On Balance

"So this is the alleged demon child," Vasanta mutters, staring down into the makeshift crib with a somewhat skeptical expression on his face. "Bit on the small side for that."

"Hmm," Yashamaru says in lieu of an actual response, busying himself with folding the last of his laundry and not meeting his neighbor's eyes.

He could have done without visitors. Yashamaru barely slept last night, tossing and turning in his sheets, and on this day would have preferred privacy. In all honesty, he'd not expected visitors at all, had supposed the demon's stigma to be enough to keep prying eyes away. However, there came in the morning a knocking on his door, and much as Yashamaru might have liked to, he couldn't abandon his ingrained sense of politeness long enough to disrespect a prospective guest in such a way.

(It's probably for the best. Vasanta is a neighbor, someone Yashamaru can easily run into every time he steps outside of his front door, and moreover could easily spread the word if Yashamaru chose to deny him entry into his home. Yashamaru has enough to deal with as it is; he'd rather not have to contend with the disapproval of his neighbors as well.)

"I'm surprised they aren't making you keep him at the hospital," Vasanta goes on, clutching the edge of the laundry basket in which Gaara lies. "Don't babies this small usually need respirators?"

Yashamaru finds, somewhat to his regret, that he has folded the last of his laundered clothing, and can't avoid giving a more verbose reply than 'Hmm.' "It was expected that Gaara would have to stay in an incubator," he murmurs. Yashamaru glances over at Gaara. He's lying still in the laundry basket, eyes shut, though Yashamaru knows quite well that Gaara is not asleep—there'd be signs impossible to miss if he was. "However, the medics examining him found him to be in perfect health, so really, there was no point."

"Why does that not surprise me?" Vasanta runs a hand through his stiff black hair, blinking down at the baby with a slightly averse expression crawling across his face. "By all accounts—" Suddenly, he turns his gaze to Yashamaru, and licks his lips. "Well," Vasanta mutters. "Well."

Yashamaru very nearly recites the old tale that tells of what a man gets for mincing words—you get servants unwilling to tell you you're out of food or that your wife's dead—but he bites his lip and restrains himself, choosing instead to stare blandly at his neighbor. It feels hotter than usual in the room, though the ceiling fan is going at full tilt and it's cooler today than it has been in months.

After several long, uncomfortable moments pass like this, Vasanta shifts his weight from one leg to the other. "Well, if there's nothing else, I suppose I'll just give you this." He reaches into his shirt and pulls out a small package wrapped in brown paper and bound with string. "It's a nazar battu; my mother wanted you to have it, for the baby."

Frowning bemusedly, Yashamaru starts to undo the string, but pauses. A nazar battu is a common enough sight in a new parent's home in this part of Sunagakure, usually handing over a crib or at the doorway or window in order to the ward off the Eye. There was one that hung over the doorway to Yashamaru's room when he was a child, though he has no idea what happened to it. Some of them… Some of them are made in the shape of a demon's head. If it is…

Yashamaru goes back to gnawing on his lip and opens the package.

It's not shaped like a demon's head. The nazar battu he has been given for Gaara is not in a shape commonly used by his people, not the demon's head or a shoe or a leopard's claw or anything like that. Instead, the nazar battu is fashioned in the shape of a hand made of blue glass, with the Eye painted on the palm, a design popular among the hamsas of Suna's native, both the Sage's people and others.

A gift to ward off misfortune…

"Thank you," Yashamaru hears himself say.

Vasanta nods. "Sure. Your nephew's circumstances are so unusual that…" He trails off, his gaze going back to the laundry basket.

Gaara has opened his eyes, is staring up at the new face before him curiously. When Vasanta's eyes meet those pale, blank green eyes of Gaara's, his face grows pallid. He mutters some hurried farewell and quickly leaves Yashamaru's house. He doesn't come back.

-0-0-0-

Night has fallen and Gaara is crying. Yashamaru doesn't know what to do for him. He's tried to give Gaara formula, only for the infant to turn his head sharply away from the bottle. His diaper doesn't need to be changed. Being held does nothing to console him.

