Alrighty, I have several explanations that I am sure you do not want to hear, so I will just list one: I JUST APPLIED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY TONIGHT AND I AM FREAKING OUT!! Will I get in? Probably not. Can I hope? I could..but if I have no dreams, then they can never be disappointed, right? Can I blame it on bad luck if I don't get in? Yes, and I will! Which is why I am the girl dressed in a Halloween costume outside Target jingling a bell and begging for good luck. Anyway, I'm so sorry for the wait!
And for those who reviewed, nice thought about the alternate universe – cool idea, but unfortunately not what happened! The story's alive!!!!Read on~
Pein stared in slight surprise at the now-fallen blond, stroking the amulet absently.
He sighed before preparing to stand and take care of the blond, deciding after careful deliberation it wasn't a good idea to let him lay on the ground all night.
Before he could rise, however, the blond stirred and let out a groan. He sat up slowly and looked around blearily. He twitched when he spotted Pein out of the corner of his eye and nearly overbalanced when he spun to look at him.
"W-Who are you, yeah?" Deidara asked, a touch of fear in his voice. Pein frowned.
"What do you mean? You know who I am." Pein said.
"N-No…"Deidara shook his head, "I have no idea who you are or where this place is, yeah."
Pein examined Deidara thoughtfully as he fingered the amulet again. He silently analyzed the blond's scared position, the complete opposite of what he had been standing in earlier. Had his position in a house full of bloodthirsty vampires actually sunk in?
"You are in the Akatsuki base." Pein said, not bothering to answer the question of who he was. "You are an ancient concubine from Egypt, Deidara."
"Wh-what the hell are you talking about, yeah?!" Deidara said, confused. "My name is Logan. And I'm not from Egypt, I'm from L.A."
Pein made no facial expression but for a slight twitch of his eyebrow. Now that he really looked at the blond, he noticed his hair was much less lustrous and had the slightly ragged look of split ends. His reflective blue eyes were much lighter and leaning toward silver rather than the deep blue of Deidara's eyes. He seemed to have the type of stance of someone who would rather melt into the wall than confront a problem confidently.
"Hm." Pein said, tilting his head slightly. Pein held up the amulet so Deidara, er 'Logan', could see it. "Do you recognize this?"
'Logan' shook his head, confused.
"Look, I don't know what's going on here, but I sure as hell am not staying to find out." He stood to leave but Pein stopped him.
"I wouldn't go out there. There's several hungry vampires that wouldn't hesitate to bite." Pein lied easily. Logan paled and stepped back a bit from the door, as though the vampires would come through at any moment. "Now, you say that you're from Los Angeles."
"That's right, yeah." Logan said warily. "I moved here to go to school, but right now, I'm just earning money for it through prostitution…"
Pein was a little surprised at Logan's openness.
"And what were you hoping to study?"
"Art, yeah. Sculpture." Logan responded with a bit more enthusiasm.
"I see. Logan…would you mind doing something for me? I'll get you out safely if you do." Pein asked.
"I guess…" Logan responded unsurely.
"Could you put on this amulet for me?" Pein held out the amulet. Logan looked at Pein suspiciously.
"Why?" He asked.
"An experiment. It's not dangerous, I promise." Pein said. Logan hesitated, but found himself entranced by Pein's ringed, glowing gray eyes and unconsciously reached out to take the amulet, sliding it over his head and around his neck.
Logan just stood there stupidly for a few seconds until jerking violently in a sort of mini-seizure and his eye blinked harshly. When his eye opened again, Pein noticed that the color had deepened to that of Deidara's eye color.
Deidara blinked a few more times, seemingly confused before turning to Pein.
"Pein?" Deidara asked hesitantly. "What happened?"
"…I believe I have an explanation of how you are here, Deidara." Pein said. "I believe that there is a special connection between that amulet that you wear and your…"conscious," we'll call it. As far as I can tell, you are actually in person from this time's body and are sort of possessing it. I think that amulet is a dividing line between you and him."
Deidara let all this information sink in before speaking again.
"So…what's the other person like?" Deidara asked.
"His name's Logan and he is a prostitute. He is using prostitution to save up money to go to college for sculpting." Pein summarized what he had found out about Deidara's resident body's true personality.
"A prostitute?" Deidara looked surprised.
"Yes. You should go now, I must think about this more." Pein suggested.
Deidara nodded and turned to leave.
"Oh, and don't lose that amulet. It's basically you." Pein called after the blond just before he closed the door after him.
