[Log] 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall [Backdated] [1/2]
Characters: Anko and Gaara
Date: December 28th, 2007
Location: Celo bar, then Anko's apartment
Warnings/Notes: Drunken Anko, lewd comments, language, Kank-speak
Summary: Gaara finds Anko inebriated beyond recognition at a bar one night, and decides to take her home.
Anko lifted the thick glass bottle, swirling it around to agitate the small amount of liquid that lingered in the bottom. She let it fall to the sticky bar top with an obnoxious thud, slurring out an order to the bartender to bring her another, regardless of the fact she had lost count of how many drinks she'd had, just ordering over a bottle after quickly downing the first few, and then another some time later.
The walls in her Cena apartment had begun to close in on her, the silence deafening with herself being the only solo occupant for going on two weeks now, thus prompting another venture back into Celo for a change of pace and at least a drinking companion by way of Kakashi. There'd still been not one word from Kankurou or anyone who had seen him since storming out of her apartment following her return from Ceno. Just the thought of the damned Blue District made her shoulder twinge, causing her to shift her arm testily in it's sling.
Fucking military. Fucking fucked up shoulder. Fucking Kankurou. Fuck it ALL.
Thirst and the need for other human beings led Anko to deviate her journey into one of the many bars lining her journey where one drink turned into one bottle and so on to where she was now, blissfully trashed without the bliss. Scowls and green eyes haunted her every time her eyes fluttered shut which only led her to try harder to forget, even if only for the shortest while.
She was drunk.
... It was the only reason Gaara picked his way through the crowded bar and over to the familiar violet-eyed woman sitting on a stool just to the right of the door. In Cena, where his reputation was irrefutable, people tended to go to great lengths just to avoid touching him - the slightest swish of fabric against fabric was enough to send a chill down most any man's spine. In Celo, though he was known only as a nameless face - a veritable wraith in the White District -, people's reactions to his presence was still much the same.
Of course, a few men still bumped into him as he stormed through the crowd - they were too drunk for their motor skills to be functioning properly, so he couldn't really blame them. He couldn't really tolerate them, either, and a quick shove sent most of them sprawling against the closest solid surface they could find - some chose chairs, others people, and still others couldn't stop their fall until the dirty wooden floor came up to greet them.
She was drunk, though, so it was doubtful that she would notice.
Gaara didn't want to acknowledge the reason why, exactly, he refused to refer to this mysterious 'she' as 'Anko'. He didn't want to think of how every name from the past he had forcefully thrown away had haunted his every waking moment until he had sat down and stricken every memory to the darkest reaches of his subconsciousness. He didn't want to think about it, so, logically, he refrained.
The seats beside her were empty, but he had no urge to sit and chat. He wasn't sure what he was doing here, really. He had been on one of his less frequent romps in the White District when a chance glance inside this establishment had revealed to him a strikingly familiar person.
A person, he might add, who was slumped over a bottle of booze in a way that suggested she might take off someone's arm if they dare tried to pry it from her fingers.
He hovered beside her, scowling, arms crossed as he glared down at the wonderfully oblivious woman.
Idiot, he thought, glancing around him at all the shady characters who were eying her with a malicious look in their eyes. Didn't she know that alcohol impaired the senses and damaged the mind? Didn't she know that she could get herself killed - or worse - because of this simple act of stupidity?
He knew what he should do - probably would do, given the proper time and motivation, damn her -, but he was still disgusted with himself for even thinking of it.
Rescuing the damsel in distress was not Gaara's idea of a good time.
Somewhere in the depths of her hazy mind, Anko could sense the looming presence nearby but she didn't bother acknowledging it, much like she didn't recognize or acknowledge any of the other bar patrons save the bartender and only then because he had something she wanted. Tightening her fingers around the neck of the bottle, she refilled the glass sloppily, the vodka sloshing out to mingle with whatever grime coated the bar even as she released something between a groan at the wasted liquor and a giggle at the mess she was making.
Of course there was the tiny voice lingering in the back of her mind warning that it was dangerous to be as far gone as she was with her handicap at the moment, even back in basics she had struggled with being as ambidextrous as a soldier should be, something that hadn't improved as she had gotten older either. A fact that was proven not too much later when one of the other drunks decided to be brave enough and occupy one of the nearby seats, leaning over to mumble indecipherable come-ons or threats, which one she couldn't be sure but in either case she blatantly ignored him, tossing back the glass without the slightest wince as the alcohol burned its way down her throat to join the rest of it that was providing her with such a wonderful state of numbness. It was only his bar stool was scooted closer and one hand found its way to her thigh did Anko angle her head to the side, growling a soft warning while she let her hand fall away from her glass to nonchalantly slide one of her knives from it's hiding place, palming it discretely (or as discretely as one totally shit-faced could).
