Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any of its characters.

Chapter four: The Silent Relationship

"Gaara!" Temari called him once more, looking at him with confused eyes. "Are you okay?" she asked when he finally stared at her after more than five minutes of complete inattention. "What's happened to you? You've been acting pretty weird these days!"

"I have?" he asked with some kind of innocence that made Temari even more worried.

"Yes and you are doing it now too!"

"I am?"

"Yes! First of all, you are talking to me, secondly, you can't do more than stare over the window and thirdly, you forgot to eat and that's not something people forget easily! Okay, let's say you haven't been hungry all day but you haven't eaten in three days! Considering the fact that you don't sleep either..."

Gaara stood up from his chair and walked silently towards the door.

"Wait! Were are you going?" Temari asked, staring at him with huge eyes.

"My room."

"See? I told ya' so! You didn't use to answer my questions and if I'd really pissed you off, like I'm doing now, you would have glared at me instead of going to your room, so what's wrong with you?"

He shrugged and left the office, taking refuge in his room by locking the door behind him. He didn't want any visitors. Shukaku kept complaining about things Gaara had never even heard of and he was more annoying than ever. He rolled on the bed covering his ears with his hands, his eyes closing at the release of a tired sigh. The clock had stopped several hours before and he hadn't bothered to fix it. He didn't need a clock to say it was late.

He heard Temari yell at Kankuro for God knows what and then all went silent just like he knew it would happen as soon as the two went to bed. From that moment on, the house was Gaara's. He could do whatever he wanted without being disturbed by the two, because they were sleeping in their rooms and so the entire night was his. He wished it hadn't been like that but there was nothing he could do about it. After nights and nights of insomnia he got used to it but the feeling that he should be sleeping instead of staring blank at the walls kept bugging him.

Although he didn't sleep, he couldn't do more than stare at the walls or read (not for more than five minutes) or stay on the balcony to listen to the crickets, because his organism slowed down a little at night. Signing papers at two o'clock in the morning would have been a massive disaster. His concentration was not very good at that even in the middle of the day so at night it was useless to try. Nights were for his calm and peace. Or maybe not so calm and peace since the Ronfells entered in his life.

He hadn't seen them in the last few days but the memories of them were the same as always, just that he had to think about them a little more to have their image in his eyes. He admitted that he had been acting weird in the last few days as Temari had already accused him of such things, but he couldn't help. He couldn't tell her or Kankuro what was wrong because they would have done something stupid, like they always did when they were panic-struck.

Bells. He knew that when he heard bells Ai was near and Shukaku would go away for as long as she stayed close by. As to confirm that thought, a soft breeze of cold air came from behind, from the balcony door. No other sound disturbed the peaceful silence. Gaara rolled on the bed to see her but she wasn't there. He rolled again with his face up, staring at the ceiling, then close his eyes and covered them with his forearm.

"Why are you hiding? I know you're there." he said in a low voice.

"I'm not hiding."

Her voice was close and he could now feel the warmth of her body and her weight pressing against the mattress right next to him. Gaara looked blindly for her arm and when he finally found it, resting on her knee just inches away from his neck, he entwined his fingers with hers. She let him drive her hand up and he took his forearm away to put her cold hand to his burning forehead.

"You push yourself too hard." she whispered. He was burning from the inside because of the physical exhaustment and mostly because of the lack of food. Probably he was so gentle because the fever was messing up with his mind more than Shukaku.

"Why are you here?"

Ai pursed her lips. His voice was weak. It was just a matter of time before he fell asleep. Gaara waited patiently for an answer, knowing that she needed time to talk about her brother, her family, or herself. Her fingers moved caressingly over the red bangs stuck to his forehead because of the sweat and stopped on his red kanji. He opened his eyes and looked at her.

"Your brother is not going to like this at all."

"He doesn't like anything that has a connection to me."

"But he likes you." Gaara replied.

Ai wanted to move her hand from his forehead but he gripped her wrist and pulled her closer with a simple tug. He hadn't been completely weakened by the fever.

"Yes, he does."

The Kazekage's pale blue eyes narrowed until he couldn't keep them opened any more.

