(log) → naru/gaa → "IT'S CENA BATTLE TAIMU" part 001
WHO? Uzumaki Naruto (redwhite-impact) and Gaara (love_akane).
WHAT? Naruto's been acting as a Lookout in a store that sits over an entrance to the Underground. Gaara has bad(?) timing.
WHERE? Lucky Star Convenience Store in Cena.
WHEN? August 6, 1800 HOURS.
WARNINGS? Violence, cussing, cross-dressing, boy-kissing. :/
This was beyond what could be considered reasonably insane. Reasonably insane, you see, was an insanity that harmed or threatened those around you. Unreasonably insane was an insanity that harmed or threatened yourself. It was borderline stupidity.
But Gaara was bored.
And boredom was reason enough to put yourself in harms way.
Besides, he was used to doing dangerous things - the scars that littered his pale, sallow skin were a testament to that fact. This hardly constituted as 'dangerous' in his book, though. The red-head had been border jumping since his banishment to Cena all those years ago. Usually it meant a trip to Celo, maybe a visit to Ceno on those odd days he felt like stealing some new reading material - laced in government bullshit as it was. As of late, though, he had taken up residence in the White District, and had found life there to be... rather peaceful, actually.
Which was exactly why he was returning to Cena.
Once an exile, always an exile. It had been ingrained into his very being at birth. He had practically been bred for deceit, trained to wander. Gaara held no ties and had no sentiments. It was almost freeing to be nothing but a wisp of smoke, a leaf on the breeze - neither coming, nor going, but somehow trapped in between.
He straightened from his crouch, body hidden in the shadows, though the Arceo who patrolled this particular part of the wall had already moved on. In about three second, the officer manning the spotlight on the tower above would rotate the light about eighty degrees to the left, then swivel it around until it was once again trained on a spot about ten degrees to the right.
Gaara had been watching.
He paused, waiting those three seconds for the light to trail in his direction, watching disinterestedly as it inched closer and closer towards the shadows he was hiding in. It paused a few inches from where he was standing, then started to move back in the other direction. Gaara followed, staying a few steps behind, letting the shadows of nighttime conceal his black-clad body. A few more steps in, then he turned to the wall, black-rimmed eyes staring up at the towering monument, analyzing this testament to the government's power.
The red-head smirked, grabbing hold of a jutting brick and hefting himself upwards. Another one rose just a little ways above his head, so he reached for this one, using his other hand to keep balance. A glance to the left determined that he had about ten seconds before the spotlight started to make its way over towards him again.
Hn. Easy.
A few more misplaced bricks and some amount of physical effort later, and Gaara hefted himself up and over the wall, landed deftly in a crouched position on the other side. Bright jade eyes scanned left and right, determining he was safe, before he straightened up and slunk over towards the closest alleyway he could find. He wouldn't feel completely safe until he could make it a few blocks over, though, so the red-head began his trek through the back streets and deserted alleys of Cena, completely disregarding the fact that danger could be lurking at every street corner.
Two blocks, then three... When he had traversed five blocks deep into the Red District, Gaara let his shoulders relax a bit. Good. Everything went smoothly. Getting in had been fairly easy. He had heard getting out was much tougher, though, but didn't dwell on this thought for long. He wasn't planning on leaving anytime soon, anyways.
He rounded another corner, blinking a few times when he realized his throat was dry - he blamed it on that wall, really. Swallowing hard did nothing to alleviate it, so he decided, in a bout of normalcy - those were becoming more common, nowadays -, to step into the little grocery store he knew to be down this street and buy - or steal, whichever fit his mood at the moment - something to drink.
The little bell rang above Gaara's head as he pushed through the door, scanning the crowd for any potential threats. Two average-sized men, a woman, and the cashier were all that greeted him, and inwardly marking them off as relatively harmless, the red-head stepped inside and moved towards the back of the store, staring at a selection of drinks, hoping to find something besides whiskey or hard alcohol.
Naruto didn't see Gaara come in, which was good, seeing that him flipping out at a time like this would not exactly be ideal. It had been a quiet day thus far which didn't usually bode well; hence why he was crossdressing like being a girl would promise him life. He felt like a poison apple, a crisp white shirt flat over his nonexistent curves beneath an overly accentuated silk vest and a plaid skirt like a high-rise building - it was a nasty naughty schoolgirl's outfit, almost, excepting that no one in Cena had the gall to be Catholic and Naruto was wearing all of his ear piercings, a false lip and eyebrow piercing, orange leather army boots over his thigh-high, laceup socks, and a long, lavender wig that cascaded in a waterfall down his back.
It was a good thing Gaara saw him but didn't know it was him and that he did not see Gaara but knew there was a new customer in the store. These were both very positive things, not that either of them knew it at the time; Naruto was somewhat preoccupied with the cherry lollipop in his mouth, not that it really had any flavor anymore. He was practicing his patience and had been all morning, grabbing candies from out of the grocery's bins and putting them in his mouth and waiting to see how long it took for the nervousness to get to him so he would bite it.
So far, on this one, he'd lasted three hours. So it wasn't so much a lollipop as it was a mildly cherry-flavored stick of white paper in his mouth. He chewed on it, irritation spiking up his forearms as he moved back and forth uncomfortably. He was pretending to flick through a magazine at the cash register closest to the front of the store, while actually surveying the whole place. A plastic nametag on his shirt read "Nonipara".
Deception was all part of being a Lookout and everyone in the store who actually knew him for what he was behind those bright golden contacts knew it.
Eiri, dressed like a boy, nudged him from behind and he managed to narrowly avoid starting violently.
"Anything?"
"Nothing," Naruto drawled, simply, his voice lazy and an octave higher than it normally would've been.
His eyes shifted from shelf to shelf, looking for something simple - like a bottle of water. Beer, energy drinks, more beer... Since when did Cena suffer from a shortage of water? ... Well, clean water he could understand, but still. Gaara growled, running a hand through blood red locks, his bruise-black eyelids a sharp contrast to the paleness of his face. Annoyance twisted his mouth into a scowl, and the slightest hint of childishness seeped out to make him cross his arms in what could have been mistaken for a pout.
But Gaara didn't pout.
He just happened to show his frustration through body language.
