Neji had kissed him.
A great many thoughts tumbled one over the other in Gaara's head, but always returning to their point of origin, an endless repetition of stunned disbelief stumbling to bring order to a life quite suddenly up-ended.
Neji had kissed him.
Fitting now that it was all he could seem to think of, since at the time of the event, there had been precious little of it. Not that thinking, or lack of such, had been pressingly important, since his body seemed to have taken over quite well on its own, thank you. His mind pointed out, quite logically and rightly so, that Gaara had never kissed Neji before, not in this lifetime at the very least. And yet his body, quite contradictorily in Gaara's opinion, behaved as though kissing Neji had been the most natural thing in the world for him to be doing. And not only that, seemed of the mind that they ought to be doing more of it.
And a good thing too that his body had chosen to react on its own, as Gaara had been quite incapable of directing his own actions. The kiss had been but a brief moment, and yet it seemed to have been much longer, an isolated moment of time, perfect and unending. It had ended though, and Neji had politely excused himself, saying something about needing to get to class. Or at least, that's what Gaara thought he'd said; he'd heard the words, but his brain had not been functioning enough to process them. Gaara was left sitting on the stairs staring after him in a daze.
The daze had not cleared when he finally stirred himself to walk to class. He'd made some sort of excuse to the teacher for his lateness, though he couldn't for the life of him remember now what it was he'd said. He could only hope he'd been coherent.
Neji had kissed him.
It had been so sudden, so surprising. Gaara had spent so much time convincing himself that he'd be able to stand just being friends with Neji, because he'd thought that was what Neji had wanted. That's what Neji had said he wanted, but Neji had changed his mind. Now Neji wanted… wanted… Gaara? Was such a turn of events even possible? Had that really just happened?
Gaara stared at the notebook set on the desk in front of him, opened to a fresh blank page. But he didn't draw; his pencil tapped a quite, erratic beat on the paper. Gaara mused that it matched the beating of his heart.
"I believe now would be an appropriate time to interject an I-told-you-so," Shukaku put in. "Go on, you can say it. Say, 'You're right Shukaku; you are a wise and awesome demon who knows so much more than a pathetic mortal like me, and I suck.'"
The pencil snapped in half as Gaara's grip tightened, earning a few brief curious glances from the other students. "I shouldn't have let him kiss me."
"Why not?" Shukaku said. "He's ours again. There should be lots of kissing. And petting. And the tearing off of clothing. And a nice round of ass-grabbing. Maybe some biting." The demon purred. "Biting is good."
"And that's why it can't happen again."
"What, biting?"
"No; you!" Gaara informed the demon. "Wherever we go, you never change! All my life, you've destroyed anything and everything you could. You've hurt people; a lot of people. Why should this time be any different?"
"I already told you, I won't hurt Neji," Shukaku said.
"If not him, then someone else. Naruto, or Sasuke, or Orochimaru-sensei, or any one of the other people here," said Gaara.
"Is there an 'all of the above' option?" the demon asked hopefully.
"You realize that if we hurt someone, we'll have to move again," Gaara pointed out.
"So what? We've moved a lot. I kind of like it. New places, new people to hurt. Leaving a trail of the maimed and the murdered behind us wherever we go," Shukaku said.
Gaara didn't bother to correct him about the 'murdered' part, since Shukaku knew very well that Gaara had never killed anyone. But apparently the demon had not yet grasped the gravity of the situation. "If we hurt someone, and have to move, we'll never see Neji again."
"We'll take him with us," the demon said, as though it were the simplest thing in the world.
"We can't take him with us," Gaara told him.
"What part of 'he is ours' do you not understand?" Shukaku demanded. "You'll do what I tell you to do. And if I say we'll take him, then we will."
"If we hurt someone," Gaara said slowly, "or worse, kill them… Neji won't want to come with us."
"Huh?" the demon said.
"Neji's not like you. He wouldn't think it was funny if he knew that we hurt people. He wouldn't like us anymore," Gaara told it.
"So… no more kisses?"
"No more kisses."
Shukaku had apparently not considered that possibility. "Huh. I'm going to have to think about that."
And the demon lapsed into silence, presumably to do just that. Gaara was given a few precious moments of peace, but without Shukaku's annoying chatter to distract him, Gaara's own thoughts picked up where they'd left off, to plague him anew.
