Title: Sleep.Dream.Wake.Live
Author: Winter Ashby (rosweldrmr)
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto and I am in NO way affiliated
with Masashi Kishimoto-sama. :pout: He's doing a great job, though.
Ganbatte Kishimoto-sama.
Rating: T
Summary: Gaara sleeps and dreams and wakes with a hole in his chest and an image
of pink, green, red, and pale skin drawing him out and away from what
he used to be. He finds her broken and covered in blood that's not her
own. Will they ever find solace?
Authors Notes: Yay, Chapter 3! I'm
soooo tired. I think I'm going to have to drop out of college because it's
getting in the way of my anime! But its okay, I'm almost done. Only one more
semester and then I'll be... going to Grad school. Ugh. :sighs: oh well.
There was a chill in the air when at long last green eyes met in the mid-afternoon light. Sakura swore that the thick black lines that circled his eyes had begun to shrink a little. She wrinkled her nose diminutively at the thought of Gaara with no black, she didn't like it. He watched in muddled disinterest as her face crinkled, at what he could only imagine. It occurred to him then how close their faces were.
Somehow during their sleep she managed to twist in his arms to face him. He made no move to rectify the situation but instead tipped his head up and pulled her closer. No longer wishing to see the hurt painted in her eyes, her breathe on his neck was much more soothing. He tried not to dwell on the idea that she brought him any kind of comfort.
She didn't object to the possessive gesture, but instead tucked her head under his chin and breathed him in. There was just something so familiar about it, about him. The aura he surrounded her with was like a fresh, warm, summer air as it rolled threw open fields of uncut grass. It reminded her of someone else. So she closed her eyes and imagined yellow hair and blue eyes still shinning in the sunlight. Somewhere, faintly in the back of her mind it registered that this was not something she should be doing. But that thought was so far away, and he was so close. So she gripped his shirt in her fists and snuggled closer. Even if she knew it was a lie, it was a kind lie – to think of him as someone else. She felt safe.
She pulled closer to him and he almost hissed. Inside him raged a battle of wills. There was the side of him that wanted to pull her so close they became one and were never alone again. But then there was the residual hate that accompanied the lonesome desire to belong with anyone else. It was a weakness to love or become attached. He was a great Kage, now self exiled from his own kingdom wrapped in the sheets of an unfamiliar bed, holding onto someone else's flower petal.
She thought back to the restless sleep they shared. It seemed as though every few hours one would wake to shake the other from some nightmare. The first time her hands touched his face to pull him from the distasteful images she was met with wild, untamed eyes. The image still burned in her mind sent a shiver down her spin. He'd look so lost, so confused, so human then. She reminded herself for what seemed like the millionth time that he was new to the sleeping concept and perhaps it had been his first nightmare.
She thought back to his question and considered asking him why he didn't know how long it had been since his demise. But she knew the answer was simple, after a lifetime of no sleep, a week and a half of sleeping was not out of the question. She wasn't sure how much time had passed since she pulled him into bed with her after Kakashi's visit. But it couldn't have been more than a day and a half.
Kakashi. He'd just arrived back from a mission after a few days recovery from the mission to save Gaara. But all at once, his voice was in her house and she was falling. Tears sliding, tile cracking against her bare knees because she knew he'd just found out. It was pain and sweeping regret all over. It was her fault he was dead, and him in her home was burdening. She was glad he was gone now and the red-haired Kage was still here. She didn't understand why, his cryptic explanation was a muffled confession at best.
He contemplated rolling her away from him and leaving. He contemplated running his fingers through her hair. He contemplated kissing the top her head. He contemplated the implications of his actions. He contemplated sliding his other hand from the small of her back to cup her butt and slide over her smooth thighs. He contemplated hating himself more than he did at that moment. He contemplated what it would be like to love her the way Uzumaki did. He found this though the most disturbing of all, but like a sick fascination he couldn't tear his thoughts away.
