A/N: I feel like it has been WAY too long since I updated. I missed you, readers! So, I have a teeny bit of news:

I'm planning on changing the name and cover art of the story. It just wasn't working for me. So, probably by the time you read this new chapter, the name of this story will be Don't Fear The Reaper. Yes, like the song.

Also, I just wanted to say another thank you to Indigo Elle. Your reviews always make my day. I've probably mentioned you in almost all my chapters already, but you're worth it.

Without further ado, here's the newest chapter!

Dee's POV

I'm not sure what I was expecting when I made my grand return to the East End with a billionaire teenager in tow. Of course, I was not expecting a glittering, gleaming East End, like Glenda the Good Witch decided to pay a visit in my absence. Maybe I expected to see an even more run down, filth ridden East End than before, as if my presence was somehow the guiding force behind the broken down neighborhood staying somewhat afloat.

I'm not nearly delusional enough to believe that, of course, but still…

It feels so long since I've been here, in my natural habitat, that I thought something had to be different. But no; nothing was. It is almost exactly how it was when I viewed it through the tinted windows of a CPS van as I was being carted out against my will, as if it remained frozen in time until my return.

Music and a faint light still pour out of the café and filter into the streets, causing a young, seemingly tipsy couple to slow dance along on the sidewalk in a clumsy, yet adorable manner. The woman giggles, nearly falling flat on her ass as the man attempts to dip her down. They both end up falling to the sidewalk, dissolving in a fit of hysterical laughter.

A few girls in sky-high heels and thick makeup caked on their faces stroll along on the other side of the street, holding their hips in laughter as they whisper teenage gossip to each other in between giggles. Girls I went to school with what feels like years ago.

Two teenage boys play a game of cards, sitting on crates with a cardboard box in between them acting as their table. The fair haired boy slaps down a row of card with a victorious smile and pulls the small mountain of junk food collected in the middle towards his side of the box, earning a groan from the defeated dark haired boy.

A few feet away from the warring boys, a young man with a small patch of dark stubble leans against a brick wall with a sketchbook in hand and a cigarette dangling from his lips. His pencil moves across the paper at a rapid fire pace, a concentrated furrow in his brow. His neck is craned so far down into the paper that I don't think it has ever seen the light of day.

I take in my surroundings with a sigh of contentment.

I'm home.

The stubborn rich boy next to me, however, seems far from impressed with my humble roots.

"Tell me again why you felt the need to drag me here?" he demands, his patience hanging on by a thread. I roll my eyes, but try not to let it spoil my mood. I didn't expect him to appreciate it. He grew up in the lap of luxury. Everything was handed to him on a silver platter, while I had to learn how to take joy in the simple things. He can't understand my world and I can't understand his.

But that doesn't mean I won't make sure this is a day he will never forget.

"You, Mr. Frowny Face, have to be here for my protection," I remind him with a sly grin, nudging him with my shoulder as we walk. "It's a Friday night, which means my friends are already waiting for me. There's no way I'm missing the Friday night tradition yet again just to sit in quiet, dull house all night."

Ahhhh, I've missed the Friday night after-shift ritual.

If the funny little crease in Damian's brow is any indication, he's wondering what the hell this entails. I have to stifle a laugh when I see the confusion written on his face. Though he's not looking at me, I flash my signature toothy smile in his direction. I'm struck by how foreign it feels on my face.

How long has it been since I smiled this way?

Reaching over, I grab Damian's hand and pull him along with me to speed up the process. Though I can hear his unhappy grumbles, he doesn't put up much of a fight as I pull him along down the street. My excitement is not easily dulled by his lack thereof. I've been waiting weeks to see my friends again, and I'm not going to let Mr. Grumpy Pants spoil the fun so quickly.

Who knows? He might end up dislodging the stick from his ass and having some fun himself.

It doesn't take long at all for us to reach the old apartment building on the corner of Lee and Meriwether, and I finally let go of his hand. The old, crumbling building is one of the many failed projects her in the East End, left to rot and decay by an uncaring city council. The decades of history behind its walls gone to waste. But just because it has been long since vacated does not mean that it cannot be put to good use.

I beckon a very confused looking Damian into the dark alley-way next to the apartment building. It's dark, damp, and it reeks of garbage, but it's a welcome sight to me after all these weeks far away from home.