Reflecting back on it now, Gaara realized that it probably hadn't been a very good kiss, even. It seemed to him that Neji had been just as surprised at himself for initiating the gesture as Gaara had been to receive it. As sweet as it had been, he was willing to bet that it wasn't anything like the kisses they must have shared in Neji's vision of them in the Forest of Death. Perhaps despite what Neji had seen in that memory, despite what he'd said to Gaara as they sat on the stairs, Neji was still uncertain. Gaara wouldn't blame him if he were; Gaara too was uncertain, as to whether he wanted Neji because he loved him, or because his previous incarnation had loved him. Still, despite all his misgivings, the simple fact remained;
Neji had kissed him.
And Gaara had really liked it.
.x.x.x.
Fourth period ended almost without Gaara noticing, so caught up he was in his thoughts. He didn't even register that the bell had rung until the other students around him started gathering their things and leaving their seats, on to attend the next class. Shukaku had laughed at him for his absentmindedness, but there was little rancor to it, and Gaara suspected the demon was preoccupied with its own thoughts. He really ought to give Shukaku more such challenges to think through on a regular basis; it had the affect of keeping the demon blissfully quiet for long stretches at a time. Shouldn't be too hard to find suitable brain-teasers to absorb the creature's attentions, either; for all the demon's taunting and menace, Gaara had always suspected Shukaku was not of the highest intelligence.
"I heard that," Shukaku growled at him. "If you need a demonstration, I'd be more than happy to show you just how creative and inventive I can be."
"I think I'll pass on the demonstration," Gaara informed the demon quickly. Shukaku was violent enough on a good day; he didn't want to see what he'd do when he was feeling creative.
He walked toward his next class without giving much thought or notice to the route, only to come to a halt just outside the door to the boy's locker room. Just hours ago, he'd walked in there to accidentally witness Shiten-sensei molesting Tashimura-sensei against one of the walls. Though he told himself he shouldn't care, he couldn't help but wonder what else in that room the two of them had defiled with their actions. Quite abruptly, Gaara turned away from the locker room, deciding not to even bother changing for gym class that day.
It didn't matter that much, since he hadn't planned to participate in the class today, anyway. Though, he knew he was going to have to start taking part in the gym activities soon. For once in his life, there was a possibility that he might be attending the same school for longer than a handful of months. That being the case, he would have to put more effort into his classes if he hoped not to fail all of them.
But he would bother with being an active participant in gym next week. For now, he sat on the sidelines, watching as Shiten-sensei conducted the class. Today's lesson was archery, which the rest of the class seemed eager to engage in. A good part of the beginning of the period was spent in a lecture on proper safety while handling what could be easily used as a dangerous weapon rather than for sport. Then came the demonstrations of the use of the archery bow, and Gaara found himself rather unsurprised when it turned out that Shiten-sensei had excellent aim. Each arrow pierced the fabric-covered straw target close to its exact center. After Shiten-sensei gave the others leave to try it, none of them came close to matching his skill.
Gaara wanted to hate Shiten-sensei, but he was finding the task more difficult than he'd expected it to be. He could easily hate Tashimura-sensei, for the sheer nerve of wanting Neji. And Gaara had expected to hate Shiten-sensei by association, but he couldn't ignore the fact that Shiten-sensei had been, or at least had tried to be, the voice of reason for his lover. Shiten-sensei didn't want Tashimura-sensei with Neji any more than Gaara did. There might be something of an ally in the grim-faced Gym teacher.
"We don't need allies," Shukaku said. "I still say we should just kill the both of them. You'll notice Shiten wasn't trying to talk Tashimura out of it out of any kind of concern for Neji. He's just trying to keep his boyfriend out of jail."
"It doesn't matter what his motives are, only that for the moment, we share a common objective; keep Tashimura-sensei as far away from Neji as possible," Gaara replied idly, as he watched the other students trying to impress one another despite the fact that none of them had any talent for archery. Gaara was starting to regret not participating in class today; he thought it might be enjoyable, though he didn't think he'd have much more aptitude at the sport than any of the others.
"If you let the sand help you," Shukaku pointed out, "then you would never miss a shot."
And with every projectile to bury itself in its intended target, Gaara could pretend it was piercing right into Tashimura-sensei's brain. It was a satisfying thought.
"Why pretend?" Shukaku asked. "If you want to kill him, just kill him. The sand was- is- a superior weapon to those toy bows and arrows. With the sand, it would be a simple task to just crush his head. He wouldn't even see it coming. Speaking of the sand, have you notice that it's been growing?"
Gaara hadn't really been paying much attention to the size of the sand, but now that he thought on it, maybe his backpack had been getting a little heavier. Had the mass of sand was gathering more of its granular brethren into itself? And if it had, for what purpose?
"To protect you," Shukaku said, as thought Gaara should have known that already. "To fight for you. To kill for you. That's what it did for you in your other life. It was much bigger then, stronger. It's trying to become what it was. For you."