Bleary violet eyes watched as that hand trailed away, only to return a moment later even more persistent.
"You's got two scheconds t'move 'fore you end up missin' a coupla fingers, pal."
Gaara didn't have enough patience to wait that long. Two seconds was a relative term, anyways. To a drunk man, it could mean two minutes.
He counted to one, then grabbed the back of the other man's shirt, throwing him to the ground and sliding into the previously occupied seat in one swift movement. He refused to acknowledge Ank- her, at first, instead staring straight ahead with a murderous look in his eyes. Unfortunately for the bartender, 'straight ahead' just happened to be in his direction.
"Uh... eh, a-anything I can getcha?"
The red-head broke from his angry haze and forced his expression into a more neutral look. Not for the other man's benefit, of course. Recently, Gaara had been practicing restraint. He found that the ability to control himself - his movements, his emotions -, was oddly satisfying. It was like power - addictive.
The nervous man shuffled away when he got no response, and Gaara turned in his seat to gaze at the woman beside him. It was so... familiar. And familiarity, no matter what form, had always been - comforting? No. That wasn't the right word. But it was close. Familiarity is what kept him from killing his siblings in those early years. It was like a basic survival instinct ingrained into his very being at birth.
Gaara couldn't love. Yashamaru had told him that.
But one could not exist without a purpose. And one could not have a purpose without possessing the will to exist. Because the basic need to survive was the most base of human desires.
... And familiarity made Gaara feel... human.
He hated her for being such an idiot - for unwittingly dragging him here to this rat-hole of a bar, just to ease his fear of -
No.
He wasn't afraid. He was annoyed.... annoyed.
Growling, Gaara placed a rough hand on the woman's uninjured arm, intent on taking her home. He just wanted to get this all over before he drove himself even more insane than he usually was.
The sudden motion was all a blur to Anko's very drunken senses. The Hand was suddenly gone as was the owner and then there was someone new to glare blearily at. As he seemed to be intent on keeping to himself, Anko momentarily went back to emptying out this bottle before the warmth of another hand registered in her sluggish brain, on her arm this time but still touching her.
Even now, Anko waited to hear Kankurou's growled warning that she had grown used to whenever someone else came too close or when she didn't immediately take care of the problem, but it never came. Again her own rumbled threat passed unheeded through the noise of the bar and the hand didn't move.
"Jus' 'cause I won' make 'im a euu...eunuch...dosen' mean yer als'xempt," she warned, automatically assuming 'him' to be universally known as she attempted to snatch her arm away while also managing to keep her balance on the all too narrow seat of the bar stool. It was a close call as she wobbled dangerously but somehow managed to remove the hand so that she could brace herself on the sticky slick bar rail, her knife falling forgotten to the filth of the floor in her balancing act.
"Shtupid fuck'r, girl can'ven drin' 'n peace."
She was really drunk. Gaara could only watch in morbid fascination as the woman beside him toppled towards her left, narrowly missing what would have been a rather hilarious fall. He made no move to steady her - true, he was helping her, but his courtesy could only extend so far. People were watching them now, apparently finding the interaction between a mysterious red-head and a hopeless drunk rather amusing.
Gaara growled low in his throat, letting his eyes sweep around the room threateningly before rising from his seat and towering over the violet-eyed woman.
"Come on," he whispered roughly, placing both his hands on her shoulders and dragging her to a standing position.
A sharp breath hissed between her teeth at the sudden manhandling and with surprising agility, Anko whirled around, knocking the bar stool over as she faced this persistent one head on, the sharp pain from his grip on her shoulder clearing her head ever so slightly.
"Don't fuckin' touch me..." The looming figure struck her as somewhat familiar, but she passed it off between the sheer amount of alcohol running through her system and now the pain radiating from where the Arma's bullet tore through her shoulder that was further addling her brain, instead focusing on some spot over the bastard's shoulder as she grit her teeth and attempted to appear as menacing as she possibly could. It didn't help matters in the slightest that she was just now realizing the emptiness of her hand, the familiar weight of her blade not to be found.
Not that it would hamper her threats in the slightest.
"Go th'fuck on somewhere...I'll kil'you if you touch me 'gain."
Gaara snorted at that. True, she was skilled enough to make her threats plausible, but they had always been fairly evenly matched in the past. They had had to start playing dirty - exploiting each other's weaknesses - just to get a one up on the other. He wasn't afraid - never had been, really, save for that one time...
But she was utterly wasted from her little romp with a few - dozen - bottles. She was relatively helpless.
Glancing down, Gaara spotted her knife on the floor and bent down to retrieve it, making sure he had a firm grip on it so violet-eyes couldn't snatch it away. When he realized that she wasn't quite trashed enough to comply with his 'gentle' persuasions, he shook his head in annoyance.
