Chapter Text
The stench of blood is pungent. Copper, acid against his tongue. His head pounds as if it’s been hit with a sledgehammer, over and over again until his thoughts have been smashed together, incohesive clumps of half formed sentences and pain.
And then, almost as pungent as the stench, is the urge.
Kill, growls the voice. Rough, too loud on the insides of his mind, his sensitive ears, sandpaper and shattered glass. Kill.
No, he answers back to it even though the word hasn’t yet stitched itself to its meaning. The urge is still boiling underneath his skin, all of his nerves prickling. Mixed with the pain, the overwhelming amount of everything makes him nauseous.
Kill, the voice growls again, barely a whisper, tempting in its simplicity. Kill.
And he wants to give in, wants to… Wants. Doesn’t sound right. Doesn’t sound right, why doesn’t it sound right, why‒
Kill.
Let me think, he snaps at it, and everywhere, his body aches, but the voice recedes, recoils with the shiest hint of confusion. The pounding in his head grows stronger, the urge spreading until it has engulfed, clouded every remaining sensation.
And as much as he would enjoy pretending to himself otherwise, this kind of numbness, this specific state of mind — minus the headache — is remembered, etched to him like an ugly scar, unforgettable, unforgivable, the epitome of the very thing he’s been running since...
Kill. Sky blue eyes, aggravating orange jacket. Kill. Bright blonde hair, a friendly smile. Kill. The first one to reach out, and, in the end, the last one to give up. Kill. He would recognize that face anywhere. Kill.
The viciousness. The hunger. The angry snarling, and how good it felt to let go, to let the numbness wash away at every other feeling, to burn him and through him, breaking, shattering, falling with no one to catch him, no one to care, no one‒
“Just die already”, his uncle had said, and Gaara knows the word for the urge.
Bloodlust.
Kill.