Let's take a break with the Sand Siblings Halloween!

This may or may not be intertwined with the rest of the story, but it is just for fun.

Enjoy!

Adventures of the Sand Siblings!

Halloween Special

"Aren't we too old to trick-or-treat?" Gaara asked from his position on the living room couch.

Kankuro was sitting on the floor in front of him playing a video game, "Says the youngest," Kankuro snorted, "But I know that scaring people is the best part of trick-or-treating!"

Temari threw a piece of candy at Kankuro's head, "This might be the last year we can do this and it's the only time Gaara gets to go out and people wont even notice that it's him," she stated before throwing another piece of candy at Gaara's head, "And you! I wasn't suggesting trick-or-treating, I was about to say that since we already bought plenty of candy, that we could go to the Halloween party instead."

Gaara said nothing as he found the candy she threw at him and began eating it. Kankuro paused his game and turned to her with a grin, "I guess I'd be up for that, are your friends going be there?" he said in a perverted way, not even trying to hide his thoughts.

"Well there were planning on going, but the moment I tell them that you are too they'll probably run all the way to Konoha to find another party that would be far enough away from you," Temari retorted.

"Oh, Konoha huh? I guess that just means we'll just have to go there too this year so I get see twice as many girls," Kankuro snickered.

"Gosh you're such a creep!" Temari shouted at him.

"Well you're a cow, I bet you can't get any guy to look at you!" Kankuro shouted back.

"I'm not a cow! I could get any guy I wanted!"

"Oh so you're saying you're a slut now?" Kankuro taunted while Gaara reached for the candy bowl.

"I am NOT a slut!" she nearly screamed.

"But what about your costume?" Gaara asked. He just remembered it was genie costume, one with lots of see-through fabrics.

"Urk, uh," Temari stuttered, "That is not a sluty costume Gaara."

"No I think he's right," Kankuro nodded.

"Please, a genie was not nearly as bad as the maid, nurse, or the bunny costumes at the mall."

"Ooo, is that what Ami, Haruka, and Shinobu got?" Kankuro went into perv-mode again so Temari took his game controller and bashed in him in the head with it.

"Ow!"

"Stay away from my friends!"

"Psh, whatever…" Kankuro grumbled as he rubbed his head and checked to see if his controller was broken. "So Gaara, are you interested is going to a party tomorrow?"

"I suppose it's worth a try," he responded.

"It's a costume party so we need to find you a costume," Kankuro said before standing up and putting the controller away and turning off the game system. "I'm taking Gaara to the mall, Temari, you coming?"

"I'll probably meet you guys there later, I'm heading to Haruka's first, see you later and try not be such a creepy perv if you see any of my friends," Temari said before leaving.

Gaara stood up and was about to head for the door before Kankuro stopped him, "Wait you have to get dressed first!"

Gaara looked back at him confused, "But I am dressed," he stated.

"Yeah, ninja gear, gourd, and all," Kankuro started as if he was stupid, "We are going to a public place and you're the one that is trying to be normal so try dressing normal."

"Dress normal how? You already told me these clothes were fine before," Gaara said gesturing his new crimson outfit.

"Just come on," Kankuro told him as he started up the stairs. When Gaara caught up, he found Kankuro in his room rummaging through his closet. "Here you can have this, it should fit you," he said tossing him a shirt, "Then put on a pair of your black pants with a kunai, and leave the belt and sash behind."

"Why are you giving me a shirt?"

"It's cool yet grown up, and I only ever wore it once before it got to small for me so you can have it, call it a hand-me-down if you want, but hurry up and get dressed."

Gaara looked at the shirt, it was a dark red, short-sleeved button-down. He nodded showing his approval before going to his room to change like his brother told him to. Dressed in a matter of minutes he stepped out of his room at the same time as Kankuro. Kankuro was wearing black baggy jeans and a black shirt that said "I'm with stupid" and had arrows pointing in all directions. Gaara nearly rolls his eyes every time he sees it. "So why can't I take my sand?"

"Do you want people to stare at you?" Kankuro asked as he went to the stairs.

"People will stare at me anyway."

"Well today you're going to be as normal as possible so people can suck it if they have a problem with you," Kankuro said going out the door, Gaara had to run to catch up.

By the time they got to the mall, not many people were paying any attention to him, which was strange to him, but it was a nice change.

