Chapter 11

(The Chill: Part 2)

He walked into the bedroom late that night expecting emptiness. Why would she stay after all? What would prompt her to even tolerate his very existence beyond this point? Only a foolish creature who wished suicide would even think it, and he doubted her a foolish creature.

Headstrong perhaps, and noble to a fault, but not wishing her own demise.

The darkness was what welcomed him, shadows and nothing more. There was no fire burning brightly, only ashes. The room was cold, but no colder than he had long grown accustomed to as a child. He could smell blood, and a soft sob reached his ears.

it pricked at his very consciousness, and drove him to search for the sound. Instinct dragged him to the spot that he knew she would be.

That godforsaken chair.

Huddled in a quivering little ball, covered in his blood still. It had been a full day, hours and hours had passed, and here she had been sitting. Probably hungry, no doubt thirsty…yet all she did was shake, clinging onto that all too thin blanket, and for what?

For him?

Not hardly. That, he easily concluded was impossible…and yet there she sat, her eyes piercing through the darkness, seeing him stand before her. He sighed at length. "Why are you still covered in my filth?" The matter perplexed him, but she didn't answer. "Speak!" He growled dangerously. "Do not tempt me further to end you!"

To be honest, if she had to be… "I don't know." Her mind was so blank, devoid of even the most basic pretense. "I don't even…" She closed her lips, pulled them into a tight frown. "I can't help you." That's what hurt the most. "You won't even let me."

"I am in no need of help." Gaara took one step forward. "Clearly you are the one in a state of ill-repair."

"Everyone needs help sometimes." She glanced to his hand, the bandaged tied onto it had been done haphazardly, as if he'd tied it himself with his good hand and his teeth. The bite marks in the white cotton proved as much. "I want to help you, I want to be by your side…" She turned away. "You don't understand that."

"I understand that you are covered in my blood." Gaara replied, forcefully grabbing her by the chin. "I understand that you toy with fire. That you think you have some sort of power. I understand that you are misguided." His fingers rested against her pulse, he could feel it slowly elevating. "I do not understand why you continue to test my ire."

Because it would eventually break…but she couldn't tell him that. Couldn't find the words, so she lifted her fingers, wrapping them around his wrist delicately. He could snap her neck in a heartbeat, but his fingers held her with firm gentleness.

Not allowing her to look away, but not hurting her either.

She didn't know why she trusted his rage so avidly. She knew the raw power beneath the surface could end her, but she doubted he would. She doubted his malice dripped that far down into the core of his being. "I have always tried to surpass my current limitation." Hinata said, feeling her throat flex against his palm as she spoke. "I have never met a problem I could not overcome."

"Humans are not limitless."

"No." Hinata agreed. "They're not." Reaching forward with her free hand, wondering what he might do, she swallowed hard. "But I know that dreams are. People follow those limitless dreams to their conclusion, whatever that may be."

"Then this is a nightmare." Gaara snarled, fighting against his urge to just kill her and be done with the whole sordid mess then and there.

"Then if it is, wake up." Hinata felt his hand tighten slowly, and she gasped a hard breath. "Wake up." She coughed, watching his eyes in the darkness, those glints of white surrounded by black markings…that twinkle of rage in those wide irises. "Th-that's all you have to do."

"Your ideology holds no bearing." Gaara protested as he released her from his harsh grip, all but flinging her into the back of the chair. "You speak from a place of propriety and privilege. You have always known of your place. You have never once been forced to question the need of your very existences. You understand nothing of bloodlust."

He was nearly drooling now. "You have no grasp of what it means..." He rasped out against his own ragged breath. "No idea...how it feels...to force mercy upon the very thing you want to kill." And he wanted to hurt her now, kill her. "Giving into that satisfaction is tempting. It's gratifying." He turned to look at her. "You're a sadist's greatest desire, seeking out continual torture, asking to be sullied…"

It went against his human heart to harm another, but it was the beast-like upbringing that told him to kill her now. To force her to submit to his utmost power of will. Either killing her, or ruining her, whatever happened first was of no consequence to him. He sat on that fine edge of sanity, perched on it in a way that he hadn't since he was a small child, trying to learn why his heart hurt…why he was so lonely…he had been told others had to heal that wound, but no one had tried.

No one besides the one man who was so much like him, sharing the crucifix of living as a Jinchuriki.

This woman attached herself to monsters. He and Naruto were very different beasts, but they were still inhuman monsters. The blonde was merely a tamed one, something Gaara knew he could never be. "Do you not yet understand what I am, or what you are to me?"

On two shaky legs she stood from her chair. "Beat an animal enough, it bites back. That's just fear. That's all it is. It's a defense." She was sure Gaara was above that though. That he was more human, and maybe more afraid than any animal could ever be. "Beat a human enough, it'll become more than fear. It'll become justification. An animal can't justify their actions, but people do." She was sure that in Gaara's mind, he was justified in his actions. He was doing the right thing, or, as right a thing as he understood to do. "Isn't there any good in you? Any qualities you can take pride in?"

He was a prideful person in his own way, but that pride was not a reflection of himself. It was a reflection of what he hadn't completely obliterated. It was what his mercy had managed of him, growing a mindless killer child into a man worthy of the blood he spilled. A ninja, a Kazekage, a keeper of hundreds of lives within the village he looked after. He chose to protect them because it proved he could. It proved he was more than the murder he had been raised to be. All of that good was not within him, it was not because of him.

It was in spite of him.

She would live, in spite of his rage, because he was a master of it. She would continue to breathe, because he allowed it.

"Answer me this, and I will permit you to stay if you so wish it." He sighed, refusing to look at the woman as he stepped towards the window. "How do you heal a wound that's been bleeding for years? How do you stop the pain that has become so ingrained into every aspect of your life?"

For a long time, she said nothing, listening to his breath starting to calm. He watched his twitching shadow, until he stood firm and solid once more.

"Wounds will bleed no matter what you do, if you keep picking at them." Hinata chastised quietly. "Pain doesn't go away completely. Hardship…" She wondered about that. Did it ever really get easier? "It…" Probably not. It probably only got just more bearable. "If you cut yourself, it's going to leave a scar. It doesn't matter if the knife is metal, or something else. Scars…they happen…it happens and you have to accept that…let me help you do that."