She was already asleep when Gaara came to. At first, he didn't think about what he was doing. By this point, nursing from her was becoming almost second nature. What brought on his realization that things weren't quite what they should be was her little sighs of contentment sounded a little different than usual. They sounded exhausted and distant.
When he looked up at her face after a moment, he realized she wasn't conscious and immediately stopped what he was doing. When he stopped, her eyes started to flutter open.
"C-Cali?" he barely asked, a sudden rush of guilt and worry overcoming him.
She smiled when he said her name. "Ai-sama," she barely whispered.
"What…What happened?" he asked warily as he pulled back enough to see the welts and bruises on her skin as well as the tear streaks on her face.
"We're closer now…" she dreamily muttered.
His eyes grew wide with horror as the demon inside him started to recall what he considered to be the highlights of the evening. "No…NO!" he backed away from her.
She made a sound of incredible distress at his withdraw and weakly tried to pull him back but he was already out of her reach. "It's okay. I needed to meet that part of you," she tried to insist.
"NO!" he yelled forcefully. "This is bad…" he mumbled to himself, "This is really bad. Really, really bad…"
"Hey, come back and finish what you started," she again tried to get him to return to her side.
"No! What's the matter with you? How can you be so casual? I just raped you!" he panicked.
"Don't say that," she weakly argued. "Please, come back," she reached out to him.
Gaara deeply wanted to do as she asked but he felt like he was going to throw up.
Seeing the sickened look on his face, she summoned all her energy to sit up so she could face him. "You didn't rape me," she insisted. "Besides, I've been raped before so, I know the difference," she grimly informed.
"Semantics! Shukaku did it and he's part of me. How could I let this happen? I never should have listened to you," he told her regretfully as he stood.
She wasn't about to point out that it was his decision to smoke with her because she had encouraged him. "You're not leaving, are you?" she asked carefully when he started toward the door.
"How can you even stand to be near me after what I did to you?" he could feel hot tears stinging his eyes and turned away.
"Because my affection for you hasn't changed and if it has, it's only gotten deeper," she nearly pleaded because she could feel his heart breaking.
"You're insane!" he accused and stormed out.
She tried to follow him but her muscles failed her. "Please, don't leave me!" she called after him but he was already gone, leaving her to sob alone until she once again passed into unconsciousness.
Gaara ran out of his house and out into the pouring rain, not bothering to close the door behind him. He had to get as far from Calixta as he possibly could so that maybe he could clear his head, if that was even possible. He couldn't believe that she could be okay with what had happened. She had to be in shock or something to react that way. It didn't take him long to decide that they should never see one another ever again, no matter how painful that might be for him.
As he ran, he could feel her chakra tugging at him. She was trying to call him back but he wouldn't let her. Just when he was on the edge of the city, he heard an unmistakable barking behind him. He whipped around to see Satu chasing him.
"Damn dog," he grumbled. "Get! Go away!" he yelled but she kept following him. "Damn it! Stupid fuckin' mutt!" he backed away.
Satu was undeterred by his foreboding shouting, driven by her master to pursue the young man.
Gaara was disturbed by the little dog's insistence so much so that he kicked her when she got too close for his comfort.
Satu stumbled to try to maintain her footing and gave a wounded whine at the assault but didn't relent. As soon as she was on her feet again, she continued her pursuit. Gaara stumbled backward in surprise, having expected the animal to retreat after the attack, and when she jumped on him, he fell backward to the ground and into a rather large puddle.
"Damn it! You stupid mutt! Get the hell off me!" he grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and threw her away only to have her return like a boomerang a second later, before he could stand. He wrestled with her as she tried to lick his face.
When he finally managed to push her off and stand, she grabbed the bottom of his pant leg between her teeth and tried to tug him back in the direction he came.
"No! Damn it! Leave me alone," he yelled at her. "I'm not going back to her! I can't! She's suffered enough because of me! You go back! She'll need you," he continued, not thinking how crazy it would look to someone who saw him yelling at a puppy as though it was a person. Then, he finally started to run off again. Much to his dismay, Satu continued to follow. She stopped trying to jump on him but she wasn't going to leave him alone.
Once he was out of the city, he didn't feel the need to go very far. He just made an alcove out of sand to keep the rain off him, as he had done when he was a child. He almost felt violated when Satu followed him into his hiding place but figured it was a small sacrifice after how badly he had violated Calixta.
Still, as the little pup snuggled up next to him to get out of the rain, he could feel Calixta's chakra calling him. After a moment to take it in, he realized that, like the first time, it wasn't a conscious effort. However, he could also tell that, unlike the first time, he was the only recipient of the calling.
"She wants you," the demon voice inside Gaara's head crooned.
"She's crazy. She doesn't know what she wants!" he screamed.
"Sanity is not required for desire," it told it's host in a grating sing-song voice.
Gaara's eyes dilated and he started pulling at his hair. "YOU! You ruin everything!"