"Oh hey, Gaara," Kankuro started as he put a crown on Gaara's head, "You should go as a king since you're the Kazekage-to-be."

"And you can go as a fairy because, well, you know," Gaara smirked.

Kankuro laughed at first before glaring, "Hey, I am NOT gay!" He then heard a small group of girls giggle nearby, he looked and at them confirming that they were laughing at him, "Now look at what you did…" he grumbled at his younger brother who was now taking off the crown and putting it back.

The two brothers had looked around for a little while longer before they both found something. Kankuro got a detective costume since Gaara told him that dressing up as Pinocchio the boy puppet would be wrong on too many levels. When searching for his costume, Gaara tried to find something simple and traditional, at first he thought of a ghost but then Kankuro suggested a vampire and he quickly found and cape and other items that went into a traditional Dracula costume.

After they finished with that, Kankuro dragged Gaara to the food court saying that they had to go 'hunting'. Gaara was confused by this and originally thought it was a joke based on the content of their purchases from the Halloween costume shop. But as he followed the older boy, he quickly observed that his brother had a specific place in mind. There were two girls sitting at a table and Gaara recognized them, they were Temari's friends, Shinobu and Ami.

They saw Kankuro coming towards them and waved so he waved back before closing the distance to their table. "Hey ladies, are you waiting for Temari and Haruka?" Kankuro asked as he leaned on the table.

Shinobu nodded, "They should be here soon." Shinobu was a really shy girl with short black hair and black eyes, but from what Gaara knew, she was actually a very promising medical ninja in training.

Ami was almost the opposite of Shinobu. She had really long brown hair and always wore thick black make-up, her clothes were always black and royal purple, and she had many pricings in her ears. Gaara did not know much about her skills as a fighter other than she mostly did undercover missions. "What are you here for?" she asked not giving more than a sidelong glance.

"I was helping him pick out a costume for the party tomorrow," Kankuro said sitting down in one of the empty chairs. "I hear you guys are going?"

Ami sighed as she continued to brood in her own thoughts, "I am, not that anyone cares."

Shinobu nodded and fiddled with her skirt, "Are you both going too?" Shinobu asked looking at Gaara, he only nodded. "What's your costume?" she asked seeing the bag sitting next to Kankuro.

"I'm a detective!" Kankuro grinned before smoking a pipe that blew steam instead to make it look like the user was actually smoking.

Gaara sighed, "Kankuro, put that away, you're being an idiot."

Ami sat up, "Yes finally, thank you for saying that!" Then she grabbed the pipe and threw it into Kankuro's shopping bag while Shinobu laughed.

Kankuro was about to say something when Temari and Haruka called to them. The girls greeting each other as Kankuro went into dream land seeing Haruka and Gaara just observed their behaviors. Haruka even took a moment to greet Gaara who nodded in acknowledgment. She had long strawberry-blonde hair and was really nice, she also mostly worked in the training hall and technician labs since she was always off active duty from injury after injury.

Gaara nudged his brother who turned to him irritability, "What?" Kankuro asked.

"You were staring and I want to go home."

"Fine…" Kankuro sighed as he turned back to the others, "Well we have to go, see you ladies later, don't wait up Temari," Kankuro said before leaving.

Once they reached their house, Kankuro plopped down on the couch, "Ah… don't you just hate the malls, there's so much walking involved!"

"We are ninja, we can handle it," Gaara said slightly confused.

"Yeah, I know," Kankuro said throwing his shoes in the middle of the floor. "By the way, what do you think you'll do at the party tomorrow?"

"Watch people," Gaara said simply. He knew that both Kankuro and Temari would be hanging out with their friends so why not observe.

"You know… that's really creepy…"

"You're creepy."

"Psycho."

"Dumbass."

"Why you…" Kankuro gritted his teeth before remembering what he was going to do. "Wait, I know, since this is a costume party, you should use it as a social experiment, just go around and try talking to people, ask a girl to dance or something."

"What do I say?"

"You're smart you can figure it out," Kankuro said, "Really, I want you to develop your own social life and personality, not mine." Gaara nodded once before going to his room and taking his costume with him. He really hoped he was not going to regret agreeing to this.

The rest of the evening and then the next morning went by relatively quickly. Temari told them to dress up in the mid afternoon so they would be ready for the early trick-or-treaters and then they could leave for the party.

"So Gaara, wanna help me solve a mystery?" Kankuro said as he walked in wearing his detective costume.