The foreign symbol on his forehead ached and radiated with untapped, childish desire to love and be loved. The more he tried to push the idea of loving such a frail and mortal creature from his mind, the more the feeling of her breath on his neck, her hands wrapped in his shirt, her chest rise and fall against his, her body pressed against his, and her legs wrapped around and in-between his made him think that it felt right in a way nothing had ever felt right before.
He rationalized it to blame it on Uzumaki and Chiyo, who he was well aware, had risked her life to save the leaf first. There was such a swell in him to protect her, to love her, to hold her, to be with her that he couldn't stop his hand from moving. No more than he could stop himself from enjoying the feel of her silky pink locks running between his fingers. It was better than sand, smoother, almost like water. Water, to all desert people is precious, and delicate. It is to be treasured and protected. He liked this thought very much. After all, he was a great Kage of his people, and he did what he pleased. And at that moment imagining loving the girl in his arms pleased him. So he did.
She was desperately trying to block out the tears that she could feel swell in her heart when his hands started running through her hair. Then, just as suddenly and chillingly as the urge to cry to death had overtaken her, it was gone. His hands soothed her rattled nerves and slowed her heart to a bearable pace. She knew then that she was in trouble. There was no way that this strange, dangerous, cold man should be calming her aching heart. She wanted to crawl in him and never let go, he was her last hope for absolution. She was so focused on matching her breathing to his; she missed the first knock at her door.
It was his grunt that alerted her to the second and quiet persistent thud of fisted flesh to hard wood. "Go away." She muttered into his chest and made no effort to move. There was another knock and another and another. She sighed heavily and peered up into his pale green eyes. "Onegai." She wasn't exactly sure what she was pleading for just then, but as his body began to peal away from hers, gently taking care to detangle his legs and her hands and stand next to the bed that she understood too.
He looked down at her and frowned. It was her heavy sigh on his neck that had finally convinced him to move and not the longing, pleading look she gave him from her place in his arms. Or at least that's what he told himself as he opted not to bother with the gourd and trudged to the front door. A flash of her alone in the big white bed filled his mind as he twisted the knob and let the noontime sunlight in.
"Kazekage-sama, I was informed you were here." The tall blood woman with honey brown eyes spoke confidently and with all the grace that a fellow Kage should. The light blue diamond that adorned her forehead was as prominent as ever in the midday sun.
"Ah." He offered unceremoniously as he gave a short bow. It was her village, he respected that. Even if he had ignored the proper procedures to enter the village or request permission to stay. But then again, if he recalled correctly she was never one to obey all the rules either. "Godaime, would you like to enter?" he gestured inside and nearly winced at the angry look that covered her features.
"Are you in the habit of inviting people into someone else's home, Kazekage-sama?" he wasn't exactly sure as he was busy listening to soft feet on wood floors in the next room but he could have sworn that there was a kind of mocking in her tone. He ignored it as the bedroom door opened, revealing a disheveled, stunning form. Her outfit was wrinkled and crooked, her hair was rumpled and in disarray. He wasn't quite sure what it was about her appearance that stirred the desire to gasp. Everything about her, from her parted pink lips to her bare feet made him wish he could taste her. He ignored it and moved aside to allow the other woman entrance.
"Tsunade-shishou, please come in." Sakura offered as she stood at the door to her bedroom. She'd heard her teacher's voice from bed and let it move her into the land of the waking, finally. She quickly glanced at Gaara, only to find him running his eyes over her figure. She felt a little self-conscious, knowing she must look horrible after crying herself to sleep and just waking up. She ran a hand through her hair and moved forward to greet her Kage.
"Ohayo." Tsunade's voice greeted her with a stark edge. She knew the woman to be fiercely protective, and no doubt Kakashi had gone right to her after… when was it? How long had they slept? She wasn't sure, but she spared him a passing glace as she moved forward into the living room area. Tsunade finally stepped over the threshold while a silent Gaara closed the door to the heat. She looked at him for a moment while Tsunade busied herself with sitting on the neutral beige couch.
