Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Kindred ❯ Day One, 2AM ( Chapter 1 )

Disclaimer: Naruto is the brainchild of Kishimoto-sama, and I am not worthy. I merely borrow the manga's characters and situations, and make no money off of them.

 

Foreword and warning: This fic could be considered a sequel to Diplomatic Relations, three years down the line, though you don't need to read DR to read this, and I didn't bother with all the continuity details. It's darker than DR, though; it's not a comedy, and it's certainly not meant to be fluffy or cute. It's from Gaara's POV - one hell of a challenge - which meant I had to write from the POV of someone emotionally abnormal. He's got little empathy, he thinks in strange ways, he's missing almost all social conditioning. Keep that in mind as you read, because I don't point it out with bag fat lines, and at some points there's a lot of subtext.

Now, the real warning: There are a couple of OC kids in this fic (no, this is so very much not an mpreg, don't hurl things at me). Now, the words `OC kids' in a fic summary have sent me running for the hills before. I normally follow the movie-maker's motto of `never work with kids and animals'. Let me reassure any reader who hasn't already bolted: these kids aren't Special. They are not fantastically brave; they do not have that wonderful wisdom of children that will make them say wonderfully wise things in all their beautiful innocence blah. I've tried to write believable children, in a realistic if traumatic situation. Note that I've had some experience with kids this age, but I don't use much of it. This is a world where talented six-year-olds can become Chuunin and kill people. Obviously kids in Naruto-verse mature a bit differently than we do.

And once more, this fic is NOT cute n' happy n' 'kawai! babies!', okay? No cute cliché baby scenes...just occasional morbid humour and some R-rated Gaara-Lee goodness, maybe NC17 if the lemon bunnies push me that far.

Finally, on with the fic.

 

 

Day One, 2AM

 

Gaara entered Sunagakure like a thief in the night, having left his small escort out in the desert the day before.

`Surprise inspection of the defences' would have made a good reason for sneaking into the village unnoticed; the sort of small, harmless self-deception a normal human would use to justify getting out of a boring obligation to do what he wanted to do instead. Since Gaara was human in only the most technical of terms, he didn't bother with any pretence. If he'd come in through the front gate, he'd have been greeted by the officer on duty, who would have woken up the Captains and the Council, and Gaara would have spent the next twenty-four hours studying reports on what had happened during his three-week diplomatic mission. The Kazekage did not want to deal with that tonight. Gaara bypassed the gate and headed straight home, silent as a ghost, noting only in passing a few minor flaws in the patrols he'd have to address.

These dusty streets, high crooked houses and the souls they contained were more important to him than his own life; they were his, and his existence was bound to them. Tomorrow, his duty would take up all his attention once more. But he wasn't in the right frame of mind for paper-shuffling tonight. He'd just spent three frustrating weeks negotiating with politicians and he'd not even been allowed to terrorize them all that much. Gaara believed that properly maintained fear - enough to keep people honest and peaceful, while not enough to provoke a panicked attack - was an essential tool of statecraft. He considered it just as important as peace negotiations and the necessary alliances to keep the balance of power. Temari, Suna's chief diplomatic envoy, had finally asked her Kazekage to go home a bit earlier than he'd originally anticipated, because she thought he needed a break.

That was his sister's way of saying 'Gaara, please leave before you give one of these old coots a heart attack by staring at them like that'. But she was right; Gaara needed to rest.

Every Shinobi had a private place where they felt safe, where they could stand down, be at ease and reflect in peace. A haven where they could pause and remember who they were and what they were fighting for. Gaara's haven was Lee. Who would, if the gods of the desert were kind to their son for once, be quietly sleeping in their shared bed, waiting for him.

Since it was past two in the morning, Gaara would make every effort not to wake him. He liked to watch Lee sleep anyway. Lee slept the same way he did everything else, with utmost determination and spirit. Gaara enjoyed watching him go at it full-bore, mouth open, limbs sprawled, eyes tightly shut; it was pleasing and restful. And when Lee woke up tomorrow morning to find that Gaara had slipped into bed with him, the look of surprise and delight in those big black eyes would make three weeks of tedium and irritation disappear in an instant.

