[fic] Attraction 19: Love me, Need me
Attraction
by gelfling
Summary: In which lost animals are found, walking around occurs, and a fight starts. Unbetaed.
***
If you hold a bird gently, the bird will stay. If you hold it too hard, it’s eyes’ll bug out. And then the pet shop owner won’t let you hold the mice and animals anymore.
--Rose (Betty White), The Golden Girls
***
The ocean bay was a cold blue with oily iridescent highlights, the run-off from early spring’s heavy rains and winds.
It was desolate enough on the waterfront that he didn’t have to hide (since there was no one to hide from), but Kakashi lurked in the shadows of the harbor’s warehouses out of habit. Bits of styrofoam, plastic bags, and other garbage floated serenely on the water.
Times had changed since the fires in autumn, but it wasn’t exactly more or less dangerous to be identified as a shinobi. The hubris and debris of monsters and demons that Naruto had collected in the continent’s center had terrorized and driven people to the borders or foreign lands, but the monster population itself hadn’t spread. Kakashi guessed the beasts were too busy tearing each other apart to start on the easier prey, and hoped he was right.
It was still profitable business, ninja espionage and assassination, but people watched him longer, closer, when he went outside. It was unfriendly, but not hostile, and was the best he had hoped for. People continued to pay (often reluctantly), and that was all that really mattered.
People stared at what was left of Team Nine too, but they blended in better than he felt like doing. Didn’t exactly matter though; the monsters were too busy killing each other to organize and be a real problem. The samurai and ronin were the ones with the high demand and fatality rate now, not the shinobi.
Still-Kakashi shifted against the dull concrete wall and watched a plastic bag bob-he felt quiet inside, and cold, cold deep down where the weather couldn’t touch.
It’d been a little over a week or so now, and he still hadn’t thought up a good way to kill the Sand kid. He had a couple of ideas and had tossed them around with a couple more, but he had nothing good enough that met his standards.
If the kid was just extraordinary, then at least Kakashi could trust him to stay dead, but the demon complicated things. Not even the Yondaime had thought up a way to kill a demon-theoretically, it wasn’t possible. And it was the demon, more than the kid, that wanted Kakashi dead.
All over the waterfront-all across the bay, actually-there wasn’t a single sea gull. No birds, anywhere.
The mangy alley cat Hinata had taken in was gone. The scrawny animal had been missing fur, an ear, and half its tail. It would tear the kitchen apart if they left it alone and rip up Hinata’s plants, and bite anyone who came close to it, except Neji, and he’d only kept it because Hinata wanted it.
The animal had been missing for two days, and Hinata was still looking for it in her free time. Not even the sparrows or mice had touched the cat’s kibble she’d left outside.
The street dogs hadn’t sniffed Kakashi when he’d half-walked, half-limped his way down to the waterfront. Dogs didn’t bark at him and almost never attacked, but they noticed him, and made sure he noticed them, even if they weren’t looking for food or a hand. The street dogs had disappeared, and the penned-in dogs were silent now, reclusive.
All the lower life forms seemed to be evacuating, and Kakashi still wasn’t sure who’d take leadership among the refugees if the monster killed him. Probably Iruka, but Neji and Ino had the talents to handle it together, if they could manage to keep off each other’s backs. He’d already shipped Lee off to Asuma and Shino in the far north for ‘rehabilitation’ and security purposes. It hadn’t been a complete lie, and with Gai still missing and possibly dead (probably), there weren’t too many other people he trusted.
If he were following the stereotype of a traditional Western roughed-up protagonist, he’d probably be chain-smoking right now (or at least smoking a single desolately) or drinking. Because he wasn’t, and because he didn’t smoke and only drank in company or when suicidal, Kakashi only stared vacantly at nothing, leaving without a trace when the tide dropped low.
He did pick up a packet of cigarettes on his way back though. That probably didn’t count.
***
Six months ago:
In the provinces of Stone in the far north the dry artic air cut over the high craggy mountain precipices, cut through the jagged thin ravines and sharpened every rock and pebble sharper than the finest whetstone could’ve done. The landscape ranged from coal black to silk gray, to snakeskin-brittle to iron-hard. Little green grew in Stone, and it tended to stick close to the ground, to hide from the ice siroccos.
Stone was a land of little rain, cold wind, and ragged shadows: Stone was wolf country, cold and gray and mysterious, and it always made Naruto feel just a little on edge.
Not too on edge of course-the only monsters he had to worry about was the one who slept in his bed, and the other that slept in his head-but just the tiniest bit uncomfortable.
As a boy, he’d grown up with trees and buildings on all sides, and there was always a handy bush or alleyway to lurk in, and the fox in Naruto-which, while a monster, was still a fox-hated wolves, hated the infertile bedrock, hated the wide open sky.
So, with both centers of his being finally agreeing for once, Naruto had started a small garden on one of the small sheltered shelves above the fortress of the Demon King.
He’d planted mint.
The human part of him didn’t really like mint, because it reminded him of toothpaste. The part of him that liked to roll in the dirt and garf down raw meat just didn’t like it. Didn’t like the smell. Made his muzzle itch.
Most of the soil in the garden was imported, and the mint burrowed and crawled through it, shoving up unusually tall waist-high stalks and white cones of tiny flowers. It was the only little spot of green for miles around, unless you counted Gaara’s eyes, which Naruto didn’t. The miserable little garden kept away whatever homesickness he felt, lowered his instinctual hackles, and passively annoyed him.
First, Naruto had tried dousing a section of the mint in petrol, then lighting the plant on fire. The smoke had been thick, very smelly (and a bit like toothpaste), and the damn thing had not burned particularly well at all. A few days later, after the half-assed fire had gone but the horrible stink lingered, Naruto ripped through another section with a rusty old scimitar that had been stolen from…somewhere, and left rusting somewhere else. Then he’d tried pouring bleach and other poisons over most of it, and that actually worked. The green bastards turned yellow and black and withered into crispy brown corpses.
For a while.
When Naruto had returned weeks later after killing one of his back-stabbing lieutenants-and it’d been one of the guys he’d actually liked, with funny hair, how fucked up was that?-he found that there were little yellow shoots clinging to the edges of his butt-wiped garden. Except for the first few times, when the mint had been kinda interesting, Naruto never bothered to water it.
A part of him had been impressed, and secretly proud; the rest of him had gone at the patch of sick vegetation with a flamethrower.
When Naruto had returned a couple of weeks later, the garden was still dead and black. He placed an order for more top-quality soil from Rain, and a seed packet of chrysanthemums, which was a very philosophical flower.
The next time he returned to the sequestered garden the plot of dirt was still black and ugly, dry. And, poking out of the sharp hard rock walls on three sides of the garden, were tiny sticks of sickly mint.
The packet of chrysanthemums was flushed down the toilet, in case you were wondering.
***
He could…hear music playing. Far away. Very far away, small and strangled-out, but he could hear…something. Strange. Very strange, and badly executed.
He didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t…want. To hear anything.
He wanted silence.
He was tired. He was so unbearably. Tired.
Gaara woke.
The sounds were more definite now: the foggy susurrus of buildings and trees carving out notes in the breeze, the dull clatter of people walking around, moving things, talking.
People far away, but not too far.
Not far enough.
It was harder to do than anything else in his life had even been, but Gaara managed to open his eyes. His eyelids felt gummy, glued together-his body stank, of sweat, urine, and blood.
He was sitting against a wall in the shade. In front of him was another wall, yellow brick and white stucco (was that right? Did it matter? …No), glowing with the sunlight hitting it. He was in…not a street, an alley. There was blue sky overhead, with a few white clouds.
It smelled…organic. Warm.
Gaara closed his eyes, and reached.
He didn’t want this.
He’d…been there. Silent. Cold.
He’d been there and it’d been…so…
Like a building regaining power, he began to regain feeling of his body, became aware of his toes and elbows and beaten hips, bruised thighs and his feet…bleeding. Still bleeding, badly. Still. And not healing.
