Purple Cocaine Prison

Warning(s): Lime/Vaguely Aggressive Fluff, Mild Language, and randomness/possible confusion
Disclaimer: The characters aren’t mine, the plot is.

Please Read, Review and Enjoy!

~!@!~

Purple Cocaine Prison
‘Poker Pieces Prt.2’

~!@!~

{Naruto}

“Are we here all alone?”

Neji glances up from where he’s making grilled cheese sandwiches. Mine’s got bologna and green peppers and his is plain, “Not really”

I chew my tongue, messing unconsciously with my tongue piercing, “I haven’t seen anyone since we came in”

Neji nods and shrugs at once, the movement fluid, “The maids and butler are around”

I glance around the spacious kitchen: white walls, white appliances, and big windows. I suppose you would need a maid if your kitchen were this big.

Neji slides my plate down in front of me and sits across from me, on the other side of this peninsula/bar table type thing.

Just when he’s about to reach for his grill cheese, I yank his plate towards myself, “You can’t eat it like that”

Neji gives me a long look and I laugh, “Can I have a butter knife?”

Obligingly, he finds me one.

Making a show of being precise, I cut his sandwich diagonally down the middle and slide it back over to him.

He raises an eyebrow at me but says nothing.

That done, I put the butter knife down and tuck into my own grill cheese.

Neji gives me a very vaguely scandalized look and I laugh, “Mine’s got loads of crap in it! If I cut it in half, I’ll be covered in cheese in no time. Besides, I just showered”

I have too.

I’m wearing Neji’s pajamas, since they are the only things vaguely small enough for me to wear. All his pants trip me up and I look dumb wearing his shirts. They’re too flashy for the likes of me.

I had a lot of fun going through his closet, though. It was cool to see that even immaculately put together Neji has the odd Hawaiian-print shirt, worn or no.

For the next few minutes, we chew silently.

Even though Neji has officially called off our impromptu time-out, it’s like we’re starting all over again. We, or I at least, am still trying to remember the do and don’t and yes and no, associated with Neji’s particular temperament. It’s funny to think that I’ve been stressing so much over getting back together that I couldn’t even remember that Neji, to use this morning as an example, hates to be teased, even on little things.

Three minutes of full-blown laughter about the Hawaiian shirt discovery/incident earned me a near half hour of stony silence.

Neji gets up and pours us both some lemonade.

Gulping half of mine down, I watch him as he gazes out the window closest to us, chewing almost thoughtfully.

Everything about him draws me in: the hair, the skin and the eyes (more often then not). It’s a wonder I don’t get over there and convince him that the view in here is much better then whatever’s out there.

Sighing at myself, I polish off the rest of my treat and busy myself with finishing my lemonade.

To tell the truth, I haven’t had a single chaste thought about Neji all morning. Anytime I openly look at him, I notice something that makes me wanna jump him: the way he’ll tuck all his bangs behind one ear or the other, the way he’ll look at me steadily for minutes at a time, even the way he walks, unhurried and unassuming but vividly sensual.

I’m kinda ashamed of myself. I mean, isn’t it a bit early to be hot for the guy you’ve only just hooked back up with?

“Done?”

Blinking, I nod and Neji takes my plate and places them noiselessly, with his, in the sink.

I lean over the table to get a better view as he bends slightly to put the pitcher of lemonade away, “Can we go outside?”

Neji straightens and gives me a ‘whatever-for?’ type look.

I shrug and stand, grinning, “We’re all cooped up in here. You can bring your phone and I’ll bring myself and we’ll find something fun to do”

Neji glances about at the obvious amount of space in this obscene kitchen and cocks his head at me, mock uncomprehending.

I grin wider, “Humor me, okay?”

He walks around the peninsula and puts his hand at the back of my head and kisses me.

This is another thing we’re getting used to all over again; looks like we’re both apprehensive about using tongue so they are chaste, lips-only affairs.