"Come on," he growled again, his free hand latching onto her wrist. "You're going home." His voice held no room for argument.
He hadn't planned on talking so much, really. Just the thought of toting her along with him to her apartment in Celo was enough make his head ache with unchecked annoyance. He could only hope that she didn't recognize his voice in the midst of her stupor. Familiarity gave him the impulse to - he shuddered at the thought - help her. The fact that she was too drunk to see straight had given him an excuse.
He couldn't have her finding out he was still alive and well, after all. She was the reason he had left in the first place. It wouldn't do to have her out and searching for him after this little incident.
Bristling at the direct order, Anko's eyes focused and snapped up to meet those hovering above her. The familiar green eyes glowering back down at her nearly robbed her of all breath and silenced whatever biting response had been forming in her throat.
Not just one, now there were two very similar pain the in the asses with green eyes that haunted her though for very different reasons. One was a glaring reminder of a failure on her part, a failure to prove that no matter what sort of demon a person may think they be, there was still a person hovering somewhere beneath the blood and carnage; the other was the reason she was here to begin with, trying her damnedest to forget the comforting weight of his arm wrapped around her waist as she slept, that scowl that appeared whenever she worked to rile him up, those long, talented fingers running through her hair.
Both had the ability to drive her to the brink of insanity and both had left her to deal with the slowly all encompassing loneliness.
"You're not 'im, I'm jus' seein' shit 'gain," she mumbled, snatching her hand back to dig her palm into suddenly tired eyes, all traces of the violence of but a moment ago already gone. Fumbling with a few bills stuffed into her pocket, Anko tossed up enough money to cover her tab three times. Violet eyes now focused on the floor, Anko forced one foot in front of the other, not daring to look at the person in front of her for fear of what else she may see that would keep her from sleeping yet again that night.
"Fuc' thi'shit, I'm goin' 'ome."
He saw the fire in her eyes - the anger at being touched despite her loud protests -, and wasn't surprised to see that fury directed at him. He was shocked, though, to find the fight leaving her eyes almost as soon as she had directed her gaze upwards.
For a moment, Gaara thought she had finally gained enough sense to recognize who he was, in which case he would have to turn tail and run. The flood of memories that attacked his mind was enough to make him cringe away at the thought of seeing her again, but the thought of her seeing him - of having enough cognition to recognize his voice and features - was unbearable.
He took a step back, certain it was time to leave, no matter the danger she had put herself in, when her slurred words stopped him in his tracks.
She may have been clever, and she may have been looking right at him, but above all else, the violet-eyed woman was hopelessly drunk.
Letting out a sigh of relief - it sounded more like exasperation -, Gaara turned his wandering attention back towards the woman in front of him, and found that hers was wandering just as much. Though she had declared her intentions of going home, the red-head knew she wouldn't get very far on her own. Sure, Celo wasn't half as bad as Cena, but they were close enough to the border that a few stray perverts might have dared to cross the line between the two.
Besides, she seemed to have forgotten about her knife, and Gaara couldn't very well take it home with him. She would hunt him down and un-man him, if he even dared. And the thought of letting her hold the weapon in this state was near laughable.
"Not alone," he replied gruffly, and grabbed her arm to help guide her out the bar.
"Yer not th'boss a me," she muttered, sullenly trying tug her arm back out of the man's grip as they stumbled over the door frame and out into the bitter night. The chill of the air didn't even register to Anko's befuddled mind, what little attention span she had was focused intently on the whole walking process and even then it was a learning experience, the whole concept of left foot, right foot rather difficult as there were many 'stumbles' and 'trips' intermixed therein.
There was also one embarrassing moment with the corner of a building but thank goodness for the hazy short-term memory of a drunk as it would be forgotten long before the resulting bruise would be.
Soon enough, Anko forgot that she was supposed to be angry and irritable, not to mention the fact that the silence emanating off of her companion gave her time to remember why she was in the current state that she was and it was just plain boring.
"Y'know...men suck. Whol' fuckin' gender sh'be kill'd off."
He probably should have stopped her from running into that building. It would have been the right thing to do.
... But it was far more amusing to watch as she stumbled onward in that oblivious state of mind, completely unaware of the giant looming presence she was headed straight for. Gaara had been holding on to her upper arm, steadying her as they tracked through the back streets of Celo, but was getting more annoyed with every stumble and fall he had to correct. It was tiresome, and it was wearing on his nerves, and when it came time to get a little payback - granted, she was drunk, but he couldn't care less -, he gladly let her walk on her own.
She would forget about it come morning, of course, but it still brought him pleasure to see the 'almighty' Ank- woman get bested by a brick wall.
