:Zero Tolerance for Insomnia
:mIRAKURU rEIN
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A/N: Considerably lighter in mood than the last chapter.
A bit of clarification: Gaara is an insomniac, but in the last chapter he falls asleep because of the wounds inflicted on him…hopefully no one realized my stupidity. xD
And if you've noticed, last chapter and this chapter, there are lots of differences between how the regular Naruto world works and how my AU Naruto world works. Be in for surprises.
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chapter two: pacing
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Eyes of red-hot iron burn into him, branding him with fear. Tails flick in the air, teeth bared. The atmosphere of the cell suddenly goes from very cold to too damn hot.
The fox laughs throatily. "I can smell it you know. Your fear." He drawls the syllables out.
The kid's heart beats in his ribcage ferociously, but his eyes narrow with resolve.
"Stupid kid." The fox laughs again. "I can hear it too. You can't hide anything from me." The animal advances slowly. The kid backs into the small corner of the cell, his mind stale and frozen. Everything around him seems tense – air particles hang, heavy, refusing to enter his lungs – he can't breathe. He is suffocating.
"You seem like a suitable host," the fox is saying – but by now the kid can't comprehend anything. He is on his knees, coughing up small teaspoons of blood – everything in his mind is breaking, spinning –
"Naruto."
The fox's red eyes widen. The kid, hand over his mouth, looks up.
The cell door is open, and in its entrance stands a boy with blood irises as dark and scathing as the fox's. Black hair falls around his face carelessly, scowl on his face imprinted clearly.
"Naruto," the boy with blood irises says again – and the fox starts squirming, the orange fur convulsing and transforming into an orange jacket. The angular head of a canine melts into a human head – a boy's head, with shocks of blond hair sticking out everywhere. Claws become fingers, long, muscular haunches straighten out and become legs. The kid watchs in awe – the fox turned into a human.
The boy with blood irises merely says nothing, glancing at the kid for a moment and abruptly turning away. "Let's go, Naruto. Sorry for the trouble, kid."
The blond boy groans with life, and wearily pulls himself up from the cement floor. "Sorry –" he manages to spit out – before his limbs fail him and his mass collapses. He had fainted.
The boy with blood irises sighs. He hooks the blond's arm around his neck, then drags him out of the kid's cell down the hallway.
The kid blinks. No one had even bothered to close the cell door.
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More troubling, he was starting to die.
For days and nights in a row, he had started coughing blood, thin strands of red mingled with his saliva – signs of consumption, tuberculosis. He had made a bet with himself – if he managed to collect at least a cupful of blood from his coughing, he would kill himself – in any way possible. Prisons made it hard for captives to commit suicide. The kid figured the easiest way to do so was to probably to attempt escape and try to put himself within killing range of the guards.
Morose, yes, but would you rather be consumed by your own breathing lungs or be shot down by absolutely apathetic strangers?
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"I can heal you, you know."
The kid looks up from his bed. He knows the girl was eying his cup warily, his prisoner cup filled halfway with blood-coated phlegm. But he says nothing, and resumes to his curled-up position on his flimsy mattress.
"You might die if I don't heal you."
The kid sighs in annoyance. "How the hell did you get in here?"
She shrugs. "The door was open."
Damn. He should have closed it.
She continues. "I'm surprised you didn't try to leave. Others would've jumped at the opportunity. Others have." She scratched her head. "I supposed I should talk to Sasuke about leaving cell doors open…"
"What do you want?" His eyes narrow dangerously, cerulean digging against his bright red strands of hair.
"Simple. I want to heal you."
"Why?"
"Because it is an easily reversible condition if you would just let me –" Her fingers inch towards his throat, but he swipes her hand away.
"Leave me alone."
"I can't."
He growls audibly. "And why is that?"
She smiles sweetly. "Because I'm the prison medic – and if people die of disease here, I lose my job." She cracks her knuckles fiercely. "And God knows what I'd do if that happens."
