I wasn't supposed to write this until I finished TAOLG, but I woke up yesterday morning and that was all I wanted to write. This fic is written in Gaara's POV. This is different from what I normally write. It's my first time trying the present tense, so be gentle please.
I think I should warn you that this is not fluffy with rainbows and unicorns. To be fair: there will be abusive relationships, swearing, kids feeling abandoned, an underage kid getting a tattoo, overprotective brothers, a bossy sister, an awkward sex talk between two brothers and a broken heart.
Enjoy! :)
Pairings: hints of ShikaTema
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
-X-
Gaara sits on the roof, above unstable grounds and mutters.
He is five and has decided to make it a rule to stay away from them. With his father gone, he hears the rustles of his bedsheets sliding down his skin, the faintest crack of his siblings' steps at night and the branches tapping on his window. The silence that reigns in his house is deafening. He can't never convince himself that the slightest noise isn't monsters trying to reach out to him. Even when he is awake, he can't shrug off the nightmares. He has made it a rule to also stay away from himself.
He doesn't sleep, afraid he would have to face something within him that shares his father's profile.
Gaara comes from a family of immigrants who never stay long, their skin tanned with grains of sand entrapped in their wrinkles. He wonders if it's about the monsters that are trapped in his closet, if they feel it too howling in their chest. If that's why they leave. If that's why they don't want to stay.
When they took away his father, he didn't flinch. He was used to the loneliness that crept in his siblings steps. He was used to the graze of their hands when they walked around him. Carefully. Gently. They are as afraid of him to stir the beast. Tonight they took away his uncle and everything is different. It's only Kankuro, Temari and him now.
"Gaara!" Temari hisses on his right, the wind amplifying her voice, deforming it.
She leans out of the window, her hair dancing savagely around her flushed face. He jolts refusing the arms that reach out for him. She was there, she heard their uncle when he blamed him. She screamed when he held up the gun, but he could never make out what she said exactly. Do it or don't? Everything echoes similarly in their sandcastle. His jade gaze hesitates on her face and he expects the same cold anger. She is exasperated, cursing and gesturing for him to come closer to the window. No anger, but he still ignores her, waving the flashlight he is clutching too hard on the tree in front of him. The wind eats the words pouring out of her mouth. They could be accusations, after all if he took away his uncle's sister, he took away their mother.
"Gaara!" Kankuro screams this time, pushing Temari out of the way. "You could fall down and break your neck. Get in! NOW!"
He shakes his head firmly, holding his knees closer his chest. There has always been a monster in their house. It can never be different, he knows.
"C'mon take my hand!" His brother has longer arms but he avoids them too, sliding on the tiles until he sits in middle of the roof. As long as he is unreachable to them, the monsters will remain at bay.
Maybe all along, it has been because of him that everyone has left. Maybe they became travellers when they stared at him and sensed the monsters in his room, lurking down the hall, prowling in front of his room. He doesn't realize those are his uncle's words coming out of him.
He just wants to sit on the roof. The monsters can't reach him here. The shouts on his right become angry and desperate. Gaara knows the melody all too well. He presses his hands to his ears, the flashlight rolling down. The light rolls on the branches below him. He flinches, the darkness swallowing him.
"Leave me alone!"
"Buddy, you can't stay on the roof forever."
"Don't make me come out and get you!"
"You don't weigh like a five year old, child, Tem! Don't even! Fuck it, I'm getting the ladder!"
Gaara doesn't care. He wants to let them a chance to walk away because he knows later he will care if they don't come back. He is not used to thinking in the distance. He is not used to watching the setting sun and the same rising one either.
He is scared of what it means to witness the endless circle of people leaving and coming.
He is scared of what it means to stay behind.
-X-
Away
by Clementive
-X-
Gaara sits on the farthest bench of the park to watch the other children play.
He is seven and he wonders why his schoolmates can cry out, their bright smile never really far away. Their lips curl so easily. He touches his own lips, drawing with his index the contour of a firm grim line that never wavers. Just like his siblings. He lets his arm fall back on his thigh, the children's voices vibrating around him, but in his chest it rings emptily.
Nothing stops them. Everything stops him.
His legs swing and he grips the bench concentrating on the children playing and building sandcastles. Temari doesn't find him until it's diner time and he's still trying to understand why parents hug their children, why they let them play without slaps or kicks. No one's name is 'asshole', 'fuckface' or 'slut' in the sandpit and he wants to understand why.
"What are you looking at?" Temari narrows her eyes glancing back and forth between him and the kids.
"Why don't we hug?"
She never answers. She snorts, her head as filled as his of the things they will never be able to understand because they are different.
