And I'm back! After almost a year and a half of laying low. I've recently gotten myself onto the GaaSaku ship, so I apologise for not churning out that NejiTen I said I would. That particular story is still a rather vague idea floating in my head...
I'm not quite sure about the direction this fic is going to take, but it is an AU and there will definitely be romance and drama and adventure and angst bubbling in this cauldron because that's just the way I am. :P I decided I wanted to explore the theme of trust and how very fragile it can be when in conflict with your inner demons, even when you thought that you really did trust that particular person. Such a classic GaaSaku.
But do indulge me. :) So here's a little prologue to the story (which is likely to be a two or three-shot).
Enjoy!
N
"Holly, do you trust me?"
Holly groaned. "Artemis, don't ask me that. I just know one of your outrageous plans is coming."
"Do you trust me?"
"Yes," Holly sighed. "I do. More than anyone."
-Artemis Fowl, The Arctic Incident
.Prologue.
Him.
The walls were clinically, blindingly white, a stark contrast against the raging chaos of blood and anger and helplessness and constricting darkness contained within the pale, scrawny form of a four-year-old boy struggling against his restraints on an equally uncomfortable-looking bed, the only piece of furniture in the room – if the ugly metal contraption could even be termed as such.
His red hair and pale skin were matted with sweat, his jade eyes wide and terrified, darting around the seamless, white room, watching the cold metal door to his far left with barely concealed desperation.
Let me out.
He tried to scream for help, but his voice was a betrayal of painful, helpless silence, the result of days of no water or food, only strange liquid injections. How many days? The little boy had lost track. Father… father had abandoned him. Father had let the white coats take him away, kicking, screaming, scratching, biting – blood, blood, blood. Temari and Kanky, clutching each other and hiding around the corner, crying. They were always with each other, always afraid of Father, of him. He thought he could hear them calling his name. Why didn't they help him?
Let me out.
He could feel something warm and wet streaking down his face, but everything else was paralysed. Everything else was cold, and yet something within him burned, and burned, refusing to let him shut down, forget. Forcing him to keep staring into the endless white that was suffocating and he was drowning and lost and insane, that's what they said, the white coats and the people and Father, insane, what did it mean, children who lost their mothers and had no love, insane?
Let me out.
Let me out.
I'm scared.
Her.
She ran, clutching the precious bread stolen from the shabby bakery at the edge of the slums. She hadn't been caught – no, she was too good for that – but she had encountered some of the thugs that her long-gone parents had owed money to, and the debt, apparently, was now hers. She didn't know whether to love or hate her pink hair – matted and clogged with grime, the abominable colour was still distinguishable. And being distinguishable was the worst characteristic one could have in the brutal slums.
They stopped pursuing her four alleys later. She assumed it was due to the considerable crowd of slum-dwellers about their daily business, blocking the narrow alleyways in such a fashion that only a small, quick child like her could pass. She had been lucky this time.
It was only when she reached that dilapidated shack she and little Yuki called home and saw the cardboard door ripped to shreds, the crimson pool rapidly staining her dirty bare feet and her beloved little brother's still, still form hunched over the bloody pillow under which they kept what little money they could find - that the pink-haired girl realized that she should have known, should always have known. They had stopped pursuing her to come here. Yuki had paid the price because she ran. Because he had tried to protect what little they had.
Luck had never been on her side.
The Sandaime Kazekage found her a month later, a tiny, seemingly broken figure hunched next to a wall by the main road near midnight. Even in the darkness her grimy pink hair was visible. He'd ordered his car to stop, personally got out and went to her.
She was small, but her knuckles were bloody, her body a canvas of bruises and her posture was strange, a sign of a recent fight (she'd tracked them down, those thugs, faced all four of them and gave her all and it was brutal and painful and she was broken, so broken, but it gave her something to do after burying Yuki, burying everything she had ever loved in this wretched life and she had nothing, nothing left now except perhaps to sit here and die).
"Look up, girl."
His voice was a deep baritone with an underlying rough quality, a little like the rustle of sand and wind, quiet but powerful, almost foreboding. Sakura's young, tainted, nearly broken mind vaguely registered the fact that this man probably never had to raise his voice to garner obedience, unlike the rough men of the slums.
She lifted her head slowly with eyes unseeing to stare right through him, untrimmed bangs falling across her eyes. The Kazekage nearly gave a start. Her emerald eyes were almost the same shade as his late wife's, and just several shades lighter than those of his youngest (the same loss of lustre and laughter and life but he would not, would not admit that that thought crossed his mind). Not that he could provide an accurate comparison. He'd almost never looked that child in the eye.
They were the blank eyes of one who had seen too much, lost too much, a child nearly beyond saving. But the embers of a fire this child probably no longer remembered still smouldered within their depths, a tiny spark waiting to be re-ignited. Perhaps he could save her. And in turn, perhaps she would be the one to save that child from his demons.
"Come with me."
Her eyes narrowed very slightly at his command, and she stared at him for a long moment, exuding caution, her gaze a little less blank. Good. She had self-preservation instincts, hesitance to trust. She would need those, if she were to survive Gaara.
"Why?"
Her voice was rough from days of no food and little water, but did not waver. Hoarse, quiet and steady, like Karura's in the moments before her death, through her tears and pain. The Kazekage stared at her contemplatively for a moment, knowing that his answer would determine the outcome.
"Somebody needs you."
She followed him.
N
Tell me what you think. :) I hope I haven't lost my touch.