//Fuck.//
Was…?
//Fuck.//
He didn’t scream. He didn’t. He didn’t want to regain control, if it meant he had to feel.
Feel those…that…
The price was too high. Too high.
But he was himself. Still.
For the moment.
Wincing, lethargically, Gaara cracked his left eye open. He focused on the dark fuzzy lines instinctually, and concentrated until he could make out the legs and body of the other person in the alley with him.
He thought, briefly, of all the people in the world who wouldn’t want to kill him, all the people he wouldn’t want to kill.
He couldn’t think of anyone.
It hurt too much to move-he was empty, dead and drained. Empty. Completely and utterly empty. He didn’t know why he felt that way, what had happened or when, but…
Gaara kept the man’s gaze, an eye for an eye, and felt his throat dry out as he breathed slow and weak, spit dried to the corner of his mouth.
Even when Kakashi tiptoed nearer like a wolf scavenging a kill, Gaara kept his eye open. It wasn’t the issue of death that bothered him, or even being murdered by a human, something he could rip apart in seconds.
It was a matter of…curiosity. Pride. Blood-
--blood lust; his blood or the human’s, he wanted to be conscious blood was shed.
He hadn’t lost that.
The cold blues and searing greens and dead grays in Kakashi’s uniform blurred as he came closer, the colors-
--he had to blink to stay awake, conscious, here-
--the colors swimming together in his head, sloshing back in forth with gravity and hunger and an overload of sensory material-too much to handle, too much to understand.
It made him sick to his stomach, the colors and smell, the-
--the stench of human and sweat and old skin, the smell of something--
//(someone always mine (mine?) always me mine but you’re not we’re not you’re not-//
--pain and death and power and the stink of human loss and weakness and reminding jabbing poking bleeding him--
//none, never, not, none, nothing, no one not one nothing never me--//
--starving him--
//always marked smell mark mine mine me mine always I’m not we’re not you’re not--//
//?)//
--which was why Kakashi had him halfway down the block before Gaara realized he was being carried in the other man’s arms.
***
He was still, as the great poet had once said in a clairvoyant moment of epiphany, painfully hung-over, but Naruto didn’t let that bother him too much. Not too much. Not as much as he could have, if Sasuke hadn’t screwed him over so very successfully.
He’d been hung-over before. He’d never been hung-over this long or badly before, but he’d live through it.
Maybe. If it got less painful.
Every three or four steps he’d stumble on the dirty sand, trip on a used condom or beer bottle, or kick a dead jelly fish. He was a few hundred kilometers south of Yaka-whatever. Yaka-something. Or was it Something-mori?
Where Iruka was. Naruto was aware that he could be there tonight, if he mysteriously acquired a motorbike. Which would be easy. If he wanted to.
Voices several meters ahead of him caught Naruto’s attention, briefly: a trio of kids were gathered around a beached dolphin, a light grayish lump on the sand.
After he’d come to yesterday afternoon in an alley smelling strongly of piss and vomit (and now pipe cleaner and bleach), stumbled around and thrown up himself, Naruto had ransacked Sasuke’s hotel room, ripped through the mattress and smelled every crack in the floorboards and walls.
The place had reeked of bleach, and burned through Naruto’s sinuses and had made him violently sick-or was that just the hang-over? It could have been the hang-over. This horrible, horrible hang-over that made him want to cry and fall to his knees and suck his thumb, made him want to rip someone’s ribs apart. Such a horrible, horrible hang-over.
Fucking A.
Either way, Sasuke was gone and so was his smell. The jerk hadn’t even left a note or said good-bye proper.
On the beach, Naruto raised his eyebrows as a fourth kid came flying down the beach with a fishing pike held over his head, heading for the dolphin group. The trio moved away from the gray lump silently, obediently, and Naruto watched as the beached animal curled its tail and moved an arm to crawl away.
The kid slowed and stopped a few cautious feet away, raised the pike in a business-like manner, then screamed when his bare arm caught fire, blue-orange flames crushing the wooden pike handle to splinters. Scarlet and green flames ripped through the damp sand and any sandals that weren’t running away fast enough.
Naruto tripped and meandered on until he was close enough to crouch by the mermaid on the dirty (and now bloody) sand. He patted his pockets absently for a cigarette he didn’t have.
“Are there any guys with you people? I mean, I like fishy dyke action as much as the next guy, but are you all girls? Like, all of you? How do you make babies?”
The mermaid’s inky smooth eyes were half-open, turning gray in the center from too much sunlight, her gills bloated and discolored from oxygen deprivation. Naruto scratched his knees as he watched her breathe through her mouth, slow and thin.
He desperately wanted a cigarette.
“I could kill you,” he murmured, knowing she couldn’t understand him, could barely hear the wavelength his voice was on even if she’d been healthy. “But you’re going to die anyway. It’d be mercy, whatever I do. Even if I do nothing. To someone.”
Two big black flies settled on her hairless gray eyelids, licked her eyes with their tongues. Her eyelids twitched, but she couldn’t blink and the flies stayed where they were. Naruto wasn’t sure she could see him, if she was looking at him.
“Whatever I do,” Naruto murmured, wrapping his hand around her neck and pressing her esophagus in, “I doubt I’ll surprise anyone.”
He threw her back into the ocean, easily. Then he continued trawling up the beach, heading north.
***
One of the nice things about Asuma-sensei was the fact that he was considerate enough to smoke, constantly. Ino could pass through a room or huddle on a tree branch and know if Asuma-sensei had been through there just by the smell of cheap cigarettes; it made him more human.
For a jounin, Asuma-sensei was pretty normal, reliable. If people were in danger, Asuma-sensei would probably let someone else take care of it. If Chouji was sick to his stomach from over-eating, Asuma-sensei had probably gotten him that way. If Shikamaru was absent, or hidden away somewhere they’d never think to look, Asuma-sensei would send Ino out to look for him, while Asuma sat in the shade and smoked.
The nice thing about Asuma-sensei was that he made sense. He’d been lazy and dull and very teacher-ish, but he’d made sense. Sense was nice.
Kakashi passed her in the foyer on his way up the stairs, carrying another man in his arms.
Ino slowed down, and stared. “Sensei?”
“Yeah?” Kakashi didn’t slow down, moving up the creaky wooden steps in absolute silence. If she hadn’t been used to it, Ino would’ve been jealous.
“What are you doing?” Ino asked, because it was perfectly possible that maybe Kakashi was bringing home a corpse, or had found a very good lifelike doll, and had done something completely and totally different that had nothing to do, whatsoever, with bringing home a bloodied-up guy that looked a hell of a lot like the monster that had helped kill half of Konohakagure’s people. Including her family. And Kakashi’s, if he had any.
It was perfectly possible. Kakashi-sensei wasn’t that reckless. Kakashi-sensei was really very, very smart. Everyone knew that.
“Going upstairs,” Kakashi answered, before moving silently out of her sight.
Kakashi-sensei probably had never heard of sense. At least, not common sense. Which was strange, because he and Asuma-sensei had gotten along very well.
Ino skipped up the first four loudly-creaking steps, “Need help killing it?”
“No, thanks.”
“Want me to get Iruka-sensei?” because he’d want to kill it.
“Fine. Get Hinata here, while you’re at it.”
***
It hadn’t been long; not that long.
After all, it was only last fall-a few months ago-that he’d burned down the forest, torched Konohakagure and most of the Fire Country. It wasn’t even spring yet-still mid-winter, really.
In reality, it hadn’t really been long at all. Not long enough to leave him feeling this thrashed and beaten, gouged out and torn up. Hell, he’d been riding the wave, spurring it on, winning, and then he’d…tripped. Tumbled. And it really hurt.
