Chapter 8
As soon as Gaara deposited me onto my bed I zonked out. I couldn't even move an inch and I knew that I would be waking to pain. My wrist throbbed even as I slept but I couldn't bring myself to get into a more comfortable position. I guess having someone else claim sovereignty over your mind has its drawbacks. At some point that day I woke to a sharp pain before the skin and muscle on and around my wrist began to itch unpleasantly. Too tired to do more than groan I passed back out. It could have been a dream for all I know.
It was either late that night or early the next morning that I woke up with my hand on a platform of sand hanging off the bed, the room only lit by my computer's LCD screen which was flashing pictures as it idled. I should have turned the machine off but I had the sinking suspicion that it had been on for a couple days now. When I shifted and brought my hand back to my side the sand disintegrated into nothing to reveal a head of red hair leaning against the mattress. Soft breaths drifted from a slightly parted mouth and eyes rimmed in black rested peacefully.
He is going to get a crick in his neck sleeping there. Biting my lip in thought for just a moment, I called his name. Gaara woke with a start. "You'll hurt your neck sleeping there," I felt my explanation was weak considering how relaxed he seemed while he slept.
Gaara rotated his neck and rolled his shoulders experimentally before moving to sit up further. "Sorry," his voice was rougher than usual and he sounded very tired. "I shouldn't have fallen asleep on your floor."
Before he could stand up I quickly threw the blankets off my body and tried to move to the floor only to have a wave of sand hold me down. "No, seriously. You're practically dead on your feet; I can sleep on the floor. We'll trade." Of course the obvious thing would be for Gaara to just go next door to his own bed but I figured on future inspection that we were just too tired to think clearly.
"I'm fine, Harper. I'll be fine. So I'm just going to go back to sleep." The ensuing argument isn't something that made sense then and it would make even less sense in the morning but ended in me suggesting we share the bed.
"It isn't like you can touch me anyway so there isn't anything to worry about!" I told him, very proud of my thought process and solution.
"It's hardly proper, Harper." He didn't sound too against the idea though and in the end he curled up beside me lying just far enough away that there was no sand creating a wall between us. Gaara nuzzled closer to the pillow I shoved at him breathing in slowly and letting the air out in a soft sigh. "This is surprisingly comfortable."
"Well as long as I don't wake up with sand in my hair or a crazed fangirl holding a kunai to my throat I don't see why we can't have sleep overs more often. Where I come from its not unusual. Then again casual coupling between strangers isn't unusual either…there is a bit of a moral gap between what you practice and what they do."
"Harper?" His voice was softer and so very tired. "We can talk in the morning, so please let me fall back to sleep."
Embarrassed, I slapped a hand over my mouth and nodded as he peered at me with one bleary eye. "Night, Gaara."
Gaara Point of View:
I woke up to a door creaking open sometime just before four. Even if I couldn't sense her chakra signal I would have known Temari anywhere. Like most kunoichi she used soaps and shampoos with no scent but there was still always the smell of warm sunlight and fresh wind on her.
I didn't bother moving away from Harper who incidentally moved closer to me last night and caused a small barricade of sand to spring into being. What was the point of moving when Temari clearly saw me lying here already? I would not be ashamed of being comfortable for a night; resting my head on the future seer's desk for an hour every other night was slowly becoming torture and this was much nicer.
"Gaara," she sounded concerned rather than disapproving. "Is there a reason your sand is reacting to her?"
Oh, right. "I haven't figured out why. It started acting this way roughly a month after she arrived." Telling Temari stark details was always the safest way to handle her.
"And, if I may ask, as an older sister rather than an advisor… why is there a hand shaped out of sand clinging to her wrist?" Now she sounded amused though, really, I was not. On inspection there was a hand of sand that acutely mirrored my own gently encircling Harper's wrist. In that moment I was very thankful for the sand armor I was still wearing because it blocked the blush that I could feel scorching my face. When the sand snapped back away from my bed mate and into the gourd it usually resided in I heard my sister chuckle. "I'll be in the kitchen when you can drag yourself out of bed, Otouto."
It took me several minutes to figure out how I was going to handle a situation that was perplexing me. I didn't know if there was proper etiquette in leaving a friend whose bed you had spent the night in. A part of me thought it would be polite to thank her but would it be better to wake her to do so or apologize later at some point in the day for disappearing. Then again, this was not a sexual relationship but rather a…how did she call it... a sleepover. Besides being under genjutsu was always rough on the mind, especially the first time. She would need to sleep. In the end I left a small patch of sand on the pillow she let me borrow that would be easy to dump out the window with the words 'thank you' scratched into its surface and ducked into my own room to put fresh clothes on.