The familiar weight of his pocket knife seemed to soothe his ravaged thoughts. If all else failed, he could always hold the store manager at knife point until they showed him where they had stashed the water. Though, such an act seemed a bit... superfluous. It might be better to just try another store.
Gaara shrugged lightly - 'No, I don't feel like killing that worthless bag of flesh,' he had to remind himself inwardly as his gaze traveled towards the cashier. Past a row of chips, an aisle of unrefrigerated drinks, and he paused in front of the candy. No, sweets didn't appeal to him, but off in the far corner he spied a crate of bottled water - warm, but did it really matter? He nodded in satisfaction, glancing behind him to make sure the other occupants in the room hadn't drawn some form of weaponry - paranoia was a way of life for the red-head. A flash of violet hair made him pause - Anko? - but the size and features were too different to be the overly violent woman.
With another shrug, he turned back around.
"Hey, do you need something?" Eiri's voice wasn't really deep enough to be masculine - it was deep enough, sure, but not deep enough, if you knew what Naruto meant when he said that. She had the pitch of a guy but not really the same vernacular tendencies and it showed. Naruto swatted her in the side.
"Leave him alone."
"You haven't even looked at him."
Naruto closed his magazine abruptly and looked at her as if she were the stupidest person in the world and intentionally trying to bust them open. Eiri stared right back at him defiantly and he pointedly moved himself so that he could see around her at the back quarter of Gaara's head.
He jolted a little bit as he fingers suddenly numbed.
Shit.
He folded himself back, kept his voice steady, tried not to flip out.
"There, I looked. Now leave him alone."
"Look, if he-"
Naruto stood up abruptly and put his magazine down - he bit down on his lollipop stick hard enough to crush part of it completely flat and tried, tried so hard not to let his paranoia get to him. His wispy silicon hair stuck to the foundation on his cheek and he pushed it back with more attitude than he'd previously thought possible and cocked his hip to the side. His manager (the one that wasn't actually his manager but should've been had he actually been working at the store and not just situated there because of what was underneath it) was watching him with an unreadable expression.
"Fine."
He moved past her and out of his cashier's box and out into the store, immediately feeling vulnerable. The store was all windows and there were more snipers around than ever - he was jumpy, uncomfortable, suddenly irrationally angry to be put in this situation. (Maybe it wasn't Gaara. Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him. Maybe he was just being paranoid.)
Oh no, that was definitely Gaara.
Definitely. He'd know that face anywhere.
(And know he was stuck praying that he was wrong about today, that the quiet was just a coincidence.)
"Hey," he said, sauntering up, loose as he could manage. "You new here...?"
Something pricked at the edge of Gaara's senses and made him freeze up. It was that odd sixth sense - that strange feeling you got when someone was watching you, and you just knew it. His muscles tensed, left hand clenching into a fist while the right deftly slid into his pants pocket. A few steps forward towards the water bottles, and he had his knife clutched in his right hand, fiddling with the edge of the blade. The prospect of a fight made his blood pound in his ears, and he had to slice a thin line along his thumb just to keep that incessant noise from overtaking his senses. The worst thing you could do in a situation like this was get overly excited.
But Gaara was good at control. He had perfected it over time, and found little techniques and ways to keep that inner voice in line.
Still, he was being watched, and he needed to do something about it.
Freezing suddenly, the red-head tilted his head to the right, glancing over his shoulder at the other occupants of the room. One man stood off to the side, alone, fiddling through a stack of adult magazines. The other man and a woman were closer together, and were obviously talking to one another. When the man glanced up and caught Gaara's eye, the insomniac instantly knew who had been watching him.
He turned around slowly - his movements very methodical, practiced -, seemingly ignorant of their stares. Several courses of action ran through his mind - all included the use of his knife, and some form of bloodshed -, but a sudden voice at his right shattered those thoughts.
Snapping his gaze towards the violet-haired woman, Gaara gave her a blank, disinterested look. He was used to prostitutes on the street propositioning him - they were vulgar, and obviously desperate -, but he had neither the money, nor the desire to fullfill their wishes. Odd, though. He had thought most whores worked the streets - not the stores. Maybe he was wrong?
Or maybe this person was just an employee, and it was their job to welcome new customers?
Either way, it was of no interest to him, and so he just stared on - turning the full force of that cold, black-rimmed gaze on this stranger...
... And trying to ignore the odd familiarity seeping up to tickle at the edges of his skin.
Naruto sighed (always in character) and let his eyes sway, roll up to the ceiling and back down to the water in Gaara's hand.
"Water. They stopped shipping it, like," he drew out the 'k' sound, looked over Gaara's shoulder as if he was thinking about something, looked back, "three weeks ago? Which you would know. ...'fyou weren't new here." He walked past the redhead and waved him forward.
"C'mon."
No.
His entire air just exuded of the word. The way his hand tightened around the water bottle - had it really been three weeks since Cena had seen fresh water? -, how his shoulders tensed, and his eyes slit in suspicion. Who was this woman, to think he would follow after her like some trained dog? She was a rather bold one, to say the least - a rather stupid one, to say the most.
But still.
He couldn't shake that familiar feeling.
Gaara looked the stranger up and down again, trying to find some semblance of similarity between this person, and the people he knew. ... And he came up with nothing.
Growling in annoyance, the red-head straightened up a bit, turning around to fully face the stranger; and though his demeanor had already said it many times over, he couldn't help the growl that escaped past his lips.
"No."
Naruto groaned and spun around - his skirt swished a little and he tugged at, panic and irritation growing in him. He scowled, his expression dark and twisted, torn between revealing himself just to get Gaara to move (which probably wouldn't work) and just staying a stranger to him (which would be less complicated but probably even less effective). He felt cramped in these clothes - he wanted to tear them off and go streaking, he wanted to break under the pressure.
This is exactly why he'd told Anko to stay put.
(Why no one ever listened to him he swore up and down he didn't know.)
"Look, you wan' water? Or not." He put it to him plainly, hoping to shed the tenseness from his shoulders fast.
He swallowed. Yes, his throat was still dry. But that's what the bottle in his hand was for. Giving this stranger a confused look, Gaara tilted his head to the side, letting the water dangle carelessly in his hand.
"I have water," he stated bluntly, body still tensed and ready to spring, though he had relaxed just a bit in the precedings. She wasn't a threat. And if she was, Gaara would kill her soon enough.