Naruto hung out of the train’s passenger window, an unlit cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Trains were still something of a novelty to him-he’d done a lot of traveling when he was busy creating himself, a workable kingdom, and he’d ridden the subway and other trains when he was on vacation with Gaara and screwing like monkeys on side, but trains still fascinated him.
It was just-just the idea. The feeling of moving so fast, in a straight line, going faster than he could on foot or by animal and doing it so damn easily, without tiring his body or straining himself in any way. He loved trains; they were fun. The ride was even helping his hang-over; he could sleep on the bench if he wanted to, let the gentle swaying and straight lines soothe his mind.
If he were to evaluate his situation-which came naturally when he was smoking and moderately content and still-hung over-he’d find himself homeless (again) and loveless (again). Or lover-less at least; friend-less. Most definitely still hung over.
In the great scheme of things, he’d never planned on this scenario. He’d planned on being dead, but not on being alone. He didn’t have a plan out of it, either. He hadn’t thought he’d need one.
//I miss you.//
Naruto ducked inside the empty train car and slouched in his seat. He’d finally managed to acquire some decent clothes from a tourist-y beach store (he’d removed the price tags), mainly for his own benefit than for anyone else’s. He didn’t care if anyone saw him naked; he didn’t even have to worry about shrinkage, since his cock stayed mainly the same length regardless of the cold. Normal people couldn’t even see him if he didn’t feel like being seen; he’d just gotten tired of cold drafts in sensitive places, of seeing himself looking like that.
//I have your power. All of it. I did what we wanted. Have I complained about this before? I think I have. I can’t really remember.//
Did he want his kingdom back? The political power, the wealth?
Naruto inhaled deeply, the cigarette lighting on its own, and exhaled smoke through his nose.
In some ways, it’d been nice-he’d gotten nearly whatever he wanted, nearly whoever he wanted, and he had all the control.
He’d been-nearly-completely free.
Sure, it’d taken a lot of work. A whole lot of work; managing people and motives and profits, keeping everyone inside his organization on a leash long enough to keep them happy but short enough to choke them if they tried to do something stupid, keeping everyone on the outside uncertain enough not to attack him but certain enough to deal with him.
It’d taken a lot of work, balancing, climbing.
//You could have told me.//
Most of it hadn’t been his work.
He’d been the puppet, not the master--and he’d been fine with that, he’d gotten what he wanted out of the deal. No one else knew (except maybe Gaara, who wouldn’t care), and he hadn’t been used badly.
//You could have said goodbye. Told me that you would leave my head, after you got your revenge./ /
At least, he didn’t think he’d been used badly. Not really.
//I guess revenge was the only thing keeping you alive, at the end, huh?//
Being a shinobi was all about being used, being someone else’s tool, for better or worse. And, even if he’d taken a different direction in life, that was how he’d been raised. How he’d been told to think, even if he did fight back plenty and hardly listened.
//So, if I’m like you, will I die too? Once I get what I want?//
The train slowed and the intercom beeped lowly, and Naruto inhaled on another cigarette while walking onto the loading platform. A chill wind combed him over, going through his summer clothes-a black polo, orange nylon swim trunks, and violently green plastic sandals-like a heated knife through butter.
//I miss you. I didn’t think…I would. This much. The voice inside my head.//
Yakawa. Miserable little port town, in his opinion.
Naruto wandered in to town, badly dressed for the winter, and didn’t even feel the cold. Underneath his skin his blood was heated, and hungry.
***
In darkness-
--he floated. It was quiet.
Outside darkness-
--ants built iron towers in red pain outside his head outside silence red crimson tiny ants with feet and fingers and knives and teeth and-
//kill them//
//parasites//
//trash//
--someone’s skin on his skin.
//Mine//
//Safe.//
Gaara sank back into silence, harmless.
***
“Are you out of your mind?! Have you gone completely blood simple, do you have any idea-”
“Listen--” Kakashi inhaled.
“Eh, s-sensei, maybe-”
“He’s right,” Neji interrupted.
“-monster is? What it did to us-what it did to-”
“B-but Neji, m-maybe--”
“You’re being irration-”
“It’s a danger to every-”
“-b-badly hurt, h-he can’t--”
“--including you, Kakashi-san.”
“-out of your mind? What were you thinking bringing that-”
“Can you all shut up?” Kakashi didn’t bothering looking up as he finished one of the inked wards on Gaara’s right forearm, the mixture of kanji and bindings resembling a home-made tattoo job.
Logically, he’d known things wouldn’t go over well when he brought the kid home. He’d expected opposition, hostility, and resistance.
He’d hadn’t planned on throwing half the compound out of the attic, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as he’d expected; no one actually tried to go through him to get to the kid.
At least, not yet anyway.
“You shouldn’t bother,” Neji added again, sounding strangely relaxed. “It’s nearly dead anyway.”
“We can’t wait until it recovers consciousness,” Iruka had brought his voice down to a more tolerable level, angrier and more violent than Kakashi could honestly ever remember. “I don’t know what you were thinking or your motives but we have no possible way--”
“If he dies,” Kakashi began working on the right forearm, connecting the chakra points and throughways, “the demon inside him will be released.”
“-to control him or it, regardless,” Iruka continued seething, reminding Kakashi of one of the many ways Iruka could be his least favorite person to argue with; Iruka didn’t step down if it meant endangering other people, even if risk seemed lucrative. “And that result is only theoretical at best, but if he wakes up…”
Kakashi hoped this was only a dramatic pause, and continued to scribble.
“This was the one that broke your legs,” Iruka watched him from the other side of the low cot. “Wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” because there was no point in lying about it now.
“But it didn’t kill you.”
Ah crap. Kakashi repressed the urge to react, “No. It didn’t.”
“Ah,” Hinata broke the prolonged moment quietly, her nervous frowning accentuating her heavily veined eyes as she studied the scant energy flows in Gaara’s body. “Eh, he, ah, he isn’t w-well enough to, um…d-do anything. He’s n-nearly dead.”
Kakashi finished up with the right arm, noting the Hinata was probably the only one in the room who would call Gaara a ‘he’, instead of an ‘it’.
“Those restraints won’t hold it,” Neji added off to the side, arriving at the same conclusion Iruka had without choosing a course of action. “Not if it wakes up.”
“They’re not supposed to,” Kakashi stood, eyeing the inked markings and iron bed frame Gaara was laying on, separated only by a few heavy old sheets and some sheaves of broken cardboard boxes. “Iruka, I want to talk to you outside. Hinata, keep an eye on him.”
Of course, if Neji wanted to kill the kid, Hinata wouldn’t be able to stop him. But still, for the look of things…
Iruka closed the attic’s trapdoor behind them quietly, the tense restrained energy showing in his every clipped movement, from the way he moved his neck to the way he looked at Kakashi-not glaring, not seething, but only barely.
In a perverse way, Kakashi found it highly amusing-good to see some fire back in Iruka, the paternal protectiveness and maternal bloodlust. He kept himself from smiling though; Iruka wouldn’t get the joke.
“I found him in the city,” Kakashi stated quietly, weighing the chances of being openly attacked, knowing Neji and Hinata (and probably Ino and Shikamaru below them) were listening in, through the cracks or jutsus or whatever was handy. “He was already like this.”
“Why did you bring him here?” Iruka sounded strained, cold. “For what purpose?”
“Thought that would be obvious,” Kakashi slouched against the wall, letting himself sound mildly surprised (not enough to enrage him, but enough piss Iruka off). “Observational purposes; it’s easier to defend ourselves if our enemy is in plain sight and in our custody--”
“That thing isn’t in our custody Kakashi,” Iruka hissed, keeping his voice low, “that thing was never--”
“It was a calculated risk.”
“-our control. And, perhaps, neither are you.”
“You weren’t a qualified psychoanalyst when Konoha was standing,” Kakashi pointed out irritably, “you’re not one now either. And I told you: it was a calculated risk.”
