to do, beat her to death with a textbook?" He glanced at Itachi's textbooks. "Come to think of it, that might actually work. Though Zetsu wouldn't be pleased."

Kisame looked at him darkly, an action which Sasori interpreted to mean, 'You're not helping, you know.'

He shrugged. "I don't know about you, but I'm off. See you guys tomorrow." He left the cafeteria, heading for his locker.

Zetsu caught up with him halfway there. "What did you do it Itachi?"

"Me? Nothing! It's your girlfriend who's got him all riled up."

"She's not my girlfriend!"

Sasori stopped, and stared at his friend. He hadn't expected such a reaction. Zetsu wasn't one to get worked up over things. That he was so adamantly denying even the possibility of a relationship with Erin spoke volumes about how much he actually did like her.

Sasori shrugged. "Have it your way. Anyway, if you want to know what happened, ask her."

Zetsu shook his head. "No thanks. What do you have next?"

"I'm off."

"Me too."

Sasori grinned. "Cool. What are you going to do?"

Zetsu shrugged. "Go home, probably. Anything to stay out of Hidan and Kakuzu's way."

"Why?"

"They're arguing about religion again."

Sasori rolled his eyes. "Oh God. No pun intended. Will they never stop?"

"Probably not."

"Then I'm going to stay out of their way too. I'm assuming that they're off as well?"

Zetsu nodded. Sasori sighed. "Figures. You want to go eat something?"

"We just had lunch," Zetsu pointed out.

"How much of that did you eat?"

Zetsu smiled slightly. "Good point. Where do you want to go?"

Sasori shrugged. "I don't care. Anything good around here?"

"Chipotle," Zetsu suggested. "They have good food."

Sasori looked at him with slightly narrowed eyes. "How much of it is vegetable-like?"

His smile turned into a full fledged grin. "Not much at all."

Sasori laughed. "Figures. All righ,t let's go. I'll pay this time."

Zetsu nodded, and they started off towards the front door, backpacks slung carelessly over one shoulder. "I can sense this will be a tradition."

"Same. Especially if Kisame keeps going on about the lunch meat."

Zetsu shuddered slightly. "Not before we eat. Please."

Sasori laughed again.