we wear our scarves just like a noose
author: derogatory
genre: naruto. specifically, the AU beached_in.
notes: if this seems rushed, it's because I have papers to write. regardless, a likely continuation of this.
They can catch some of the sea breeze from the front steps, but it's not enough to make it really worth it. In the end, it's their habit of escalating all situations on two slabs of concrete outside their front door that draw them outside.
"Too hot," Kiba growls. He's taking up most of the stoop by lying against it, trying to soak up the cool surface along his bare back. With an arm over his eyes, he blocks out the setting sun for himself and himself only and that's pretty common for Kiba. "It's too hot to take you for a walk," he tries to explain to Akamaru, who's dug so deeply for the cooler sand that he's stained brown. Neji's head aches at the thought of his seasick dog smell permeated around the house for the next two weeks.
Kabuto disappeared that morning and Neji almost wrote him a thank you letter before his hands started shaking. Wrap his fingers around a pen and all Neji can see are miles of words stretched out over their tabletop. The scrawls ascend through the walls and go against the shitty wallpaper that's stained with smoke and booze and dog piss, changing the patterns to dizzying run-ons. Their house becomes a great semi-colon over the sentence fragments of the beach that needs continual revisions. And if he goes out far enough into the water his clothing will billow around him like the pillows of adjectives to nouns, and waves of verbs will lap at what's been left high and dry, eager to douse the last vestiges of himself. It plays like a nightmare- except Neji hasn't dreamt since college. At the tips of his fingers are page numbers that leave their imprints along the stationary.
He puts the pen down. Kiba smirks and asks if he wants to dictate the letter. Neji doesn't accept the offer, because Kiba has terrible handwriting and was mostly joking. He tries to kick Akamaru in an effort to improve his mood, but stubbed his toes on the counter instead.
"D'you think it's gonna rain again?" Neji shrugs. "Maybe it's just, like, post-rain humidity." Neji works desperately hard to ignore Kiba's glance because he sees it like sunspots behind his eyes, and the reality of their situation never lives up to it.
"Are you still mad about that fat kid?" he asks, "I was high." What turns him off to writing anymore is that there's so much to say that it's dangerous. When he wrote, he gave away too much and that's why Kabuto preyed on it. Or that's a defense mechanism, to explain how it's all Kabuto's fault rather than his own. Without writing as an outlet, sometimes the habit bleeds into his speech and Neji slips,
"Like when you were drunk and fucked Kabuto."
Kiba sneers and shifts along the stone to raise himself up on his elbows. "I didn't fuck him," he points out, "You did."
"Shut the hell up. You don't know a goddamn thing." Neji's voice is a mess along his mouth and it's caught up in his jaw line, his teeth and the texture of his gums. Kiba looks momentarily taken aback, or it's just the heat that's slowed his reactions to a freeze-frame response, and he doesn't let that expression outstay a welcome.
"He's coming back, you know," he yawns and cups a hand to the side of his face, blocking out the sun.
"Why would you say that?"
"Just a feeling," he shrugs.
"No," Neji snarls and turns to face him. He moves so recklessly that his knee touches Kiba's, but the brunette doesn't flinch when Neji pulls from his bare skin. He's watching Neji so closely that he probably doesn't notice Akamaru wandering over his shoulder, getting closer to the ocean that looks worse with the weather. Neji almost forgets what he's going to say, opting to warn Kiba about losing his friend instead. But he thinks that's what his original comment was about anyway and stays on track.
"I meant why would you say that- I don't want to hear it. I don't want him back. I didn't want him here in the first place, either. Or you." Kiba scoffs and digs his fingers into the sand, running it through his fingers and onto the steps. Neji doesn't think he's ever felt guilt, not when he knocked one of Hinata's teeth loose when they were twelve, not when took the credit cards from his uncle's wallet, and not when he sat on the long bus ride from the Hyuuga compound and bit his lip until it bled. He calls for the dog to come back to them anyway.
"C'mon, Akamaru," Kiba tries when he doesn't respond to Neji. As Akamaru obediently treks back to them, Kiba moves his knee so it touches Neji's again. Neji keeps telling himself that he'll be happy one day, for at least a solid two hours. He's been saying that since his father died and he's begun to dread it more than expect it. He hates change, but he doesn't like their banality of living together anymore either. You can't leave though, Neji reminds himself. He's moved on, but you can't leave. He turns his entire body from Kiba, who laughs and chews on his lower lip, scratching Akamaru behind the ears.
"I can't believe you're still mad at me," he says half in wonderment. "If I knew he was going to trash the place I wouldn't have taken him home, okay, honest-"
"Shut up," he mumbles. Kiba is as surprisingly obedient as Akamaru. It must be the humidity.