Duty could wait until tomorrow. Right now, he needed to curl up next to a brave, kind, honest man who loved him, and unwind.

That had been the plan. But when Gaara turned into the courtyard, he saw that the light was on in their bedroom, a warm glow making its way through the cracks in the shutters.

Strange. Maybe news of his early arrival had preceded him after all. Lee would wait up for him in that case. Which would mean another activity than watching Lee sleep, but since it was an activity that also rated high on the Pleasing and Restful scale, Gaara didn't mind.

His step quickened as he made his way discreetly into the Kazekage's residence. Which had, at some point in the past three years living here with Lee, stopped being 'the Kazekage's residence' to Gaara - words imprinted with ugly memories of his father - and become 'their home'.

He went straight to the bedroom, slid open the door-

Gaara stayed frozen for a short second, a strangely human moment of surprise. Then he stepped into the room and silently shut the door behind him. His small bag of essentials dropped soundlessly to the floor, freeing his hands, while the cork in the gourd made the only noise in the house, a faint creak as it eased itself up from the mouth of the container.

Green eyes coldly and analytically raked the room, noting every detail in an instant, every small thing that was out of place, every clue. There had to be a rational explanation for this.

There had to be some sort of reason why Lee was not waiting for him in their bed, despite numerous little indications about the room that he was here and not off on a mission. There had to be a reason why Lee was, in fact, nowhere to be seen, and no sense of his presence in the house now that Gaara actually strained his senses to the utmost to check.

And if he really stretched, Gaara could imagine that there was some reason for the presence of two small children sleeping in the bed in lieu of his lover.

Gaara's eyes narrowed to cautious slits. He didn't like surprises. In his youth, most surprises had tried to kill him. He approached silently and examined the intruders.

The first one he scrutinized was young. To Gaara, anybody who couldn't fight, defend themselves or reach his belt-line was 'young'; he didn't bother trying to figure out ages beyond that. He simply classified them as 'non-combatants' and asked that their parents keep them out of the way while he defended Suna.

This particular non-combatant had scruffy brown hair and a roundish nose in a pale, pinched face, but what drew Gaara's attention were the eyebrows. Very characteristic eyebrows, even for such a small specimen. You didn't find many of those around.

Gaara's first flicker of surprise was long gone by now; at present he was reacting as he'd been taught to at a cruelly young age. His Shinobi senses picked out every detail, his mind stored them, his instincts took over. Though not entirely; Gaara had learned to curb those instincts over the years, since they could be too dangerous for those around him. These were no longer the wild days when he could kill indiscriminately rather than take a chance. But he kept those instincts handy, along with his own brand of cold, calculating intelligence. Gaara had never fully grasped the ability of thinking like a normal human, and when he tried, he was never very good at it, so in times of crisis he stuck to his instincts still, and they were telling him to get answers.

The child was fast asleep, curled up in a tight ball on the bed, a corner of the coverlet drawn over him. He was dressed in one of Lee's green t-shirts, huge on him; it was slipping off his shoulder. The boy was grasping the rather dirty blanket that was wrapped around the other child, whose age Gaara put at 'even younger'. Barely more than a baby. The infant also had fine brown hair of a lighter shade, and unremarkable eyebrows. The whole face was unremarkable, round and baby-ish. Gaara didn't examine the creature much beyond a simple check for traps, tricks and henges; this one was obviously too young to talk rationally and give Gaara the explanations he required. He focused on the older child, who should be more loquacious.

Gaara unceremoniously kicked the bed frame.

The baby did no more than twitch at the jarring blow; the older one started awake. He sat up slowly, rubbing his eyes with his hands. He looked even smaller like that; Gaara hoped he could talk in a way that made sense to an adult who wasn't a parent. Probably too young to be in the Ninja Academy, unless he was true genius material.

"Hmmm who `re you?" the child mumbled, still half-asleep. "Where's Lee?”

