Disclaimer: I do not own anything. Please give credit where it's due.
Warning(s): Angst, not beta-ed.
Author's Note: Written for the theme "cry, sadness" in the 30angsts LJ community.
Lie
Crying woke him.
Dead from lack of sleep over a period of days, Zabuza refused to acknowledge it...at first. He grunted and shifted his head on his pack, eyes closing.
It continued.
Grating on his nerves, low and keening, dark, partially bloodshot eyes peeled open, sucking in the shadowed surroundings.
A stoked fire...
Another bedroll...
Haku...
Seconds passed, and the nin lunged into a sitting position, fingers curled into the dirt upon which he rested.
The boy was gone.
"Dammit," he muttered, survival instincts heightening until blurred senses detected the quiet sound again. A deeper scowl wrinkled his forehead. Memory served to remind him he'd told Haku to keep watch while he attempted recovering fatigue-bound strength, but other than that...
Zabuza briefly wondered if he was to know what sleep actually felt like ever again before leveling himself to his feet and following his ears.
Curiosity snapped its sharp mouth dangerously close to secrets still buried. And reverently, the sobbing washed gently over his soul, pulling at untuned chords with torturous strokes, mocking in its endeavor to...
Zabuza stopped, his face veiled with unsolved emotion.
Reality has long since abandoned you. A dream world. Nothing more.
Nonsense speaking.
The voice continued to plague him as he walked, ever silent harmony upon the ground. Heavy and lethargic, branches brushed across hardened skin, teasing caresses he could no longer feel without sacrifice.
His heart, dry and obdurate with sarcasm, had already burnt upon the alter years before.
Circumstances forbidding, Haku hadn't been the first stray, though the exiled warrior in him protested warily to such an excursion. But necessity had sneered at his impenetrable side.
And one mistake too many.
The boy had lasted longer than any of the others, unnaturally adapted to hard living and blatant ignorance.
Molded from the same cloth, years apart, the voice sighed in his ear, cruelly defined with a lilt distinguished as his father's, the village elder's, a demon sleeping under his skin.
Zabuza growled incoherently and faltered in mid-stride, his breath catching, pulse racing a marathon of unspoken retort.
Darkness did nothing to conceal the pearled skin stretched upon a water-encompassed rock, naked and gleaming with silver droplets. Hands carefully cupped an obscured object, tenderly stroking the manipulated thing, movement -caused by the commotion waking him- disrupting its forced dance.
And the nin stood watching in fascination as Haku played with his jutsu and cried, a death inherited in his veins without choice or consent.
Bare in such glory, tangled hair framed his delicate face, hiding a gaze of unspeakable depth, a mouth forced to smile and lament lies through joyous recompense. Observing eyes consumed the still-girlish limbs, ribs and hipbone peeking from beneath otherwise unmarred skin. Recognizing a paler mark beaded across a slender thigh, boasting of improper healing, bandage-covered lips frowned.
A scar. One exchanged for the thousands internally burdening him.
Speak.
The command was compellingly strong, ardent in its attempt to pry his mouth open and...
He returned to their makeshift camp before he could listen, staring at the dying fire, overwrought by haunting images and unnecessary words. There was little he derived from such an evasive union. It was as he said, as he wanted without question or hesitation, but...
But something, delicate and unknown, was missing.
"I must have woken you," Haku whispered as he emerged from the tangible environment minutes later, hair damp and clothes clinging softly to unmasculine curves. "I apologize."
Zabuza lacked conviction to reply, unsteady in his examination of his fragile creature of death and circumstance. Crouching, the boy swirled the darkened coals with a stick, material bundled in his arms.
Once upon a time, he existed without this, without...
"Zabuza-san?" Brown eyes blinked up at him, impossibly close, brimming with concern and anxious foresight, and he did nothing but stare, words eluding an already reluctant tongue. "What worries you?"
Slow motion.
Of its own accord, his thumb traced over Haku's eyebrow, beginning near the bridge of his nose and sliding toward his ear, curving over cheekbone and smooth flesh in an uncharted journey towards tremulous lips.
"Z-Zabuza-san?"
Fear tinged with...excitement?
You did this because you could. Look at the monster you really are. The hiss rang in his ears, mimicking a mother unable to love a son capable of such unthinkable sin, its sound puncturing his lungs to lure an audible gasp.
Tears.
The storm came unexpectedly, brutal in strength, incomprehensible as it traced a relentless path beneath the guarding bandages, and Haku...
Haku whimpered.
"What is it? I-" Unsteady, he knelt, a hand ever present on his face, out of place upon such fine skin. "Zabuza-san, whatever you need..."
Placid fingers touched his forehead in acceptance of unspoken request, liable need radiating smooth warmth. A chill swept up Zabuza's spine, through his brain, and he suddenly needed...
"Haku." The sound cracked, a hindrance on what he tried to say, wanted to tell, and weary hands pushed the boy away, unable to express the confusion dissecting his thoughts. "You...should sleep." Rubbing at his face, Zabuza hid behind his palms, faking eradicated kindness. "We leave early."
His escape wept desperation, a pitiable terror unbefitting a ninja as powerful, as strong...
A coward through and through.
Haku said nothing, merely withdrawing until he towered over Zabuza's sitting figure, porcelain features contorted into the occasionally drawn mask of noted displeasure, and he quietly retreated, neatly folding the clothes in his arms before stashing them away. Silence thickening, Zabuza gazed headlong at calloused fingertips until he closed his eyes, memories viciously burning his sanity into wind-scattered cinders.
Ridicule.
Can't...
He wiped at the wetness beneath dark eyelashes, sickened at the thought and how true it had become.
His own included, Momochi Zabuza cried for no one.
"Zabuza-san." The youth's words kissed his ears in mourning. "I understand."
And then, there was nothing.
End