"The building isn't structurally sound enough to actually go inside," I explain to a very disgusted looking Damian. "But what I'm looking for isn't inside."

Without any further explanation, I grab onto the rusted ladder attached to the side of the building and begin to climb. I can feel the cheap metal paint flaking off underneath my fingers as I pull myself up, one rung at a time. Half-way through, I begin to think Damian abandoned me to go back home to his comfy mansion in Crest Hill. It wouldn't surprise me. I'm amazed he's even put up with me thus far.

But my hunch is proved wrong when I hear the tell-tale rattling of the ladder being climbed below me. He's following behind like a dutiful puppy following its master.

I snort in amusement.

Rich boy is more adventurous than I've been giving him credit for.

Hauling myself up on the last rung, I observe the activities on the roof with a wide grin.

A fire is already lit in the mobile fire pit that by now permanently sits at the top of this building. Laughter and loud chatter echo throughout the night, sweeping closer and closer towards me at the end of the roof. A few open coolers, open and filled to the brim with drinks, are placed away from the fire. Big, fuzzy blankets are laid out, and I count 4 bodies sprawled out across them, their stomachs moving up and down in laughter. The smile on my face only widens.

Now I'm really home.

I bend my knees and push my hands onto the cold, hard concrete roof to help myself stand up on the edge. I can just barely hear Damian shuffle up behind me. His footsteps are like little mice, just barely scuttling across a floor. Soft and sneaky, but hesitant.

This must be his first time seeing such a different side to the putrid wasteland that the papers like to paint the East End as. There's two sides to every story.

"Hey, assholes!" I shout to my occupied friends. Four heads perk up and whip around simultaneously. I cock my head to the side and give them my signature smug little smirk that has gotten me in so much trouble in the past.

"You mind some company?"

It only takes a few seconds before the hooting and hollering starts back up again, my friends scrambling up from their resting places on their blankets and rushing over to me with a unanimous cry of "Dee!"

Before I know it, I'm surrounded by four bodies fighting over who gets to tug me their way like a ragdoll. They're all jabbering away in four very distinct different voice.

"Where the hell have you been?"

"We missed you!"

"I heard you were dead!"

"I heard CPS got their hands on you."

"I heard you went to juvie!"

"Hey, dead or not, you still owe me $20!"

"Guys!" I shout over the noise. Immediately, they all fall silent, waiting eagerly for my next words. As if I'm a celebrity or a god of sorts.

Well, according to the word on the street, I did rise from the dead…

"CPS did get ahold of me, I did go to juvie, but no, I didn't die," I inform them. "I got fostered out of there, which is just a step above dying."

A few snorts of amusement and some mumbled agreements resonate from the small crowd, made up mostly of street kids who know the feeling well. But it's the small scuttling sound of converse shoes on concrete behind me that catches my attention. I almost completely forgot Damian was here.

Heh. I bet he's not used to being forgotten.

Welcome to my world, Wayne.

Reaching behind my back blindly, I grab ahold of what feels to be Damian's shirt. I earn a low grumble from the grumpy teen as I pull him forward in view of my now thoroughly confused friends.

"Guys," I drawl. "This is… um… the son of the guy who's currently fostering me, Damian. Guys, meet Damian. Damian, meet the guys."

The mood in the air is immediately tense. I can feel it coiling around me like a snake, restricting anymore words from escaping my throat. I can sense my friends' thought process already. He's clean cut, nicely dressed, and standing tall. It's obvious that he comes from money.

He doesn't belong here in our world, just like I don't belong in his.

"Wait… Aren't you Damian Wayne?" pipes up Tatiana Torres, my louder and more opinionated friend. "As in 'son of billionaire Bruce Wayne' Damian Wayne? 'Could buy the entire city of Gotham with your pocket change' Damian Wayne? That Damian Wayne?"

The rest of my friends fall silent as the realization dawns on them. Damian Wayne, the billionaire trust fund child, is here in the East End, where walking freely on the streets with money in your pocket constitutes a suicide attempt. My cheeks turn red in embarrassment as I realize how stupid this entire idea was. I'm lucky no one mugged us on the way here.

"Yes," Damian answers tersely. It's a simple response, leaving no room for conversation. And no one tries to start one, either.

Damian must be about as keen on my friends as they are on him.