That effectively robbed Gaara of his first two questions. So he just stared at the boy, waiting for some other query, statement or reaction that was sure to come. In contrast to Lee, who was all action and go-get-'em attitude, Gaara was as patient as a desert trap-spider; motionless and passive in appearance. Attacks would crash and break against the Sand while he watched, unblinking, observing the moves, weaknesses and very essence of his enemy until he was ready to strike. Then instinct would take over and crush and kill, quickly and efficiently.

Though that was probably not going to be called for tonight.

The child blinked up at him, waking up a bit further.

"...Are you the friend…he said…his roommate?" He'd stumbled over the last word as if it was unfamiliar.

Gaara's face was set in stone. The child's question was considered and filed away for future reference.

"No." Gaara's instincts never bothered with lies or prevarications, unless there was some specific benefit to them.

The child was staring up at him; brown eyes went from Gaara's face to the gourd over his shoulder and back to Gaara's face again, particularly his hair and eyes.

"Who- who-" The boy's voice was a sudden squeak.

"Gaara."

The kid's eyes went completely round. The family resemblance to Lee was even more marked now.

"G-Gaara of-of-..."

"Gaara of the Desert."

The child gaped at him for three long seconds, then he gave a strangled yelp and belted off the bed. He stumbled and hunkered down into the corner near the headboard, which was a stupid thing to do, as it blocked off any chance of evasion or escape. If it turned out that this kid was attending the academy, Gaara would have a word with his teachers.

The kid didn't seem aware of his strategically inadequate position. He was staring at Gaara, his eyes still perfectly round with a mixture of fear, which Gaara was used to, and utter disbelief, which was something new.

"Who are you?" Gaara asked, now that he had the kid's undivided attention.

The child gaped at him.

"Name," Gaara said, in a voice that had Jounin twice his age obeying him without thinking.

The kid flattened himself against the wall and spluttered a series of syllables. Gaara played the sound back in his mind and picked out the word `Chiro', as well as the expected `Don't hurt me' and `go away'. Gaara wasn't going to comply with the latter request; he reserved judgment on the former, but he hadn't hurt anyone that young in over nine years, he had no intention of starting again unless it was really called for.

"Rock Chiro?" he guessed, trying to tone down the intensity of his interrogation now that the child was cooperating.

The look of utter amazement on the kid's face answered that question.

"Y-you k-know my-" The kid looked torn between terror and incredulity. “L-leave me alone! *Go away!* I'll call my-“

Then it was as if the boy hit a wall.

He suddenly fell on his butt behind the bed and hugged his knees to his chest, his face oddly blank and pasty white, eyes blind and staring.

"Go away," he said, his voice suddenly brittle. "Go away."

Gaara hadn't been impressed by the shrieks, but he almost obeyed that request on the strength of some dark instinct he didn't recognize.

"I…my..." The child - Chiro - stared up at him, and then a bit of colour returned to his cheeks. "Go away or I'll call Lee!"

He scrambled up on his knees. On the bed, the baby had started to make loud whimpering noises, obviously disturbed by the other child's shouting, though the small eyes were closed and Gaara wasn't all that sure the kid was awake.

“Lee's coming! So go away!” the older boy shouted, with all the power of a cornered mouse. "Leave me alone! You drink blood! You drink blood and you're a demon and you- you kill people and keep their blood in a jar! Go away! *Don't hurt my brother*! Or I'll tell Lee and he'll kill you!”

And at that the baby started crying, a weak, whiny noise, eyes still screwed shut.

Gaara ignored the infant and stared at the older sibling. His mind ticked away relentlessly, absorbing all available information.

This Rock Chiro had a Konoha accent, unsurprisingly. Probably the son of Shinobi; Gaara's experience with children was severely limited, but reason suggested that it was unlikely the offspring of civilians would bandy death threats about quite so easily at that age. The child knew Lee; he knew Lee was powerful, dependable and would defend him against a monster. The boy had some survival instincts after all.

Gaara's mind had also processed the other words and sorted them into their place. Blood. Demon. Killer. Not sure where to fit the jar...must be a garbled reference to the gourd. The boy had thrown that in his face as if the very knowledge would somehow protect him from what he thought Gaara would do. Which was stupid. Knowledge was a good weapon, but only if you had the strength to use it.

