Disclaimer- Still don't own it, but hey, there's still a few weeks 'til my birthday, it could happen, right? –is delusional- Ah yes, and the title of this fic is also the name of a Good Charlotte song which I also don't own. That belongs to Good Charlotte, and I don't own any of them either.

A/N: I demented the sand siblings ages so they could all still be in school with Gaara in 11th grade. So now Kankurou is the oldest but he's still a senior because he got held back, which happened because I said it did. But he's a smart boy…he just never does his homework…or something like that.

Predictable

Chapter Two- Monday

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"Sabaku Gaara?" Sasuke furrowed his brow as he tried to match the name with a face, he knew he knew who it was, he just couldn't remember.

"Yeah, you know him don't you? Freaky kid with the red hair and a tattoo on his head? Wears all black and fishnets, homicidal looking? Never talks? That ring any bells, Sasuke?"

Sasuke thought for a moment longer before his brain clicked and he remembered. Gaara sat a few seats back from him in…what class was it again? Science.

"Sabaku Gaara?" He repeated, making himself sound rather unintelligent. Of all the people they could have picked out, why did it have to be Gaara? Why not Haku, or Shikamaru, or Shino, or Lee? Okay, maybe not Lee he thought, but still. Gaara was creepy; he was more than creepy. Sasuke thought he looked like the kind of kid that would show up with a gun one day and shoot everyone. That was why Sasuke left him alone most of the time. Plus, he wore eyeliner. There were other boys that wore eyeliner too, but none of them applied it as thickly and heavily as Gaara did, hell, he didn't even girls who put so much on.

"Sabaku Gaara." Kabuto stated.

"Fine, I'll do it. Hope you two are ready to kiss each other." Sasuke smirked, hiding his anxiety.

Neji just smiled.

Gaara woke up and groaned. It was Monday, and he hated Mondays. Monday meant that he had to spend the next five days in the living hell other people called high school. Five days of being shoved in the hallways and being completely ignored, save for being insulted and made fun of for whatever reason.

Then again, his homelife wasn't much better. Sometimes, he liked school better. Being unacknowledged was better than getting beaten by his father. He and his elder siblings all hated him, it was the one thing they had in common. But that was about it, one would think they'd be close, living with an abusive father and all, but they weren't.

Temari could have been popular, but she'd lost her chance at that when people had found out that she was related to Gaara and Kankurou. Even so, she had a well-sized group of friends and spent more time at their houses than at her own.

Kankurou's only friends were in Gaara's grade, Kiba and Shino. Sometimes he'd go and meet them at the mall or the park, but other than that, he barely left his room, usually only coming out to eat.

Gaara winced slightly as he stepped out of bed. He father had been drunk the entire weekend, but that hadn't stopped him from shoving Gaara into the sharp edge of the kitchen counter when he'd seen him the day before.

"You know you're not supposed to be in the kitchen so late at night." He'd slurred, the stench of alcohol heavy on his breath.

It had been three in the afternoon.

Then he had started muttering something about Gaara needing to be punished, but passed out before finishing. Gaara considered himself lucky, the last time the man was that drunk, he'd brought out the belt.

Kankurou had shown up at his room about half an hour later with peroxide, a damp cloth, and bandages.

"He really went crazy on you this time, didn't he kid?" He'd said as he cleaned out one of the deeper cuts on his younger brother's back. Gaara hadn't answered.

Before he left and went back to his own bedroom, Kankurou had looked as if he was maybe going to hug Gaara, but thought better of it and ruffled his hair instead. Gaara gave him a rare smile before he left, but couldn't get his vocal cords to work well enough for him to say, 'thank you'.

Gaara slung his black messenger bag over his shoulder as he left his room and quietly crept down the stairs, being careful to step over the bottom step that never failed to creak loudly. He didn't want to chance waking up his father.

On the kitchen counter were two paper bags, lunches packed by Temari. She packed her brothers lunch every day, a small gesture that they were a family still, and that she cared about them, even if they hardly ever saw one another and talked to each other even less. Gaara grabbed the one with his name on it before heading out the door. He had to leave earlier than Temari and Kankurou because he had to friends to ride with and he hated the school bus, so he walked. All three were forbidden to get their driver's licenses.

A thin layer of frost covered everything, and Gaara could see his breath in the air whenever he exhaled. He also noted that converse were not the best choice of shoe to be wearing in January. The soles were much to thin and the little holes in the side let all the cold air in and nearly froze his feet. And to add to the list, the bottoms had absolutely no grip, so he kept slipping and nearly fell more than once. When he arrived at school, the buses were just arriving and he was actually a little glad to be there, at least it was warm inside. The heat had finally been turned on sometime during break, so everyone could finally take off their coats instead of having to wear them all day.

