[fic] Naruto, "The Paths Water Travels"
Okay, so earlier I finished the first twenty-five episodes of Naruto and was all "I SHOULD WRITE HAKU FIC NOW TO CELEBRATE" only I got distracted by stuff.

....stuff is pretty distracting, you'll have to admit.

Anyway. After I stopped getting distracted, I wrote. Serious Naruto-fic, even. Seriously, has anyone seen my soul? Please check around. You'd recognize it anywhere. It's small, black, and shrivelled.

The Paths Water Travels
Naruto
Zabuza/Haku. Spoilers for, um, up to episode 19 or so. Not safe for work.



Haku is on a bridge when he meets Zabuza for the first time. He can hear the water rushing beneath him, a soothing constant rush of noise that doesn't block off Zabuza's cutting insults, and that certainly doesn't blind Haku to the anger and loneliness in those harsh eyes.

"You have the same eyes I do," Haku says and smiles.

When Zabuza claims him and reaches out to him, when Zabuza claims Haku in the name of Haku's abilities, Haku rises and can feel the rattle of the bridge under his feet, the vibrations of water.

Zabusa's arm around his shoulders is both possessive and protective and Haku believes for the first time that he knows what it feels like to be a sheathed weapon.

***

Zabuza has claimed Haku's abilities, but Haku knows that Zabuza cannot know all of them. There is no way to tell a bloodline limit by sight alone; if there were, his mother would have died long before Haku could have been born, and then he would not have had to kill his father, but then, he would also never have been claimed.

He does not want to be lost again, but Zabuza has claimed his abilities, and so when they are back in their room, Haku sits on the floor by Zabuza's feet and raises his glass of water. "Zabuza-san," he says. "I have a bloodline limit."

He is relieved when the interest in Zabuza's eyes only sharpens. "Do you?"

"May I show you, Zabuza-san?"

"Do it."

He lowers his glass to the floor, and holds his hand over it. Obediently, the water rises, small tendrils orbiting the spherical centre. Haku narrows his eyes at it, thinks of the snow of his homeland, and then takes hold of the frozen circle, passing it to Zabuza.

Zabuza turns it over and over in his hands. There is a smug, pleased look on his face. "Can you melt it as well?"

Haku nods, and obediently melts it. The water overflows Zabuza's hand, falls through his fingers in a miniature waterfall, trails down his arm and soaks his sleeve.

"Good boy," Zabuza says, and Haku can see an unusual expression in his eyes; it takes him a moment to recognize it as covetousness.

"I will hone the ability," Haku says, bowing forward over his knees. "For you, Zabuza-san."

***

By the time Haku is eleven, he has killed over thirty people. He has kept track, somewhere, and wishes he could stop doing so. He does not like killing; he prefers to avoid combat where possible, or to warn his enemies off. But this is a part of his training; Zabuza has said he must get used to cold-blooded murder -- and so he kills, and so he tries to get used to it.

It is remarkably easy to do, however distasteful he finds it. He knows every vital organ, and how to rupture it with a single needle. Zabuza measures his ability by the number of needles Haku needs to use to kill a man; originally, he'd been allotted three, but now if he takes more than one needle, he has failed.

A sharp tool cannot be allowed to weaken.

Afterwards, he heads to a waterfall he has found and strips down, lets the water rush over him. There were a few targets who, thanks to the angles, he'd had to attack from close by, and their blood is on him.

The cold water does not clean him immediately, but then, blood is a very sticky thing. Haku ponders the way the water around his legs spreads a slow pink. The water on his body forms trails through the blood, marking out paths; the rest of him doesn't get clean until he scrubs. But that, he thinks, is the nature of water; it will carve out paths for itself, and then stick to those paths as much as possible.

Zabuza is waiting on the banks when Haku wades out, naked and clean. "Here," Zabuza says, and tosses Haku's clothing to him. "Get dressed."

Haku shakes himself off, and focusses, pulling out chakra and letting the water fly from him. "Yes, Zabuza-san."

Zabuza's smile can hardly be seen through the mask he wears over the lower half of his face. "You did well today."

The praise is a warmth in Haku's chest as he closes his robe, ties his obi. "Thank you, Zabuza-san."

***

When he is thirteen, he lies awake in bed in the small hut he and Zabuza have to themselves and stares at the ceiling, breathing, and trying to keep control of himself. He has, by this age, mastered almost all of the killing arts, used his bloodline limit to create an ultimate attack that nobody has ever managed to overcome, and learned to use his needles to induce a state in others that is indistinguishable from death, but he cannot prevent himself from getting an erection. Nor can he will one away with any degree of success.

He has managed to hide it for a few weeks, but his luck runs out tonight, and Zabuza rolls over in the bedroll they share, his thigh pressing right against Haku. Haku's breath whistles out and he closes his fists in the bedsheets, willing Zabuza to not have noticed.