The boy had backed up against the wall, staring fixedly at Gaara. Something in Gaara's silence had gotten through to a more primitive part of his mind. That odd disbelief and the original fright had turned to the kind of fear that froze small animals to stillness at the hunter's approach.

Gaara formulated his next question, now that the child had stopped being so noisy - though he doubted he'd get an answer at present. Gaara knew fear; he knew when you could use it, and when you had pushed someone too far to get any reasonable answer.

Then he heard the front door of the house open.

That had better be Lee. If it's not, Gaara decided, with a touch of his old self simmering behind his control, whoever it is had better have a damn good reason for not being Lee, or he's in for a worst night than I've had so far.

Fortunately, the light, sure step bouncing up the stairs to the master bedroom was very familiar. Gaara turned expectantly towards the door.

It opened slowly with assassin-like stealth. Gaara's eyes narrowed, but he could feel Lee's presence now, soothing to him even in the present circumstances. Nonetheless, old instincts made him step back in utter silence, aura cloaked, out of immediate line of sight. A finger of Sand curled against the cork, noiselessly easing it out of the gourd by a fraction.

Lee stuck his head through the door in complete silence and with over-abundant caution, eyes on the bed, apparently trying to not wake the children. He blinked and looked startled at seeing only the baby, who'd stopped crying apart from some small whining noises, eyes still closed and apparently all but asleep again.

"Chiro?" Lee straightened up quickly as he spotted the older boy. "What happened, what are you doing over there- Gaara?!"

Gaara was treated to the look he usually got from Lee when they hadn't seen each other in awhile. An enthusiastic muddle of the delighted and tender and happy and loving. Gaara felt something unwind in his soul. As long as he had that...he had at least one good reason to exist.

"You're back! I didn't expect you until the end of the week. It's great- oh."

Lee winced as he glanced from the children to Gaara.

"I see you two ran into each other," he mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck ruefully. "Right. Gaara, please let me introduce my cousins, Rock Kichiro and his younger brother Aki. Chiro, please bow; this is Gaara, the Kazekage of Sunagakure."

The boy's wide eyes went from Gaara to Lee and back to Gaara again and then retuned to Lee as if he just couldn't believe his cousin hadn't killed the monster yet. Gaara wasn't all that sure Chiro - or Kichiro - had actually heard anything that Lee had said.

Gaara turned to Lee as well, who was making `bow already' prompts at Kichiro.

"Explain."

Lee hesitated and he glanced briefly at the children. Then he took Gaara's elbow solicitously and shepherded him from the room.

"Let's talk later. You look tired. Do you want something to eat?"

Gaara shook his head.

A look of concern edged its way onto Lee's expressive features as he scrutinized Gaara's face, his stance.

"Oh…Do you want-"

"I'll go take a shower," Gaara said abruptly, turning away.

There was a small scamper behind him when he was halfway down the hall to the bathroom. Gaara glanced back.

The kid burst from the door and grabbed Lee's arm by a handful of uniform, jerking down with all his weight, which didn't amount to much compared to what would be required to bring Lee to his knees. The child's face was a mixture of pale and splotchy red, his eyes liquid and wide, but he wasn't crying, Gaara noted with a flicker of surprise. He'd caused young children in Suna to run away sobbing by merely glancing at them a few years ago.

"What?" Lee asked gently, falling into a crouch at the insistent tug.

The boy put one hand to his mouth and whispered urgently into Lee's ear.

"Huh? Yes, this is Gaara. This is the, um, roommate I was telling you about. He lives with me. Actually, it's the other way around, I live with him."

Gaara reached out to slide open the bathroom door, his damn mind still processing. Roommate. He would have to ask Lee later why he thought it necessary to lie to the child. Lee had always been bashful about their relationship, generally referring to Gaara in public as his friend or partner; occasionally letting the word `boyfriend' slip out and then he'd go all red. `Roommate' was a new one, though, and Gaara was starting to know enough about the intricacies of Lee's phraseology and behaviour to guess this was not a figure of speech for `lover' this time.

