Valentine's has somehow always ended up being a complicated date for the Sand Siblings.
It happened like clockwork: Gaara, invariably, would be mad. Temari, almost as invariably, would be pregnant (and mad). Kankuro, more often than not, would be progressively working his descent into madness.
It was to be expected, what with February being one of the hottest months Suna had to offer, the threat of droughts and invasion permanently hovering in the horizon, and their significant others living such a great distance away.
Still…. all of these particular circumstances happening six years in a row was pushing it a bit too much.
**********
To start with, Suna would have to call every available nin back home to help control the situation, which made leaving the village completely impossible for its Kazekage.
It also meant Temari would have to come home as well, which meant going through her mother-in-law's insufferable bitching, her husband's accusing looks and their children's best attempt at guilt-ridding her into an early grave until the moment she left.
Originally, Kankuro had suspected that Shikamaru thought that being in various states of pregnancy would help change his wife's mind about the travel to Suna during the first couple years. Considering Shikamaru was a genius and Temari was currently five months pregnant with her fourth child, Kankuro was sure that now was a good time to start assuming he was doing it out of being a vindictive little bitch.
Or he was planning to take over the world with an army of spiky-haired shadow users.
It was only too bad for him that a violently mood-swinging Temari was just what Suna needed to keep their rows under perfect control. With each nin too worried about having her frustrated ire directed at their them, who had time to panic over something as simple as little lack of water?
Still, that wasn't the worst of it, oh no. In fact, the last couple years hadn't been so tough with the neighboring villages sending provisions and whatever help was needed if it looked as if things were starting to get out of control.
The worst of it was his little brother.
Almost eight years ago, the combined forces of Suna, Konoha and Mist had finally managed to defeat the Akatsuki. As they stood in what was left their headquarters, Konoha's number one ramen addict had, in what surely was an adrenaline and euphoria-filled second- not to mention one of the most horrifyingly, traumatizing moments of Kankuro's life- swept the closest person (his brother) into a dip and shoved his tongue down Gaara's throat.
Ok, Kankuro remembered thinking. He could live with that.
Only that after a second or two of careful consideration where the gaping spectators could practically hear the way the sand gritted through the gears in Gaara's mind, the redhead apparently decided he wasn't that much against the blonde's lips, nor the miso flavour in general, and lifted his hands to grope Naruto's ass.
When Kankuro woke up a few weeks later- the brunette had never in his life been so happy that he'd learnt the self induced coma no jutsu- he was told by a blissful-looking Sakura that Naruto and Gaara were now officially an item.
To this day, he still wasn't sure if her dreamy expression was due the morphine she was being administered or the steady stream of blood coming from her nose that not even Tsunade-hime herself had been able to stop.
But that was all right with him, really.
If the blond menace could make Gaara really happy, then that was all right with him. Very little ever seemed to make Gaara happy, and considering the other option was feeding blood to his sand, Kankuro decided he'd rather have the pair going at it like bunnies.
Except when they were doing exactly that. By then all he wished for was to be deaf or that Konoha's Hokage wasn't so fucking loud or explicit in what he chose to shout.
***************
By the time Kankuro had come downstairs, Temari was in the process of baking some special Valentine's Day cookies for her husband and children, the keyword being ´trying´, because hell, they were in the middle of a drought. With everyone keeping close track of their supplies, the sentient-looking batter probably meant that Gaara and he would be down to soldier rations for the next week and a half.
Not for the fist time, he wondered if his sister made those horrible cookies to apologize to her family for leaving every year or as payback for everything that they put her through. He'd know for sure on the day that she sent the package to her in-law, but until then, he'd just have to bear with eating bars made mostly of recycled newspapers while consoling himself with the thought that at least they weren't those cookies.
"Where are you going?" his sister asked, licking the wooden spoon that she was using to mix the batter. Apparently, not only did pregnancy turn Temari bipolar, but also mutated her taste buds. The wonders of hormones…
"Gaara's probably traumatizing his secretaries with the whole emasculating of Uzumaki sand clones. I'd better go and see if I can convince him of saving it for when he sees the real thing," the brunette replied, which in the Sabaku family roughly translated to ´I'm gonna see if my baby brother is okay and offer some emotional support´.
Temari looked dangerously close to being proud and he wisely fled before she had a chance to do something horribly traumatizing, like hugging him or nominating him the guinea pig for trying her cookies.
***************
As he slowly made his way to the Kazekage's office, he mentally recounted the going-ons of the past six years.
The first Valentine's, neither Gaara or Naruto had much of an issue. With the Akatsuki defeated and the Kyuubi vessel having just been appointed as Hokage, it was understandable that he couldn't leave Konoha.
On year two, Uchiha Sasuke attacked Konoha on February the 10th and it had taken nearly a week to push the Sound forces out of their territory. Gaara had been worried, but Naruto had ended up without a scratch during the three days, so it couldn't have been that bad. Naruto had promised that the following year he'd make it up to Gaara and all was alright with the world afterward.
On year three, Uchiha had attacked again around the same date and had stayed about that long.
And he had continued this through the following three years as well.
