Disclaimer: Don't. Own. It.
Full Summary: In our modern day society, the abnormal and the unatural tend to be shunned and locked away from mortal eyes and used instead as bedtime stories that mothers tell to their children to frighten them. But, what if one of those whispered secrets were to emerge from the dark shadow of mystery, to hide in the perfect spot. Plain site.
Warnings: Suspense. Mystery. Random Teenage Outbursts. Morning Stupidity.
Tear My Stiches.
The sun rose into the sky, it's light shining through the windows of many.
Across the hall, Gaara could hear movement.
He sighed.
"Finally."
Gaara wasn't allowed up until Shukaku was up.
And he hated it.
After the early morning bathroom escapade, Gaara had returned to his room to stare at the walls for a few hours, as he sure as hell wasn't going to try that again.
The sound of footsteps on wood met Gaara's ears, but he waited until they had passed his door before he rose from his bed.
Wiping the sleep from his eyes, Gaara walked over to his dresser, where he pulled out a white long sleeve shirt, a black tee shirt, a clean pair of grey boxers, a white belt and a pair of black cargos.
After dressing, Gaara exited his room and walked down the hall and into the kitchen.
Something was wrong.
Where was Shukaku?
"Good morning, sleep well?" Shukaku came up behind Gaara and wrapped his arms around the boy, who glared in return.
"Shut up. You know I don't sleep. Bastard." Gaara mumbled as he tore himself from the embrace and proceeded to pour himself some coffee.
"Well, someone's certainly not a morning person." Shukaku grinned as he poured himself some of the black liquid.
Gaara went over to the table and groaned as he laid his head on the cold surface.
While mixing some cream and sugar into his coffee, Shukaku chucked an apple at Gaara. Successfully hitting him in the head with it.
Shukaku chuckled at his redhead, who groaned a long, slightly muffled as his face was on the table, "Baaaaaaaaaaastaaaaaard."
Shaking his head slightly, Shukaku took a seat beside the boy, who had tooken up glaring maliciously at him.
Shukaku sighed before flicking the teen in the forehead, who then grumbled something about, "Goddamn sadistic two faced bastard!"
------.-----.------
Naruto yawned and stretched as he clambered out of bed.
He pulled on his black tee shirt, that had a pattern that looked as if someone had splattered white paint across the chest area.
Fisting his hand, Naruto rubbed the sleep from his eyes before changing into clean white boxers and a pair of black pants that had orange stripes going down the sides.
Happy with his attire, Naruto grabbed his black and white backpack beforeing racing down the stairs and into the kitchen, where he grabbed some toast and bolted out the door.
------.-----.------
Sakura pulled on her striped white and dark red tee shirt before grabbing a pair of black capris and hopping into them on her way down the hall.
She had slept a little later than she should of.
Grabbing her white backpack and quickly pulling her hair into a pony tail, she dashed out the door.
------.-----.------
Hinata yawned as she got dressed.
Pulling a light yellow tee shirt over her head, she blinked a bit, clearing her sleepy vision.
Satisfied with the shirt, she grabbed a medium purple skirt from the back of her closet and stepped into it. The skirt went a little passed her knees.
Slipping on her white flip flops, Hinata grabbed two apples before scooping up her bag and walked out of the house.
------.-----.------
"Hey! Sakura!" Naruto shouted as he ran up to his friend.
Naruto, Sakura and Hinata always met up on their way to school.
"Hey Naruto." Sakura replied.
The two walked in comfortable silence for a few moments before a Hinata raced towards them.
"H-hey guys!" Hinata said, smiling.
"Hey!" The other two replied simultaniously.
"H-here." Hinata stuttered before tossing Sakura one of the two apples she had in her hand.
"It never ceases to amaze me how she knows what days you don't eat breakfast," Naruto said, shaking his head slightly. "It's kind of creepy, in the awesome way."
"Thanks Hinata." Sakura said before taking a bite.
Hinata's face lit up in a great smile.