“It attacked you and let you live,” Iruka returned, “the same thing the Fox did to Sasuke, and you didn’t have any problem doubting his sanity. Why should we treat yours differently?”
Damn. He really hated arguing with Iruka.
“Because I know what the demon was trying to do to me,” Kakashi sighed, languidly frustrated, “I don’t know what the fox’s goals were with Sasuke, or the extent of the damage. The sand demon attacked me originally with the intent of murder. The only reason it let me live was because it wanted to make a deal.”
“A deal? A deal,” Iruka raised an eyebrow incredulously. “And you believed it?”
“It asked me to destroy its human vessel,” Kakashi shrugged, nonchalant, “then to kill it, within a two week period. The human vessel doesn’t have much power left, as the Hyuugas have pointed out, so we can reasonably control it for a time-let me finish first-and I don’t think demons are suicidal. Maybe they are, maybe it is, but I would prefer to take cautious action.”
“You brought it home with you!”
“Yes,” Kakashi acknowledged, noting that Iruka became the stereotypical parent to almost everyone, “it tracked me down the first time, and it seems to have tracked me down again. As long as I’m in the group and the demon exists, everyone is always at risk because I’m the one it’s after. If you want me to leave,”-and that may have been the better course of action, he knew that--“I will, but I need some time to prepare.”
“It’s only targeted you,” Iruka mused. “What are you planning-what were you planning to do? By bringing it here?”
“I told you, observational purposes. Keep the human vessel where we can see it, monitor its health, energy, and keep it alive but only barely until we have a surer course of action available. He’s not entirely unmanageable-Sand kept him tame for several years,” Kakashi reasoned, trying build on the tiny moment of Iruka-curiosity, “before they were destroyed.”
“I don’t want to follow their example,” Iruka hissed again, keyed-up. “What the hell are you planning to do if it’s not manageable?”
“Take the uncalculated risk,” Kakashi shrugged again, “and cut his throat. It’s not hard.”
True, he was being condescending. True, also, Iruka was being stubborn, over-protective, and had several valid concerns. However, Kakashi thought he was completely right and logical and since he also thought he was the unnamed leader of this cell of survivors, he would win the argument and get his way. Provided Iruka didn’t put up too much of a fight and screw everything up.
Kakashi waited, and pretended to be annoyed and bored.
“We don’t even know how long he’s going to be unresponsive like that,” Iruka groused, but silently signaling a temporary surrender. “He could snap back to life at any minute.”
“We don’t even know how long he was in the city,” Kakashi agreed, helpful and modest after getting his way, “or what his reasons or goals are. However, at least this way we can get a clue, rather than have him running on the loose and be open to an attack at any moment. It’s dangerous, but sometimes the safest hiding place is your enemy’s shadow.”
“Unnecessary,” Iruka muttered, mildly pissed and recognizing the textbook quote; he’d made millions of brats memorize the fact, after all. “He might not have been alone.”
Kakashi didn’t answer immediately. He had information others probably didn’t and an untested theory (which wasn’t much), and everyone was on edge enough already; he had to be careful. “I don’t think that’s a strong possibility.”
“You’ve been keeping a lot of things from us,” Iruka said a bit too calmly. “That’s a liability we can’t afford.”
“I tell you what you need to know; I have reaso-”
“Sensei!” Hinata’s voice hissed urgently through the trap door, “the prisoner, he’s--”
***
He would probably be followed. Happened every other time he wanted to be alone.
Ignoring the usual evidence, because the ache in his neck hadn’t started throbbing red yet and he didn’t feel any of Kakashi-sensei’s cronies following him, Sasuke didn’t take pains to skulk through the streets, didn’t make himself anymore invisible than he normally did.
If he was going to be honest with himself-
No. No, that wasn’t right. Wasn’t correct. He was honest with himself-had always been painfully honest with himself. Lies-to the self-were self-serving, self-indulgent, and he didn’t have the patience for that sort of bullshit anyway. Hell; he didn’t have patience for any sort of bullshit, and the convenient kind was no different.
The problem wasn’t lying to himself. That wasn’t it.
He wanted to talk-no. He needed to talk to Kakashi-sensei. He needed and wanted to, badly.
But, naturally, like every other time he wanted company, he was alone. He’d probably be alone for a while, until he could stop avoiding Kakashi-sensei, keep himself from sneaking out of the compound whenever he knew Kakashi-sensei was coming.
The problem wasn’t lying to himself. The problem was…the main problem was…
Even though he’d grown up in a wealthy clan, surrounded by uncles and aunts and hundreds of cousins and second-cousins he couldn’t remember, people he wasn’t even sure how he was related to, living in crowded spaces still bothered him. Or even living in moderately social environments like Yakawa bothered him.
Even the less moderately social environment of Konohakagure had…that had bothered him too. Knowing that everyone there knew him, knowing that they could intrude on his privacy or home whenever they wanted to (although hardly anyone did, no one except Sakura when she scraped up the courage, or Naruto when he was super bored), bothered him.
If he was going to be honest with himself-
--and he could be honest with himself, he was honest with himself-
--he missed the forests.
The huge, looming trees, taller and darker than any of the buildings or alleys he’d run across in the cities. Nothing really compared to them, in the metal and cement world; nothing matched them, nothing really even imitated them. Konahakagure had been a modern Village, complete with billboards and wireless technology, but the modernity had never drowned out the natural taste, the maze of forests.
And-as Sasuke stalked through the small community park where mothers brought their kids to play and old people came to take in the sunshine and sleep-he had no idea how old the forests even were.
The trees here, in this park and even in the rural stretches between cities and towns, were tiny. Miniscule. Itsy-bitsy. Baby-sized. And most of the trees planted were usually older than he was. Older than Kakashi. And they were still so small.
Even if he lived to see a hundred years-which he probably wouldn’t, Sasuke doubted he’d live to see 30-he’d never see the forests of Konohakagure again. Not like they used to be.
That wasn’t the problem either. Not the problem that was slowing him down.
Loss had followed Sasuke all his life, from his family to his friends to his home to the sacred privacy of his own mind and soul; loss was the defining feature of his existence. Of his life.
That fact had lost its melodrama over time. Now it was just something to keep in mind.
He couldn’t afford to let it slow him down. He would’ve died, years and years ago, if he’d been that weak. That emotionally attached.
***
It was not particularly gentle, but Kakashi shoved open the trapdoor (and Hinata) faster than Hinata could move out of his way or Iruka could move into his way, most likely bruising some skin (and possibly egos) along the way, but he was a bit too terrified to worry about those.
There was nothing worse than being wrong. Especially when people would die because he was wrong.
The kid was still on the bed. His eyes were still closed. But his face tense, frowning, and-
--froze when Kakashi reached the bed.
The monster’s breathing was labored, his ribs showing easily through his unhealthy translucent skin and torn and dirty shirt, but his face was taut. On instinct-or a gamble-Kakashi gingerly brushed a knuckle against the ravaged cheekbones, all his weight balanced on his toes and praying (something he hadn’t completely forgotten to do) desperately in the quiet silence of his mind.
Gaara grunted. Then his body relaxed, and melted into the thick musty sheets.
His heartbeat sounded very loud in his temples. Not so much in his ears-his ears were picking the sub-audible whisper of drawn weapons from behind and below and the even quieter hum of chakra (could Neji kill it? Disable it? Would that actually hold the demon’s power in check?)-but in his temples.
On a second guess-gamble?-he pressed his fingers, lightly, into the juncture of the teen’s neck, as close to the place where the original demon had ripped flesh from him as Kakashi could determine.
Gaara’s breathing steadied immediately, and slowed in the same shallow child-like trance breathing Kakashi had brought him inside with.
“I’ll stay with him,” Kakashi murmured gently to the shadow clones and writhing shadows at his back. “The very instant my student decides to show up, notify me.”
After all, most of his decisions were based on information he wasn’t even sure was correct…
“The very instant. But don’t let him inside. And don’t say his name."