"Ai..." he whispered. She didn't reply, but he knew she was listening. "Could you..." he shook his head a little. "Is Shukaku going to eat away at my personality if I fall asleep now?"

"Not as long as I stay here."

"Then... could you let me sleep in your lap?"

"..."

"Please?" he had never said please in his entire life and he had just said it to a girl he barely knew as his enemy. Such foolishness... why?

Her hands caressed the red hair gently and she drove his head in her lap, where he pampered himself like a little child asking for forgiveness. Ai felt his fingers on her neck. His sand armour was gone and his skin was now incredibly soft against hers.

"Gaara..."

"Hush, little girl." he whispered taking her hand in his and placing a kiss on the back of it, breathing deep to memorize her parfume. He didn't know what made him act like that, he probably looked weak and stupid but none of that mattered because she was there, holding him, making it safe for him to sleep. It might have been a trap and after he fell asleep she would leave and Shukaku would come back, devouring him from the inside. Maybe the fever was really messing him up to take risks like that.

For the first time in all those years he needed, he wanted to feel loved, not a subject for compassion. He didn't need their pity. He wanted someone else, who felt the same way he did, who shared the same pain and years of self control to stop from killing somebody. Maybe Ai didn't look like she'd kill anyone but she would. There was something in her past, inside her, that would have made her kill with thirst if given the chance. Just like him.

He pulled his head back on the mattress and slowly made her lie next to him, so close he could hear her heart beating at a slow pace, closer and closer until his ear reached the softness of her robe and her chest, the place where her life was trying to make itself heard. Gaara moved his head until his lips reached at her artery and he could feel her calm pulse, stream of life pouring through her veins. He could have easily stopped that stream from running in her body, to tear her into pieces, but he wouldn't.

No other girl was so close to him before. No other would have escaped alive from his embrace. Ai was not like the others. She was not afraid of him, her heart wouldn't start beating frantically, her pulse wouldn't accelerate, she wouldn't wince and become stiff every time he touched her. She wouldn't be afraid to stay in a demon's arms, knowing that it might be the last time. Was she expecting death? Was she... awaiting death?

His curiosity made him move again, this time aiming at her cheek, waiting to see (or rather feel) her reaction. No, she hadn't made a single move that could indicate any kind of fear, but she did let her warm lips rest on his burning forehead for some time. God, it felt good to finally have someone to hold him unconditionally, not because of pity, not because of fear. Just to be there. To comfort. To calm. To soothe the pain.

He didn't need to hear someone call his name and say he loved him, lying of course, but he enjoyed her company both because it was very quiet in his mind without Shukaku and because she was quiet. Her hand moved and she tangled her fingers in his red hair, feeling it soft and rebel. Gaara went closer, barely touching her lips with his and she didn't stop him so he made the touch a kiss and pulled her warm body even closer.

"You fever is not going to drop by itself." she whispered under his gentle kisses. Gaara heard that but ignored her for the moment, asking himself what had made him so... docile. Although he still wanted to feel the taste of her blood, to see her broken, dead, because she was the enemy, she could have betrayed him.

Just the thought of betrayal made him bite her lower lip, blood staining his lips with the taste of her life. She hadn't even blinked. Blood was on her lip and Gaara licked it all, then sneaked his tongue in her mouth, hungry for more. Before he could know it he was over her body, looking at her through the darkness, maybe weakened by the fever but certainly not mentally affected by it. He knew what he wanted and no fever was intoxicating his will. Only Ai.

"Mine!" he hissed, looking in her eyes and dragging her into another deep kiss, feeling the curves of her body through the white robe. "Not your family's, not your brother's, just mine!"

His sand armour went back into the gourd, leaving his body an easy target, claiming her body as his own, leaving his kisses everywhere he could find a spot he had missed and because he didn't know exactly which spot he had missed he was kissing her freely and she kept her fingers running through his hair, the blood on her lower lip waiting for him to come back, for his hunger and greed to feed with it.

Gaara stopped to catch his breathing and fell next to her. Ai kissed him back lightly and buried her face in his neck, knowing that he was already asleep. In the morning, when he would open his eyes, he would only find the mist in which she used to disappear. The fever was going to keep him in bed for some days and she was going to have a lot of trouble. At home.