I don't own Naruto…
Author's Note: I was so happy that people actually read and commented on this story that I went right off to write more! Four people commented within a day…that's more then any of my other stories ever got in all. (They sucked that's why. This is why they no longer taint FanFiction. XP)
Pairings: Neji/Gaara, Naruto/Sasuke…Not to sure about others. I'll let ya know when I do. (Winkie)
Warnings: violence, guy and guy loving, self inflicted violence, OCCness?
Reviewers:
AnimeGurlLuver: Sometimes I'm too lazy to sign in so don't feel bad. And I will keep going! (Smiles)
Jakie: Thank you!
Naitachal666: I am also hoping Gaara grows a backbone (coughwinkcough). A spineless Gaara isn't what I like to see in his character but I have to for how I'm seeing the story develop. Oh yes, my grammar is terrible, I have a big issue with 'through' and 'threw', always have (sniffle). I would love if you could help me with it but I'm new to how do all that…stuff. XD
Corvin: Batman? Lol. Yes I think there will be some Sasu/Naru in this. I can't really see them with any one else… I read you're Dark Dairy and I like it ssooooooooooo much! I'm so happy you like this!
Raeven: Waiting you no longer have to do!
EDIT: I fixed 'Temari's' name. Thanks Dark-Chan. (smakes forehead)
A Dangerous Game: Family
By: Dead Walking Raccoon
The walk home was long but not long enough for Gaara.
His arm was itching under his long sleeved shirt, a faint reminded of what awaited him at his residence. Would his father be home? Would he be out on business? Or possibly passed out in his bedroom? He hoped everything but the first.
Gaara was disappointed his siblings hadn't come to walk him home. When they had lived in Suna, a desert fairly distant from Konoha where they lived now, the three would always walk home together. There was almost never a day when one of them wouldn't walk him home.
His newest house came into view, a two story house with no car in the drive way. Feeling better about entering the house, Gaara's steps came faster.
When he entered the house he heard Temari's music playing softly from her room upstairs. Sliding off his shoes and putting them next to the other two sets of shoes, he walked up the stairs.
"Gaara!" Temari exited her room with a smile on her face. Kankuro, upon hearing his brother's name, walked out of his room. "How was the first day of high school?" She asked.
Smiling at his sister, Gaara opened his mouth to answer but Kankuro cut him off. "What happened to your lip?"
Gaara looked up at his brother nervously as Temari came closer to inspect him. "N-nothing," -a lie- "I ran into a d-door…"
The two older siblings look up at each other. They both knew when Gaara was lying and this was one of those times. Temari looked to Kankuro but he shrugged. Trusting her brother with his laid back attitude she turned back to Gaara. "Alright, I'm still getting all of my stuff together but I expect to hear about your first day later." Giving Gaara a pointed look, she turned back into her room.
"Liar." Kankuro turned and walked down the hallway to his room.
"W-what?" Gaara fallowed after him while dropping his backpack next to his door. "I-I don't know what y-you're talking about."
Gaara never liked being dishonest to his brother, neither of his siblings really, but felt that some things were too small to overreact to. He could remember the last reason why they had left their old school to come here…he didn't want anything like that to happen again. Plus they had their own lives to live; he wanted them to be happy even if he couldn't be.
The elder looked up from the magazine he was reading. "You're really bad at lying Gaara, so you should cut the crap and tell me what really happened."
Gaara looked away from his brother's almost demanding stare to the ground. He touched the tattoo on his forehead unconsciously. Hm, was that a new sock?
"A g-guy…he h-hit me…" Gaara whispered finally. "But I-I'm fine! Nothing's w-wrong! Neji came and helped me twice today so-"
"Hyuga Neji?" Kankuro's attention was fully on his little brother now. Gaara nodded and his eyes narrowed and looked at Gaara for a full minute before continuing. "Why would Hyuga help any one? He's more of an 'I only do things for my self' type of person. You sure you got the name right?"