Chapter continued here
by gelfling
Summary: In which lost animals are found, walking around occurs, and a fight starts. Unbetaed.
***
If you hold a bird gently, the bird will stay. If you hold it too hard, it’s eyes’ll bug out. And then the pet shop owner won’t let you hold the mice and animals anymore.
--Rose (Betty White), The Golden Girls
***
The ocean bay was a cold blue with oily iridescent highlights, the run-off from early spring’s heavy rains and winds.
It was desolate enough on the waterfront that he didn’t have to hide (since there was no one to hide from), but Kakashi lurked in the shadows of the harbor’s warehouses out of habit. Bits of styrofoam, plastic bags, and other garbage floated serenely on the water.
Times had changed since the fires in autumn, but it wasn’t exactly more or less dangerous to be identified as a shinobi. The hubris and debris of monsters and demons that Naruto had collected in the continent’s center had terrorized and driven people to the borders or foreign lands, but the monster population itself hadn’t spread. Kakashi guessed the beasts were too busy tearing each other apart to start on the easier prey, and hoped he was right.
It was still profitable business, ninja espionage and assassination, but people watched him longer, closer, when he went outside. It was unfriendly, but not hostile, and was the best he had hoped for. People continued to pay (often reluctantly), and that was all that really mattered.
People stared at what was left of Team Nine too, but they blended in better than he felt like doing. Didn’t exactly matter though; the monsters were too busy killing each other to organize and be a real problem. The samurai and ronin were the ones with the high demand and fatality rate now, not the shinobi.
Still-Kakashi shifted against the dull concrete wall and watched a plastic bag bob-he felt quiet inside, and cold, cold deep down where the weather couldn’t touch.
It’d been a little over a week or so now, and he still hadn’t thought up a good way to kill the Sand kid. He had a couple of ideas and had tossed them around with a couple more, but he had nothing good enough that met his standards.
If the kid was just extraordinary, then at least Kakashi could trust him to stay dead, but the demon complicated things. Not even the Yondaime had thought up a way to kill a demon-theoretically, it wasn’t possible. And it was the demon, more than the kid, that wanted Kakashi dead.
All over the waterfront-all across the bay, actually-there wasn’t a single sea gull. No birds, anywhere.
The mangy alley cat Hinata had taken in was gone. The scrawny animal had been missing fur, an ear, and half its tail. It would tear the kitchen apart if they left it alone and rip up Hinata’s plants, and bite anyone who came close to it, except Neji, and he’d only kept it because Hinata wanted it.
The animal had been missing for two days, and Hinata was still looking for it in her free time. Not even the sparrows or mice had touched the cat’s kibble she’d left outside.
The street dogs hadn’t sniffed Kakashi when he’d half-walked, half-limped his way down to the waterfront. Dogs didn’t bark at him and almost never attacked, but they noticed him, and made sure he noticed them, even if they weren’t looking for food or a hand. The street dogs had disappeared, and the penned-in dogs were silent now, reclusive.
All the lower life forms seemed to be evacuating, and Kakashi still wasn’t sure who’d take leadership among the refugees if the monster killed him. Probably Iruka, but Neji and Ino had the talents to handle it together, if they could manage to keep off each other’s backs. He’d already shipped Lee off to Asuma and Shino in the far north for ‘rehabilitation’ and security purposes. It hadn’t been a complete lie, and with Gai still missing and possibly dead (probably), there weren’t too many other people he trusted.
If he were following the stereotype of a traditional Western roughed-up protagonist, he’d probably be chain-smoking right now (or at least smoking a single desolately) or drinking. Because he wasn’t, and because he didn’t smoke and only drank in company or when suicidal, Kakashi only stared vacantly at nothing, leaving without a trace when the tide dropped low.
He did pick up a packet of cigarettes on his way back though. That probably didn’t count.
***
Six months ago:
In the provinces of Stone in the far north the dry artic air cut over the high craggy mountain precipices, cut through the jagged thin ravines and sharpened every rock and pebble sharper than the finest whetstone could’ve done. The landscape ranged from coal black to silk gray, to snakeskin-brittle to iron-hard. Little green grew in Stone, and it tended to stick close to the ground, to hide from the ice siroccos.
Stone was a land of little rain, cold wind, and ragged shadows: Stone was wolf country, cold and gray and mysterious, and it always made Naruto feel just a little on edge.
Not too on edge of course-the only monsters he had to worry about was the one who slept in his bed, and the other that slept in his head-but just the tiniest bit uncomfortable.
As a boy, he’d grown up with trees and buildings on all sides, and there was always a handy bush or alleyway to lurk in, and the fox in Naruto-which, while a monster, was still a fox-hated wolves, hated the infertile bedrock, hated the wide open sky.
So, with both centers of his being finally agreeing for once, Naruto had started a small garden on one of the small sheltered shelves above the fortress of the Demon King.
He’d planted mint.
The human part of him didn’t really like mint, because it reminded him of toothpaste. The part of him that liked to roll in the dirt and garf down raw meat just didn’t like it. Didn’t like the smell. Made his muzzle itch.
Most of the soil in the garden was imported, and the mint burrowed and crawled through it, shoving up unusually tall waist-high stalks and white cones of tiny flowers. It was the only little spot of green for miles around, unless you counted Gaara’s eyes, which Naruto didn’t. The miserable little garden kept away whatever homesickness he felt, lowered his instinctual hackles, and passively annoyed him.
First, Naruto had tried dousing a section of the mint in petrol, then lighting the plant on fire. The smoke had been thick, very smelly (and a bit like toothpaste), and the damn thing had not burned particularly well at all. A few days later, after the half-assed fire had gone but the horrible stink lingered, Naruto ripped through another section with a rusty old scimitar that had been stolen from…somewhere, and left rusting somewhere else. Then he’d tried pouring bleach and other poisons over most of it, and that actually worked. The green bastards turned yellow and black and withered into crispy brown corpses.
For a while.
When Naruto had returned weeks later after killing one of his back-stabbing lieutenants-and it’d been one of the guys he’d actually liked, with funny hair, how fucked up was that?-he found that there were little yellow shoots clinging to the edges of his butt-wiped garden. Except for the first few times, when the mint had been kinda interesting, Naruto never bothered to water it.
A part of him had been impressed, and secretly proud; the rest of him had gone at the patch of sick vegetation with a flamethrower.
When Naruto had returned a couple of weeks later, the garden was still dead and black. He placed an order for more top-quality soil from Rain, and a seed packet of chrysanthemums, which was a very philosophical flower.
The next time he returned to the sequestered garden the plot of dirt was still black and ugly, dry. And, poking out of the sharp hard rock walls on three sides of the garden, were tiny sticks of sickly mint.
The packet of chrysanthemums was flushed down the toilet, in case you were wondering.
***
He could…hear music playing. Far away. Very far away, small and strangled-out, but he could hear…something. Strange. Very strange, and badly executed.
He didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t…want. To hear anything.
He wanted silence.
He was tired. He was so unbearably. Tired.
Gaara woke.
The sounds were more definite now: the foggy susurrus of buildings and trees carving out notes in the breeze, the dull clatter of people walking around, moving things, talking.
People far away, but not too far.
Not far enough.
It was harder to do than anything else in his life had even been, but Gaara managed to open his eyes. His eyelids felt gummy, glued together-his body stank, of sweat, urine, and blood.
He was sitting against a wall in the shade. In front of him was another wall, yellow brick and white stucco (was that right? Did it matter? …No), glowing with the sunlight hitting it. He was in…not a street, an alley. There was blue sky overhead, with a few white clouds.
It smelled…organic. Warm.
Gaara closed his eyes, and reached.
He didn’t want this.
He’d…been there. Silent. Cold.
He’d been there and it’d been…so…
Like a building regaining power, he began to regain feeling of his body, became aware of his toes and elbows and beaten hips, bruised thighs and his feet…bleeding. Still bleeding, badly. Still. And not healing.