"Tch, I hardly call one ridiculous woman everything," it scoffed.
Satu gave a sympathetic whine and moved up onto Gaara's lap. Gaara didn't notice. He was too busy screaming out loud at the voice inside his head.
"I had a chance with her!"
"A chance at what?" it incredulously inquired.
"She wasn't scared of me! And I knew that for a fact!" he snapped.
"She's still not scared," it chided.
At that Gaara could swear his heart almost stopped but he was still practically pulling out his hair as Satu stood up in his lap. She placed her paws on his chest and started carefully nuzzling his neck. When Gaara gave a great outcry of grief and frustration, Satu sympathetically howled with him and when his muscles slackened slightly, she pushed her nose into the crook of his arm. Without thinking, he complied with her nonverbal request, opting instead to wrap his arms around her in a protective embrace.
"Why? Why did it have to be like this? I destroy everything that's beautiful! I should have never even tried!" he screamed.
"She's still quite beautiful, perhaps even more beautiful," it haughtily suggested. "And she's not going to leave you alone. She wants to see me again."
"She's insane!" he raved.
"She needs us," it dismissed.
"No one needs what you did to her!"
At that, Satu whimpered and snuggled closer to him. He could feel the little pup's heart racing next to, practically in time with his. Suddenly, there was an intense ringing in his ears and he grasped the dog in his hands. He held it up, level with is face, so he could look in her eyes.
"No…" he muttered with disbelief. "No, that's insane," he almost started giggling maniacally. "Why are you still here?" he shook Sato a little. He might have shook he harder but his muscles didn't seem to have the conviction he was used to.
Sato simply gave a friendly little bark and tried to reach forward to lick his face. He scowled at her but she just barked again and continued her effort.
"That creature is channeling her id," the demon suggested.
Gaara gave her an eerie look and carefully set her down beside him, trying to gently shove her away.
Sato gave him a perplexed look and once again started tugging at his pant leg.
"Stop it!" he pushed her away again.
"It's not going to leave you," the demon chided. "Well, unless you kill it," it added offhandedly as the teen continued trying to push her away.
Gaara flinched at the idea of killing the creature.
The demon laughed at his medium's revulsion at the idea. "She might not want to see you again if you take its corpse to her," he suggested giddily.
Gaara's eyes grew wide with horror. "No! I've hurt her enough! I don't care how annoying that thing is, I won't do it."
Sato leapt into his lap and started licking his face again.
"Uuugh, stop it!" he pushed her off. "Just leave me alone!"
She didn't leave. She just gave a heavy sigh that turned into another whine and sat down.
Gaara gave a sigh of his own. "I have to tell her it's over."
"She won't let you do that," the demonic voice chided.
"I won't give her a choice," he snapped back.
"She won't give you a choice because she knows how you feel about her. You're just not smart enough to understand what she feels and that scares the piss outta you," the demon chided.
Gaara groaned. "I'm not scared of her. I'm scared for her."
Just then, Satu gave a low, short growl of warning before trying to tug on him again, this time his shirt sleeve. When he still wouldn't budge, she lost patience and bit him.
"Ah! What the fuck?" He flailed, trying to dislodge her, which he did but only after nearly a full minute of fighting and flailing.
Sato landed with a graceless thump but quickly made it to her feet and started barking at him again.
"Fine, damn it!" he stood and let the little pup lead him back to Calixta.
Unfortunately, his journey didn't go uninterrupted. Temari happened upon him.
"Hey! Gaara-san!" she called through the rain.
He flinched at the sound of her voice and it took almost all his self control not to simply put a wall of sand between them.
"You puppy sitting?" she teased carefully.
"Whatever," he curtly replied, resuming his determined pace.
"Where's Calixta-san?" she asked with equal carefulness.
"She's…asleep," he managed to reply. Part of him wanted to confide in his sister, knowing she would admonish him.
"Oh…" she cautiously looked around. Seeing no one, she grew slightly bolder, "You wear her out?" she suggestively teased.
His sister's choice of words almost made him throw up but he managed to recover before she noticed. "What's it to you?" he snapped.
"Just kidding. Sorry I bothered you," she sighed regretfully. "You're soaked. Wanna borrow my umbrella?" she offered.
"Don't be stupid. Then you'll get soaked too," he argued.
"I-I don't mind," she managed.
"Then why even use that stupid thing at all?" he demanded, diverting from his path to storm up to her and snatch the protective cover, throwing it as far as he could. This diversion apparently disturbed Sato, who immediately started to bark in complaint.
"Ass," she grumbled. "I was just trying to be nice."
"You're wasting your time. Go bother someone else," he ordered as Sato continued to yap.
Feeling dejected, and already well on her way to being drenched, Temari grumbled as she walked away, allowing Gaara to resume his path. As soon as he turned away from her, Sato stopped barking, something Temari took note of even though she doubted she'd ever say anything about it.