Gaara didn't know if he should be flattered by that, or worried.
"Be afraid," Shukaku said solemnly, "Be very afraid."
Gaara spent the rest of the class period wondering if Shukaku was joking.
About five minutes before class was over, the other students headed to the locker rooms to change out of their gym clothes and back into their uniforms. As Gaara had been the only one who hadn't changed into gym clothes in the first place, he was the only student left in the gym. Shiten-sensei ignored him, picking up a clipboard he'd left on the sidelines, and heading toward the door on one side of the gym, which led to his office. Gaara grabbed his backpack and followed after the teacher. Though he hardly knew what to say to him.
Shiten-sensei hadn't closed the door, and didn't look up as Gaara approached. The gym teacher was sitting in a nearly too-small chair that had clearly seen better days, and had pulled open the top drawer of a file cabinet that had been crammed into one corner of the tiny office. He was filing away the papers that had been on the clip board, replacing them with other documents from another folder. He didn't say anything as Gaara stood there in the doorway watching him, though Gaara got the impression that Shiten-sensei knew very well that he was there. And still the silence stretched.
"So," Gaara said, "did you ever manage to make Tashimura-sensei call your name?"
Shiten-sensei halted in mid-motion, turning his attention slowly onto Gaara. There was something dark about his grim expression now, an anger barely held in check. "What did you say?" Shiten-sensei asked, his tone of his voice low, and dangerous.
"Today at lunch," Gaara clarified, ignoring the warning in that tone. "In the locker room, you told Tashimura-sensei you were going to make him call your name."
"You don't know what you're talking about," Shiten-sensei said, standing. He was tall, much taller than Gaara was, and Gaara knew he was meant to be intimidated by Shiten-sensei towering over him. Shiten-sensei felt threatened, and was instinctively trying to take the upper hand in the situation.
"I'm not going to tell anyone," Gaara informed him quietly.
Shiten-sensei didn't look as though he believed him. "Then what is your purpose in telling me?"
"Neji Hyuuga," Gaara said simply.
Shiten-sensei winced at the mention of the boy's name, his rival for Tashimura-sensei's affections. "What about him?" he asked gruffly, though he had a pretty good idea.
"Neji is my…" …boyfriend? "…my friend. And I want Tashimura-sensei to stay away from him."
"You and me both, kid," Shiten-sensei said. "Don't see that we can do much about it, though. Neji is in Tashi's class. They see each other every damned day."
"As long as that's the only place they see each other," Gaara said.
"Look, Tashi hasn't touched the boy," Shiten-sensei said. "And I'm doing my damnedest to make sure he doesn't. And eventually, Neji's gonna graduate, and the two won't see each other ever again. Tashi'll have to get over him then."
That seemed like far too long to wait to Gaara, but he realized there wasn't much more the two of them could do to force the issue. Unless he went with Shukaku's suggestion, and killed Tashimura-sensei. The sand made a low, eager rustling in his backpack at the thought.
Shiten-sensei frowned a little, peering around Gaara at the bag. "Did something just move in there?"
"No," Gaara said quickly, taking a step back. "I have to get to class." He turned and walked purposefully out of the gym, to attend the final class period of the day.
"He probably thinks you've got some kind of animal in there," Shukaku said. "He'll never guess that it's really just sand."
"I don't want him to suspect I've got anything in there." Gaara gave his backpack a shake, trying to communicate to the sand that he wanted it to keep quiet in there. The sand made a little whimper, like a kicked puppy, but obediently fell silent. Gaara felt kind of bad for having to hide it like that, and resolved to let it run around his room a little when they got home. Maybe that would cheer it up.
Shukaku laughed. "It's not alive, you know. It doesn't really think for itself, just because it acts like it does. It's an extension of your subconscious, not a pet."
Which suggested Gaara's subconscious was playful, affectionate, and eager to please. Gaara wasn't sure he liked the insight.
"Just wait until somebody really pisses you off," Shukaku said. "The sand can be one of the fiercest, deadliest forces you've ever seen."
And Gaara really didn't like how that reflected on him.
.x.x.x.
When the final bell rang, the doors of all the classrooms were thrown open, pouring forth a seemingly endless stream of students eager to be done with this place, to forget all the schoolwork and demands laid on them by their many teachers, so they could just enjoy the weekend and all it had to offer. Clusters of girls gathered around the lockers, giggling over who was dating whom, which parties they were going to that weekend, and what they would be wearing. Boys too discussed their weekend plans with each other, topics ranging from cars and sports, to beer and sex. With very few exceptions, every conversation heard in the hall was self-involved and vapid. Summer vacation had been over for no more than a week, but the students missed it fiercely, and were planning on recreating it, albeit in an abbreviated form, in the two days of the week they had free from the obligations of their education.