Gaara caught a glimpse of the scene in the hallway mirror near the bathroom. Lee had stood up and taken a step to follow him. If Gaara was used to the way Lee talked by now, Lee had become acquainted with the subtleties of Gaara's silences, and he looked concerned. But small hands tugged at him urgently again. Lee fell back into a crouch.

Gaara closed the door on more whispering- barely whispering now, it sounded more like agitated words that were trying to be a cautious whisper.

"What? No, of course I won't make him leave- Chiro, didn't you hear what I just said? He lives here."

Gaara lifted off the gourd, put it on the ground, slipped off his belt and coat. The fall of cloth on tiles covered whatever noise the child made, but he heard Lee's voice faintly through the door, sounding puzzled: "I don't understand what you're saying, speak slower and stop whispering. Calm down. I'm sorry if he startled you; I didn't expect him back until Sunday."

Gaara undressed quickly, leaving the clothes in a heap near the door, while frantic whispering punctuated Lee's following words.

"Yes, he is, I told you…I don't-huh?…*What?!*"

Gaara paused as he reached for the faucet.

"Kichiro, don't ever say that again! That's-...Did you tell him this? What did you say?"

The splash of water into the basin covered the rest. Gaara put the ceramic container down with a loud click on its tiled shelf and picked up the soap and brush. He wetted himself down and washed with the minimal loss of water he'd been taught as a child by conscientious if nervous caretakers. He thought he heard Lee's voice when he stopped scrubbing off the sweat and dust from the road, but it was a distant thrum, he couldn't even make out the tone. It sounded like it was coming from the bedroom now.

Gaara stepped into the shower to quickly rinse off, the patter of water nearly covering the creak of a door opening. The dirt and soap trickled down his body and into the drain, but the weariness stuck.

He was drying himself when the door to the bathroom slid open behind him. He glanced into the mirror. Lee was staring at him, eyes a bit wider than usual and mouth turned down at the corners.

"I brought your robe," he said softly, holding up the long brown yukata that Gaara wore around the house when he wasn't expecting anybody and couldn't be bothered to dress right away.

Gaara nodded his thanks, still without turning around, and towelled his hair.

The soft worn cloth of the robe settled on his shoulders and Lee's arms slid around Gaara's upper arms, lowering them gently.

"I'm so sorry, Gaara," Lee whispered in his ear, pressing himself against Gaara's back.

Gaara didn't say anything; he wasn't sure what Lee was apologizing for. Presumably for bringing the children here without informing him?

"I...I didn't know...I'm sorry Chiro said all that stuff to you. He won't do it again."

Oh. That.

“It was a bit of a surprise,” Gaara admitted. “I hadn't heard anything like that in awhile. Where was he told this? In Konoha?”

He was a bit worried about the state of the alliance between their villages if that was what they were teaching their children.

He caught a flicker of pain in Lee's features in the mirror's reflection, but the Jounin shook his head in a wide and exaggerated gesture.

“He didn't hear that nonsense from any of the adults; I swear it. You have many friends there now, you know that. And those who don't know you personally, well, they don't need to make up stupid tales to know you're a powerful Shinobi and respect you for it.”

“So where did he hear it?” Gaara asked, turning around in the circle of Lee's arms to examine him.

Lee looked at him as if he couldn't quite believe Gaara could be inquisitive rather than hurt. Lee had gotten as close to Gaara as anybody ever had, but there were times even the Jounin didn't understand him. Gaara had heard a lot worse than that in his life. The boy's words were nothing more than a distorted echo of a true past anyway, there was no point denying them or letting them hurt him.

Though it had been awhile since he'd had that part of his life thrown in his face; perhaps it had stung a bit after all. He had to acknowledge it when he felt a small twinge ease beneath Lee's warm soothing fingers, as the Jounin pulled the robe around Gaara with a bit more petting than was technically necessary.

“He told me he heard it from the other children, and they don't mean it either, not really. Chiro's just a kid; he's not even five yet, he doesn't know better.” Lee's smile was timid, as if still not sure of Gaara's reaction. “Kids do these sort of silly things all the times. The scares and dares.”

“The what?”