Gaara was home a few minutes later and much to his dismay, Satu only briefly shook herself off on the porch before scampering inside to her master, managing to get a fair portion of her path very wet in the process. When they entered the bedroom, Calixta was almost exactly as she was when he left her, the only difference being that she appeared more comfortable.
Satu immediately started nudging and licking her master's face and neck, making her slowly start to wake.
Gaara stood across the room and waited quietly for the young woman to acknowledge him first.
"Ai…" she mumbled as her eyes fluttered open.
He frowned at the affectionate nickname but she didn't notice.
"Oh, Satu, you're soaked to the bone!" she fretted when she tried to cuddle with her pet. Only when she slowly sat up to look for a towel, did she look up at Gaara. "I was afraid you wouldn't come back," she admitted.
His stomach flip-flopped when he realized that was the first time she had experience fear in their relationship, aside from that induced by his inner demon, but that was an instinctive fear where this was more emotional. He almost shook his head in exasperation. "Of course I'd come back. This is my home," he pointed out.
Then, Calixta experienced something else for the first time. She felt unwelcome. It made her stomach twist a little. Even the first time she came to him, she hadn't felt that way. Sure, he was a bit off putting, and understandably anxious but even when he told her to get out it was more to see if she would stay. She took a deep breath to steady herself but even that came out shaky.
Before she could speak, Gaara took the floor, "We are not going to see each other anymore," he informed flatly.
That really made her sick to her stomach. "Don't toy with me!" she grumbled.
"I don't intend to, which is why I want you out of here before the sun comes up," he continued.
"No!" she slowly started toward him, barely making it to, not to mention staying up on, her feet. "You can't do this to me!" she tried to yell but her screams earlier left her hoarse.
When she finally made a lunge for him, he easily side-stepped her, allowing her to fall gracelessly to the ground. As much as he wanted to catch her, he knew that his stance had to be firm to a fault.
Calixta landed on her hands and knees, keeping her gaze downcast to hide her tears for as long as possible while Satu growled angrily from a few feet away.
"I mean it. It's over. We're done," he asserted, unable to tear his eyes away from her no matter how badly he wanted to. So, to emphasize his conviction, he grabbed her necklace and snapped it, throwing it across the room. "We're lucky it lasted as long as it did."
"No!" she continued to argue, "After what we've been through, you can't just toss me aside!"
Just then, Gaara noticed a strange feeling welling up inside him. At first, it was just a dull ache, but quickly grew in intensity from there until he thought his chest might cave in. It didn't take him long to recognize the feeling but by the time he realized what it was, it was already too late to stop it even if he could. He had broken her heart and now he was going to have to suffer through the pain of it as well.
With a great outburst of grief and frustration, Calixta couldn't contain herself any more and broke down, sobbing as she let herself fall the rest of the way to the ground. She blamed herself for what had happened and mentally berated herself for taking such a huge risk on something so important. "I'm so sorry. Please forgive me!" she pleaded.
"Forgive you?" Gaara incredulously gasped. "You were the victim!"
"I caused it," she argued weakly.
"It was my choice and I made the wrong choice," he insisted. "Don't you ever apologize to me!"
She whimpered and tried to crawl toward him. "Please, don't turn me away!"
He tried to jerk away when she grasped his pant leg but his muscles failed him. "It's better this way," he continued to protest.
About a minute later, Kankuro burst into his brother's house. He looked around the front room for a moment and, seeing that there was no one here, rushed into the bedroom. Upon seeing the pair prone on the floor, Gaara soaking wet, while Calixta lie nude less than a foot away, a tangled blanket trailing behind her, his eyes grew wide with horror. In his shock, he barely noticed Satu urgently whimpering and nosing at her face and neck due to the distraction caused by welts and bruises on her body.
Once he could move his feet again, he rushed over to her, rolling her over as he gathered her into his lap. "Calixta!" he gently shook her. He repeated the action several more times before she acknowledged him. She gave a great wail and instinctively clung to him.
"What happened?" he tried even though he wasn't sure she was capable of answering him at the moment, since when he did get a good look at her face, he could see that her eyes were glazed over and wandering in seemingly random directions.
As she cried and sobbed into his chest, Kankuro started nudging his brother with his foot. Since his face was turned away, he still didn't know what state his younger sibling was in.
"Gaara?" he carefully tried and received only a pained groan in response.
"Take me away," she suddenly pleaded.
"Uh, yeah, okay," he hastily nodded. "Where are your clothes?"
"Just take me…" she whined, "He can't stand to be near me anymore," she raved just as she lost any sense of composure she might have regained in his presence.
Because it was handy, Kankuro used the torn sheet to wrap her up before snatching up her umbrella and dashing out. Satu quickly followed.
"Don't worry," he told her, holding her close to his body to protect her from the majority of the rain but found it difficult to do holding her in one arm while the other managed the umbrella. "I'm gunna take you to the hospital," he told her.