"If you ask me, we'd be doing them all a favor by impaling them one atop the other on the flagpole out front. It'll save them from finally having to realize that all their lives are empty and meaningless," Shukaku said to Gaara as he pushed his way through the crowds in the halls. "We could make student shish kabob. We'd need a really big barbecue, though…"
Gaara was actually tempted, as he passed by yet another group of girls eagerly gushing in high-pitched voices over the juiciest gossip of the day in; Sasuke Uchiha. But, Gaara reminded himself, just because he was surrounded by vain, selfish idiots, it did not give him the right to skewer them all on the thirty-foot pole out front of the school building. Even if he really wanted to sometimes.
Finally they made it out of the crowded hallway, out the front doors and onto the sunlit lawn. From here the crowds started dissipating, as students boarded the buses or got into the cars parked in the lot, or making their way home on their own two feet. Gaara was quick to spot Temari and Kankuro waiting for him, but his gaze left them and lingered over the rest of the crowd, hoping to spot Neji. He didn't see him at first, and had almost given up, when at last he caught sight of him near the gate, again talking with his cousin Hinata.
As though he somehow sensed Gaara watching him, Neji looked over, meeting Gaara's gaze. When Hinata noticed that Neji's attention had drifted, she glanced over at Gaara as well. She gave a shy little smile and a wave to him, then said something in parting to Neji, before hurrying away. Neji glanced after her, but remained where he was as Gaara approached.
Even before Gaara reached him, he could see the hesitancy in Neji's expression, an uncertainty he couldn't completely hide. It seemed Gaara had been right in his earlier guess that things would now be awkward between them. The last three class periods would have given him ample time to start doubting himself, questioning the logic of his own decisions.
Gaara took a deep breath, not sure what he ought to do, or say, if Neji had changed his mind about wanting to be anything more than friends with Gaara. "Hi," Gaara finally offered in greeting, for lack of anything better to say.
Neji's uncertain smile gained a bit of warmth. Gaara took that as a good sign. "Hello," Neji said in return. "How has the rest of your day been?"
Gaara thought back over the last several class periods he'd spent in a mixture of confusion and anxiety. Not to mention the little chat he'd had with Shiten-sensei. "Somewhat… less than enlightening."
Neji's expression took on a serious cast, as though he knew exactly what Gaara meant by that. And for all that Gaara knew, Neji probably did. Neji had probably been going through the same thing. "About what happened after lunch…"
Gaara's hopes sank. "If you've changed you're mind already, it's okay-"
"I haven't changed my mind," Neji hastened to assure him. But there was an unspoken 'yet' hanging at the end of that statement. "I just need to… think it through a little further. Perhaps with a few more recovered memories, we would be better prepared for it."
Gaara nodded, deciding that under the circumstances, that was probably better than he should have expected. "That sounds reasonable," he finally said. "So I'll… see you on Monday then?"
"Yes," Neji said, his smile genuine and, Gaara hoped, affectionate. "I'll see you on Monday." He lingered a second, as though there were something more he was contemplating saying. In the end, it went unsaid, and Neji turned, and walked away.
Gaara watched him until Neji was out of sight, before turning around to face his siblings, who were standing behind him, but giving him a reasonable amount of space so it would not feel as though they were encroaching. Both of them were giving him nearly identical, inscrutable looks.
Deciding he did not like that look at all, Gaara brushed right past them without a word, in the direction of home. He felt rather than heard them fall into step just behind him. The three of them walked home in silence, each lost to their own thoughts.
.x.x.x.
When they got home, Kankuro headed straight for the kitchen for his customary after school snack, and as usual, Gaara headed for the stairs to go to his room. But Temari didn't head for the office to start on her homework, as she usually did.
"Gaara?" she called to him, trying to hide the hesitancy in her voice, just as Gaara had stepped onto the first stair. "I'd like to talk to you for a moment."
Gaara turned to look at her, watching as she gave an almost imperceptible shiver at his emotionless stare. But she didn't back down, and so Gaara stepped off the stair to approach his sister. As he approached, he wondered if she'd somehow found out about him sneaking out the night before. Or perhaps this was to be another discussion of how he wasn't putting effort into his schoolwork. He got those kind of lectures from time to time. Though it was still too early in the school year for Temari to know that his grades were in jeopardy.
Temari didn't sit down on their couch, and neither did Gaara. The two stood for a moment, their gazes locked, silently regarding each other. "Gaara," she said finally said, slowly. "You didn't flush the toilet this morning."
