EDIT: I decided to add more information about this fanfiction instead of letting you have to read and get an idea yourself because things will start to change sooner or later.

Title: Cobwebs

Author: snowblinded

Pairing: Neji/Gaara (I don't do dominate/submissive pairing listing, so read and see who's topping.)

Rating: T (Abuse, alcohol/drugs, self-harm, eating disorders, etc.)

Lengthy summary: Neji finds himself being relocated from the city to the small town of Sunaville, bringing along what's left of his deteriorating family. School becomes his outlet from the abuse and where he meets a peculiar redhead, Gaara. Through strange forest adventures and late night phone calls, maybe they can find stability in one another and try to break through the cobwebs they're cocooned in.

Okay, READ ON!

Saltwater

The ceiling spiraled above the redhead, or at least it felt like it was spiraling. He could stare at his ceiling for ages, getting lost in the vintage glitter and cheap gem stones the former owners glued to it. It was in poor taste, but it was the seventies, everything was in poor taste. Over time, the redhead started to tape his own pieces of art to the ceiling: glow in the dark stars and planets, stickers of fire from Hot Wheel toys, even acid-induced art pieces he would draw. His ceiling was a piece of art, or at least he thought it was.

The redhead's favorite thing to do was pretend the ceiling was an actual sky. He would lay on his bed with the lights off except for a few candles, letting their dim light illuminate the glitter. Sometimes he made up constellations among gem stones, pretending Orion rested between a heart-shaped stone and the planet Jupiter. It warmed the redhead's heart somehow to come up with his own little world in his room. It was the only time where he could be at peace with his life. He picked what could exist, what could cease, and he would erase everything he created and re-imagine a new sky. It was so easy, yet it let time escape him even faster.

The everyday task of school grew mundane with every passing afternoon. He looked forward to his escape of realism, retreating into a DIY-ed creation from a disillusioned boy. His normal life wasn't bad, it was actually quite pleasant, but it was never enough. He would look up into the normal blue sky and wish for a strand of lace in a cloud or an ill-drawn, smeared sketch of a dead cat. Something out of the ordinary. His wishes would never come true though. The redhead would collapse onto his velvet sheets, straining his eyes to make out the tiny Lisa Frank stickers his sister snuck on the ceiling. It most likely wasn't healthy to do such an activity every day, but what else would he do? Everything else was dull in comparison to his life-work.

Every night, his eyes would struggle to see the green haze of his stars as they slipped shut. He never consented to rest, his body would take over his neglected functions. He drowned in his empty slumber, vaguely remembering the configuration of his ceiling. No matter what DMT-induced action he created, it never compared to his room. The redhead gave up and allowed himself to be carried away into his realm full of blue spots and yellow stripes. Not a single gem stone.

xoxo

A faint piano chord pulled Gaara to consciousness. His long eyelashes fluttered while his mind memorized the song playing, 'Childhood' by Beach House. His latest musical journey included losing himself to lo-fi indie pop that bordered on contemporary and shoegaze. He liked being gently prodded awake by soft, alluring music that coddled romantic images compared to the heavy rock he used to listen to. While avant-garde metal was provoking, it was much too intense to catapult the dreamy redhead into the real world.

He blinked a few times, gaining more of his eyesight. He stretched his body, feeling the ripples of tense muscles relax from his hands to his chest, down to his legs and feet. Gaara sat up and turned his head towards his window. His thick, red curtains shielded the sun from entering his domain. It was much appreciated by the redhead. He preferred dim sunrises to a bright sun that already popped out. He curled his toes, then pulled his foot back, making sure to stretch his Achilles' before standing up.

Gaara almost tip-toed to his window as if he was trying to sneak up on the sun behind the curtain. His fingers grazed over the slit of the velvet curtains, preparing to allow the sun rays to penetrate his room. He quickly tore the one curtain back and shielded his eyes with his free hand. After adjusting his eyes, he looked around his room. All his jewel-toned items looked brighter, happier, not as mysterious as he felt they were. While the image of his illuminated room brought a small smile to his face, it also hurt him a bit. He liked having intrigue in his room. The sun pulled it away, exposing the dark nooks and crannies in his room that he liked people discovering instead of seeing at first glance. He sighed to himself, remembering that no matter how perfect he wanted his room to be, perfection was a goal only accomplished by the insane.