"No…please…They can't help me. Just take me somewhere quiet…somewhere safe."
"You looked pretty banged up, they should at least have a look at you," he argued, ducking under a dark awning to talk to her.
She shook her head, "The damage to my body is minor and you know it won't take along before others find out that something's wrong. I need time to rest and think more than I need to be poked and prodded and asked all manor of ridiculous questions!"
Kankuro appeared torn. On the one hand, he sympathized with her desire for privacy but on the other, he knew that if anyone found out he didn't take her to get medical attention immediately, he was likely to be in quite a bit of trouble.
"Please. I called for you with my last bits of chakra because I hoped you would listen to me," she continued to plead. "I wasn't even sure if you'd be able to sense me," she added under her breath.
Suddenly, something occurred to the young man, "Use your chakra," he suggested.
"What?" she blinked with incomprehension.
"Charm me, don't give me the choice because if I get caught making the wrong one, I'm in deep shit," he reasoned.
She felt sympathy for his reason but again shook her head 'no'. "I can't. I'm sorry," she violently burst into tears.
"What? Why not? You did it before. Come on, I wanna do what your asking but I just don't wanna get in any more trouble than I already am," he continued to reason.
"It's all gone. I gave it all to him," she mumbled.
"You gave all of your chakra to Gaara?" Kankuro stammered.
"Who else is there?" she almost laughed. "Please, it's so cold out here," she tried to cling to him a little more securely but largely failed, "Can we keep going?"
"Yes, of course," he nodded. To his surprise, she didn't bother him anymore about where he was going. He wondered if she knew he wasn't heading for the hospital anymore or if she had just given up.
Either way, he quietly snuck into his room and tucked her into his bed. After all that, he knew there was no way he was going to be able to sleep, so he locked the door and pulled a chair up next to the bed.
As Gaara lay prone on his bedroom floor, he felt like he was going to throw up.
"I never made her cry like that," the voice in his head chided, "Perhaps I'm not the real demon here after all."
"You're the reason I had to do it," he barely grumbled. Even though he could still feel every little whim from Calixta, he had rarely felt so alone in his life.
"You're acting like you could have had a long-term relationship with that woman without her ever encountering me. Are you really that naïve?" it scoffed.
Gaara forced himself to roll over onto his back but only managed to do so with great effort.
"Perhaps you're right to make her go. After all, look at how weak and pathetic you are right now. She tried to warn you that if you ever caused her pain, that you would feel it too and what did you do? You broke her fuckin' heart. At least when I hurt her, I make sure she enjoys it a little," he brazenly reasoned. "But look on the bright side, she doesn't blame you for it even a little tiny bit."
Gaara spent the rest of the evening praying that the disorientingly overwhelming pain would subside even just a little so that he might be able to think but his luck had run out.
Calixta slowly awoke early the following morning. She was exhausted enough to sleep longer but the aching in her chest roused her before she was ready.
"Ah, Calixta-san!" Kankuro couldn't help smiling when she regained consciousness.
"Where am I?"
"This is my room. I…didn't know where else to take you," he admitted.
"Thank you," she told him honestly.
"How are you feeling?"
She winced and shook her head 'no'.
"What did Gaara do to you last night?" he tried again.
"I pushed him too hard, too fast…" she muttered, rolling over to look out the window instead of at him and not caring how much of her skin he saw.
Kankuro swallowed hard. "Um, Did he-uh…Those scratches on your back…did he do that?"
She shook her head 'no' again.
"Look, I'm trying to help you here but I won't be able to do that if you don't tell me what's going on," he lightly threatened.
"It doesn't matter anymore," she sighed. "I ruin everything that's beautiful. I've learned that lesson before and I swore never to forget it because I knew the reminder would be harsh." Then she turned back to him. "If you want to help me, go get my things from Ai-er-Gaara's house."
"Do you plan to leave?"
"Not right away," she admitted. She wanted more of her strength to return before she ventured the journey because the last thing she wanted was for Ebisu to have to carry her back.
Hoping that since she wasn't just going to try to run away and that he might earn a little more of her favor if he did as she asked, he complied. To his surprise, Satu eagerly followed him. He was so caught up in wondering about what had happened that he was about half way to his brother's house before he realized that he would probably encounter his unstable younger sibling in the process.
He was right, but it wasn't as bad for him as he thought it would be. The front door was still wide open so he was allowed to once again enter the front room unimpeded. Hearing an occasional thumping accompanied by pained groans, he made quick work of her things that still sat in the front room. Then, he had to move back into the bedroom. Fortunately, Gaara had managed to move from where his brother had left him the night before. He had crawled to the bathroom and was resting his head on the toilet seat, little strings of vomit still dangling from his lips. His eyes, were open, only just barely but it was enough to let him see his brother stop for a moment to gawk at him.