Trust me though: I’m not complaining.

By the time he pulls away from me, I’ve got one hand in his hair, the other fisted in the front of his expensive silver tank and I’m leaning into him like my life depends on it.

I laugh, embarrassed, and step slightly away, “See. Air’ll do me some good”

Neji looks a little more amused than any one person should have to right to, “Okay”

~!@!~


{Temari}

I know better then to ask how it was and sit silently as Gaara mechanically eats through his sushi lunch.

It’s clear that he’s a bit more then simply disgruntled and even if I hadn’t registered that myself, the new medication he came out totting would’ve clued me in.

Gaara despises his meds and having to take them. Even I have to admit that they are basically the bane if his existence.

Kankuro surmised, once, that no one keyed up on so much medication could be able to sleep. That’s his theory on Gaara’s ongoing insomnia.

So here we are, knee deep in new prescriptions with no real diagnosis in sight.

At length, I interrupt Gaara’s maiming of his lunch to point as inconspicuously as I can at his new liquid supplement.

I get a rather toxic look in return. I’m not offended because even I can see that it’s out of marked distaste for the supplement itself; they do have a habit of being really nasty going down.

Gaara’s about to chug the whole thing when his cell rings.

This is surprising because it would imply that he’s given his number to people outside the family.

Gaara’s phone is his own, but he never uses it in a recreational fashion: it’s a way for father to know here we are at all times.

Gaara puts the supplement away, clearly using the phone call as a diversion, “Hello?”

The person on the other end of the receiver is speaking urgently and Gaara’s normally stoic face wrinkles very, very faintly with his mounting consternation.

“-He’s where? You don’t know? Call the Landlady. Sasuke? Probably skipping”

At the mention of Sasuke, I perk up a little. I haven’t got any real chance at him, but gossip always clears up the head’s problems. Hearing about others generally does that to you.

“I’m already done. With my sister; downtown. They fought yesterday…Shikamaru was angry”

Who fought?

“Neji? Guy with brown hair and metal-blue eyes? No idea”

The person on the other end stops short and says something quickly over the line before Gaara ‘Hn’ ‘s his way out of the conversation and hangs up.

Gaara stares at his phone and tucks it way after a moments pause.

Absently, he drinks his supplement with a straight face and chases it down with his entire bottle of green tea.

“Everything alright?”

With the old Gaara, it was pointless to ask questions like that, his answers were always the same: stone faced silence.

The new Gaara tilts his head inquisitively: “Naruto is missing”

It takes me minute to recall the face that matches the name, “That blond loudmouth you hang out with?”

Gaara looks like he’d want to smile but doesn’t, “Hn”
It’s an affirming ‘Hn’.

“Who was that?”

Gaara rubs his forehead as if to ward off an oncoming headache, “Haku”

“Haku?” I say I tad incredulously, “The school’s Prince?”

Gaara gives me a blank look.

I wave it off, “Never mind”

Gaara nods and puts all his things away in the cookie monster lunchbox, “Drive me home”

I start the car and pull out onto the street before asking: “Going to school?”

Gaara shakes his head and that is that.

~!@!~


{Sasuke}

“Theater owners don’t’ normally drive Bentleys, do they?”

Kisame raises an eyebrow at me and grins.

I blink at the sun gleaming off the car’s pitch-black hood, waiting.

Kisame relents, “Bodyguards do”

I don’t need anymore then that to understand that my brother probably pays him for it.

“I read that some animals kill their offspring or weaker family members when they feel threatened or anxious”

Kisame laughs, heavy and dark, “Do they?”

I nod, still starring at the sun-reflections off the hood, “They do. What I don’t get is how I could possibly be a threat to my brother”

Kisame shrugs, “A few screws loose would make anyone paranoid”

I look at him sharply, “He hasn’t got loose screws”
I can’t help being defensive about my brother, even though he’s the way he is.

