Chapter 2
Notes: The characters, as I'm sure everyone's noticed, are going to be pretty different from their incarnations in the canon. But then, it's been six years. Do you really expect them to be the same people?
Gaara woke, and rolled over.
In some, this would be considered lazy. Gaara preferred to think of it as appreciation for the wonder that was sleep.
His whole life he'd gone without slumber. The few times he'd slept had been either traumatic or self induced rampages. Not real sleep at all, merely lack of consciousness. After returning from Akatsuki with the help of the pink haired ninja he'd nearly killed and the boy sleeping in another of his guest bedrooms downstairs, he'd eventually had his first real full nights sleep. It had taken him three weeks to figure out how to relax enough to let it happen. When it did, he woke up five minutes later in a cold sweat. How did people survive that? How did people stay sane after relinquishing the reigns of their minds so completely? Just as he'd gone his whole life without sleep he'd had to learn to keep the reigns on his thought processes tightly held. Insane he may be, but irrational he was not.
But sleep took all his careful control and threw it out the window like so much rubbish. His first dream had been about a kitten. No lie. He'd had to wake up Temari and beg her to tell him what it meant. It was the most emotion he'd ever shown her. Her and Kankurou were the only people in the world who knew how scared he'd been those first few months, and bless them, they'd never treated him any differently. He'd fallen asleep for the first full night with them beside him, Kankurou snoring loudly on the floor and Temari sleeping sitting upright, Gaara's head in her lap.
The next morning he'd beaten them up a little bit. It didn't do to lose your edge.
The point was, it had taken him most of his life to learn to sleep at all, and he fully intended to make up for lost time. He'd since started to consider himself something of an aficionado. There was reward sleep, which you got when you'd had a long day or dealt with some particularly difficult problems. There was rolling over in the morning sleep, which left one in a pleasant lethargy all day. There was I-had-an-appointment-but-I'm-skipping-it-cuz-I'm-the-Kazegake sleep, which always seemed to be the most wonderful. There were late naps, early bedtimes, midday siestas. There was-
-CRASH- "Gaara, we need to talk."
…there was I-tried-to-roll-over-but-this-idiot-burst-into-my-room-so-now-I-decorate-the-walls-with-him sleep. Gaara rolled back and, with a halfhearted motion, clamped a muzzle of sand around Naruto's mouth. Then he rolled over again. Naruto continued to try to enunciate through the sand- he'd choke soon- but then the tall guy walked past him with the little mouse-cat-girl, who started trying to peel the sand off the blonde guys face. "Kazegake, sir, I think it's important we make sure we understand each other." Chouji said, trying diplomacy. Gaara sat up slowly and turned his head. His collection of horror movies was a wonderful thing- the chick from The Exorcist had been a big inspiration for him. Chouji, Naruto and Hinata all made a hasty retreat.
Gaara sighed resignedly. He'd never get back to sleep now. Might as well start the day. Up he rose and over to his closet he strolled, where he pulled out his black, charcoal and burgundy attire. A short time later he was showered, shaved, and dressed, and he strolled abruptly out of room. A flick of his hand and the clamp around Naruto's mouth was gone. "What." Gaara said, turning and stalking towards his office, which was down the hall.
"Um, how much longer are you planning to keep us here?" Naruto asked.
"Not really sure." Said Gaara, turning a corner. "When are you going to tell me what you're up to?"
"Have you sent any information on our whereabouts to Konoha?" Asked Chouji.
"No. But thank you for the ammunition." Chouji winced.
"I'm sorry, did we wake you up?" Asked Hinata apologetically.
"What was your first clue? The bed, or my pajamas?" Gaara burst into his office and they followed behind. The door hit Naruto on the nose on his way in.
Gaara used his sand to lift some papers from his secretaries desk to his hand and started flipping through them quickly. He strolled straight to his own desk- he nearly walked into a table but yet again the sand appeared to move it from his path. He sat and put his feet up.
The three who followed him in found themselves at a loss for words. Gaara had that effect on people, and knew it. Keeping people off balance was a necessity in his world now. The political arena was different than the arena of combat, but some principles were the same.
He looked up. "Good talk." He said, and went back to his papers. They started walking away until Naruto turned and said, dramatically, "We're leaving today."
With a wave of his hand Gaara blocked the doorway with sand. "No you're not."
"Am too!"
"Are not."
