After (2,914)

The transience of that moment doesn't fully dawn on Haku until about three to four minutes after his demise. He watches the next few scenes unfold in a calm, almost settled detachment; as if he already knew what direction this performance was going. Once, a long time ago he had the chance to see a play of Kabuki entertainers. It was an experience he treasured in that small and poorly tended garden he kept all his most pleasant memories - or his most confusing.

That instant he's separate from his body and it's requisite limitations, Haku comes to realize, though he has no faith or view on the afterlife (he considers all things that follow death as time lost in the service of Zabuza-san) he certainly did not expect it to feel so warm. Incongruously so, even. Like the moment summer fades into an early, yet dry autumn.

It touches him the way the air and earth and sky do when the sun burns red on the horizon. A stale heat that's trapped in the atmosphere.

He can see the mist, the damp dark soil. He can watch Zabuza lie next to the shell of his body. Though its difficult to carry concern for the living from one plane to another, Haku wonders if his master will follow him there.

His conscious whispers: Or would his lover go someplace else?

Haku's sigh is the breath of air through the dark, twisted trees. He's nothing more than thought now - and because this is so, being transient and all, Haku can see the path through those twisted trees and that place he will end up. His former body and thus former life is burned, a cathartic purging that seems to cleanse the will (thoughts?) he's currently made of.

Dreams. The dark trees, twined with fog and lacy mist show him the way into dreams.

"Haku…?"

No, he thinks, I've escaped this place, this sick devotion - I've escaped you!

He curses a terrible god that watches the pain its creatures suffer only to do nothing. Watch like Haku watches. Except Haku can effect no outcome, create no ending, no fate, destiny, providence, serendipity.

So he wishes, and because he does this time it comes true.

He's sucked down that path, which leads somewhere, anywhere, away from the ashes of his old life. The shell of his master touching the shell of his own with a tenderness Haku is loath to imagine the man feels. He wanders, lost sometimes, others found.

The path is dark, because his heart is dark. In the thickly knotted and veined trunks they recount Haku's memories - the ones in his garden, choked by weeds.

A tool…

Flashes of snow in the night, blood on white.

Another and yet another:

Momochi, because in Haku's heart his master is always that name, reclines in a spindly yew chair, snow melting from their clothes and bodies. Haku is settled in his lap, because the position offers him a little more room to maneuver. Momochi is a big man with subsequently big parts and Haku appears all the smaller and womanly beside him.

The heat from the flames in the collapsible burner Haku insisted they buy is just an ambient warmth. Haku feels the true scorch from the man under him, behind him.

Inside him.

He doesn't moan, in fact he avoids making any sounds all together. His heavy pants and red, pleasured face are what fill the void instead. On his tiptoes, Haku squeezes the arm rests with every push up and harsh glide down. Momochi doesn't touch him, but Haku feels the pressure of his stare across his back like a caress anyway.

Haku catches his tongue between his teeth after a particularly hard thrust, his toes having slipped on the damp wood. He feels the rough hair at the base of Momochi's cock brush the soft skin of his ass. The sensation, hot, thick and hard between his ass cheeks and the slight tickle that surrounded it, has Haku biting off a breathy moan.

Had it escaped he's sure it would've sounded as wonton as a slut.

Legs spread on either side of Momochi's, Haku feels the muscles in the older man's thighs grow tense and knew a couple more strokes would finish him for the night. Haku enjoys it more when Momochi goes first, opting to masturbate privately afterwards.

It's a pattern they slipped into comfortably and not one Haku feels the need to change. So when he notices fingers tugging at the messy ponytail he's thrown up, shoved a couple senbon, he's quite surprised and fumbles a little.

"Why do you tie it?" the low timbre of Momochi's voice has Haku's pulse stuttering even worse than it was before. It takes him a moment to answer, over the pound of blood in his ears.

"…It's so long, it gets sticky and in the way when we-" Haku cuts himself short at the last second, lifts himself up until the very tip of Momochi's cock rests against his puckered entrance, and slams down hard enough to leave him gasping, little bright spots in his eyes. He feels a bit smug when Momochi's fingers jerk on his hair.

Then the hands are back, rougher and pulling the senbon out. Haku feels the thick tendrils fall down his back, sticking uncomfortably to his skin.

He frowns as he leans forward and begins a slow, smooth rocking motion.

Then he feels a pair of calloused hands on his hips. Blinking, Haku finds himself staring at a strong, scarred chest instead of the flame from the portable heater. The sudden rotation leaves him dizzy for a moment, and just a little breathless. His skin prickles. Haku's still full with Momochi's cock, now pressed at just the right angle inside of him.

So he goes crazy - perfectly aware he'll regret it later.