Kisame shrugs his big shoulders, “No, but he’s got the thinking pattern down pat”

We contemplate what that means for us.

After a minute, Kisame takes his hands off the steering wheel long enough to crack his knuckles, “Remember when you were saying your brother and me, we’re friends?”

I nod.

He grins again, the edge of it dangerous like it tends to be, “He looks after me and I look after him, in all the little ways I can. He doesn’t need me all that much really. We keep company because we’re the only one’s swimming in the shark pool”

I nod, “You remind me of a shark…a great white, maybe”

Kisame laughs, “Great white?”

“It’s the way you smile”, I say, turning to look out the window, “All teeth and big bite”

“Big bite?”

I shrug, “My brother wouldn’t keep you around for nothing; you’re right about that”

Kisame laughs, “We get along too well”

I find myself agreeing amiably.

~!@!~


{Zabuza}

“Gaara doesn’t know where he is either…”

I watch, patient, as Haku flips through his contact’s list again. Probably checking to see if there is anyone he missed calling.

He came home not twenty minutes after the start of his classes, flustered about the whereabouts of people he’s told me he’s friends with.

Being as I am, I sit quietly and let him fuss the worry out of himself. I know, from experience that when he’s done, he’ll think clearer.

Presently, I leave him, on our bed, and decide to make some coffee.

No sooner do I sit down does he come into the kitchen, having changed his jeans and top for a pair of my work overalls and a tank. He’s put his hair up and rolled up the hem of the overalls so as not to trip, “Are you working this morning?”

I shake my head and allow him to add another three cubes of sugar and some milk to my coffee, “People my age don’t drink this much sugar”

Haku beams at me and takes a sip, “And what age is that?”

Our age difference is of very little concern to him, I forgot to mention.

I shrug and take my coffee back.

Haku moves my arm and piles onto my lap, cell in hand, “I need a drive. I wouldn’t trust myself behind a steering wheel right now”

I nod, drinking my too-sweet coffee in three deep gulps.

I half carry him to our door before he laughs and climbs out of my grip to hold my hand instead.

~!@!~


{Naruto}

Neji takes me to the outdoor garden and I talk him into squeezing into a hammock with me. It’s not even squeezing really, since the damn thing is easily big enough for four people.

He’s evidently not partial to the hammock, despite the space, but I’ve never been in one, so I’m liking it well enough.

“Who planted these guys?”

I motion to the general area of the garden and Neji, whose lying beside me, eyes closed, corrects me, “Whom, you mean”

“More then one person?” I inquire after a beat.

Neji smoothes his hair over a shoulder, where it ends up curled against my side, “The right is the branch family while the left is the Main house”

When you look at it with the imaginary great divide in mind, you can see a clear difference in the plants. The right is simpler then the left, mostly flowers and low shrubs, while the left is all extravagant tree types and creepers. Down the center, they sort of blend.

“It’s nice. Better then any park I’ve been to, I mean”

Neji doesn’t answer and I twist enough to look down into his face, “Are you falling asleep?”

Surprisingly, Neji answers, “…yes”

I wait to see if he’s joking, but his eyes are closed and his breath is evening out second by second.

As I am not fond of the idea of him nodding off on me, I lick his nose.

As you can imagine, he opens his eyes long enough to give me a decidedly annoyed look.

I grin and swing my legs the rest of the way into the hammock and tangle them with his. By the time I’m settled, Neji is sitting up on his elbows and starring at me, “What?”

Neji actually rolls his eyes, “You did that on purpose”

I flop into his chest and grin into his collarbone, “Of course I did”

We’re silent for a bit and I amuse myself with listening to the beat of his heart. Then, I start talking without quite giving pause to what I’m saying, “You were pretty mad, huh?”

Neji’s hand smoothes the silky pajama material on my back, “No”

I sit up and look at him, “No?”

He’s starring up at the sky as if trying to see through clouds, “No”

I put my head down and curl one of my hands under his tank to warm my fingers, “Why not?”