He looked smaller for some reason. Maybe it was the gourd, or the fact that he was still shorter than she was. But in the shadows cast by the sunlight through the kitchen window over his bleak, expressionless face he looked almost uncomfortable. But then he moved, and it was gone – washed away on a sea of powerful, pointed movements. Towards her, she realized almost too late as he was suddenly too close. He was invading her personal space and she had to repress the desire to draw back.
But it wasn't from fear. She could no longer fear him; instead the overwhelming urge to step closer was what caused the desire to withdrawal. She felt like she was being sucked into the tiny orbit that surrounded him. She was being drawn in, by distant, painful familiarity and a mutual pain. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply before she dared to move. Sakura stepped forward and tried to ignore the fact that he was so close, her shirt pass over his shoulder. She couldn't let her eyes meet his, instead choosing to study her worn wood floors intensely as it transformed into a floor rug, like magic.
But she was compelled then to stop and turn back just sparing enough courage to look over her shoulder. "Arigato. You can shower if you want." She didn't wait to see what he would do, but turned from him and finally sat across from Tsunade with her back to the kingdom-less Kage.
Gaara watched with a sad kind of expectation to see her turn again. She didn't. He left the room, angry at himself for wanting her to turn and angry at her for not giving him what he wanted. He was angry at the sun for waking them, and the blond for taking her presence from him. It was different inside the confines of the small room. In here, there was nothing else but sleep and truth. Green eyes and shared grief. The entire world revolved around the bed and he wondered if it would be as sweet without her there.
He closed the door behind him and glared at his gourd. He almost resented it, for reminding him of what was taken from him. But there was something else there too. Perhaps it was a hatred for reminding him what he could no longer be. Being a monster was simpler than trying to be human. Tired of his treacherous thoughts, he cleared his mind with forceful control and stepped into the impossibly pink bathroom.
It had always amazed him how freely other people waste water. But here it dripped from all the faucets and pooled in the bottomless drains. With careful consideration he glanced at the towel rack and might have even given thanks to a deity of some kind at the sight of the brown towel jammed in between the pink. Too much pink, he would have to fix that. He made another note to himself, less pink would be better.
He stripped with a sudden urgency to bathe. Even for a desert dweller, two weeks was far too long to go without cleaning. With a trepidation he was unused to, he pulled the dirty and newly revolting clothes from his body and let them crumple into a lonely heap on the cold tile floor. He could still hear voices from the next room over and he was moved with the desire to put more space between his naked body and the door.
The shower was just as pink as the rest of her world. Pink shampoo, pink soap, pink… spongy thing? He let his finger poke at the unfamiliar object, of which he could only speculate the uses. Nonetheless, hot water beckoned him as he let his hand rest on the faucet that warmed from the flowing water. There was something quite close to relief welling up inside him as the distant voices disappeared behind the steady flow of water.
He liked the shower, he decided after a few minutes of lingering in the warm water. The sand washed away and he liked the idea of being sand free, if only for a little while. But this thought was met with the stunning nothingness of a lacking demon voice and bitter, absent, anger. He smirked, yes – the singular voice in his mind was content to stand alone in its opinion of missing sand and clean skin.
He eyed the hair products with weary thoughts. He wondered if his hair would turn pink. He senses were suddenly assaulted with the un-welcomed image of the fearsome Kage with bright pink hair flowing in the breeze. He repressed the urge to be sick. Then he tried to repress the urge to openly laugh. So he smirked in the safety of a lonesome shower and indulged in the passing humor he felt at his own imagination.
After reading, and re-reading the directions, ingredients and paying special attention to the warnings, he finally let the want for clean, un-greased or gritty hair overtake him. The pink, viscous shampoo was a stark contrast to his pale skin and black rimmed eyes. With only the distant fear of pink hair still occupying his thoughts, he didn't seem to notice at first when the door to the bathroom inched open.
"Ano…" a gentle voice filled his ears and he was struck by the sudden urge to summon his sand. But the water flowing over his shoulders and pooling at his feet made him frown with bitter discontent.
