Black Sugar Fest

Chapter One: Fire-Starter

WARNING: This story will have (occasionally) immature sex partners at times though brief and aren't dissected as anything but vague. Not like giggly immature or anything-but UNDERAGE. It will also be…a lot more vulgar in scenes (sometimes) than anything else-I swear. Beware (it rhymes!). And…don't say I didn't warn you, ne? It's in capital and bold print. Please…READ the warning before proceeding, thankies.

XxX

One thing Gaara had learned over his disturbing childhood; he was a perfectionist-of arson arts that is. It had been at night, at the tender age of eight when he lit his first fire. He'd stolen a candle and a matchstick and lit only the matchstick. The candle ended up serving no purpose when he only lit the hay of a barn that his neighbors (the ones who were babysitting him and his siblings while his father was away) owned. The fire had roared and the scent of burning hay invaded his senses gloriously-his wide, not so innocent eyes taking it in with relish the wife of their neighbor said was reserved for only those hell born ones. The fire had burned down everything, the barn, the hay and he watched in a sick fascination while the trapped animals panicked. To everyone else around him-his big brother and sister, the neighbor's wife…it was horrendous and they couldn't do anything. To him, to little, strawberry loving Gaara…it was like candy. The horses rearing and pawing at the air, foam frothing about their lips and their eyes wide enough to show the whites of their eyes. They screamed. They screamed till their throats were roasted and corpses lay blackened on the floors.

The neighbor's wife stared at him, hand over her mouth with a frightened look in her eyes, "Demon child." There was no reaction from him. He only turned to stare back at the roaring fire that escalated higher and higher, clawing at the dark navy sky with greedy talons. The sound of the horses screaming, trying to free themselves from their sturdy stalls, replayed in his mind like a broken record. Over and over and over…they were desperate to flee, as he was desperate for a bigger body count. After that, the rest was history; more fires, more chaos and generally more family problems which weren't his fault.

However, at his age of sixteen he'd gotten better at controlling his urges to start fires, luckily, but there would always be that same craving once in a while when he was tense or stressed. Now, at one thirty in the morning, he stood before a broke down building with shattered windows and a rusting roof. Unconsciously he flicked the lid of his Zippo lighter open and thumbed it closed in a rapid precession while he twirled the beer bottle between his fingers. His shrink had told him more than once to just take deep breaths, instead of punching someone in the face suddenly to shut them up, told him to try to relax his muscles instead of looking for trouble in order to let out steam. Well, his shrink was also the fucking quack who told him not to light things up and watch buildings burn.

Of course, he'd never been caught as his father had made sure of that when he'd sought out a shrink with only money on his mind and paid him a little extra to keep the whole arsonist thing hush-hush. To Gaara, it didn't matter if he was caught or not; he would do it either way. Though, the only reason he kept this particular money grubbing moron around was because he actually found him a way to talk to her. Hyuuga Hinata of Konoha High; in the country of Konohagakure who happened to be his long time friend. When he talked a bit about her to his shrink, though, the guy seemed interested in what he had to say about her; an odd reason, usually when he was describing her to people (depending on who these people were; they usually got a black eye for insulting her or himself) they would turn out an ear or try to change the subject. He asked Gaara to talk about her a little more, asked questions, some which Gaara knew the answer to and others he was unsure but had observed enough from her mannerisms and some which he had no clue. He wanted Gaara to talk to her at least once a week when her family would permit her (doubtful) to talk to Sunagakure's most prized fighter and also unknown fire-starter, then on their next session to talk a bit more about her.

The beer wasn't great; Gaara mused when he tipped his head back and gave the liquid access to his mouth. It was little on the sweet side and a very light beer; not dark and bitter; not intoxicating. It was…fruity. But, he looked on the bright side, it was very flammable. He puffed his cheeks out and pursed his lips tightly before spraying it out to test it. The Zippo lighter's lid was flipped back and a flame the size of the tip of pinky suddenly burst into an element the size of Gaara himself when the beer washed over the flame and caught. The lighter's lid flipped over it, and shut the flame source off before Gaara wiped his lips clear of the fluid.

The damn psychologist even suggested bringing in a photo of her and setting it up in Gaara's room. What? Excuse? Use it for what? Gaara knew what she looked like; his first and probably last best friend (the only one who would actually stick through with him through thick and thin), so what? Did the doctor think he was in love with her? Did the doc think he needed to release tension in a more 'natural' way and so should be carefully 'associated' with a female he could think about in his special alone time?! What an idiot. There was quite a bold line between friendship love and true love or whatever the doctor preached on about.