For a split second of tense silence, I question why I even brought Damian here. It was a dumb decision, really. Just walking here with Richie Rich could have gotten me killed. It was stupid. I was stupid. I would be angrier at myself, but I'm used to it. Stupid decisions seem to be my forte.

Right as I'm about to pull Damian away from my friends and shuffle back to Wayne Manor with my tail between my legs, Lola steps forward with a wicked grin and a devious gleam in her sapphire blue eye. Bumping shoulders with Damian, she grabs his wrist so swiftly that I doubt he even noticed it as it happened.

"I like you," she decides with no prelude whatsoever. "You've got chutzpah. I think you and I are going to get along very well. C'mon. Let's get you a drink."

Lola pulls him forward towards the bonfire, flocked by the rest of our friends who are now chatting away with a renewed vigor.

Now I remember why I love those assholes so much.

"So there I was, half naked, covered in flour, sitting on a tree branch that was starting to break, my neighbor's German shepherd was barking at me from below, and I still hadn't found my Gameboy Advance."

I shake my head and steal another sip of Lola's drink.

Diesel always has the weirdest stories.

Damian, who is sitting cross-legged between Ace and me, speaks up,

"What happened to the cheese-stick you were carrying?"

Diesel takes another swig from his beer and flips his dark, untamable hair out of his face, squinting at Damian critically. With the fire burning bright and strong behind him, he almost looks intimidating.

"I dropped it while climbing the tree. Pay closer attention to the story, Wayne."

Damian scoffs, but continues to listen to the story. I, however, stop paying attention. He told me this story a long time ago. In fact, I'm fairly sure we've all heard this story at least twice. Or three times. Or twenty-seven times. But of course Diesel has to show off for the new guy. Especially when said new guy is rich.

Too bad Damian won't be buying any stereos or rip-off Rolex watches off of him anytime soon.

Instead of listening to Diesel drone on and on, I look around. Take in my surroundings.

Lola sits, practically on the edge of her seat – er, I mean her blanket. The corners of her mouth are raised up in a smile as she tilts the beer bottle up to her perfectly painted lips. No matter how many times she hears Diesel's stories, she is still enraptured by each repeat tale, like she's watching her favorite soap opera.

Tatiana leans her body in closer to Ace, resting her head on his shoulder. Ace, ever the stoic, barely even reacts except for a soft grunt of acknowledgment. Tatiana takes this as an invitation to snuggle closer to him, gripping onto his arm so tight that I worry about her cutting off his blood circulation. But Ace doesn't seem to mind. At least, if he does, he doesn't say it. But then again, Ace never says much of anything.

Damian sits with his spine straight and his eyes forward, completely focused on the story. He occasionally takes a swig from his water bottle, having rejected alcohol. I wish I had the same amount of self-control, but at least I'm just sharing with Lola instead of chugging my own bottle. A year or two ago, that wouldn't be the case…

"… So it turns out the Gameboy Advance was buried under the tree the entire time."

Tatiana claps sarcastically for the conclusion to a story she's probably heard hundreds of times before. Diesel turns his head towards her and shoots her the biggest 'die in a fire' look I've seen in quite some time. Those two can go at it like rabid dogs at times. One of them will end up killing the other one day. But as long as I'm around, today is not that day.

"Riveting story, Diesel," she pipes up. "But I'm not sure you've accomplished your goal of scoring another client."

She sticks her thumb out, pointing at Damian. Diesel gives me a pleading look, silently asking me to stop her from scaring away a potential customer. Especially a potential customer worth billions of dollars. That's what he sees people as; dollar signs. Walking money. Until you get to know him, of course. Then he sees you as a dollar sign with a personality.

"It was an interesting story…" Damian drawls out, taking a small sip from his water bottle as if to prolong the suspense. "But if your ultimate goal was to sell me something, you'll be disappointed to learn I neglected to bring my wallet with me."

Diesel just grins like the Cheshire cat and jumps up from his seat, weaseling his way in between Damian and me, nearly knocking me over in the process. I scoot closer to Lola, grabbing the drink out of her hand and taking another swig as I watch the master at work.

"Let me tell you a little something about the credit system, my friend."

There really is no place like home.

A/N: Kudos to those of you who caught that Lee Meriwether reference.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter! As always, review, favorite and follow at your leisure. Now, if you'll excuse me, it's almost 3am and I should probably be heading to bed. Goodnight, readers!