This thought settled comfortably in his stomach, giving him that solid weight that slowed his adrenaline-induced bloodstream, allowing him to move more freely, and without the choppy motions of someone high-strung.
That cold gaze again. That even colder voice.
"Leave me alone."
Naruto sighed heavily and folded his arms across his not-chest.
"You really are like this with everybody, aren't you?"
He didn't give him any time to process the comment - he was almost a little upset it had fallen out of his mouth in the first place - and instead pointed somewhat boredly at the bottle in Gaara's hand. "Look, we don't really know what's in that. One o' the reasons nobody's touched it. Water never expires, so I figure I take you to some that's actually for sure water so you don't have to figure out the hard way if that's what's really in there."
He shrugged and took his hands back. "For customer service reasons of course."
Gaara blinked.
Once. Twice.
The suspicious feeling still wouldn't go away, and now he was loathe to ignore it. Letting his hard jade gaze fall on the woman once again, he scrutinized over every detail, and came out feeling... wholly unsatisfied. Still no likenesses to anyone he knew, and yet that feeling.
Growling in annoyance, Gaara dropped the water, his eyes following the plastic bottle as it rolled a little ways away. There was a dip in the floor, then, in that direction. He could see how the old, dirty tile seemed to shift at a barely noticeable angle. It didn't concern him, though, and so that cold glare of his snapped back towards the woman trying to lure him in the back.
"Why have it sitting out front, then?" If it wasn't water, if it was potentially dangerous, then a generally decent store would have the common sense to throw it out. If this was a hit mark, and they were out to get somebody, then it made little to no sense for them to profess 'customer service' - a trait wholly... unnatural, here in Cena.
Gaara may have been out of touch, but he wasn't out of tune.
"Because they're watching it," Naruto said, plainly, offering no explanation.
He didn't bother asking who 'they' were. "You're... an idiot," he said instead, face completely blank and devoid of emotion.
Nonipara did something very unladylike, then, and snorted.
"Yeah."
He shifted his hips and turned again.
"C'mon."
There. He had heard that sound before, and remembered it distinctly. But to put that person's face to this person's body...
"I don't follow idiots." A pause. "They run into things." He was completely serious, of course.
"Yeah, I know. Pretend you think I'm smarter than I am." Nonipara's voice was reedy and aloof in ways that Naruto's was not, and he had to press a lisp into the back of his mouth where it didn't belong, drawing out the ending consonants of his words. He chewed on the lollipop stick, pressing down against the heels of his boots. "Let's go."
"Why?" Now this was progress. From complete silence, to grunts of disapproval, to straightforward questions? This stranger should be proud of their accomplishment. Not that they'd ever know they actually accomplished something.
"If I followed you, then I would be an idiot." Straight-faced, stubborn, resolute. It was the Sabaku way, and the only thing that tied his family together. That, and blood.
"No, if you don't follow me," Naruto said, every word precise, "you're going to be an idiot. You want water, I'm showing you where it is, lets go."
He almost dropped his voice on the last two words, he said them so forcefully.
(Almost.)
Gaara scrunched up his nose, tilting his head downward to gaze up at the other through hooded eyes. He swallowed - nope, throat still dry -, and continued to stare at the other suspiciously.
"... Make it quick."
"I can only make it as quick as you move 'tteba- ...yeah."
He swung them back around a corner and down an aisle to the back where the refrigerators were - they were crowded with alcohol, like a huge stadium full of people that looked like bottles and Naruto opened one strategically, looked up and down, 'tsk'ed to himself, closed it, opened the one next door and reached all the way behind the beers to lift out a large, clear plastic bottle of water, which he handed to Gaara.
"Better," he said, as if only to himself.
And then, he dropped the false voice altogether, and put his hands on his hips, speaking lowly so that only Gaara could hear him.
"Now you get to tell me what you're doing here."
He reached for the water, twisting open the cap, and downed about half of the cool liquid before settling his gaze back onto the violet-haired woman. She was looking at him oddly, and this made Gaara pause, tense, and lower the bottle from his lips.
When a male's voice came out, the red-head was shocked enough to take a quick step back.
He didn't register the words at first.
When he did finally focus in on what the other was saying, it became glaringly apparent that the insomniac's gut instinct had been right all along, and that the person standing before him was none other than-
"Naruto?"
"Tsss!" The faux-femme hissed loudly through his teeth, hand automatically clapping over Gaara's mouth. (He realized that he probably shouldn't touch Gaara so suddenly and removed himself just as fast, instead putting a finger to his lips and shaking his head violently.)
"I have twenty seconds before they realize I know you. What are you doing here, Gaara, now, I don't have time for this, we're expecting visitors, and not the good kind."
The sudden touch made Gaara flinch back, his back banging loudly against the far wall, head turned to the side as if he could somehow get away just by melding in with the scenery. It didn't work, but it didn't matter anyways, because Naruto was off of him in a matter of seconds.
"You..." he started, then lowered his voice at the blonde's silent warnings. He was too shocked to uphold that stoic barrier he usually kept between himself and the rest of the world. "You brought me back here."
Too shocked, even, to properly process the other's question.
"Gaara, when did you get here, what are you doing here, what hell were you thinking?"
Eiri's voice traveled across the store. "Para...?"
Naruto twitched, simultaneously trying to leap in and out of his own skin, his eyes desperate.
"Gaara!"
Well. That was specific enough. Naruto's antsy demeanor only served to put Gaara on edge, though, and when someone from out front called back some meaningless word, the blonde only seemed get even more high strung.
"I just crossed the border," he answered, ticking off each question in his mind. "I'm here to kill something-" - to see if you're still alive - "...I was bored."
Naruto was terribly, horribly, sorely tempted to simply kiss him and let him be staggering and angry and confused for a while, but since he wasn't that brand of cruel (nor any brand, really) he didn't.
"You're really lucky we're standing right here," he breathed after a second, "or I'd punch you so hard you'd wake up back in the womb."
"Para!"
Naruto hissed between his teeth. "Let me touch you."
(No asking. No "may I." It was an order, not a request.)
He nearly let slip the words ghosting through his head - But... my mother is dead. Not out of sadness - never out of that. Just... fact. He let it pass, though - it was just Naruto, after all. He didn't know what he said, really. Or maybe he did...? The question was disconcerting.
Another shout from the front, and the blonde's desperation peaked.
His next demand was a testament to that fact.