Damn, it was getting harder and harder not to use her name in his head. He would have to double his efforts.
When her slurred declaration reached his ears - impossible that it wouldn't, since it was shouted so loud Gaara was certain the residents of a few blocks over had heard her -, he nearly cringed.
What is this idiot babbling on about? He didn't say anything. He couldn't say anything, really, because he had no idea where this intense hatred for men had sprouted from. It didn't really matter to him, either way. He hated all people, no matter what gender.
A little disappointed she failed to pull a response from her companion, Anko barreled on ahead, swaying a little with her momentum as she worked hard at avoiding anymore troublesome roadblocks.
"Mmhmm. Only th'ng good 'bout 'em is th'sex an' don' even need'em for tha' either. Vibra'ers ar'more re...re..reliable," she announced, her lips trying to wrap around the troublesome word as her mouth and brain failed to transmit the proper data back and forth. "Jus' grab sum bat'ries and 'bzzzzzz' all good t'go!" The pronunciation made her lips tingle, an amusing side effect in her wasted state so she amused herself repeating the sensation for a few minutes, giggling and buzzing, then touching her fingers to her lips afterwards only to start the cycle all over again until a particular thought filtered through her beleaguered brain, sobering her actions if only for a moment.
"An' at leas' they can't leave...fuckin' men always leavin' me behind. He wasn' s'posed to leave..."
Great. She was talking about that stuff again. Gaara remembered how the violet-eyed woman had always taunted him by spouting off all manner of sexually perverse comments. Most of it he didn't understand, and the rest he usually ignored, but it had been a while since he'd had to close his ears to her, and now he was out of practice.
Perhaps this was the only reason he even heard her last comment. But hear he did, and as soon as the words had left her mouth, he stopped in his tracks, forcing the woman to a halt as well.
He could very well assume that 'he' meant him, but at the same time it wasn't reasonable that she would be so tore up about his sudden absence. He had never been wanted before, so why would she care? It didn't make sense.
He knew he shouldn't answer her - fought against it, even - but the words were out of his mouth before he could comprehend he was speaking.
"Maybe leaving was all he could do." He was referring to himself, of course. Referring to the mental battle he had fought against his own inner voice.
It didn't occur to him that she could have been talking about anyone else.
The sudden halt in their progress had Anko stumbling forward, her fingers knotting themselves in her companion's shirt to keep from falling completely to the ground. A small part of her wanted to rail at this one who was so hellbent on playing follow the leader, shouldn't he know better then to just stop? It was so hard after all to be able to do multiple things at once, concentrate on walking and be able to form somewhat cohesive and coherent sentences?
Really now.
The rest of her had to lean forward to catch the softly spoken words, her brow wrinkling at the concentration necessary to process the thought, to add it into consideration to her own inane musings.
In the end it led to her shaking her head in the negative, fingers again tightening onto his shirt to keep herself upright after the sudden motion made her quite dizzy, the lithe body she propped herself up against helping immensely in the process.
"Uh uh. H'lef 'cause he'sa fuckin' idiot...I didn' do'it t'pissem off, fuckers hadda pay...b'he still lef'. H'didn' und'stand....th'brat woulda...but he didn'."
It didn't take Gaara long to figure out that Anko wasn't talking about him. Who - or what - she was talking about, he didn't know, and this fact only proved to stump him further.
He? If 'he' wasn't him - the word 'brat' was, of course, associated with Gaara -, then that meant something else must have happened during his absence that caused Anko some level of emotional pain.
He didn't care, really. It was more of a curiosity rather than a concern. But still...
"Who?"
It wasn't until later that Gaara realized he had mentally used her name twice in the span of about thirty seconds.
The warmth of another body urged Anko to stay close, the cold air of the night was now easily felt through her clothes. The single word reverberated through her, almost urging her to look up to where the voice came from, but the earlier moment still lingered in her memory and Anko kept her eyes averted to keep those painful memories down.
Burying her face in the crook of his arm, Anko willed away that smirking face, the smoke clinging to her companion's shirt from the bar too closely resembling the slight hint that always tainted Kankurou's clothes. It hurt, the similarities, but it didn't stop Anko from breathing in deeply, holding on to this little bit of piece of sanity if only for a moment. So wrapped up in trying burrow her way into his side, the question disappeared like a single tendril of smoke in the wind, forever lost in the haze of her mind.
She didn't answer - Gaara figured as much -, but he was greatly surprised when she buried herself into his side, inhaling the light smell of smoke that still clung to his loose black shirt. She was practically cuddling with him, and the action unnerved him more than anything else she had done or said that night.
Okay, it was definitely time to get her home.
Pushing her away from him - he needed distance -, he took hold of her shoulder again and rounded the last corner. Up ahead was her apartment, and Gaara practically sighed at the sight of it.