He stared at her. Of all the things she could bring up, that was not what he was expecting. He'd heard mentions that girls were sticklers over that sort of thing, but why on earth would she choose to tell him that?
And then it dawned on him. Every morning, after all the other little rituals of getting ready for the day, the last thing Gaara did was toss his anti-psychotic medication in the toilet. And that morning, he'd forgotten to flush away the evidence.
Temari watched as her brother came correctly concluded the reason for this discussion. "How long have you been off your medication, Gaara?"
"A few years, at least," he answered, watching her expression transform into a mixture of shock and horror. All these years he'd been un-medicated, and she'd never known. "I can't remember when exactly I stopped taking them."
"Those medications are for your own good," Temari said carefully. "They'll help you-"
"The purpose of those pills," Gaara said in a dark tone, "is to turn me into a medicated zombie, to make me easier to deal with. That's what you and all those damned therapists wanted all these years; for me to be incapable of doing anything more than staring at a wall and drooling."
She looked stunned that he would accuse her of ever wanting such a thing. "No, that's not it at all! I never wanted that. I just wanted you to get better, so you'd be free of those voices in your head."
"There's only one voice, and he's not the sort of thing you can cure with pills," Gaara muttered. Another thought occurred to him. "This morning, you let me use a knife and fork at breakfast." That was unprecedented; for years, he'd never been trusted with anything so hazardous, if it could be avoided. "If you knew I hadn't taken my meds…"
"It was… kind of a test," Temari admitted.
She'd known he was off his medication. She'd wanted to see if he'd still attempt to do harm when presented with viable weapons. That's why she and Kankuro had watched him so closely as he ate. "And here I thought you two had actually started to trust me," Gaara said, his voice flat, betraying no emotion. Certainly giving no hint to the hurt he felt. It didn't matter how well he'd been doing lately. In their minds, if he wasn't on medication, he couldn't be trusted.
"No, wait, that's not-" Temari said as Gaara turned away from her.
"Don't talk to me," Gaara commanded, ascending the staircase to his room. He could practically feel his sister's gaze on him as he walked away from her, but she did not try to call him back, and she did not follow him.
Gaara entered his room, closing the door behind him with more force than necessary, and wishing that the door had a lock. It didn't matter, though; he didn't think his sister would be coming after him. She'd be too scared to. Always too scared of him. It didn't matter what Kankuro had said, about being there for him; Gaara always had been, and always would be, an outcast even in his own family.
"You're not gonna start writing bad emo poetry now, are you?" Shukaku asked suspiciously.
"Shut up," Gaara told the demon. "This is all your fault, anyway."
"My fault? I didn't do anything," Shukaku said. "Lately."
Gaara dumped his backpack on the floor and flopped down on his bed, glaring up at the ceiling. "Just leave me alone."
"Oh wonderful. That's a great idea. And where exactly do you expect me to go, anyway?"
Gaara heard his backpack unzip from where it sat on the floor, and the gentle rustlings of the sand as it drifting out of its confinement. He sat up a little as the sand glided over, curling up beside him on the bed like a cat. Gaara smiled faintly, running his hand over the mass of granules. It really was getting bigger than it had been. He wondered how big it was going to get. At some point, it would be impossible to hide it all in his backpack. He watched as it shifted and rippled under his touch, letting out a hum. Seemed as though it was trying to cheer him up, or at least comfort him in its own, limited way.
Things sure had been different since coming to this town, Gaara mused as he petted the sand. He felt as though the whole world had changed in just a few short days. Meeting Neji, Naruto and Sasuke, learning that he wasn't crazy and discovering what Shukaku really was, unearthing memories from a past life, and gaining a strange mass of sand with a mind of its own for a pet. If he were to ever consider talking to his therapists again, he'd have a hell of a lot to tell them.
But he knew that would be an exercise in futility. If he said anything to them, it would be considered simply manifestations of his mental disease. They'd want to give him more medication, pills that he would never take.
Gaara's fingers dug into the sand, though it didn't seem to mind. He was getting so damned sick everyone thinking he was crazy.
His thoughts drifted to the only four people in the world that didn't think he was crazy; Neji, Naruto, Sasuke, and Orochimaru-sensei. After some consideration, Gaara edited the list; he was pretty sure Sasuke thought they were all a little crazy. But for once in his life, Gaara had people he could talk to.
"Oh, come on. I've always known you weren't crazy," Shukaku said.
"Of course you did. It wouldn't have been nearly so fun driving me crazy if I were there already, would it?" Gaara lay back on the bed, frowning. Everything that had happened over the day had taken their toll on him, the good and the bad and everything between culminating into exhaustion.
