Disclaimer: I do not own anything. Please give credit where it's due. Thanks.
Warnings: Not beta-ed.
Author's note: Spurned from random thoughts and a poem-ish song. Written for Masa-chan by request (with encouragement from Dee!). Please enjoy!
Come of Origin
When I close my eyes, my earliest memory isn't of my mother. Or my father. To be honest, I recall nothing of them, of my life with them. A defense mechanism of the brain, complicated for a child who cannot remember killing his father after the cruel death of his mother. My recollection tends not to involve them, though her beauty has become my curse and his strength my precious treasure. For this, I am grateful. He is mine and only mine because of it.
Zabuza-san has and always will be my only thought. My existence belongs to him, and I will never forget, even after I die. I owe him what little I can offer, and even then, it doesn't seem to be enough. Never enough.
Throughout my life, the appearance I've given is that of an adolescent boy, a ploy to fool the enemy, a brilliantly designed trap, but truthfully, I can be nothing more than what he makes me, and I'm his tool. Willingly. Always happy to please Zabuza-san any way possible.
Sometimes, when I'm alone, I find myself evoking peculiar contemplation, almost drifting into a trance unbefitting a shinobi's awareness. I'm ashamed to admit such a weakness, but I cannot help it. No one could. From the beginning, I've realized my imagination is…overactive. Quite so. My mind stretches the truth, weaves a dream of impractical fabrication, but I indulge without hesitation, losing myself for that impossible moment, wanting it with my whole heart.
Shadowed eyes absorb the restless figure appearing before me, acutely aware of the hidden strength, of a rough splendor that somehow surpasses my own feminine charm, and ghostly fingers trace over a refined nose, fragile cheekbones. The warmth is an unbelievable reality, and in this dream, my hand trembles when he touches my shoulder, tugs playfully at the hair petting my ear. I want to be strong, I must, and the personal vow ends such a forbidden shortcoming without hesitation before I can act upon it.
Always unsatisfied but happy to envision such a face.
The memories…are all him and of no one, nothing else. Zabuza-san makes it so.
When I was twelve, a deadly killer at such an age, the ability to slaughter sliding ice cold in my veins, he taught me the art of seduction, the bewitching eradication of life. The objective had been simple, a lesson of 'watch to learn', but before this instructing game began, I'd already lost.
Zabuza-san mustn't dirty himself with those other than myself. No, not at all.
Our target had been attractive in an impartial way…and male. Not uncommon in the backwashed villages of missing nin such as us. In the end, it was Zabuza-san who lured him, his elegant words smooth, my body the bait, promising what he would never offer to anyone. Ever. Yet, somehow, I was fascinated enough by the situation to allow the stranger to wriggle his hand inside my clothes, squeeze my hip before Zabuza-san roughly pulled me away, his flesh burning my skin.
"Wait outside."
"Zabuza-" Lips seared my own, halting his name on my tongue in a single heart-wrenching action, and my entire body had been numb, my fingers unable to move, to resist an impediment of this magnitude. Yet, somewhere inside, it wasn't known by such a name, more than an obstacle to overcome.
My soul fluttered that day, desperate to escape, to stay in the warm embrace of a man beyond men. Contradiction of thought.
"Go." His command made the earth move the moment he wasn't devouring my essence with his mouth, caused a shudder up my spine, and I only nodded, stumbling out the door and trembling, face pressed against the dank wall until I'd gathered the courage to peek inside.
Even now, I remember the blatant stare, jealousy seething as the scene repeats over and over in my head at the most inopportune moments, and sometimes, I think to tell Zabuza-san the truth, explain that I do not understand these emotions but want them all the same, though he would deny me with that beguiling charm and probing gaze.
Always the kind one, my Zabuza-san is.
Still, time moves forward, pulling us wearily along with age-worn hands, and I remember my final lesson as a shinobi, a flowering boy with the capability to kill so easily, with vivid recollection. The art of self pleasure, the satisfaction and release of the body's tension through masturbation. Almost fifteen, it had been an accident on my part, haphazardly disturbing Zabuza-san with minor domestic details without permission, enthralled at the sight of such a beautiful act. Hips jerking, eyes half closed, envious body taut. I'd gazed for only a moment before excusing myself and returning to my chore, face heated and breathing slightly irregular.
I didn't know what to call it then or why the experiment seemed so thrilling, but I became intimately involved with the Zabuza-san in my mind that afternoon, replacing those filthy pick-ups in the dark alleys and lonely inns with touches worthy of his wondrous body. Surrounded by the cool earth and whispering wheat, I would lay in the fields, conscious of nothing else but my fingers playing along my skin and the fantasies stashed securely in that place no one dared to look.
Once, my hurried carelessness had Zabuza-san watching as I scrambled to prepare the evening meal, and afterwards, he merely commented in a quiet tone words I will never forget.
"You smell like sex."
There are instances I wish my memory wasn't so choosey, that I could remember my father's hands and my mother's warmth, but I think of nothing else except Zabuza-san. The way his fingers caress my skin at the slightest brush of contact, the heat he radiates when we huddle together through a passing thunderstorm or during the winter months to keep from freezing. My heart loves to play these games with me, always teasing, and Zabuza-san, like so many times before, remains ever silent.
