Author's note: this does connect directly to the real story. it's what happens directly after the end of chapter 5, right after Deidara blows up Pein's basement. -grins- possibly not as good as some of the others, but, as you can see by the title, we were going through a tough time... hopefully it's acceptable.
this marks the first time skip. we did warn you that there were holes in the year. sorry if it upsets you. we will eventually fill in the holes, but we'd rather post the chapters we have now and then go back and fill in the blanks.
Disclaimer: okay people, you know the drill; do i really have to type it all again?
--kyra

Given the Circumstances
Or
What Happened When Pein’s Parents Came Home That Night
(Extra to Stimulate The Creative Process and hopefully Get Rid Of Writer’s Block)
Konan’s POV

I know I shouldn’t have stayed with him after the others left that night, but I’ve never been able to resist rubbing his nose in my rightness. I’d told them that they should have taken it outside, but does anyone listen to me? Hah, don’t even bother answering me. Heck, not even I listen to me! If that’s not pathetic, I don’t know what is. And, anyway, it wasn’t like I had pressing things to do at my own house. A whole evening of my parents staring primly away from my blue hair and lip ring, carefully asking the air if I’d had a good day at school was not something I looked forward to. Was it my fault that they’d actually wanted a brainiac like mom and got me instead? She’s a college Professor, senior Professor of Political Science of the European Continent or something dull and dreary like that. She’s written lots of dull and dreary books, and teaches dull and dreary classes, and has gotten dull and dreary awards. The house is full of them. And I don’t give a shit. Sorry, but that kind of life is not what I want for myself.

Not that I’m quite sure what exactly it is I want. I just know what I don’t want, which is to be anything like my family. Or the people who claim to be my family. I have my suspicions. I mean, come on! How likely is it that Mom the College Professor and Dad the Police Chief could produce Konan the Rebel With The Bad Boyfriend? I wouldn’t have thought it was biologically possible. Isn’t the whole point of heredity that your children will have things in common with you?

So anyway, instead of going back to the place I am informed is my home, I elected to stay at the home of the boy I am informed is my boyfriend. To my knowledge, neither of us have actually come out and said as much. Well, not when we’re both sober and not in the thrall of things my puritan grandmother would term: “sinful behavior which will send you directly to Hell, no questions asked, young lady.” Not that that matters much. I’ve always thought that Heaven would be the most boring place in existence. I mean, who wants to be happy all the time? Dear God, I’m a teenager! I thrive on angst and misery. Preferably other people’s.

“Um, Konan?”

Pein’s voice drew me out of these pleasant speculations and back to reality, which consisted of sitting in his sprinkler-soaked bedroom listening to his parents come through the front door. Soon they’d realize that the house was drenched, and then the fun would start. Well, fun for me, at least.

“Yeah?”

“You do realize that you’re dripping, right?”

I shrugged. “So are you,” I reminded him.

“I’ll dry faster than you.”

I shrugged again. “I have a good immune system. I can handle it.”

He shrugged back. “As you wish.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “Anything I wish?”

He started to leer at me, but his moment was spoiled by his mom’s shrill voice. “Pein!”

He sighed. “Great. I’ll have to answer your question later. If I’m still alive.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.”

“I’m sure you’ll do your best.”

I stuck out my lower lip and tossed my bangs over my eyes, looking through them up at him in what I hoped was a hurt/petulant way. “You don’t believe in my ability to protect you?”

He laughed, seeing right through my act. “No.”

I scowled, acting vanishing. “You’ll regret that!”

“Oh really?”

“Really!”

“Prove it!”

“I will!”

“Pein!”

We both turned our scowls towards the door leading to the stairs.

“I’m coming, jeez!” he hollered back, standing and moving towards the door. He didn’t look back at me as I followed him. It didn’t matter. I was still too mad at him to care.

We climbed the stairs, deliberately walking slowly, both rigid with fury. Finally, we emerged into the living room, where Pein’s livid parents were standing, staring fixedly at their ruined Oriental rug.

“Well?” his father asked, after thirty seconds of icy silence.

“What?” Pein demanded sullenly. “You haven’t asked any questions yet.”

“You know perfectly well what we want to know,” his mother snapped, finally turning to look at him.

“No I don’t.”

“Pein,” his father said warningly.