"That's what Naruto said his name was…" Gaara sat on Kankuro's bed and rubbed his itching arms.
Catching the jester, Kankuro moved closer to his brother and lifted his sleeve. "This from last night?" He asked in a low voice and barely touched the dark bruise. At Gaara's flinch and nod Kankuro was about to ask him more when the door down stairs opened and closed.
Gaara looked up at Kankuro with terrified eyes and shaking hands. The stairs down the hall creaked under pressure and soon their father was in front of Kankuro's door. The man didn't even look into the room but went to his own at the end of the hallway and shut the door behind him. Gaara's shaking stopped being so intense and his brother let out a sigh of relief. So far so good…
The dinner table was silence except for the occasional sound of forks against plates. Gaara fought to keep his hand from shaking too much and ate the small amount of food his father let him have. Temari 's cooking had gotten fairly good over the years of cooking for them. There father would never cook for any of them, let alone Gaara.
"Stop shaking boy." Their father barked and gave his youngest son a deadly glare.
"S-s-sorry…" Gaara stuttered sliding down in his seat.
"And stop that fucking stuttering. What, are you retarded?" His father asked.
"Can you pass the salt?" Temari interrupted before any one could say anything else. Her father grunted before picking up and handing his daughter the salt. She looked across the table at Gaara and gave a small nod and smile.
"What wrong with your lip?" The siblings all glanced at their father. Tonight was going to be very long if he continued like this.
"I-I ran in t-to the d-door…" As hard as Gaara tried not to stutter, being around his father always caused him to become nervous.
A smirk reached the man's face. "You better not be lying boy. I bet some one decked you and you took it like a bitch."
"Stop bothering Gaara." Kankuro glared at his father hotly.
His father looked over at his oldest son and sneered. "You better be quiet too unless you want something to happen to your brother."
"You're not doing anything to him!" Kankuro yelled back and stood up so quickly that his chair almost fell over at the sudden movement.
The older man stood up as well and Gaara shook in his seat. His brother and father continue to yell at each other, getting louder and louder. Luckily -or maybe unluckily- the neighbors weren't very close to the house.
"I'm s-sorry!" Gaara said covering his face with his hands. He could hear Temari across the table trying to hold back her own tears.
"You two better get up stairs to your rooms right now unless you want his punishment to be worse." Their father threatened looking at Kankuro.
Kankuro was about to yell at his father when he heard his younger brother plead to him. "P-please go K-Kankuro…I-I'll be fine." Kankuro looked down at his bother. He knew if he stayed and tried to interfere that his brother's punishment would be worse. Nodding, he fallowed Temari up the stairs but as an alternative of going to their rooms they perched themselves on the stairs so if needed, they could help the younger boy.
Gaara swallowed hard knowing that now he is fully alone with his father. He didn't dare look up into his father's eyes. If he did he knew his father would hit him harder. Maybe if said he was sorry again the man would go easier on him and-
Gaara looked up at the ceiling -when had he fallen backwards?- and felt a throbbing pain in his jaw. His father had punched him. He tried to block the next few hits from his face. The bruises on his arms were going to be a lot bigger tomorrow and he'd have to wear long sleeve shirts the rest of the week, at least.
When his father was finally done beating his youngest son he went over to the refrigerator and pulled a can of beer out and headed for the table to sit. "Wash the dishes the get out of my sight."
Gaara quickly stood up and grabbed the plates from the table. He knew his father was only still there to make sure he didn't eat any of the leftovers. Ever since he was little Gaara could remember his father calling him fat and not allowing him to eat as much as he or Temari and Kankuro got. His siblings always tried sneaking food to him when their father wasn't around. It could only be in small portions though because if the man found out they were sneaking him for Gaara would get in trouble for eating it.
He washed the dishes as fast as he could. He knew his father was staring at his back. He did it to make Gaara nervous and hopefully cause him to mess up so he had one more reason to hit the young boy.