"Yes?" he was almost surprised at how harsh his own word sounded as it echoed off the walls and reverberated back to him. He frowned deeper and looked at the pink shampoo in his hand. He wished there was more of a distance between him and the presence he now felt invade his personal space, like a lead door.
"Ah, I was just wondering if you'd like me to wash your clothes while you're in there." Her voice was so close; he knew she was at the doorway. He wanted to look, to see the pink hue that saturated her face as she tried not to look at the plane white shower curtain. She was probably looking at the floor, but not the mirror. He frowned again at his own insolence. Then he frowned even deep at the passing sensation of dissatisfaction for his frown.
Frustration pooled in him and bubbled over in a light growl. "Fine." the shampoo was all but gone now, dripping away in the steam of the shower. He stood, half clean, half terrified of the woman at the door and wished for distance. He wished for his gourd. He wished for a change. With startling certainty he was sure that a piece of him wished for her to enter the flowing water stream with him. He hated that thought and banished it. "What will I wear in the meantime?"
"I have a robe. I'll leave it for you." Sakura tried to keep her eyes focused on the pretty tile floor. There were alternating pink and white tiles about a foot wide, each. She'd picked them out herself, she like being surrounded by pink. It was comforting. She was trying desperately to keep the image of the great Kage standing with bubbling pink shampoo dripping from his red hair. She didn't think it was nice that the giggle was so hard to suppress. Not that he would use her shampoo anyway, it was just a silly thought.
"It's not pink is it?" the deep, baritone voice of the showering man was sudden and quite unexpected. She was so surprised she looked up, almost expecting to meet his pale green eyes. Instead she was graced with the white shower curtain and the vague outline form of a person just beyond it.
"Nani?" for some reason she laughed. She couldn't quite put her finger on it. Maybe it was the picture of him standing in her living room in her pink bunny robe, or maybe it was the idea that he'd pictured that too. She laughed. It was nice, it felt good and familiar. She was sure he didn't understand why she was laughing and she tried desperately to stifle the outrageous giggles, but it was all in vain. Her body shook with the quaking laughs and she wrapped her arms around her waist to hold everything in. She felt like she would split at the seams. She gasped for air and was rewarded with a snort. She laughed harder.
He frowned; the sudden outburst had caught him so off guard he'd nearly flung himself against the tiled wall of the shower. But she just continued to laugh, and then there was that noise she'd made. It was almost like she was dying. Unable to restrain himself anymore, he made careful effort to peer around the edge of the curtain. She was standing there in the doorway clutching her sides and laughing. He'd never seen someone laugh like that before. It was uncomfortable to watch, but he felt like if he looked away he'd regret it later. How often did he get to see someone brought such joy for something he'd said? So he watched.
Finally she seemed to settle down and peered at him with watery eyes. Her face was flushed and her lips were parted while she breathed deeply. He knew then he should have looked away, but he found he was unable to. He could feel a shift inside him, something dangerously close to desire. But then she blinked at him, almost surprised he was there and the feeling was gone. He took a breath and realized that he'd been holding it. He frowned. It was getting ridiculous. He made a note to himself. Frown less. Then, just for good measure he added a follow up: make her laugh more. She looked better when she smiled. It pleased him when she looked better. He frowned again; he was going to have to work harder at this.
"Ah gomen, gomen Gaara." She waved her hand at him and turned to leave. "Daijobu. It's brown." Then there was suffocating space between himself and the door. He suddenly wished she would leave it open. The steam was filling his lungs and he took deeper breaths to even himself out. He returned to the task of washing his hair but now found that it was less apprehensive. The fear of pink attire he'd just felt was much more frightening. With almost no trepidation he let the soap pour into his hand and lather through his blood-red locks.
He heard the door open, yet again but this time there was just the muffled sounds of cloth on porcelain. He tried to ignore it and her as he ran his rough fingers through course, newly clean hair. He tried to ignore the closing door and the swell of disappointment. So he ended his shower, glad for the new slick feeling of his skin under the brown towel he was proud to have discovered in her cavern of pink. He frowned as he ran his ringers through his hair to dry it. It wasn't nearly as soft as hers, even though he'd used the same water and shampoo as her. Even when it was wet it was coarser that hers.