Because their father spoke with his hands and their mother died.
Because their uncle is in jail and they have been forging a distant cousin's signature for years now.
Because they refuse to have the state take care of them, thinking they can do it themselves.
Because they are alone, but together. Hurting, but healing. Because. Because.
There aren't enough reasons to fill the gap between children and survivors of horrifying love. Somewhere between the two still lies the too big clothes that hid from others the only beating truth they knew. Sons and daughter of a physical monster. Nephews and niece of a psychological monster. They are pieces forced together, not quite fitting in with one another. Not fitting in at all with the rest of the world. Temari doesn't understand it herself, so she can't explain it. She crosses her arms over her chest instead and glares at the children, feeling Gaara's pale eyes on her. The intensity of his stare follows her just like it does when she opens his closet to show him that there is no monster inside or when she drops to her knees to look under his bed.
Temari never tells him she does the same when the silence is as unbearable as her memories. When the neighbours open cans of beer and the wind carries the acidic heavy smell in her room. She twists and turns in her sheets that cling to her body before searching the shades for what is left of their family.
She snorts again when a mother picks her daughter, kissing her cheek, pressing her close to her chest. Gaara watches her as she pushes away her golden locks, her teal glance cold when it finally finds his. He almost asks her about kissing. He almost holds up his arms to see if she would pick him as she used to.
"C'mon, diner's ready. I made your favourite dish so don't you dare complain I interrupted... whatever you were doing."
Gaara follows her on the sandy path without glancing back. He is used to it now; squaring his shoulders and looking ahead. That's what survivors do. That's what his siblings do. Two steps later he stops however, frowning, battling with himself for the right words.
"Do the monsters under my bed hug too, Tem?"
She sets her lips in a firm line. She had almost said it: monsters do not hug. She doesn't know what it makes of them since they never touch, fearing explosions more than words. They are too young to understand why their uncle's abuse doesn't fade in their skin the way their father's belt and fists had.
"Maybe."
She can at least pretend for his sake that their father and uncle hadn't taken that away from them.
-X-
Gaara doesn't sit on the porch until he is twelve.
When things resonate too powerfully, moving across from him in a chaotic melody, he cannot hide from the monsters lurking out of the darkness. It's in him. It's around him. It's probably him and the fights he gets in every day at school. He leans back against pillar of their veranda, his arms firmly crossed against his chest. He knows nothing but defiance.
Sitting on his porch, he waits for the people dancing and sweating inside his house to leave and carry their world back with them.
It's difficult to concentrate on his anger when Kankuro laughs broadly and Temari smiles timidly at her new boyfriend. It's difficult for him to admit to beating up other kids because his siblings aren't wearing ashen expressions anymore. They are moving forward and he's trailing behind them, as lost as before. Gaara can't tell them that. He can't even tell them to lower the volume or at least change the pounding music to something he enjoys. In everything he enjoys, he finds the hammering violence of their father, the unsettling thought of their uncle dying in prison.
He runs a hand in his red hair, refusing the slightest caress of the wind. He almost touches his lips to feel the line set in stone. He is afraid they would leave if they learn of the violence inhabiting him.
Gaara groans when his sister's boyfriend slumps next to him, a cigarette dangling between his pinched lips.
"I don't want to be troublesome, man," Shikamaru drawls his words like he drawls on his smoke; long and lingering. "I just want a smoke so stop glaring at me."
He doesn't need to contain himself when he talks to strangers. He doesn't need to pretend he is not his father or uncle. That he isn't angry at himself or the world for leaving him behind. Slurred insults still hunch his shoulders forward when he disappears in the crowd at school. Words cannot fade the way broken bones do. He understands that whenever he surprises his uncle's abuse among his thoughts. He unleashes his anger on strangers, feeling like a stranger to his own self.
"My sister deserves better than you."
Gaara blinks slowly, his arms looser around his body. He has always assumed that Shikamaru annoys him because he is afraid Temari would leave them behind, but now he knows. It's the laziness. It's the surprise that appears too slowly on his face. It's also the smugness that wraps him in a world that is too comfortable for them to understand. It's jealousy.
"Look, I know you are trying to give me a 'I'm her brother and I will protect her' speech, little man, but I love Temari. No matter how troublesome it can get, I love her."
"I will teach you troublesome when you'll break her heart," he mutters darkly, feeling the moist of his forehead beneath his fingers.
The night clings to his skin and he shivers. Violence still haunts him. Gaara looks over his shoulder, his cold eyes searching for Temari. The muscle twitches in his cheek when he doesn't see her in the entrance or through the front windows. He lets the scent of blood rest pleasantly against his tongue. He turns his unflinching stare back towards Shikamaru.