Hastily, he shoved his bag in his locker and pulled his hoodie up over his head and getting his hair static-y in the process.

"Stupid hair…" He mumbled to himself as he dug through his locker for the books he'd be needing. No matter how hard he tried to keep it clean, his locker never failed to become unbelievably unorganized about half way through the school year. It made it near impossible to find anything, and when he did, it was even harder to pull it out from the pile of paper, books he didn't need, and other random things it was under.

After much searching, his most beloved (note the sarcasm) social studies book was found along with a library book that was three weeks overdue and a CD he'd forgotten he had. He briefly considered spending the next twenty minutes before class cleaning or at the very least reorganizing his locker, but decided it would take longer than that and he didn't want to be late for class. Then everyone would stare at him when he walked into the room, it was much easier to be in the classroom before most the other students arrived.

Even though it was only six thirty in the morning, Sasuke was already having a bad day. First off, he hadn't gotten enough sleep, due to that his parents had insisted he stay up with them to wait for Itachi to come home. Did they care that he had a huge math test the next day? Oh no, all they could think about was 'Oh poor Itachi-chan, curfew was two hours ago and he's still not home yet! What if he got kidnapped and murdered? Or his car broke down and his cell phone battery ran out and he's out on the streets all alone?'

Sasuke wanted to tell them that Itachi was fine and was probably still at whatever wild party he happened to be attending that night and drunk, or with some random girl who's name he didn't even know. But he didn't, his parents never believed anything but good about their darling Itachi. He was their perfect little angel and would never do anything so horrible. And Itachi always followed the rules, he was a good boy who just happened to be at the wrong places at the wrong times.

When his older brother did finally get home, it was one-thirty in the morning. Sasuke didn't even listen to the excuse he was telling their parents, just went straight upstairs to his bedroom and closed the door so he wouldn't have to hear his parents saying that it was their fault Itachi couldn't get home on time, that they should have offered to come and pick him up or make sure the gas tank in his car was full. They always did that.

Except for the one time when Sasuke had broken curfew of course. Then they had grounded him for a month, but not before telling them that Itachi would never have done such a thing, at least not on purpose and that Sasuke should be more like him. He tried to be more like his brother, he really did, but no matter what he was always just one step behind. He was the most popular person in school, but Itachi had been known all around the district, and was known all over his college campus. He'd made honor roll, but Itachi had made honor role with a 4.0 and had been class valedictorian. Itachi had been captain of the track team, the student body president, and president of the student council. Plus, he'd done while being a year younger than the rest of his grade, because he'd skipped one.

None of his teachers knew him as 'Uchiha Sasuke', he was 'Uchiha Itachi's little brother Sasuke'. And they expected him to be just as good at everything as Itachi was, and when he didn't measure up to their expectations they'd go on and on 'Itachi this, Itachi that, your brother could do it, hasn't he been teaching you anything he knows?' And so on and so forth. Sasuke hated it all, hated his teachers, hated his parents, and most of all, hated Itachi. Perfect Itachi, who acted completely oblivious to the fact that he was ruining Sasuke's life.

Stupid Itachi.

It was difficult to concentrate on the road when all he could think about was his brother. And to add to everything, all he'd been able to think about all weekend was Gaara. And that bothered him. Why did he even care about Gaara? It wasn't like the bet he'd made was any sort of a big deal. It would be easy, he was irresistible, not so much as Itachi, but he was quite sure Gaara didn't know Itachi.

What he was mostly worried about was if his parents were to find out he was dating another boy. He couldn't tell them about the bet, if they found out he'd put his car on the line they'd ground him forever. But he wasn't sure they'd be able to handle it if they thought one of their sons was gay, even if he wasn't the favorite. What would they tell their friends? They'd be so humiliated and disappointed, and Itachi would never let him live it down. He decided to try to finish off the bet as soon as possible so Gaara wouldn't end up coming over to his house, as long as that didn't happen, everything would be fine.

His first two hours passed by at an excruciatingly slow pace. Neji had reminded him before class that he only had a week to get Gaara to go out with him and so he had better get started soon. When it was at last time for third period, the small knot in his stomach got about ten times bigger. He didn't want to do this anymore, he really didn't want to do it. If his parents found out…he'd never be as good as Itachi, they'd probably disown him. He was afraid they wouldn't love him anymore, and then he'd be branded as the family freak. But he had to do it, Itachi would never back down on anything he said, and Sasuke wouldn't either. He'd finish the bet, and he'd win it too.