With a half-choked gasp, Haku scrambles for purchase, gripping at Momochi's shoulders, slipping his heels on the lower bars of the chair. He starts to move again, but this time its clumsy, erratic, almost like their first time.

Haku's weeping erection is pressed between their bodies, his head fallen against Momochi's chest. His tongue darts out before he can stop it and traces the path of an old particularly viscous scar. The taste is salty - sweat.

Knowing it's a move Momochi enjoys - though it took him several times to figure out - Haku squeezes the ring of muscle in his ass on a downward glide. He's rewarded with a low growl and a harsh thrust upwards, rough fingers once again digging into his hips.

He feels Momochi's abdominals contract, and for some reason Haku can't explain, but settles painfully in his chest, he doesn't want the man to come without him. He doesn't want to rush to some secluded corner and finish himself off with just memories heating him up, wet sliding down the back of his legs.

He doesn't want to be discarded.

If he's going to regret something, Haku figures he should regret something that makes him happy. Even for a moment. Moaning, he wraps narrow, clever fingers around his painfully hard shaft. Momochi doesn't still at the sound like he expected, but instead shoves harder inside Haku, until the boy was sure it would hurt walking the next day.

So aroused by the new position and Momochi's obvious enjoyment, Haku only manages a few uneven pumps before he climaxes, smearing come messily between their bodies.

Momochi jerks a moment later, exploding hot and thick inside Haku.

The silence is broken by their heavy breaths and the chair's slow creak. Haku presses his nose into Momochi's chest, knowing he'll probably get a beating in a second, but to sated to care. Momochi is still buried inside him.

Then he's on the floor, having landed painfully on his butt. The sting is familiar as is the subsequent rejection.

He doesn't watch as his master walks away. He does, however, roll over and curl himself around the warmth of the burner. Resolutely, Haku pulls his hair back into an awkward ponytail.

Another, plus several more. Haku wishes the intensity of those memories weren't so vivid, wishes they were as unimportant to him as they were to Zabuza-san. The graveyard of trees mocks him with his shadow life, not even a facsimile of true emotion.

They had what passed for love to Shinobi. No, not even they - but he.

Haku whispers through the mist and prays (to the nameless, faithless god) that wherever he goes next, there is no such thing as Zabuza Momochi. He prays there is no such thing as Haku.

He hopes and he prays, rushing through the endless black.

"You must learn boy. I have no use for a broken tool."

Haku shivers, looking down on the genin - who was probably no older than he - laying in the icy mud and snow. His face is smooth, even through the dirt and bloody scratches, but the ferocity of the Shinobi life was still present from the nicked headband to the jagged scar down the side of his cheek.

The boy was a strong capable fighter and Haku is positive he would make chunin, possibly jonin in rapid success. It's a pity that time would be cut short.

If the life of a Shinobi is ugly, the life of a weapon is even more so; unsightly.

Haku doesn't even question it. His soul's already as frozen as his many ice mirrors.

The kunai in his palm is cold and slightly wet. He kneels, grips the boy's orange shock of hair and presses the blade to his throat.

Lucky little genin - he doesn't feel a thing.

Haku doesn't see who gives chase, only he knows someone does. The trees close in, looming, terrifying.

However, in the distance he can just make out an opening and…light. A warm soft glow like the sun beneath water. Haku feels himself expand, poured with hope. The sense of loss disappears and his will reaches out for that bright enclave like a pair of arms.

This in between place will become the dream, and the light, something else. Something more.

"Haku…"

He doesn't answer to that name, and fiercely, he decides he never will again. The trees grow brighter, reveal to him the endless sunrises, sunsets their ancient skeletons bare witness too.

The garden isn't completely dead after all.

"You would do anything to protect your special person."

A fierce snarl, an even fiercer pair of cobalt eyes. Sometimes Haku hates the musty, wet smell of his porcelain mask and the way it constrains him. Traps him.

Naruto, he muses, what a beautiful, complex creature you turn out to be.

Haku watches, some serpentine, green eyed monster stirring in his chest, as the Shinobi touches his comrade's dark hair, hunches over that deathly still frame. He wonders how it would feel to reciprocate feelings of companionship, mutual respect. For a…friend, and not just an associate, or a subordinate.

Even a partner requires something more.

In the manufactured cold and mist, hidden among his mirrors, Haku can feel the quiet urgency of Zabuza-san. The irritation is palpable. So, Haku tightens nimble fingers around his senbon and sets his sight on that blonde patch of hair.

So loud and colorful and full of idealistic dreams yet.

Haku is momentarily sorry he will be the one to disabuse him of those lovely notions.

At the last moment, when the rush of compulsion ebbs, before he moves from the canopy of trees, Haku finds his thoughts hesitating.