Gaara... Gaara didn't touch. The mere thought made him recoil - made his nose scrunch up again, and his fists clench at his sides. The one holding the water bottle squeezed the plastic to near bursting point.
"No." There would be no argument about this one. Gaara was adamant.
"Gaara, for the love of God, fight me on anything but this any time but now."
He faltered.
Damn Naruto for making him second guess himself.
"No," he stated more firmly, as if saying it again would keep him from complying.
"Gaara!"
Naruto eyes furrowed into his.
(It wasn't the blue that held the power. It was the eyes themselves.)
"Why?" He needed a reason, dammit! Gaara didn't just sidle up to someone and touch them whenever they pleased. It was odd, and he didn't like it.
"I just need you to trust me."
Oh. Gaara froze, blinking rapidly, as if he could get rid of the sight of Naruto staring up at him with those eyes - those words spilling from his lips. Surely he didn't really expect the insomniac to trust him, right? That would be foolish, utterly impossible, and completely-
Gaara's body moved of it's own accord. He took a slow step forward, eyes widening at his own action, though he didn't retreat - just yet.
"I don't trust you." But he was there- standing right in front of Naruto - and that was permission enough.
The blonde made a strangled sound of frustration and grabbed him by the wrist just as Eiri rounded a corner in all of her emasculated glory. She looked between them analyzing everything too fast (the way Naruto did) and putting everything together like building blocks and then shaking it and trying to make everything make sense. Naruto pushed a few of his not-bangs behind a heavily pierced ear.
"Para, what the hell are you doi-"
"Go to the front of the store."
Eiri hissed automatically, much in the same way he had done only a second ago, as if they were both similarly startled by his voice, and Naruto hissed back at her. "Now!"
She whirled away from them and Naruto looked first at his own hand and then at Gaara's face.
"How many are tailing you, do you even know?"
Bright jade eyes shifted from Naruto's hand, then over to the stranger who walked in on them. The glare he shot this person's way was piercing, though it went unnoticed. They were gone in a moment, and Gaara wondered why, if the blonde was disguising himself for some reason, he would suddenly have no qualms with speaking in a strikingly masculine voice.
Turning back to Naruto, Gaara tried to ignore the shiver running down his spine from such close contact. The only time he touched was when he fought, and even then it usually didn't last long - the victims would die not soon after he initiated a fight. It had taken him months - months - to get used to Anko's hindering death holds, and even then he didn't like the way it felt. If he was going to be touching someone, that someone needed to die soon after.
This contact felt... different, though. It made his skin shiver, rather than crawl.
"Three were. I lost them." 'Do you not trust my capabiliti-' Trust. There was that word again. Gaara pointedly ignored it, and instead focused his attention on Naruto.
"... Let go."
Naruto would've lectured him on that but a sudden feeling of being watched (not unlike that which had put Gaara on such an edge not fifteen minutes before) made his posture stiffen. He stilled completely, looked over his shoulder, his nostrils flaring and his face completely blank for his- (What emotion was this, even?)
He gripped Gaara's wrist tighter before coming back to himself and relaxing his hold, even as the muscles of his forearms visibly tensed up.
Nonipara's voice overshadowed his own.
"C'mon."
He pulled at Gaara softly, urging him forward.
Gaara froze, watching Naruto intently as the blonde's grip on his wrist tightened, instead of loosening like he had told him to do. It took some effort, but he managed to quell the growl threatening to tear from his throat, and settled on an annoyed scowl instead. He didn't like that shivering feeling - not. at. all. -, and Naruto refusing to let go wasn't helping matters.
The use of that feminine voice again did not escape the red-head's notice. He tilted his head to the side in a questioning manner, but didn't say anything.
It wasn't his business that Naruto enjoyed playing dress-up.
Gaara resisted the gentle tug at first, still disgusted - and just a little bit shocked - that he was being touched at all. He would have protested again, if he knew it wouldn't be futile; but, sadly, that was not the case. Glancing around wearily one last time, the red-head gave a slow, discreet nod, and followed.
Naruto dragged him to the front of the store, it's entirety having silenced and turned (upon reaching the cash register) to stare back at the people therein. His lips pursed and Eiri shook her head at him.
"You tell them all to go home and they're going to Stormtroop our asses."
Naruto said nothing, and his manager twitched a little, voice coming out grisly. "Unless they're already going to Stormtroop our asses." The little tweed man eyed Naruto suspiciously before turning his thin, browned eyes on the hand that was still twisted around Gaara's wrist, letting them trail up the redhead's arm to his face. Rolitz (that was his name) studied him for only a second before giving a grim heave.
"I know you."
Naruto turned to give him a look. "No, you don't."
Rolitz twitched again and retreated to his shadows. "Whatever you say, boy." (The way his voice curled, it was doubtful that his words were genuine. No one present looked like they really cared.)
Naruto let himself back in behind the cashier's box, dragging Gaara with him and finally releasing his forearm in lieu of pointing just below his waist, at where the bags were kept in a silent order to sit. (It was evident that he expected to be adhered to.) Eiri retreated to her own work station, looking unhappy and not taking her eyes from Naruto's face.
Gaara did, in fact, know the man, but didn't see a point in acknowledging him. He was annoyed at how controlling Naruto was turning out to be - the red-head could decide for himself who he did and did not know, dammit! - but could sense the desperation in the other's face, his very presence.
Following compliantly - or as compliantly as a half-deranged psychopath with homicidal tendencies could -, the red-head nearly sighed with relief when Naruto finally released him. Crossing his arms, Gaara glanced down at the dirty bags, then back towards the violet-haired 'woman'.
It was evident in the disbelieving look Gaara shot his way that the insomniac wasn't planning on complying anytime soon.
Naruto was agitated - it was evident - and he was about to grab Gaara by the wrist again and try to throw him in the direction he wanted when he and everyone else in the store suddenly snapped to attention. Everyone's backs went stiff and Naruto stood very, very still, eyes riveted on the doors.
And then, like a clock set into motion, people began to retreat down the aisles and there was nowhere for Gaara to go and so Naruto stepped in front of him, blocking him from view.
The automatic doors opened with a swish and three men with armor bearing the insignia of the capitol entered. Their footsteps echoed against the tile, manufactured boots thick and threatening. Their guns were obvious, slung across their backs in their holsters.