He was about to yell something condescending but found he had no words and even if he did, he doubted he had the conviction to make them sound the way he thought they should. However, that instinctively negative action sent him into another bout of sickness, and he was forced to look away. He couldn't hear it over the sounds he was making and the ringing in his ears, but as his muscles involuntarily spasmed and convulsed, Satu gave sympathetic little whimpers and whines.
Disturbed, Kankuro redoubled his efforts to get her things around, thankful that it was incredibly easy to tell their possessions apart. He had never seen Gaara look so bad and as if worrying about the health and welfare of his younger brother wasn't troublesome enough, he also had to consider how he looked barely conscious. If Gaara nodded off for even a second, he would have even bigger problems to worry about.
Once he had her bags in a pile on the porch, Kankuro went back to where Satu was waiting, watching his brother. "Gaara," he carefully called from a few feet away, barely entering the bathroom doorway. To his surprise, he actually received a groan of acknowledgement. "Is there anything I can do for you?"
The younger teen barely nodded once the heaving subsided.
"What is it?" Kankuro asked eagerly. At this point, he was willing to do just about anything if it would make the situation better.
"Get the fuck out," he grumbled.
Kankuro gave a sigh of defeat but complied.
"And take all her shit with you!" he weakly called after his brother before another round of vomiting started.
Since that was the plan anyway, Kankuro left as quickly as possible with Satu close behind. This time, he made sure to close the door behind him. When he returned, he was pleased to see Calixta was awake. She had managed to prop herself up against the wall so that she could sit and stare out the window as the rain continued to fall. She still looked like hell but at least she wasn't unconscious.
She hardly stirred as he entered and placed her bags at the foot of his bed. As he sat back in his chair, he got a good look at her and realized that she reminded him of the little flowers that bloomed during the monsoon. At first, you didn't even know they were there because their seeds lay dormant beneath the surface of the earth but as soon as the rains started, they began to grow. Soon, they would be standing tall with their faces toward the sky, soaking up as much moisture as they could manage but that only lasted so long. Before long, the downpour would become too much for them and the little flowers would be crushed under and swept away by the falling sea.
When Calixta noticed her purse sitting at the foot of the bed, she reached for it, with significant effort, but managed to withdraw her pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Only when she started to light one did Kankuro come out of his own wonderings to say something about it.
"You're not supposed to smoke in here," he commented quietly.
Calixta frowned and let her hands fall lifelessly back to her lap. "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking…" she admitted.
Kankuro pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration, "Go 'head and do it anyway," he grumbled.
She gave a half-smile and went back to what she started. He was relieved to see that his sacrifice was rewarded in that after the first couple drags, she appeared a little more relaxed. She didn't need her powers to sense that Kankuro was about to speak and what he was going to be speaking on, so she saved him the trouble.
"It's all my fault, really," she commented, her gaze distant as she turned toward the open window to exhale.
"Please, tell me what happened," he pleaded genuinely. "I'll try to keep it a secret if that's what you want but I have to know. He seemed so different when he was with you, like he wouldn't even harm a sand cricket. Why did he hurt you?"
"We both got hurt because I tried to push our relationship too fast. I mean, it was already too fast to begin with. I should have known better," she scolded herself as she ashed her cigarette out the window.
Kankuro gave an unsatisfied frown. She was talking to him now but he was having a hard time making sense of what she was saying. "You keep saying you pushed him, how did you do that?" he tried.
"He worries all the time…about everything. I just wanted to help him relax. It's so much easier to connect with him when he's relaxed," she babbled. "You know how they say there's a calm before the storm?"
He nodded vaguely to keep her talking.
"His calm was exquisite," she allowed herself to marvel at the memory before reality came crashing back in on her and she had to take another few drags before she could answer without sobbing. "How did it put it?" she muttered to herself but then turned back to her host, "It has quite a way with words you know."
"It?" Kankuro carefully repeated. "What do you mean it?"
She wasn't really paying attention. "It said that I got'im higher than a kite and fucked his brains out and that he passed the fuck out. That's about how it went," she mused bitterly.
"Wait, it, what is it?" he pressed anxiously, praying that she wasn't saying what he thought she was.
"Why, Shukaku of course," she could barely say either of their names without almost completely breaking down.
Kankuro suddenly felt very sick to his stomach. "If you met Shukaku, you should be happy to just be alive," he told her flatly.
"It wouldn't have killed me," she replied as though that made everything all better and she finished her cigarette.
The young man scoffed, "Even you can't know that for sure."
She sighed at his disbelief and reached for another cigarette.
"I never pegged you for a chain smoker," he chided.
She would have sneered at him if she could have. Instead, she scooted a little closer to the window. "I never felt like that about anyone before…" she marveled as her gaze once again drifted outside.
When she didn't say anything for a long minute after that, Kankuro tried to talk to her again. "Calixta-san," he carefully attempted to get her attention but received no response. He tried again but still she didn't acknowledge him. For his third attempt, he stood and walked around the side of the bed, hoping to at least come into her peripheral vision. "Calixta?" he asked one last time before giving up. With heavy sigh, he sat back down in his chair and watched her smoke that cigarette and one more before she nodded off, her head propped up by the windowsill.
