(A/N) Sup guys I don't know what I'm doing here. I guess I'm writing secret Zaku fanfiction, oh okay, how embarrassing. I was just rewatching Naruto for no explainable reason and I fell in love with the pairing during the amazingly long Land of Waves saga. Great. I haven't exactly written fanfiction before, so if you've got time maybe you can tell me what you think? I dunno. If you want to. Or you can just ignore this because Zaku is the opposite of pertinent to anything in the series right now. Let me stop rambling. Have a read. And those of you who clicked on this because of the little M down there, stay cool until the next chapter, okay? I'll try my very hardest.
Oh hey also I don't own Naruto because if I did I'd probably have a little more money than I do now.
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Your lungs have been pierced by the Leaf ninja's attack, but you do not die. Your eyes slide to one side to make sure that, yes, you did succeed in protecting Zabuza-sama. Even so, you knew he was alive before because you could feel the warmth of his body from where he stood behind you and the rush of his breath against the back of your neck. You want him to acknowledge you, so you try to smile at him, but you are unable to turn your head far enough for him to see you- if he even wants to. Your breath is stopped by the rising liquid in your throat and you cough up a stream of blood. In a last-gasp attempt to help Zabuza-sama, you take hold of the Leaf ninja's wrist to prevent him from using it to attack. The breath against your neck quickens, and a subtle whooshing noise suggests that your teacher's huge sword is in motion. Whatever happens next is lost to the roaring of blood in your ears and a soft dizziness that you fight against with all your strength. For a moment, you fail.
You are carried back to an earlier time in your life- a simpler time when your rapidly evolving abilities were allowing you further and further into Zabuza-sama's favor. It had been years since you left Kirigakure with him. Next month would be your sixteenth birthday- but a few weeks from then your life would be cut short. You remember the sun that day, melting your ice mirrors as you practiced your jutsu. As you approached the end of your fifteenth year, you had begun to notice subtle changes in yourself. New strength in your muscles for one thing, as well as the slow growth of hair aside from the long brown locks on the top of your head. You'd also begun to notice Zabuza-sama a little more than you used to. Granted, you had always looked up to him and admired him, but up until that point you hadn't seen him as anything more than your teacher and savior. Now you saw him as a man. No longer were you satisfied with his need for you as his weapon. You were the most favorable weapon you could be, excelling in your ninja arts and quickly and obediently absorbing everything he had taught you. As you grew into a young man, you wished Zabuza-sama would need you in a different way. Just as you needed him. Still, you trained hard that day, wishing to show Zabuza-sama that you had improved by the time he returned from an assignment from his then-employer. It was dark by the time you heard the slam of the front door and his footsteps in the hallway. With the stirrings in your stomach that you always experienced when he got home swirling like a whirlpool, you piled the curry you'd prepared for him onto a plate and watched the door expectantly. It took him a while to reach it. When he finally entered the kitchen, you saw that he was limping and covered in blood. With a quiet gasp you rushed to his side.
"Zabuza-sama..." you breathed. A slim line of blood oozed from his lip onto your sleeve as he slouched over you.
"Get this fucking blood off me, will you, boy?" he rasped.
You nodded breathlessly and rushed to the sink to wet a towel. No matter how many times he came home injured, it still worried you. You abhor violence in all it's forms, and death paralyzes you. Somehow, however, you willed yourself to kill for Zabuza-sama's sake. You lost track of how many people you and he killed together. You could no longer count on two hands how many times he came home to you, mortally wounded, bleeding onto the floor, and asked you to bring him back. Towel in hand, you began with a long gash across his right shoulder blade. As you cleaned the crusted blood from inside and around the cut, Zabuza-sama cursed quietly. The muscles in his back tensed and contracted under his damp skin. Dimly and without warning, the urge to bend down and kiss his skin seeped through you, and your eyes shut tight with shame. Even you, who grew up under such strange circumstances, knew that feelings of that nature toward another man weren't normal. He himself seemed immune to temptations of any kind, never having shown interest in much of anything outside of fighting, training, eating and sleeping. You had always wondered how he stood the driving urges that always occupied a corner of your own teenage mind, or if you were simply some sort of anomaly when it came to those particular brain functions. The rest of the wounds were not as deep as the first, but Zabuza-sama still writhed a bit under your hands.
"Fuck," he hissed. "Fucking shit, Haku."
You never knew what to say when he cursed like this, from pain or frustration or whatever else. You supposed you should feel honored that he was willing to show weakness in front of you, but all it did was make you feel terrible for not having been there to help him. With the wounds clean, you used strips of bandage to dress them and salve to prevent infection. Wrapping the bandages around Zabuza-sama allowed for more contact between your fingers and his warm, sticky skin. If you were honest with yourself, you would admit that you probably left your hands there for longer than they needed to be, but you weren't in the mood for honesty just then. As soon as you finished your work Zabuza-sama broke away and sat down in front of his plate of food. The bandages were taken from his face and draped around his neck, and he ate silently. His rather small mouth never ceased to catch you off guard, nor did his perfectly sharp, white teeth or his sharp chin. You blinked, looked away, and folded your hands on your lap, allowing your hair to fall into your face.
