Masquerade

By Insomniac Owl

-

He remembers lights; he remembers faces blurred with laughter, most unknown, but above all that, in a sort of haze, he remembers being stupidly, senselessly drunk. Someone was throwing a party (he’d forgotten who), and Kankouro had dragged him along, saying he may as well come since there was nothing better to do. And if Gaara is honest with himself, he will admit that - before he started drinking - it was fun. Granted, he talked to no one and no one talked to him, but sitting there with the music on, loudly, and watching people dancing and talking (having fun without him) - it wasn’t bad. The cookies were soft, the way he liked them, full of sugar, and there was punch with 7-up and peach sorbet.

Then someone handed him a drink, and he couldn’t stop. He had low tolerance for alcohol anyway, but that night he must have had at least four cups of whatever it was they served. Vodka, he thinks, or maybe beer - he can’t remember. He can’t remember much of anything, actually, only a vague feeling of stumbling around in the darkness, flashes of faces and hands that helped him on his way. Lights, sound. Vertigo.

The image that stands out most clearly, however, is one of a dark-haired boy, sitting on the couch watching television. Everything else seems ridiculously dark (and it was - someone had turned out the lights and exaggerated screams issued from all directions, and laughter), only the boy’s thin body cast in flickering, blue-white shadows.

And then he remembers only the cool tile of the bathroom floor, of being dizzy and sick. The shower in the house was stainless steel, he remembers thinking; there were water spots and there weren’t supposed to be, and the room was messy - five other people had thrown up in this bathroom already; locked the door and vomited their guts out. He felt weak and stupid, hating himself for drinking in the first place.

(He is only eighteen, but a few years ago he’d been a hopeless alcoholic. Every party he went to (there were a lot more back then) he filled with drinking, and though he had gotten through that, when he drank anything at all it swept him right back in. There was no longer that constant need, but when he did drank he did so until he vomited. Before coming that night he promised himself he wouldn’t touch any alcohol, but, not unusually, his body refused his mind. And so he found himself on the floor: knees sore, throat sore, clothes and hair a disgusting mess.)

“Gaara?”

That was Sasuke, the boy he’d seen sitting on the couch. Sometime that night the dark-haired boy come into the bathroom, lifted him to his feet, and informed Gaara he was taking him home. Gaara had only mumbled something under his breath (he liked to think it was ‘thank you’, but he couldn’t ask), and wondered vaguely how Sasuke knew where he lived. He thought they might go to school together, but he couldn’t remember talking with him, or even seeing him for more than an instant, a quick passing in the hallways.

As it turned out, Sasuke had taken him to his house, not Gaara’s. He wakes in a strange bed the next day, surrounded by foreign objects and foreign clothing, his chest filled with panic. Searching through fragment memories, he comes up with a vision of pleasant, dark suburban streets and very few passing cars, streetlights, and pale fingers on the steering wheel. He remembers the car ride now, how his head landed shamelessly on Sasuke’s shoulder when they turned a corner, his body limp and stupid. That was the pervading emotion of the night, it seemed: stupidity.

In the kitchen a room away, a refrigerator door shuts. If he listens closely he hears footsteps shuffling against the kitchen tiles, and the small, mechanical noises of preparing breakfast. The toaster’s unobtrusive ping, cupboards shutting, the hiss and shriek of a kettle. Head aching fiercely in his first hangover in a while, Gaara sits up in Sasuke’s bed and looks around. There is a large mirror hung on the opposite wall, placed so that his reflection is the first thing he sees properly that morning: red hair mussed, eyes shadowed, clothes dirty and smelling faintly of alcohol and vomit.

He rises carefully from the bed and digs out some clothing from Sasuke’s dresser, hoping the other boy won’t mind. He didn’t want to go out smelling of vodka - it was vodka, he realized, not beer at all - no matter how much he deserved it. He pulls on an unfamiliar shirt and sweater, folding his own clothing over the back of a chair (and reminding himself to pick it up on his way out).

Sasuke is making food in the kitchen, piling slices of toast on a plate from the open cupboard. He looks up when Gaara came out of his room but no more; the clothes are unmentioned, as was the night before and any events Gaara remembered or forgot.

Shyly, Gaara slides into a chair at the table, turning to watch Sasuke work a few feet away. There is a kettle beginning to hiss on the stove, and Sasuke removes it before it can wail. His eyes move to a door across the room, tongue darting briefly between his lips .

“Do you need any help?” Gaara asks. Sasuke, now busy with the toast and a butter knife, shakes his head.

“Do you like butter, or jelly?” he asks. “I have strawberry, but that’s it.”

“Butter is fine.”