He wasn't sure how much longer he could keep her there like that before someone found out, which left him debating whether to just go and tell Baki himself what he knew so far. When she finally reached for another cigarette about two hours later, he spoke to her. "Calixta-san."
"Hm?" she distractedly prompted.
"Are you hungry or anything?" he asked hopefully.
She shook her head 'no' and lit her smoke. "Are you hungry?" she asked coyly.
Just the thought of food made his stomach growl since he hadn't eaten since the night before.
She gave a weak little smirk. "My tits ache so bad…why don't we help each other out?" she gave small gesture of welcome.
"You've got to be kidding," he grumbled and forced himself to turn away when she let the sheet loosely wrapped around her fall away from her chest.
"I don't kid about such things. Don't look away!" she snapped.
With a reluctant sigh, he turned his gaze partially back to her. He hoped to keep his eyes locked on hers but he couldn't help noticing her breasts. They were red and swollen and hardly moved when she would shift her weight.
"It's the one thing you can do for me that will actually ease my pain," she scoffed.
That reasoning made Kankuro comply. He was unsure of himself at first but she didn't seem to care what he did so he slid her over to the edge of the bed, letting her legs dangle off the side as he knelt on the floor before her. However, when he first put his lips to her breast and tried to gently draw the fluid out, she gave a little yelp of pain.
"What's wrong?" he carefully backed off.
"Oh, they're just so tender," she whined. "I don't think they've ever been this full before." It took much of her remaining strength, but she managed to find one of his hands with her own and bring it up to her breast, where she tried to coax him into gently massaging circles. "It will make things easier," she managed and he finally complied.
"How long do I have to…?" he trailed off. He had wanted to grope her from the first time he saw her but this was not exactly what he had in mind.
"You'll know…" she sighed.
He didn't really believe her but figured that if he missed his cue, she would go back to coaching him. Fortunately, she was right and he could tell when she was ready for him to try again. The breast in his hand grew soft and squishy, much to his delight, and he could feel her nipple getting hard under his palm. Once he felt his hand start to get wet, he knew it was time.
She gave a soft sigh of relief when he started to nurse from her breast. "S-Start the other one," she urged quietly but he hesitated. "Usually, I don't prefer that but the pressure's so great…please…"
Even though her voice was almost painfully small, to Kankuro's paranoid ears, it was almost as though she was shouting. So, to keep her quiet, he complied with her request. After he was about half way finished with her right breast, he pulled back to decide if he wanted to switch or just finish what he started.
She watched him lick his lips as he withdrew. Even without her chakra, she could tell there was something on his mind. "What is it? What are you thinking about?"
"I don't know if Gaara told you this but he sorta…shared some of one of your care packages with me…" he managed.
"He never mentioned it," she shrugged. "And I don't really care either way," she added, hoping he would go back to what he was doing.
"I didn't think you would. It's just that…it's different now," he tried.
"Drinking from a spring is different from drinking from a bottle," she pointed out.
"I know but I don't think it's that," he distractedly replied and then, knowing what her next question would inevitably be, he moved to her left breast and started to work on that one.
She understood that he wanted more time to think about what he meant and simply nodded because his purposeful distraction was enough for her.
He pulled back again a few minutes later with his answer. "I know what it is. I know what's different," he told her seriously.
"Well?" she prompted impatiently.
"I don't think you're gunna like it…" he mumbled.
"Does that really matter at this point?" she snapped.
Kankuro sighed and sat back on his heals to he could more easily look up at her face. "You're not a healer anymore," he informed as evenly as he could.
"What?" she snapped incredulously. "You don't know what you're talking about!" she backed away from him but it was a slow, labored effort at best.
"I'm sorry…" was all he could manage.
"No! Liar!" she accused.
"It makes sense if what you said was true, that you gave all your chakra to Gaara."
Her panic continued for another few seconds until what he said sank in. It made an almost unfortunate amount of sense. "I gave that to him too?" she barely asked herself. "I gave him everything…" she trailed off.
Afraid of losing her again, Kankuro placed a careful hand on her knee. "Hey, whatever it is, I'm sure it'll work out," he coaxed.
If she had been able to sense what he was feeling, she would have been angry that he was placating her. As it was, she took his words at face value and tried to calm down. "Just…finish what you started…please," she leaned toward him again.
He nodded and complied. Unfortunately, they were interrupted a few minutes later when Satu hopped off the bed, where she had been snuggled since their return, and gave a protective growl at the door. With a sigh of regret Calixta pulled Kankuro away. "Your brother's coming."
The young man nodded and sat back in his chair. He was about to ask if she wanted him to leave or maybe put some clothes on but Gaara was closer than he expected. He didn't knock before stumbling into the room.