Out in the hallway, Deidara found that Hidan had waited for him farther along, leaning against the wall casually. He straightened when he saw Deidara heading for him.
"How'd it go, Dei?" Hidan asked.
"…It was…decent, un." Deidara hesitated before deciding not to mention his little incident involving his resident body.
"…We have to wait for pretty boy to get back and give us a fucking tour or whatever." Hidan said with an air of impatience.
"…Hidan, may I ask what a transvestite is now?" Deidara tilted his head at the pink-eyed vampire. Hidan blinked, his face showing embarrassment as his cheeks reddened slightly.
"A…transvestite is, ah…is…" Hidan struggled for words and to keep the blush from spreading. "A person…who, um…was born a certain gender and – "
"I have a simpler explanation."
Hidan and Deidara turned to see Sasori walking calmly toward them with his arms folded. The redhead seemed much calmer – though his evil aura had not disappeared – and his eyes seemed a bit less red than before. He gazed at them emotionlessly as a small smirk twisted his lips.
"Look down, brat."
Deidara furrowed his eyebrows and looked down, confused. All he saw was the carpeted floor and his shoes – which were thongs. He couldn't find anything other shoes in his host body's home that he could figure out.
"You're a transvestite, brat." Sasori said, a hint of cruel laughter in his voice. Hidan made an annoyed sound and glared at the redhead.
Deidara just looked back up at Sasori with his head tilted, as if saying "Really?"
Sasori withheld a snicker and watched Hidan grimace at Deidara's curious expression. "Don't listen to him, Dei, he's lying. You're a perfectly fucking normal guy."
Deidara's expression cleared at Hidan's finalizing tone and he looked back at Sasori. "Sasori, sir, you have some blood on your lip." Deidara's voice was respectful with a hint of a condescending undertone.
Sasori licked up the drop of blood on his lip as if it was a stray bit of sugar that escaped his mouth.
"You sure hunted pretty fucking fast, Red." Hidan commented.
"Luckily there was a nearby stranger walking alone in the dark. Pinky." Sasori added the last part with a bit of venom.
"Well, since you guys are already talking, perhaps Sasori should give you a tour." Itachi came up behind Sasori, making Deidara and Hidan jump at his sudden appearance. His flat red eyes scanned the two. "Come."
With that, he turned and walked off, as if expecting them to follow obediently. Sasori raised an eyebrow when they made no move to follow the red-eyed vampire. "You should probably go. Itachi won't wait forever."
Deidara nodded at the redhead and made a move to walk past him to follow Itachi. He paused to wait for his vampire friend to catch up before continuing on.
They found Itachi in the entrance hall, arms crossed as he stood in the middle of the room. He didn't mention their late arrival and they didn't bring it up as he gave them a tour of the large house.
There were rooms for all of the members – except half of them were filled with junk, so they would have to share for the time being until they cleared it out. Itachi explained how they had just cleaned out a former member's junk and stuffed it into random rooms.
Other than the bedrooms, there was a kitchen down near the entrance hall – god knows why they had one since most of them were vampires – and a living room, also on the first floor.
Itachi left them back at the main entrance hall without a word, merely walking off silently.
Deidara jumped when the front door slammed open, some sunlight streaming in as two bickering people walked in, slamming it after them.
"God damn it, Kakuzu! What the hell is wrong with you?!" The slightly larger, blue-toned man shouted at the other. The brown-skinned tattooed man answered just as hotly.
"What is wrong with me?! You're the one who decided it would be fun to go out – just before sunrise – and go traipsing around town!"
"You know I planned to come back before the sun rose! You just had to get fucking lost, didn't you, you shit head?!"
"It's not like I did it on purpose , you idiot! You walk to freakin' fast and you left me behind, Kisame!"
"Look what you did to me!" Kisame shook an arm at Kakuzu. Deidara took a moment to register the arm was a peculiar pink color. "You know the fucking sun dries my skin out!"
"Jesus Christ, if I knew you were going to bitch this much, I wouldn't even have came in the first place!" Kakuzu shot back. He pointed at Kisame's arm. "And don't you dare blame me for your stupid mistake!"
"Fuck you, Kakuzu! Just because you're undead doesn't mean you can do whatever the hell you want!" Kisame snapped.
"I wasn't doing what I wanted to do, jackass! You're the one who asked me to come with! It's not my fault you're a pussy who can't handle being outside alone!"