//Fuck.//
Was…?
//Fuck.//
He didn’t scream. He didn’t. He didn’t want to regain control, if it meant he had to feel.
Feel those…that…
The price was too high. Too high.
But he was himself. Still.
For the moment.
Wincing, lethargically, Gaara cracked his left eye open. He focused on the dark fuzzy lines instinctually, and concentrated until he could make out the legs and body of the other person in the alley with him.
He thought, briefly, of all the people in the world who wouldn’t want to kill him, all the people he wouldn’t want to kill.
He couldn’t think of anyone.
It hurt too much to move-he was empty, dead and drained. Empty. Completely and utterly empty. He didn’t know why he felt that way, what had happened or when, but…
Gaara kept the man’s gaze, an eye for an eye, and felt his throat dry out as he breathed slow and weak, spit dried to the corner of his mouth.
Even when Kakashi tiptoed nearer like a wolf scavenging a kill, Gaara kept his eye open. It wasn’t the issue of death that bothered him, or even being murdered by a human, something he could rip apart in seconds.
It was a matter of…curiosity. Pride. Blood-
--blood lust; his blood or the human’s, he wanted to be conscious blood was shed.
He hadn’t lost that.
The cold blues and searing greens and dead grays in Kakashi’s uniform blurred as he came closer, the colors-
--he had to blink to stay awake, conscious, here-
--the colors swimming together in his head, sloshing back in forth with gravity and hunger and an overload of sensory material-too much to handle, too much to understand.
It made him sick to his stomach, the colors and smell, the-
--the stench of human and sweat and old skin, the smell of something--
//(someone always mine (mine?) always me mine but you’re not we’re not you’re not-//
--pain and death and power and the stink of human loss and weakness and reminding jabbing poking bleeding him--
//none, never, not, none, nothing, no one not one nothing never me--//
--starving him--
//always marked smell mark mine mine me mine always I’m not we’re not you’re not--//
//?)//
--which was why Kakashi had him halfway down the block before Gaara realized he was being carried in the other man’s arms.
***
He was still, as the great poet had once said in a clairvoyant moment of epiphany, painfully hung-over, but Naruto didn’t let that bother him too much. Not too much. Not as much as he could have, if Sasuke hadn’t screwed him over so very successfully.
He’d been hung-over before. He’d never been hung-over this long or badly before, but he’d live through it.
Maybe. If it got less painful.
Every three or four steps he’d stumble on the dirty sand, trip on a used condom or beer bottle, or kick a dead jelly fish. He was a few hundred kilometers south of Yaka-whatever. Yaka-something. Or was it Something-mori?
Where Iruka was. Naruto was aware that he could be there tonight, if he mysteriously acquired a motorbike. Which would be easy. If he wanted to.
Voices several meters ahead of him caught Naruto’s attention, briefly: a trio of kids were gathered around a beached dolphin, a light grayish lump on the sand.
After he’d come to yesterday afternoon in an alley smelling strongly of piss and vomit (and now pipe cleaner and bleach), stumbled around and thrown up himself, Naruto had ransacked Sasuke’s hotel room, ripped through the mattress and smelled every crack in the floorboards and walls.
The place had reeked of bleach, and burned through Naruto’s sinuses and had made him violently sick-or was that just the hang-over? It could have been the hang-over. This horrible, horrible hang-over that made him want to cry and fall to his knees and suck his thumb, made him want to rip someone’s ribs apart. Such a horrible, horrible hang-over.
Fucking A.
Either way, Sasuke was gone and so was his smell. The jerk hadn’t even left a note or said good-bye proper.
On the beach, Naruto raised his eyebrows as a fourth kid came flying down the beach with a fishing pike held over his head, heading for the dolphin group. The trio moved away from the gray lump silently, obediently, and Naruto watched as the beached animal curled its tail and moved an arm to crawl away.
The kid slowed and stopped a few cautious feet away, raised the pike in a business-like manner, then screamed when his bare arm caught fire, blue-orange flames crushing the wooden pike handle to splinters. Scarlet and green flames ripped through the damp sand and any sandals that weren’t running away fast enough.
Naruto tripped and meandered on until he was close enough to crouch by the mermaid on the dirty (and now bloody) sand. He patted his pockets absently for a cigarette he didn’t have.
“Are there any guys with you people? I mean, I like fishy dyke action as much as the next guy, but are you all girls? Like, all of you? How do you make babies?”
The mermaid’s inky smooth eyes were half-open, turning gray in the center from too much sunlight, her gills bloated and discolored from oxygen deprivation. Naruto scratched his knees as he watched her breathe through her mouth, slow and thin.
He desperately wanted a cigarette.
“I could kill you,” he murmured, knowing she couldn’t understand him, could barely hear the wavelength his voice was on even if she’d been healthy. “But you’re going to die anyway. It’d be mercy, whatever I do. Even if I do nothing. To someone.”
Two big black flies settled on her hairless gray eyelids, licked her eyes with their tongues. Her eyelids twitched, but she couldn’t blink and the flies stayed where they were. Naruto wasn’t sure she could see him, if she was looking at him.
“Whatever I do,” Naruto murmured, wrapping his hand around her neck and pressing her esophagus in, “I doubt I’ll surprise anyone.”
He threw her back into the ocean, easily. Then he continued trawling up the beach, heading north.
***
One of the nice things about Asuma-sensei was the fact that he was considerate enough to smoke, constantly. Ino could pass through a room or huddle on a tree branch and know if Asuma-sensei had been through there just by the smell of cheap cigarettes; it made him more human.
For a jounin, Asuma-sensei was pretty normal, reliable. If people were in danger, Asuma-sensei would probably let someone else take care of it. If Chouji was sick to his stomach from over-eating, Asuma-sensei had probably gotten him that way. If Shikamaru was absent, or hidden away somewhere they’d never think to look, Asuma-sensei would send Ino out to look for him, while Asuma sat in the shade and smoked.
The nice thing about Asuma-sensei was that he made sense. He’d been lazy and dull and very teacher-ish, but he’d made sense. Sense was nice.
Kakashi passed her in the foyer on his way up the stairs, carrying another man in his arms.
Ino slowed down, and stared. “Sensei?”
“Yeah?” Kakashi didn’t slow down, moving up the creaky wooden steps in absolute silence. If she hadn’t been used to it, Ino would’ve been jealous.
“What are you doing?” Ino asked, because it was perfectly possible that maybe Kakashi was bringing home a corpse, or had found a very good lifelike doll, and had done something completely and totally different that had nothing to do, whatsoever, with bringing home a bloodied-up guy that looked a hell of a lot like the monster that had helped kill half of Konohakagure’s people. Including her family. And Kakashi’s, if he had any.
It was perfectly possible. Kakashi-sensei wasn’t that reckless. Kakashi-sensei was really very, very smart. Everyone knew that.
“Going upstairs,” Kakashi answered, before moving silently out of her sight.
Kakashi-sensei probably had never heard of sense. At least, not common sense. Which was strange, because he and Asuma-sensei had gotten along very well.
Ino skipped up the first four loudly-creaking steps, “Need help killing it?”
“No, thanks.”
“Want me to get Iruka-sensei?” because he’d want to kill it.
“Fine. Get Hinata here, while you’re at it.”
***
It hadn’t been long; not that long.
After all, it was only last fall-a few months ago-that he’d burned down the forest, torched Konohakagure and most of the Fire Country. It wasn’t even spring yet-still mid-winter, really.
In reality, it hadn’t really been long at all. Not long enough to leave him feeling this thrashed and beaten, gouged out and torn up. Hell, he’d been riding the wave, spurring it on, winning, and then he’d…tripped. Tumbled. And it really hurt.
