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Chapter 20: Sensation and Sound

Happy 20 chapters!

I guess this is one of those inevitable flashback chapters. Thanks goes to Tegan and Sara and The Honorary Title for breaking my heart over and over again with their music, and to the President's Choice company for making such a great caffeine filled Cola that kept me awake to finish writing this incredibly long chapter (about 8300 words). Sh-whoa.

Beware the angst. Whoooo. Also, at some points, the lack of grammar is intentional!

Thanks for reviews, and please do so again. Let me know if what I'm doing is worth a damn.

Disclaimer: Yeah, Neji and Gaara are like, so canon!111one eleven

Please don't allow your voice to fade,
don't fall so weak to fault or blame,
to give yourself reason for an end…

(-The Honorary Title, "Revealing Too Much")

"Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but in here it's so delightful! And since we've no place to go… Let it snow, let it snow, let it-"

"Temari?"

"Yeah?"

"Why are you and Tayuya singing Christmas songs already?"

The two girls laughed giddily from where they lounged on the couch, high on chocolate and good spirits (though Kankurou suspected something else was contributing too).

"Oh come on, fucking Christmas is almost here!" Tayuya said, and began singing in her rough alto voice again. "And it's the most wonderful time of the year!"

Kankurou sighed. "Holy crap, you two…"

"Lighten up, Kankurou!" Temari shouted playfully, tossing an M&M at his head. "Aren't you looking forward to coming shopping with us?"

"Sh-shopping?"

"Hell yeah!" Tayuya exclaimed. "I mean, what can be more fun than terrorizing the lame-ass mall with your friends?"

"Well, I can think of quite a few thinks, actually…"

Another M&M was tossed his way, though he was able to move quick enough to catch this one in his mouth, thus earning applause from the duo.

Gaara entered the living room, bad and coat in hand. He stopped halfway through the living room and stared at the odd display (Kankurou bowing dramatically, Tayuya whooping, Temari's cheeks filled with M&Ms to give her the appearance of a squirrel).

"…what did I miss?"

"Not much," answered Kankurou, eyeing him. "Where are you going?"

"Neji's."

"His boyfriend," Temari whispered loudly in Tayuya's ear, causing Gaara to blush madly.

"Well, be back before it gets dark, okay?" said Kankurou, and his brother nodded.

"I know, Kankurou, I'm not a little kid," he grumbled, slipping on his shoes without bothering to undo the laces and heading out the door.

Temari swallowed another handful of M&Ms. "I hate saying it, but he really seems to be growing up. He's not just our little brother anymore."

Kankurou nodded tentatively. "Yeah…"

o

For Gaara, being in Neji's house was like stepping into another world entirely. Down the rabbit hole we go, Alice! Everything was clean and perfect and orderly, so much different from the environment he had been brought up in (shouting matches and one-sided battles that were impossible to win even if you tried- Off with her head!- the world discoloured and stained, always just a little bit off no matter how hard you tried to get it right). For a while, it had seemed taboo for him to speak in the household due to the quiescence that encompassed it, as if it were a valuable painting. It was beautiful; the people, the things, even the air! and he could hardly believe that someone such as himself had been invited into it.

"How've you been? I haven't seen you that much recently."

"Good, I guess… no, not really."

(smile)

"That's alright. Come in."

Three long weeks had passed since the Saturday Gaara was originally going to spend the day at Neji's. Three weeks, two days since 'then', or 'when that happened', or whatever they chose to call the day Gaara stumbled across Neji cancelling the deal for lack of anything better to say of it. December 11 read the calendar hanging above Neji's dresser. Each month had a different piece of art for its picture, and December was Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe, who stared out at them with bright candy-coloured lips in mid-laugh.

"This is your room?"

"Well, yeah."

"…Wow."

(laugh)

Currently, Gaara was lying belly-up on Neji's (large, and oh so cushy) bed, half-open half-closed eyes staring up at the ceiling. Neji sat on the floor, leaning against his dresser with a sketchbook on his lap and a pencil placed between his lips as he went about erasing something. On the floor next to him and on the side-table by the bed there were mugs filled with steaming hot chocolate that Hinata had brought in earlier, miniature marshmallows floating on the surface.

(knock knock-)

"Yes?"

(hinges swing, creak)

"Neji-niisan? I-I brought you two some hot chocolate, if you want…"

"Oh, thank you."

"You're w-welcome, Gaara-san."

"Hinata-sama, you didn't have to-"

"I know."

A golden cross hung about her neck and rested between her breasts, sharp against the soft cashmere black of her turtleneck. Hinata had then grinned coyly at them in a way that said 'Don't worry, I promise not to tell, I do'.

Neji had not returned her kind expression, but had given her a nod that might have meant 'I know that you won't, I trust you'.

But then again, it might have not.

Both Neji and Gaara were perfectly content in their not-really-silences that came and went between short bouts of dialogue and music from an indie band – The Honorary Title - Gaara had not heard of that played softly from Neji's stereo. For the most part, conversation was capricious and light. Once, Neji had asked Gaara is he was bored, to which the redhead simpered and replied 'Not at all'.