His memory turns back to search for the start. It's understandable, Haku suspects, one would hunger for the beginning once he approaches the end.

A lost and abused child in the snow. He realizes even a hand reluctantly, perhaps cruelly extended is still a hand. Its more than someone like him expects.

More than he could hope.

A tool to be used - nothing more, nothing less.

Haku flinches at the endless black and moves slowly toward the light. He senses the heavy steps - a big man with subsequently big parts is moving closer to him with every second he wastes. Even though he's something else now, in fact, will become nothing and everything new, why did he remain? Why did he hesitate, formless eyes searching for a formless man lost in the mist?

Like he could lead anyone.

Inches. Nirvana is close by inches, yet he lingers unable to pass through the dark ring of trees into the purest kind of sunlight.

"Haku…?"

I owe you nothing, he shouts bitterly into the void.

Nothing!

Haku is surprised when the mangy creature follows him back to their current lodgings. It was bald in places, tufts of hair scratched out by fleas and malnutrition, a scrawny black cat with lamp yellow eyes. He thinks it ugly and sad, but for some reason he can't turn it out into the cold.

It yowls and scratches at the door anyway.

Of course, he knew what Zabuza-san's response would be. Tossed out into the rain. It had no purpose other than to eat and stink up the place. Worthless. Not even an animal summon.

Yet Haku feeds it the flesh and innards of the fish they'd eaten. Carefully washes it's skin and dark fur, lets it curl up on his freshly cleaned clothes. He pets it. The ugly thing purrs like a freight train.

In time Zabuza-san returns, eyes lined with anger and fatigue. Some of his bandages are flecked with blood. Haku knows his place and doesn't comment - just says a quiet goodbye to his short term friend.

The cat lets him care for it, after all.

After situating himself with a warm meal and Haku's slightly warmer attentions, Zabuza-san stares at the cat. The cat stares back at him.

They engage in this contest for a short time before Zabuza-san promptly ignores it. Haku isn't sure what to make of the situation, but he lets the poor thing stay, knowing it probably won't have the pleasure of such treatment again.

Zabuza-san informs him it will have to go when they go.

Even that much is unexpected, and Haku's joy infects every touch he's allowed to give.

He's past that, however. He's so far past that its almost silly and sentimental - he backs a step into the light - pathetic, forced even, to remember those things. Luke warm moments swallowed by a sea of bad.

The swirling sun beckons him, voices of a life gone beg him to join in the frolic and bliss. So close he could taste what they offer, the way it tugs at his soul. Haku wants that feeling. Wants it like nothing he's ever wanted before.

"Haku."

The darkness seems to stretch and grow around him, alive with a presence he's not able to forget - or escape. He smells him with a sense much like the olfactory, but in truth is not. Musky and dark and inviting, like the richest soil buried beneath the trees.

So thick and heady he could taste it on his formless tongue.

He's afraid, but can't figure out exactly why.

I'm not fit to lead you anywhere, Momochi, he whispers choked with something like tears. Except they weren't.

The presence stutters at his words. Yanked to a halt by invisible strings.

Anger leaches across the expanse and through him like thick, twisted vines, their only desire to constrain him still. Haku is no longer a tool. No longer anything in fact. His shell rots in the earth as his will wanders free.

Haku takes a second to calm the fractured shards of his thoughts. He prepares to pull himself loose and breach the circle of light.

However, something unexpected happens, before he even has a chance to shrug the irritating tendrils away. In a mass of ferocity, cruelty and self-hatred, Zabuza wings past him into the glowing sun.

Swallowed, as if he never existed in the first place.

The circle expands and because Haku can do nothing about it - has no interest to do anything about it - he lets the shafts of burning light pass into him, waste him from the inside out.

It's another cleansing.

…

…

…

Haku warms himself in the seat just above the engine. Yellow light fades around his head like an ambient halo, alternately sharpening and dulling his features. The window is cracked because he can't get it to close all the way, but he figures it's worth it just to be sitting in the most comfortable spot on the bus.

He grips at the violin case spread across his lap.

The guy standing across from him has done nothing but stare for the past several minutes. Its disturbing, yet oddly Haku derives a singular enjoyment from those dark, unreadable eyes. The man's black hair stands straight and severe, body wiry, awkward like he's done a lot of growing in a short amount of time. Haku guesses they were somewhere close to the same age.

The stranger has a head phone shoved in one ear, arms crossed and leaning casually next to the door. Even if the bus moves, he moves very little.

Haku tilts his head and smiles. The guy doesn't return the greeting. He just stares.

So Haku goes back to ignoring him; his stop is the next one anyway.

Love

Reviews are always appreciated! Inspirational music - Loreena McKennit, The book of Secrets (Ever After).