Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Ice Picks and Hand Grenades ❯ From the Darkness Comes... ( Chapter 9 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Disclaimer: Jutsus don’t kill people. Fanfiction authors with mental problems do.

A/N: Oh, and by the way… the last chapter didn’t have a “next time” simply because I felt like scaring the shit out of all of you. I’m a horrible person *grin*

CHAPTER NINE: From the Darkness Comes…

“Hey, look, the lazy bastard’s finally coming to, Kankuro!” Who is that? A woman? I can’t see anything but white… the tips of my fingers… are tingling… I don’t like this place.

“The fuck?”

“Don’t fucking curse at me, Nara! I came all the way to this dingy little hellhole to visit you, I’m sure as hell not going to sit here and take it while you start spouting out curses.” This voice…

“Te-Tema-ri?”

My face whips to the side, suddenly spreading a warm, stinging sensation all across my flesh. I hear a woman shriek, no, not Temari, someone else, someone older…

“Temari-san! What do you think you’re doing?”

“C’mon grandma, he’s not that fragile and you know it.”

“WH-WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?”

“But he’s injured, Temari! Give a guy a break!” A man, too? What is this a circus? Am I some sort of fucking exhibition on the horrors of deadly jutsu? I groan, irritably, raising a hand up to my face… shit… hurts to move… like my muscles are in shreds…

“Fucking hurts…”

“I’ll bet it does,” Tsunade spits, though I still can’t quite see all her facial expressions… “What were you thinking, Shikamaru? How unbelievably stupid can you be?”

Kankuro groans in the background…

“Don’t know what you’re talking about…” I blink a few more times… a little better… still blurry, but definitely an improvement.

There’s a tapping, someone’s foot tapping. Not sure whose… “From what I hear, not only did you ditch your mandatory teacher’s meetings, but you got in a serious fight with Shino, in the middle of a town, where there are people… the both of you caused a LOT of damage, and…and…”

Shit she’s gonna blow a fuse. “This is Konoha?”

Temari laughs, crossing her arms over her chest. “So you still have a couple brain cells left. That was almost a week ago, genius. When I got here one of the first things I saw was you slung over Lee’s shoulder, all kinds of nasty looking shit sort of just falling out of your mouth…”

“We thought you’d been injured in a mission…” Kankuro sits idly beside his sister, looking as though he wants to leave as soon as possible. “So when we found out you got in a fight with the Bug Boy…”

“It didn’t make any sense.” Temari flips a lock of hair from her face. “What was it? Were you guys fighting over a girl? If it was Naruto I might have thought it was a bowl of ramen or something, but…”

I let out a slow breath. It hurts less that way. “No. He just pissed me off.”

“Uh-huh…” Temari points a skeptical eye towards me. “I guess when you’re feeling better I’ll have to beat it out of you. But until next time…”

Temari and her brother rise to their feet, turning toward the door. “Don’t feel so bad!” Kankuro shouts from the doorway. “Shino beat me, too.”

o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.

Every two hours I’ve faded in and out of the living world. Every time I awaken, I feel as if I’m expecting something… something that maybe, just maybe will be there when I open my eyes. Every time I fall back into unconsciousness… well, the only reason I even know I do is because of the way I awaken… and the way the sun is positioned differently from my window. Times, like now, when I’m completely lucid, I sit up in my hospital bed, despite the pain… and just try to keep my chest from caving in. it hurts to breathe… blink… sometimes it even hurts to form coherent thoughts.

And to think, I’d already been here, completely unconscious for an entire week and the simplest things still hurt. I must really be in bad shape… I don’t want to think about it… but I really should. If it turns out I’m going to hurt like this my entire life… I’m going to have to find a new profession.

After all, the nurses here won’t describe my condition as anything more than ‘stable’. I’d have a talk with Tsunade, but ever since the first time I awoke-this morning, I believe, I haven’t seen a glimpse of her. But, being Hokage is very busy work, I can’t say I blame her. Now that I’m alive and breathing, odds are, I’m not on top of her priority list. Maybe I’ll send her a message tomorrow, if I remember by the time tomorrow comes about.

And it’s upsetting… Chouji and Ino haven’t come by, and while I really shouldn’t care… I do. I know they’ll come by eventually, but I guess you can say it’s pretty lonely here, with nothing but the company of airhead nurses who won’t even let me open my window for fear of ‘contamination’, or that I might ‘get the other patients sick’… troublesome. I’m the only one here. They’re just being ridiculous.