"Why are you so sure I will?"
'Because you don't hug her. Because monster don't hug.'
"Because Temari decides for you, but one day, you will be done being lazy. You will want to take your own decisions and you will realize that... it's about her too. What you call love, it's about her too."
Gaara glares at him, the smoke rolling around them. He doesn't doubt it, now. Kankuro knows it too. Whenever he scowls or spills his drink on his laps, he thinks of their father that relied too much on Temari. She has been a mother to them before ever being a sister. She may not know it yet, but they do. She deserves someone who won't let her take care of him.
She deserves to be taken care of and Shikamaru will have to walk away for it to happen.
-X-
Two years later, Gaara sits on the porch, the swollen flesh of his forehead throbbing under the blinding sun. The needle still buzzes on his skin, wrapping him in the scorched smell of ink and sweat. This time he is afraid he is the one slipping away.
"What the freaking hell, Gaara?"
The groceries thud on the paved entrance, cans rolling down the paved pathway. Rolling his eyes, he almost reaches in his pocket for a cigarette. The milk had exploded between them. Temari pants, clenching her fists not caring about the wasted food. Wasted emotions, wasted money, two things they can't afford being survivors. Unflinching, Gaara stares at his sister and the anger boiling on her skin. He finally reaches for the cigarette, shrugging off the scene he knows that is to come. It's no use pretending anymore. He needs something to hang on to if Temari is going to deny him his pain.
"Ok, but no!" She screeched taking his cigarette out of his mouth. "Is this one of Shikamaru's cigarettes? Did you steal this?"
He glares at her when she steps on it, breaking it beneath her heel.
"Maybe," he says defiantly, crossing his arms over his chest.
Gaara doesn't understand the despair in her movement, the way she jerks and ticks like he has done something unbearably painful to her. She points at the tattoo on his forehead, her feet firmly apart among the spilled groceries.
"Have you gone nuts? You are fourteen! Who did that to you?"
"Jesus Christ!" Kankuro yells when he steps on the porch, his hands full of paint. "What are you being so freaking loud about?
Deliberately, Gaara turns a blank expression towards him. His dark glance finds easily the tattoo on his forehead. Love. He had cut his hair so it would show. He still knows nothing but defiance whether it's for them or with the kids he used to beat up.
The two brothers are silent, but Temari doesn't handle silence well. Kankuro laughs at the end and Gaara smirks. As for them, they don't handle drama well.
"Do you realize you will have a tattoo for the rest of your life? You will be old and disgusting and have a freaking tattoo on your forehead! Your forehead, Gaara! Couldn't you pick a spot of skin that doesn't show? Who's going to give you a job now?" She yells, throwing her hands up in the air, waving off the neighbours' curious stares.
"I think the whole idea behind a tattoo is permanence, Tem," he smirks wider, carefully weighing the idea of reaching in his pocket for another cigarette.
"A job, Gaara!" she screams above Kankuro's hilarity.
He walks back in the house leaving Gaara to face Temari alone. He doesn't mind because the way she screams and gesticulates, he knows he has made the right choice. Now, he knows they can't slip as easily away from. Now, he can accept the way the porch grounds him between Kankuro's grins and Temari's boasting voice.
He has a place. He belongs.
They are permanent to one another and that's all that matters because he is done being angry. That's what it means to love.
-X-
The first time Gaara has sex, he sits on the porch. His skin feels raw and uncomfortable.
The night doesn't cool down the burn spreading inwardly, licking awkwardly at the dulled emotions he has promised himself to feel tonight. He feels it's the end of something but he doesn't know what it means. Unable to shake the feeling of her skin against his, he pushes his hair away from his eyes exposing his tattoo to the silence of the road. Imprisoned in her scent, he can't help but think he's not Kankuro. The porch is more welcoming than her arms. Gaara growls. Nothing is that easy.
"You know, your little friend is going to cry if she wakes up and you're not there," his brother chuckles letting himself fall heavily next to him.
He stiffens, moving away from the slap that he knows will come on his back. When it doesn't come, he glances up and Kankuro isn't smiling anymore.
"You are the strangest little brother I could have ever had. I mean this family is fucked up, it's not your fault," he looks ahead, drumming a quick beat on his thigh.
The world is always uneven when they try to slip away from it, he knows, but it becomes blatant on Kankuro's grave face. It's still missing inside of him, he realizes as he exhaled carefully. Kankuro carries it in the way he struggles to keep the melody within. The way he creeps around him as if he's still eleven and angry against the world.