Yashamaru paces the floor in the dark, rubbing his forehead and trying vainly to control his breathing. Gaara's piercing wails fill up his ears, ringing in his skull. His head feels like it's about to split open, his blood pounding; he can barely breathe.

Yashamaru abruptly turns on his heel and once again draws Gaara into his arms. But the warmth of human touch won't stop his cries, and he feels cold and heavier than he should in Yashamaru's arms.

-0-0-0-

The next morning sees Yashamaru, wan and tired as he is, putting Gaara in a sling across his chest and making the walk northeast towards the wall, and the house where Chiyo and her brother live.

One of the wall shanty towns lies just south of Chiyo and Ebizo's house. It looks much the same as it ever has—a collection of tents and ramshackle buildings made of broken sheets of drywall with canvas roofs. Yashamaru walks by men sitting outside of their homes, smoking pipes or playing games of backgammon, women huddled by their dark doorways, children playing hide-and-seek amongst the multitude of clotheslines laden with brightly colored shirts and trousers. Yashamaru's been here before, checking up on patients or searching for criminals attempting to evade the ANBU's detection. He knows the makeshift streets, and knows too that there is nothing here to fear.

"Ah," Ebizo greets him, when Yashamaru reaches his home, his dark eyes twinkling beneath heavy brows. "I've been expecting you."

"Good morning, Ebizo-sama," Yashamaru murmurs, dipping only in a shallow bow so as not to tip Gaara out of the sling. Chiyo doesn't really stand on ceremony, not enough to expect bowing, but Yashamaru doesn't really know Ebizo well enough to say with him. He tries to smile, but what comes up on his mouth is merely a half-hearted twitch of the lips. "Is Chiyo-sama here? I was hoping to speak with her."

Yashamaru feels his heart sink when Ebizo shakes his head. "I'm afraid not; my sister is out visiting with an old acquaintance of hers today. She did leave some papers for you, though." Ebizo eyes him piercingly. "Why don't you come inside? It's not often that we have callers."

Seeing nothing else to do, Yashamaru nods and follows him inside. The interior of Chiyo and Ebizo's home, hidden behind those massive doors as it is, is rather unusual. It appears less as a normal house and more as a massive hollow cut into the wall, and a few rooms sitting atop the stone, whether at the level where Yashamaru and Ebizo have entered, or up the staircase and onto the upper level. The stone has been white-washed, gleaming under some source of light Yashamaru can't identify, and shows few signs of occupation—no scuff or score marks here.

"I… hear birds," Yashamaru remarks, curious in spite of himself. He can hear the soft cooing of birds from somewhere in the house; Yashamaru casts his gaze around, but can't find the source of the noise.

"They're carrier pigeons," Ebizo tells him. "This place was the city's aviary, once long ago. When I came to live here, I began to use it as an aviary again, though obviously my dovecote can't house as many as Suna's mews can now."

"I see."

Yashamaru follows Ebizo into a small room cut off from the larger house by a star-patterned wooden lattice screen rather than solid walls like the other rooms seem to be. Inside there is a small, circular table made of a pale golden stone, and three chairs set around it. "Wait here," Ebizo says. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

Sad to say, but Yashamaru finds himself breathing a small sigh of relief when his host leaves him and Gaara alone in the room. I wonder how long it's been since this place last received a guest. Yashamaru fidgets in his chair, suddenly feeling very young and small. He doesn't really want to be here at all, wants to go home where he won't have to think about anything more complicated than taking care of—

His mind drifts to what most dominates it when it's not focused on Gaara or some task of the moment, and Yashamaru swallows hard, appalled at himself to find his eyes stinging. Maybe, he supposes, he should be happy for distractions after all. Sister would have liked this place. She always liked open, airy spaces like this. She…

She.

Yashamaru puts his hand under Gaara's small body in the sling across his chest, and stares down at him, brow furrowed, heart troubled.

-0-0-0-

The baby won't stop crying.