------.-----.------
After breakfast, Gaara had gone downstairs to the living room, picking up his notebook on the way.
Plopping down onto the black leather couch, Gaara flipped open the tattered notebook.
Pulling a pencil from his pocket, Gaara began to draw. And whenhe had finished, his signature lay in the center of the page.
Staring at the patchwork heart, Gaara mumbled to himself, "I wonder how I can leave them a clue."
Sighing at his perdicament, Gaara turned the page, deciding he wanted to write something
When Gaara wrote, his mind went blank and his heart took over. He didn't think when he wrote, his ideas just seemed to appear on the page. Usually when he wrote, something from a past experience would end up on the page. But sometimes something out of nowhere would appear.
Looking down at the page, Gaara read what he had wrote.
'As my dying wish, I want you to remember something. Always smile at children, always remind them to believe. For they have not sinned. Their eyes have not been opened to the cruel cold truth that is reality. Their minds are but blank slates, uncontaminated by the horrors of our world. They are naïve. They are innocent. They are our future.'
Gaara really wasn't sure where that had come from.
Deciding it best not to push the matter, Gaara closed the notebook.
------.-----.------
"Checkmate!" Sakura shouted, a triumphant grin plastered to her face.
"U-uh, Sakura? W-we're p-playing checkers." Hinata said, giving her friend a strange look.
Sakura looked from her friend to the board and back again a few times, "Oh."
Naruto, who was sitting beside them tried to stifle his laughter.
"Anyways, now that we've all clarrified that Sakura should go see a docter, shouldn't you two be trying to find Gaara?" Naruto said, rising to check out a book.
The three were in the school library, and receiving a few nasty glares from Sakura's earlier ourburst.
"R-right." Hinata nodded as she put the game away.
"You know what's sad?" Sakura asked her friend. Hinata shook her head, "I don't even know how to play chess."
At this point Naruto did laugh, Which caused more people to trun and glare at them as well as a few perjectiles to be thrown.
------.-----.------
"Gaara." Shukaku said, staring at the teen.
Gaara was lying face down the floor.
"Gaara." Shukaku tried again, still no answer. Not even a small movement to clarify that he was even still alive.
"Gaaaaaaara." Shukaku kneeled down and poked Gaara in the side of the head a few times.
Sighing, Shukaku slipped a hand down the younger's pants.
"HEY! Get your hands off me perv!" Gaara jumped up before the hand could get any lower than the middle of his bottom.
Sometimes, Gaara's brain got so sleep deprived that he would just collapse and stay in a strange half awake half asleep mode. And when he did, that was just about the only thing that would wake him up.
"I've got to go out, be a good boy now, alright? Maybe if I get back early enough we can play another game." Shukaku chuckled.
"Go 'way you goddamn pervert! I hate you!" Gaara shouted, lying his face onto the floor again.
Hey.
It was a soft rug.
Shukaku rolled his eyes. Teenagers.
------.-----.------
Sakura and Hinata were hard at work in the school library, Naruto sitting beside them.
A few papers littered the table top, one or two were on the floor too.
As another paper fluttered to the ground, Naruto reached down to snatch it up.
"Hey, whats this?" Naruto asked, holding up the fallen paper.
"Oh, that's an instant message conversation that Gaara had saved to his computer, Temari found it. She thought it might be important." Sakura replied, before returning her attention to the paper in her hands.
Naruto scanned over the paper before his eyes widened.
Hinata seemed to have noticed as she looked concerned.
"W-what is it, Naruto?" Hinata asked.
Naruto held the paper out to her.
MurderousShadow: Hey.
TheInsomniacPanda: Uh, hey. Do I know you?
MurderousShadow: Maybe.
TheInsomniacPanda: Oo
MurderousShadow: You look pretty F$#able right now, you know that?
TheInsomniacPanda: What? How the hell do you know what I look like right now?!
TheInsomniacPanda: Who are you!?
MurderousShadow: Me? I'm a friend. And I know what you look like right now because I can see you.