Date: December 28th, 2007
Location: Celo bar, then Anko's apartment
Warnings/Notes: Drunken Anko, lewd comments, language, Kank-speak
Summary: Gaara finds Anko inebriated beyond recognition at a bar one night, and decides to take her home.
Anko lifted the thick glass bottle, swirling it around to agitate the small amount of liquid that lingered in the bottom. She let it fall to the sticky bar top with an obnoxious thud, slurring out an order to the bartender to bring her another, regardless of the fact she had lost count of how many drinks she'd had, just ordering over a bottle after quickly downing the first few, and then another some time later.
The walls in her Cena apartment had begun to close in on her, the silence deafening with herself being the only solo occupant for going on two weeks now, thus prompting another venture back into Celo for a change of pace and at least a drinking companion by way of Kakashi. There'd still been not one word from Kankurou or anyone who had seen him since storming out of her apartment following her return from Ceno. Just the thought of the damned Blue District made her shoulder twinge, causing her to shift her arm testily in it's sling.
Fucking military. Fucking fucked up shoulder. Fucking Kankurou. Fuck it ALL.
Thirst and the need for other human beings led Anko to deviate her journey into one of the many bars lining her journey where one drink turned into one bottle and so on to where she was now, blissfully trashed without the bliss. Scowls and green eyes haunted her every time her eyes fluttered shut which only led her to try harder to forget, even if only for the shortest while.
She was drunk.
... It was the only reason Gaara picked his way through the crowded bar and over to the familiar violet-eyed woman sitting on a stool just to the right of the door. In Cena, where his reputation was irrefutable, people tended to go to great lengths just to avoid touching him - the slightest swish of fabric against fabric was enough to send a chill down most any man's spine. In Celo, though he was known only as a nameless face - a veritable wraith in the White District -, people's reactions to his presence was still much the same.
Of course, a few men still bumped into him as he stormed through the crowd - they were too drunk for their motor skills to be functioning properly, so he couldn't really blame them. He couldn't really tolerate them, either, and a quick shove sent most of them sprawling against the closest solid surface they could find - some chose chairs, others people, and still others couldn't stop their fall until the dirty wooden floor came up to greet them.
She was drunk, though, so it was doubtful that she would notice.
Gaara didn't want to acknowledge the reason why, exactly, he refused to refer to this mysterious 'she' as 'Anko'. He didn't want to think of how every name from the past he had forcefully thrown away had haunted his every waking moment until he had sat down and stricken every memory to the darkest reaches of his subconsciousness. He didn't want to think about it, so, logically, he refrained.
The seats beside her were empty, but he had no urge to sit and chat. He wasn't sure what he was doing here, really. He had been on one of his less frequent romps in the White District when a chance glance inside this establishment had revealed to him a strikingly familiar person.
A person, he might add, who was slumped over a bottle of booze in a way that suggested she might take off someone's arm if they dare tried to pry it from her fingers.
He hovered beside her, scowling, arms crossed as he glared down at the wonderfully oblivious woman.
Idiot, he thought, glancing around him at all the shady characters who were eying her with a malicious look in their eyes. Didn't she know that alcohol impaired the senses and damaged the mind? Didn't she know that she could get herself killed - or worse - because of this simple act of stupidity?
He knew what he should do - probably would do, given the proper time and motivation, damn her -, but he was still disgusted with himself for even thinking of it.
Rescuing the damsel in distress was not Gaara's idea of a good time.
Somewhere in the depths of her hazy mind, Anko could sense the looming presence nearby but she didn't bother acknowledging it, much like she didn't recognize or acknowledge any of the other bar patrons save the bartender and only then because he had something she wanted. Tightening her fingers around the neck of the bottle, she refilled the glass sloppily, the vodka sloshing out to mingle with whatever grime coated the bar even as she released something between a groan at the wasted liquor and a giggle at the mess she was making.
Of course there was the tiny voice lingering in the back of her mind warning that it was dangerous to be as far gone as she was with her handicap at the moment, even back in basics she had struggled with being as ambidextrous as a soldier should be, something that hadn't improved as she had gotten older either. A fact that was proven not too much later when one of the other drunks decided to be brave enough and occupy one of the nearby seats, leaning over to mumble indecipherable come-ons or threats, which one she couldn't be sure but in either case she blatantly ignored him, tossing back the glass without the slightest wince as the alcohol burned its way down her throat to join the rest of it that was providing her with such a wonderful state of numbness. It was only his bar stool was scooted closer and one hand found its way to her thigh did Anko angle her head to the side, growling a soft warning while she let her hand fall away from her glass to nonchalantly slide one of her knives from it's hiding place, palming it discretely (or as discretely as one totally shit-faced could).