Naruto hung out of the train’s passenger window, an unlit cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Trains were still something of a novelty to him-he’d done a lot of traveling when he was busy creating himself, a workable kingdom, and he’d ridden the subway and other trains when he was on vacation with Gaara and screwing like monkeys on side, but trains still fascinated him.
It was just-just the idea. The feeling of moving so fast, in a straight line, going faster than he could on foot or by animal and doing it so damn easily, without tiring his body or straining himself in any way. He loved trains; they were fun. The ride was even helping his hang-over; he could sleep on the bench if he wanted to, let the gentle swaying and straight lines soothe his mind.
If he were to evaluate his situation-which came naturally when he was smoking and moderately content and still-hung over-he’d find himself homeless (again) and loveless (again). Or lover-less at least; friend-less. Most definitely still hung over.
In the great scheme of things, he’d never planned on this scenario. He’d planned on being dead, but not on being alone. He didn’t have a plan out of it, either. He hadn’t thought he’d need one.
//I miss you.//
Naruto ducked inside the empty train car and slouched in his seat. He’d finally managed to acquire some decent clothes from a tourist-y beach store (he’d removed the price tags), mainly for his own benefit than for anyone else’s. He didn’t care if anyone saw him naked; he didn’t even have to worry about shrinkage, since his cock stayed mainly the same length regardless of the cold. Normal people couldn’t even see him if he didn’t feel like being seen; he’d just gotten tired of cold drafts in sensitive places, of seeing himself looking like that.
//I have your power. All of it. I did what we wanted. Have I complained about this before? I think I have. I can’t really remember.//
Did he want his kingdom back? The political power, the wealth?
Naruto inhaled deeply, the cigarette lighting on its own, and exhaled smoke through his nose.
In some ways, it’d been nice-he’d gotten nearly whatever he wanted, nearly whoever he wanted, and he had all the control.
He’d been-nearly-completely free.
Sure, it’d taken a lot of work. A whole lot of work; managing people and motives and profits, keeping everyone inside his organization on a leash long enough to keep them happy but short enough to choke them if they tried to do something stupid, keeping everyone on the outside uncertain enough not to attack him but certain enough to deal with him.
It’d taken a lot of work, balancing, climbing.
//You could have told me.//
Most of it hadn’t been his work.
He’d been the puppet, not the master--and he’d been fine with that, he’d gotten what he wanted out of the deal. No one else knew (except maybe Gaara, who wouldn’t care), and he hadn’t been used badly.
//You could have said goodbye. Told me that you would leave my head, after you got your revenge./ /
At least, he didn’t think he’d been used badly. Not really.
//I guess revenge was the only thing keeping you alive, at the end, huh?//
Being a shinobi was all about being used, being someone else’s tool, for better or worse. And, even if he’d taken a different direction in life, that was how he’d been raised. How he’d been told to think, even if he did fight back plenty and hardly listened.
//So, if I’m like you, will I die too? Once I get what I want?//
The train slowed and the intercom beeped lowly, and Naruto inhaled on another cigarette while walking onto the loading platform. A chill wind combed him over, going through his summer clothes-a black polo, orange nylon swim trunks, and violently green plastic sandals-like a heated knife through butter.
//I miss you. I didn’t think…I would. This much. The voice inside my head.//
Yakawa. Miserable little port town, in his opinion.
Naruto wandered in to town, badly dressed for the winter, and didn’t even feel the cold. Underneath his skin his blood was heated, and hungry.
***
In darkness-
--he floated. It was quiet.
Outside darkness-
--ants built iron towers in red pain outside his head outside silence red crimson tiny ants with feet and fingers and knives and teeth and-
//kill them//
//parasites//
//trash//
--someone’s skin on his skin.
//Mine//
//Safe.//
Gaara sank back into silence, harmless.
***
“Are you out of your mind?! Have you gone completely blood simple, do you have any idea-”
“Listen--” Kakashi inhaled.
“Eh, s-sensei, maybe-”
“He’s right,” Neji interrupted.
“-monster is? What it did to us-what it did to-”
“B-but Neji, m-maybe--”
“You’re being irration-”
“It’s a danger to every-”
“-b-badly hurt, h-he can’t--”
“--including you, Kakashi-san.”
“-out of your mind? What were you thinking bringing that-”
“Can you all shut up?” Kakashi didn’t bothering looking up as he finished one of the inked wards on Gaara’s right forearm, the mixture of kanji and bindings resembling a home-made tattoo job.
Logically, he’d known things wouldn’t go over well when he brought the kid home. He’d expected opposition, hostility, and resistance.
He’d hadn’t planned on throwing half the compound out of the attic, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as he’d expected; no one actually tried to go through him to get to the kid.
At least, not yet anyway.
“You shouldn’t bother,” Neji added again, sounding strangely relaxed. “It’s nearly dead anyway.”
“We can’t wait until it recovers consciousness,” Iruka had brought his voice down to a more tolerable level, angrier and more violent than Kakashi could honestly ever remember. “I don’t know what you were thinking or your motives but we have no possible way--”
“If he dies,” Kakashi began working on the right forearm, connecting the chakra points and throughways, “the demon inside him will be released.”
“-to control him or it, regardless,” Iruka continued seething, reminding Kakashi of one of the many ways Iruka could be his least favorite person to argue with; Iruka didn’t step down if it meant endangering other people, even if risk seemed lucrative. “And that result is only theoretical at best, but if he wakes up…”
Kakashi hoped this was only a dramatic pause, and continued to scribble.
“This was the one that broke your legs,” Iruka watched him from the other side of the low cot. “Wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” because there was no point in lying about it now.
“But it didn’t kill you.”
Ah crap. Kakashi repressed the urge to react, “No. It didn’t.”
“Ah,” Hinata broke the prolonged moment quietly, her nervous frowning accentuating her heavily veined eyes as she studied the scant energy flows in Gaara’s body. “Eh, he, ah, he isn’t w-well enough to, um…d-do anything. He’s n-nearly dead.”
Kakashi finished up with the right arm, noting the Hinata was probably the only one in the room who would call Gaara a ‘he’, instead of an ‘it’.
“Those restraints won’t hold it,” Neji added off to the side, arriving at the same conclusion Iruka had without choosing a course of action. “Not if it wakes up.”
“They’re not supposed to,” Kakashi stood, eyeing the inked markings and iron bed frame Gaara was laying on, separated only by a few heavy old sheets and some sheaves of broken cardboard boxes. “Iruka, I want to talk to you outside. Hinata, keep an eye on him.”
Of course, if Neji wanted to kill the kid, Hinata wouldn’t be able to stop him. But still, for the look of things…
Iruka closed the attic’s trapdoor behind them quietly, the tense restrained energy showing in his every clipped movement, from the way he moved his neck to the way he looked at Kakashi-not glaring, not seething, but only barely.
In a perverse way, Kakashi found it highly amusing-good to see some fire back in Iruka, the paternal protectiveness and maternal bloodlust. He kept himself from smiling though; Iruka wouldn’t get the joke.
“I found him in the city,” Kakashi stated quietly, weighing the chances of being openly attacked, knowing Neji and Hinata (and probably Ino and Shikamaru below them) were listening in, through the cracks or jutsus or whatever was handy. “He was already like this.”
“Why did you bring him here?” Iruka sounded strained, cold. “For what purpose?”
“Thought that would be obvious,” Kakashi slouched against the wall, letting himself sound mildly surprised (not enough to enrage him, but enough piss Iruka off). “Observational purposes; it’s easier to defend ourselves if our enemy is in plain sight and in our custody--”
“That thing isn’t in our custody Kakashi,” Iruka hissed, keeping his voice low, “that thing was never--”
“It was a calculated risk.”
“-our control. And, perhaps, neither are you.”
“You weren’t a qualified psychoanalyst when Konoha was standing,” Kakashi pointed out irritably, “you’re not one now either. And I told you: it was a calculated risk.”
“It attacked you and let you live,” Iruka returned, “the same thing the Fox did to Sasuke, and you didn’t have any problem doubting his sanity. Why should we treat yours differently?”