Kiba whispers, "It's raining," and the downpour is enforced by his words. Wet raindrops slide off the eaves and leave filth spots on the whites of Neji's shirt. He groans and lies back against the stoop as well, feeling the dirt sink into the back of his clothing as well. They needed to buy more bleach anyway.
Kiba rolls over onto Neji's chest. It's too slow to knock the wind out of him, but Neji gives a deep 'oof' from the familliarity of the weight and tries to keep his hands from the small of Kiba's back. He smirks, tan inches from Neji's skin and squirms deliberately get a response. Neji grits his teeth.
"Is your makeup going to run?" he asks and presses a thumb along the bone under one of Neji's eyes. He applies vague force there and along their hips so it's enough to be uncomfortable. When Neji tries to tilt his face away from the pressure, Kiba kisses him. Movements blank of feeling anything from the kiss, Neji shoves Kiba back onto the concrete and sits up.
"Shit," Kiba shouts, "How the fuck am I supposed to fix this then!" He isn't open for suggestions and Kiba throws himself back so hard against the cement that he feels the back of his skull for blood. He whines like Akamaru and pillows the bump with an arm, "Are you ever going to tell me what your problem is?" Neji doesn't answer, simply because there's no point explaining anything to people who don't listen. Neji wonders if Kiba will just jerk off in the bathroom, since there's no one around who'll fool around with him anymore. His lack of release undoubtedly leads to his irritability, Neji's knows that and more about Kiba. "What? I don't like Kabuto either. Is it Gaara? Is it the band, is it me, is it the fucking dog-- will you tell me for fucking sake, you miserable son of a bitch?" Kiba tries to make a grand motion to with the rest of his shout, but there's nothing to strike but the sand or the concrete or Neji and he knows better than to hit those. Neji doesn't start to explain, because the clouds will burst before he can even begin to understand himself what's happened.
He thinks he probably never liked Kiba much in the beginning, and while he doesn't like Kiba any more now, the rest of the world seems so much worse. He thinks Kiba is convenient and close, but not in the way that Kabuto had been. Kabuto had sought him out, weeding through the tides that never belonged to an ocean, shouldering through the crowd to get to him. Kabuto was close because once he had him, he stayed- or pretended to stay. Neji remembers when they shook hands Kabuto's reminded him of a surgeon's hands, or the precision of operations in general. He was young then, so he had explained things out loud. Kabuto gripped him tighter and pulled them close enough that onlookers stared. He had said, "You're just like I knew you would be." If Neji had written him letter, he thinks that would be his final question. "Did you leave because I've changed, or because I wouldn't let you shake my hand?" It wasn't so much a thank you note as a message in a paper bottle, cast out into the postal waves.
Kiba's close in the way that Neji thinks they're close to death when they play together. Before Gaara ruined everything with a grain of sand in his voice, their music felt like the dying, rather than something that was killing them. If Kiba noticed the change, he hasn't said anything. But Kiba feels things so frequently it was more likely he doesn't notice the subtle differences anymore. Instead, Gaara is attuned to every motion in the air and Neji thinks that bothers him more than Kiba's groping of the new vocalist. And when Gaara is missing or dead or evicted from the band, he'll still be there. Neji doesn't turn Kiba away if the boy's insistent enough, but he imagines there has to be something better. Kiba is close but he doesn't pretend to stay.
The rain becomes torrential enough that Akamaru's pressed himself between him, smelling like wet dog and shivering. Kiba sighs, but his tone is mocking.
"Shouldn't you go and shut the windows?"
"They're stuck," his snarl is hollow while the air struggles in his throat, like a child trying to catch raindrops.
Kiba shrugs and says, "So are we." Unaffected by the weather, he goes ahead with Akamaru's walk and comes back around midnight, slamming cupboards open as he looks for cold medicine. When the noise dies away, Neji can see Kiba standing drenched in the doorway to his bedroom. Kiba's still and quiet for once, except his grin is moving all over the place, sliding on and off his face. It reminds him of the way words move under his skin when he thinks of what it would be like to write again. Neji thinks it will leaves stains like lipstick over their walls before it returns. Thinking of Kiba in makeup reminds him of the band, or rather Gaara, or rather that fucker boyfriend of Gaara's that haunts their performances. Neji's never believed ghost stories, but there Kimimaro was in the back of their empty and motionless endeavors.
I missed this, he says, or Kiba says it, or the both of them are thinking it so loudly that it carries on that ocean breeze that hadn't been worth it.