They bothered to hide nothing.
The store was completely still, except for them.
Go to Part 2.
WHAT? Naruto's been acting as a Lookout in a store that sits over an entrance to the Underground. Gaara has bad(?) timing.
WHERE? Lucky Star Convenience Store in Cena.
WHEN? August 6, 1800 HOURS.
WARNINGS? Violence, cussing, cross-dressing, boy-kissing. :/
This was beyond what could be considered reasonably insane. Reasonably insane, you see, was an insanity that harmed or threatened those around you. Unreasonably insane was an insanity that harmed or threatened yourself. It was borderline stupidity.
But Gaara was bored.
And boredom was reason enough to put yourself in harms way.
Besides, he was used to doing dangerous things - the scars that littered his pale, sallow skin were a testament to that fact. This hardly constituted as 'dangerous' in his book, though. The red-head had been border jumping since his banishment to Cena all those years ago. Usually it meant a trip to Celo, maybe a visit to Ceno on those odd days he felt like stealing some new reading material - laced in government bullshit as it was. As of late, though, he had taken up residence in the White District, and had found life there to be... rather peaceful, actually.
Which was exactly why he was returning to Cena.
Once an exile, always an exile. It had been ingrained into his very being at birth. He had practically been bred for deceit, trained to wander. Gaara held no ties and had no sentiments. It was almost freeing to be nothing but a wisp of smoke, a leaf on the breeze - neither coming, nor going, but somehow trapped in between.
He straightened from his crouch, body hidden in the shadows, though the Arceo who patrolled this particular part of the wall had already moved on. In about three second, the officer manning the spotlight on the tower above would rotate the light about eighty degrees to the left, then swivel it around until it was once again trained on a spot about ten degrees to the right.
Gaara had been watching.
He paused, waiting those three seconds for the light to trail in his direction, watching disinterestedly as it inched closer and closer towards the shadows he was hiding in. It paused a few inches from where he was standing, then started to move back in the other direction. Gaara followed, staying a few steps behind, letting the shadows of nighttime conceal his black-clad body. A few more steps in, then he turned to the wall, black-rimmed eyes staring up at the towering monument, analyzing this testament to the government's power.
The red-head smirked, grabbing hold of a jutting brick and hefting himself upwards. Another one rose just a little ways above his head, so he reached for this one, using his other hand to keep balance. A glance to the left determined that he had about ten seconds before the spotlight started to make its way over towards him again.
Hn. Easy.
A few more misplaced bricks and some amount of physical effort later, and Gaara hefted himself up and over the wall, landed deftly in a crouched position on the other side. Bright jade eyes scanned left and right, determining he was safe, before he straightened up and slunk over towards the closest alleyway he could find. He wouldn't feel completely safe until he could make it a few blocks over, though, so the red-head began his trek through the back streets and deserted alleys of Cena, completely disregarding the fact that danger could be lurking at every street corner.
Two blocks, then three... When he had traversed five blocks deep into the Red District, Gaara let his shoulders relax a bit. Good. Everything went smoothly. Getting in had been fairly easy. He had heard getting out was much tougher, though, but didn't dwell on this thought for long. He wasn't planning on leaving anytime soon, anyways.
He rounded another corner, blinking a few times when he realized his throat was dry - he blamed it on that wall, really. Swallowing hard did nothing to alleviate it, so he decided, in a bout of normalcy - those were becoming more common, nowadays -, to step into the little grocery store he knew to be down this street and buy - or steal, whichever fit his mood at the moment - something to drink.
The little bell rang above Gaara's head as he pushed through the door, scanning the crowd for any potential threats. Two average-sized men, a woman, and the cashier were all that greeted him, and inwardly marking them off as relatively harmless, the red-head stepped inside and moved towards the back of the store, staring at a selection of drinks, hoping to find something besides whiskey or hard alcohol.
Naruto didn't see Gaara come in, which was good, seeing that him flipping out at a time like this would not exactly be ideal. It had been a quiet day thus far which didn't usually bode well; hence why he was crossdressing like being a girl would promise him life. He felt like a poison apple, a crisp white shirt flat over his nonexistent curves beneath an overly accentuated silk vest and a plaid skirt like a high-rise building - it was a nasty naughty schoolgirl's outfit, almost, excepting that no one in Cena had the gall to be Catholic and Naruto was wearing all of his ear piercings, a false lip and eyebrow piercing, orange leather army boots over his thigh-high, laceup socks, and a long, lavender wig that cascaded in a waterfall down his back.
It was a good thing Gaara saw him but didn't know it was him and that he did not see Gaara but knew there was a new customer in the store. These were both very positive things, not that either of them knew it at the time; Naruto was somewhat preoccupied with the cherry lollipop in his mouth, not that it really had any flavor anymore. He was practicing his patience and had been all morning, grabbing candies from out of the grocery's bins and putting them in his mouth and waiting to see how long it took for the nervousness to get to him so he would bite it.
So far, on this one, he'd lasted three hours. So it wasn't so much a lollipop as it was a mildly cherry-flavored stick of white paper in his mouth. He chewed on it, irritation spiking up his forearms as he moved back and forth uncomfortably. He was pretending to flick through a magazine at the cash register closest to the front of the store, while actually surveying the whole place. A plastic nametag on his shirt read "Nonipara".
Deception was all part of being a Lookout and everyone in the store who actually knew him for what he was behind those bright golden contacts knew it.
Eiri, dressed like a boy, nudged him from behind and he managed to narrowly avoid starting violently.
"Anything?"
"Nothing," Naruto drawled, simply, his voice lazy and an octave higher than it normally would've been.
His eyes shifted from shelf to shelf, looking for something simple - like a bottle of water. Beer, energy drinks, more beer... Since when did Cena suffer from a shortage of water? ... Well, clean water he could understand, but still. Gaara growled, running a hand through blood red locks, his bruise-black eyelids a sharp contrast to the paleness of his face. Annoyance twisted his mouth into a scowl, and the slightest hint of childishness seeped out to make him cross his arms in what could have been mistaken for a pout.
But Gaara didn't pout.
He just happened to show his frustration through body language.
The familiar weight of his pocket knife seemed to soothe his ravaged thoughts. If all else failed, he could always hold the store manager at knife point until they showed him where they had stashed the water. Though, such an act seemed a bit... superfluous. It might be better to just try another store.