Sasuke hands him a plate wordlessly, then picks up another from the counter and sits across the table. They eat in relative silence, Gaara glancing up every now and then to take in the room - there was a startling lack of decoration, but it was nice in a plain way. The lines of the furniture was aesthetically pleasing; fluid and warm.

Watching Sasuke eat now, Gaara realizes - with something of a shock - that the other boy is younger than him: only seventeen, though he doesn’t look it. And he doesn’t - that is the shock. He has always seemed particularly mature, quiet and solemn. Perhaps that was why they had never spoken, since both boys kept to themselves. (An exception: Gaara had seen two people (girl and boy) approach Sasuke occasionally, though Sasuke never seemed pleased about it, always brushing them off with some sharp word Gaara saw only in the way his lips moved.) But in the same way Gaara had noticed Sasuke, Sasuke must have noticed him. An interest in a particular piece of jewelry, or a paper one or the other had written; a nonsensical detail that sparked a curiosity for the other boy.

For Gaara, it was the way Sasuke spoke. His formal use of words was a rarity in their high school, as was his calm, cool voice. Sasuke had given a presentation on Japan’s forgotten Manchuria campaign the year before, and the cold, cruel way he mentioned the atrocities had thrilled Gaara. Blood pumping more quickly to his heart, body coming unconsciously forward in rapt attention.

(“They piled the bodies until one could not see over them, or else left them lying where they fell. Japanese forces won a great victory that day, when the blood of Chinese civilians ran in rivers….”

Vivid pictures, inspiring all sorts of emotion.

Despite this interest, Gaara does not remember having spoken a single word to the younger boy. They exchanged the occasional glance in the hallway, passing to their separate classrooms or the one they shared this year, and nothing more. Nonetheless, the relationship was one of mutual infatuation, no more vividly displayed than in the willingness Sasuke had shown to take Gaara home.

“Do you want more toast?”

Gaara looks down, a little surprised to find his plate empty, his fingers sticky with butter and bread crumbs. “Oh…” he says softly. “No. No thank you.”

Across the room, the only other door in the living room opens. Both boys’ heads come up, watching as a man taller than Sasuke comes into the living room, pauses, then moves into the kitchen. His eyes meet Gaara’s for a brief instant, then he is rummaging through the cupboards for a teacup, then teabag, pouring a cup of water, and retreating into what Gaara assumes to be his bedroom.

“Who was that?” Gaara asks once the door was shut, the room again quiet as if the scene had never occurred. The cupboard was ajar, but the room bore no other mark of his passing through.

“My brother,” Sasuke says, returning to his toast. “His name’s Itachi; he’s… five years older then me, so twenty-two.”

“Oh.” Unable to think of anything else to say, Gaara falls quiet, picking at the crust scattered over his plate.

A slightly awkward silence settles over the room (awkward to Gaara - Sasuke is still eating, sipping at tea and nibbling at his toast) and he feels that he has to speak to break it, to keep the world moving forward. And so, in a soft voice:

“I hope you don’t mind that I borrowed your clothes; I didn’t want to go out in mine. I’ll give them back at school, or I could drop them off here, if you like.”

“Um, here would be better, actually. If you don’t have a ride though -”

“I can drive,” Gaara says. “You can’t?”

“Oh. No.” Sasuke looks down at his plate, chopsticks moving pointlessly. “I have my permit, but I never drive anywhere so I don’t have the hours.” He picks up his plate then, holding a hand out for Gaara’s expectantly.

x

“Your parents won’t mind you staying out?”

Gaara shakes his head, kicking an aluminum can into the gutter. “I live with my brother and sister.”

They are walking to an ice cream shop down the street, Gaara wanting to go somewhere and Sasuke not willing to stay at home. The younger boy said, as they were walking out - lights off, breakfast dishes away, Itachi didn’t need to know? - that he spent nearly all his time away from home, always walking, because he didn’t like to drive. (Gaara remembers him being a little embarrassed. Why was that?)

At the ice cream shop, Gaara has no money but it’s alright, because Sasuke buys it for him. He mumbles that Gaara ‘needn’t worry about it’ under his breath, over his shoulder to the redhead staring at his reflection in the slanted glass. Gaara tells the younger boy thank you, and sits at an empty table.

He never would have done this a few years ago, he thinks, turning the cone in his hands. Back then the only places he went were houses, where drinks were served and drugs were freely distributed. No one cared back then, himself included. (And when did that change? When did he realize he couldn’t go on living like that, that he would end up dead if he did?) This ice cream shop - cool, clean, smelling faintly of mint - is a change he welcomes gratefully. Sasuke sitting across from him, spoon dipping rhythmically into his bowl, is a welcome change. Kankouro would never do this with him; Temari…Temari maybe, but he would never say yes.

