Sting
(A/N) - probable misuse of medical chakra and quite a late update, another late update is most likely. Much thanks to all who've reviewed so far!
I also changed the summary to better match the story than the last one did.
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Sasori doesn't believe in ghosts.
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He couldn't sleep. Thunder boomed outside, lightning flashed and the rain was nearly as loud as the roaring thunder. He closed his eyes and pictured what Suna looked like right now. Flooded, and swamped crops, walls being pushed back.
He was not far from Suna, in the outskirts but not in the heart of it, like he had been when he'd been so much younger. He had remembered never sleeping during storms. He used to go out to his balcony under the cover of a cloak or raincoat and watch the storm brew and bubble over.
He wanted to see it.
The churning thick sand again; he had barely been able to take time to observe the place when he fought with that girl. He'd spoken to Hinata – no, no, no the girl, the waif, the little fool, his idiotic nurse as if he hadn't seen it in years. Years…centuries…decades…no, but he hadn't been able to soak in it. Soak in the surroundings of Suna as only a desert dweller could – a rattlesnake, jackal, camel…scorpion, could.
As the storm raged, Sasori pondered other things, not the freezing cold or the hunger pain or the irritability of not being able to sleep.
If she were an animal…what would she be?
He was of course not doing this because he was fond of the little pathetic ninja, but to use as a sort of intellectual leverage against her for his amusement.
She would be…a rabbit? They shared the same traits; wide eyes, easily frightened and a natural prey.
A deer? Quick footed, phantom in steps and at times clumsy…perhaps.
It came upon him suddenly. An annoyance. She was his caretaker and his annoyance. At times he found it hard not to reach out (not that he could, in his condition) and squeeze her throat until she clawed at his hands to breathe, not the rake chakra armed nails over her pretty little neck, not to pull her a little closer so he could smell whatever fragrance she possessed –
He blinks the thought away even though it leaves a rush to his head that's dizzying in its confusion. He had long ago forgotten the feeling of another's feel to his frame, the feel to match the sight of soft skin, lips, touch. All of it had been discarded as an unnecessary human trait he didn't need when he had flayed his body and become a puppet.
So why was it he regretted now? Why not earlier? Of course, he had missed the feeling. It was similar to sparring as it was an easy energy outlet. For pleasure, he traded it for others' pain and puppet building and the never ending quest for immortality.
Why was regret present now, when he most certainly did not need it around?
His fist clenched tightly, strongly and he can feel the muscles all the way to his shoulders.
Most probably it was the closeness of a woman that hadn't been so in years. That was all. A minor thing to have worried him…how stupid of him. The reaction of pheromones and other bodily chemicals…how stupid of him, really.
That was all it was.
He can feel his nails in his skin.
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She came the next day, in the late, stormy afternoon carrying food and she had a raincoat on. Sasori watched her silently. The girl must have gotten the goose bumps from his gaze, something different about it this time, deadlier and more watchful than ever before. Unforgiving and wrathful in a spitefully quiet way, the same way a cobra eyes out a victim.
She turned to him stiffly and her eyes stared right through him; wide, pale, intimidated, frightened. It was flattering and laughable considering his current predicament.
"S-Sasori-san?" she asks, frightened and unsure of what may be the cause of that dark gaze.
Sasori felt a stir in his chest. He has finally recognized her as some sort of threat. The wizened puppeteer cannot quite pinpoint what part of this shaking leaf is dangerous, what suspicious actions besides caring for him she has done; but the quake in him won't leave.
After she says his name, an automatic shutdown happens and a flawless mask falls over his face like theatrics. "Would you like to hear another story?" he whispered, honey sweet and heartbreakingly soft.
Hinata's eyes darted to and fro the ground, surprised by the sudden offer. "Y-Yes." She isn't sure of herself if she answered his question with another question.
"But um first I-I'll have to s-set us up f-first."
Sasori watched her set about to make a fire, set aside food and hitch a wadded up rainproof flap to keep from the rain coming in. She settled down for a story much later, uneasy.
Sasori looked over at her, sitting on the other side of the fire and shifting uneasily. "Uhm…I'm going to change your bandages a-and put some uh salve on you…" she blushed and Sasori watched her bloom red.
He didn't nod but stared at her expectantly, not having anything to say to her. She uncovered him his blanket and with small sewing scissors cut away his thick and bloodied bandages. A new roll of white cloth was taken out of a small medical bag she had at her side.
She bit her lip and moved behind him, lifting his head gently onto her lap so as to elevate him above the ground. A small bottle of fresh water and a hexagonal jar are also removed from the bag.
Over where the wounds where his parents had assaulted him, water is poured to help remove whatever infection is festering, because the wounds hadn't closed yet and they have been burning. Gentle fingertips rub the water carefully over places and she breathes on his skin as if it will help.
It doesn't, but he can humor her.
The lid of the hexagonal jar is unscrewed and her fingers dip into it generously before going to his wounds. It burns and the scents of the herbs mixed in are strong on his senses but he says nothing, biting his tongue because the quake hasn't gone away.
A soft press here and there, rubbing in softly with a phantom touch. Barely-there fingers ghost over his wounds.
She wiped her fingers on her jacket and screwed the lid back on the jar of remedy.
She leaned over him, not touching him but with only an occasional brush of her fingers as she rolled the bandages around his wounded torso.