Gaara shrugged lightly - 'No, I don't feel like killing that worthless bag of flesh,' he had to remind himself inwardly as his gaze traveled towards the cashier. Past a row of chips, an aisle of unrefrigerated drinks, and he paused in front of the candy. No, sweets didn't appeal to him, but off in the far corner he spied a crate of bottled water - warm, but did it really matter? He nodded in satisfaction, glancing behind him to make sure the other occupants in the room hadn't drawn some form of weaponry - paranoia was a way of life for the red-head. A flash of violet hair made him pause - Anko? - but the size and features were too different to be the overly violent woman.
With another shrug, he turned back around.
"Hey, do you need something?" Eiri's voice wasn't really deep enough to be masculine - it was deep enough, sure, but not deep enough, if you knew what Naruto meant when he said that. She had the pitch of a guy but not really the same vernacular tendencies and it showed. Naruto swatted her in the side.
"Leave him alone."
"You haven't even looked at him."
Naruto closed his magazine abruptly and looked at her as if she were the stupidest person in the world and intentionally trying to bust them open. Eiri stared right back at him defiantly and he pointedly moved himself so that he could see around her at the back quarter of Gaara's head.
He jolted a little bit as he fingers suddenly numbed.
Shit.
He folded himself back, kept his voice steady, tried not to flip out.
"There, I looked. Now leave him alone."
"Look, if he-"
Naruto stood up abruptly and put his magazine down - he bit down on his lollipop stick hard enough to crush part of it completely flat and tried, tried so hard not to let his paranoia get to him. His wispy silicon hair stuck to the foundation on his cheek and he pushed it back with more attitude than he'd previously thought possible and cocked his hip to the side. His manager (the one that wasn't actually his manager but should've been had he actually been working at the store and not just situated there because of what was underneath it) was watching him with an unreadable expression.
"Fine."
He moved past her and out of his cashier's box and out into the store, immediately feeling vulnerable. The store was all windows and there were more snipers around than ever - he was jumpy, uncomfortable, suddenly irrationally angry to be put in this situation. (Maybe it wasn't Gaara. Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him. Maybe he was just being paranoid.)
Oh no, that was definitely Gaara.
Definitely. He'd know that face anywhere.
(And know he was stuck praying that he was wrong about today, that the quiet was just a coincidence.)
"Hey," he said, sauntering up, loose as he could manage. "You new here...?"
Something pricked at the edge of Gaara's senses and made him freeze up. It was that odd sixth sense - that strange feeling you got when someone was watching you, and you just knew it. His muscles tensed, left hand clenching into a fist while the right deftly slid into his pants pocket. A few steps forward towards the water bottles, and he had his knife clutched in his right hand, fiddling with the edge of the blade. The prospect of a fight made his blood pound in his ears, and he had to slice a thin line along his thumb just to keep that incessant noise from overtaking his senses. The worst thing you could do in a situation like this was get overly excited.
But Gaara was good at control. He had perfected it over time, and found little techniques and ways to keep that inner voice in line.
Still, he was being watched, and he needed to do something about it.
Freezing suddenly, the red-head tilted his head to the right, glancing over his shoulder at the other occupants of the room. One man stood off to the side, alone, fiddling through a stack of adult magazines. The other man and a woman were closer together, and were obviously talking to one another. When the man glanced up and caught Gaara's eye, the insomniac instantly knew who had been watching him.
He turned around slowly - his movements very methodical, practiced -, seemingly ignorant of their stares. Several courses of action ran through his mind - all included the use of his knife, and some form of bloodshed -, but a sudden voice at his right shattered those thoughts.
Snapping his gaze towards the violet-haired woman, Gaara gave her a blank, disinterested look. He was used to prostitutes on the street propositioning him - they were vulgar, and obviously desperate -, but he had neither the money, nor the desire to fullfill their wishes. Odd, though. He had thought most whores worked the streets - not the stores. Maybe he was wrong?
Or maybe this person was just an employee, and it was their job to welcome new customers?
Either way, it was of no interest to him, and so he just stared on - turning the full force of that cold, black-rimmed gaze on this stranger...
... And trying to ignore the odd familiarity seeping up to tickle at the edges of his skin.
Naruto sighed (always in character) and let his eyes sway, roll up to the ceiling and back down to the water in Gaara's hand.
"Water. They stopped shipping it, like," he drew out the 'k' sound, looked over Gaara's shoulder as if he was thinking about something, looked back, "three weeks ago? Which you would know. ...'fyou weren't new here." He walked past the redhead and waved him forward.
"C'mon."
No.
His entire air just exuded of the word. The way his hand tightened around the water bottle - had it really been three weeks since Cena had seen fresh water? -, how his shoulders tensed, and his eyes slit in suspicion. Who was this woman, to think he would follow after her like some trained dog? She was a rather bold one, to say the least - a rather stupid one, to say the most.
But still.
He couldn't shake that familiar feeling.
Gaara looked the stranger up and down again, trying to find some semblance of similarity between this person, and the people he knew. ... And he came up with nothing.
Growling in annoyance, the red-head straightened up a bit, turning around to fully face the stranger; and though his demeanor had already said it many times over, he couldn't help the growl that escaped past his lips.
"No."
Naruto groaned and spun around - his skirt swished a little and he tugged at, panic and irritation growing in him. He scowled, his expression dark and twisted, torn between revealing himself just to get Gaara to move (which probably wouldn't work) and just staying a stranger to him (which would be less complicated but probably even less effective). He felt cramped in these clothes - he wanted to tear them off and go streaking, he wanted to break under the pressure.
This is exactly why he'd told Anko to stay put.
(Why no one ever listened to him he swore up and down he didn't know.)
"Look, you wan' water? Or not." He put it to him plainly, hoping to shed the tenseness from his shoulders fast.
He swallowed. Yes, his throat was still dry. But that's what the bottle in his hand was for. Giving this stranger a confused look, Gaara tilted his head to the side, letting the water dangle carelessly in his hand.
"I have water," he stated bluntly, body still tensed and ready to spring, though he had relaxed just a bit in the precedings. She wasn't a threat. And if she was, Gaara would kill her soon enough.
This thought settled comfortably in his stomach, giving him that solid weight that slowed his adrenaline-induced bloodstream, allowing him to move more freely, and without the choppy motions of someone high-strung.
