It's still Halloween somewhere in the world right? Honestly I have no idea why I wrote this? It's not all that good but I felt like doing a Halloweeny thing so here ya go I guess. I've never written team Gai before so I dunno how in character they are here, feedb would be super welcome. Enjoy!
Tenten knew her tongue was sticking out, but she couldn't worry about that right now, she had to stay focused on the task at hand. Keeping her arm strong and steady was getting harder by the second, but with each millimetre the knife slid, she only grew more determined. Just a little further…
"There, finished!" She took a few steps back to admire her work – absentmindedly shaking out her hand to get her blood flowing again. Sat on the worktop was a pumpkin, it was small, but perfectly round and the brightest orange she'd been able to find and the scary grinning face she'd carved was rather impressive, if she did say so herself. Once it was cleaned up a little and the candle was lit it'd look great, giving a splash of colour to the front porch and really completing the spooky decorations to her shared house.
Others might think her childish for getting so excited about Halloween, Neji had said that straight to her face, many, many times over the years they'd been living together, but Tenten couldn't care less to be honest.
She just loved the whole atmosphere and all the traditions around this time of year so much; the trick-or-treating kids, the wild parties, the excuse for everyone to dress up in silly costumes, the scary movie marathons… everything about the festival made her feel young and happy and free.
And Lee got just as into the holiday decorating as she did, so Neji would just have to live with it or move out.
"If you're finished, can I please have my worktop back? I would like to eat dinner before midnight."
Speak of the devil.
Tenten glanced over at her cranky roommate, leaning against the wall and frowning at the mess of orange pulp and seeds that had managed to cover almost the entire surface, despite her best efforts. She snorted as she gave her creation one last wipe with a paper towel and lifted it up, admiring it from every angle. "Yeah, I'm done, what do you think?" she asked, shoving the thing into his face.
"It's… very nice," he said, not making any effort to sound honest, "I do hope you're not intending to leave me to clean up all your mess?"
"Relax, I'm just gonna go stick this bad boy outside and then I'll come help out," she didn't wait for an answer, already swiping the candle and lighter off the table and skipping out of the room.
The evening air was still warm, streetlights slowly flickering to life as the sky turned from orange to purple.
She breathed in the damp air and let it out in a happy sigh, before sharply turning around and scanning the front of her home for the best place to stick the pumpkin. Not the windows – Lee had already gone to town with the fake spider webs and plastic bats – and the doorway was out – one year Neji had tripped over the small, unassuming fruit and pretty much died from embarrassment, she suspected he still hadn't forgiven her for it.
Humming to herself, she glanced around the small front yard, maybe by the plant pots?
A snicker behind her halted her deliberations. Turning around to find the source, Tenten was met with a woman standing outside the house right next to hers, one hand pulling the black door closed and the other straightening her heavy winter coat. Dark green eyes looked her up and down before settling on the pumpkin, her lips twisted into a wicked smirk as she locked the door and started down the pathway.
"Hey! What's the big idea, if you've got something to say why don't you say it to my face," Tenten demanded, stomping down her own path to meet her.
"Did your baby sibling carve that or something? the mystery lady asked, staring pointedly at the pumpkin.
She cuddled the fruit protectively to her chest, mentally willing herself to not pout, "Hey, I made this!"
"No need to get so defensive, I was just making an observation," she said, holding up her hands pacifyingly, but that, infuriatingly smug, little smirk was still there, taunting her. "Still, it's a little early, don't you think?"
"Halloween's in like, a week, it's not that early! There are people who put up Christmas decorations months in advance, I just wanna get the most out of Halloween while it's here."
The woman snorted, flicking her windswept blond hair as she started to walk down the street – glancing at her from the corner of her eye and grinning as she passed. "How cute, a grown adult getting all excited over a children's holiday," she said as she strutted away.
"Wha- Hey! Where do you think you're going? Don't walk away from me!" Tenten shouted at her back, but her neighbour just kept on going, giving a dismissive wave over her shoulder as she went.
"Damnit," she muttered to herself, glancing down at her precious creation, then storming back into her home, slamming the door behind her.
"Is this really necessary?"
Tenten growled as she violently tore out another handful of pulp and slammed it down onto the worktop. "Yes, she thinks she's so great, just 'cause she's all smart and articulate; I'll show her, this is gonna be the coolest pumpkin ever!"