Perhaps insanity was a good course to follow, he thought. Insanity always brought new ideas and concepts to a relatively boring world. As interesting as it sounded, Gaara couldn't bring himself to do such a thing. For one, most insane people slowly bring themselves to it by means of drugs, life-scarring incidents, or mental illnesses that developed on their own like dementia. He was healthy down to his bones (no matter how small they were). Insanity was out of the picture.

Gaara looked at his digital clock, remembering he had not shut off his alarm. 'Childhood' had repeated during his reverie. The clock blinked 7:06, showing that the redhead should prepared for school. The bus came by at 7:30 sharp, so he had to get ready quick. He pressed the 'shut off' button, but reached for the iPod attached, putting on 'You Came To Me.'

He tore off his pants and t-shirt, tossing it in the hamper by his bed. They landed with a soft 'plop' as he made his way to his closet. He slid the mahogany door to the side, revealing the array of dark-colored clothes he owned. Thrift stores and flea markets were one of his favorite places to raid for clothes and other miscellaneous items to add to the growing artwork he called a bedroom. His sister often referred to him as a girl from the way he walked home with bags of things, but it wasn't done as a simple hobby. No, it was the only goal, the only focus Gaara held onto the real world for. Transforming his small space into a visual interpretation of his mind.

The redhead pulled a dark red t-shirt from one of his shelves and tugged it one while the other hand reached in for a black cobweb sweater he somehow managed to make when he went through a knitting phase. He pulled on the cobweb sweater, poking his thumbs out from a hole. Gaara reached once more in for a pair of black jeans. He struggled to pull them up, but once he got them passed his hips, they zipped up well.

He walked over to his amethyst-painted bureau, admiring the wood-cravings someone made into it previously. 'Sally loves James,' 'batternut squish,' 'Number 1!' Gaara liked to imagine the little girl who probably craved them in with a safety pin or a pair of scissors. He shook his head, trying not to distract himself, at least, not until he was out of the house. He reached into one of his pencil holders and pulled out a stick of kohl. Leaning towards the mirror, he swiped a ring of black around his lid, rounding the corner. He traced the other eye before putting the stick away.

He grabbed his backpack from the back of his chair, exiting his wonderland in disappointment. No matter how much his heart ached, he knew he'd be back to it as soon as the last bell rang.

xoxo

Gaara played with the sleeve of his sweater, poking his digits from each holes. It reminded him of 'Wack-A-Mole.' The one reason he enjoyed over-sized sleeves was the ability to hide his hands without tucking them into his jean pockets. No matter how casual it seemed to be on others, Gaara thought it made him look nervous, so he avoided it unless necessary. He noted his chipped black nail polish, flicking off a broken piece.

Others must of thought he was strange, the scrawny redhead staring at his hands the entire bus ride as if they were a miniature movie. They may as well have been. Nothing else intrigued his attention to devote his time to it. Rowdy teenagers? Seen it. Couples kissing? Seen it. A fight? Perhaps for the goal of seeing a bit of blood, but nothing that he couldn't see in a movie. It was unnecessary to direct his focus on anything else.

For a moment, the bus grew quiet. Gaara looked away from his pale hands and out the window. They stopped at a house they never stopped at before. New kid, he thought. That was all the school needed, another kid who appears interesting, but would melt away before Gaara's eyes as they were pulled away by the normal children. The redhead tugged his lips into straight line and looked down at his hands, awaiting the return of the white noise. A weight shifted beside him on the seat. It surprised Gaara for a second that someone claimed a seat near him. People avoided him as much as he avoided them. He made no efforts to see the person next to him though, continuing his gaze upon his small hands.

After a few minutes, the bus pulled up by the school. Gaara heard his peers speak a bit louder, groaning about tests and homework due this morning. He tried his best to tune it out, pretend that it was just static noise. How could they make the same complaints every morning, he thought. Homework is due everyday and there's always a test to be concerned with. Is it worth the repetitive comments?

Gaara bit his lip, gripping the backpack on his lap. He watched the kids trickle out from the bus out his window. He chose to wait for everyone to leave before exiting himself. Less pushing and a quieter leave. The weight on his seat shifted once more. The warmth the person exuded dissipated, along with Gaara's interest of watching the kids. He pulled on his backpack and knelt on the bus seat, eyes focused on the feet in the aisles. Pair by pair, they left until there was an opening for Gaara. He stepped in, following the line of people in front of him.

