This is a work of derivative fiction. All characters and the world in which they live are the property of Masashi Kishimoto.
Family Ties
Gaara couldn't sleep.
That in itself was nothing unusual, but he was unable even to slip into the waking doze that was the closest thing he ever got to a suspension of consciousness. In Suna, when the rest of the house was asleep, when the air took on a sort of crackling intensity and he could not turn out the light for fear of losing control of himself completely, he would sit cross-legged on the bed he never used and stare. At the wall. Or the floor. Or just at some faraway point right in front of his dark-ringed eyes.
It wasn't sleeping, but it was enough.
He had perfected his technique over the years, and could now manage to stay in the same position for hours on end. It would be like meditation, if the voice inside his head would keep quiet. Sort of like meditation, but not so serene. More like a trap spider, Kankurou used to say, when he thought Gaara wasn't listening.
He sighed, breath clouding in the sharp night air. Tonight, it was useless. He couldn't stop thinking.
They had reached the outskirts of Wind as darkness began to stretch its inky fingers towards the horizon, and set up camp beneath the overhang of a rocky outcrop. Kankurou and Temari had rolled out their mats, and drawn their mission-use blankets tight around their bodies, and fallen quickly asleep. They hadn't discussed it, but Gaara kept watch.
The small fire separating him from his siblings spat thin filaments of light onto his clothes and hair, where they glowed momentarily brighter before withering into ash, like tiny stars in their death throes. Gaara brushed a speck of dust from his sleeve. His hands were going numb, but he bore it resolutely, because at least they had stopped shaking.
Lifting his head, he appraised the sleeping figures of his siblings. Kankurou slept on his back, prostrate like a sun-bather with his head pillowed on his balled-up jacket. His sleeping pose betrayed none of his waking hostility; he slept as though he had not a trouble in the world, mouth slightly open and snoring softly.
Temari was curled on her side, knees drawn up to her chest. Gaara noted the kunai she clutched loosely in one calloused hand, and wondered if it made her feel safe. He used to carry one everywhere, but had long since accepted that he had no real control over his own protection - his Shield saw to that, or had done.
He could not imagine how it felt when all you had to defend yourself with was yourself.
He really knew very little about Kankurou and Temari.
They didn't feel like his siblings.
He understood that they were related. He understood about genetics, and mothers, and fathers. He understood that each of them was the child of the same man. The man they called Kazekage-sama. There was no doubt they were biologically linked, the three of them, though physically neither one looked much like the next at all. But something was missing.
The family ties.
They were not a family. They were ninja. A unit, a crack team, a well-oiled machine. They functioned.
Aged nine, Gaara had been summoned to the door of the Kazekage's office. A building was in ruins, and three Jounin dead. He had spent two days in the desert, whipping up storms to raze the rock face smooth, and two days locked in his reinforced bedroom, trying and failing to tear himself to pieces. He had lost control again, and his father was angry. Temari was angry too. He stood outside, under the fearful watch of a ninja thirty years his senior, listening to them argue. Temari's voice, raised in frustration, belied her twelve years. "If you raise a baby like it's a demon," she had shouted, "it becomes a demon." And when she burst out of the office, eyes blazing, and saw Gaara standing there, she didn't even look sorry.
They were not a family. His siblings had carried him from the forest, yes, but out of necessity, not loyalty - he could barely stand to support himself, let alone run the three day journey back to Suna - and even then, they had carried him only until he felt strong enough and humiliated enough to say "Put me down" and then Kankurou had, very quickly, complied.
They had become, if possible, even warier of Gaara since the events that unfolded in Konoha. Though not one of them spoke as they fled the scene of his fight, there had been a consensus in each of their hearts that a very significant change had taken place. And though it couldn't yet be put into words, each knew it. Something had changed. They didn't know how to treat him, and he didn't know how to treat the situation. It was as though they were all feeling their way around a darkened room. Cautiously discovering the contours of their new relationship.
Gaara had said "Sorry" to them, as they ran. Kankurou holding him, and he could not remember the last time they had been so close. With the rough scratch of a jacket against his cheek. He had said, "Sorry." It just slipped out. And the way they stared at him then - it was almost as though that was the strangest thing he had done all day. Just that one word. "Sorry."
Gaara's head was starting to ache. His body was aching, too, like he'd never felt before, but he would not consent to be slung across Kankurou's back for a moment longer. Besides, with concentration, he was sure he could suppress it. If only he could stop thinking. He wasn't even sure the pain was real - the line between physical and mental had long since blurred. Perhaps he was imagining it, projecting some corporal hurt to try and make sense of the turmoil inside his head.
He raised a hand to feel the tenderness at his temple where Naruto had hit him, and a shudder tore through his small frame as he recalled the events of that day. His sand shifted excitedly in its gourd.
The Chuunin exam. The Uchiha. The peculiar sensation of his own, warm blood on his fingers. And then Naruto, in the forest, not only managing to break through his Sand Shield, not only cracking his Ultimate Defence, but, even in Shukaku's true form, wounding him.
They had both made him bleed, and Gaara could not even make himself bleed.
His head was throbbing in earnest now. He had been angry for a long time, but this wasn't anger. His siblings' fears were unfounded - he didn't want to hurt anyone. Not now. It was something else. A curious new emotion these events had inspired in him. Or rather an emotion he'd known once, but thought he was to be estranged from forever.
It was a wanting feeling.
He wanted something he thought he'd given up on. What Naruto and the Uchiha and the pink-haired girl had. That which he had seen, almost reached out and touched.
He wanted someone to protect. No - he wanted someone to want to protect.
He looked over at the two sleeping figures once more. Kankurou's hat had slipped back from his head, revealing that rarely-seen mop of tangled brown hair. Temari's forehead was creased gently with the remnants of a frown.
Their restless sleep was, as with all ninjas, constructed like a house of cards, to collapse at the slightest hint of danger, and so when Gaara coughed quietly and pointedly, both started in their makeshift beds. Temari's fingers tightened on her kunai.
"Is it time to go already?" Kankurou mumbled, sitting up. "It's not even light."
"Let's eat," Temari said, rubbing sleep from her eyes with her knuckle.
Gaara looked blankly at them across the embers of the fire. Now he had woken them, he wasn't entirely sure what to say.
He watched as they busied themselves preparing dinner, and continued to watch as they ate. His own bowl sat untouched in his lap. He had been wrong, he realised. Now he thought about it, they weren't so dissimilar. There were resemblances. In the way they sat - legs folded neatly beneath them, an almost prim straightness to their shoulders, good posture the result of years of rigorous training. Maybe a little in the way they ate, too - each mouthful carefully considered, chewed like an idea they were mulling over. They even had the same nose. Narrow, with a slight upwards tilt at the tip. Subconsciously, Gaara ran a finger down his own nose.
"You're staring," Temari said. It wasn't an accusation.
"Sorry," Gaara said. It just slipped out.
Kankurou's chopsticks were frozen halfway to his mouth.
Temari blinked. "Um. Yes."
Slowly, each returned to their meal.
Gaara made sure to look at his bowl. He didn't notice, as he wasn't staring, but his brother and sister exchanged a glance. And Temari was smiling. A small smile, a wary smile, a new and unfamiliar smile. The sort of smile that came hand-in-hand with a frown, like it wasn't quite sure it was allowed. But a smile nonetheless.
Gaara didn't notice, as he wasn't staring, but she was smiling because of him.
A/N: A happy ending.. I'm surprised at myself :)
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