The rain comes. The rain comes. The rain comes and comes and comes and comes until rage floods the arid cavity of the desert and water-demons grip its limbs and pull with slick-muscled arms and stretch the denuded surface of the world he drowns in.
Gaara slants his neck far back until he is nothing but a baring of throat and wet skin. His eyes are closed and love burns like blood-fire on the left side of his forehead. One stroke, and another, sand hard-slicked and knife-edged and cutting deep but not deep enough. Thirteen times it cuts. Thirteen times it bleeds. Thirteen times it loves.
Love is the essence of opium; love is the seeking of pain. Love is being exposed; love is the scar that must be a wound, the hot dripping of flesh carved anew, split over and over until the blood welling inside the lines that form it becomes its throbbing core.
Gaara can give himself death when it rains. The water runs through dips and crevices and washes away everything – the sand, the blood, the beast, the madness. Little by little, stroke after stroke, one urge is dying and another is being born from the silt it leaves behind.
Chapter Four
Morning light falls overhead and casts shadow on each step Gaara takes. The Suna Academy's training grounds swarm with genin and noise but all voices dry up at his entrance – all but one.
"Ohayō, Gaara-sensei." Soft-spoken, with a tint of abashment. Matsuri wrings her hands behind her back, lips half-bitten, half-smiling up at him.
Gaara's chin dips in a quarter of a nod. "Matsuri."
It pleases her, that he acknowledges her, speaks her name. Gaara can see it in the flush of her cheeks and the flutter of her lashes, the way she lowers her eyes and sways back and forth on the soles of her feet. It is…strange – her reaction to him, the sensation that comes with it – but not disturbing, merely unfamiliar. She needs him in a manner that he is not used to being needed. The origins of her need are different to what they have always been. Matsuri doesn't want a monster – she wants a mentor.
One loud clearing of throat, quite unnecessary. Gaara is aware of Kankurō's presence without his vocal ostentation. His brother is wretchedly fond of fustian and fanfare.
"Mind if I attend your class? My taijutsu skills are…well, you know how they are."
Kankurō grins without the merest sliver of shame for what he admits, and most children snicker. Nothing but an excuse, despite the truth in it. His brother is here because that allays the tension, the wariness, the fear.
"Lacking," is all Gaara says.
More grinning, more snickering.
"I suppose that's one way of putting it, but I'd prefer the term 'secondary to my puppet mastery'."
If let be, Kankurō is liable to waste the lesson away with bombastic praise of the puppet technique and more recruits to his dream of building a shinobi squad of puppet masters. These children barely know the basics of taijutsu, though. Hence, Gaara ends the hunt for gullible neophytes before it begins.
"Split into pairs."
A chorus of hai and the scrambling of feet as they choose partners ensue.
"Kankurō." His brother meets Gaara's eyes with humming amusement. "You will spar with me."
It shrivels into groaning pique. A protest is quick to come out of Kankurō's mouth. "I wasn't planning to actually partici–" Surrender is as quick under Gaara's stare. "Just…go easy on me in front of the kids."
Gaara's kick is assent enough. Slow. Awfully. Slow. The fact that Kankurō avoids it only by a scant margin speaks louder than words. His brother's close combat skills are…below even lacking without the support of his puppets. Still, Gaara takes it slow, observes his students, catalogues each one's strengths and weaknesses. Sand disperses and congregates throughout the training grounds, coils around knees and elbows, soft-clasped nudges and pulls.
"You're supposed…to teach them how to guard and attack…not silently correct their stance with your sand." Kankurō pants more than speaks in the middle of blocking another kick he hasn't been swift enough to avoid.
Gaara holds back a little more, almost unconsciously. "They fear me but not the sand."
Natural. Sacrosanct. No child of the desert fears the sand – that much is true. It is regarded with a counterpoise of veneration and embitterment but never fear. One cannot fear what is known since birth and till death. Sand is the All Mother.
"They don't fear you, Gaara…their parents do." One leaping evasion. "These kids don't know how you used to be to fear you…only what their parents tell them." One heaving grunt. "It's just the promise of fear they've been fed that makes them stay away. If you talked to them…"
Gaara stops mid-attack, and Kankurō folds into himself with a grumble of 'bout damn time.
"Matsuri." His voice is deep and low frequencies of command.
All activity wilts under that sound. The girl's head turns in a too-abrupt motion, eyes wild and glazed with heat. She is gasping breaths and strung tight under his scrutiny.
"Gaara-sensei?" His name spills out thin, throaty, tremulous.
"You are physically weaker than your opponent. Don't try to match him in strength." She flinches as if stung by a barbed whip, and Gaara rewords his advice. "It doesn't mean you're weak. You simply need to leverage your weight to defend or inflict damage."
"Oh." Teeth drag across her bottom lip compulsively. She swallows once, twice, and again. Gaara can see nervousness rippling in the cords of her neck and over the frantic drum of her pulse.
"I, um, how should I –" Dark-red color smears along the angles of her cheekbones and down the line of her collarbone. Matsuri is bending her waist and speaking behind a mass of matted hair. "Can you please teach me?"
Girls are too sensitive, he realizes. He rolls the word in his mind until he is satisfied with its meaning. Sensitive. Not weak.
He teaches her with patience, and as he does so, one by one, more students approach. Carefully at first, not too closely, then less careful, more closer.
"Gaara-sensei, please teach us as well."
He nods and teaches them with more patience. It feels…good. To be needed in this way.
It is noon by the time he ends the class and two hours after it is supposed to have ended. Kankurō sidles up to him with an easy grin, showing white teeth and openness.
"It suits you, that Gaara-sensei."
"It feels…different." He likes different. He wants different. "Different than what it used to be."
Kankurō arches a brow, part-confused, part-grinning. "What is?"
Gaara's gaze lingers on the backs of the students as they idly leave. "To be needed."
A peculiar sound falls off Kankurō's lips, something between a snort and a laugh. Gaara glances up at him but all that remains is its echo and dark – dark – pulling eyes.
"Suna will always need you, Gaara. You are its sand and blood."