Just six hours and you're free.

xoxo

"Class, we have a new student. He moved from..." Gaara ignored his teacher's droning voice, focusing on the eraser shavings he made. Small, dirty pink rubber slivers sprinkled his English assignment. He almost giggled to himself, pretending the pencil had dandruff. He swiped the eraser over his name on the top, leaving a trail of pink speckles and a gray smear where the name existed. The pencil desperately needed Head And Shoulders. He almost giggled again, realizing to use that shampoo, it'd require having a head and shoulders. As the laughter inside died down, he felt himself blush.

Maybe insanity wasn't as far off as it seemed, he thought. If he found amusement in pencil jokes, he either was wacky in the head or had a future selling office supplies.

Gaara picked up a shaving with his pointer finger and thumb, rolling the substance between his finger pads. He gave it a quick flick, landing in the hair of the girl in front of him. He dropped his eyes onto the rest of the shavings and blew onto them. They fluttered around, some escaping the paper, others still sticking to the sheet. He gave them a quick brush of his hand and sat back in his seat. His fingers fidgeted through the holes, rolling the yarn, trying to find something else to occupy himself.

He decided to give another chance to the teacher. He had moved on with last night's assignment to which Gaara remembered he erased part of the answers. He picked up his pencil, scribbling his name back on and a few words to half erased answers. Once completed, a stack of papers prodded his elbow. He turned to see a brunette girl holding everyone's assignment from their row. Gaara took the papers, adding his to the top, before turning to his right to pass them on. He didn't look at the person beside him, focusing on the hand which took the papers. Gaara blinked, not recognizing the hand as the usual veiny one of the male beside him. The hand disappeared from his sight. Gaara shifted back forward with a curious feeling of the owner of the hand. He felt the urge to view the person, but didn't act on it.

The next fourty-five minutes felt like two days to Gaara. He couldn't find anything else to distract himself, so he paid attention to class for once. He regretted it from the moment he heard the first three sentences from the teacher's mouth. Since he got sucked into the lecture, he had no choice but to listen. The urge to look next to him had died down upon hearing about the new book they would be reading. It was Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov, which surprised Gaara. Most school curriculums probably wouldn't allow their English department to teach about an older-man falling for a prepubescent teenager. No matter how surprising, it was an appreciated sentiment to Gaara's literary taste. He had enjoyed the book (and felt the need to wear heart-shaped sunglasses during the act) and bought his own copy afterward.

The bell rang, punching Gaara out of his thoughts once more. He frowned and wished for softer bells or maybe a cool saxophone. Then again, it'd take even longer for kids who slept in school to wake up. He organized his papers, stuffing them into his folder, and stacked the folders and notebooks together neatly on his desk. He listened to his peers footsteps leaving. Just like with the bus, he preferred to leave last. When he only heard five or so footsteps, he gathered his paperwork in his hands and stood up. Gaara lifted his eyes up and met someone else's.

Eyes so pale, so white like milk stared back at him, clouded in interest. Gaara felt his own eyes widen, taken aback by such a sight. He had never seen eyes like that before. He wanted to reach out and touch them to make sure they were real and not a figment of a daydream. You couldn't go and touch stranger's eyeballs though, besides the pain that would cause. Gaara tore his sight away from them, catching a glance of brown hair by the person's bicep. The redhead ducked away from the person and made his way to the classroom door. It took every ounce of restraint in his body to not look back.

xoxo

Gaara slipped away from the administration during lunch to eat out by the forest. The forest was a secluded area by the outdoor seating, a good thirty feet back. Twisted trees with gray bark loomed together with a small path going through the mass. If you took the trail for ten seconds, it'd lead you to a clearing. The clearing held four rundown picnic tables. Years ago, the school had a nature club and they would host the meetings in the area. Attached to the forest was a hiking trail that they frequented. The further you walked, the more mangled the limbs would be and the darker the sky seemed to grow. No matter how far people walked, they could never find the end. It was rumored that you'd end up in the forest next to the highway, but there were never any pictures to prove it.

Students were allowed to eat in the area (provided there's an adult present) during lunch, but after a rape scare in 87', the privilege of eating there was revoked. If you were caught in the forest, it called for immediate detention or suspension. Gaara would risk it though. He strove for isolation and the forest was exactly that.

One would think that administration would have caught onto a noticeable redhead walking past the outdoor eating grounds, yet they never stopped him. Gaara liked to think of himself as a ghost: free to roam where he pleased as long as he didn't make a ruckus. He could walk right pass a teacher who's known him for years and wouldn't bat an eyelash as he stepped across the lawn. It was like he was never really there. In a way, he wasn't. He avoided picture day like the plague and would hide when Yearbook Club donned their cameras. There was no proof of him existing in school other than old elementary photos. Gaara loved the feeling of absolute invisibility.