Her roommate sneered distastefully at the orange droplets of juice that had dared to splash up onto his face and wiped them away with an elegant flick of his wrist. "And that will show her how exactly?"
"I- she- It just will ok?" she snapped.
"Maybe you should actually think about why you're doing what you're doing, before you make any more of a mess of my kitchen." When she gave no response more articulate than a grunt as she stabbed a spoon into the fleshy inside of the fruit, he moved to pick up the old pumpkin – the one that she had slammed down on the table before charging to the convenience store to find a new one, a bigger one – and said with a sigh, "This one looks fine, let's just put it outside and not think about it ever ag-"
"You don't get it, it's not about the pumpkin, it's- it's the principal of it, ok? She wanted to embarrass me and now I'm gonna be thinking about it every time I see her, or that house, so the only way to get back at her, is to show her that I'm not embarrassed about loving Halloween-"
"Judging from your reaction you are."
"-and that I don't care what she thinks-"
"Clearly you do."
"-and that it's totally not a childish holiday and she's full of shit!"
"That's debatable."
"Oh shut up, if you're just gonna complain, then you can go away. I promise I'll clean everything up when I'm done," she said, shooing him off with a hand still dripping juice and pulp, he deftly avoided the tiny missiles, before leaving the room in a huff. Tenten once again turned to her task, tongue sticking out of her mouth in concentration.
With only four days to Halloween she was feeling pretty good, her second pumpkin was even better than her first – a flying witch silhouetted against a hollow, glowing moon – she hadn't had any more run-ins with her blond neighbour and she had just settled in for a fun night filled with a whole stack of classic horror flicks and grossly unhealthy snacks.
Of course, tomorrow she'd have to work out even harder than usual to work it off, but it would be totally worth it.
A loud bang made her jump, but the familiar "I'm home" had her relaxing back into her seat. She smiled as Lee bound into the living room and dropped his gym bag to the floor, she absently paused the film – her housemate wasn't one for scary movies.
"Tenten, I think your Halloween spirit has begun to spread," he said happily, dropping his keys on the table.
"Huh?"
"The neighbours have finally put out their jack-o'-lanterns! They are very impressive, have you not seen them yet?" The words were barely out of his mouth before she was out of her seat and racing to the front door, not even bothering to put on some shoes and once leaned over the fence separating the two houses, she didn't care that the day's light rainfall was soaking through her socks, or that her jaw was hanging somewhere near the floor.
Three. Three pumpkins were sitting at the front door, each one bigger than the last and all of them looked… amazing, they were practically sculptural pieces, all equally impressive, with delicate patterns and perfectly neat cuts and even that shading thing that she'd been too nervous to try out.
A deep frown settled on her face and when she glanced up and saw a smirking blond waving at her through the window it became a full-on glower.
This meant war.
Her grin was somewhat wild as she dropped the pumpkin down on the path. It was the largest one she'd been able to find after a whole day of hunting the shops, almost two feet across and half as tall, it was an utter beast and she'd had a hard time getting it home, but once she had, she'd immediately set to work on her masterpiece. She'd carved an entire spooky forest into the wide surface, with gnarly trees and curling branches and scary faces hidden in the bark, her attempts at thinning the pumpkin's thick rind to create the effect of shading once the candles were lit were perhaps a little rough, but pretty damn good for a first try at it.
By the time she was finished the kitchen was a sticky, pulpy crime scene, even some of the walls had been stained orange and peach, but Neji could chew her out for it later, right now she fully intended to step back and bask in the pride of a job well done.
"Wow, talk about gaudy, I'm half expecting Jack Skellington to jump out any second."
Oh, she was not going to let that slide. "That is a holiday classic and fuck you, I worked hard on this!" Tenten shouted as she spun round to glare at her neighbour.
As always, she was smirking, though her raised eyebrows suggested that she was at least a little surprised. "I'm just saying that bigger doesn't automatically equal better and if you're going to carve like a five-year-old then maybe you should just stick with the smaller – cheaper – options, it's just a waste of your money else."
"Well, you…" She could practically feel the steam rising off her burning face as she gaped and tried to think of a smart response.
"Temari, we're going to be late."
