It's a sickfic/darkfic, so please don't flame it for being creepy. Once in a while, everyone needs a chance to reveal their alter–egos and this is one of mine. XD
I adore your reviews, so please tell me what you liked or hated. Remember, constructive criticism makes even the best writers better. And since I'm nowhere near the top, I need all the help I can get.
This was written at some point during the first few days of school, not quite sure which periods I was sleeping through. =]
–Blue
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or I would have been writing it since I was in elementary school.
The Medic and the Demon
Chapter 1: Thicker Than Water
by Rachel Poulson
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She hurt.
They'd said that the disease would have very little effect other than perpetual anemia and low blood sugar. They hadn't mentioned the coughing. Or the vomiting. Her sink a permanent rust colored stain from the number of times she'd had to wash the blood off of her skin.
No one had mentioned the lightheadedness, or the inability to eat sweet foods. They'd told her what was absolutely necessary; in other words, nothing at all. She knew her parents had been government biochemists. She knew that her mother had contracted an untested strain of disease during the pregnancy. Sakura knew that she was constantly fighting the cure they had put into her infant body; she'd been allergic to one of the components. Sakura knew that her survival depended on her strength of will. Sakura knew that her time was almost up.
Sakura shook.
As they handed over the deeds to her parents' house, her hands had trembled quietly with anger. At the age of fourteen, when she'd systematically broken all of the windows in her house, her eyes had barely flickered as the glass sliced open her hands. The dress she'd worn to her grandmother's funeral: gone, tossed on the blazing remains of the psychiatric hospital of her youth. Her thoughts were cool, unwavering as her shaking hands were trapped in handcuffs for the first time.
There was blood.
Always blood, so much blood, every day...
The first time it had happened at school, she'd been mildly surprised. She'd been smoking a joint behind the new bleachers by the football field when she'd felt a warm drip on her collarbone. Creeping silently from the corner of her mouth was a steady stream of warm blood. She'd braced herself against the metal beams, dropped her joint and thrown up. Then the blood trickled from her nostrils, pooling in the creases on her vermillion–stained palms. Tentatively, aware that her head was throbbing, she'd raised a finger to her lips and licked it.
Blood. Sharp, bittersweet and unlike anything else she knew.
It tasted like sorrow.
Suddenly she knew why her father had killed himself. To see the blood pooling spreading through the water, cradling the warm flesh from whence it came.
No one had told Sakura anything about the sick pain radiating from her heart.
––
The first day she'd met him, she'd been almost nervous. She'd smoothed her pink locks down, tucking them all behind her ears; all except her blunt bangs, chopped to eye–level by a pair of gardening shears. As he passed, his aqua eyes had been drawn inexplicably to hers. The numerous piercings through both the flesh and cartilage of his ears, combined with the scarlet ink of his tattoos, did nothing to ease the tension that grew between them. He sat on the other of the classroom, hung out with all the popular kids, he even played a sport.
But he stayed so late after school that Sakura had to wonder about his family and his home life. She knew he had an older brother and sister, who lived in Suna with their father. He'd been 'transferred' rather than expelled.
Why was he so...jagged? Almost as though he didn't quite fit around the edges.
And if you pushed him hard enough, his mask would break apart.
––
They had P.E. together, 7th period and were normally the last two out of the adjoined gyms. She was usually taking acid in the bathroom and he was putting all of his piercings back in. Their paths rarely intersected. That is until their P.E. teacher made the mistake of locking the gym doors too early.
"Let us out!"
"I can't die in here with him!"
Their shouts went unheard through the empty campus.
After trying every possibility, including breaking a window, they'd sat down and he'd offered her a cigarette.
"Want one? It's cinnamon."
Quite calmly, feeling the rough scars on her hands brush together, she'd replied, "Tired of pretending, Gaara?"
His expression of frustrated amusement had immediately turned to rage, and she'd dodged every blow he threw, hearing his fists thud into the lockers behind her. She'd felt it then, crouched behind the last row; the unmistakable flavor of sleep and death enveloping her senses. As he'd approached her, glowering, all she could do was feel the blood forcing itself from between her lips and coursing over her pale chin.
Slowly, not taking her apple–green eyes from him, she'd sunk to the floor, tears mingling with blood. He'd crouched beside her limp form, expression unfathomable.
She was broken inside, burning with every passing second.
Sakura's eyes, starting to flutter shut, opened wide when he brushed a fingertip over her upper lip. She watched him lick the crimson liquid coating his finger and close his eyes, sighing.
"It's sweet," he said quietly, cupping her cheek in his free hand.
She almost shuddered at Gaara's touch, a bubble bursting on her lip. Hesitantly but firmly, he pressed his mouth to hers, and she felt his tongue sample the sticky substance pouring from her lips. She coughed, expelling more of the liquid from her lungs. He raised their hands, intertwined and soaked with blood. She watched his greedy expression as she let the last of it fall onto his lips and her eyes rolled up.
Darkness, filled with the clear tang of blood, filled Sakura.
––
The first time he'd seen her, he'd nearly lost control. Vivid pink hair and eyes the color of gemstones. Inside, he'd felt the creature pacing, eyes glowing yellow through the blackness. It had taken all of his willpower to calmly walk past, but he couldn't ignore the way his heart was thudding against his ribcage. He'd tried not to see her. He'd tried not to notice the way she cringed as she blew smoke rings behind the library steps. He'd tried not to stare when she unflinchingly cut her finger in biology class to test her blood type.
He knew it was wrong, it was too dangerous. He was too dangerous.
When he remembered the way Shukaku had taken over the last time, it made him shudder. Disgust, fear and uncontrollable craving had flooded his senses when he'd realized they were locked in the gym together. Those simple words... How did she know his triggers?
And her blood...
She tasted like sorrow.
––
The white of the hospital was a familiar sight; the head of flaming hair was not. The moment her pale, translucent eyelids flicked open, he sat up frowning.
"You're sick," he said when she'd coughed some more blood into a basin next to the bed. Sakura wiped her mouth on the sheets, marring their perfect cleanliness.
As she swung her bare legs out of the sterile bed, ignoring the I.V. in her arm, he moved to grip her arms. His harsh eyes flickered with an odd yellow light. "So are you," she whispered, feeling droplets of blood roll over her flesh.
"We're both sick."