So, yeah. In other words, I’m not a hermit. Everyone just likes to think so because I’m always off staring at the clouds or such. You know, I used to watch clouds with Chouji all the time.

If it didn’t hurt so much to move… I’d just get up, get out of this place and, I don’t know, stargaze on the roof. But no… I had to do something so stupid. I don’t even know why I did it. Why I turned around… and looked Shino in the eye. This has got to be one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done in my life.

Much to my surprise, there’s a gentle knock at the door before someone pushes it open… not bothering to flick on the lights. They must be trying to cover their bases, alerting me should I be awake, but not waking me should I be asleep… Well, I suppose it is after visiting hours… a hand grips the edge of the wooden door, tentatively, though it does not move from there. I shuffle onto my elbows, ignoring the ripping pain as best as I can.

“He’s probably asleep, you know.”

“I don’t care. I said I wanted to come here, so I’m not leaving until I see him.”
“Fine, suit yourself.”

The hand slips from the doorway as the door pushes open, letting in very little light from the dim hallway. The figure pushes the door shut behind him, barely becoming visible when no longer haloed by the lamp in the hall. A frowning face greets me, eyes reflecting white even as they are shadowed by loose locks of hair.

“You’re awake…” Kiba murmurs, taking a few hesitant steps in my direction. I notice a forced smile pulling onto his lips as he catches my gaze.

“Yeah.” Is that the best I can do? I really am a lazy bastard.

Kiba scratches his cheek, idly, his eyes turning up in evidence of a smile, though I still can't see much in the dark. “I’m glad to see you’re doing all right. Last I’d heard you were out of critical, but still in a coma. I’m… glad.”

“That’s more information than I’ve gotten since I woke up.” I grunt irritably, resting two fingers on my temple with my thumb linked under my chin. “I’m just getting what I deserved I guess.” He takes a seat on the bed beside me, bouncing the mattress twice. “Kiba, there’s a stool for a reason, you know.”

He smiles, crookedly, “Yeah, but that’s where you sit when someone’s on the verge of death, and I already did my fair share of that in the lobby when we brought you back here. Tell ya what… it’s no way to spend the remainder of a vacation leave.” A hand reaches out, awkwardly placing itself over the hand still lying prone across my stomach. “Besides, the cushion or lack thereof hurt my ass.”

I fall back against my pillow, drawing my arm across my forehead and a single eye. “How sweet of you, sacrificing the wellbeing of your ass for me.”
He lets out a halfhearted chuckle. “Yeah.”

A long silence follows. Kiba notes his hand still lying atop mine and withdraws it, quickly. Well now. Isn’t this awkward. I hate having to be the one to break a silence. It’s not generally part of my character, nor do I usually care when enveloped in silence. But this is different… somehow…

“Uh… did anyone happen to divulge the details of my condition to you? I can’t get shit from the nurses, here.”

He shrugs. “No. Nothin’. They probably said something to your parents, though.”

“Hmm.”

“Yeah.”

I pause, rather uncertain of how to continue. This is hard, for whatever reason. My mind has enough time to dance around several conversational points before I come to the numbing conclusion that I suck at talking to people. “So, uh…” Point twenty three? Twenty seven? No… My voice creeps pensively from my throat…“How was your date with Shino?” Good one, dumbass.

“Fine, fine.” He pauses again. “He’s ah… fine. Outside the door actually.”

“Really?”

“Uh, yeah. He’s really sorry, but he’s too scared to come in here and see you.”I shake my head. “I see. You two a couple, now?”

Kiba’s voice grows increasingly shaky and I begin to wonder if maybe I’m prodding too much. Kiba sucks in a hard breath and stops like his brain will work faster if he stays still. “No… I mean, yes, well… maybe…”

“It’s only been a week. It’s okay that you’re uncertain.” I’m trying to be gentle, but I’m sure it’s not coming out that way. Especially since his eyes look mortally injured, despite the mask he wears on his face without even knowing it. Either way… I didn’t think it was… that bad… “…Right?”

Kiba shakes his head, more like trying to clear his mind than negation. “I don’t know what’s fucking wrong with me.”

He looks as though he’s been stabbed through the chest. “It’s not my fault, is it? I wasn’t meaning to put tension between you guys.”

“Well… I guess I just can’t get over the fact he nearly killed you.”