Finishing the dishes he walked out of the kitchen but not before his father hit the back of his head and said he didn't want to see him the rest of the night. Temari and Kankuro were still waiting on the stairs for their brother when he was finished. Temari hugged him good night being careful of his wounds and turned in for the right.
"Come on lets see how bad it is this time." Kankuro put an arm around his brother's shoulders loosely and the two walked into Kankuro's room. He closed and locked the door when they were both in and had Gaara sit on his bed while he fished around in his dresser for some pain killers.
"I'm f-fine." Gaara said from the bed. He touched his jaw and trembled. He was diffidently going to have a bruise there later.
"How can you say you're fine when you're sitting there in pain?" Kankuro tried keeping his voice from becoming to angry and sounding like their father but it was hard. He couldn't understand why Gaara would try and cover his pain, even from Temari and him when they were trying to help him. Sighing, he held out a painkiller and glass of water from his side table. "Take these."
Gaara reached out a shaky hand and put it in his mouth, taking a sip of the water and swallowing the pill. "Thanks…" He said weekly.
"Yeah, yeah." Kankuro laid down on the bad and pulled the covers over himself. "Try and get some sleep pipsqueak."
Smiling, Gaara said his good nights to his brother and went to the window and looked out at the dark sky. It was such a beautiful night and he'd have a few un-restful hours to watch the night turn into day…
"Gaara hurry up or we'll be late for school!" Temari yelled from the front door. "And don't forget to take your pills!"
Said pills were on the kitchen table when Gaara arrived. Picking up the light blue ovals and swallowing them down with water, he grabbed his backpack and headed to the door.
"You have a bruise…" Temari reflected the idea to her self before taking something out of her purse. "This will help cover them up." She commented squeezing the skin colored makeup onto his finger tip and rubbing it on the bruised area on Gaara's jaw lightly.
"Make up?" Kankuro raised an eye brow but said nothing else.
Once everyone had their shoes on, the three set forth to school. Gaara opened his backpack and pulled out the Spanish form he needed signed in order to be allowed into the class. "Can you sign these?"
Kankuro looked down the papers as he took them and read it carefully before signing his father's name at the bottom. He'd learned years ago that foraging his father's signature instead of having Gaara ask their father was better. Less contact between the two the better.
"I never got to know how your first day went yesterday. How was it?" Temari asked while Kankuro was busy.
Gaara glanced side ways at his brother briefly. "Naruto is in some of my classes. No one else besides Neji really talked to me…"
"Don't worry, later in the year I bet- Neji?" Temari replayed her brother's words in her mind over and over. "Hyuga Neji? Hey Kankuro, isn't he in the same grade as you?" Kankuro grunted in response, a yes perhaps, while writing the last of the signatures and handing them back to Gaara. "He doesn't seem the type to go out of his way for people."
"He's always there really early before school starts to study and shit." Kankuro put in thinking back to last year.
"Every one at the lunch table last year wouldn't shut up about him." The girl snickered. "'There's a freshmen who's really hot in my science class with white eyes! Teehee!'" she mocked a girl she had unfortunately had to sit next to.
Gaara looked up with a raised eye brow at his sister. He hadn't heard her do that in a long time. Temari didn't usually mock people behind their back. If she thought something ill about another person she would go up to their face and say it. Though she was right. Where ever the dark haired teen was a flock of girls was always right behind him.
"It was worse for me at the table of the ex-boyfriends of those girls." Kankuro looked up ahead to see the school coming into view. "Though he's never seemed interested in any of them. You'd think the caption of the hockey team would have at least a few girl friends by now…"
"Naruto said he's was the caption even though they usually give it to the seniors…" Gaara had been quiet for most of the journey to school but he was slightly curious about this now.
Kankuro let out a long drawn out sigh as if an elephant was sitting on his shoulders. "Yeah, the guys at the lunch table were even more pissed about that."
Temari giggled at the miserable face Kankuro made as they came up to their school. Almost on instinct the two older siblings stayed close to their younger brother from those who would try and lash out at him. Kankuro was on a mission to find out who had started shit with his brother yesterday while looking for the Hyuga to question him.