Bleary violet eyes watched as that hand trailed away, only to return a moment later even more persistent.
"You's got two scheconds t'move 'fore you end up missin' a coupla fingers, pal."
Gaara didn't have enough patience to wait that long. Two seconds was a relative term, anyways. To a drunk man, it could mean two minutes.
He counted to one, then grabbed the back of the other man's shirt, throwing him to the ground and sliding into the previously occupied seat in one swift movement. He refused to acknowledge Ank- her, at first, instead staring straight ahead with a murderous look in his eyes. Unfortunately for the bartender, 'straight ahead' just happened to be in his direction.
"Uh... eh, a-anything I can getcha?"
The red-head broke from his angry haze and forced his expression into a more neutral look. Not for the other man's benefit, of course. Recently, Gaara had been practicing restraint. He found that the ability to control himself - his movements, his emotions -, was oddly satisfying. It was like power - addictive.
The nervous man shuffled away when he got no response, and Gaara turned in his seat to gaze at the woman beside him. It was so... familiar. And familiarity, no matter what form, had always been - comforting? No. That wasn't the right word. But it was close. Familiarity is what kept him from killing his siblings in those early years. It was like a basic survival instinct ingrained into his very being at birth.
Gaara couldn't love. Yashamaru had told him that.
But one could not exist without a purpose. And one could not have a purpose without possessing the will to exist. Because the basic need to survive was the most base of human desires.
... And familiarity made Gaara feel... human.
He hated her for being such an idiot - for unwittingly dragging him here to this rat-hole of a bar, just to ease his fear of -
No.
He wasn't afraid. He was annoyed.... annoyed.
Growling, Gaara placed a rough hand on the woman's uninjured arm, intent on taking her home. He just wanted to get this all over before he drove himself even more insane than he usually was.
The sudden motion was all a blur to Anko's very drunken senses. The Hand was suddenly gone as was the owner and then there was someone new to glare blearily at. As he seemed to be intent on keeping to himself, Anko momentarily went back to emptying out this bottle before the warmth of another hand registered in her sluggish brain, on her arm this time but still touching her.
Even now, Anko waited to hear Kankurou's growled warning that she had grown used to whenever someone else came too close or when she didn't immediately take care of the problem, but it never came. Again her own rumbled threat passed unheeded through the noise of the bar and the hand didn't move.
"Jus' 'cause I won' make 'im a euu...eunuch...dosen' mean yer als'xempt," she warned, automatically assuming 'him' to be universally known as she attempted to snatch her arm away while also managing to keep her balance on the all too narrow seat of the bar stool. It was a close call as she wobbled dangerously but somehow managed to remove the hand so that she could brace herself on the sticky slick bar rail, her knife falling forgotten to the filth of the floor in her balancing act.
"Shtupid fuck'r, girl can'ven drin' 'n peace."
She was really drunk. Gaara could only watch in morbid fascination as the woman beside him toppled towards her left, narrowly missing what would have been a rather hilarious fall. He made no move to steady her - true, he was helping her, but his courtesy could only extend so far. People were watching them now, apparently finding the interaction between a mysterious red-head and a hopeless drunk rather amusing.
Gaara growled low in his throat, letting his eyes sweep around the room threateningly before rising from his seat and towering over the violet-eyed woman.
"Come on," he whispered roughly, placing both his hands on her shoulders and dragging her to a standing position.
A sharp breath hissed between her teeth at the sudden manhandling and with surprising agility, Anko whirled around, knocking the bar stool over as she faced this persistent one head on, the sharp pain from his grip on her shoulder clearing her head ever so slightly.
"Don't fuckin' touch me..." The looming figure struck her as somewhat familiar, but she passed it off between the sheer amount of alcohol running through her system and now the pain radiating from where the Arma's bullet tore through her shoulder that was further addling her brain, instead focusing on some spot over the bastard's shoulder as she grit her teeth and attempted to appear as menacing as she possibly could. It didn't help matters in the slightest that she was just now realizing the emptiness of her hand, the familiar weight of her blade not to be found.
Not that it would hamper her threats in the slightest.
"Go th'fuck on somewhere...I'll kil'you if you touch me 'gain."
Gaara snorted at that. True, she was skilled enough to make her threats plausible, but they had always been fairly evenly matched in the past. They had had to start playing dirty - exploiting each other's weaknesses - just to get a one up on the other. He wasn't afraid - never had been, really, save for that one time...
But she was utterly wasted from her little romp with a few - dozen - bottles. She was relatively helpless.
Glancing down, Gaara spotted her knife on the floor and bent down to retrieve it, making sure he had a firm grip on it so violet-eyes couldn't snatch it away. When he realized that she wasn't quite trashed enough to comply with his 'gentle' persuasions, he shook his head in annoyance.