Gaara rummaged around his pocket for a stray piece of paper; the binder paper he'd written doodles on earlier and he crumpled it to fit through the slim neck of the bottle. With half of it sticking out, the Zippo lighter was flicked on once more and the tiny flame danced hypnotically. Smirking wildly, a maniac's grin plastered on his face while he lit the paper in the bottle that contained three fourths of the disgusting beer a friend had given him to try out; his own brand made in his basement. The paper caught easily. Tucking his trusty lighter in his pant's pocket, he hurtled the bottle into the building and heard a sure sounding break. Sitting on a knoll a bit away from the building, he stared at the fire one with the same amount of intensity of a virgin lover. Knees up and his arms resting over them, he watched the flames rise and rise and rise and claw vigorously. His thoughts stumbled over a few days' worth of sessions with his shrink, all a calamity of the order his mind set them in.

The one thing-besides letting the doctor know about Hinata-that he regretted telling the doctor…was that he wasn't a virgin. The doctor, of course, wasn't surprised when the son of such a powerful man of Sunagakure wasn't alien to carnal desires, however, he had been surprised when Gaara, in a moment of suspended weakness on the anniversary of his mother's death, had said at how young an age he'd lost it. Thirteen…the son of perhaps the wealthiest and most influential man in Sunagakure had lost his virginity at such a young age and the shrink warily inquired how old the girl had been who had lost it to. The same age as he, and the shrink was writing something down when Gaara's eyes glazed in memory of her. "Who was she, Gaara?" a glare from the boy told him everything he needed to know.

The fire was getting him high-in a sort of sleepy way. He felt relaxed now; 'floaty' even as Hinata had described what his high was probably like. The tenseness in his muscles had faded to leave a languorous jelly like feel to his normally sinewy body. Like a flavored cherry cigarette to a smoke addict, he took in the sight of the fire and relished it with every breath he took. Eyes half lidded in a look of almost a lizard like laziness took in every minor detail of what was happening about him and the crisp night air didn't affect him. Despite the black shirt he wore over a mesh shirt, no jacket covered his rather broad and yet slim frame while the cold air battered at him and nipped cruelly with comings of winter. The scent the fire was releasing was wild, alive and rampant; it was glorious.

The doc wanted to ask what he thought her, if he wanted to have sex with her again. Gaara stared at him impassively and though the doctor had had him longer than any other shrink could have bragged about; he didn't know whether that was a no or yes. His impenetrable barrier of stone and ice that cloaked the deadly fire beneath was rather…frightening on such a young adolescent; though nothing the doctor had never dealt with before. Changing tactics in order to hopefully extract some sort of answer that may link to his previously unanswered question; he asked, "Why did you have sex with Hinata, then Gaara?" Gaara had then turned his head to the side to look out the window, over the restless desert. Gaara had only answered with, "She needed me to do it." The doctor was thrown for a random loop of his mysterious words that opened the doors to other theories. "Why did she need you to do it, Gaara? Why you?" while the question wasn't insulting and Gaara knew it wasn't, his fist clenched on his pants and he wouldn't talk throughout most of his session.

The fire was dying now, slowly and Gaara got up to stretch his much too relaxed limbs-he could hear a car coming. Ruffling his hair, he trotted down the knoll and in the direction of the house he shared with his siblings-not with his father and latest whore of the week. His boots crunched against the gravel while he walked listlessly and had changed direction from his house to just wandering around through the town like an abandoned mutt. The announcement of winter came in breathy gusts of chilly wind that raced down the back of Gaara whose skin only broke out in raised bumps to acknowledge the change of temperature. Within the pocket of his baggy black pants, he toyed with the lighter, weaving it in between his fingers continuously. His breath came out before him in continuous little fog clouds that puffed over him like smoke from a train. His pale grey green eyes observed a cat digging through trash, clawing a bag open before diving in, a hooker in a golden skirt kneeling before a man's open fly, mouth open, then his oddly colored orbs roved over to a boy and his girlfriend giggled over some inane thing.

"Gaara, listen, I'm just asking, but…why did Hinata need you to have sex with you? Did she love you and you didn't love her back? Or…she wanted to know what it was like? Was she curious and only trusted you?" the doctor had been asking questions non stop and Gaara felt the need to crack him across the jaw. He wanted to know too much. The shrink finally sighed in resignation before pinching the skin between his constantly crinkling brows, "Gaara, come now, why?" he asked. He may be a newbie at dealing with patients, only having three others before Gaara, but through only those three; he'd learned nearly endless patience. Gaara looked over at him, his grey green eyes staring right through the psychologist who felt unnerved, the black circles partially from a little eyeliner and insomnia growing thicker while his eyes narrowed. Finally, the disturbed boy spoke, "She needed me, and I said yes." Once more, through their session, no progress was made and his shrink made a point to not even ask something related to Hinata at all.

