A/N: I apologize for the long wait. My grandmother was recently diagnosed with Atrial Fibrillation, so things have been fairly hectic in my house for the last week. As for this week's chapter, please tell me what you thought of the romance! Romance is my biggest weakness, so any suggestions or criticism would be much appreciated and fawned over. Thanks for reading.

This chapter was beta-ed by the invaluable AisCrim.

'And as you pray in your darkness
For wings to set you free
You are bound to your silent legacy.'

- 'Silent Legacy' by Melissa Etheridge

The stars were just beginning to come out, Kakashi noticed as he lounged against the back porch steps, peering at the picture in front of him over the edge of his book.

Two figures sat on the creaking porch swing, Naruto's head resting on Gaara's crossed legs, the Kazekage's fingers carding through his hair in a comforting motion. The strange scene made his chest ache strangely, a sort of emptiness right below his sternum. He suppressed a snicker. How much more fucked up could you get, when a rape victim sought comfort from a man known to kill without remorse? And that was the only person he took comfort from, not even him, his teacher.

"I hate the night," he heard Naruto mumble. Reminded of what lurked in the darkness, Kakashi returned to his book (normally much too academic for him, but desperate times called for desperate measures), looking the page over again.

Summoner contracts are a semi-permanent exchange of power between the summoner and the summoned entities. While the summoner provides amounts of spiritual chakra energy (depending on chakra reserves) the summoned entity-

Blah blah blah… Here it was. However, demonic contracts are exempt from this, as demons are beings of pure chakra themselves and require none (for the origin myths of demons such as the Shukaku and others, please reference 'The History of Demonology' by Issemaru Taidana) in order to be summoned. Unfortunately, there has been little to no research performed on demonic contracts, as the only person who ever formed a contract with one was later transformed into the Shukaku. Kakashi marked down the title of the book on his research list, then looked back at the text.

In reference to the creation and breaking of demonic contracts, the position of the authors can be simply be stated in one word: Don't. Kakashi clenched his jaw, resisting the urge to tear the book to shreds. The Hokage would not appreciate his destruction of a supposedly old and rare text; Kakashi knew why it was rare – it was utterly useless! He set the book down and dug his fingers into his hair, closing his eyes for a moment as he chewed on his lip.

Naruto relied on chakra to live, as did all beings, and because his and Kyuubi's chakra had become intermixed, sealing the Kyuubi's chakra would leave him unable to use any chakra at all, leaving him sickened and defenseless. The only way to save him was to break the contract, but there wasn't enough information about demonic contracts out there for him to figure out how to do it without the Kyuubi emerging. He opened his eyes and jerked, staring into green, cold eyes.

"Naruto says the Kyuubi wants him," Gaara said flatly.

'Fuck.' He stood, brushing off his clothing, and adjusted his headband.

"Oh, joy. Are you going to follow him, too?"

Gaara lifted a nonexistent eyebrow, thin lips lifting in a smirk.

"Never mind, stupid question." He looked back as Naruto came up beside them, footsteps silent on the wooden porch, the blue eyes dark with slow sorrow, the muscles of his jaw visibly flexing in tension. His fingers itched to reach out, to comfort. Naruto closed his eyes for a moment, perfectly still. Kakashi's breath froze in his chest at the… beauty of him, the lean, angular face, the long blond hair, the moonlit skin shadowed with scars.

"Let's go," Naruto said, his eyes opening before he began to walk towards the forest. Gaara followed without question, and then Kakashi, cursing what led them here, followed.

The walk was silent, Kakashi's hands shoved in his pockets, watching the moonlight bounce off Gaara's blood-red hair. He snorted. Maybe all vessels were beautiful, despite the fact that Kyuubi – a flash of raging red eyes and snarling crimson mouth – certainly wasn't.

They reached the scorched clearing again, Naruto stripped, stepped into the open space with moonlight on his skin, and-

It all happened again.

Kyuubi's taunts were worse this time, words boiling with hatred and aimed to inspire hopelessness, designed to slash Naruto to pieces.

'You didn't think they'd care, did you?'

'You don't think anyone is going to want you, do you?'

And Naruto just knelt there and took it, head bowed, took it as he had taken all the pain of existence. Distantly Kakashi became aware of a low, savage growling. Looking up, he was nearly pinned in place by the terrifying- even for him- sight.