Tenten's chocolatey brown eyes suddenly registered the short guy standing on the street outside the blond's – Temari was it? – house, his expression unnervingly blank as he stared at them both.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming; keep working on those comebacks pumpkin girl, I'm sure you'll get the hang of it one of these days," she said, casually strolling to meet the redhead, only turning back to offer Tenten one last glimpse of her damn superior smirk.
"Ok, this has officially gone too far," Neji said as he surveyed the kitchen.
Every single surface was covered in pumpkins, or the stripped parts thereof, hacked off tops, stringy flesh and seeds, seeds everywhere, he felt his whole body twitch as one dropped from the ceiling. His housemate was crouching in front of one of the – eight, good lord how much had she spent on this petty feud with their neighbour – pumpkins, a ruler in one hand and a scalpel the other as she painstakingly sliced away a microscopic jagged edge.
"You don't understand Neji," she murmured, not moving her eyes from the scalpel, not even blinking.
"You're right, I don't," he said, rubbing at his temples warily. He'd never seen her like this before, sure she had always been a bit on the competitive side and she hated being looked down upon by anyone, but this…
He glanced pleadingly at Lee, silently begging him to back him up. The man in the green sweater stepped forwards and crouched down a little way from his friend.
"You seem to be a little bit, uhm, fixated, on this lady, it almost seems like you've got a cru-"
"I do not!"
"Ok, ok, but… Tenten, we are starting to worry-"
"I'm fine, I just need to finish these last few pumpkins and then I'm done, I promise; there's no way she's gonna be able to top all this!"
Lee, of course, started blubbering and leapt on her, already wailing about her youthful determination and asking how he could help, Neji knew then that he'd lost the battle, he was never going to be able to talk both of them into dropping this nonsensical farce.
With a sigh he moved closer and laid a hand on her shoulder, the gesture felt awkward, but he didn't want to leave her feeling like he didn't care. "I still think this is ridiculous, but I suppose that your little competition will be over with sooner if we all work together, yes?"
The wide grin and relieved laugh was almost worth the hellish experience he knew he had just signed himself up for. Almost.
The day before Halloween and Tenten was just coming home from work, muscles still aching from a hard day training her clients, but it was the kind of ache she embraced wholeheartedly – it meant she had pushed her body and had made herself just a little stronger.
The night air was starting to chill and her breath misted in front of her face, she sped up as she turned the corner to her street and basically jogged the last few feet to her home, gym bag bouncing annoyingly against her hip with every step, but she couldn't shake the feeling when she got there that there was something wrong, something looked different, something in her peripheral vision…
She slowly turned her head to stare at the house next door and her hands clenched around the strap of her bag so tight that she felt it embedding deep into her skin.
It was hard to do Halloween decorations right, to get the perfect balance between spooky and tacky, but damn if they hadn't somehow managed it; the walls had always been a stony blue-grey, but now there were various cracks, water stains and even some ridiculously detailed 'brickwork' painted on top of the formerly plain cement facing. She couldn't tell if the windows had been painted to look similarly cracked, or if it was some kind of sticker, but either way the effect was impressive, as were the delicate cobwebs hanging in the corners and the film of dirt – or paint, again she couldn't tell – that clouded them.
Overall, the house looked like something out of a horror movie and not one of the cheap corny ones either, if she didn't know any better she'd say that the place had been abandoned for a couple of decades.
And there were now ten beautifully carved jack-o'-lanterns scattered around the small front yard; one more than in hers.
Tenten was absolutely furious.
With a growl, she jammed her key in the lock and slammed the door open, stomping in and dropping her bag to the floor with a thud.
"Tenten? Are you alright?" Lee's worried voice had her calming down a little – but not enough that she wasn't snarling when she next spoke.
"Just fine. Damnit, how am I supposed to top that?"
Her housemate followed her into the kitchen as she ran a frustrated hand through her hair and tried to come up with a game plan. Ok, so painting the house was out – Neji would never let them go that far – and they'd already put cobwebs in the windows, maybe some coloured lights and paper decorations? And how difficult could it be to find a few more pumpkins on the day before Halloween?
"Tenten?" Lee waved a hand in front of her face, breaking her out of her calculations, "I know that you have been having fun with this competition, but you don't need to keep doing this anymore, our decorations look great! We don't need to be better than them," he said, in that sweet, earnest way of his.
"This isn't just a bit of fun Lee, she started it by making fun and trying to one-up me, if I stop now then she wins."
