It has been a few days since Takeo and Sasori beat each other up yet Takeo still hasn't recovered completely. That huge concussion Sasori gave him is gone for the most part though. He just can't seem to ditch one monster of a headache. I can't say that surprises me much since he still has a lot of explaining to do to the kids. Neither of us has really had alone time with them recently since we're been busy getting the council to keep from mentioning Sasori to anyone. Thanks to my dear brother, the village will probably be missing another dozen or so ANBU before we get the whole mess cleared up. At least Gaara seems to be in the clear now.
The doctors just let him come home this morning even though he was feeling back to normal yesterday. I guess they were checking to make sure Shukaku wouldn't try to sneak his way out, but part of me thinks that everyone's afraid of how Gaara and Takeo will react to each other. For once, I feel the same way. Takeo may have stopped threatening to send assassins, but he's barely been talking to me at all. I don't think he has even seen Gaara since he shot him, so he doesn't seem to be in a completely forgiving mood towards anybody. At least now that we both get to go home for more than just sleeping Takeo and I should be able to start sorting this issue out with all of the kids.
When the two of us finally drag ourselves through the door, the first thing we see is Atami pacing in front of Temari and Kankuro with so much of his fur raised that he looks like the world's fluffiest pillow. The second he notices Takeo, Atami whips around and nearly deafens everybody in the room with an enormous growl. "How dare you show your face around here you rat hearted traitor!"
Atami is practically showering us with spit as he can't stop himself from hissing loudly at every other word. "I lived on the streets for most of my life, but I've never even seen alley cats stoop so low. You should be ashamed of yourself! Hurting a kid like that and threatening your own mate… you make me want to hack a hairball." With a disdainful snort, Atami lifts his head and tail high, scrapes his back paws on the floor in either a litter box related gesture or an attempt to word off evil, and marches out of the room.
After mumbling something about a world full of disrespectful runts, Takeo stalks off to his study to file a couple papers from the latest council meetings. Both Temari and Kankuro look as shocked as I feel about seeing a cat tell of a kage. "How long has he been acting like this?"
As usual, Temari has delegated herself to explain the situation to me. At least some things haven't changed around here. "It's been about a week now. It was actually worse earlier. I don't think Dad's going to be happy to see what Atami did to his bed or half of his papers." Neither of my children can resist a nervous chuckle at that image. Something tells me I'm going to need a lot of deodorant for Takeo's belongings. "Was he telling the truth about Gaara and Sasori?"
Apparently Sasori's not the only one Gaara has been sending messages to lately. "I don't know what said about those two, but your father is still pretty mad at me. I think Gaara should be safe now, but Sasori is having a bit of an ANBU problem at the moment. You can blame your uncle for that though; his idea of defending me sort of got out of hand."
This is apparently not the information my elder two children wanted to know. For once, Kankuro doesn't even bother waiting for his sister to handle the problem either. "We already heard about that. What we don't understand is how you could betray Dad like that. You didn't even stop Gaara from crushing his hand, so it's no wonder he was so depressed when we saw him in the hospital. Between that and the fact you barely seem to spend time with us anymore, it's pretty safe to say we'd all be happier if Gaara had never been born! He's not even our brother!"
And here I was thinking none of my children had inherited Takeo's insensitive mouth. Gaara has enough top deal with without his own family wanting him dead. "Don't you ever talk about Gaara like that again! For your information, your father was trying to kill me. If Gaara hadn't stopped him, I'd probably be dead right now. As it is, Sasori is the only one besides Gaara who seems to understand me anymore and at this rate he's probably planning to take Gaara out of the village right now!" It feels like I can't speak to anyone without being criticized now. Before I have to put up with any more complaints, I'd better go see if my youngest son is alright.
Just a few yards from Gaara's room, I find Takeo using his Third Eye technique to check on Gaara without scaring him to death. Motioning for me to stay quiet, he uses a little bit of gold dust to form a small pool to display what the jutsu is revealing. Takeo never did perfect any method of adding audio to the images, but this is better than nothing.
Once the image appears, I see Gaara sitting bed with Atami next to him. They appear to be whispering to each other, probably about Takeo. Atami gently rubs his head into Gaara's shoulder before giving him a few tiny licks. This seems to be cheering up a little as he smiles and rubs Atami's back in turn.
After a few more minutes of similar adorable moments, the two appear to notice a sound outside. After Gaara carefully opens the window, Sasori crawls through the window into the room. He is immediately hugged by Gaara before Atami comes over and begins rubbing Sasori's knees so hard he almost falls over. After wincing and rubbing his seemingly still sore ribs a few times, Sasori sits down on Gaara's bed and hoists him into his lap.
At this point, Sasori begins whispering something t Gaara in a hushed voice. After he finishes his nearly silent speech, Gaara starts looking about twice as worried as he was earlier. With a few brief words, a couple gestures, and an amused chuckle, Sasori manages to reassure Gaara. Sasori prepares to depart, but a few words from Gaara have him guiltily turn back around. Looking straight into Takeo's gold dust eye for a moment, Sasori mouths a brief, "Sorry" before he returns to his position on Gaara's bed.
I don't know exactly what that apology was for, but at least Gaara is getting some comfort from somewhere. After he releases the jutsu, Takeo pauses for a moment outside Gaara's room. His hand reaches halfway to the doorknob before he hesitates and pulls it back. With a flick of his head, Takeo indicates that we had better head to bed ourselves. As much as I'd love to see him make up with Gaara, I think Takeo needs a good night's rest before he opens that can of worms.