Gaara crouched on the branch, his nails flaying the bark from the tree as he scratched at it. Green eyes reflected the Kyuubi's flames and gave them another dimension of unholiness, white teeth gleaming in the darkness. A low keening tore its way from his throat, the sound desperate and wanting, like a madman rattling against the bars. Sand swirled around him, scything through the air and splintering random bits of wood, stinking of blood, the sand making its own noise, a humming shriek that almost had words in it.

"Gaara!" he said sharply. The former Kazekage blinked, quieted, then glanced at him. "Thank you," he said, and looked away, back at the clearing. Kakashi stared at him. He'd been expecting to be crushed by the sand or something! 'This is a different person,' he reminded himself.

"Hatake-san?"

"Yes?"

"I believe the Kyuubi is tiring." He looked back over just in time to see the red, fiery being blink out like a light, leaving the clearing in darkness. Naruto was frozen for a moment, then pushed himself to his feet and staggered to his clothing. He bent and drew his pants up, then paused, head bowed. Painfully thin shoulders shuddered, there was the gasping sob of someone trying not to cry, and then he controlled himself and continued dressing.

Gaara appeared beside him in a swirl of sand, tilting his face up with deceptive gentleness. Kakashi watched in bemusement as Naruto stared at Gaara- another weird telepathic moment, he guessed- and then collapsed onto him, arms flung around Gaara's torso and face hidden in the crook of the smaller man's neck. Gaara, to his credit, only staggered back a few steps before his arms rose to wind around Naruto's waist, his hand moving up to curl in Naruto's hair. His lips moved, and Kakashi, squinting, could barely make out the words,

"Sleep, friend. I will be here when the sun comes up." The former Kazekage untangled his hand and pinched a nerve, catching Naruto as he slumped onto him. Kakashi joined them, offering a hand. Gaara gazed at him with narrowed eyes, before he carefully passed Naruto into Kakashi's waiting arms, the jounin almost finding the way Naruto's body fit against his, like a piece of a puzzle, strange – only not. Kakashi didn't need the Sharingan to see the way Gaara's hand lingered on Naruto's cheek, tracing the bruises on his knife-sharp cheekbones, or the way his eyes remained fixed on Naruto's face.

'Who would have thought that Gaara would be so loyal?' He shifted Naruto to one arm and performed a quick seal, teleporting them back to their house.

"I'll get the first aid kit," Gaara finally said, the sand trickling into the bathroom while its controller passed into the living room and cleared the coffee table with a swing of his arm. Expensive china smashed against the wall in a shower of fragments, Gaara eerily silent as sand whirled around him, slashing the wallpaper to tatters and tearing the couches into piles of stuffing. Gaara swung around to stare at Kakashi, green eyes cold and terrible with blackened fury.

Kakashi moved slowly, afraid to attract the inhuman rage, to the coffee table, and set Naruto down on his stomach. Without words, sand flowed up to cushion Naruto's head. Kakashi spared a word of thanks as the first aid kit came to hand. Gaara came over and unbuttoned Naruto's shirt, the shirt crackling as it peeled away from crusted blood, folded it, and set it aside.

"Gaara, get some warm water and a cloth," Kakashi said, gazing at the bloody scrapes littering Naruto's back, pale skin stained brown and dry, raised, silver welts criss-crossing over spine and hips in a tapestry of pain. He took the items Gaara handed him and knelt by Naruto's side, dabbing at the crusted blood, wincing with each new scar revealed. He had seen worse things in his life, had found his father writhing on the floor with pink-brown vitals spilling over the reed mats, but somehow these terrible (he wanted to call them 'flaws' but knew that the word wasn't right) wounds of heart and body were worse, made his eyes sting and his heart throb in his chest, aching with every beat, because this was Naruto, who had been pure, had been light and laughter and love in a world that had none, who had been everything that he lacked and wanted.

Naruto stirred under his touch, back arching; Gaara brushed a thumb over his cheekbone and calmed him. Kakashi suppressed jealousy (that should be him by Naruto's side, comforting and calming, because Naruto had been his student!) and turned back to tending to Naruto's wounds, threading a needle and puncturing flesh easily, beginning to stitch flesh together-

He wished hearts were as easy to mend.