She shrunk in his presence. Gaara's natural chakra by itself was at the very least obvious and inherently aggressive. Having that compounded by the demon trapped inside him made him formidable, possibly fearsome. Now, on top of that, he was also the vessel for the vast majority Calixta's energy. It was no wonder he could hardly walk and she could barely breathe.
Calixta bit her lip as Satu hopped back up into her lap.
As he shuffled forward, he threw something at her. "You forgot something."
She picked it up and looked at it for a moment even though as soon as it left his hand, she knew what it was. She frowned down at the necklace in her hand when she noticed that there was a crack in the little red gem at the center. Feeling utterly disillusioned, she tossed it back, but she was still weak and it landed on the floor about half way between them. Then, she looked away, reaching for another cigarette.
"Stop it…" Gaara grumbled, his eyes narrowing dangerously.
"I can't…" she muttered.
Her resignation made him even more angry but the way her chakra fought that feeling made him light headed. "Liar!" he spat as he fell to his knees.
"You will survive," she assured him. "Above all else you are a survivor."
Kankuro's eyes grew wide as he silently observed their exchange.
"You want me to suffer!" he accused. "If you really cared about me, you would end this now."
She shook her head. "It's because I care so much about you that you are suffering."
"Why can't I cut you off like I have before?" That had been one of the main reasons he didn't care much if she used her chakra when they were together. Most of the time, he could shut most of it out.
"Because that would be like eating your dinner and expecting not to be nourished. It's all inside you," she pointed out.
"Take it back!" he ordered drawing a little closer to her.
She surveyed him for a moment. "Even if I could, I wouldn't."
"You bitch!" he lunged forward but was easily stopped by his brother. "You stay out of this!"
"Don't talk that way to him!" she snapped.
"If you lay so much as a finger on her, I'll drag you out of here and straight to Baki myself," Kankuro threatened.
Gaara growled, "How dare you!" His brother never had the guts to speak to him that way but they both knew he was in a highly weakened state.
"You should just go," she sighed.
"I'm not leaving until you fix this!" Gaara insisted, banging his fist on the ground in frustration.
"No! Don't you realize what's happened?" she almost smiled, her eyes brimming with tears again.
"Don't you? After what happened last night, you should realize how dangerous it is for us to be together! Why can't you understand that I'm not doing this because I want to? I would never be able to forgive myself if something happened to you," he raved.
"But something has happened," she insisted.
"And we're lucky it wasn't any worse than that!" he countered.
"I'm not talking about that," she argued.
At that, Gaara faltered. He finally took a moment to survey her. Because he had been expecting her chakra to be coming from her, that was what her perceived. Once he really looked at her, he realized that it was all coming from within him. He could barely sense her presence it was so weak.
"You made me normal…" she smiled gently down at him. "It will take time for you to assimilate my chakra and truly make it part of your own. If you don't fight it so hard, it might not be so painful," she advised.
He gaped at her, hardly able to believe her words. He was expecting her to deny him because she still wanted to be with him. She did still want to be with him but that didn't seem to be her motivation. "You can't be serious!"
"You could force it back on me," she informed offhandedly.
The word force made Gaara flinch. "Is that what you want?"
"Ever since my chakra emerged, I wished for nothing but normalcy. After I got to know you, all I wanted was to be with you. If I can't have you, I want to be normal," she confessed. "I couldn't stand to be what I was and live without you, and neither could you. We would both have to live with that heartache for the rest of our lives. As soon as I can, I'll go as far from you as possible. You'll never hear a whisper of me again," she promised.
"What are you talking about?" Gaara gasped. "You're just trying to manipulate me."
She laughed. "I can't manipulate anybody. I can't sense anybody. When I close my eyes, I only know what's in my head and my heart," she marveled. "Don't you see? It's perfect."
"Perfect?" he scoffed. "You're nothing now! You might as well be dead!"
"The Calixta you knew is dead. You killed her," she answered surely.
At that Gaara started heaving again but there was nothing left in him, leaving him to spasm fruitlessly for almost a minute while the other two looked on with varying degrees of horror.
"A-Are you doing that to him?" Kankuro managed while his brother struggled to regain some sense of composure.
"He's doing it to himself," she sighed. "I have no control anymore."
"He said you could take your chakra back. That's what's messing him up so bad isn't it?" the older brother tried.
"I can't just take it back. He has to give it to me," she elaborated.
"And it sounds like that's what he wants to do! Look at him! If you really cared about him, you wouldn't let him suffer like this!" Kankuro unintentionally raised his voice.
"It won't help anything to change me back into what I was. The pain will just last longer. He'll get over it eventually. I don't know if I will and I can accept that but he shouldn't be tortured in the meantime, however long that is. This will only last a few days," she explained.
"Now you're just using me to escape from your problems!" Gaara accused.
"And you were using me to escape from yours," she offhandedly replied. "Trust me one last time. You will suffer either way. The difference is for how long," she frowned.