Pein’s scowl darkened as he faced his father. “Use words,” he retorted. “Simple words and short sentences. And I reserve the right to remain silent.”

Pein’s father’s hand rose as thought to strike his son, then fell back to his side through a supreme act of will. They still hadn’t noticed me, standing halfway behind Pein as I was. I was smart enough to remain silent myself, content to observe this scene of domestic upheaval through impartial eyes. Well, okay, maybe not quite impartial. I was totally on his parents’ side; I couldn’t wait for them to punish him as brutally as they could.

“Why is my living room soaked?” his mother asked, speaking slowly and clearly, as one would to an idiot.

“Fire alarm.”

“Why did the fire alarm go off?”

“Explosion.”

This made his parents exchange glances.

“Why was there an explosion?”

“I plead the fifth.”

His father’s scowl turned into a full fledged glower. It wasn’t even close to the kind Itachi could pull out for lesser occasions than this, but Itachi’s a professional. Pein’s father’s a businessman. He’s more used to smiling.

“You don’t have the right to do any such thing in my household,” he fairly screamed.

Pein didn’t budge an inch. “I have constitutional rights, just like anyone,” he insisted. “The fifth amendment says ‘No person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.’ I don’t have to tell you why there was an explosion in my room that set off the fire alarm.”

This time his mother had to physically restrain her husband from striking Pein. Still griping her husband’s hand, she turned towards her son. “Do not quote the Bill of Rights to us. We know it better than you do, count on that.”

He shrugged mutely.

“And you’re still a minor, so you don’t enjoy full protection under the Bill of Rights. So, why was there an explosion in your room?”

Pein, still scowling, remained sullenly silent.

I decided that it was time to assert myself. Since he wasn’t talking, I would.

“He invited an apparently suicidal new kid over this afternoon, and said new kid got into a fight with Itachi and tried to blow the house up.” I shrugged, indicating that I was in no way able to understand Deidara’s comportment.

Both of his parents’ eyes swiveled towards me, seeing me for the first time.

“Oh, hello Konan,” his mother said finally.

I acknowledged this with a polite nod, stepping out of Pein’s shadow as I did so. He met my eyes with a poisonous glare, informing me that all the favor I’d regained this afternoon had been rendered null and void by my recent treachery. I met his glare with a glower, informing him that I didn’t give a load of dingo’s kidneys how much favor I was in and I didn’t even want to be ‘in favor’ and, furthermore, if he thought he could use terms like that about me, then he was Sadly Mistaken, and I would show him how much I cared about him and his stupid plans to rule the world and…

At that point his glare turned into a disgusted look, which told me that I talked too much and he looked away, informing me that he no longer acknowledged my presence in this room. Of all the nerve!

All of this had actually taken a remarkably short period of time, and his parents were still internalizing the information I’d given them. Finally, his mother sighed.

“Is there something you want to tell us about your new friend, Pein?”

“No.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“If you were us, would you want you to tell you something?”

That was pushing the edge of making sense, and both Pein and I knew it, though we would rather have died than agree with each other.

“No.”

She scowled at this, clearly frustrated out of any attempts to reason with her rebellious offspring. She changed tactics.

“Pein, tell us about your friend.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Well,” his father said coldly. “For starters, why did he blow up your room?”

I’d already told them that, and Pein knew it, but, since he wasn’t officially acknowledging my presence, he couldn’t say that. “He was fighting Itachi.”

“And how would that lead him to blow something up?”

“He was losing.”

“Oh, and this is a reason to blow up a house, is it?” His mother tried for sarcasm. She wasn’t good at it. It came out as slightly hysterical and much too filled with emotion. To be proper sarcasm, it must be blasé and utterly deadpan. Trust me, I know.

Pein shrugged. “He thought so.”

“And do you know why?”

“Why don’t you ask him that?”

“I will. Does he have a last name?”

Pein shrugged. “How should I know?”

His parents stared at him for one, shocked moment, then turned to look at each other, their faces morphing into identical, ‘what did we do to deserve this fate?’ expressions. Finally, his father turned back towards us, though he was once again ignoring me. He shouldn’t have. I had Deidara’s number programmed into my phone. But I wouldn’t give it to him unless he thought to ask. Which, if I knew him, he wouldn’t.