He sighs really deeply and I feel his chest cave a bit with it, “You need a lot of affection and I’m not the most understanding about that”

I stay mum to indicate that he should go on.

“You’re…very open with people. Where I won’t say much, you’ll explain a whole problem. Where I’ll ignore something, you’ll investigate. Where I’ll abandon something as useless, you’ll put time and energy into fixing it”

I dip my finger into his bellybutton, “Hmm”

“In that way alone, we are…drastically different. Intentionally, I am inverted. It works well for me. You are the opposite. It kills you to be ignored even if the attention is abusive”

I sigh, “You mean Sasuke”

Neji parrots me quietly, “I mean Sasuke”

We are quiet again.

“He’s the same as me, you know”

Neji pulls a Gaara: “Hn”

“He needs…someone of his own, basically. He’s just crazy in thinking that it’s me”

Neji surprises me, “He’s not”

I grin, “What? Crazy?”

Neji’s hand on my back stills, “No, wrong: about it being you”

“WHAT?!”

Neji winces at my outburst but continues, after a second, to smooth his hand down my back, “I asked Haku about him. About how you’ve been together since kindergarten. About how, no matter how badly he treats you or beats you up, you always let him get closer to you”

I stare at the edge of the hammock, imagining myself small enough to fall over its edge.

“It seems that you’re more attached to him then you think. Maybe not the same way he feels towards you, but there is something mutual about the whole thing to begin with”

Thinking hard about it, I have to admit that it rings true, in some places, for me. I DO always give Sasuke a second chance and I DO always let him get close enough to hurt me. I just never thought about it being completely intentional.

“This is a whack conversation”

Neji’s chest rumbles quietly under my ear, the purring-type sound his quiet equivalent of laughter.

“Maybe I’m trying to cure him through affection”

Neji’s hand has made it under my top and is tracing my shoulder blade, “Looks like it”

“But I can’t do both”, I persist, “Be involved with someone AND devote time to someone who wants to be involved with me”

Neji leans down to touch his chin to the top of my head, “Maybe you should choose”

I sit up so suddenly I think I actually startle Neji a bit, “I HAVE chosen”

I glare at him and make to roll out of the hammock, “You suck for even thinking that”

Neji’s hand closes around my wrist and pulls me back into the hammock before my second foot touches the ground, “I’m worried”

I find myself on my back, my legs dangling comfortably over the hammock’s edge, starring up into his face, his hair pilled onto of my chest, “You’re kidding” He HAS to be!

He shakes his head and the tips of his bangs brush my forehead.

‘This is madness’ I think.

Out loud, I say: “I love you. Isn’t it that simple?”

Neji’s face becomes ever more solemn, “I love you too. But, you love Sasuke also. Somewhere deep down, you already know that”

I groan in frustration. It’s like everything I say; he finds a way to bounce it back. Is he trying to start a fight with me!?

“Why you keep coming back to that?”

Neji scowls at me; “Because you need to admit it to yourself…I could lose you to him otherwise”

For the first time since I’ve known Neji, he sounds angry.

Not just, ‘stop-being-thick’ angry. I mean ‘listen-to-what-I’m-fucking-saying!’ angry.

Hearing it makes me freeze.

Neji’s face clears and he sighs, sounding so tired, “You’re the one who isn’t listening to me”

Before I can stop myself, baby tears, born of frustration, pool in the corner of my eyes and slide down into the shell of my ears. In a voice that doesn’t sound like mine, I whisper, “I’m trying to”

Neji kisses me instead of reassuring me. His tongue pokes under mine teasingly and I laugh.

Why is it that whenever I’m with him, it’s like I’m suddenly a girl, complete with bipolar emotions?

“Cut it out”, I tell him, mock-sternly, “This is a serious conversation”

Neji ignores me and uses a hand, fisted gently in the back of my head, to tilt my head back a little and kiss me again.