Gaara cocked his head slight, eyes sliding over and delighting in the walls of Neji's room. They were covered with all sorts of things; photographs and sketches, scribbles of lyrics, magazine clippings and what looked like diary entries, among other things. The desk was slightly messy, papers scattered and paint stains abundant. There was a large window to Gaara's right that gave one a good view of the garden covered in a layer of snow glittering in the sunlight. His eyes hurt from the brightness, but he could not tear them away.

"Gaara?"

"Hm?"

"You can go to sleep, you know. I wouldn't mind."

"No, that would be rude…"

(worry)

"I really wouldn't care, especially if you're not getting enough…"

(enough?)

"It's not that bad, really… at least I'm not having nightmares that much…"

Seconds ran past but Gaara made no attempt to stop them, thoroughly enjoying every one. The previous few weeks had been… well, the word that came to mind was difficult. Difficult in the sense that his family had dragged him off to a shrink (even Kankurou was in on it, much to his annoyance) whose name he could not remember, though he knew it started with a J. She was middle-aged and rather nice, and not once did she try to feed him the usual 'You're going through a very emotional period of your life' bullshit.

It was not just that, though. Gaara had been in and out of a painfully numbed state of mind for the past few weeks, every little mistake seeming so un believably devastating. However, Neji had been patient and kind beyond what he felt he would ever deserve, as had just about everyone else (oddly enough), and he had dragged himself through. So now, after many sessions with his shrink and many more sleepless nights, he felt the heaviness in his chest ebbing away, warmth returning to his battered flesh. And it was with a smile (one of the best Neji had seen in a while) that he accepted Neji's murmured-sweet-in-his-ear invitation to spend Saturday at the Hyuuga's.

"Hey, um…do you ever have nightmares…?"

(breath)

(pause)

"I'm sorry, Neji. You don't have to answer that."

"No, I was just thinking… I suppose I do. Not a lot, though."

"Ah…"

(breath)

(breathe)

(quietly)

"They're not real, though… that's what I tell myself when I do have them, Gaara. They're not real, they can't hurt me."

(anymore)

With a soft exhalation of breath, Gaara rolled over onto his stomach and rested his head on his folded arms. He was rather tempted to drift off to sleep right then and there, since (as Neji suspected) he had not been getting all that much as of late. Often he would find himself lying in bed, surrounded by blue-grey-black light and umbra, his mind and memory collaborating in a refusal to let him rest. From time to time, when the roar of his thoughts had begun a slow decrescendo into a low mum, he began to listen to the quiet; the void; so very empty he wondered if he were really there at all. Sometimes, he began to imagine himself deceased, just a corpse, or perhaps in a state somewhere in between living and dead.

Maybe, he liked to tell himself, maybe I've just slipped away into nothing- snap- just like that.

Yet something would always bring him back to awareness, be it Kankurou snoring, the house groaning, or the bass line hum of an electrical appliance, and he would think himself silly and close his eyes once more. Even then, sleep usually continued to evade him for a while longer, leaving him to sit back and helplessly watch whatever drive-in-double-feature-movie-show was playing on the underside of his eyelids.

Gaara lifted his head slightly as the mattress depressed with Neji's weight. The brunette had sat down to the right of him, legs crossed.

"Gaara."

"Y-yes?"

The muscles in Gaara's back tensed momentarily when he felt Neji's fingertips graze feather-light against the nape of his neck. They lingered there for a short time before traveling downwards slowly, following Gaara's spine through the material of his long-sleeved T-shirt. Gaara lay his head back down and let himself enjoy the light touch. Neji's fingers stopped just before they reached the small of Gaara's back and made their way back up again, venturing off once they reached Gaara's shoulder blades, tracing invisible patterns onto the redhead's back. The Hyuuga felt yet another pang of worry as he discovered just how many of Gaara's ribs he could feel through his clothing, jutting through his skin as if beneath a canvas stretched too thin.

For a while, neither spoke. Gaara's tongue was caught in the back of his parched throat, any inkling of thought completely absorbed by Neji's painterly touches and Neji gazed steadily at Gaara's profile with murky eyes.

"Gaara," he murmured again, letting his palm rest flat on Gaara's covered flesh. "I worry about you…and I care about you a lot, you know that. And…" He flexed his fingers, applying a small amount of pressure to each one in turn. "For a while now, I've had suspicions…that a lot more happened then you choose to let on; things that happened before you moved here."

Gaara winced.

"I would've liked to figure it out myself, to make it easier on you in a way, I guess, but I don't think there's a way of going about that. I…I asked your brother, but he said it was for you to tell… you don't have to if you don't want to, but I'd like to know," Neji said placidly.

His eyes open and staring at a place on the wall, Gaara remained unspeaking, breath deep and rhythmic.

"I mean, things must have been bad if Kankurou… and you…" A sigh. "I'm sorry. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. I'd understand."