Zabuza is silent for a long moment, and then chuckles. "Ah," he says. "So you're that age already."

Haku is not sure how to respond. He flounders a moment, then inches back a small distance in bed, to give Zabuza his personal space back. "My apologies, Zabuza-san. If you will allow me to have a few moments to recover myself--"

"Eh," Zabuza says, and reaches down, taking hold of Haku's erection.

It's utterly unexpected and absolutely incredible, so much so as to nearly hurt, and Haku just barely manages to keep his cry down to a low moan. "Zabuza-san, I--"

"Shush," Zabuza orders. "You're a good boy, all right? It's fine."

It's fine, Zabuza has said, so it must be all right, although Haku is sure on some level that Zabuza is degrading himself by doing this for him. It is too late for him to stop, anyway; he moves, and gasps, and comes sooner than he thought he would, left sweating and shaken and is embarrassed to find that he has closed his eyes tightly enough that tears have squeezed from the corners of his eyelids and have made shameful tracks along his cheeks. It is not emotional crying, but it is nevertheless somehow one of the most awkward parts of that moment. One has tracked down to his lips and he can taste the salt of it.

Zabuza is hard against his leg now, and he grins at Haku with sharp teeth as he takes Haku's hand, wraps it around his own erection. It is hot, seems to pulse faintly -- the vein, naturally, Haku thinks with the detatched part of his mind -- and he closes his hand with a careful strength, starting to pump, mimicking Zabuza's hand on him.

It takes longer, this, than Haku had anticipated and his wrist is starting to hurt a little from the angle by the time Zabuza growls something out and comes. His semen, spattering Haku, is surprisingly hot and Haku finds himself having to catch his breath, biting at his lower lip.

"Mmm." Zabuza does not say anything for awhile, and then sighs, with something like contentment, or as close to such as Zabuza ever comes. "Haku, summon some water."

"Zabuza-san?"

"If we don't clean up, we'll be uncomfortable later."

Haku calls water from the air, passes it in arcs over their bodies, wraps the waste up with it, and moves it out of the window before letting go of his hold over it. Wet, Zabuza curls down against Haku again, throwing one arm over him.

"Night," Zabuza says.

Haku stays awake for a good hour longer, watching the ceiling and counting Zabuza's breaths before he finally sleeps.

***

They train during the day and slowly develop the habit of making love at night. When he is entirely honest with himself, Haku will admit his desire is greater in the morning, but in the mornings Zabuza is restless, goal-focussed; it's easier at night.

At night, then, Zabuza has taken to pressing Haku into the bedsheets. Haku doesn't mind; it is more comfortable than a few of the positions they have done. When on his back, though flexibility saves him from possible discomfort in his back, Zabuza has a tendency of accidentally putting a hand down on Haku's hair, and the awkward sudden repositioning tends to disrupt the mood. It is easier for them both like this.

Haku folds an arm under his head, presses his face into the arm, and breathes in the space between that and the pillow. Zabuza's hard, fast movements shake his body but he is firm, presses back, feels streams of pleasure rush through his veins.

At times like this, when his face cannot be seen, he allows himself to think all sorts of absurd things: that he is a vessel for Zabuza as well as a tool for him, that he is part of Zabuza in the way only a weapon could ever be, an extension. He imagines expressions on Zabuza's face that have long since been lost from it. He imagines expressions on his own that he cannot seem to form any more.

Zabuza is always courteous of Haku's own pleasure and Haku lets it sweep him away, small noises bubbling behind his lips.

After Zabuza is finished as well, Haku reaches for the bowl of water they have taken to keeping beside the bed.

***

Haku is on a bridge when he dies. It is easier to use his abilities here, but that wasn't enough to win, not against that much chakra.

Death is the only option; a tool that has broken against another's weapon is no good for use any more. It has lost its balance. Even if kept and repaired, it will never be as strong.

But although calmly accepting the death he'd been granted was his first option, it was the selfish one; it was the option that would deny Zabuza the last chance to win, and so he apologizes, and so he leaves and appears in front of Zabuza to protect him before Kakashi the Sharingan-User can kill him.

The energy poured through his body when Kakashi's hand presses against his chest, brought up short before it can touch Zabuza instead, sets Haku's blood to boiling. He can hear the rush of it in his ears, hear it mix with the rush of the water under the bridge. The way it shakes him feels like the trembling of the unfinished bridge.

There is a sudden chill in the air. Winter is arriving, and he thinks that it will melt soon, be spring earlier than usual, and he hopes he will be alone when the ice melts; it will mean Zabuza has lived. He does not want them to have to observe spring together in Hell.

The air is growing colder, but he can feel Zabuza's warmth at his back. Haku smiles and thinks, as his vision blacks out from the edges in, that this is not a bad way to die.