He took a bite into his eclair, eyes wondering over one tree with numerous cravings. 'Eddie G + Ramona,' 'Travis hearts Carol,' 'Cheryl is the bee's knees.' Gaara chuckled, imaging a girl with a knife craving into the tree when it was younger. She must have been one rebel, he sarcastically thought. He walked to the next tree, inspecting it for any other writing. The bark was bare of inscribing, only marred by old age. He continued his search for historical writings, but only found four other trees that circled the clearing with them.

Gaara sighed, claiming a place on his picnic table with the rest of his lunch. He saw ants infiltrating his ham sandwich, making tiny circles in the bread. In consolation, he wasn't going to finish lunch anyway, he preferred eating the sweets. He picked up the tray and placed it beneath the table, obscuring his view of the feast. He climbed a top the table and laid down, looking at the sky.

To a normal person's eye, they'd consider the weather perfect. A blue sky, a few white puffy clouds, the sun tucked safely behind a fat one, the breeze just so to swish Gaara's bangs. Gaara denied this as good weather. He adored poor weather conditions. They provided more excitement compared to a simple day as such. He loved watching the lightning from the guest room windowsill seat, wrapped in an afghan. The closer the lightning struck, the more intrigued he grew. If a fire sparked, it was the best night ever.

The redhead shut his eyes, projecting his ceiling onto his eyelids. It was a better use of his lunch time than cloud-watching.

xoxo

Something touched Gaara's back. He had no idea what or who did it, but he wasn't interested in what either had to do with him. All Gaara wanted to do was go home to his hideout. He didn't need any unnecessary distractions before his stop. There was another touch, only harder than the first. The redhead sighed and turned towards the poke's direction.

A blond boy from his grade smiled at him, asking about the boy who sat beside Gaara on the bus in the morning and during English class. The redhead informed the blond boy that he had no idea what he was speaking about, turning back around. A muffled 'asshole' was heard, but ignored. Sanctuary, he thought. Leave all this behind and hide in haven.

The bus screeched to a stop, signaling Gaara's departure. He pulled his backpack on his shoulders and walked down the aisle. His eyes stared down at the floor until he reached the front. The bus driver bid him a goodbye. He nodded in response. He took the three steps quick, landed on the sidewalk and headed to the driveway of his house. He didn't need to see the bus to know it was leaving, he heard it's loud departing noises. Gaara adjusted his backpack, taking a slow stride up the cobblestone driveway. He started to count how many stones he stepped on on the way to his house.

One, two, three, four, twenty-five, twenty-six, forty-seven, forty-eight. He stopped when he reached the base of the front stairs. He walked up them and opened the door, greeted by his older sister. A smile spread across her face, gripping the broom in her hands.

"Hey Gaara," she said, sweeping by the entrance.

He nodded at her, slipping off his shoes. Sanctuary.

"School was good?"

He nodded at her, taking off his backpack. Fortress.

"That's good. Kankuro said there was a new kid."

He nodded at her, peeling off his jacket. Citadel.

"Did you talk to him?"

He shook his head, placing the jacket on the coat rack.

"Will you actually say something?"

He shook his head, smirking at his irritated sister. He picked the backpack from the floor and ran towards the staircase.

"Hey, no running!"

He ignored her, darting up the stairs for the finish line. With every heavy-footed step, his mood picked up. It was like pumping air into a bicycle wheel. He smiled upon sight of his bedroom door, knowing everything behind that door made life monochromatic in comparison.

Old A/N: So... first chapter. Not sure about the ending, but eh. It's a process. I'm starting college this week, so updates will be sparingly, however, I'm dedicated to finishing this story. I really like the chapters I've written (up to four, but once again, sparingly updating so I'll have time to write if I momentarily lose inspiration.) Thanks for reading. Next update either near the end of this month or beginning of next month.

New A/N (3/31/12): I re-uploaded the first chapter because I felt like I needed to add more information about the story. I had that pretty pretentious sounding summary and I didn't like it when I put it up, but I couldn't think of anything else. So, yeah, new information, new summary. Hope you keep on reading the next few chapters.

New, new A/N (3/05/13): Doing some minor tweaks to the all the chapters for grammar and spelling currently. I'll be re-editing all these ridiculous Author's Notes when finished.

New readers, I update about once every month to three months depending on my attack of inspiration, but I strive for once a month. Okay, happy reading!