Sure enough, he didn’t even think to consider asking. Instead, he scowled at Pein.

“What’s his first name, then?”

“Deidara.”

“And his phone number?”

Shrug. “I don’t know, and I don’t care.”

“Then how did he know to come over?”

“Sasori called him.”

“And do you have Sasori’s number?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“Find it for yourselves! It’s in the directory, like all of them.”

It was also in my phone, and, for that matter, in Pein’s, but his parents didn’t know that, and Pein wasn’t about to tell them.

With a scowl, his father left the room to fish out the probably dampened directory, leaving the three of us alone in the living room. Pein’s mother finally deigned to look at me again.

“Konan, do you know what happened?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

I shrugged. “I told you. There wasn’t anything more to it than that.”

“You’re expecting me to believe that a… a boy would try to blow up a house because he was just loosing a fight?!”

I shrugged, wishing she’d stop attempting sarcasm. “Believe what you like. It’s true.”

Pein didn’t look at me, but I could feel the scowl he wasn’t aiming in my direction.

She looked from Pein to me then back to Pein and finally threw up her hands in the time honored, ‘Oh, I fucking give up!’ gesture used by parents throughout the centuries. “I give up!” she intoned, editing her thoughts slightly. She gave us one last glance, then marched out of the room to join her husband.

Pein didn’t turn to look at me, and, seemingly at random, focused his gaze on the still dripping television.

“You know,” he told it, for all the world as though he were completely alone, “it would be so nice if, for once, I could actually have some peace.”

I raised my eyebrows in disbelief, and I know he saw it, whatever he pretended. “If that’s the case,” I informed him, “then you should have done what I said.”

“I thought I heard a noise,” he replied dreamily. “It must just have been my imagination.”

My eyes widened. “Oh God. You’re not playing that game with me, are you? Where the fuck do you think we are, in second grade? I bet now you’re going to go on about how loud the wind sounds today aren’t you?”

“There sure is an awful lot of wind, isn’t there?”

“Right,” I growled. “That does it.” I strode over to him and roughly gripped his collarbone, pivoting him around to face me. His eyes drifted away from mine and focused on a spot above and slightly to the left of my shoulder. “You listen to me, Pein, and don’t you fucking dare give me any wind crap. Got it?”

He didn’t answer, but he didn’t spout anything about the weather either, so I continued.

“I don’t give a load of Dingo’s Kidneys if they draw and quarter you and confine you to your room until eternity ends, got it?”

He still gave no reply.

“But that does not give you leave to ignore me! You have no right to pretend I don’t exist!” Hey, I might be pissed, hell, I was pissed, but it’s no fun being pissed at someone who won’t fight back. Have you ever tried it? It’s damned frustrating, and I don’t give a shit if I sound like a pathetic chick begging to be let back into my guy’s good graces. I’m tough. I can take it. I just want him to fucking fight back!

He didn’t. He didn’t even move. He just stood there limply, staring past my shoulder, for all the world as though he didn’t even notice me. That was it. I kicked him. Do I really need to tell you where?

Slowly, he crumpled into a heap at my feet, still staring vacantly through me. I wasn’t sure now if it was due to his decision to ignore me or due to the pain I’d inflicted upon him. It didn’t even matter. All that mattered was that I’d done what I could, and I’d lost. I’d lost a fight. I hate losing!

I stared at him for a long moment before turning away and pointedly not bursting into tears. Ever noticed how not crying is almost worse than giving in? I have. I don’t cry ‘cause I’m not that kind of girl, but sometimes I damn well wish I was. It would be nice to let myself cry sometimes.

But I’m not that girl, so I don’t cry.

His parents came back into the room then, the phone cradled in the crook of his father’s arm. His mother opened her mouth to say something, then stopped dead as she took in the scene before her.

I raised my eyes, suddenly weary beyond caring. “Don’t ask,” I said flatly, my voice flat and unchecked by tears, shed or otherwise.

She frowned, but her husband, the more perceptive of the two, put his free hand on her arm. “I don’t think we want to know?” It ended almost as a question. I shook my head. He nodded. “I didn’t think so.” He looked around at his still quite damp living room, then sighed. “Given the circumstances, I believe we should eat out tonight. Do you want to come, Konan?”

Given the circumstances, I didn’t refuse.