"Come on," he growled again, his free hand latching onto her wrist. "You're going home." His voice held no room for argument.
He hadn't planned on talking so much, really. Just the thought of toting her along with him to her apartment in Celo was enough make his head ache with unchecked annoyance. He could only hope that she didn't recognize his voice in the midst of her stupor. Familiarity gave him the impulse to - he shuddered at the thought - help her. The fact that she was too drunk to see straight had given him an excuse.
He couldn't have her finding out he was still alive and well, after all. She was the reason he had left in the first place. It wouldn't do to have her out and searching for him after this little incident.
Bristling at the direct order, Anko's eyes focused and snapped up to meet those hovering above her. The familiar green eyes glowering back down at her nearly robbed her of all breath and silenced whatever biting response had been forming in her throat.
Not just one, now there were two very similar pain the in the asses with green eyes that haunted her though for very different reasons. One was a glaring reminder of a failure on her part, a failure to prove that no matter what sort of demon a person may think they be, there was still a person hovering somewhere beneath the blood and carnage; the other was the reason she was here to begin with, trying her damnedest to forget the comforting weight of his arm wrapped around her waist as she slept, that scowl that appeared whenever she worked to rile him up, those long, talented fingers running through her hair.
Both had the ability to drive her to the brink of insanity and both had left her to deal with the slowly all encompassing loneliness.
"You're not 'im, I'm jus' seein' shit 'gain," she mumbled, snatching her hand back to dig her palm into suddenly tired eyes, all traces of the violence of but a moment ago already gone. Fumbling with a few bills stuffed into her pocket, Anko tossed up enough money to cover her tab three times. Violet eyes now focused on the floor, Anko forced one foot in front of the other, not daring to look at the person in front of her for fear of what else she may see that would keep her from sleeping yet again that night.
"Fuc' thi'shit, I'm goin' 'ome."
He saw the fire in her eyes - the anger at being touched despite her loud protests -, and wasn't surprised to see that fury directed at him. He was shocked, though, to find the fight leaving her eyes almost as soon as she had directed her gaze upwards.
For a moment, Gaara thought she had finally gained enough sense to recognize who he was, in which case he would have to turn tail and run. The flood of memories that attacked his mind was enough to make him cringe away at the thought of seeing her again, but the thought of her seeing him - of having enough cognition to recognize his voice and features - was unbearable.
He took a step back, certain it was time to leave, no matter the danger she had put herself in, when her slurred words stopped him in his tracks.
She may have been clever, and she may have been looking right at him, but above all else, the violet-eyed woman was hopelessly drunk.
Letting out a sigh of relief - it sounded more like exasperation -, Gaara turned his wandering attention back towards the woman in front of him, and found that hers was wandering just as much. Though she had declared her intentions of going home, the red-head knew she wouldn't get very far on her own. Sure, Celo wasn't half as bad as Cena, but they were close enough to the border that a few stray perverts might have dared to cross the line between the two.
Besides, she seemed to have forgotten about her knife, and Gaara couldn't very well take it home with him. She would hunt him down and un-man him, if he even dared. And the thought of letting her hold the weapon in this state was near laughable.
"Not alone," he replied gruffly, and grabbed her arm to help guide her out the bar.
"Yer not th'boss a me," she muttered, sullenly trying tug her arm back out of the man's grip as they stumbled over the door frame and out into the bitter night. The chill of the air didn't even register to Anko's befuddled mind, what little attention span she had was focused intently on the whole walking process and even then it was a learning experience, the whole concept of left foot, right foot rather difficult as there were many 'stumbles' and 'trips' intermixed therein.
There was also one embarrassing moment with the corner of a building but thank goodness for the hazy short-term memory of a drunk as it would be forgotten long before the resulting bruise would be.
Soon enough, Anko forgot that she was supposed to be angry and irritable, not to mention the fact that the silence emanating off of her companion gave her time to remember why she was in the current state that she was and it was just plain boring.
"Y'know...men suck. Whol' fuckin' gender sh'be kill'd off."
He probably should have stopped her from running into that building. It would have been the right thing to do.
... But it was far more amusing to watch as she stumbled onward in that oblivious state of mind, completely unaware of the giant looming presence she was headed straight for. Gaara had been holding on to her upper arm, steadying her as they tracked through the back streets of Celo, but was getting more annoyed with every stumble and fall he had to correct. It was tiresome, and it was wearing on his nerves, and when it came time to get a little payback - granted, she was drunk, but he couldn't care less -, he gladly let her walk on her own.
She would forget about it come morning, of course, but it still brought him pleasure to see the 'almighty' Ank- woman get bested by a brick wall.
Damn, it was getting harder and harder not to use her name in his head. He would have to double his efforts.