“Murderous intent in the heat of passion, can’t say I blame him, even if he is going against one of the first rules of shinobi.” I… can’t be mad at Shino. After all, I was treading on his ground in the first place. “But I'm no better... I-I felt so weak.” I don’t know why I let that slip from my lips. “I felt like I was going to die. Like it was inevitable… but…”

“Shikamaru…”

“& #8230;but I was so fucking scared. I kept repeating it over and over… ‘I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die’… there was nothing else. No life flashing before my eyes, no redeeming epiphanies… just… ‘I’m gonna die’… over and over… and darkness… everywhere!” F-fuck…

I feel arms wrapping around me, a finger wiping away a tear I didn’t know fell. “Shh… That’s normal, trust me. I take it this is the first time you nearly died, ne? I’ve been there, four maybe five times already… and it’s always so damn humiliating. I-I understand. If only-if only it hadn’t been Shino…”

“He’s smart… he outsmarted me ten to one…” The truth fucking hurts. My chest is burning, inside and out. I hate this.

“Yesterday…” Kiba lowers his voice, considerably. “…he came onto me. I mean like more than the little kisses he’s been stealing all week. He wouldn’t take no for an answer and I ended up kicking him in the jaw. Probably another reason he doesn’t want to come in here and see you.”

“That bad?”

“Oh yeah… the whole right side of his face looks like a busted eggplant. I mean, he’s not so smart.”

I really want to just bust out laughing, but I doubt Kiba would forgive me if I did, so I stifle it while it’s young. “Glad you didn’t manhandle me like that.”

He pauses to speak, but apparently thinks better of it. “Y…yeah.” He pauses for another moment, letting a second awkward silence linger in the nearly stale hospital air. “Umm... Are you feeling okay, now? Lee said you were convulsing like crazy when he carried you back, and Sakura-chan was saying something about you screaming in pain the first couple of days you were in here. Hinata and Neji went in to see you too, but nobody will really talk about it beyond that…we… weren’t allowed to see you before two days ago…”

“My muscles ache…” Especially my chest, for some reason, “breathing sucks… my chakra is like nil…” Actually now that I really think about it, I feel like a lump of shit… “I feel like I’ve been training for three days, nonstop, you could say.” No, actually I feel like I’ve been shredded to pieces and forced back together, to be nice about it. And my ego’s been crushed. No, decimated, annihilated, completely withered.

“Feel better.”

“Is that a wish or an order?” I laugh bitterly to myself at the matter-of-fact way he stated that, even if the act does make my diaphragm feel like it’s ready to implode.
Kiba drops both hands onto the bed, and I feel eerily aware of the physical wave the motion sets into action. “Both.” He leans in as if by instinct with slightly parted lips, closes his eyes gently and places a soft kiss across my equally parted mouth. I didn’t realize how chapped my lips felt, or how well his settled into mine. Damn… he’s hot. It’s not really my place to say that anymore, but I can sure as well think it. He lingers but for a moment before pulling away, departing…an aching softness to his every move. “That was bad of me…molesting a sick person.” Kiba scratches his cheek, and I think I can just barely catch a tinge of blush on his cheeks above his tattoos… “Especially with Shino right outside the door.”

I let out a labored sigh. “Then for your own sake you should stop it before it becomes habit.” Dammit… sounds like something Sasuke would say… I sound like a total jerk today. “Sorry…” My voices drops nearly and octave, and my posture starts to slacken.

“It’s okay, Shika-kun. You’re right.” He touches my cheek briefly before pushing himself off the bed. “I mean… it was just a fling, right?” He stops halfway to the door, a quiver suddenly evident in his voice. “I’m not supposed to get emotionally attached to someone I can’t have.”

I turn my head to cover my open eye with my forearm. I can’t think… don’t want to think. I sit motionless as Kiba gently shuts the door behind him. I know what he said… I know what it means. I’m not that naïve… but, at the same time, I know I can’t accept it. The moment I lost that battle to Shino, I not only lost any remaining shred of pride, I also instantly lost any right to feel for Kiba. “Sorry, Kiba…” I whisper into the surrounding darkness.

Not that he can hear me, anyway…

sxkxsxkxsxkxsxkxsxk

A/N: This chapter felt really short when I wrote it… but it seems to be just as long as most of the others. I don’t really know how I feel about this chapter, maybe too choppy? Messy? Ugh… Shika’s not exactly taking it easy, either. I don’t know if this chapter really could have been any better, as much of a mess as he is.

NEXT TIME:

A minute ray of sunlight. The warmth of a face from one’s past. Gently formed words on the lips of a friend. Simple things really. They break your fall just enough so you can stand up, brush yourself off, and continue on your way.

Marvelous, no?