Tomorrow he would have to attend his therapy session. He wasn't looking forward to it, and not only because he hated going to therapy in general. This time around, Temari would deem it her duty to inform his psychiatrist that he had not been taking his medication. He could only imagine what kind of lecture he'd be getting for that one. But unless they were willing to go to the effort of holding him down and forcing the pills down his throat- a endeavor doomed to fail, if Gaara and the sand had their way- then they could not force him to take his meds.
But all of that was a concern to be dealt with tomorrow. Tonight, just for now, he just wanted to rest…
That thought had barely finished forming, before Gaara had drifted into sleep.
.x.x.x.
And in his sleep, Gaara dreamed. Once more, he was in Suna, alone in the tiny basement of his- the Kazekage's- home. It looked little different than it had in his previous vision of the place; the only furniture in the room was the small bed moved here for his use, and a lone table by the bedside, with the plates and remains for meager meals gone by stacked atop its tiny surface. Gaara still wore the handcuffs, that the villagers foolishly- or perhaps desperately- believed could hold him down here.
Rats scurried about the floor in the darkness, scavenging at crumbs, becoming quite bold when Gaara did nothing but watch them. These days, the rats were pretty much the only company Gaara had. In his dream memory, Gaara knew that Neji's visits to him in this makeshift prison had been fewer, and briefer.
And Gaara knew why.
He could hear him upstairs, moving quietly in the attempts to keep Gaara from knowing he was there. Neji was a shinobi, and as such, usually very good at hiding his presence. But Gaara could hear him now, making his way painstakingly from one room to another, knowing that by this point, it would be a trial for Neji just to stand, much less walk. It hurt Gaara, to know Neji was up there now, in pain and alone. Neji wouldn't come down here to visit Gaara any more, because he didn't want Gaara to see him like that. He didn't want Gaara to know. Neji had entered the second stage of the plague. Within a day, two at the most, Neji would be dead.
Gaara shifted suddenly, causing the rats to squeak in startled terror and scurry back to their hidey-holes. From a small, hidden place under the bed, however, the sand emerged at Gaara's command. The villagers hadn't wanted Gaara to keep the sand with him; if Gaara were struck by the plague, allowing him access to his deadliest weapon would be the worst kind of mistake. But the villagers could not sever Gaara's connection to the sand; wherever he went, the sand would always be with him.
The sand waited but a moment, before engulfing the chains that bound Gaara in the basement. The silence of the room was filled with a low rasping, as the sand made quick work of corroding the chains down to nothing. Gaara stood, brushing the iron shavings off his arms, that and the red marks on his wrists the only indication that the chains had ever existed. Thus freed, Gaara ascended the stairs out of his makeshift prison.
Their normally tidy house was a mess, papers, bits of cloth and clothing, and debris had been scattered across the floor in every room, and left where it lay because no one had time for little, petty things like cleaning it up again. Gaara moved from room to room with silent footsteps, hardly sparing a glance at the sad remains of what had been his home. The sand gave soft, mournful sighs as it followed in his wake. Rats hissed at him from the shadows before scurrying out of his way. Finally Gaara ascended the stairs, and in his bedroom, found the one he was looking for.
Clothes and torn sheets were scattered and draped over every surface, and the room had a vague stink of vomit. Neji was sitting on their large bed, one hand gripping the bedpost so tightly his knuckles were white. He was taking low, gulping breaths, every muscle tense as he tried to repress the uncontrollable shudders that wracked his body. He was holding them off much better than some of the other plague victims Gaara had seen, when the plague had first struck the village.
Gaara stepped inside the room, and though he was certain he'd made no sound, Neji's gaze snapped to him. "Gaara," Neji whispered. He wrapped his arms around himself, but still he shook helplessly. "You're supposed… to be downstairs."
"Do you want me to go?" Gaara asked quietly, walking over to the bed.
Neji sighed, shaking his head. "I didn't… want you to see…"
"I knew you were sick," Gaara said. He sat down beside Neji, wrapping his arms around him, feeling the way Neji trembled as he held him. "I've known for days. You've been sick like the others, but you've still been working so hard, just to keep everything in the village together…"
"I can't anymore," Neji said. "I've hid… as much of the symptoms as I could. I've used the Gentle Fist style on myself, paralyzing some of my muscles, and it held off the shaking for a while, and no one else noticed. But I can't hide it anymore." He blinked pale, hopeless eyes at Gaara. "It'll progress to stage three soon. I'm dying."
"I know," Gaara said. "That's why I'm here now. I have a favor to ask." He reached a hand toward the headboard, opening a small hidden panel and removing a single kunai from the secret compartment. He held the weapon out to Neji, handle first. "I want you to kill me."