Shifting his weight just slightly, Gaara's expression remained unreadable, unfeeling, and yet its esthesia was overflowing so subtly. Neji watched him, trying to figure out if he had overstepped any boundaries, and what it was exactly that Gaara kept locked inside of his head, the lock rusted and threatening to break if pushed too far. He couldn't quite…

"I haven't told anyone," Gaara whispered, green-tinted-blue eyes focusing in on nothing. "Never… it's just…"

"It's okay if you-"

"No, I…"

Neji pressed his lips against one another and decided to let Gaara go at his own pace. The redhead took another short period of time to gather himself (so messy, so broken, so) before daring to open his mouth and let it spill out.

The CD ended and began to repeat.

"Wh-when I was born," Gaara started, reposed yet so obviously troubled, "my mother… had been sick. The illness started sometime before I was conceived, and having me inside of her just made it worse. I was told she bled a lot. Too much. She died not long afterwards… I… I killed her. That's what I believed for so long… That's what my father told me… made me believe. He loved her. A lot, so it seemed, and he hated me for taking her away from him… Hated me, just like everyone else ended up hating me…"

Neji could no longer stand the urge to contradict, sliding his hand up Gaara's porcelain neck to rest on his cheek. "That's not true."

Gaara brought his hand up to his face to catch Neji's hand beneath his own and moved them down to the mattress, rolling over onto his side so they faced each other. Neji felt as if someone was pulling on his heartstrings, tearing them and tying them in knots as it feasted on his heart. It was even worse, though, because he knew he couldn't save Gaara from what had already happened.

"My father," the redhead continued, "sent me off to live with my uncle- my mother's twin brother- before I was a year old. I've seen photographs; he and my mother look nearly identical. As far as I remember, he was kind, and patient with me. He was all I had for a long time… even then, I wasn't all that great at making friends, and I barely saw the rest of my family. But he would tell me he loved me and let me sleep in his bed from time to time, and that was enough."

(Their hands swung and forth at the tempo the child had set. He took big steps to keep up with his uncle, a smile plastered on his face. Life was laughter, and sunshine, and beautiful things. His shadow was his best friend and he wondered how the trees stayed still all the time and never got bored just standing where they were.

"Are you tired, Gaara? We can stop if you are."

"No, I'm fine."

"You sure?"

"Yes, I am."

There were smiles and soft words, and half-melted strawberry ice cream in Styrofoam bowls. Gaara pressed his thumbnails into his bowl to make dents, soon figuring out he could scratch his name in it. Proudly, he showed Yashamaru.

"Thank you for taking me to the park today, Shamaru-jii."

"You're welcome, Gaara."

Hands together, a child's head pressed against the flesh that covers a beating heart. Picture perfect.

"I love you," the man whispers, and Gaara smiles.

"I love you too," he says, even though he doesn't really know the meaning of it, one of his favourite phrases. He just likes saying it, and hearing it said back.

And it was as if the clouds had been chased from the sky that day, just for them.)

Neji squeezed his hand.

"Yashamaru, he…" said Gaara, visage darkening, "one night, he got drunk right after a phone call with my father- he was always in a bad mood after those, but this time was worse. It was… I'm not quite sure, the memory is fuzzy, but…"

(A lucid glaze had settled over the man's pale green eyes, though they were covered by his straw-coloured bangs that were in desperate need of a trim. It had been just one bottle; he had had a hard week and he told himself he deserved it, especially after his conversation with his brother-in-law. The man would call him to 'check up' on his son, and the conversation would always turn to the topic of the boy's mother. Every little word the other man said, every insult (directed at him, at the child, at anything), every memory brought painstakingly back to life pushed him a little further, and further still.

Oh, just one more bottle would be fine, maybe one more…

In the living room, puzzle pieces were scattered over the carpet of the third-storey apartment. Leaning against the bottom of a chair was a small red-haired child, no more than six or seven years of age, shifting through the numerous pieces with a look of deep focus on his face. A teddy bear was propped up against the couch beside him, mouth fixed in a nearly horrific smile. From the apartment over, music could be heard playing from a radio. The tune was bogged down with bad reception, the words of the old, jazzy song incomprehensible.

Oh, one more bottle couldn't hurt…

The corners of the child's mouth turned down in frustration, the puzzle piece held in his clumsy fingers beginning to bend under the pressure and the picture to peel away from the fraying cardboard. He sighed quietly, lower lip protruding in a childish pout. Then he stood and run-walked through the doorway and into the kitchen, snatching up his teddy bear to accompany him beforehand.

"Shamaru-jii?" Gaara asked, peeking his muss-haired head around the counter he was just tall enough to see over. His uncle was sitting on one of their mismatched you-can-tell-it's-second-hand chairs, turned so the back of the chair was actually on his right. Empty bottles decorated the floor tiles below like abandoned play things, the dull golden light of a naked light bulb casting coloured shadows as it shone through them.

At the sound of the child's voice, the distraught and rather inebriated man raised his head a little, though his hair still hung over his face like a tattered veil. His right arm rested on the back of the chair, the neck of yet another bottle held loosely by his slender fingers.

When his uncle didn't respond, the youngster crept out from around the corner and took a few small steps forwards.

