DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything except Ai.

Temari smiled widely.

"Thank you, Gaara!" she exclaimed, stretching the word 'thank' out. She grabbed Gaara and hugged him, and he pulled away, disgusted.

"Hug bad," Kankuro muttered teasingly under his breath.

"Kankuro shut up or you will never be able to play with your puppet again!"

"Whatever," his brother repeated.

Temari picked up Ai and cuddled her. Ai put her head under her chin and cuddled back.

Kankuro and Gaara finally seemed to have found something they agreed on: they rolled their eyes at Temari and muttered, "Weirdo." They turned and left the room together.

Things returned to almost-normal as Gaara sat in a corner and did nothing but stare and Kankuro just sat around. After about half an hour though, Kankuro could be heard running through the house shouting curses at the dog. Ai was barking loudly, which jerked Gaara from his silence.

"Kankuro, baka," he said furiously as his brother charged past him with the dog at his heels. "What are you doing?"

"Your damn sister's dog is trying to chew me!" he exclaimed.

"She's my sister now!" Gaara exclaimed after Kankuro as he turned a corner. "You've known her for longer!"

The only answer he got was "Damn dog, let go of my foot!"

Gaara sighed. "Baka." He shook his head and stood up. He walked around to find Temari.

"Temari...?" he called. "Temari!"

He walked into the kitchen and found his sister cooking dinner. It didn't smell bad, but it didn't smell good either.

"What's for dinner?" he asked innocently.

"Soup and garlic bread."

"Oh joy," said Gaara sarcastically. "What a great dinner."

"Well if you think you could do better than you cook."

Gaara blinked at her. "Do I look like I belong in a kitchen?" he asked.

Temari sighed. "No."

"Thank you."

Gaara walked away again, and got collided with by Kankuro. He was knocked over backward and fell onto his back with Kankuro on top of him. Ai leapt on Kankuro's back and started barking in his ear.

"God...Temari!"

"What, Kankuro?" asked Temari, walking the five steps out of the kitchen into the hallway where her brothers were now lying.

"Get your dog a, off of me, and b, to shut up!"

Temari sighed and laughed as she picked up Ai. "Did you attack Kankuro? Good girl."

Kankuro stood up off of Gaara, who was still lying on his back, twitching slightly from the crushing weight of his brother and his gourd being pushed into his back. "You need to lose weight," he gasped and stood up.

"You need to watch where you're going!"

"You need to shut up before you die."

"You need to stop being a brat!"

"Cat man."

"Emo child!"

Temari turned around and walked back to the kitchen carrying Ai as her brothers got into a heated insult fest. She set Ai down and returned to the soup, which was slowly thickening. The puppy bounded around, and slid across the floor and into the wall. Temari listened for a second to see how her brothers were progressing:

"You're like a little kid, all you can do is play with puppets."

"You know what your special little talent is? Ever since you were little you've been better than everyone at making sand castles, chibi!"

She sighed and shook her head. "Boys," she sighed, and stirred the soup.