"You care for him, don't you?" He broke the silence, knotting thread and moving to the next deep gash. "Yes," Gaara said. That was it, nothing more. He looked up at Gaara, meeting the pale gaze, cracking a smile.

"I'm glad. The more people he has on his side, the better." Gaara turned back to Naruto, his brow furrowed, the 'ai' tattoo- someday Kakashi wanted to know the story behind the tattoo, behind the silent, blood-red scar- wrinkling as Gaara passed a hand over Naruto's face, afraid to touch, as if Naruto would shatter into glass pieces if touched too harshly. Kakashi finished working, splashed antiseptic over the scores, and bandaged him, sensitive fingertips- one didn't get calluses from wearing gloves constantly- reveling in the feel of warm silken skin, so unlike the cold, greasy skin of the dead that he was used to. He wanted to touch, wanted to see what Naruto would look like with a true smile, with a-

He closed his eye and sighed, pressing a hand to his forehead. 'Idiot. Idiot! He can't deal with this, with you, and anyway you're a decade older then he is, not to mention he's your student and a rape victim to boot. Rape that you didn't prevent. Just think about getting him better, and all this will go away.' But he couldn't bring himself to move away, to stop watching the way Naruto's golden hair stirred in his breath or the delicate line of his spine. "I'm going to take him to his room," he said, sliding his arms under Naruto's belly and lifting him sideways, surprised all over again at the light, barely-there weight of his student. 'Did he even eat today?'

A lance of pain stabbed through his chest as Naruto whimpered and twisted, trying- unconsciously, so Kakashi couldn't blame him, no matter how much he wished- to escape touch, to escape a memory of pain. 'You can't comfort him,' he told himself, settling Naruto back on the coffee table for Gaara- always Gaara, Gaara the strong, Gaara the loyal, Gaara, the one that Naruto trusted beyond all others- to take. His eyes burned.

"You can deal with him. He likes you." His voice was abrupt to his own ears, bitter as wormwood. "I'm going home to get a change of clothes." A few seals and he was gone, appearing in his dingy apartment. Digging a hand into his hair, he threw himself onto the couch, which squawked in protest.

Damn it! Damn it all to hell! He hated feeling so helpless, so blind, so weak, unable to save his student from this pain that he should have known about. He couldn't do anything to stop that fox from taking and abusing him every night, just as he had done for so long. Physical scars weren't the only scars such experiences left. Naruto would never be able to be touched by someone older or larger then he was without remembering that- that perversion! And he couldn't help with that either – maybe only Gaara could. He threw a kunai at the wall, and then another out of frustration and helplessness. Even Icha Icha Paradise couldn't calm him – reading about men and women boinking each other silly and spouting flowery declarations of love held no appeal, because all it made him remember was the fact that Naruto had had that stolen from him before he was even old enough to understand what he had lost.

Carefully, quietly, he curled into a ball, sighing, once.

And then all was silent.

Naruto lay on his side, dull, throbbing ache radiating from his spine, watching the moon make its slow circle across the sky. Silver this night, silver as Kakashi's hair. He closed his eyes, struggling to keep the wail of apology and longing from erupting and bringing Gaara into his room.

He loved Kakashi, always had- it had started out as a stupid crush, like most, because Kakashi had always been so cool, so calm and in control all the time. But Kakashi had never really noticed him, he was always too busy with Sasuke. Sasuke, Sasuke, Sasuke-

Everyone loved Sasuke, loved the stupid bastard even though he'd betrayed his village and his friends and himself. Even Kakashi had loved Sasuke, taught him the Chidori, the Sharingan, trained him and treated him as… he guessed a son, but he didn't know how sons were supposed to be treated.

He rolled over, hissing as his body protested, to gaze at the door, wishing for it to open, for Kakashi to come slinking in with his goofy grin, pink book in one hand. For Kakashi to-

To care. Hot tears pricked at his eyes; he swiped them away with a clenched hand, stifling the shame inside him. No one would ever want him now, especially not after- he shook, tried to stop, couldn't, because he had responded to the fox, had actually gotten aroused from the pain and the burning and-

"Oh, god." His whisper was loud in the stillness. He drew his knees up to his chin, ignoring the pain from his thighs, and rocked on the mattress, taking a shuddering breath, tears, hot, unwanted, trickling from his closed eyes.