"Shamaru-jii?" he repeated in his curious little voice, peering up at the man in the chair with worry. "I-I need some help with my-"

Yashamaru's fingertips swept over a page of the book laying open in his lap, following the outline of one of the figures in a photograph pasted therein, bits of dried glued sticking to the paper around it. A shuddering breath left his lungs, with which the child became suddenly aware of the wetness dripping down his uncle's face and the devastation painted there.

"H-hey… Shamaru-jii?" asked Gaara, clutching his stuffed bear to his chest. "Are you… crying?"

No response.

"Are you okay?" he continued, taking a step forwards. "Is something wrong? Why a-aren't you talking? Was…was I bad?"

"Were you bad?" Yashamaru echoed in slow, troubled tones, as if he were considering it.

The child's fingers dug into the matted fur of his still smiling bear. "Wa-was I?"

Yashamaru leaned his weight forwards, slumping over even further as he quietly shut the photo book and placed it on the kitchen table.

"I'm sorry… I don't want you to cry," murmured Gaara.

"You're sorry," Yashamaru mimed, a subtly hysterical edge rising on his voice.

His nephew nodded, frantic. "Shamaru-jii?"

"You killed her."

The accusation fell heavily from Yashamaru's mouth, coupled with a high-pitched ringing that slithered in your ear uninvited and refused to leave.

"You killed her, Gaara," he said, voice thin and full of widening cracks. "And all you can say is 'sorry'. She's dead… and you… you say 'sorry'."

"I-I didn't…" Gaara stammered, unable to grasp what exactly was going on.

"You don't even get it at all," uttered Yashamaru half to himself. Gaara took a step back, his heart pounding hard in his ears like a bass drum on cocaine.

The blonde raised his head, thin strands of hair falling away from his thin, almost elfish face. "Your mother hated you, Gaara. She shouldn't have ever loved you. She… she knew her body wasn't fit to… Goddamnit!"

As his hoarse outburst withered into heavy sobs, the bottle slipped from his finger and fell to the kitchen tiles below. Shards of glass scattered over the floor as it smashed, a mosaic reeking of alcohol. A high-pitched yelp sounded from Gaara as he stumbled back over himself in surprise, his body suddenly unresponsive and on overdrive with fear and guilt.

Glass crunched underfoot.

"Your mother didn't love you, Gaara," said Yashamaru coldly as he crouched down to pick up the shards, ignoring as some bit into the soles of his bare feet. "How could she love the child that would murder her? And you will never be forgiven for that, no matter how sorry you are. I try and I try, but it's as if part of me has been ripped away, and you can't give that back… It won't go away, you can't fix it!"

Mouth slightly open, Gaara continued to gaze fearfully at his uncle. His teddy bear had fallen from his hand when he fell, and was lying face down half a metre or so away.

"But Sh-Shamaru-jii said…"

Another crystal was dropped into Yashamaru's hand, joining the others with a soft clink. He had always been somewhat of a neat freak; even then, he continued gathering the broken pieces methodically as he spoke. It was just another one of his quirks that gave his brother-in-law an excuse to throw insults his way.

Guttural mutterings continued under the man's breath, and in his stupor Gaara couldn't quite make out what they were (nor, for that matter, did he want to). His mind recalled the harsh words spoken to him after one of his father visits (this is your fault, brat), and Yashamaru's reassuring smile every time he told him it wasn't true. Yashamaru loved him, and his mother had loved him, and that was forever.

"I-I-I…" the six year old gasped, the sound pulled from his throat as his uncle lurched forwards to catch his shoulder. Yashamaru's glazed eyes studied Gaara maliciously, his grip tightening as the child trembled and tried to wriggle away. The pile of broken glass in his hand spilled, some pieces landing in the small pools of shining metallic blood that had come from the lesions on both Yashamaru and Gaara's feet.

"Sh-shamaru-jii…I-I…"

"You what?" Yashamaru asked, the intensity of his voice diminishing.

"I'm sorry!" Gaara shrieked, tears pooling in his eyes. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

An ephemeral interlude started up, filled with uneven breath and sobbing, a soft love tune playing from the old radio and other life sounds from the neighbouring apartments, traffic from the street below, the humming of electricity and the steady click of the clock as each second passed. Finally, Gaara was able to escape from his uncle's grasp, crying out as his palms pressed against more of the glass that littered the floor. Another murmuring came from behind him and he stopped to glance over his shoulder, seeing Yashamaru down on his hands and knees with yet another stream of tears adorning his cheeks. He gave a trying simper as Gaara met his now clear eyes, trying to return to himself.

"Gaara, I didn't mean it… oh, what have I done, what have I…"

He reached a quivering hand out to his nephew, withdrawing it once again at the fright and doubt in the child's eyes (shredding his already terminable heart, full of stitches but still in need of repair).

"I shouldn't have done that…yelled, shouldn't have…" Yashamaru began, pushing the darker, guilty thoughts from himself, his voice still slurred by the effects of alcohol. "Oh God, Gaara… Gaara, please, I'm the one that should be sorry. Believe me please… Just-just go to room your room, you're not in trouble, I promise. I-I need to…clean up the glass. It's okay." He gave another weak grin, though his voice was strained and inside a war was raging that he was hardly able to stand listening to.