Kankuro didn't like her tone so he turned to his brother, "Gaara, just give it back to her."
"I would if she'd take it," he grumbled.
"She just said you could do it either way. Make her take back what's hers!" he insisted.
Gaara tried to consider what it would take to force her chakra back into her and how difficult it would be if she fought him, which she seemed intent to do, but he couldn't fathom doing something so intense and intimate to her against her will. "If she wants to suffer mediocrity…if you even manage that, then let her!" he spat.
"A wise choice. If you did force that existence on me I would not let you go. I would pester you until really did kill me. This way I can leave empty handed and try to never see you again. Then maybe we can try to forget," she suggested.
"Forget?" Gaara's heart started to race. "You want to forget me?"
"Only because it's the only thing I can do to heal your wounds now. After all, you said yourself that I'm nothing now. It shouldn't be that difficult to forget nothing."
"Who are you?" Gaara scoffed incredulously. "The woman I loved never wanted to forget anything!"
"That woman is gone now. You ate her up. All that's left is this weak, stupid little person who trembles at your very presence."
Gaara growled at her words, unable to speak because it felt like she was stepping on the ashes of what was left of his heart. As much as he would have liked to argue with her, she had a point in that he could never fully love someone who feared him.
"Serves me right anyway. I never deserved you…and then I had to go and get greedy and…it's probably better this way," she sighed.
"Things seemed better the other way, if you ask me," Kankuro chimed in.
"We can't go back to that now," she informed curtly.
"Why the hell not?" he continued.
"He won't allow it," she answered.
"But he's the one who wants to change you back!"
"But he still won't let us be together and that will cause even more pain than what we're dealing with right now," she managed.
"I would rather live without you than risk letting that demon hurt you again!" Gaara argued.
"I would rather risk having all of you than give you everything I am while you hide so much of yourself," she countered. "But you don't have to worry about that. Calixta is gone now."
"You're being cruel!" Kankuro tried to argue but neither of them seemed to listen to him. Just as he stood to do something about the situation, she spoke again.
"It was bound to happen eventually, if we were really to spend a lot of time together. It was too soon and I take responsibility for that, but why can't we learn from it, even use it to our advantage. I don't know what you remember or what Shukaku's told you but it wasn't that bad," she gave one last shot at reasoning with him.
"He'll destroy you!" Gaara growled.
"Then he won't be doing anything that you haven't already done," she bitterly replied.
"How dare you say that! I'm trying to protect you!"
"Gaara, please, this isn't getting anybody anywhere," Kankuro placed a sympathetic hand on his brother's shoulder.
Gaara tried to shrug it off but couldn't even manage that.
"I don't need to be protected. I need to be loved!" she insisted.
"Lots of people love you. You could easily find someone else to replace me, someone who won't turn into a raving demon and do god knows what," Gaara argued.
"I could find someone else but no one could replace you. I'll never find anyone like you." Then, before he could form a retort, she posed a question, "Tell me, what about Calixta did you find the most attractive?"
"Don't patronize me!" Gaara tried to lunge forward again but only made it about another foot closer to the bed.
"I mean it. It's a serious question," she replied but when she saw he wasn't going to humor her, she continued, "She was fearless, at least as far as you were concerned."
"She was also insane," Gaara grumbled.
Calixta glared down at him, "She never liked it when you called her that," she pointed out, "but she did like that you returned her fearlessness with your own."
He had been fearless but that didn't mean he didn't have his reservations. He wasn't worried about her overwhelming him because as far as he was concerned, she wasn't going to do anything that he would be opposed to anyway. What worried him was the thought of causing her harm after she had been so good to him or, god forbid, killing her. As he thought about it, he realized that what he had feared most was losing her and having it be his own fault.
"What are you thinking?" she asked him seriously.
"Don't ask stupid questions. You know what I'm thinking!" he snapped.
She gave a sad little laugh. "I can't sense anybody right now. I can hardly sense you and I'm sure that's because you hold my chakra."
He gave another growl of frustration and turned to leave. Kankuro tried to assist him but was shrugged off as his brother shambled off.
"You seemed to me like the most caring person in the world," Kankuro told her quietly. "Now I can see I was mistaken."
She frowned and looked away. "You think I should have taken it back, don't you?"
"That's what I said," he asserted.
"It would only prolong his suffering," she replied.
"You don't know that!"
"That is one thing I am sure of. I can't say how his feelings will change but I know I won't stop loving him. If I take back my chakra, he will have to suffer my heartbreak indefinitely. This way, he will only suffer so until he assimilates my chakra. Then, he can learn to forget me," she insisted.
Gaara had only made it just outside the house when he heard her voice through the window. He almost burst into Kankuro's room again in a rage. He could fathom no way that he could possibly forget her. She had left far too deep of an impression on him for that to happen. However, he just slumped over outside in the rain and cried.