That had been when things had turned kind of ugly. Understanding as Gaara could be, he was not that patient. In fact, when it came down to it, he was pretty damn selfish. He had been satisfied that he had someone for the first couple years, but it was only natural that he'd eventually start feeling greedy.
Now he wanted chocolate in a heart-shaped box.
Any moment now, Gaara would start wanting serenades and to be told how pretty he was twenty-four-seven, and then Kankuro dreaded that he would really have to kill himself out of self-preservation.
Because, really, a dissatisfied Gaara was a very unstable Gaara.
Two years ago, his brother had suggested having Valentine's moved to another date, maybe in March or June, but thankfully they had been able to talk him out of it. Even Gaara understood that, though he could get away with a lot of things simply due to his intimidating nature, it would take something a little more solid than 'Lets-change-Valentine's-day-because-I´m-tired-of-the-world-conspiring-against-my-chocolatey-lovelove-day' to convince Suna's council and the rest of the Hidden Villages to move a world-wide holiday.
Last year, Gaara had kind-of snapped and decided that Uchiha had been attempting against his love-life on purpose and he started a campaign to have the Otokage permanently dealt with. This had resulted in one of the worst fights that had ever been held between Konoha and Suna's Kages, with Naruto refusing to so much as speak to Gaara for nearly four months. It had taken Suna to declare a National Ramen Day to get the blonde to set foot back into the Wind Country and, subsequently, Gaara's bedroom.
Personally, even Kankuro had started to find it suspicious that Uchiha had kept attacking around Valentine's Day, only in his case, he was starting to fear that attacking the Village of Leaf in the middle of the night and duking it out with its Hokage for weeks was Uchiha's idea of romance. He'd never tell something like this to his brother, though. Kankuro had every intention of beating Suna's anniversary of "364-days-since-the-last-time-our-Kage-decided-to-go-into-a-killing-spree", and they still had 296 days to go before they could reach it.
But none of that really mattered- Gaara could be unbalanced, scary, and, to top it all, have bad taste in men, but he was still his younger brother, and he couldn't leave him alone in his moment of distress. Gaara's "moments of distress" had an alarming tendency to lead to property damage.
With a steering breath and mental count to one-hundred-and-thirty-two, he pushed the large doors open and strode into Gaara's office, fully expecting to find his brother moping or destroying something… And kind of gaped at the fact his Kazekage was currently sitting in the lap of one Uzumaki Naruto, ice cream cup in hand, spoon in mouth and the air conditioner blasting with enough force to form stalactites on his nose hair.
"Er… isn't he supposed to be helping his village fight off Uchiha?"
"He is," Gaara said, looking ever like the proverbial cat with all the canary feathers on its muzzle as he licked his spoon clean. "But he sent a clone to give my gift to me instead."
"Gift…?"
"My Valentine's Day present," Gaara purred in a smug, self-satisfied voice.
To Kankuro, it kind of sounded like 'Mmmmyes, mmmmyes, the Master is pleeeeased~. '
"He taught the clone how to make it and sent it here."
Kankuro carefully moved closer, curious despite his better judgment.
"What did he do for you…?"
"Chocolate Espresso Bean Mocha Shake."
No wonder the air conditioner was on. Chocolate, ice cream and ridiculous quantities of coffee? Naruto was good. Maybe he had underestimated the younger blonde's skill. Gaara certainly seemed to be shoveling in the treat with enough enthusiasm.
"Can I-"
"No."
The sand immediately built a mini-fortress between the desk and the puppeteer, his brother staring at him in open distrust for a second or two before having what was left of the dessert in a rapid succession of spoonfuls. Gaara licked both his fingers and lips clean and then, grabbing the clone by the front of his hideous red and black jacket, proceeded to snog the living daylights out of him.
Kankuro was one hand seal away from the blissful nothingness of weeks worth of brain activity comparable to that of a root vegetable when Gaara decided to release his dazed-looking prey and smooth his dishevelled hair.
"That is my Valentine's present. I want you to deliver it to Naruto."
Horrifying knowledge dawned upon Kankuro.
"Gaara… Gaara, the clone is going to- to Uzumaki."
"Yes~, I know," his baby brother said as he pushed a couple handfuls of sand into the clone's pants pockets and gave his butt a complimentary tap. "Remember to do it exactly like I showed you."
The clone nodded eagerly and jumped out of the window, setting off at top speed toward its goal as Gaara heard the unmistakable sound of a body hitting the ground, not at all surprised to see Kankuro's prone body on the floor, his hands still arranged in the forbidden hand seals.
The Kazekage sighed and shook his head. Kankuro always acted weird around Valentine's, but he decided to ignore it for now. He had a letter to write especially for his fellow Kage, and it wasn't as if Kankuro would mind staying in a heap on the floor a little longer.
He did it every year, after all.
Greetings and salutations, kind people of the fandom. This was my first attempt at writing Gaara/Naru and the fic itself was supposed to be an attempt to enter the gaanaru community at LJ. Of course, I didn't make it in time, but… yeah, at least I finished this one? A companion piece is in the process of being written, so please show me your support! My favourite manga finished after 7 years and my heart weeps at the loss… TAT
Special thanks to my beta Neffikins~