"Stories. Scary stories. When your parents are Shinobi, you hear about all these powerful, dangerous ninja, and the stories get wilder with every kid who tells them. When I was Chiro's age, we had a tale about Jiraiya-sama - except we didn't know it was Jiraiya, I only connected it to him later. But we told one another about the Toad Master who'd have his familiar swallow you whole and digest you slowly over centuries-"

"That's actually a real jutsu."

"I think that was only a coincidence," Lee said dryly. "The complete absence of women and booze in the tales about him meant that we were very misinformed. And- here, this will show you. Sarutobi-sama, who was the nicest person you could meet; we used to say that if he caught you in the Hokage tower, he would tie you into a knot and seal you into a tiny pot and keep you there for a year."

Gaara looked at him dubiously. "Sarutobi was completely harmless."

"He was a great and kind man," Lee corrected a bit stiffly. Apparently 'harmless' was not the word he would have chosen for his former Hokage. "But you see, we'd tell ourselves these things, or worse, and then we'd dare each other to go and sneak into the tower. We'd pretend it was an S-rank mission. It was- it was for the thrill. It was scary, but it was fun. When you're really young, you do stuff like that. Kids make up tales about any famous and powerful Shinobi they hear about, and the further away and more mysterious that person is, the wilder the tale. Didn't you hear stories about Tsunade-sama when you were young? Maybe not, I bet those only started after she became Hokage. But you should hear what they say in Suna about her."

Gaara's eyes widened. "What do they say about the Hokage of Konoha in my village?" he asked sharply.

"Listen to the kids play from time to time," Lee answered with a grin. "They say she's a beautiful sorceress who can heal with her right hand, but if she touches you with the left, she'll drain up all your life-force and turn you to dust, and that's how she keeps her eternal youth and beauty. The braver kids keep trying to get me to admit that it's true-"

"And you allow them to say that?"

"It's a game!” Lee exclaimed, answering Gaara's stern question with an easy grin. “It's not real. It would probably amuse her, so don't worry about it. And please forget what Chiro said; it's just as great a nonsense. You gave him one hell of a fright, by the way," Lee added with a chuckle, gently knotting Gaara's belt. "You're not supposed to actually meet the people in those kinds of stories, not for real. They're make-believe; the older children scare the younger ones with them, but they all enjoy them in a way. Didn't you have stories about made-up monsters when you were a kid?”

There was a short silence.

"It wasn't made up. I was the monster."

Lee's face had fallen.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, fingers gently brushing Gaara's cheek.

Gaara shrugged. "I think I understand what you mean. The children of my generation had something a bit more real to fear-"

"Gaara..."

"So did the adults for that matter. But you're saying that when you don't have an actual monster in the village, children make one up?"

"You're not...yeah, I guess that's what I mean." Lee's shoulders slumped. There was an odd weariness about him. Gaara noted it carefully, and all the other small unusual signs; the way Lee hadn't plunged into his usual protestations when Gaara termed himself a monster, for example.

Something was wrong.

Gaara was curious: why would children deliberately try to frighten themselves, when fear was something to avoid? Gaara had gone on a six-year rampage to simply bear the fear of constant assassination and give meaning to his pointless life. If he could have done without it- But this was not the time to try to figure out one more mysterious aspect of the humanity he'd mostly missed out on. Lee's reactions were worrying him.

"So what are these children doing here?" he asked directly.

Lee sighed. "Let me make sure Chiro went back to bed like I told him. Okay? Um, why don't we try reintroducing you two tomorrow, when he's calmed down a bit. I hope he gets back to sleep; I made him drink some more of that draught Shizune gave me. Aki was already asleep again when I left the bedroom. As long as he doesn't need a change- let me go check on them. Then let's go get you something to eat and I'll explain."

Gaara noted the unhappy twist to Lee's mouth and decided he could wait a few more minutes. He nodded and headed towards the door-

A hand caught him gently by the upper arm, and Gaara was pulled back into a long hug and a welcome home kiss that put him in a slightly better mood when he finally broke away and made his way down to the kitchen.

 

TBC...

 

Next week, either the epilogue of DR, if I've finished it, or the next chapter of Kindred, since it's already written and only requires polishing.