Neji's trembling increased, and he pushed Gaara's hand away. "No. You don't have the plague, and you're not likely to get it. You can still live…"
"And why would I want to?" Gaara asked. "You're the only thing I have worth living for now. When you die, I will go insane just as surely as if I had caught the plague. Someone would have to kill me then, but there'll be no one left that can. I'd rather end it now, quietly. In my own home, with the one that I love. And I need you to do it."
"I can't."
"I need you to," Gaara repeated. "If I could do it myself and spare you this, I would. But the sand would never let me take my own life."
"But you think it will let me?"
"I know it will never harm you. If there is anyone with a chance of getting through my defenses, it would be you," Gaara said. He held the knife out to Neji again. "Please, Neji."
Neji took the kunai slowly, staring at the weapon, hilt clenched in a trembling hand. "Are you certain?"
"Yes," Gaara said, with absolute conviction. "I want it to be you."
Neji closed his eyes, nodding in a short, jerky motion.
Gaara smiled gently. "Thank you, Neji. And… I'm sorry." He kissed Neji then, a last kiss; a sad, sweet goodbye.
There was a faint taste of salt, and he realized Neji was crying. And then a sharp shock of pain, as the kunai was stabbed into Gaara's heart. The sand had not even tried to block the blow.
The world blurred and dimmed in his eyes, the pain thundering through his head and his veins, threatening to take him down into darkness. But Gaara kept his eyes open, staring at the tear streaked face of the man he loved more than anything. He couldn't get any breath, and the burning in his lungs was just one more pain. Everything was redness and fire, but soon the fiercer it burned, the less he could feel it. He was dying, quickly.
"I love you," Gaara said told the miserable face of his beloved. He couldn't hear his own words, wasn't even sure he'd managed to get the words out. But he wanted Neji to know. "I love you."
Neji nodded, and with a swift yank, pulled the blade from Gaara's dying body. Just as Gaara's world gave over to the darkness that clawed at him, the last thing he saw was Neji turning the blade on himself. The kunai already slick with Gaara's lifeblood pierced into its final resting place in Neji's own heart.
.x.x.x.
Gaara woke to find himself very much alive, in his own room, in his own bed. The sand had curled up in a mound atop his legs, as though impersonating a sleeping cat. When he sat up, it flowed away to a spot beside him.
He took a deep breath, touching the place where he'd felt the kunai penetrate. There was no wound, of course. It had been just a dream. A memory. The memory of his own death.
Neji had killed Gaara because Gaara had asked him to. And then Neji had taken his own life, joining Gaara in death. There had never been a betrayal. It had been suicide.
"Damn," Shukaku whispered, its voice tinged with awe. "I got it wrong? I- hey, where are you going?"
Gaara had climbed off the bed, scooping up his backpack and ushering the sand back inside of it. "I'm going to go see him."
"That's all well and good, but it's nearly two in the morning," Shukaku pointed out. "You've been asleep for hours."
Gaara glanced at the clock, then at the darkened sky outside the window to confirm the truth in the demon's statement. He hadn't realized so much time had gone by. It didn't matter though. He was going to see Neji. It was an urgent need, an instinct he could no more deny than he could stop breathing. And so he shouldered his backpack, opened his window, and climbed out.
He ran most of the way there, and didn't even feel winded. Somehow, recovering the memory of his death made him feel more alive than he ever had.
Gaara only slowed when he neared Neji's house. As was befitting the late hour, the curtains were all closed, and there was no hint of light escaping through the windows to suggest that anyone was even awake. Gaara knocked anyway, but the minutes stretched without anyone answering the door. All the occupants were probably all in bed, fast asleep.
Not that Gaara planned to let that stop him from seeing Neji.
He unzipped his pack a little, letting out a tendril of sand to perform its lock-picking trick on the door. After the sand fiddled with it for a moment, the lock clicked open, and Gaara let himself inside the house. He closed the door behind him as gently as he could, all but holding his breath. He didn't dare make a noise, for fear of waking someone up.
"Well, you did used to be a ninja in your previous life," Shukaku pointed out. "This ought to be easy."
Gaara bumped into a narrow table in the hallway, knocking off the vase that perched atop it. Gaara tensed for the ensuing crash, but the sand snapped out and caught the porcelain piece just before it hit the ground, carefully depositing it back in its proper place.
"You were saying?" Gaara asked, when he finally managed to breathe again.
"I didn't say you were a very good ninja… If I were you, I wouldn't be trying to make a career out of it."