"I'm not mad, I promise…please go, and don't open the door unless I tell you to… Do you promise me? Gaara, please."

The child managed an unsteady nod, his flesh aching with a feeling of sickness. Yashamaru nodded back and laugh-cried, "Thank you… Gaara, please go… I love you. I still love you, please now, go to bed."

And Gaara snatched up his bear by the arm in one hand, pulling his unstable self to his feet and headed slowly for the hall, watching his uncle all the while.

His uncle's jade(d) eyes watched him back, his lips still bent in a disheartened smile that could have been forgiving in the right light.)

"He killed himself that night," Gaara explained in low susurrus. "I never found out how, or if he had left a note or anything. They just told me he died; he was gone… I was in my room for a long while, huddled in my bed with my bear. I could hear him in the kitchen, struggling, still weeping and then vomiting. After a while things got quiet. I think I was most scared then. I couldn't get to sleep until early morning, if I slept at all.

"The next morning, a friend of his from the medical centre came over. Yashamaru had left him a message late that night, telling him to come pick me up for school because he would be unable. The man found me in my bedroom, and Yashamaru in the bathroom. By that time, it was far too late."

Gaara's head was resting on Neji's knee, closed eyelids fluttering sometimes as he spoke. Their hand were laced together, fingers caressing and cradling each other in innocent exploration as Neji listened, his solemn face grown a little pale. Every now and then he would ask a question or make a quiet comment. Neither teen was aware of the amount of time that had run past them, completely entranced by the touch of skin to skin, of Gaara's words and harrowing memories.

His eyelids came just a crack open, his hand tightening around Neji's. "Most of that night is blurry to me. But in the morning, there was dried blood all over my forehead… There was a large piece of bloody glass on the floor beside the bed, so… they guessed I did it to myself. It… it's messy, but it sort of looks like the character for love…"

('He loves me' the child wept. The sharp edge pierced and tore his skin, drawing a bright red line on his forehead.

'He still loves me… Mama loved me… They love me… They love me…')

With his free hand, Neji swept back a tuft of red hair from Gaara's forehead. There, above Gaara's left (Neji's right) eye, was a silvery scar that he had noticed before, but it hadn't seemed all that important at the time.

Gaara leaned his head back, eyes shut and mouth drawn in a line, and Neji was once again filled with the urge to embrace Gaara tightly, wanting badly for there to be some way he could change things. The past is the past. It's over. But that doesn't mean it doesn't still hurt.

It also doesn't mean you can't forge a new beginning; take what you can and build something new, something better.

"For what its worth," Neji said softly, "I'm sorry."

"You don't have to be…," said Gaara. He adjusted his position, head and shoulder resting in Neji's lap, and looked up at his boyfriend.

"You make a nice pillow too…" he commented shyly. For a second Neji was puzzled as to what he meant, before his memory brought up a remark he had made on Hallowe'en night when he had stayed over at Gaara's.

"I do?"

The smaller teen nodded with a blush and they both gave an almost inexplicable laugh.

On the bedside table, what was left of Gaara's hot chocolate was growing cold.

"After Yashamaru died, I moved back in with my father, and Temari and Kankurou…" Gaara continued a few (or it could have been well over ten, neither knew) minutes later. He had shifted so his head was still resting on Neji's knee, but now on of Neji's arms hung over him, still holding one of his hands. "My father was busy a lot of the time, working in his home-office… He was the mayor of Sunaga, after all. Someone once said the job suited him. He liked being in control; he liked having people under him; and he liked to believe both those things were lies.

"At first, I was really scared. H-He never seemed to like me when he visited, and I saw the effects phone calls with him did to Yashamaru." He grimaced. "I had hoped I was wrong… and for a while, I thought I was. I thought we could have a family like the kind my classmates had; I had an older brother who would tease me sometimes but who made me laugh just as often, and an older sister who was a great softball player. They warmed up to me after a while. Mind, I wasn't that friendly to begin with, but… some of my fondest memories are from that time. Kankurou duping me into pulling a prank on him with Temari. The time we all pooled all our money together and attempted to walk to the mall in hopes of buying Dad a Christmas present.

"Things didn't stay like that, though. Slowly, I didn't notice, but it was deteriorating. I think I was eight, but I'm not that sure, but… I know Dad started to yell at us a lot, and he went out drinking more often, but it didn't seem that bad…"

Neji winced involuntarily, able to guess the direction the story - No, he corrected himself, this is Gaara's history; it's not fiction, it's real - was headed.

"He…" The Hyuuga looked as if he were about to vomit, clinging to Gaara's hand as if to keep him from slipping away, lost beneath the cloudy, restless surface of Gaara's self. "He hit you, didn't he?"

Gaara closed his eyes again. Hearing it said aloud in open air, the secret unlocked from within his chest where it lay at night, sucking any warmth left from his flesh-bone shell; it was exhilarating and horrifying all at once.

(You worthless piece of trash! Don't speak to me like that again, do you hear me! You're so fucking ungrateful, so fucking retarded! You make me sick!)