This time, Yashamaru doesn't bother trying to pick Gaara up in his arms, doesn't bother trying to soothe him. He sits on the edge of his bed, cradling his head in his hands, sobbing practically in time with the child.

-0-0-0-

Yashamaru doesn't think his brother-in-law has been in his house since he moved here. Karura had volunteered to help him move his things into his new home, and, rather to Yashamaru's surprise, her husband showed up with her to help. To this day, Yashamaru still isn't sure why, not exactly.

The Kazekage's presence in his house is not what anyone would call welcome. Yashamaru knew this visit was coming, knows that there will be many more like it in the future, but still, as Yashamaru lets him into his house, he feels as though the air has grown tense and sour. At least let this visit be a quick one.

"You're keeping him in a laundry basket?" the Kazekage asks incredulously, when he sees where Yashamaru has been keeping Gaara. His gaze flicks from Yashamaru, to the baby, and back to Yashamaru again, the look in his brown eyes almost indignant.

"It's what I had on hand," Yashamaru replies defensively, barely able to keep from bristling. He clenches his hands on the edge of the laundry basket.

"I'll send Temari's old crib over," the Kazekage mutters, with such an abstracted look on his face that Yashamaru suspects that he's more speaking to himself than he is to the other adult in the room. It's not really like him, talking to himself in such a way, but nothing about this situation is normal or characteristic for either of their lives.

The Kazekage looks down at his tiny son and sighs heavily. Do you regret it? I should hope you do, though it's far too late for regrets—the damage is done and the seal is set; your regret comes to nothing now. Yashamaru finds his anger running to irritation. The Kazekage shouldn't be able to look at his son with such a frankly melancholic expression. Not when he was the one who made him.

(Yashamaru feels a stab of pity in spite of himself. He quashes it, angry at himself—pity for him, when Karura is dead?—but the echo of it will haunt him, he fears.)

"How is—" The Kazekage stops himself, frowns, and asks in a more even voice, "What have you found, these past few days?"

The baby cries often, but more often at night, and Yashamaru can barely sleep for fear of being awoken by those cries. Yashamaru has found that when he does sleep, the dreams that he has (loss and fear on a backdrop of blood) are just as likely to awaken him in a cold sweat and lack of breath as Gaara's cries. He has found that sometimes when the sun hits Gaara and casts a shadow on him, he expects the shadow to quiver and show golden eyes full of malice.

"Apart from the fact that he doesn't sleep, Gaara is a normal baby," Yashamaru says quietly. "What else did you expect, at this date?"

"Nothing," comes a reply so immediate that Yashamaru is surprised. For all the way he talked, Yashamaru expected the Kazekage to think of Gaara as a living weapon right away. "That comes later."

"It does indeed."

Yashamaru looks at the Kazekage out of the corner of his eyes, feeling his shoulders stiffen all the while. "So… You had her buried, but not cremated?" he inquires tightly.

That the Kazekage's answering expression is one of puzzlement is both galling and, honestly, not entirely unexpected. "Yes." His face darkens. "Some might think that association with the Ichibi taints the body, but I saw no reason to conduct Karura's funeral any differently for that."

Yashamaru winces at the sound of her name spoken aloud. "It is not the way of our people," he retorts. "The soul cannot pass on properly without cremation." He remembers, however faintly, the stories his mother told him about ghosts, stories he only half-believes (and rarely during the day), but the idea still makes his skin crawl. How can he not understand this?

"The spirit is gone at the moment of death," the Kazekage insists, face hardening. "I don't see how the way you dispose of the body makes any difference."

Yashamaru can find nothing in him willing to answer. He nods shortly and looks away.

Later, Yashamaru will breathe a sigh of relief when the Kazekage leaves, and will turn his pensive gaze to Gaara.

"You… You are just as much a victim as anyone, aren't you?" he murmurs.

That night, when Gaara starts to cry again, Yashamaru clambers out of bed to try to quiet him once again. He's tired, his bones aching with weariness, but finds within himself none of the panic he had felt before.

He's only a child, after all.