Opening my eyes, tired of a half-hearted reverie, I am face to face with the core of my unexplained desire, his mouth partially free of those ugly bandages, their weight loose around his neck. I blink and smile slowly, as if keeping some too-wonderful-to-share secret.
"Zabuza-san."
"Are you ill?"
"Of course not." His concern frightens me, as he's never asked such a question before, and I tilt my head to the side, trying to unravel this unexpected aura clinging almost desperately to Zabuza-san. "Does it seem so?"
"Your attention is incredibly lacking these days, Haku," he explains in that delightfully deep voice that always sends a chill down my spine. I cannot keep from choking back a laugh, my hand pressed to my mouth to stifle the sound.
"Forgive me…Zabuza-san." Those eyes stare a moment longer, and then-
"You think it amusing?"
"Never."
"Then, what is it?"
Though it is the only thing I desire for myself in this material world, I dare not tell Zabuza-san the truth, and I simply look at him with a pretentious mask of happiness, my hair, free to fall around my face, slipping over my shoulders.
"You're cute, Zabuza-san." His guard is broken for just a moment with my statement, strips of cloth doing well to hide the slight pink of usually monotone skin, but with a second glance, it's gone, evaporated into the stubbornness engrained in him.
"Only you would say that," he mutters a short time later, drawing my attention rather quickly. How could Zabuza-san be so blind to his affect on others? On…me?
Absently, I reach out and toy with the strips of cloth spilling freely around his neck, twining them between my fingers and around my hands until I trap myself in their confines, close enough to notice a bead of sweat clinging to his forehead.
"You're very beautiful," I hear myself whispering, a tremor in the lilt of my voice, and I'm suddenly terrified he's going to discover my secret, that embarrassing thing too horrible to tell. "You're wonderful…Zabuza-san." The wariness in his gaze almost breaks my heart, and for the first time in the life I can remember, I want to cry.
I really am unworthy of this existence I inhabit. Without question.
"Haku…"
"I'm sorry. Please forgive me." I try to untangle myself, angry at such a foolish display of obviously unwanted emotion, but Zabuza-san's hands are wrapping around my back, holding me immobile in a loose embrace he knows I can easily escape from if I choose to. Yet, I don't, and unexpectedly, a whimper slips free, our eyes meeting, brown against an even darker color. It's as though our surroundings don't exist, as if we haven't stopped in the middle of a well-traveled road leading into the next city, the next opportune moment to slaughter for necessity, not out of bloodshed, and Zabuza-san is frowning. A bad sign as I'm usually chastised for the cause of his upset.
The silence continues to thicken, threatening to consume us both with a hungry mouth, and for an instant, I think my heart stops when I realize Zabuza-san is slipping his fingers down my back, carefully playing with the material tied around my waist.
"I don't understand you," he confesses without hesitation, more open to admitting such things than I am. "You…confuse me."
"I'm-" The apology refuses to come, pressed firmly against my tongue, and I tighten my hold on his bandages, squeezing until my knuckles whiten. "Zabuza-san…" Giving in, I rest my forehead against his chest, comforted by his warmth and the faint scent of his skin mingling with the earthy smells around us.
"You make me worry unnecessarily."
"I-"
"A dangerous intrusion in this world," he breathes, hot air washing a tsunami of mixed feeling down my spine to settle in the pit of my stomach as an uneasy wave of foreboding. "Haku-"
Wetness suctions itself to the side of my neck, stealing an involuntary cry from my mouth, and my legs give out, my entire weight now fully supported by the arms banded around me. I helplessly cling to Zabuza-san as he nips and suckles the flesh just below my ear, the prick of his filed teeth stinging before melting into a cataclysm of ardent colors scorching my brain. I can't breathe, can't muster a single coherent thought, and it's strange that this is happening, that I'm trying to…resist.
I've wanted this. I've always wanted this. The closeness, a sense of security no matter how false it really is. And yet…
"I won't be your distraction any further." Without hesitation, I feel the distance growing between us as he slowly disentangles himself, briefly touching my fingers and pulling until there is space separating our bodies, cold and vacant as before. His back faces me, and my heart falters.
He knows.
"Zabuza-san…"
He's not as naïve as I'd once thought.
That semi-masked face shifts slightly to look directly at me, the shadowed outline of his mouth tilted in, what seems to be, a soft smile, and my resolve breaks when he makes a motion for us to continue on. He's right, and though I don't want to admit it, I must.
We…can't. A time for childish folly and unattainable thoughts will always remain as such, never brought to fruition because we live an existence of fake love and counterfeit words. Our relationship is the way Zabuza-san chooses to make it, and I respect his decision, happy to have, at the very least, been acknowledged.
I follow without question, a tool content to belong by its master's side. A cliché metaphor my soul refuses to release.
Zabuza-san…
Perhaps one day I will feel the gentle beat of his heart pressed to mine, our bodies as one, our lives no longer a meaningless façade, the emotion able to move the ground we stand on until we know nothing else except each other, but until then, I'm satisfied with this. My origin of circumstance.
Not remembering the beginning has never been so promising.
End