At this point, I no longer try to resist this and kiss back.

Neji’s other hand, still bent under my back, slides down into the hollow just above my butt and curls into my skin. I do nearly the same, liking my fingers childishly around his middle.

Neji leans away from me after a minute and watches, more than a little amused, as I try to get my breath back.

I surprise him and myself with what I say next: “I think we should have sex”

Neji actually pales minutely, before pressing his face into my chest to keep from laughing.

Blushing furiously, I tug gently at his hair, “Fine. I take it back”

In answer, Neji bites my collarbone, “You can’t”

I scowl at the top of his head, “I can”

He raises his head and looks at me critically, “Would you?”

Paralyzed by the seriousness of the question; I take a deep breathe, “No, I wouldn’t”

Neji pulls his arm from under me and runs a finger over my eyebrow, “Good”

He then proceeds to methodically divest me of my top.

Placing my hands on his shoulders, to stay out of his way, I start babbling, “Here? Now? Are you sure? We’re outside, and it’s supposed to rain later-besides, hammocks can be dangerous-“

He cuts me off by thoroughly frenching me. The man is overly serious about everything he does, and shutting me up is no exception.

Some would say that this is pretty sudden, and I would agree.

Is it going too fast? Maybe.

Am I getting a little more excited then is recommended? Probably.

Would I like to stop? Absolutely not.

Despite my resolve to dive into this head first, Neji suddenly pulls away.

I stare, completely bewildered as he answers his phone, “Hello?”

Neji runs a hand through his hair and blows bangs out of his face, “He’s right here”

He then hands me the phone.

I stare at it, the blood flow in my body having gone to other parts, leaving very little for my brain but I understand nonetheless, the right course of action.

I hang up.

Neji stares at me, amused, “She will call back, you realize”

Before I can answer, she does.

~!@!~

“Goddamn brat!”

That’d be the twenty-fifth time in twenty minutes.

Neji diplomatically sips his tea to my right.

“I always thought you were trouble. You’re way, WAY too much like when I was a kid. I saw it coming and I played right into it!”

I shrink away from her ranting and hold on more tightly to Neji’s hand.

Like she’s suddenly defeated, she slumps down and gulps half her tea, which is laced with sake she doesn’t think we saw her pour in, “Well, never mind. What’s done is done”

Abruptly serious, she sets her cup down, “They’d like to place you into a home”

“A home? Like an orphanage?”

She shakes her head, “A home. As in a ‘mom-dad-two point five children-white picket fence and dog setting’”

I consider this and scowl, “They never bothered before”

She cuts her eyes at me, “That’s because I’ve been covering your ass since you moved in”

Neji was right after all.

Neji seems to sense how cornered I suddenly feel, “Can’t he move into a place of his choosing? With a legal adult?”

Tsunade gives Neji an appraising look, “I thought of that, but I’m already ineligible”

“Why?”

The idea of having to leave here makes my gut twist uncomfortably.

She grins lopsidedly at me; “I’m already knee deep in bullshit for what I’ve done for you up till now. Don’t worry, we’ll think of someone”

She sets us loose for the rest of the day, saying she needs to call up a few old friends.

Outside, Neji and I walk once around the apartment building. I have this crazy urge to show him some of the places that gave me the best memories.

On our way to his car, I get jumped, “THERE YOU ARE!”

Knocked flat on my back and feeling dizzy, I still manage to recognize Haku’s voice.

Sitting up with his help, I look up at him, “What the hell was that for?”

Haku grins sheepishly, “I was worried”

Zabuza enters my field of vision and shrugs at me.

Neji pulls me to my feet and I explain what I’ve gotten myself into and where I was. Neji holds my hand but stays silent, looking off towards the parking lot.

Haku and Zabuza listen and Haku offers for me to stay with them, but I refuse. They haven’t been living together for very long and to me, it would be a total invasion. Basically, a breach of privacy.