"Yeah…" he whispered eventually. "He did."

(Another blow to the head, redness blossoming on the floor and pain shooting through his entire body like a molten bullet. His sight had blurred for a moment, everything reeling, everything spinning, so away.

Chorus of jumbled sound, cacophony blaring and pain, oh, those words in his ear again.)

He felt Neji give his hand another tight squeeze before letting go. Panic seized him for a second before he realized Neji had taken hold of his waist and shoulders and was bringing him up into sitting position. Gaara quickly complied, though he kept his head ducked down and was growing increasingly nervous. Oh God oh God oh God, he shouted to his self, a gushing unbeautiful sickness inside of him. However, his doubt-worry-nervous-convulsion-inner-inkling-suicides were extinguished as Neji pulled Gaara to his chest. And one of those silences started, the kind that you want to last forever because they are as sweet as any words anyone has ever spoken to you and you don't want to breathe, to move for fear of shattering it.

(Bang! There you go again.

A body hits the cold kitchen floor.)

"Did you ever tell anyone?" Neji asked.

"No…"

"Shit, Gaara, why not?"

The redhead chose not to answer, pressing his face into Neji's shoulder. Another song started up on the stereo, this one slow-paced and acoustic, and Neji hummed softly along under his breath while tapping out the rhythms on Gaara's hip.

"The first time… the first time he did it, I was just talking back. We had to go somewhere and I didn't want to come along. I tried to insist, but he just yelled and slapped me. I didn't mention it to Temari or Kankurou until much later. It wasn't a big deal… I deserved it."

("Dad, do I have to go?"

"Yes, Gaara I told you. Temari and Kankurou are coming too, now hurry up!"

"B-but I-"

"Stop being so damn stubborn, Gaara, I said it's time to go!"

"I told you Dad, I don't wanna! Why are you always being so mean?"

"I told you to be quiet!"

A loud slap filled the front hall, its force enough to knock Gaara backwards onto his rear. The child rubbed at his cheek after righting himself, his father towering over him.

"Don't you dare," the man hissed, "ever talk back to me again. Are we clear?")

"It just got worse from there," Gaara confessed. "Over the next few years, his attacks grew increasingly violent, more common, until it was almost every weekend… Obviously, Kankurou and Temari knew by then, because he was doing it to them too. Of all of us, he probably favoured Temari, but he would still call her a slut and a whore when she came from her dates and parties. Kankurou knew wasn't academically smart and didn't have many friends, and Father was no help in proving him otherwise. But most often, he took things out on me. I was the worst. I was the biggest disappointment. At least Temari and Kankurou had some things to be proud of. I had nothing."

"That's not true…" Neji commented.

Gaara pulled away from Neji by just a little, as to look him in the eye. "Stop saying that! It is! It was! He was right, don't you get it!"

"Gaara, stop it," said Neji firmly. "He had no right to hurt you." He placed two fingers on Gaara's lips as the redhead opened his mouth to speak. "It doesn't matter what you did. You were a kid. He had no right to blame you for your mother's death, or to hit you- to beat you up for childish things!"

"But…" the redhead bowed his head, loosing his composure. "I'm sorry."

"Stop being sorry…"

"Kankurou used to tell me that a lot… He and Temari would stand up to Dad sometimes. They'd try, but he was too much." Gaara did not move as he felt Neji brush away the rivulets of salt-flavoured water on his cheeks, glad for the touch; a something he could be (so sure) of being real. "Kankurou spent less and less time at home, and Temari tried to separate herself from us altogether. She and Kankurou fought a lot. They always did, but it was different before. For a while, they barely spoke to each other at all… That was just a year ago. And then I… started."

On impulse, he reached forward and took Neji's hands in his own (filthy, sordid, undeserving) and tipped his head upwards pleadingly. "Promise you'll forgive me?"

Neji nodded (for what else could he do?)

"I didn't have any friends, like I told you. Everyone hated me. In my head, I couldn't stop thinking about it, couldn't stop wanting it all to go away. I wanted to die, Neji, and I wanted myself to feel pain as I did. I thought I might be able to wash myself clean, immaculate, somehow, but it didn't work." He shook his head. "Stupid me…"

Neji leaned forwards, pressing his forehead to Gaara's. "You're not stupid…"

Gaara glanced to the side. "What am I then?"

"To me," Neji murmured, "You're wonderful, for some beautiful reason, with more than your share of bad luck."

"But I starved myself!" Gaara blurted out. "I stopped eating for a while, but that didn't seem to work… It hurt, I mean, but it wasn't enough."

(Light-headedness, a thick wool blanket over his mind and daggers in his stomach, twisting and causing the organ to rupture and tear. His body felt like it was breaking down, fading, slipping into mindlessness. He revelled in the notion. Escape! his mind shouted gleefully, and he could not help the smile that slid so smoothly over his sombre visage, though it felt so unnatural on his face.

-you who are not deserving of a smile, of such things-

"Why are you smiling, brat?"