Gaara sank back into his brother's shadow. There were a lot of people there compared to yesterday and it was even still early. He had thought yesterday was bad…today was going to be hell!
"Hey Gaara!" A loud voice shouted louder then any of the others. Soon a head full of spiky golden hair. "Come on I want you to meet some people before school starts!" He said excitedly and pulled Gaara away from the protection of his siblings by his sleeve. "Bye Kankuro, bye Temari!" And then the two were gone around the corner.
The two left in the wake of Naruto raised an eye brow at the missing place of their brother. They knew that Naruto would take care of Gaara if it came to it. He may be on the short said by the kind was a spitfire.
"W-where are we going?" Gaara asked as he was pulled down the hallway toward his first period class.
"To meet some friends!" Naruto grinned as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Gaara didn't like the sound of this. Meeting new people was not Gaara's cup of tea. Naruto knew this. So why was he being forced to do this again? He didn't have time to wonder though because he was dragged into their first hour class. There were a few kids sitting near the desks where Naruto and he had sat the day before. When the blond entered the room all heads turned to look.
"G-good morning Naruto…" Gaara looked up to see two white eyes looking from Naruto to him and stopped dead in his tracks. He almost thought it was Neji but it was only a shy looking girl with short black hair. She had a faint blush on her cheeks but it seemed to be unnoticed to every one else.
Next to her were two guys around the same age. The bigger one had brown messy hair and tattoos on his face. Next to him was another guy, though Gaara couldn't tell much about him. He had his face planted on the desk, sleeping.
"Mornin' Hinata, Kiba…Shikamaru?" Naruto glanced at the sleeping boy. "How come he sleeps through every class, yet, is at the top of our grade when I slave to do the home work?"
"Because he's a genius." Kiba commented and looked past Naruto at the redhead he'd dragged in with him. "Who's he?"
Grinning, the blond pulled Gaara's sleeve a little more until he was standing next to him. "This is Sabaku Gaara. I met him from back when I was in Suna. Gaara, this is Hyuga Hinata, Kiba, and the one sleeping is Shikamaru."
"H-hello…" Gaara mumbled while looking at the ground.
"Sup?" Kiba asked.
"Hello." Hinata smiled at the newest member soon to be added to their group of friends.
Gaara peeked up at the girl once again. Hyuga…that was Neji's last name. Were the two sister and brother or another form of family relationship?
"Naruto…I-I'm having a back to s-school party." She took a piece of colorful paper out from her bag and handed it to Naruto. "It's this Friday and I'd r-really like it if y-you came."
Naruto gazed at the invitation and beamed at the girl. "Sure thing! Can Gaara come to?"
"S-sure."
"T-that's ok." Gaara started, thinking of a justification for not going. Meeting three new people -well two since the third was still sleeping- was making him nervous enough, let alone a whole house full of people he didn't know.
"Come on, it will be fun." Kiba grinned; almost corresponding to Naruto's when he was planning something.
"Believe it!" Naruto joined in and the three students looked down at Gaara waiting for his answer.
Gaara glanced at all of them and almost sighed. He'd say he'd go and not really go. As long as Kankuro and Temrai never found out he wouldn't have to. But if his siblings found out they'd force him to go in hopes of him socializing more. "Fine…" He almost pouted out.
"Great!" The blond yelled and thrusting a fist in the air with a foxish grin.
The five minute belled ringed out in the hall wave and Hinata and Kiba waved their good byes to the two boys while exiting the room. Soon after Iruka- sensei and a cluster of other students walked in and the school day began.
Author's Note: Second chapter. (Does the happy dance.) My damn internet…well not mine, I have wireless so I'm 'barrowing' some one else, wasn't working for two days!
Gah! I really hope every ones not to OCC. I must confess that I haven't seen pass the episode with Haku and Zabuza in it so I'm totally going by how the characters have acted like in other people's fanfics. Lol.
-Dead Walking Raccoon-