He tries to squeeze his eyes closed and block Kiba's presence out, but his eyes have been shut all along. When he wakes up the following morning, Neji cleans the puddles under the windows before he realizes the house is empty.
genre: naruto. specifically, the AU beached_in.
notes: if this seems rushed, it's because I have papers to write. regardless, a likely continuation of this.
They can catch some of the sea breeze from the front steps, but it's not enough to make it really worth it. In the end, it's their habit of escalating all situations on two slabs of concrete outside their front door that draw them outside.
"Too hot," Kiba growls. He's taking up most of the stoop by lying against it, trying to soak up the cool surface along his bare back. With an arm over his eyes, he blocks out the setting sun for himself and himself only and that's pretty common for Kiba. "It's too hot to take you for a walk," he tries to explain to Akamaru, who's dug so deeply for the cooler sand that he's stained brown. Neji's head aches at the thought of his seasick dog smell permeated around the house for the next two weeks.
Kabuto disappeared that morning and Neji almost wrote him a thank you letter before his hands started shaking. Wrap his fingers around a pen and all Neji can see are miles of words stretched out over their tabletop. The scrawls ascend through the walls and go against the shitty wallpaper that's stained with smoke and booze and dog piss, changing the patterns to dizzying run-ons. Their house becomes a great semi-colon over the sentence fragments of the beach that needs continual revisions. And if he goes out far enough into the water his clothing will billow around him like the pillows of adjectives to nouns, and waves of verbs will lap at what's been left high and dry, eager to douse the last vestiges of himself. It plays like a nightmare- except Neji hasn't dreamt since college. At the tips of his fingers are page numbers that leave their imprints along the stationary.
He puts the pen down. Kiba smirks and asks if he wants to dictate the letter. Neji doesn't accept the offer, because Kiba has terrible handwriting and was mostly joking. He tries to kick Akamaru in an effort to improve his mood, but stubbed his toes on the counter instead.
"D'you think it's gonna rain again?" Neji shrugs. "Maybe it's just, like, post-rain humidity." Neji works desperately hard to ignore Kiba's glance because he sees it like sunspots behind his eyes, and the reality of their situation never lives up to it.
"Are you still mad about that fat kid?" he asks, "I was high." What turns him off to writing anymore is that there's so much to say that it's dangerous. When he wrote, he gave away too much and that's why Kabuto preyed on it. Or that's a defense mechanism, to explain how it's all Kabuto's fault rather than his own. Without writing as an outlet, sometimes the habit bleeds into his speech and Neji slips,
"Like when you were drunk and fucked Kabuto."
Kiba sneers and shifts along the stone to raise himself up on his elbows. "I didn't fuck him," he points out, "You did."
"Shut the hell up. You don't know a goddamn thing." Neji's voice is a mess along his mouth and it's caught up in his jaw line, his teeth and the texture of his gums. Kiba looks momentarily taken aback, or it's just the heat that's slowed his reactions to a freeze-frame response, and he doesn't let that expression outstay a welcome.
"He's coming back, you know," he yawns and cups a hand to the side of his face, blocking out the sun.
"Why would you say that?"
"Just a feeling," he shrugs.
"No," Neji snarls and turns to face him. He moves so recklessly that his knee touches Kiba's, but the brunette doesn't flinch when Neji pulls from his bare skin. He's watching Neji so closely that he probably doesn't notice Akamaru wandering over his shoulder, getting closer to the ocean that looks worse with the weather. Neji almost forgets what he's going to say, opting to warn Kiba about losing his friend instead. But he thinks that's what his original comment was about anyway and stays on track.
"I meant why would you say that- I don't want to hear it. I don't want him back. I didn't want him here in the first place, either. Or you." Kiba scoffs and digs his fingers into the sand, running it through his fingers and onto the steps. Neji doesn't think he's ever felt guilt, not when he knocked one of Hinata's teeth loose when they were twelve, not when took the credit cards from his uncle's wallet, and not when he sat on the long bus ride from the Hyuuga compound and bit his lip until it bled. He calls for the dog to come back to them anyway.
"C'mon, Akamaru," Kiba tries when he doesn't respond to Neji. As Akamaru obediently treks back to them, Kiba moves his knee so it touches Neji's again. Neji keeps telling himself that he'll be happy one day, for at least a solid two hours. He's been saying that since his father died and he's begun to dread it more than expect it. He hates change, but he doesn't like their banality of living together anymore either. You can't leave though, Neji reminds himself. He's moved on, but you can't leave. He turns his entire body from Kiba, who laughs and chews on his lower lip, scratching Akamaru behind the ears.
"I can't believe you're still mad at me," he says half in wonderment. "If I knew he was going to trash the place I wouldn't have taken him home, okay, honest-"
"Shut up," he mumbles. Kiba is as surprisingly obedient as Akamaru. It must be the humidity.