When her slurred declaration reached his ears - impossible that it wouldn't, since it was shouted so loud Gaara was certain the residents of a few blocks over had heard her -, he nearly cringed.
What is this idiot babbling on about? He didn't say anything. He couldn't say anything, really, because he had no idea where this intense hatred for men had sprouted from. It didn't really matter to him, either way. He hated all people, no matter what gender.
A little disappointed she failed to pull a response from her companion, Anko barreled on ahead, swaying a little with her momentum as she worked hard at avoiding anymore troublesome roadblocks.
"Mmhmm. Only th'ng good 'bout 'em is th'sex an' don' even need'em for tha' either. Vibra'ers ar'more re...re..reliable," she announced, her lips trying to wrap around the troublesome word as her mouth and brain failed to transmit the proper data back and forth. "Jus' grab sum bat'ries and 'bzzzzzz' all good t'go!" The pronunciation made her lips tingle, an amusing side effect in her wasted state so she amused herself repeating the sensation for a few minutes, giggling and buzzing, then touching her fingers to her lips afterwards only to start the cycle all over again until a particular thought filtered through her beleaguered brain, sobering her actions if only for a moment.
"An' at leas' they can't leave...fuckin' men always leavin' me behind. He wasn' s'posed to leave..."
Great. She was talking about that stuff again. Gaara remembered how the violet-eyed woman had always taunted him by spouting off all manner of sexually perverse comments. Most of it he didn't understand, and the rest he usually ignored, but it had been a while since he'd had to close his ears to her, and now he was out of practice.
Perhaps this was the only reason he even heard her last comment. But hear he did, and as soon as the words had left her mouth, he stopped in his tracks, forcing the woman to a halt as well.
He could very well assume that 'he' meant him, but at the same time it wasn't reasonable that she would be so tore up about his sudden absence. He had never been wanted before, so why would she care? It didn't make sense.
He knew he shouldn't answer her - fought against it, even - but the words were out of his mouth before he could comprehend he was speaking.
"Maybe leaving was all he could do." He was referring to himself, of course. Referring to the mental battle he had fought against his own inner voice.
It didn't occur to him that she could have been talking about anyone else.
The sudden halt in their progress had Anko stumbling forward, her fingers knotting themselves in her companion's shirt to keep from falling completely to the ground. A small part of her wanted to rail at this one who was so hellbent on playing follow the leader, shouldn't he know better then to just stop? It was so hard after all to be able to do multiple things at once, concentrate on walking and be able to form somewhat cohesive and coherent sentences?
Really now.
The rest of her had to lean forward to catch the softly spoken words, her brow wrinkling at the concentration necessary to process the thought, to add it into consideration to her own inane musings.
In the end it led to her shaking her head in the negative, fingers again tightening onto his shirt to keep herself upright after the sudden motion made her quite dizzy, the lithe body she propped herself up against helping immensely in the process.
"Uh uh. H'lef 'cause he'sa fuckin' idiot...I didn' do'it t'pissem off, fuckers hadda pay...b'he still lef'. H'didn' und'stand....th'brat woulda...but he didn'."
It didn't take Gaara long to figure out that Anko wasn't talking about him. Who - or what - she was talking about, he didn't know, and this fact only proved to stump him further.
He? If 'he' wasn't him - the word 'brat' was, of course, associated with Gaara -, then that meant something else must have happened during his absence that caused Anko some level of emotional pain.
He didn't care, really. It was more of a curiosity rather than a concern. But still...
"Who?"
It wasn't until later that Gaara realized he had mentally used her name twice in the span of about thirty seconds.
The warmth of another body urged Anko to stay close, the cold air of the night was now easily felt through her clothes. The single word reverberated through her, almost urging her to look up to where the voice came from, but the earlier moment still lingered in her memory and Anko kept her eyes averted to keep those painful memories down.
Burying her face in the crook of his arm, Anko willed away that smirking face, the smoke clinging to her companion's shirt from the bar too closely resembling the slight hint that always tainted Kankurou's clothes. It hurt, the similarities, but it didn't stop Anko from breathing in deeply, holding on to this little bit of piece of sanity if only for a moment. So wrapped up in trying burrow her way into his side, the question disappeared like a single tendril of smoke in the wind, forever lost in the haze of her mind.
She didn't answer - Gaara figured as much -, but he was greatly surprised when she buried herself into his side, inhaling the light smell of smoke that still clung to his loose black shirt. She was practically cuddling with him, and the action unnerved him more than anything else she had done or said that night.
Okay, it was definitely time to get her home.
Pushing her away from him - he needed distance -, he took hold of her shoulder again and rounded the last corner. Up ahead was her apartment, and Gaara practically sighed at the sight of it.