Temari was indeed in the kitchen when I arrived for tea and she had a grin on her face that I strongly disliked. Ignoring her seemed like the best course of action but when she realized, rather quickly, that that was my intent she began to make it very difficult.
"Gaara, I know you know this but it is not a wise or kind thing to do to lead a lady on. You have to think, not only about what the people working for you will assume, but also what she will assume. I mean, what exactly are your intentions? You can't say that you had none whatsoever. Gaara, I know you can hear me. Gaara!" I would have answered her just to get some peace and quiet before work but Kankuro came running up like a ninken catching scent of danger and I was thusly relieved of my need for a heart to heart with a nosey sister.
"There you are, Gaara. The Jounin Council seems to have some questions about what happened yesterday and they figured since you don't sleep very often they could catch you now. I think they want you thrown off by the timing, but…" Kankuro's gaze shifted past me and to Temari and when I glanced over my shoulder she was making a face reminiscent of a fish caught in a net.
"Temari, what exactly is...?" Temari was looking at me like she had never seen me before.
"Those weren't conditions you could sleep in. It was too loud, too bright. Shukaku would have devoured you but you were fine. Gaara… What is going on?" The concern in her voice was something that I was weak against. Sometimes she tried to fake such tones to get information from me but now was not one of those instances.
Giving her a soft smile I gave a heavier than usual sigh. "I will explain after work, but I must ask you to refrain from explaining the situation to Harper. For now, if you could lead me to whichever chamber the Council is in for this meeting I would be grateful, Kankuro." I didn't miss the fact that my sister was right behind us and I was sure she would dog me all day to remind me of my word. Such things were lower on my list of cares than she would have liked right now but between a former student trying to kill a woman I seemed to have made friends with and the tailed beast sealed in me taking a bit too much pleasure in intruding on my personal life my concerns were chock full of unpleasantness. Even then the thing weighing most heavily on my mind was an unproven concern. One that, if true would either change my world or devastate it further because I couldn't touch her.
The meeting went smoothly as did the day that followed. Temari was a constant presence all day and by dinner, which Harper was in charge of today, I was beginning to lose my patience with her pointed sighs and dire glares.
"What exactly is that?" Temari's question broke my reverie and left me staring at a table of confusing foods. There was a bunch of flat brown circles that seemed almost like bread, hard shells shaped like a long 'u', a bowl of what looked like beef chunks and a plate full of lettuce, tomatoes, and onions. A small bowl of something rather pungent and atrociously yellow that appeared to be shredded….something… sat near the edge of the table between two much smaller containers of a thick white cream and a chunkier red sauce.
"Taco night." Harper stated so proudly that I almost laughed.
"And," Kankuro moved closer to the table as if it were an enemy, "what is a taco night?"
"A night where you eat tacos…"
"And a taco is?" Temari pressed cautiously.
"A kind of food. It's not going to kill you, it's really good. All I am missing is the refried beans and the rice but I couldn't figure out the seasoning for yellow rice and I didn't learn refried beans yet." And she was off on a tangent about the type of food she could have made and would have made if she only knew how.
Harper took time to give the names of the food we were unfamiliar with, cheese, sour cream, salsa and tortilla wraps and shells. She told us how to make tacos and watched us in amusement as Kankuro and Temari debated the merits of different ingredients and whether hard or soft tacos were better. It was something I had never seen them do at a meal and they seemed to be enjoying themselves.
"Are you not gonna try, Gaara?" I had yet to move to the table not because I wasn't curious or unwilling to experiment but because the whole experience was new to me. My family wasn't afraid of me anymore but we never had fun together. As things were turning out I was really going to miss her. "Gaara?"
"Sorry I was just ruminating. What do you recommend?"
Harper Point of View:
Dinner was a success and even Gaara had seconds. He was a soft shell kinda guy it seemed where as Temari and Kankuro enjoyed crunchy shells. They weren't as good as the shells at home and the cheese while good had a long way to go before I would consider it perfect but even just for these three it was nice to bring a bit of my old home to this new one.
Gaara seemed distracted throughout dinner; distracted and almost sad, but I couldn't guess why. My only hope, that he would come talk about it, seemed irrational. Who was I to the Kazekage that he would come talk to me about something bothering him? But somehow, at one in the morning he came into my room with a small, tired smile.
Giving him a grin I asked, "Care for another sleep over or is this official business of some sort?"
"Well, nothing about you can be official business yet so I guess I will join you and talk for a bit." He seemed weary and his smile became sad again but he walked over with grace to sit on my bed. "I don't know what to begin with."
"How about you get comfortable first, since this is a sleep over." I was trying to be charming but he just huffed at me before reclining.