"I think perhaps you're taking this a little too seriously, I think she just wanted to try and get your attention." She frowned and gave him a look that demanded explanations, he pulled off an orange slip of paper stuck to the fridge by a magnet and handed it to her.
It was an invitation. An invitation to a house party next-door tomorrow night. Addressed to 'Pumpkin Girl'.
Tenten didn't know whether she wanted to punch the air, or the wall.
"You see? I know that rivalry can be fun – just look at me and Neji – but it's so much better to actually make friends with your rival! And she must be interested in you too, if she's going to so much effort."
She bit her lip and worried at the paper in her hands, she couldn't deny the thrill that had shot through her when she saw what it was, but still, maybe her and Lee were just reading into things? Maybe she was just planning some huge trick and just wanted to embarrass her even more?
"I can help you with your costume, if you'd like?"
Tenten closed her eyes, a splash of deep, turquoise green spilling across her closed lids. "Ok, let's do this."
She didn't want to think about how long she'd been standing outside the intimidating black door, raising a hand to knock only to drop it a second later and start walking back down the path, after the third time she'd gone back into her own house Neji had gotten sick of her anxious fretting and had swiftly booted her outside – stealing her keys for good measure.
When she'd finally accepted that he wasn't going to let her back in she'd had no choice but to go back to standing outside of Temari's house, wondering if freezing her ass off in her, regrettably exposing, 'zombie fitness instructor' costume – Lee's idea – was better or worse than the embarrassment that was sure to fall upon her should she actually work up the courage to knock on the door. She glanced down at the pumpkin in her hands, it was the last one and absolutely tiny, barely the size of her palm, too small to actually carve, so she'd just drawn a face on it in marker, she had intended to give it to Temari as a joke, but maybe that was a little bit much…
A cough shattered her musings.
"Are you coming in or not?" Luckily it wasn't the blond woman who'd just caught her loitering outside her door staring off into space, but the redheaded guy she vaguely recalled seeing the other day, his expression was just as blank as she remembered.
"Oh, uh, right yeah," she said, forcing a strained grin onto her face and slipping past him.
The inside of the house was surprisingly tame – considering how extravagant the decorations to the outside were – only a few cobwebs and hanging skeletons on the walls. It was also… empty, the typical party dance music was beating through the floors and she'd been able to hear it from outside it was so loud, but there were no people milling about anywhere, or anyone besides her and the man who'd let her in.
Tenten was beginning to wonder if she had just got herself into a really bad situation. She glanced around trying to work out the best way of getting out of the house immediately, but her anxious glances were quickly picked up on.
"You're early. Temari's upstairs, second door to the right."
With that said he wandered off into what looked like a kitchen, apparently not interested in hosting his guest. That was alright with her, she wasn't entirely comfortable around him anyway; though she was confused about being early, she was sure that the invitation said nine…
The second door on the right was already ajar when she crept up to it, she could just about hear movement inside over the thudding music, but from this angle she couldn't see anything other than a bit of a wardrobe. She took a deep breath in, held her head up and relaxed her shoulders – just because she was nervous as hell, didn't mean she was going to let her see that – and pushed the door open in a single decisive movement, taking a bold step into the room before her nerves could stop her.
"What now Kank… Wha- You? What the fuck are you doing here?" the blond demanded, Tenten couldn't even take any joy in the shock and deep blush on her face because she was too busy slapping her hands over her eyes and trying not to self-combust.
"Oh my god! I'm so sorry, I didn't know you were- I'll leave, I-" Her quick retreat was impeded by the door slamming shut before she could reach it and the damning sound of something heavy jamming under the handle.
She desperately pulled at it, but the thing was stuck fast and even her considerable strength wasn't enough to make it budge.
"Kankuro you little shit! What do you think you're playing at?" Temari screamed as she pounded on the wood – Tenten had to cover her eyes again and take deep breaths to calm her hyperventilating; the ghost of a perfect, tall, toned body, still burnt into her eyelids.
"This is for your own good sis," said an unfamiliar, disembodied voice, "you've got a serious problem, so you two don't get to come out until you've gotten over your stupid feud."
The blond gave one more pound against the door, before huffing and turning on her heels, or at least that's what it sounded like. "Oh cut that out, honestly it's like you've never seen a woman in her underwear before," Temari said, and she really, really wished that she hadn't, because she was just starting to remove that image from her mind.
