Disclaimer: Not owning "Naruto"...still...
"A very small degree of hope is sufficient to cause the birth of love."
- Stendhal [French 1783-1842]
Prologue: A Small Hope
The door to the condo slammed open; a ghastly apparition appeared in the doorway. Temari shivered as she looked at her younger brother, come back from his latest commission. The young man was drenched in blood, so much so that his clothes appeared to be black; he looked like an extra from a horror movie.
He skulked over to the kitchen and grabbed a glass from the cabinet over the sink, accidentally smearing blood all over the wood and staining it like so many times before. He filled it up with water and downed it in one huge chug and, unsure of what to do with it next, shoved it under Temari's line of view.
Ew. Temari flinched away. "What the hell, Gaara?!" she took the glass with two fingers and dropped it in the sink. "One of these days you'll do the fucking dishes! See how you like it when you know that what you ate off of or drank out of was formerly covered in leftover human bits." She ran the water hot to rid the cup of the stains, "Ugh! It's disgusting."
Gaara merely stared at Temari and shrugged. "I wouldn't care. It'd make the meal interesting." He picked up an apple and bit out of it, canines slightly elongated. They were that way naturally. "Besides," he continued, "if you don't like the way I live, then don't help HiddenSands Enterprises provide a normal familial structure for me. Don't live with me. Don't cook or clean for me. I'll just order take-out. I can take care of myself."
"Looking like that?" Temari deadpanned. "Yeah, that'd go over so well with the delivery boy. Or our neighbors. And the police the neighbors would likely contact? They'd probably shit themselves. I take care of you because I want to, Gaara. Not because of the family business." Definitely not because of the family business. She sat herself down at the kitchen table and rubbed her eyes wearily. Time for a subject change. "I had Kankuro fix dinner earlier. He's out, though. Said he was gonna be late due to repairs on the A.R.M.s. You can have what's left of the baked ziti, though," she gestured at a large plate of it. "I already ate."
Gaara nodded and was about to join Temari when she suddenly shouted, "Hold it!" He stared at her, waiting. His black trench coat was still somehow dripping atrociously all over the place. His sister took a deep breath. Gaara was the reason every piece of furniture they had was either black or dark red; blood didn't really show on them. "Shower first. Then dinner and apple pie. Then we watch a movie. Put on pajamas this time. Got it?"
Gaara nodded again and headed for his bathroom. Temari got up and tiredly began to mop up and scrub off the footprints Gaara left all over the tile floor. What a mess...she definitely needed bleach for this. Only way to remove bloodstains.
She swore that he was just like a child sometimes. Always leaving things (weapons) around; disaster and chaos blossomed wherever he went. Only, instead of tracking mud in, usually it was blood or unidentifiable pieces of...human. She remembered the first time he had done it. He had been just four years old. She had been playing with her dolls outside in the front yard that summer. Kankuro tended to repair the broken ones and that day was the same as any other. Until...
...she heard Kankuro shriek.
"Kankuro? What is it?"
Kankuro was shivering. He pointed frantically over her shoulder.
Temari looked. "Kankuro, it's just Gaara."
Kankuro's lips pressed together and he shook his head. She wouldn't understand.
Gaara stood under a tree, holding something small and furred in his hands. It was hard to tell what it was since it was covered in brown and red stuff and little white lumps made parts of it keep wriggling.
"Gaara, don't scare your brother like that's not nice. And don't stand so far away. C'mere. Whadda ya got?"
Gaara shuffled shyly over to Temari, dropping his surprise in her lap. "I found it on the road. I thought it might be lonely so I brought it home..." he trailed off when Temari started to cry. "...What's wrong?" He tried to bring it closer to her but Temari only started to wail louder. "No one would help it. They didn't look at it. It was by itself. Like me."
It was a kitten, rotting and dead. Dead.
"Like me..."
Other little boys brought things home to heal and fix. Things to build and tinker with. Gaara brought things home that he considered were like him: damaged beyond repair.
"...Temari." She glanced up from her work, her old memories startled into hiding. Her little brother stood in the doorway clad only in his boxers. He was still bloody. Kind of crusty now, too, though.
"Why haven't you taken a shower yet?!" Temari gritted her teeth in frustration. "You've started flaking dried blood all over the floors! And you smell like death! And dead people! And death. Oh, I really hate your job!" She sighed inwardly but said, "What's wrong?"
Gaara gestured at the mop. "You don't have to do that..." he had the strangest look on his face.
Temari rolled her eyes. "If I don't do it, how will my kitchen ever stop reminding me of the movie 30 days of Night?" she returned to her cleaning.
Gaara shuffled his feet. "I mean...I can do it. You don't have to. I'll do it for you..." Temari set aside the sponge and sat back on her heels. Is he actually...is he joking? No, wait. Gaara doesn't really have a sense of humor... "I mean...uh...you always do everything...and I could do something for a change..."
So that's it... She shook her head. "That's sweet of you, but I can handle it. I'm your big sister. I have to scold you for making a mess." She shrugged and smiled at him tentatively, "Besides, it's only a little blood." Understatement. "Don't worry about it. It's how things are. You go wash off the crap on that beautiful face. You seriously need to start beautifying yourself. Otherwise, you'll never get a girlfriend."
Gaara paused, then turned to his bedroom door for the second time.
"You will take a shower for real, right?" Temari called after him. "I want to see that you're squeaky clean. Practically sparkling. Do you hear me, Gaara? Sparkling!"
He shot her a look and flipped the bird as he disappeared behind his door.
"Well," Temari called after him, "you can forget the apple pie after that." She smiled to herself. So, maybe there's hope for him after all. All that was needed was to get him out of this business. Away from the family. Otherwise, one of the two would end up exterminating the other. Yeah, she'd get the both of her brothers away, even if she died trying. Then, she'd work on his personality. And a girlfriend -he needed one badly; he needed to do something other than kill and skulk about. Even if it meant a girl. And humor. She really had to develop his sense of humor. Dark humor seems to fit him best. Perhaps George Carlin's routines might work...? Whatever. She would get him to develop healthily no matter what. Now. What kind of teen eighty's movie should we watch tonight? Definitely a classic. How about Breakfast Club?