Damn. He really hated arguing with Iruka.
“Because I know what the demon was trying to do to me,” Kakashi sighed, languidly frustrated, “I don’t know what the fox’s goals were with Sasuke, or the extent of the damage. The sand demon attacked me originally with the intent of murder. The only reason it let me live was because it wanted to make a deal.”
“A deal? A deal,” Iruka raised an eyebrow incredulously. “And you believed it?”
“It asked me to destroy its human vessel,” Kakashi shrugged, nonchalant, “then to kill it, within a two week period. The human vessel doesn’t have much power left, as the Hyuugas have pointed out, so we can reasonably control it for a time-let me finish first-and I don’t think demons are suicidal. Maybe they are, maybe it is, but I would prefer to take cautious action.”
“You brought it home with you!”
“Yes,” Kakashi acknowledged, noting that Iruka became the stereotypical parent to almost everyone, “it tracked me down the first time, and it seems to have tracked me down again. As long as I’m in the group and the demon exists, everyone is always at risk because I’m the one it’s after. If you want me to leave,”-and that may have been the better course of action, he knew that--“I will, but I need some time to prepare.”
“It’s only targeted you,” Iruka mused. “What are you planning-what were you planning to do? By bringing it here?”
“I told you, observational purposes. Keep the human vessel where we can see it, monitor its health, energy, and keep it alive but only barely until we have a surer course of action available. He’s not entirely unmanageable-Sand kept him tame for several years,” Kakashi reasoned, trying build on the tiny moment of Iruka-curiosity, “before they were destroyed.”
“I don’t want to follow their example,” Iruka hissed again, keyed-up. “What the hell are you planning to do if it’s not manageable?”
“Take the uncalculated risk,” Kakashi shrugged again, “and cut his throat. It’s not hard.”
True, he was being condescending. True, also, Iruka was being stubborn, over-protective, and had several valid concerns. However, Kakashi thought he was completely right and logical and since he also thought he was the unnamed leader of this cell of survivors, he would win the argument and get his way. Provided Iruka didn’t put up too much of a fight and screw everything up.
Kakashi waited, and pretended to be annoyed and bored.
“We don’t even know how long he’s going to be unresponsive like that,” Iruka groused, but silently signaling a temporary surrender. “He could snap back to life at any minute.”
“We don’t even know how long he was in the city,” Kakashi agreed, helpful and modest after getting his way, “or what his reasons or goals are. However, at least this way we can get a clue, rather than have him running on the loose and be open to an attack at any moment. It’s dangerous, but sometimes the safest hiding place is your enemy’s shadow.”
“Unnecessary,” Iruka muttered, mildly pissed and recognizing the textbook quote; he’d made millions of brats memorize the fact, after all. “He might not have been alone.”
Kakashi didn’t answer immediately. He had information others probably didn’t and an untested theory (which wasn’t much), and everyone was on edge enough already; he had to be careful. “I don’t think that’s a strong possibility.”
“You’ve been keeping a lot of things from us,” Iruka said a bit too calmly. “That’s a liability we can’t afford.”
“I tell you what you need to know; I have reaso-”
“Sensei!” Hinata’s voice hissed urgently through the trap door, “the prisoner, he’s--”
***
He would probably be followed. Happened every other time he wanted to be alone.
Ignoring the usual evidence, because the ache in his neck hadn’t started throbbing red yet and he didn’t feel any of Kakashi-sensei’s cronies following him, Sasuke didn’t take pains to skulk through the streets, didn’t make himself anymore invisible than he normally did.
If he was going to be honest with himself-
No. No, that wasn’t right. Wasn’t correct. He was honest with himself-had always been painfully honest with himself. Lies-to the self-were self-serving, self-indulgent, and he didn’t have the patience for that sort of bullshit anyway. Hell; he didn’t have patience for any sort of bullshit, and the convenient kind was no different.
The problem wasn’t lying to himself. That wasn’t it.
He wanted to talk-no. He needed to talk to Kakashi-sensei. He needed and wanted to, badly.
But, naturally, like every other time he wanted company, he was alone. He’d probably be alone for a while, until he could stop avoiding Kakashi-sensei, keep himself from sneaking out of the compound whenever he knew Kakashi-sensei was coming.
The problem wasn’t lying to himself. The problem was…the main problem was…
Even though he’d grown up in a wealthy clan, surrounded by uncles and aunts and hundreds of cousins and second-cousins he couldn’t remember, people he wasn’t even sure how he was related to, living in crowded spaces still bothered him. Or even living in moderately social environments like Yakawa bothered him.
Even the less moderately social environment of Konohakagure had…that had bothered him too. Knowing that everyone there knew him, knowing that they could intrude on his privacy or home whenever they wanted to (although hardly anyone did, no one except Sakura when she scraped up the courage, or Naruto when he was super bored), bothered him.
If he was going to be honest with himself-
--and he could be honest with himself, he was honest with himself-
--he missed the forests.
The huge, looming trees, taller and darker than any of the buildings or alleys he’d run across in the cities. Nothing really compared to them, in the metal and cement world; nothing matched them, nothing really even imitated them. Konahakagure had been a modern Village, complete with billboards and wireless technology, but the modernity had never drowned out the natural taste, the maze of forests.
And-as Sasuke stalked through the small community park where mothers brought their kids to play and old people came to take in the sunshine and sleep-he had no idea how old the forests even were.
The trees here, in this park and even in the rural stretches between cities and towns, were tiny. Miniscule. Itsy-bitsy. Baby-sized. And most of the trees planted were usually older than he was. Older than Kakashi. And they were still so small.
Even if he lived to see a hundred years-which he probably wouldn’t, Sasuke doubted he’d live to see 30-he’d never see the forests of Konohakagure again. Not like they used to be.
That wasn’t the problem either. Not the problem that was slowing him down.
Loss had followed Sasuke all his life, from his family to his friends to his home to the sacred privacy of his own mind and soul; loss was the defining feature of his existence. Of his life.
That fact had lost its melodrama over time. Now it was just something to keep in mind.
He couldn’t afford to let it slow him down. He would’ve died, years and years ago, if he’d been that weak. That emotionally attached.
***
It was not particularly gentle, but Kakashi shoved open the trapdoor (and Hinata) faster than Hinata could move out of his way or Iruka could move into his way, most likely bruising some skin (and possibly egos) along the way, but he was a bit too terrified to worry about those.
There was nothing worse than being wrong. Especially when people would die because he was wrong.
The kid was still on the bed. His eyes were still closed. But his face tense, frowning, and-
--froze when Kakashi reached the bed.
The monster’s breathing was labored, his ribs showing easily through his unhealthy translucent skin and torn and dirty shirt, but his face was taut. On instinct-or a gamble-Kakashi gingerly brushed a knuckle against the ravaged cheekbones, all his weight balanced on his toes and praying (something he hadn’t completely forgotten to do) desperately in the quiet silence of his mind.
Gaara grunted. Then his body relaxed, and melted into the thick musty sheets.
His heartbeat sounded very loud in his temples. Not so much in his ears-his ears were picking the sub-audible whisper of drawn weapons from behind and below and the even quieter hum of chakra (could Neji kill it? Disable it? Would that actually hold the demon’s power in check?)-but in his temples.
On a second guess-gamble?-he pressed his fingers, lightly, into the juncture of the teen’s neck, as close to the place where the original demon had ripped flesh from him as Kakashi could determine.
Gaara’s breathing steadied immediately, and slowed in the same shallow child-like trance breathing Kakashi had brought him inside with.
“I’ll stay with him,” Kakashi murmured gently to the shadow clones and writhing shadows at his back. “The very instant my student decides to show up, notify me.”
After all, most of his decisions were based on information he wasn’t even sure was correct…
“The very instant. But don’t let him inside. And don’t say his name."
Chapter continued here