Gaara ignored that, heading up the stairs, guessing that the bedrooms would be up there. At the top of the stairs, a partway open door revealed a glimpse of a darkened, tidy bathroom. Flanking it on either side were closed doors. One of which, Gaara guessed, would be Neji's room. As there was no indication of which one it was, Gaara just picked one, moving over silently to open it.
The door opened smoothly to reveal a dimly lit bedroom. Gaara could not tell at first glance the identity of the bed's occupant, but Neji's backpack was leaning against the desk in one corner of the room. Gaara also noticed that on top of the papers on that desk was also the little paperback book Gaara had let Neji borrow. Pleased that he'd chosen the right room, Gaara stepped into its dim interior, closing the door very quietly behind him.
As Gaara approached the bed, it seemed Neji sensed the intruder into his room. Gaara froze as Neji stirred from sleep, opening his eyes and pushing the blanket back. He sat up slowly, facing the trespasser. It seemed that despite the dimness, Neji could see Gaara perfectly well.
"Gaara?" Neji questioned, his voice still soft with sleepiness. "What… are you doing here? What time is it?"
"Late," Gaara answered. "Or early, depending on your point of view."
Neji yawned, flipping on a little table lamp at his bedside, flooding the room with sudden, muted light. Gaara still blinked at the sudden illumination, until his eyes adjusted. Neji didn't move from where he sat in bed, looking at Gaara in a sleepy bewilderment.
"I'm not dreaming, am I?" Neji asked. He thought about that for a second, then shook his head, answering his own question. "No, I must be awake. In my dreams, you're usually dead. But that still doesn't explain why you're here."
"I had that dream," Gaara said. "The same memory you had. The one where you killed me."
Neji frowned at that. "I do believe I apologized for killing you-"
"But you didn't have to," Gaara said. "That's what I came to tell you. You must not have seen the whole memory, because it wasn't murder, and it wasn't an accident. I… I asked you to kill me. And you did. And then you killed yourself."
Neji stared at him. "Why would you ask me to kill you?"
"Because you were dying anyway," said Gaara. "And I didn't want to live without you. I asked you to kill me, because I couldn't kill myself. You're not to blame for any of it."
"I'm not?" Neji smiled a little then. "While I am of course relieved to hear that, I can't help but wonder why you felt the need to visit my house in the middle of the night to tell me this. Surely it could've waited at least until a decent hour of the morning."
"Well, it wasn't the only reason I came here," Gaara confessed softly.
"Really? What's the other reason?"
Instead of answering, Gaara strode across the room, watching Neji watch him. At the bedside he paused, looking down at Neji's curious and expectant expression. Even in the dim lighting of the room, Neji's eyes seemed to gleam with a fierce brightness, all icy opalescence and frozen lightning. They were the same eyes, the same as his previous incarnation had had in Gaara's dreams. At the core of their beings, the Neji of the past and the Neji of the present were the same person. And Gaara loved him now, just as he'd loved him then.
Gaara leaned down and kissed Neji. But it was nothing like the shy, gentle kiss they had shared on the stairs of their high school. This kiss was needy and craving, the kiss of someone who had lost everything they loved once, and had just now gained it all back. Neji tensed at first, startled, then let out a little sigh that parted his lips, allowing Gaara a taste of him. The sweetest thing Gaara had ever tasted.
Remember, Gaara silently whispered to Neji as he deepened their kiss. Remember that you loved me. Remember that I loved you.
Whether Neji remembered or not was unclear, but he kissed Gaara back with an equal fervor. His hands slid up Gaara's arms to his shoulders, tugging him down and tumbling him onto the bed so their positions were equal. The kiss fluctuated, hot and desperate one moment, slow and exploring the next. So too did their hands explore, almost of their own will. At some point Gaara noted that Neji's hands had found their way under Gaara's shirt, though he had no clear idea when that had happened. As quickly as it was noted, it was forgotten, Gaara's thoughts passing it by to touch on all the other sensations he was drowning in. Neji's hair was the softest thing Gaara had ever felt, Neji's embrace the most comfortable place Gaara had ever been. He thought the heat between them might eat him alive, but he didn't think it would be such a bad way to go.
At last they parted by silent mutual consent, the both of them breathing heavily as though air were in short supply. Neji brushed a few strands of hair away from his face, an amused, sensuous smile gracing his features.
"You came all this way," Neji breathed, "in the middle of the night… so you could kiss me?"
"It would seem so," Gaara murmured in return. "Was that a mistake? I know… you wanted to think more about it…"
Neji's fingertips trailed a soft path down the back of Gaara's neck. "I think that I'm done thinking now," he whispered, before drawing Gaara into another kiss.