He wrapped the brown robe around his waste and made a slow exit from the pink haven into the dim bedroom. She'd pulled down the shades but was no where in sight. He gave a quick look over to his gourd, but the idea of wrapping it around him while he was still in her old, brown bathrobe seemed a little ridiculous. He left it as it was, almost sad for leaving it alone in the dark room. He contemplated opening the blinds so it could have some light, but he realized he was crazy in a newly un-sadistic way and left promptly to join her in the kitchen.
Fresh dumplings greeted him as he rounded the corner, his mouth watered almost immediately and he was suddenly quite aware of the hollow feeling in his stomach. There were two sets of them laid out at the table. She was standing near the stove as she cleaned. She was always busy, and he knew that if she ever stopped, she would break. So he sat and watched her, and waited. Eventually, she'd sit and he could eat. He gave a slow, almost lusty glance at the dumplings that were dripping with a pear sauce. He wanted them.
"Go ahead." She was looking at him with a strange kind of sideways smirk that made him tilt his head so that it would look straight. He looked back at the food in front of him and silently prayed that she was a better cook than he was. The first bit was… perfect. Perfectly prefect, he was inclined to describe it from the safety of his own mind – and each bite after that was just the same. She giggled, he was starving. "You can have mine too, I'm not hungry."
She watched him practically inhale the dumplings and felt guilty for not feeding him like she said she would the previous day. But in the back of her mind, his empty eyes gazed at her through the darkness. She watched him eat her portion and rested a single hand on her waste. Again, she was assaulted with the desire to be closer to him, like he could keep the grief out. It was with that thought and the absurd realization that it was true that she let her weak legs carry her forward and slump in the chair across from him.
"Did you know?" she spoke to her table top, fearful of the empty green eyes and the answer that hung in the space between them. "Is that why you came, because you knew he was dead?" Tsunade's visit was still fresh in her mind.
She'd asked Sakura why he was in her home. She had no answer. She asked her why he came. She had no answer. She asked her why she let him stay. She had no answer. She asked her what she was planning on doing. She had no answer. She asked her if she slept with him, she blushed and refused to answer. She asked her why she blushed. She had no answer. So she asked him, with a false kind of hope that he would have answers to all her questions.
He looked up, and curiously there was nothing hollow about his eyes then. In the late afternoon light they were remarkably… whole. "No." He sat, unmoved to relief the growing discontent in her chest. So she folded her hands in her lap and tried to understand the strange expression that kept crawling up from the haze of the night he'd come.
"Then why did you come?" she questioned him for a second time with a weary heart and defeated tone. She gave him one deciding look before adding a quick, "…and don't tell me you don't know." He seemed to narrow his eyes a little but not enough to make her think he was really angry, it was more like a surrender.
"I was drawn here." He was uncomfortable with the current line of questioning. He knew why he had come, she was sitting in front of him in the fading sunlight, sulking. But there was no tactical way to admit that and still be permitted to share her bed tonight. Then the sudden, paralyzing fear of sleeping alone gripped at his insides. It was an un-welcomed development. He frowned, he was failing miserably. "I slept and when I awoke, I was drawn here…" he sighed and closed his eyes, resigned to at least maintain some semblance of dignity. "…to you." He opened his eyes to see the last fleeting specter of shock dance across her face. "I believe it was Uzumaki's chakra that drew me here."
She nodded, not quite understanding what it all meant. But the memory of the previous night when she pulled him close and it felt so much like Naruto filtered in through her battered mind and made her pause. Perhaps that was why she let him stay, or pulled him into bed, or had the desperate urge to cling to him. "Soca." She met his eyes once more over empty plates and the short table. "What did you mean when you said you 'had a debt to repay'?"
She watched as his frown deepened again. "Uzumaki helped me understand the value of 'important people.' It was because of this I became Kazekage." It was the most she'd ever heard him speak and she was sure the action would not soon be repeated. So instead of questioning further, she accepted it as it was, with a small sigh of a distant memory. "How did he die?"