Kiba whispers, "It's raining," and the downpour is enforced by his words. Wet raindrops slide off the eaves and leave filth spots on the whites of Neji's shirt. He groans and lies back against the stoop as well, feeling the dirt sink into the back of his clothing as well. They needed to buy more bleach anyway.
Kiba rolls over onto Neji's chest. It's too slow to knock the wind out of him, but Neji gives a deep 'oof' from the familliarity of the weight and tries to keep his hands from the small of Kiba's back. He smirks, tan inches from Neji's skin and squirms deliberately get a response. Neji grits his teeth.
"Is your makeup going to run?" he asks and presses a thumb along the bone under one of Neji's eyes. He applies vague force there and along their hips so it's enough to be uncomfortable. When Neji tries to tilt his face away from the pressure, Kiba kisses him. Movements blank of feeling anything from the kiss, Neji shoves Kiba back onto the concrete and sits up.
"Shit," Kiba shouts, "How the fuck am I supposed to fix this then!" He isn't open for suggestions and Kiba throws himself back so hard against the cement that he feels the back of his skull for blood. He whines like Akamaru and pillows the bump with an arm, "Are you ever going to tell me what your problem is?" Neji doesn't answer, simply because there's no point explaining anything to people who don't listen. Neji wonders if Kiba will just jerk off in the bathroom, since there's no one around who'll fool around with him anymore. His lack of release undoubtedly leads to his irritability, Neji's knows that and more about Kiba. "What? I don't like Kabuto either. Is it Gaara? Is it the band, is it me, is it the fucking dog-- will you tell me for fucking sake, you miserable son of a bitch?" Kiba tries to make a grand motion to with the rest of his shout, but there's nothing to strike but the sand or the concrete or Neji and he knows better than to hit those. Neji doesn't start to explain, because the clouds will burst before he can even begin to understand himself what's happened.
He thinks he probably never liked Kiba much in the beginning, and while he doesn't like Kiba any more now, the rest of the world seems so much worse. He thinks Kiba is convenient and close, but not in the way that Kabuto had been. Kabuto had sought him out, weeding through the tides that never belonged to an ocean, shouldering through the crowd to get to him. Kabuto was close because once he had him, he stayed- or pretended to stay. Neji remembers when they shook hands Kabuto's reminded him of a surgeon's hands, or the precision of operations in general. He was young then, so he had explained things out loud. Kabuto gripped him tighter and pulled them close enough that onlookers stared. He had said, "You're just like I knew you would be." If Neji had written him letter, he thinks that would be his final question. "Did you leave because I've changed, or because I wouldn't let you shake my hand?" It wasn't so much a thank you note as a message in a paper bottle, cast out into the postal waves.
Kiba's close in the way that Neji thinks they're close to death when they play together. Before Gaara ruined everything with a grain of sand in his voice, their music felt like the dying, rather than something that was killing them. If Kiba noticed the change, he hasn't said anything. But Kiba feels things so frequently it was more likely he doesn't notice the subtle differences anymore. Instead, Gaara is attuned to every motion in the air and Neji thinks that bothers him more than Kiba's groping of the new vocalist. And when Gaara is missing or dead or evicted from the band, he'll still be there. Neji doesn't turn Kiba away if the boy's insistent enough, but he imagines there has to be something better. Kiba is close but he doesn't pretend to stay.
The rain becomes torrential enough that Akamaru's pressed himself between him, smelling like wet dog and shivering. Kiba sighs, but his tone is mocking.
"Shouldn't you go and shut the windows?"
"They're stuck," his snarl is hollow while the air struggles in his throat, like a child trying to catch raindrops.
Kiba shrugs and says, "So are we." Unaffected by the weather, he goes ahead with Akamaru's walk and comes back around midnight, slamming cupboards open as he looks for cold medicine. When the noise dies away, Neji can see Kiba standing drenched in the doorway to his bedroom. Kiba's still and quiet for once, except his grin is moving all over the place, sliding on and off his face. It reminds him of the way words move under his skin when he thinks of what it would be like to write again. Neji thinks it will leaves stains like lipstick over their walls before it returns. Thinking of Kiba in makeup reminds him of the band, or rather Gaara, or rather that fucker boyfriend of Gaara's that haunts their performances. Neji's never believed ghost stories, but there Kimimaro was in the back of their empty and motionless endeavors.
I missed this, he says, or Kiba says it, or the both of them are thinking it so loudly that it carries on that ocean breeze that hadn't been worth it.
He tries to squeeze his eyes closed and block Kiba's presence out, but his eyes have been shut all along. When he wakes up the following morning, Neji cleans the puddles under the windows before he realizes the house is empty.