“Are you going to eat it or what?” Sasuke asks, nodding to Gaara’s cone. It is melting a little, dripping over the sides and onto his fingers. Gaara quickly licks it away, neck bending delicately.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. Sasuke’s look then is curious, inquisitive, but when Gaara returns it Sasuke shakes his head. Being dismissive.

They finish quickly, the crisp fall air welcoming them outside.

Gaara notices something about Sasuke as they are walking the city, all cars and buildings and loud voices in the streets. He doesn’t say a thing, instead thinking it silently: that Sasuke looks just as lonely as Gaara himself is; that if Gaara were to suddenly lean over and kiss him, the younger boy be surprised, of course, but likely would do absolutely nothing.

He thinks also about Sasuke’s unexpected generosity in taking him home the night before. (Recollection of: Sasuke’s arms around his shoulders, Gaara’s feet landing at the wrong angles and nearly pitching them both to the ground. Sasuke helping him into his car - driving illegally. A door and a key and an intricate connection that had them into the house, stumbling blindly in the darkness. Words and soft blankets.)

“You didn’t drink at all last night, did you?”

Sasuke looks up, shakes his head as if it’s obvious. “No. Why?”

Gaara, unable to answer, mumbles something and turns to watch the passing cars.

x

No matter how much he puzzles over it, Gaara cannot figure out why Sasuke took him home at all. Perhaps it was mere kindness, he thinks, then quickly brushes the thought aside. Sasuke would not be kind without reason - and Gaara cannot discover that reason, hard though he tries. He spends the remainder of their walk on it, eventually becoming so frustrated that he casts it completely out of his mind, shaking his head and resigning himself to not knowing.

Perhaps, he thinks, it does not matter at all. Sasuke helped him, and he should leave it at that: simply. Because right now he fears he is reading too much into things, overanalyzing it until ideas are vague twists in his mind, irresolvable and stupid.

Ah yes, there is that word again. Stupid: meaning silly, irritating, lacking intelligence. Worthless.

He sighs, heavily, and shoves his hands into his pockets. A few feet ahead Sasuke is working his key into the front door, re-enacting the scene that played out the night previous: tumblers shoved into place, neatly clicking. Gaara is standing on his own, however, the support of the nearby wall no longer needed. His hands do not grope blindly for Sasuke’s shoulders; he does not cling to the younger boy as they go in (what an idiot he must have looked like!). This time he notices the couch and the blankets spread messily over it - evidence of Sasuke’s stay - though he keeps any thoughts rising in his mind to himself.

Unsure what else to do, Gaara goes into Sasuke’s room and gathers his things, emerging a short while later to find Sasuke seated on the couch, the television playing at low volume. Busy streets, a woman’s face and a microphone; a new development, a suicide: the news.

“You were watching the news last night,” Gaara says, images of buildings and that same woman’s face coming to mind. After that, though, he can’t remember much - it is one of those peculiar blackouts one gets when one drinks too much; you wake up the next day with little memory of how you got there: a panic in your chest, and then memories fall into place, leaving empty spaces they are incapable of filling in.

Gaara is immensely grateful (to who he isn’t sure) that he was able to stop that. Last night was a slip, he tells himself, watching Sasuke flip through the channels to settle on another news broadcast. Last night won’t happen again. (In the back of his mind he knows that there will be another party, and he will slip again, and that this is all a hopeless mess he’ll never get out of, but he ignores that as best he can.) Most of all he is thankful to Sasuke. For pulling him off the bathroom tiles last night, for leading him home and buying him ice cream. It’s stupid, he knows (in a different way), but he can’t help feeling grateful.

In the hours since he woke up, Gaara has realized that he is thankful beyond what he should be to this boy. To Sasuke, who is both kind and indifferent.

Shifting the things in his arms, Gaara moves to stand in front of him, blocking the television screen.

“Are you going?” the younger boy asks.

Gaara nods and Sasuke, fingering the remote, is unable to help the disappointment spreading over his face. This child, Gaara thinks - he owes something to this child. Because despite the ditches he has stumbled into over the years, always managing (miraculously) to right himself again, there is always that high afterward, that feeling of fulfillment, that things are right in the world because he is alright, and he isn’t dead yet. This is the return, Gaara realizes - the making everything right again. And he has Sasuke to thank for it this time.

All hesitance and uncertainty, Gaara stoops and touches his lips to Sasuke’s, clothing and elbows pressed lightly to his chest. His mind is buzzing then, too many sensations to properly describe: a radio playing somewhere, the fan going in Itachi’s room, and Sasuke’s body two inches from his own in most places, except for there at his lips, where they are touching.

He pulls away after a moment or two, eyes closed and remaining so. Rearranging his things in his arms, Gaara steps away, eyes miscast and finding only the ground. A shy glance upward, mumbling, without explanation:

“Thank you.”

Secretly, he knows Sasuke will understand.

finis