Caught on Strings
The moon rises into the sky, its pregnant form drawn upwards like a puppet. Kankurou's fingers dance, their shadows sending a spider cavorting across the walls. His marionette leers at Temari, its face taunting her as its limbs jerk disjointedly. When she had been little, she had been afraid. A younger Kankurou had enjoyed chasing her once, puppets clicking and clanking behind him. When he had cornered her, she had punched him in the stomach.
A long string of lanterns climb alongside the normally dark street. The revelries are over, and trash lies scattered across the cobblestones.
And Gaara is gone. Temari sighs, curling her arms around her stomach as if to protect her vulnerable body. She can still feel his nails dig into her neck, still feel heat exploding between her legs. She can still hear her younger brother's plaintive whimpers, over and over again, a religious chant rising out of the depths of sin.
Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me?
"Where's Gaara?" Kankurou asks conversationally, jerking his puppets up and down. Their dance is painful and forced. Unnatural.
"I don't know where Gaara is." She tries to ignore him, tries to pretend everything is normal so she can casually return to the bedroom and hide things. So nobody will ever know.
Then she can pretend it never happened.
Shrugging, her older brother scuffs his sandals into the ground. "Well, he'll turn up. Always does. Remember that one ti—"
"There were so many times." Temari cuts him off shortly, automatically smoothing her crumpled skirt. "Too many for a distinct memory."
"Eh, not re—" He glances up at her face. "…yeah." The sharp wind blows, sending debris dancing down the road. "…You're a grump today."
She turns her face from him, gazing out the window.
Gaara's mouth ravished her neck, sucking hungrily and desperately at her flesh. He hardly ever talked to her, made conversation. He did not know how. He knew how to kill, he knew how to take, and he knew how to plunder.
"Possibly."
"Definitely." His shoulders shake as he giggles, a painted smirk rising over his features. "Grump."
This new craving for love had not made her brother new, or perfect. He was not transformed; he was not made whole. He had not forgotten what the rest of his life had made him into. He had not been born a monster: the world had labeled him one. Her fists clench as she recalls the last few hours.
He slammed her against the wall, panting, nearly breathless. "This is what people do," he had insisted, desperate, "This is what people are supposed to do." An inexperienced hand tumbled over her breasts.
No, Gaara, not like this. Not like this, she tried to explain as he clutched her wrists, teeth nibbling harshly at her neck.
"Mother of and father did this to make us…" he whispered into her ear, voice half that of a small boy, whining and pleading for attention. "When people join like this, it means they love each other!"
"People don't do this!" Temari gasped, shaking her head violently. Her arms began to tremble beneath his iron grip. "Gaara, listen to me. There is a time, and a place, and a—"
"You don't love me!" A pained accusation.
"It's not that! Please, this isn't how—brother and sisters—don't do this…"
"Why don't you want me? Why won't you touch me? Nobody ever willingly touches me!" Gaara's fingernails had dug deep into her flesh as he dragged her from the wall. "I'll make you love me! I'll make you, sister, I'll make you love me!"
"Gaara, please!" She was on the verge of hysteria, helplessness sending tremors of fear through her rigid body. "Please, listen to me! Stop!"
Sand poured stealthily through the cracks in the windows, crawling down the frames and slipping along the floors. Creeping over her feet, it crawled over her flesh, ticking her ankles.
"If you would just…" she cajoled desperately.
"Get onto the bed."
"Just…calm down…"
"Do it!" He released her wrists, an animalistic smile twisting his face out of proportion. "I love you, sister."
She gazed into the eyes of a frightened little boy eyes as she sank onto the mattress.
Temari kicks her heel viciously into the wall. "Leave me alone. I'm going to bed."
"What'd I do?" Kankurou's puppets sink lifeless to the ground. "Hey, what'd I do?"
"Just leave me alone right now!" She blinks fiercely, striding across the room, trying to escape. Futile, futile all over again. An unfriendly bed looms before her, its sheets still tangled and knotted. She is terrified that it is soiled, exposing their unforgivable sin. She can still feel heat rhythmically caress her neck.