"Fuck, I didn't think I would have to tell you this before a while, because you are 15 and socially awkward," he smirks, looking down at him and Gaara rolls his eyes, "but don't spit on sex. Don't think it doesn't matter because it does."
"Says the man who has fucked them all."
"Jesus, Gaara!" he shouts throwing his hands in the air, between seriousness and laughter. Kankuro doesn't know stable grounds like Temari, he always chooses the middle. "I didn't fuck them all. Just some of them and when I did it, I did it right. Do you understand? I never treat them like shit. You can't have sex with about anyone."
"Why not?"
"Because then you will have to sit on a goddamn porch and hear me rant about how sex isn't just about dropping your pants."
"I didn't drop anything," Gaara frowns. He still doesn't understand the quiet discomfort breaking their routine. "She took them off."
"Jesus! Are you doing this on purpose?"
He brushes his hair out of his eyes, still tasting her on his lips. He almost asks Kankuro how he can handle the scent of many women. He couldn't handle one. He couldn't handle touching the girl, measuring the strength of his hands, the movements of their bodies, watching her face. He couldn't handle how close pain and pleasure really are.
"I don't think I will do it again."
"First times are always awful, little bro," Kankuro laughs, the drumming comes back easily, filling the silence between them. "Just give it some time."
"I didn't like it. It was like she was trying to take something away from me," he explains slowly, frowning and blinking. "Something I couldn't give her. She sensed it, I think, because she was crying at the end."
Kankuro licks his lips slowly, nodding to himself.
"Tomorrow, drive her home and be nice."
"I was nice," Gaara says quietly looking down at his hands, flexing his fingers carefully.
When the slap comes, Kankuro broad laughter follows suit.
"You are a nice awkward kid, Gaara, but you can't force love."
"Why not?"
"Because then you will have to sit on this goddamn porch and hear me rant about why the sky is blue."
He finally understands, it's not simple and he can let it go for now.
-X-
Gaara almost springs to his feet when he sees Temari.
The world whirls away from her, without touching her and she shines. She is a ghost walking down the road. Inwardly, he roars. He blames himself. He blames Kankuro. He even blames her because it makes things easier. It's winter, but she is summer, shivering in her too thin jacket. She doesn't mind the harsh sting of the wind because of what she is feeling inside.
"Hey," she croaks.
"Hey," he answers in a whisper making room for her to sit down.
She lingers in front of their lawn, glancing around, hauntingly lost.
"Temari," he whispers, clenching his jaw.
When she walks towards him, her steps sink in the snow as if she is carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. Gaara holds up his cup of coffee when she reaches him sitting on the porch. Her nose is too red, her hair, too messy and her mutters, too ragged.
He can't tell her that, he knows.
She is ice, brittle and shimmering, and yesterday her brothers still thought of her as an ice queen. How could they have been so right and yet, so wrong at the same time? He rubs his forehead, the skin has healed. He doesn't even feel the etched symbol of love as he watches her quietly blooming the steam above the cup. He wishes she could feel it though.
When she sits down next to him, he fears she will break under the sudden blending motion. He gives her more space to explode, glancing nervously at the door behind him. Kankuro understands things he doesn't. Kankuro would know what to say.
She is cold and fissuring, so fragile, the tempest inside her leaking out at the tip of her fingers. The cup trembles, brown stains appearing on the snow. Then, she severs and drags him with her. She empties herself of the pain, her head crashing against his shoulder. Stunned, he feels the tears running down his neck.
They do not hug.
He snorts because this is them and he fears she will sink away from him if he doesn't remind her that they are different. She freezes against him. Closing his eyes, he snorts again half-heartedly because he still can't figure out what to say. This time she trembles, her silenced tears giving way to her timid laughter.
When she closes her eyes, he thinks it's alright to put an arm around her.
"I broke it off," her voice makes her tears quiver on her eyelashes. They are pearls of ice and it takes every ounce of control he has not to reach forward to wipe them. "Don't you dare beat him up. I broke up with him."
He nods even if she remains between winter and summer, pain and laughter. Frozen. They know Shikamaru will shrink away with time. They had seen it so often. Yet, he needs to believe that or she won't believe it herself.
The door opens behind them, discreetly, and Kankuro appears with a coat. He drops it on her shoulders without a word. His toes turn blue in the snow, but he looks up standing between them in his pyjamas. As always, he is there to pick up the pieces, hush them forward as he pulls at their strings.
"Thank you," she warms up.
She just needs time before taking back her place among them.
She may cook tomorrow, clean the house next week...
For now, they sit on the porch, holding on to the broken pieces because survivors can't afford to glance away from what they have.
-X-
Please take the time to tell me what you think! :) It's my motivation food for future projects! ^_^