That cold gaze again. That even colder voice.
"Leave me alone."
Naruto sighed heavily and folded his arms across his not-chest.
"You really are like this with everybody, aren't you?"
He didn't give him any time to process the comment - he was almost a little upset it had fallen out of his mouth in the first place - and instead pointed somewhat boredly at the bottle in Gaara's hand. "Look, we don't really know what's in that. One o' the reasons nobody's touched it. Water never expires, so I figure I take you to some that's actually for sure water so you don't have to figure out the hard way if that's what's really in there."
He shrugged and took his hands back. "For customer service reasons of course."
Gaara blinked.
Once. Twice.
The suspicious feeling still wouldn't go away, and now he was loathe to ignore it. Letting his hard jade gaze fall on the woman once again, he scrutinized over every detail, and came out feeling... wholly unsatisfied. Still no likenesses to anyone he knew, and yet that feeling.
Growling in annoyance, Gaara dropped the water, his eyes following the plastic bottle as it rolled a little ways away. There was a dip in the floor, then, in that direction. He could see how the old, dirty tile seemed to shift at a barely noticeable angle. It didn't concern him, though, and so that cold glare of his snapped back towards the woman trying to lure him in the back.
"Why have it sitting out front, then?" If it wasn't water, if it was potentially dangerous, then a generally decent store would have the common sense to throw it out. If this was a hit mark, and they were out to get somebody, then it made little to no sense for them to profess 'customer service' - a trait wholly... unnatural, here in Cena.
Gaara may have been out of touch, but he wasn't out of tune.
"Because they're watching it," Naruto said, plainly, offering no explanation.
He didn't bother asking who 'they' were. "You're... an idiot," he said instead, face completely blank and devoid of emotion.
Nonipara did something very unladylike, then, and snorted.
"Yeah."
He shifted his hips and turned again.
"C'mon."
There. He had heard that sound before, and remembered it distinctly. But to put that person's face to this person's body...
"I don't follow idiots." A pause. "They run into things." He was completely serious, of course.
"Yeah, I know. Pretend you think I'm smarter than I am." Nonipara's voice was reedy and aloof in ways that Naruto's was not, and he had to press a lisp into the back of his mouth where it didn't belong, drawing out the ending consonants of his words. He chewed on the lollipop stick, pressing down against the heels of his boots. "Let's go."
"Why?" Now this was progress. From complete silence, to grunts of disapproval, to straightforward questions? This stranger should be proud of their accomplishment. Not that they'd ever know they actually accomplished something.
"If I followed you, then I would be an idiot." Straight-faced, stubborn, resolute. It was the Sabaku way, and the only thing that tied his family together. That, and blood.
"No, if you don't follow me," Naruto said, every word precise, "you're going to be an idiot. You want water, I'm showing you where it is, lets go."
He almost dropped his voice on the last two words, he said them so forcefully.
(Almost.)
Gaara scrunched up his nose, tilting his head downward to gaze up at the other through hooded eyes. He swallowed - nope, throat still dry -, and continued to stare at the other suspiciously.
"... Make it quick."
"I can only make it as quick as you move 'tteba- ...yeah."
He swung them back around a corner and down an aisle to the back where the refrigerators were - they were crowded with alcohol, like a huge stadium full of people that looked like bottles and Naruto opened one strategically, looked up and down, 'tsk'ed to himself, closed it, opened the one next door and reached all the way behind the beers to lift out a large, clear plastic bottle of water, which he handed to Gaara.
"Better," he said, as if only to himself.
And then, he dropped the false voice altogether, and put his hands on his hips, speaking lowly so that only Gaara could hear him.
"Now you get to tell me what you're doing here."
He reached for the water, twisting open the cap, and downed about half of the cool liquid before settling his gaze back onto the violet-haired woman. She was looking at him oddly, and this made Gaara pause, tense, and lower the bottle from his lips.
When a male's voice came out, the red-head was shocked enough to take a quick step back.
He didn't register the words at first.
When he did finally focus in on what the other was saying, it became glaringly apparent that the insomniac's gut instinct had been right all along, and that the person standing before him was none other than-
"Naruto?"
"Tsss!" The faux-femme hissed loudly through his teeth, hand automatically clapping over Gaara's mouth. (He realized that he probably shouldn't touch Gaara so suddenly and removed himself just as fast, instead putting a finger to his lips and shaking his head violently.)
"I have twenty seconds before they realize I know you. What are you doing here, Gaara, now, I don't have time for this, we're expecting visitors, and not the good kind."
The sudden touch made Gaara flinch back, his back banging loudly against the far wall, head turned to the side as if he could somehow get away just by melding in with the scenery. It didn't work, but it didn't matter anyways, because Naruto was off of him in a matter of seconds.
"You..." he started, then lowered his voice at the blonde's silent warnings. He was too shocked to uphold that stoic barrier he usually kept between himself and the rest of the world. "You brought me back here."
Too shocked, even, to properly process the other's question.
"Gaara, when did you get here, what are you doing here, what hell were you thinking?"
Eiri's voice traveled across the store. "Para...?"
Naruto twitched, simultaneously trying to leap in and out of his own skin, his eyes desperate.
"Gaara!"
Well. That was specific enough. Naruto's antsy demeanor only served to put Gaara on edge, though, and when someone from out front called back some meaningless word, the blonde only seemed get even more high strung.
"I just crossed the border," he answered, ticking off each question in his mind. "I'm here to kill something-" - to see if you're still alive - "...I was bored."
Naruto was terribly, horribly, sorely tempted to simply kiss him and let him be staggering and angry and confused for a while, but since he wasn't that brand of cruel (nor any brand, really) he didn't.
"You're really lucky we're standing right here," he breathed after a second, "or I'd punch you so hard you'd wake up back in the womb."
"Para!"
Naruto hissed between his teeth. "Let me touch you."
(No asking. No "may I." It was an order, not a request.)
He nearly let slip the words ghosting through his head - But... my mother is dead. Not out of sadness - never out of that. Just... fact. He let it pass, though - it was just Naruto, after all. He didn't know what he said, really. Or maybe he did...? The question was disconcerting.
Another shout from the front, and the blonde's desperation peaked.
His next demand was a testament to that fact.