Her little brother climbed over her opened legs, hands fumbling over her body. Digging her fingers into the mattress, Temari forced her eyes to shut, trying to erase this nightmare with temporary blindness. She couldn't help but tremble at the sound of cloth slipping off flesh. Whimpering in soft protest to the fingers exploring her skirt, Temari felt the desert heat sweep over her exposed flesh.
Gaara pressed his lips against hers, forcing his tongue into her lax but unresponsive mouth. Dispite her wishes her eyes snapped open, and her brother's intense gaze bound her in a trap.
Kankurou's annoyed shouts transport her back to reality. "Hey! What's wrong? Come on, Temari. You're pissing me off!"
Temari feels fingers around her bruised wrists and jumps, terror exploding in her chest and zipping down her spine. "Get off me!"
He let go, fingers drifting down to his side, as if they didn't know where to go. "Then tell me what's wrong!" His eyes were wide, his jaws clenched.
"There's nothing wrong!" she nearly sobbed.
"Yes there is!" An inquisitive hand grasped her shoulder.
She shuddered, retreating, holding out pleading hands of protest. "Please don't touch me!"
"What the fuck is going on?" His voice was rising to a dangerous level; his foot slammed into the doorframe. "You're acting like a nutcase!"
"A nutcase? A nutcase!" she pulled her hands tightly around her chest. Resignedly she sat down on the bed, hair flopping miserably as she turned her gaze to the floor. "Who's the nutcase around here?"
There was a brief silence, followed by a soft: "What'd he do?"
"He got out of hand."
"What'd he do, Temari?"
"Does it matter?" It came out bitterer than she intended.
"If it's affected you this much, yes, it matters to me!"
She watches as her brother stomps around the room, digging his fingers through his hair. Clutching her trembling fingers against her knees to steady them, she grits her teeth. "He took me."
"He what?" Kankurou whirls on her.
"He took me," she repeats softly, "in this bed. Two hours ago. When everyone was at the festival. I had come to get more food. I told him to stop…"
The wind hisses through cracks in the door, causing a jar on the floor to quaver.
"When Baki came in, I hadn't gotten up. The sheets were all messed up like this. I told him I'd had a nightmare, because that wasn't a lie. I said I was sick." Temari forces herself to stand and fumbles with the sheets.
Her brother's lip trembles as he whispers, "Why didn't you tell him?"
"…I didn't want to damage Gaara's Kazekage chances." The brown fabric slips through her fingers, and after a few seconds, she throws it onto the bed and begins to yank its ends loose.
"God damnit! Damnit!" Flinging the cloth into the wall, she sinks onto the floor, burying her face in the bed's soft surface. "There's blood on it," she gasped, "…all over it. Blood, damnit. Stupid blood…stupid blood…"
Kankurou gently collects the blanket. "You'll just say you had your period, eh?"
She turns to him, a gleam showing through wet eyes. "Heh," she manages.
A pained smile stretches across his face as he sinks down to her level. "You're one of the strongest people I know."
"Why, Kankurou?" She knows he can't answer.
A shadow wavers outside the door, barely visible through the cracks.
"…I don't know."
"Why is he so screwed up? Why? Why does everything wrong that's ever happened have to come from him?"
"I don't know."
"And why…can't I hate him?"
"I don't know." He kneels onto the floor, tentatively moving his arms around her.
"God…" She buried her head in the warm black cloth. "I wish I could hate him. Everything would be so much easier if I could just hate him! If he'd never been born…"
Kankurou gazes at the wall, hands tightening around his sisters shivering body.
The shadow flits away from the door, fleeing past the window and off into the night.
"He's my little brother." Her words are barely audible. "And he's precious to me."
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Next time you write a story, do try the autosummarize option. Your computer will "examine the document" and pick out the sentences "most relevent to the main theme." ROFL