"I'm so fucking sick."

Neji Hyuuga had been called a prodigy many, many times.

Never, however, had he felt less like one. He watched the kunai twirl lazily around his finger, the wildly spinning blade mirroring his thoughts.

Naruto was being sexually abused. This, he knew, due to the Byakugan and lip-reading. And seeing the way the blond had looked, pale as paper and thin as bird's bones-

It had to stop. But what could he do, against something as powerful, as all-consuming as the Kyuubi, the immortal, nine-tailed fox of legend? The fox that could uproot mountains with one swing of its tails? He had to break the contract, had to keep Naruto from going to the Kyuubi with fire in his gaze and loyalty in his heart. He couldn't do this alone, not to mention he'd need to make sure that Gaara and Kakashi were occupied; that was going to be difficult. Kakashi was easy to deal with: just tell him about a new edition of Icha Icha Paradise and he was toast.

Gaara, on the other hand… He was frightened of the younger man, anyone with a brain in their head would be after seeing him decimate… no, torture Lee in the Chuunin exams. Not to mention Gaara seemed slavishly devoted to Naruto. He wasn't sure what Gaara would care enough about… He flicked the kunai into the air, caught it and balanced it on a fingertip as it came down, and sighed.

He was going to need help from everyone, probably. Naruto was too loyal to let one person keep him from doing his 'duty.'

The word tasted bitter in his mouth.

Gaara sat alone at the rickety kitchen table, a glass of milk cooling his cramped hands, the soft white light of the moon refracting through the glass and swinging on the table with each tilt of his hands, a pointer leading to nowhere.

His hands clenched around the glass, the cup creaking in protest, tendons cording out under pale skin. The air scalded his lungs with each breath. He hadn't known what rape was… Now he knew; knew, and wished he didn't.

It was violence.

It was degradation.

It was pain and control and everything, everything that he had suffered in Suna, but somehow worse, because he had fought back, had killed his tormentors, and Naruto couldn't.

The glass shattered, shards grinding against the sand as milk spilled out, glistening in the moonlight, limned in silver and blood. He gazed blankly at the shining liquid, reaching up and tracing the tattoo on his forehead, intimately familiar as his own heartbeat.

'Ai.'

Love. A feeling of affection towards a person, a recognition of attractive qualities. Naruto had many attractive qualities, loyalty as boundless as sand, a quicksilver smile, power beyond power, strength tempered with gentleness, a warm hand that he missed feeling against his face.

He blinked, sketched a word in the milk and watched it disappear. Love. So small a word, but it encompassed so many feelings- had to, to make anyone satisfied with being with one person for the rest of their life. Did he… love Naruto Uzumaki, the loud blond man, the fragile and brittle man?

He rested his elbows on the table and rubbed at the tattoo. It itched, suddenly. This was irritating, very much so, but somehow it seemed fitting to him, that he must suffer with Naruto, because they were both vessels, children of sin, and they bore the weight and pain of sorrow and sin for others.

The chair clattered as he stood, turning and climbing the stairs two at a time. He had to confess this revelation to Naruto, because Naruto understood everything, could tell him if this sad, painful twisting in his chest was love, could tell him what love was. He opened the door, then stopped.

Naruto was sleeping, fitful, twisting under the sheets, stitched gashes breaking open and seeping. Gaara was across the room in a moment, seizing him by the shoulders and shaking him awake.

Naruto twitched in his grip, blue eyes fluttering open to pin him in place, eyes glazed with confusion, before he blinked, swallowed, and collapsed onto Gaara with a crackling, hoarse sob, all knees and elbows and dry breaths in his ear, pain incarnate.

Gaara sat down on the bed with difficulty, then lay down while Naruto sprawled across him, arms tight around his chest, blond hair tucked under his chest.

They lay there in the light of the moon for a while, the walls and Naruto's skin glowing and silvered in the silver luminescence. Gaara sifted through Naruto's hair once more, the familiar motions calming and soothing him, while Naruto mumbled incoherent apologies and rants and raves, words slurring with each breath, and then he suddenly fell limp, breath stirring against Gaara's face.

Gaara gazed down at the pale, thin face, traced the lines of the whiskers with a finger and whispered, so softly that he wasn't sure he had spoken,

"I love you."