Gaara... Gaara didn't touch. The mere thought made him recoil - made his nose scrunch up again, and his fists clench at his sides. The one holding the water bottle squeezed the plastic to near bursting point.
"No." There would be no argument about this one. Gaara was adamant.
"Gaara, for the love of God, fight me on anything but this any time but now."
He faltered.
Damn Naruto for making him second guess himself.
"No," he stated more firmly, as if saying it again would keep him from complying.
"Gaara!"
Naruto eyes furrowed into his.
(It wasn't the blue that held the power. It was the eyes themselves.)
"Why?" He needed a reason, dammit! Gaara didn't just sidle up to someone and touch them whenever they pleased. It was odd, and he didn't like it.
"I just need you to trust me."
Oh. Gaara froze, blinking rapidly, as if he could get rid of the sight of Naruto staring up at him with those eyes - those words spilling from his lips. Surely he didn't really expect the insomniac to trust him, right? That would be foolish, utterly impossible, and completely-
Gaara's body moved of it's own accord. He took a slow step forward, eyes widening at his own action, though he didn't retreat - just yet.
"I don't trust you." But he was there- standing right in front of Naruto - and that was permission enough.
The blonde made a strangled sound of frustration and grabbed him by the wrist just as Eiri rounded a corner in all of her emasculated glory. She looked between them analyzing everything too fast (the way Naruto did) and putting everything together like building blocks and then shaking it and trying to make everything make sense. Naruto pushed a few of his not-bangs behind a heavily pierced ear.
"Para, what the hell are you doi-"
"Go to the front of the store."
Eiri hissed automatically, much in the same way he had done only a second ago, as if they were both similarly startled by his voice, and Naruto hissed back at her. "Now!"
She whirled away from them and Naruto looked first at his own hand and then at Gaara's face.
"How many are tailing you, do you even know?"
Bright jade eyes shifted from Naruto's hand, then over to the stranger who walked in on them. The glare he shot this person's way was piercing, though it went unnoticed. They were gone in a moment, and Gaara wondered why, if the blonde was disguising himself for some reason, he would suddenly have no qualms with speaking in a strikingly masculine voice.
Turning back to Naruto, Gaara tried to ignore the shiver running down his spine from such close contact. The only time he touched was when he fought, and even then it usually didn't last long - the victims would die not soon after he initiated a fight. It had taken him months - months - to get used to Anko's hindering death holds, and even then he didn't like the way it felt. If he was going to be touching someone, that someone needed to die soon after.
This contact felt... different, though. It made his skin shiver, rather than crawl.
"Three were. I lost them." 'Do you not trust my capabiliti-' Trust. There was that word again. Gaara pointedly ignored it, and instead focused his attention on Naruto.
"... Let go."
Naruto would've lectured him on that but a sudden feeling of being watched (not unlike that which had put Gaara on such an edge not fifteen minutes before) made his posture stiffen. He stilled completely, looked over his shoulder, his nostrils flaring and his face completely blank for his- (What emotion was this, even?)
He gripped Gaara's wrist tighter before coming back to himself and relaxing his hold, even as the muscles of his forearms visibly tensed up.
Nonipara's voice overshadowed his own.
"C'mon."
He pulled at Gaara softly, urging him forward.
Gaara froze, watching Naruto intently as the blonde's grip on his wrist tightened, instead of loosening like he had told him to do. It took some effort, but he managed to quell the growl threatening to tear from his throat, and settled on an annoyed scowl instead. He didn't like that shivering feeling - not. at. all. -, and Naruto refusing to let go wasn't helping matters.
The use of that feminine voice again did not escape the red-head's notice. He tilted his head to the side in a questioning manner, but didn't say anything.
It wasn't his business that Naruto enjoyed playing dress-up.
Gaara resisted the gentle tug at first, still disgusted - and just a little bit shocked - that he was being touched at all. He would have protested again, if he knew it wouldn't be futile; but, sadly, that was not the case. Glancing around wearily one last time, the red-head gave a slow, discreet nod, and followed.
Naruto dragged him to the front of the store, it's entirety having silenced and turned (upon reaching the cash register) to stare back at the people therein. His lips pursed and Eiri shook her head at him.
"You tell them all to go home and they're going to Stormtroop our asses."
Naruto said nothing, and his manager twitched a little, voice coming out grisly. "Unless they're already going to Stormtroop our asses." The little tweed man eyed Naruto suspiciously before turning his thin, browned eyes on the hand that was still twisted around Gaara's wrist, letting them trail up the redhead's arm to his face. Rolitz (that was his name) studied him for only a second before giving a grim heave.
"I know you."
Naruto turned to give him a look. "No, you don't."
Rolitz twitched again and retreated to his shadows. "Whatever you say, boy." (The way his voice curled, it was doubtful that his words were genuine. No one present looked like they really cared.)
Naruto let himself back in behind the cashier's box, dragging Gaara with him and finally releasing his forearm in lieu of pointing just below his waist, at where the bags were kept in a silent order to sit. (It was evident that he expected to be adhered to.) Eiri retreated to her own work station, looking unhappy and not taking her eyes from Naruto's face.
Gaara did, in fact, know the man, but didn't see a point in acknowledging him. He was annoyed at how controlling Naruto was turning out to be - the red-head could decide for himself who he did and did not know, dammit! - but could sense the desperation in the other's face, his very presence.
Following compliantly - or as compliantly as a half-deranged psychopath with homicidal tendencies could -, the red-head nearly sighed with relief when Naruto finally released him. Crossing his arms, Gaara glanced down at the dirty bags, then back towards the violet-haired 'woman'.
It was evident in the disbelieving look Gaara shot his way that the insomniac wasn't planning on complying anytime soon.
Naruto was agitated - it was evident - and he was about to grab Gaara by the wrist again and try to throw him in the direction he wanted when he and everyone else in the store suddenly snapped to attention. Everyone's backs went stiff and Naruto stood very, very still, eyes riveted on the doors.
And then, like a clock set into motion, people began to retreat down the aisles and there was nowhere for Gaara to go and so Naruto stepped in front of him, blocking him from view.
The automatic doors opened with a swish and three men with armor bearing the insignia of the capitol entered. Their footsteps echoed against the tile, manufactured boots thick and threatening. Their guns were obvious, slung across their backs in their holsters.
They bothered to hide nothing.
The store was completely still, except for them.
Go to Part 2.