Kisame opened his mouth to retort when an annoyed voice interrupted their argument.
"Alright, you idiots, shut up already."
Deidara glanced up, recognizing the female voice from Pein's office. A blue-haired woman was standing in the hallway – which lead to Pein's office – with her hand on her hip, looking pissed off. Her green steely eyes were fixed on Kakuzu and Kisame.
Kakuzu and Kisame shut up immediately, eying her warily as if she would attack them at any moment.
Her green eyes calmed considerably and she shifted her eyes to Hidan and Deidara. Hidan was stifling a snicker at the situation and Deidara looked a bit surprised. In his time, he had heard of powerful women, but he had never met one in person. He had, however, never seen a woman change moods as quickly as this one did.
She let a smile soften her face as she stared at them. "Hidan and Deidara. Meet Kakuzu and Kisame."
Kisame and Kakuzu held up hands in noncommittal waves. Deidara bowed slightly and Hidan just snorted, rolling his eyes. Kakuzu narrowed his eyes at Hidan at the rude greeting, but didn't comment.
"Another vampire, Konan?" Kisame sighed. "Don't we have enough already?"
Konan simply sighed heavily. "Kisame, quit your complaining, or Pein will come out and see what all the racket was about. You know he doesn't like you guys fighting."
"He doesn't seem to mind fish-boy and red-eyes going at it in the middle of the night…" Kakuzu muttered, loud enough for Kisame to hear.
The blue-skinned 'fish-boy' glared at Kakuzu with a slight darkening of his face which probably constituted as a blush. Deidara was sure that if Konan hadn't been there, he probably would have attacked Kakuzu.
Konan, not having heard the mutter, continued. "You guys have to go clean out one of the rooms upstairs."
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Kakuzu snapped. "We already took a mother-fucking week to clean out a room for fish-boy and Uchiha! Fuck knows what shit's in any of the other rooms!"
Kisame just shrugged, not really caring. He gazed at the newcomers. "Are they going to share a room?"
"Once we get one cleaned out, yes. For now, they'll have to share with either Sasori or Kakuzu. Or they could sleep in the living room." Konan added as an afterthought.
Kakuzu made an annoyed sound and sized up Deidara, snorting and moving on to Hidan, who glared back at him. They had a mini-glaring contest until Deidara spoke.
"I would not want to impose. I will sleep in the…leeving room." Deidara hesitated on the 'living room', pronouncing it just a bit incorrectly.
"The hell you are, Dei. I'll sleep in the fucking living room." Hidan snapped.
"But Hida-kun –"
"I'm immortal, idiot. I can do whatever I want." Hidan interrupted Deidara's protest.
"I don't see why either of you should have to." Konan said calmly. "Sasori and Kakuzu have plenty of room." She ignored Kakuzu's glare and continued staring at the pair calmly.
"The hell if I want to stay with either of those jackasses." Hidan jerked a finger over his shoulder at Kakuzu and Kisame as if Sasori was there also.
"I will stay with one of them. If that is their wish." Deidara said, bowing to Konan.
Konan looked slightly flustered at his deep bow and looked uncertain of what to say.
"Deidara, get the hell up." Hidan hissed. Deidara obeyed, straightening and tilting his head at Konan.
"Um, right, well…Sasori might agree t –"
"No."
Konan turned to see who interrupted, finding Sasori approaching from the direction of the living room. His brown eyes were narrowed slightly, though they still showed no emotion. He was carrying a book in his right hand. "I most certainly do not agree to house that fucking brat."
"Sasori, where else is he supposed to stay? With Kakuzu?"
"Absolutely not!" Kakuzu called from behind her.
"See?" Konan looked expectantly at Sasori, who shrugged carelessly.
"Why should I care? He can go stay in Kisame and Uchiha's room for all I care, and listen to them fucking all night." Sasori sounded uncaring and bored.
"Sasori." Konan said sharply, eyes narrowing in annoyance at the redhead. "I'll get Pein on your fucking ass."
"Don't threaten me." Sasori growled at the woman. He bared his fangs at the woman, his sharp teeth catching light and shining.
Konan hissed back, lips drawing back to reveal equally sharp and dangerous teeth.
Ooh, what's going to happen?!?! Are they going to fight? Is Sasori going to use Deidara as a shield? I don't even know yet, so why am I asking?!!!! Why am I leaving with another cliffhanger? Because I'm sadistic! Once again, I request all of you reader's good luck! (And review if you want to!)