She hadn't expected him to be so interested, but it only took one look at his sullen features to understand the agony that raged inside him. She bowed her head in shame, she'd caused that pain. "He transformed while fighting Orochimaru. When he finally reverted, he was too weak to go on. I could have sacrificed the mission to stay with him, but I didn't. I choose to continue on and leave him, injured." She felt the prick of tears in her eyes and she desperately wished she had more sake. "I just left him there so I could go chasing after Sasuke."
He was beginning to see the obvious signs of breakage, just around the corners of her words and in the back of her eyes. She wasn't going to be able to be whole much longer. His hand twitched to hold her and run his fingers though her hair. There was a deep rooted urge to speak, to comfort her so that look of absolute frailty would fade from her face. It almost hurt to look at. So he crosses his arms over his chest and watched her step closer and closer to the edge of her self-imposed breaking point.
"By the time we realized we'd lost their trail and made it back to Naruto… the kyuubi chakra had eaten away at his internal organs. He was gone. I let him die, I just let him die. It's my fault, I killed him. I killed him!" she stood, and he watched with a horrible sinking in his stomach as she wavered and tipped. He was up and moving before she reached the floor. He caught her head in his lap as his knees hit the floor. There was a loud crack of bone hitting tile, but it was barely audible over the sound of her heart ripping in half.
Her face twisted as the tears fell. So he sat on the floor of her kitchen, holding her and watching her cry for a mistake that wasn't really her fault and mourning for a life that she didn't really take. He was compelled now to comfort her, but his hands in her hair and running over her creased forehead didn't seem to sooth her cries at all. So he gathered her closer to him, folding her fisted hands over her chest and pulled her into his lap. He rested his chin on the top of her head and ignored the tears that rolled down his neck as they slipped from her face.
He wasn't sure how long he sat there, living like the pain she felt. But eventually her sobs lulled and her hands clenching the robe loosened. The setting sun gave way to a dark night and the buzz of a drier. He was overwhelmed with the revolting realization that he was helpless. He hated it, and her tears and the grief that flooded his senses. Her pain was all he could see or touch or taste. She was clutching the robe and sobbing like it could turn back time. He hated not knowing how to stop it or how to make his own sinking regret dissipate.
So he moved her up through the cloud of grief that surrounded them and made his was to the dark bedroom, and distant promises of sleep. He twisted as covered shins hit a soft mattress and leaned in and over. Her tiny frame settled on cold sheets as he took his faintly familiar place next to her. He lacked the basic words to sooth her bruised soul so instead of words he ran his hands down her back and whispered soft hushing noises in her ear. In the passing heartache that covered her he pulled her close and breathed her in because as mush as he hated himself with each passing minute – she brought him comfort.
He felt a shift in him, like the moon rising from the tree line, slow and constant. It was the shift of his hollow chest being filled by the whimpering woman in his arms. And he knew then what had changed in him. He looked down at her in his arms and pulled her close because he knew that after they slept and dreamt and woke – they would have to live. But he no longer knew how to live without her, because he was newly human and she'd taught his how to sigh and what it looked like to laugh until you couldn't breathe. He needed her scent, and her warm aura. He desire to be with her, and this did not please the Kage.
So he drifted off into a restless sleep full of mocking dreams and unfulfilled desires that he hated himself for. And all the while she inched closer to the fearsome monster who she no longer feared because even in her sleep she was drawn to him. The morning was perched on the horizon, ready to appear and she feared the life that would come after they woke.
I just wanted to give a really quick thanks to anyone who's reviewed this, or added it as their favourite AND all those who've added this to their C2. I spent like 5 hours looking at every Naruto community and messaging anyone who would listen to get them to add it. I'm kind of obsessive like that... oh well. I hope everyone likes this and the update didn't take too long. Chapter 4 is coming along in pieces. I come up with an idea while I'm driving all over Miami and I try to write while I'm driving so I just wanted to say that if I die trying to finish this fic, that'll be okay with me. And SE - you get all my anime!