"Am too!"
"I'm not doing this."
"Gaaaraaa!" Whined Naruto. "We have places to gooooo."
"I don't care." Said Gaara, returning to his papers.
Oddly enough, the little catmouse was the one who shoved the blond guy out of the way. "Look, you." She said, "I don't know who you think you are, but you can't just detain people for no discernable reason. I know for a fact that village law requires you to have a documented purpose to our imprisonment." Naruto and Chouji looked a little surprised. Gaara was too, a bit. He hadn't pegged the girl as very aggressive.
"Well, technically that's true." He said, putting down the papers and folding his fingers together over his stomach. "And, of course, when you find a citizen willing to speak on your behalf to me, I'll be perfectly willing to listen very carefully to every word they have to say." He looked her in the eye, his carefully chosen words coming out like a man pulling out a Tommy gun. Hinata glared at him. She turned and stormed out, and Gaara had the good grace to open a door for her. He nodded to Naruto and Chouji and went back to what he was doing. Eventually they, too, left.
Gaara went back to examining mission reports. Temari and Kankurou walked in, Kankurou holding a large plastic bag of something. "Hey, baby bro." He said, smiling. "We broughtcha breakfast." He pulled out a selection of pancakes- plain, blueberry, and chocolate chip. Gaara, who had an incredible sweet tooth, beelined for the chocolate pretending to be pastry. Temari snatched the blueberry before Kankurou could get to it, leaving him to slather syrup over his boring old pancakes. The three ate happily, saying little. Of course it was the puppet master who had to try to get a rise out of his baby brother.
"So, you really gonna keep that kid and his little fanclub for much longer?" he asked around a mouthful. Temari smacked him.
Gaara wiped some excess chocolate onto his cakes before resuming cutting. "As long as it takes." He shoveled in another pile of milk chocolate and egg.
"You mean to figure out what they're doing?" Asked Temari, her teeth stained blue.
""Yes." Said Gaara.
"I'm a little weirded out by them too." Said Temari. "Why are there three of them all traveling together? With Akatsuki still on the prowl after all these years it seems like a recipe for disaster."
"You think maybe they're some kind of anti-Akatsuki gang?" Asked Kankurou, licking some syrup off his hand. "Maybe they, ya know, went out and grabbed the bijou deliberately to keep Akatsuki from getting them."
"I doubt it." Said Gaara, finishing first. He'd always had the greatest appetite of all three of them. "Naruto wouldn't let them."
"Hmm, point." Said Temari. She sat back, grinning. "This is nice." She said, happily. Kankurou and Gaara looked askance at her. Here it came. "Remember how when we were kids, we'd avoid each other as much as possible?"
"Well, YEAH, Temari." Said Kankurou, pointedly. "You were a bitch and Gaara was a psychotic murderer who would kill us as soon as look at us."
"It's true." Gaara nodded sagely.
"The POINT is that it's just nice to feel like a family, isn't it?" Temari grinned.
Gaara and Kankurou looked at her like she was crazy. "Why do you always do this?" Kankurou asked, frustrated. "We're having fun and then you have to go and kill the vibe with the whole happy families approach. Last time you tried to hug Gaara he nearly broke your arm."
"I did." Gaara said, nodding nostalgically.
"I don't think there's any harm in loving my little brothers." Said Temari, getting up and leaning forward to hug Kankurou. "Come here, Gaara." She said. "Family hug time."
The two ended up on their asses outside, deposited swiftly by Gaara's sand, which then closed the door with a loud SLAM.
"You've really gotta learn." Said Kankurou, rubbing his head.
Gaara sighed and sat back down, rubbing his head. He loved his siblings, he really did- he just expressed it by occasionally beating them senseless and leaving them on their doorsteps. Given the nature of his upbringing, they were probably lucky. He flipped to incoming missions and mission requests in an attempt to get himself interested in something other than crushing his brother and sister.
And something caught his eye. "TEMARI!" he yelled. She ran back in, arms outstretched. "Coming, baby broth-AHH!"
When he put her down, he pointed to the incoming Shinobis name with a little grin. "I want you to draft a message to the Hokage for me and send it back with him when he leaves, if I give you the go ahead. Inform the Hokage of our guests. You have some time since he's scheduled to arrive in a few days, so get it down by tonight. I'll take the opportunity to proofread." Temari rubbed her bruises and nodded.