Gaara was standing by the window wearing the vampire costume, "I suppose, there's nothing else to do today."

Temari stepped in wearing a blue genie costume. Her hair was glittery and she had little blue jewels all over her her face. "Well, you two could help pass out candy to the little kids that come to the door," she suggested, "Oh and if you do anything that pisses them off and they TP or egg our house, it'll be your head on the chopping block and you also have to clean it up," she warned before taking the phone with her upstairs.

Gaara and Kankuro looked at each other then to the front door before Kankuro turned to Gaara, "You know, she means that I'll have to be the one to clean up so while I'm gone, don't screw up if any trick-or-treaters show up, got that twerp?"

Gaara glared, eventually but nodded. As soon as Kankuro reached the top of the stairs, the doorbell rang and Kankuro called to Gaara to answer it. Gaara sighed, but did it. He opened the door and four little kids all yelled "Trick-or-Treat!" There was a blue M&M, princess, jonin, and ghost costumed 3-year-olds in front of him. Without saying anything he threw a handful of candy into each of the little buckets, and then closed the door again while ignoring the very out of character comment from Shukaku that the blue M&M costume was the best. Gaara repeated this process only three more times before Kankuro came back and took over.

A few hours later at about seven in the evening, it was time to leave for the party so they turned out the lights, locked the door, and Kankuro even put a sign on the door that said, "Not home. Out partying. Go to next house."

It was a teen Halloween costume party set up at an old house for a haunted house theme. There were games where people would win a verity of small prizes like an eating contest and then a throwing dart game. Another larger prize included winning a costume contest which none of the sibling were planning on entering since it included making your costume, not buying it. Then winning the Halloween mystery game where there were clues placed around the 'haunted' house and whoever solved the mystery of who was supposedly haunting the place also got a prize.

"Hey Gaara we should enter that!" Kankuro exclaimed seeing the mystery game rules.

"Why?"

"Because you're smart and I'm a detective, it's a perfect match!"

"Just because you're dressed up as a detective doesn't make you a real one," Gaara stated plainly.

Temari shook her head at her brothers, "Well, I'm going to go find my friends…" she said before walking away. Gaara and Kankuro were still in the entryway and as Kankuro continued to talk about solving the mystery, Gaara looked around.

It was dark and dimly lit inside the haunted house. In the dancing area was strobe lights and music playing. In another room guests could get snacks and refreshments. There were lots of other teens already hanging out and doing various things while more were still arriving.

"Hey Gaara, I bet you can't win the dart game," Kankuro challenged. Gaara looked at him as if he was crazy, of course a ninja of his superior skills could win such a simple game. Looking at the target, he noted that it was not even moving to make it more difficult. Too easy. Nonetheless, Gaara excepted the challenge and got twelve darts to throw. Taking three in each hand he threw six at once, all hitting the target. Once those six were removed, he did the same thing and got a prize which was a bag of candy and a toy water gun which he gave to Kankuro who decided he wanted to play with it. Right afterwards Kankuro saw Haruka, the strawberry-blond, wearing a sultry pink bunny costume. Being the hormone driven teen that he is, Kankuro decided he would go talk to her.

Meanwhile Gaara took the time to get a chocolate chip cookie from the snack table and sit down. Soon he noticed a girl in a French maid costume sit down next to him before realizing it was Temari's friend Shinobu, the shy one with short dark hair. He had never seen so much of her cleavage before and he briefly wondered why the girls were dressing that way until she spoke to him.

"Hello," she started. He nodded and there was a long pause before she spoke again, "Do you know where Temari is?" she asked.

"No."

"Oh, um, okay," she said and then they continued to sit there and watch people.

Soon Kankuro came up to them, "Gaara I think I solved the mystery game!"

"What do-?"

"Come on!" Kankuro demanded as he took Gaara with him. They went up a flight of stairs and Kankuro had a magnifying glass as he led Gaara into a room. "Look, it's a kage hat…" he said pointing to a plastic Kazekage hat sitting on a table.

"Okay…"

"And look," Kankuro said pointing up at the ceiling so Gaara looked, "It's the number two painted in blood…"

"That's isn't blood Kankuro, it's just paint," Gaara said, it will be years before he forgets the smell of blood.

"Whatever… Anyway, I think those are the clues that the second Kazekage is the haunter."

"Okay…"

"What, you don't think so?"

"Seems correct to me, are you going to collect your prize?"