Walking into the classroom, he saw Gaara was already there; he was the only one there. He set his binder on his desk before casually walking over to where the red-head sat with his head buried in a book. Whatever Gaara was reading, it must have been very interesting, because he didn't even acknowledge Sasuke's presence. Sasuke didn't think he'd heard him walk up, so he coughed.

Gaara didn't look up. He coughed again, and still got no response.

"Gaara." Upon hearing his name, said boy looked up at Sasuke. Confusion showed briefly in his eyes before being replaced with a cold glare. Secure in that Gaara would now listen to what he had to say, Sasuke continued.

"I was just um, wondering if maybe you'd like to go out with me?" He flashed a smile worthy of a magazine cover. Gaara glared. And glared. And glared.

"…Do you take me for a fool, Uchiha?" Sasuke was taken aback; this was not going as planned at all.

"No, I don't think you're a fool, I was just wondering if you wanted to go out with me. Is that so hard to believe?"

"Uchiha, if this is your idea of a joke, it's not funny. I am well aware of your goings on with the Haruno girl and also that you are very straight. And don't you have some sort of a reputation to uphold? I hardly think dating some one such as myself would do any good for that. " Gaara gave him a final glare before going back to his book. Sasuke didn't move from where he stood until Gaara spoke again.

"Uchiha, I suggest you leave me alone before I have to resort to violence." The raven-haired boy stared evenly at Gaara before calmly sitting down at his desk. He'd always thought Gaara looked like the type of person who would show up with a gun one day and kill everyone, and he really did not want to put that theory to test any time soon. But he would win Gaara over, he would. It was a matter of gaining his trust. If he could do that, than things would be nothing but simple from there, all he had to do was figure out how to do it.

Now it is the time for the magical review replies, yay!

Keysoto- Katie-chan! –glomps- I have no idea who the smart ass bitches and bastards you speak of are, but that's okay! Thanks for reviewing! –huggles- Love ya!

Aokichu- Ah, right you are, our poor Sasuke is already having problems with Gaara. And yes, he is rather a bastard at points (I have too much fun making him mean) but he won't be a total bastard because Gaara needs looooove.

TheFutureFreaksMeOut- I completely agree with you, all hail Gaara! –glomps you and Gaara- And I must tell you again, that I looove your newest chapter, and we had a conversation about it in math class the other day. And by my friend's locker. We came to the conclusion that it would be much easier for Neji, Sasuke, and Gaara just to have a lovely threesome where everyone loves each other. Because we're perverts and that's how we think –sweatdrops-

Junsui Kegasu- Yay, my own review pimp! –sniff- I'm so proud. I don't like stereotypes either, but it's like in fanfiction…they work…and I don't hate them so much…or not at all. And I totally abused Gaara in this chapter, so more inspiration for you! And I've been very lazy lately and haven't been reading you fic, so after I post this, I'm totally going to go read the last…chapters that I haven't. …This sounds not nice…but now I'm very much hoping that LaF finishes soon for the sole purpose that the KankyGaa can begin. Oh oh! There's now totally a sandcest community on livejournal now!

thalia-chan- Ano…sorry to disappoint you but at the end of the story Sasuke probably will be gay, or possibly bi. Thanks for reviewing!

NanamiYatsumaki- Yup, more SasuGaa, I've given up on the thought that I'll be able to write anything else for a looong while. Thanks for the review!

Fantastical Queen Ebony Black- Hmmm…I've never heard of that book, but next time I go to the library, I'll be sure to check it out. I never really liked Kabuto myself, but since you like him, I'll try to focus on him. And I'll most definitely think on some KabuNeji, crack couplings are good for us all! I totally forgot a whole bunch of cliques, like the stoners, and the metal heads, and …just a whole bunch. And I feel very stupid asking this, but what's D&D-er?

Chronic-fever- I hope this update was fast enough, I would have had this posted last night but was being mean and wouldn't let me log in. –pouts- But I have already started the next chapter so yays!

Yaoilover S- Poor Sasuke, he's already having a hard time. Thanks for the review!

animelove1787- I wonder if everyone has the plot bunny problem? I've found most writers do. Thanks for the review!

I apologize for the all the exclamation marks and general insanity and probably incoherency of most the reviewer replies. I wrote them yesterday while I was severely sugar high and plus I had just gotten back to school after a three day weekend so I was all happy and hyper and…yeah.