"Well excuse me for wanting to give you a little privacy, y'know most people would find this mega embarrassing."
There was a soft shuffling of cloth and a drawn out sigh, "There, you can look, I'm all covered up."
She gingerly dropped her hands and peeked open one eye, just enough to see that Temari was now wrapped in a fluffy purple robe. Tenten let out the breath she had been holding and tried to compose herself, a difficult task when her eyes kept wanting to trace the hidden curves of her body and her mind kept wondering what that wild blond hair would feel like to run her hands through. "Right. Cool. Umm… Look I'm really sorry for barging in on you like that."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever, it's not a big deal. How did you even get in here anyway?"
"Oh, that redhead guy let me in and he told me you were in here, I just, assumed you were expecting me?" The look of pure confusion on her face had her voice trailing off uncertainly.
"Why would I be expecting you?"
"Because, you invited me here," she said, perhaps a little bit defensively, but she could feel her stomach threatening to drop out from under her.
Temari looked just as confused as she felt for a moment before her brow twitched and she lifted a hairbrush from her desk and hurled it at the door. "Damnit Kankuro! What did you go and do that for?"
A responding bang was made from the other side. "Because I'm sick of you making me carve all those fucking jack-o'-lanterns, just so you have an excuse to flirt with the neighbours!" the stranger said through the door.
As the words registered in her head, Tenten picked up on only one thing, "Wait… You've been giving me shit for my pumpkins and you didn't even carve yours yourself?"
The man known as Kankuro snorted, "Are you kidding me? She hasn't got an artistic bone in her body-"
"Damnit, when I get out of here you're dead!"
"If that means I don't have to eat any more of your pumpkin pie, then I'll take it, thanks."
She slammed her fist into the wood so hard that Tenten swore she heard a crack. "Get out of here already, you fucking brat!"
"I'll be back in fifteen minutes, if you're not over your little competition then you're staying in there all night." The sound of retreating footsteps was just audible over the music still blasting, though the volume had apparently been lowered at some point, enough that the house had stopped shaking at least.
It didn't do anything to break the awkward silence that had drifted down onto them like a thick blanket though.
Temari seemed frozen in place, her deep frown pretty much ruined by the blush that went right down her neck, she was confused at that for a moment, sure it would be a little embarrassing for her lack of art skills to be revealed but it wasn't that bad-
Suddenly the full conversation hit her and oh, god! Apparently the beautiful blond woman – with the ridiculous traps, seriously what exercises was she doing to get those? – really had been trying to flirt with her all this time. She almost wanted to laugh in relief, but that would probably not go down very well right now, so she forced it back, though not without a few choked snorts muffled behind her hand.
Not muffled enough apparently, Temari was snapped out of her stupor and glared darkly at her, before stalking back to her desk and sitting heavily in the chair, busying herself with applying more grey paint to her arms. "So, I guess our silly little game is over now," her tone was sharp, but it sounded more defensive than anything else, "you can stay for the party since my brother invited you, but don't expect me to be all friendly with you now, ok?"
Tenten smiled gently – not that the blond was looking at her to see it – and bent down to pick up her tiny gift, she had dropped it in her panic earlier, but luckily it was unharmed. She carefully stepped up behind Temari, their eyes meeting in the mirror for a brief second before dark green flitted back down to her arm. With a snort at how immature she was acting, the brunette shoved the mini pumpkin into her face and took just a little joy in the confusion she saw there.
"I'll admit it, you won the competition, so here's your prize, but, fair warning, we're whooping your asses at Christmas," she said, grinning widely and holding up her thumb.
Confusion turned to realisation, turned to hope, turned to arrogance, all in the span of about two seconds. Temari grabbed the offered gift and gave it a critical examination, "Hmm, cute, but it's not much of a prize," she said, standing up gracefully, using her extra inches to her advantage in staring Tenten down.
She stood her ground and grinned up at her wickedly. "Then how about I let you take me on a date?"
The faint blush was gone in a second, but she took pride in knowing that she'd been able to bring it out in the first place.
"Well, there's gonna be this great party tonight, I could probably get you in, even if your costume does look a little cheap."
"That's rich coming from the one who's dressed in a bathrobe."
Temari chuckled and shoved her over to the door, "Just go stand in the corner and close your eyes while I work my magic, pumpkin girl, you won't be disappointed."
She wasn't.