"Thank you, you're getting good at that," he said after a few minutes.
"Of course, Zabuza-sama," you answered, unsure of whether he was referring to the bandaging or the food.
You cleaned his plate when he finished eating, gave him a quick bow and a goodnight, and fled to your room. A solid hour of sharpening your senbon did not dull your senses or lessen the gnawing in your stomach. Finally, sitting there on your bed with your hair down and a needle in your hand, you resigned yourself to the fact that you were attracted to Zabuza-sama. The thought freed you, only to lock you into another set of chains as you realized that you could never dream of telling him. He would kill you, or worse, he would leave you. Still, you were imbibed with a feeling of near-euphoria. The ensuing night was not the first time you had ever touched yourself, but it was the first time you had touched yourself while thinking of another person. In your mind's eye, Zabuza-sama's facial bandages hung loose around his neck as you cleaned his wounds. His mouth was visible, and instead of spewing curses it simply breathed out your name.
Through the gloom, you can still hear and feel certain things. There are arms around you, carrying you, are they his? No, this person reeks of filthy blood and foreign dirt. You are set down onto stone. There are many voices- the hum of the grey-haired Leaf ninja, the familiar growl of Zabuza-sama, a piercing yell from Naruto, the faraway wails of a girl, and, above the tromp of approaching footfalls and thrum of several men, the jeer of Gatou, your employer. Through the clouds of sleep you feel pain in your side as a hard-tipped something is driven into your prone body. Another wave of blood washes into your mouth and dribbles down your chin. The voices become dimmer and the darkness returns.
Your newly discovered love made it harder and harder for you to interact with Zabuza-sama without revealing anything. You put your life on the line for him as you always did, but now the act had new meaning for you. It energized you, having a reason to protect him, and if anything it made you more powerful. When he signed a contract with Gatou, you found yourself on more missions with him than ever before to more corners of the land than you had ever visited. This required longer trips and longer periods alone on the trail with Zabuza-sama. Then, on the way to an assassination assignment in Kumogakure, everything changed. It was raining hard, and you were hunkered down in your tent on the face of a great mountain. Zabuza-sama was out doing god knew what. When he got back, he was once again drenched in blood seeping from a cut on his brow. You remember making some kind of joke about it, actually, and experiencing a sensation in your throat akin to flying when he laughed at it.
"What happened?" you asked as you swept a rag across his bloodied forehead.
A peculiar look flashed onto his face and he looked away with a jerky shrug.
"Zabuza-sama, you know you can tell me anything," you said boldly. You even went as far as laying a hand over his wrist. "Who am I to judge?"
After a few moments, he pulled the bandages from his face, puckered his mouth into a grimace, and muttered "I slipped."
"Everyone makes mistakes sometimes," you laughed quietly. "Thank you for reminding me that you're still human."
You smiled serenely and helped him shrug out of his sopping wet cloak, allowing yourself an unassailable brush of a finger or two against his neck. You were overjoyed into silence when he allowed you to lean on his thigh with one hand while you finished cleaning his forehead with the other. His skin was warm and alive through his soaked pants. Then you made the mistake of looking up into his eyes. He was so close, you could see every individual eyelash and feel his slow breath against your face. You couldn't help yourself. You simply couldn't. With a determined clench of your jaw, you leaned into the mere two inches separating your faces and pressed your full lips against his. His mouth was warm and moist and his lips were softer than you expected. Almost instantaneously, his hand connected with your cheek and sent you sprawling against the wall of the tent. You tasted blood in your mouth from where you bit down on the inside of your cheek.
"Zabuza-sa-"
"Shut up," he growled. "Never fucking do that again, do you hear me?"
You hung your head and fought with all your might to prevent tears from spilling over. Zabuza-sama lay down on his tatami mat facing the stark tent wall, pulled a blanket over his shoulders, and blew out the lantern. You were left to shiver and gasp against the opposite wall, swallowing your blood and wondering why you'd let yourself go like that. A dull pain began to manifest itself in your cheekbone where a bruise would surely form. Eventually, when you thought you could detect a pattern of sleep in Zabuza-sama's breathing, you crawled over to your tatami mat and lay on your back, staring at the canvas ceiling. Your grief was immeasurable. You wished for death. Zabuza-sama had been repulsed by your advances. You would be lucky if he would even finish this mission with you, but you suspected that he would leave you the next morning once the storm blew over. You had failed as his weapon and the sorrow you felt for yourself was dwarfed only by the sorrow you felt for him.
"Haku."
His voice frightened you an inch from death. If you had known he was awake you would have been quieter.
"Y-yes, Zabuza-sama?"
"Did I hurt you?"
You wanted to accept the relief that threatened to drown you, but you thought it too good to be true. He still needed you. He still cared.
"Not very much, Zabuza-sama," you whispered. "I deserved it."
"No," he replied after a few moments. "You didn't."
You were too stunned to reply. You were too shocked to react when he turned over and brushed a finger against the bruise on your face. You did not sleep that night. The next morning when you rose and packed up camp, he did not speak of it. It would be days before he did.
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Shit shit this is so weird. K so I'll put the next one up later or something. Maybe I can get some feedback before I do? I dunno let's just see how this shit goes.