By the time he got home, dragging himself in and letting in cold air while he slipped out of his shoes, everyone was in bed. Well, who else was up and at it in four in the morning on a Saturday; a day to sleep in? Looking over at the note sticking to the fridge, it was from Temari-'Gaara, there's dinner in the fridge and pancake batter in a measuring cup-use your imagination.'-Loves'n Bugs, Temari. He felt caught between scowling and snorting at the corniness and yet sarcasm that laced the simple note; so instead he improvised and did both. Rummaging through the fridge, he came upon a cherry coke left for dead and he twisted the cap open to the partially consumed (also much too highly caffeinated) beverage. Gulping it down rapidly and feeling the rush of cold along with the special ness of any soda-the ability to make you tear mildly when too cold, he let his eyes roll back to enjoy the sugar carnival in his mouth. Twisting the cap back on after drinking half of it in one gulp, he put it back in the fridge for Temari or Kankurou to discover and possibly gag at since he was fairly sure that he left quite a bit of back wash behind.

"Well, Gaara, what do you want to talk about today?" the psychologist sounded rather drained and-dare he think it- hollow, almost defeated. The redhead shrugged with one shoulder absently and he turned to look out the window. "…Why…don't you tell me how you met Hinata, then, Gaara?" the shrink's voice was hesitant. Gaara tensed a little though not noticeably to the shrink, his hands freezing solidly. "What was she like when you met her? Where did you meet-anything. Just tell me something," his voice was persuasive and Gaara's father refused to receive any reports of Gaara's conditions or progressions (to be blind from seeing how fucked up his youngest of the brood was) from the shrink so it couldn't be used against him. "Shy, timid and wouldn't talk to anyone. Her hair was cut like a boy's and she looked different to the point where most people considered it ugly." The doctor stopped-progress, "Did you think she was ugly?" Gaara replied without hesitation, "Yes, but she invited me to play with her when I was seven-she was still ugly for a while, but she grew out of it." The doctor blinked at Gaara's ruthless honest streak before starting once more, "Was she the only-" Gaara cut in without allowing any more words to be passed, "Yes, my best friend-first and probably last"

Pulling out the pancake batter from the fridge, he cleared some space on the counter and set it up from breakfast things-at six in the morning after a cat nap on the couch. The pancake batter on one side of the counter, he pulled out the bacon and after some thoughts, some chocolate syrup and a carton of milk. While he poured the pancake batter into an already hot pan, he briefly wondered how Hinata was doing. The last time he'd been able to talk to her had been three weeks ago when her father had suddenly caught her on the phone with him-the phone had then rung a dead dial tone after he'd discovered them. The least to say, he hadn't been happy and now, the two of them could only talk whenever her father was out of town or Hinata could sneak a conversation-it wasn't often. The old bastard still hated him after what happened a year ago-prick, think he could at least learn to let go.

Gaara blearily watched the bubbles rise on the side of the still battery pancake. His eyes, almost sleepy looking, blinked slowly and he flipped the bacon over with his left arm, his right expertly flipping the pancake over. Working with two pans wasn't something many people could do-only one other good cook had been able to do that to his knowledge that he knew-Hinata. Mostly the only reason he could cook was because of that girl-and when he and Temari tried (failed numerous times) to cook well for the first time. He dished the pancake and rather lazily threw the bacon on the glass plate. His chocolate milk was already mixed and he had to remind himself to kick Kankurou's ass the next time he saw him because the syrup was almost gone. He knew it wasn't his sister who hated the stuff so it had to be the house's fattest ass who was very much out of shape. Gaara sat at the dining table, looking out the window that overlooked the road to Konohagakure.

"Well, Gaara, why don't you compare your family to Hinata's? Or…what she likes compared to your likes?" Gaara didn't answer the shrink. The psychologist barely resisted the urge to throw his pen on the ground and have a little hissy fit. "My family is frightened of me-she is frightened of hers." The shrink blinked, "Is 'your family' including-" Gaara interrupted him. "Yes, they're scared too," plain and simple-he was the family boogieman. "Why is she frightened of hers?" Gaara was silent and only looking at him with oddly glass like eyes-like a doll's blank ones. "She wears a jacket-it's the same one I bought for her last year." The shrink prodded for more answers-but the boy only left a fox trail for him to chase after.

Stabbing a piece of bacon and pancake before shoving them into his mouth (chewing with his mouth closed) a thought came to him-rather random too. 'That jacket…it's probably getting a little small.'

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People keep bugging me for an update. I like the plotline but I didn't like how it was turning out so I'm rewriting it. Expect the next next chapter soon because inspiration struck.