Haku tells me I have to call Gaara and Shikamaru, and I promise to, before they leave.

In the car, Neji let’s me use his cell:

-“Hello?”-

“Gaara? It’s me”

-“…”-

“Are you mad?”

-“…Where were you?”-

I explain, as best I can, about what’s going on.

-“…”-

“Yeah”, I say, laughing a little, “My thoughts exactly”

-“It’ll be alright”-

It’s awfully reassuring to hear something like this from a person who normally sees things in shades of gray, “Thanks”

-“Welcome”-

Something occurs to me, “Let’s go eat out later”

-“…No”-

“Why?” I try whining a little to wheedle him into changing his mind.

-“New Diet”-

“Huh?”

-“…”-

“Can you hang out then?”

-“Hn”_

“That’s good. I’ll call you about it later?”

-“Hn”-

“Bye, Gaara”

-“Bye”-

Neji looks at me oddly, “Gaara?”

I raise an eyebrow at him, “You don’t know him?”

Neji shrugs, “Yes and no”

I grin, “You’ll meet him later, then”

~!@!~


{Sasuke}

“Has Itachi quit smoking?”

I shake my head and concentrate on following him.

Kisame pulls a face, “He’s doing it to piss me off”

I laugh. My brother is mostly serious, but he can be known to make the odd exception for the sake of being bratty. It’s sort of something we have in common.

“You hungry?”

I shake my head even though I am. Kisame has so many places to go today, that it’ll definitely put a hole in his schedule to stop and eat on my account. Besides, I didn’t tag along to give him trouble, I’m not a kid.

Kisame grins at me, “Let’s find a place”

I shake my head at him, but find myself smiling.

He chooses this out of the way little place with nice smelling pizza.

“What’s the worst thing you ever did as my brother’s bodyguard?”

Kisame is dressed in black slacks and a sleeveless turtleneck, starkly white suspenders adding a classy look. His shoes, leather. When he looks at me over the pyramid of his fingers, he looks like a mobster, “Nothing you’d want to hear about”

No point in asking if he’s ever killed anyone then.

Kisame considers my face, “Ever play darts?”

I look at him oddly.

He shrugs, “You’re not easy to scare and you’re determined. You could learn martial arts, or throwing knives. Swordsmanship even”

I muse over this, “You’d teach me?”

Kisame answers me after the waitress sets our plates down, “If you don’t tell your brother about it, I will”

We bite into our pizzas and grin at each other. He and I both know that it’s only so long before he’d find out anyway. Better to get a running start, though.

“I’d like that”

Kisame nods, “I’m not responsible for who you carve up though”

I give him a withering look.

Though he grins, he holds up his hands in a placating gesture, “Your brother has an inane fascination with daggers. I’m just playing it safe”

It occurs to me that my brother is terribly good at darts.

When we’re finished, we head back outside. The day is basically spent following Kisame on his errands. By the time Kisame assures me we’ll be driving back, I realize that I haven’t a clue what he’s been up to all day.

He’s visited several people, delivered a few letters from my brother and visited two different banks.

In car the car, heading home, I tell him the theory I have about him: “You’re a mobster and my brother is one of your associates. You use his art as a selling front for illegal drug smuggling. You visited business partners and made bank transfers for further transactions and your specialty is keeping things under wraps”

Kisame laughs so long and hard that his fried calamari gets cold before he can calm down and eat it, “You are nothing like Itachi”

I just smirk, feeling smug.

Kisame sighs though, “You probably wouldn’t be so amused if you knew why Itachi actually let you come with me today”

I narrow my eyes at him over my Tortellini, “Does it have anything to do with me?”

It may seen like a far-fetched thing to ask, but I get this horrible feeling Kisame is trying to tell me something.

He just shakes his head, “No matter what happens to you Sasuke, try to use change to your advantage. Change can make you stronger”

And that is all he has to say.

~!@!~

Ja!