TheInsomniacPanda has signed out.
Hinata passed the paper to Sakura, before all three looked at each other.
"Do you think whoever 'MurderousShadow' is kidnapped Gaara?" Naruto asked, although he felt as though he already knew the answer.
"It's more than highly likely." Sakura said.
"W-we need to figure o-out w-who's e-mail th-that is." Hinata stuttered.
"Any ideas?" Naruto asked.
"Well, it's possible that whoever it is used a differnt e-mail when talking to Gaara, so that other people wouldn't know who it was." Sakura reasoned.
Naruto nodded, "Probably."
"D-do w-we know anyone w-who's e-mail th-that might b-be?" Hinata asked, looking around the table.
"Well, it does sound kind of like something a boy in our school would use." Sakura suggested.
"Right, so we'll just go around asking everyone we see." Naruto replied sarcasticaly.
"No! But, who do you think of when you hear that name?" Sakura answered, "'MurderousShadow'."
All three sat in silence, thinking.
"W-well when I hear sh-shadow, I think of Shino or Kiba, but I don't think either of them d-did i-it." Hinata said, before glancing at her partner.
"Well, don't be so sure to rule them out, it's a possiblity, I mean Kiba's gay and Shino's bi. Also, I'm pretty sure Kiba's got a thing for redheads."
"What about Neji or Sasori? I mean they both tend to stay to the shadows, and their glares just scream 'Come near me and I'll murder you'." Naruto offered, before adding, "Also, I'm pretty sure Neji's gay, I mean he completly ignores his fangirls. Not sure about Sasori though."
Sakura thought for a moment, "It's possible. But when I heard 'MurderousShadow', I thought of Sasuke or Itachi."
The library went silent at the mention of the last two names.
------.-----.------
Inside Gaara's head, a chibi version of himself was doing a happy dance.
And there was a very good reason for that.
Shukaku was gone.
Rising from his comfortable spot on the rug, Gaara walked up the stairs. He was about to go into his room when something stopped him.
Turning around, Gaara looked at the door two doors to the left of Shukaku's.
That was the reason Gaara wasn't allowed out of his room at night.
Behind that door, Shukaku's power source lay. Gaara wasn't exactly sure what it was, but he knew that it gave Shukaku his supernatural abilities. He knew this because he had witnessed what happened after Shukaku entered. Light would burst through the door, nearly blinding the poor boy as a sound similar to the noise two glasses make when clinked together filled the air. When his captor exited the secretive room, the small black amulet around his neck would be white.
That was why Gaara wasn't allowed out at night. Because Shukaku thought he'd try to destroy his power source.
And if Shukaku's power source was destroyed, Gaara could escape.
The only reason Gaara couuldn't escape when Shukaku went out was very simple but complicated at the same time. Because of Shukaku's powers, special traps were set around the house. If Gaara tried to open a window or door, a special powder would fall on him, turning him into a doll. The only person who could get into the house without turning into a doll was Shukaku, as the powder didn't work on him.
There was also the same trap on the secret door. If Gaara tried to open it during the day, he'd turn into a doll.
Night, though, was a completly different game.
Shukaku's traps were affected by light. Therefor, when the sun went down, Gaara could get into the room and destroy Shukaku's power source.
The only strange thing that Gaara had found out though, was that during the night, when Shukaku was asleep, if Gaara tried to get out of the house he'd fall asleep. This was another special trap Shukaku had set. It was a lesser one though, so it could be used when the sun was down.
That was why Gaara didn't try to escape. If he did, his nightmares would tear his sanity in two. Just like the stiching on a doll.
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Authoress's Note!
Alright, question.
I've placed one big hint for our heros throughout the story, does anyone know what it is?
Anyways, thanks very much to all who reviewed! ( Is to lazy to reply, -sigh-)
Also, I want to apologise. I know you've all been looking forward to some yummy Naru/Gaa, but it will come! I promise!
Review? Pwease?