-oh, there you go again-

"I'm…"

A sneer came half-price with a piercing gaze and sharp tongue ready to lash out from its damp prison. The opportunity popped up, so willingly and convenient, and he snatched it up in his thick, calloused hands like a poor man finding a coin on the ground amongst crushed soda cans and litter. Seize it! On sale today only!

"I saw your report card, you fucking retard. That's no reason to smile, is it?"

Splinters in the back of his head, screaming. He couldn't find enough words to describe it, the misery that erupted there, pounding and throbbing, and yet all he could manage was a soft yelp as it flooded his body with pure sensation, of flames and infection giving birth inside of him, festering.

"Why do you always fuck up like this?"

-you you you did this to yourself-

I'll try not to, he tried to say but nothing came out. Another blow was dealt to his stomach

-failure-

and he struggled to breathe, his eyes throwing themselves wide.

Oh! - where is my repentance?)

"It was worse that night than it'd been in a long time…"

("Are you doing this on purpose, you little bastard! Do you think it's funny? Is that why you're smiling? Tell me!"

Gasp in to out breath, hands clutching where it hurts most- too much- so much, the back of his neck warm and wet with blood.

"No… I'm sorry."

-is that all you can ever say is sorry?-

"I hope you are!"

And reality twists, lead from sensation to sensation by a thin string wrapped tight around his wrists, double-knotted.

"Don't snivel like that! Your brother and sister aren't here to protect you now!")

Neji's eyes searched Gaara's form, scouring what skin he could see for any scars. Most of them the redhead took care in keeping secret (and he did so well, always wearing shirts that managed to cover the major ones- the ones he was most ashamed of- and he always changed in the washroom for gym class, or didn't change at all). Sure enough, Neji found a narrow channel that ran up across Gaara's collarbone and another on his moon-skinned shoulder that peaked out from just beneath the collar of his shirt. Whether there were more was not a question.

Two thoughts came to mind. The first being how lovely it would be to take a photograph of the moment, which he quickly scolded himself for.

The second was, and it came bitterly to the front of his mind, why and what kind of monster would do this to Gaara.

"He sent me to my room once he was done… I just remember this aching inside of me. I remember burying my face in my pillow and trying not to scream, and holding myself so tightly I could feel those little slivers of pain among the rest of it, and…" Gaara shook his head. "You said you'd forgive me, right?"

"Of course."

(His nails scraped at the outer side of his arm, trying to keep his strangled breaths to a low volume, unable to find the pause button. There was no rewind, no fast forward until the scary parts are over. Throb-pulse-pounding, he could barely contain it.

Soft footsteps over the floor, he made his way into the bathroom. Fluorescent light shone down on him, though he refused to meet his own gaze for fear he would be sick right then and there. The door to the medicine cabinet swung open (no more mirror, no more me) and he groped through the contents of the shelves. Where had he seen it again? A discarded blade from someone's razor that had broken earlier that week. And there it was, sitting beside a bottle of unopened toothpaste. It was small but enough, and temptation seemed but a word because he needed it...

He snatched it up, desperate and suffocating on himself, and without a second thought pressed it to his wrist.)

"Remember when, before, you had asked me if… I hurt myself?"

No, Gaara, no, that never happened because you never did, you never ever ever-

"Yes."

"I had done it… before when you asked me. I haven't done it for a long time though! Never since then, and not before then for a while either! But back then…"

"Gaara…"

(Just a quick swipe, just one and a blissful relief coursed through him. Vermillion beads dribbled into the soiled whiteness of the sink, heading slowly for the drain.

It hurt, but that pain was his.)

Gaara had rolled up his sleeves, revealing the satiny surface that Neji had hastefully inspected before (way back so long from now). He had been looking for fresh cuts then, angry and red, but he had not seen the thick faded silver ones, or the little criss-crossing pink ones on the side of his arm that did not look like much. Nevertheless, the more you looked the more you would see, until you began to wonder if that's all there was; just layer upon layer of half-healed scars.

"Things started to get worse… so I did it more. People saw, but no one made any attempt to stop it." He pulled his sleeves back down as if in a rush to hide them again, to put them back in the dark where they belonged. Out of sight, out of mind.

"It didn't help, did it?" Neji asked.

"I don't know," Gaara admitted. "But I kept doing it. I liked doing it. Oh, God, you probably think I'm sick…"

"I don't."

The redhead looked at him with 'You know I don't believe you' eyes.

"I kept going… deeper and deeper cuts, until it was hard for people not to notice. Kankurou and Temari found out, of course, and they stopped fighting so much after that. But it seemed like… like that's just the way things were, and it was a part of my fucked version of normalcy. It wasn't going to stop. The whole thing just seemed like an endless loop, repeating. I'd screw up, Dad would hit me, I'd hurt myself, and Kankurou and Temari would try and help me but I didn't want their help, even though without it I'd screw up again, and he'd hit me again, and I'd cut again, and on and on and on!

"Until I burst."

(And all the words there were for it vanished.

Where before there had been an infinite mass of little details intricately bound, uncountable strings and vines that tangled round him with all those many knots, there was now just it

Just him, and it; a whole, a one. Just that. A blister swelled large and shining, fragile aching.