"It's about your Kekkei Genkai. We found a solution that seems to be the only answer but after discussing it with Temari and Kankuro, we decided that after I give you the explanation you are free to reconsider staying here." At my nod he took a deep breath and began. "There is a kinjutsu, a forbidden technique, which goes by the name: Twin Mind Jutsu. When used this technique will permanently link your mind to another's by swapping a small amount of chakra between you and the caster. It, fundamentally, would result in telepathic communication and the user of the jutsu would be able to keep your chakra balanced while you dream simply by keeping his or her chakra system stable. In all other ways the two chakra pools would be separate. It would not be possible to take energy for either member of the link. However the kinjutsu is forbidden for a reason; a very good one.
"There needs to be a certain compatibility between the user and the recipient. The compatibility is measured in the way the two people feel about each other; if the participants match well enough at the usage of the Twin Mind Jutsu the jutsu would take. Strong emotions of a similar sense from both participants will allow the chakra to blend and synchronize whereas emotions without enough compatibility will cause the person with the strongest feelings to absorb all of the chakra as well as the mind of the other. They would be driven mad and would either need to be killed or would commit suicide therein releasing the other mind back to its original body. However, because the other person inhabited a mind that went mad they too would go insane." Gaara paused and looked at me with consideration.
"But once the link is formed I would be alright, right? So I just have to bond with someone, problem solved!" The look in Gaara's eyes made it very clear that that was not the case.
"The emotions used for the jutsu must be pure. They cannot be formed with the intent to use them for anything. Aside from the first link there is another trial. Six months into the jutsu a reaping will occur. The bond that formed the jutsu will be tested and, at this point, if the base emotions that allowed the link in the first place have not further synchronized the same fate will occur. This second time the absorbed mind would not go insane because it would be absorbed by a mind that it was familiar with but there have been no cases where both people have survived, nor has there been a case where even one person remained." Gaara sighed one of his near silent sighs and closed his eyes. "It would be wise to go back now, while you can."
"Is there even anyone I can link with? Even to the first stage? Would that person be willing to link? I'm not going to go home but I won't condemn someone to death…That wouldn't be right. If no one feels confident about it I don't mind dying alone!" I spoke slowly, hesitantly even.
Gaara turned his head and gazed at me for a long time, as if he were gauging my motivation and any real desires he might see lingering in my eyes. It was almost like he was silently asking why I was so willing to die but those words were never uttered. "There is someone who would match but there are…complications. As things stand that person cannot complete the jutsu and I have no way of forcing the issue."
There was silence as Gaara let me digest that information. There was hope but it wasn't a good, solid hope. There was someone but there wasn't. I didn't want to link to someone if it meant their days were numbered but I didn't want to die. There was nothing I could do but I wouldn't go home.
"I try to have faith that things always work out." I told my friend softly. "I dreamed about you for months when I was a little girl and after the last time I never got to remember another dream. I don't know if it seems naïve or if maybe you have a similar saying here but, 'Everything happens for a reason.' I am just going to have to trust whatever reason it was that brought me here because there has to be one. Little girls don't dream of people they don't know. No one does. It's a proven fact that if you haven't seen someone you won't dream of their face but before I ever saw that anime or read the manga or anything I saw you." I wanted him to understand that as crazy as it seems I truly believed that I was supposed to be here. "And whoever the person is, where ever I know him from; whatever our connection is…whatever problem there is, it will work out because it is supposed to."
Gaara's eyes softened as he focused on mine. It was almost like he didn't have anything to say in the face of such determination. In honesty the words were bolder and surer than I felt but I didn't want to be a burden to this trio of siblings that I considered friends. He didn't have to know that though.
"Perhaps things will work out," he conceded before closing his eyes slowly. "If you don't mind the sleep over portion of the evening can now commence. Listening to you speak with such heart wearies me."
A small smile cracked my face. "Good night Gaara. Just remember the deal is off if some random kunoichi is holding a kunai to my vitals when I wake up."
"As I recall you also do not want to wake up with sand in your hair." Gaara reminded me sleepily. "Now, kindly be quiet."
With all the new information running in my head about the Twin Mind Jutsu and its consequences I didn't put the few pieces available together nor did I have the wherewithal to realize that Gaara sleeping in my room again when his was next door was at the very least abnormal. I was just happy he was around even with all the problems crashing into me. The fact that I was keeping the collective damage my bloodline was doing to me from him also didn't register as I fell asleep with a yawn.
A/N: I feel super guilty about not updating this in forever but in my defense my other story has been getting just as neglected I promise. Anyway lots of technical information in this chapter about the titular Jutsu if it's confusing I can re-explain next chapter or even completely revamp this one so let me know. Also, don't hate on taco night.