A/N: This is just a small drabble/ficlet kind of thing I wrote on the bus the other week. And that was before the 3rd Databook, so their ages are not correct.

--

The explosions filling the forest were blinding, deafening and downright lethal. Adding to the deafening and lethal part was the number of trees that went crashing down or were blown into pieces, sending a multitude of sharp projectiles in every direction.

Sasori sighed.

"Deidara! For God's sake calm yourself."

"No!"

"This is not helping anything."

"It's not fair! I'm older than him!"

"Only three months and that has nothing to do with it so get down here."

"NO!" Deidara steered his bird even higher, dropping a handful of small clay bugs to the ground and setting them all off at once.

"You're going to run out of clay."

"It's not as if I'll need it for an assignment anyway."

Sasori sighed again. There ought to be an age limit for joining the Akatsuki. The last thing the organization needed was angsting teenagers. Angsting teenagers with explosives.

"Katsu!"

A big oak tree shattered and forced Sasori to deflect some stray splinters with Hiruko's tail.

"Why is he everyone's favourite anyway?! His stupid Sharingan is no better than my art! Katsu! I could have handled that assignment just as well as he, but what do we get?! Some boring, fucking… katsu!... crap assignment!"

At this point there was no use in trying to explain to Deidara why he was not assigned a mission that required a great deal of stealth and discretion. Besides, Sasori thought as he jumped out of the way of a falling tree trunk, this was getting a bit too dangerous for comfort.

The leader had had many reasons to make Sasori and Deidara partners and one of them, Sasori suspected, was the same as why Hoshigaki Kisame was partnered with Akatsuki's other angsting teenager, who also happened to be an expert at fire jutsus.

Hopping up on top of the fallen tree, Sasori took his aim at the boy above, opened Hiruko's mouth and fired a small volley of senbon, each needle dipped in a tranquilizing poison he'd developed especially for Deidara.

--

Itachi never spoke much, but this was a different kind of silence. Kisame could tell by the way the boy had his arms folded under the slightly too large Akatsuki coat and from the big fire he'd just had to use his strongest water jutsu to put out.

"It's that Deidara, isn't it?"

His partner didn't answer, but the question had been rhetorical anyway. Kisame knew very well that every encounter between the Uchiha and the blond bomber ended with a grumpy Itachi and at least one big fire. And judging by Sasori's irritated request at their last meeting that Kisame 'keep his brat away from Deidara', things were no better there.

"I just don't see why you two have to start picking on each other every time you meet. If I didn't know better I'd say you were brothers or something."

Itachi glared at him, his dark iris turning bright red.

"Okay, sorry, sorry!" Kisame quickly averted his eyes. For some reason the word 'brother' had always been taboo with Itachi.