And with just a few pricks, he popped it. It seemed the only thing to do. It was that, or wait and wait for it to burst itself. But who knows how long that would take (damn your impatience) or how painful the wait would be?

It was simple.

He watched casually as his wrists came open. Slice and dice, let it all pour out of you, away. Away, he smiled, as his vibrancy continued to flow into the sink. He heard the drain gurgle. He heard the door open.

And he came to love that blissless silence.)

"Kankurou found me, and called an ambulance. I was told Temari was crying hysterically for hours, and Kankurou yelled at Dad the entire drive there. I was in the hospital for a long while, but all I really remember is white walls and the smell."

Neji had coaxed Gaara into his arms once more, but his hands stayed stationary where they were and did not roam Gaara's form with touches, just stillness.

"I was in there for a while, like I said… Temari came to see me quite a bit, but Kankurou didn't, nor did Dad. Temari talked a lot, and smiled more than she ever had before. She would bring me novels and magazine, which I would read, and just talk. She liked to do that when things got tough; just talk it all away, even if I didn't talk back to her. At all. I couldn't manage a word; didn't speak for months afterwards," said Gaara. "Kankurou grew… colder. He hardly looked at me when Temari dragged him along for a visit - I think she was trying to keep us from collapsing completely - and avoided me even after I was let out of the hospital. According to Temari, he felt partially betrayed that I did what I did. Before, he had been trying to convince me not to, telling me to come to him and he'd help me, but I didn't want to make things worse for him. And the other part was guilt, because he felt he almost let me get away with it.

"Dad was… Dad seemed to be honestly unnerved by the whole event. He told the doctors not to mention anything to the rest of the town - imagine what that would do to his reputation - and said he would take care of it at home. He wasn't violent for a long time after that, though. He barely raised his voice, and pretended things were normal. I felt sick just watching him.

"It was just a short break, though. He was killed in a car accident about a month later, just after school ended. When I heard the news, I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry or what. So I didn't. There were a few weeks that passed far too quickly and then we were moving here, to live with Mariko-san. Watsuki Mariko, but she insists we use her first name. And here… here I thought maybe I could be normal, I could be okay, but every time I tried to open my mouth I choked and I still couldn't sleep at night. Temari seemed to be succeeding on getting back on track, and Kankurou just carried on as he did, slightly bitter but obviously alive. Not me though. The nightmares got worse and worse, and I couldn't help but think about all the mistakes I continued to make. But," he lifted his head and leaned a little more into Neji, "it's getting better now. It is."

"I'm glad."

Between the tumbling of words, of whispers and pitches not quite a song but close, there was breath, and he loved the sound.

(Tree. Rock. Tree. Tree. Rock. Field. House. Tree. The blur of scenery crawled by,

"So where are we going again?"

"Konoha, Kankurou, weren't you listening?"

It was July, and their skin was sticking to the seats of the cramped car in which they rode because of the intense heat. Temari grimaced as she felt sweat dripping from her pores, but was not up to complaining just then. In the rear view mirror she could see the small moving van trailing them, carrying their belongings (all they had left was just things, and they loved them as much as they wanted to burn them and dance naked in the smoke and scream like animals).

"Oh, you'll just love Konoha!" the social worker at the wheel said cheerfully and stereotypically, all Pepto Bismal lipstick and cheap perfume. "There's a lot of nice kids you age there, and-"

"Bite me, lady."

Temari scowled, looking at him in the mirror instead of directly.

"Look, Kankurou, I know you're upset but you're being such a child! How do you think I feel, or how Gaara feels? This move is a good thing, for obvious reasons! Don't you want things to be normal?"

Oh, so you're playing the little brother card, are you?

"Yay, fairy tale endings for all," Kankurou snorted, kicking his feet up to rest on between the two front seats.

"Oh, shut up."

Gaara's forehead was pressed against the window, eyes closed. Just a bystander (more a phantom), he listened and was entranced with sound, just another one of those things he hadn't really noticed before. His memory came mostly in noises and flashes of emotion, as he later - much later- discovered. For a while he became so caught up in the dramatic banter produced by his siblings and that resonating inside of him, he was surprised when he found his body had continued breathing without him.)

"Well, there is…" Gaara frowned, "that thing that happened… when I… you know."

"Yeah, I know."

"The head-doctor gave me pills for it. I can't remember what she said exactly, but it's…" His frown widened in distaste. "Sort of like another part of me inside of me that grew out of what happened. Two blue pills in the morning. She said it might take some getting used to but it'll help in the long run, and I don't want to take anymore chances. I want things to go right this time. I want to… I want to make it worth something, if anything."

"Gaara…"

Smiling and staring, and drifting nearer to Neji, Gaara drew breath into his lungs, sweetly.

"So that's me…" he said. "That's why I'm so… just…"

A soft wail burst shamelessly from his throat and he wept into Neji's neck and shoulders, redemption coming in the form of murmurs and kisses. They pressed their bodies together so tightly that away ceased to exist to those two, made entirely of sensation and sound.

ende chapter 20