"…Fine. Just get it over with and leave me alone."
"Gladly, you ungrateful twit."
"What was that –?"
She clasps her hands around his neck, moving her fingers gently around the skin, ignoring him.
"Lots of first-timers get what you have. The air here is corrosive and damages the lining of your throat. Once you get used to it, though, the condition goes away and you'll be fine. However…if it goes unchecked, your throat will get so damaged that it just dissolves and you will die, choking on your own blood." She smirks. "How's that for poetic justice?"
"I don't see it at all."
"Hmph. You just have no sense of what art is."
"Actually, I am –" Her hands start moving down from his neck, and out of surprise, he grabs her wrists.
She laughs. "Relax. I'm just clearing blood from your lungs." Her fingers waver over his chest, then she brings her arm up quickly – the blood comes bursting up his throat, then explodes out from his nose – splattering against the wall behind the medic. She grins.
The kid coughs, grabbing his throat, the red liquid still running from his nostrils. "What the hell was that for?"
"Only way to get it out," she says. "If I made it come out your mouth, we would've needed to replace your teeth."
Or maybe she's just pure evil –
"Oh and, by the way, I'll see you next week. The procedure needs to be repeated every seven days until the condition disappears."
Oh yes, she's evil.
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The cell is depressing. It is about the size of a walk-in closet, with only a small mattress and basin to fit in it. The paint job was cement gray, complete with previous habitants' carvings – and the splotches of his own blood now.
The blond boy had come by once, and offered to bring him paint.
"Why would I need paint?"
"I heard you were an artist," he said, extracting a thick brush and a few thin squeeze-bottles of black and blue paint from his pocket. "I dunno, I thought you might be bored."
The blond boy and his friend with blood irises are prison guards, he found out. How they managed to secure such dangerous jobs at their age – the kid might never know.
"My name's Naruto," the boy said, extending his hand for shaking. The kid simply stared and said nothing in response.
The blond boy scratched his head. "Sorry, you know, about the other day…things like that happen…lucky I have Sasuke around, really…"
"What happened?" The whole event had spiked the kid's curiosity, something that was rare for the kid. Nothing was ever interesting enough for him.
"What? Oh, um," the blond smiled sheepishly, "you see, the only reason I have this job is because this demon fox was bound inside my body when I was really small…I can voluntarily unleash it, but sometimes it gets too much for me and takes over my body. Sasuke's the only one that can control it and turn me back…something to do with his eyes…"
So the blond was here to guard the prisoners, and his friend blood irises was here to guard him. Interesting.
"So, um, here's the paint, just keep it, will ya? You don't have to tell me your name if you don't want to, so –"
"My name's Gaara."
The blond's face was of complete astonishment, but then it broke into a smile.
"Nice to meet you, Gaara."
For once in his life, the kid actually liked hearing his name.
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The kid got used to the prison. Nights were sleepless as ever, and he covered his walls with paint, trance-like and half-asleep.
Saturdays called for visits from the medic, who commented on his murals with great fervor.
"I didn't know you were an artist!" she exclaimed. "Sabaku no Gaara, right? I know my friend Ino's bought a few works done by you…"
Naruto dropped in once in a while. "Like the mural…is there any significance to the fans you painted…?"
Even Sasuke came by. "Here's your work duty" – threw a piece of paper at him, and left.
The rest of the week was dedicated to work duties – the kid's particular job was to polish the floors of the apartment of the prison warden himself, a nameless faceless man who lived in a complex above the entire prison itself.
Then arrived his interrogator, his own personal torture chamber. "Your sentence was decided yesterday. You are to be executed in two weeks for the murder of your surrogate sister, Temari." And left.
Cold wind blew in from the south, even though there were no windows to be opened.
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Fin
End of chapter 2
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A/N: Hopefully you've figured out most, if not all, of the characters that have appeared so far. Please review!! :D
Next chapter: confinement