He cannot feel a tickle or a tingle; his nerves aren't made for that anymore. So why does he feel like he has goose bumps every time her fingers brush over his ribs or near his navel?
She had to lean down then, to pay special attention when wrapping his nearly fatal wounds then. She stooped down and is careful, precise and on task.
Sasori can smell her. The scent of soap and female and a floral, soft scent.
She backed away once she had cut the strip and tied it off tightly, but not too tightly. "U-um I'm going to give you more uhm phy-physical therapy."
Sasori gives her a deadpan glare. "Isn't' this a disaster area for you?"
She didn't wilt and it surprised him momentarily though it didn't break through. She smiled a little, "I-I've read m-more on it and I'm going to have to s-start a smaller p-place to w-work at first."
He gives her no reaction, and so she wilted a little. He rolled his eyes at her discreetly, even if he is quite a bit older than she. "Do as you will."
Gentle, firm and aiming to heal, her fingers trace up his wrist, but he kept watch on her eyes. Thin veins popped under the thin veil of white skin, bluish green and freakish. They are not endearing but the hand she is not cradling, feeling, twitches and wants to idly trace the veins like lines of a map.
Her fingers trace up his wrist and to his elbow, following the directions of his veins, twisting together and tracing back softly. A press at the base of his wrist, then to the bend of his elbow. Chakra buzzes like electric waves, startling and not unpleasant but foreign.
She continued the same process over and over, and Sasori loses track of the time, not noticing that the rain is louder than before, that the thunder is distant, that it is pitch black out.
She stopped suddenly, slowly and looked over at him. Her brows are furrowed with concern and the grotesque veins hadn't gone yet. "D-Does anything hurt?" she is in her professional nurse mode and there is not any room for timidity.
No, there is a quiet languorous moment of tranquility. His nerves are sighing and lax, as is his mind at the moment. "Not yet," he says it with a soft glare. He blames his crankiness on mistrust and old age.
She nods, lips pursed tightly together and she moves to his other arm. Soft presses and gentle touches, chakra swells along his wrist to his elbow. Sasori's red eyes droop but do not fall completely. In relaxation, he is not completely at ease with the thought of someone touching him – even if it be this incompetent little girl who couldn't be a ninja properly.
Her chakra swells and ebbs like the sea, and he can feel her breath against his arm and neck. Perhaps she is straining herself to keep it at a contained minimum to allow him comfort while doing her duty?
Only tiny amounts of chakra escape through her to him, to heal him, heal damaged chakra veins that are greedy and asking for more than they can handle at the moment. Keeping at bay the chakra sucking, she has to pressure herself to only let the bare minimum pass through.
Along the bend of his elbow, a fingernail trails solemnly, and tingles of chakra flow with it. Sasori's eyes snap wide open at the feeling.
Her brows are bridged with concentration and she's biting her bottom lip in concentration. Her eyes do not stray to him and she doesn't give him a sign that she knows he's watching her now. Honest and innocent open concern for his well-being made the quake tremble.
She shifted away from him then, silently observing him with white eyes that were circled with bulging veins.
"Any pain?" she whispered to him, fingers wringing.
"No," his voice was soft as well.
She pursed her lips and nodded a bit, before the veins faded. She breathed deeply, "Good."
Her eyes dropped to her lap before she sagged tiredly.
Sasori turned his gaze to the cave's ceiling silently. "Would you like to hear a story?"
"Y-Yes," she scooted closer without Sasori telling her to and it caused him to start in surprise. Her bangs were on his ear and mouth. Her breath ghosted over his flesh.
This time, he began it with a once upon a time, and it is a foreigner's story of a chrysanthemum becoming a princess of a kingdom, and it is not without its twists as the princess wilts and dies just as the flower she is does.
Somehow, in an unfathomable move he doesn't remember making first; his hand is already around hers. She looked up at him with large eyes, "C-could you tell me a-another um one?"
The old puppeteer had always hated taking requests, and he still does but some secret technique is in those eyes that force him to comply. "There once was a girl, far from here…" a girl who swallowed the moon to become the moon princess, but no one would believe that she had swallowed the moon until she'd been forced to cut her stomach open, and all they found was a melon.
Sasori turned to her after the end. "What is the moral of the story?" why is he asking for a moral from her? Why is it when she opens her once closed eyes to look up at him drowsily that there is a slight twist in his abdomen?
"N-not to be uhm greedy?" her answer is tentative.
He felt like rapping a knuckle against her forehead. "No."
She fell silent and for a moment, he thought she had fallen asleep. "D-don't bite more than you c-can chew?"
Sasori blinked. He hadn't been expecting that.
"No. Never take extensive unnecessary actions." If anything, preserving himself hadn't been as such, but somehow in a hollowed out way, the girl who had swallowed the moon and he had connected similarities.
"Mm," she agreed and burrowed into his shoulder. "C-Can I t-t-tell you a um secret?"
Sasori looked down at her. "What is it?"
"I-I wish I was m-more like the girl who had swallowed t-the moon." She whispered into his shoulder, "I…I want to b-be more like a g-girl who can take a chance."
Sasori was quiet, but then pressed gently, "Why?"
She sighed, shuddering while doing so and curled closer to him because at the moment, he had the most warmth. "Th-then I would be the s-sort of g-girl N-N-Nar…he would like."
They lapsed into a silence and her breathing evened out.
The hand that held hers tightened.
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Next time Sasori suspects a case where an answer will not be given and Hinata is cornered.