"You bet, I'll go turn in my answer now," he then waved and left again. Moments later Gaara turned to leave too. As he past a couple people, he heard them make comments as they noticed him.

"Hey isn't that…?" One started.

"Yeah, I think so, why would someone like him be here?" The other said.

"I heard that on Halloween he turns into a real monster and terrorizes the village," the first one added.

"My dad told me that he's way too dangerous to be around, should we leave the party if he doesn't leave?" The second one asked the first who agreed.

Gaara was expecting to be noticed eventually and it is not as if he thought their reactions would be any different then they usually were. But now that it had happened, he decided it was time for him to leave before anything could happen.

Meanwhile, Temari was hanging out with her friend Ami, the dark sarcastic one who was wearing a pink nurse costume. At the moment they were both checking out the other teen guys and deciding if any were hot. Then Shinobu found them.

"I think I just saw your brother leave, Temari," she informed shyly.

"Which one?" Temari asked, though she already had a pretty good idea. "Was it Gaara?" she asked and Shinobu nodded. "Hold on, I should make sure he didn't leave because somebody was asking for an ass-kicking." With that, she marched out the door and sped down the street in the direction of their house. It did not help that there were at least three other red-haired vampires walking around that all turned out to not be Gaara. She finally found him when she stepped through the front door of their house. "Gaara, what do you think you're doing!"

Gaara looked up from his place at the kitchen counter still wearing the vampire outfit, "I'm about to make a sandwich," he explained.

"Why did you leave? Was Shukaku causing too many problems?"

"No, he's being quiet today."

"So did someone provoke you?" she finally asked.

"No."

Temari gritted her teeth because of her antisocial, messed-up psycho of a little brother. She knew it had to be something, but if he was going to play this game then fine, "Well, if it's nothing then, you're coming back with me," she said before gabbing the collar of his cape and dragging him out the door. He did not protest or try to get away, mainly because he did not know how without hurting or upsetting her even farther. People stopped and looked at them as she pulled him by the collar, the ones that realized that it was indeed Gaara and Temari were quite dumbfounded. "Okay look," Temari started once they reached the front of the haunted house, "I'm am going to have you dance with Shinobu since she's closest to your height and she's too shy to ask anyone else to dance and she's been dying to get out on the dance floor with someone, so you're going to be the nice guy and dance with her, okay?"

Gaara did not say or do anything, he was too confused and Shukaku was rolling over from laughter inside his head.

"Good, now let's go," she finished and continued to drag him inside. Kankuro was trying to flirt with Haruka when he saw them so he instantly started to point and laugh. Temari hit Kankuro in the head as she walked by. "Hey guys, I found Gaara!" Temari said in a happy tone, "So Shinobu are you still wanting to dance with someone, I'm sure Gaara wouldn't mind, and I don't think he's tried dancing before so why don't you go with him?" she urged.

"Really? Thank you Gaara, I love dancing!" Shinobu smiled before she grabbed his wrist and dragged him to the dance area. He only did very simple and reserved movements, but Shinobu seemed glad anyway so it did not turn out as bad as Gaara thought it might.

Kankuro turned to Haruka again, "Do you want to dance?" he asked.

"I'd love to dance," Haruka said but remained where she was.

"With me?" Kankuro added hopefully.

"Oh sure," she smiled and went with him while Temari and Ami went back to flirting with a couple older teen guys.

The rest of the evening went by pretty quickly and Gaara had spent the rest of the time there dancing with Shinobu and even a couple other girls because they decided he was a good dancer. When he asked them what they meant by that, they would point to Kankuro who was dancing around crazily. Gaara was embarrassed to be related to him. Also, no one else was caught making comments about him. At the end of the party, it turned out that Kankuro won the mystery game and won a gift card. Apparently no one else saw the number two painted on the ceiling.

When the three siblings got home they parked themselves in the living room, ate more candy, and asked each other how it went, well Temari and Kankuro asked Gaara how things went. They waited eagerly for an answer as he finished his piece of candy.

"It was fine," was all he said before going to his room to get out of the costume. Temari and Kankuro gave each other a thumbs up before turning back into bickering siblings. Gaara noticed the red shirt Kankuro gave him sitting on top of his laundry, and he reflected on how things have changed for him in the last several months. He knew he was still lonely, but not like before, and he wondered what other kind of changes were going to take place in his future. Also, what other parties could he go to?