Ophiomancy

location: Home Sweet Hovel

mood: content

music: Silent Hill 3 OST

Author’s Notes: It occurred to me shortly after posting chapter one that Naruto may have come across as uncharacteristically insensitive and cranky. I promise that he will not stay that way forever. Keep in mind that the Hokage sent him away in the first place because he was stressed out, and frightening the villagers with his displays of temper. Add to that three days of nonstop running through the desert, and no chance to eat or clean up before being dragged into Gaara’s weirdness. Mix in the final insult of Gaara withholding information from him about Sasuke, the lack of which was driving him up the wall in the first place, and you have one very pissy Naruto.

For warnings, pairings, and disclaimer, see Chapter 1: Audacity.

Chapter 2: Fertility

Gaara stared down at the unfamiliar lines of his body. It ached in places that he wasn’t even used to having, and still bled sluggishly at any sudden movement. Sex with Naruto had done him more damage than all but the most challenging of battles was able to. It wasn’t what he had expected.

Of course, what he had expected was for Naruto to not have sex with him at all. Oh, he had some small hope that his plan would work, but he had gone into it with the knowledge that he would probably get nothing more out of it than a complex and useful new jutsu. Which was a better consolation prize than he had received over the years for many of his other failures.

He had hoped that Naruto wouldn’t be too angry at his delay in relaying the information about Sasuke, but hope and expectation were vastly different things, and that had gone about as well as he had expected. He would have been better off if he had followed the Godaime Hokage’s request, and not said anything about it at all. But Naruto was his first and only real friend, if he was still a friend, and Gaara had been unable to betray him that way. He understood the Fifth’s concerns, and on some level agreed with them, but he would do anything in his power to help Naruto find happiness.

He should have kept that in mind before setting his plan in motion. It had been selfish and poorly timed, but with Sasuke’s return to Konoha imminent, Gaara knew that he was never going to have another chance. Anyone who knew Naruto and Sasuke at all knew that they would be lovers, given the opportunity. And loyalty ran too deep in Naruto for him to betray that kind of bond.

This pain was Gaara’s punishment for acting on selfish desires. Maybe this time, the lesson would stick.

Regardless, his internal clock informed him that the sun was now fully above the horizon, and the clock of a more mechanical sort on his desk confirmed it. He was the Kazekage. He had important things to do, and self-castigation was something that he did not have time for. It was past time for him to use the jutsu for reverse transformation, and to return his attention solely to his duties. His village was counting on him.

The resentful thought bubbled up that his village was counting on him to do paperwork, but he quashed it as it formed. Not all necessary things were interesting, and taking care of Suna couldn’t involve fighting S-class missing nin all of the time. He should be more grateful for the peace that allowed most of his high ranking ninja to run missions for pay these days, and not in defense of their own territory.

He formed the seals that would return him to his natural form, and channeled his chakra into precise points throughout his entire body. He felt a strange tingling sensation, which quickly became an unbearable inferno raging through his each and every nerve. He dropped the jutsu like a curious child drops an unexpectedly hot frying pan.

Something was very wrong.

o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

Temari had brought tea to Gaara’s office, expecting to find him ploughing through paperwork after another sleepless night. Even though he had mastered his demon well enough now to doze for short periods of time, he rarely did so. After one glorious year of being able to enjoy the healing benefits of REM sleep, these past six months had been hard on him. Temari expected that he would eventually collapse out of sheer exhaustion during one of his more boring council meetings, and that Shukaku would gleefully take over and wreak havoc. When it happened, Temari would laugh, and say ‘I told you so’. Except that Shukaku would be on a rampage, and the village would be destroyed, so she’d be laughing from the pits of Hell.

Back to the topic at hand. Gaara wasn’t in his office.

Temari set the tea tray down on one corner of Gaara’s monstrosity of a desk. The stacks of paper were well organized, but they still didn’t leave much room to spare. It looked like he’d been stealing work from his underlings again. She snorted. He may as well give them all paid vacation and be done with it. This relatively new spin on her brother’s neurosis was much more benign than his past habit of using people as stress balls, but it had reached an excessive enough level that she was going to have to do something about it. She wondered if it would be more effective to try to talk some sense into to Gaara directly, or to just threaten his subordinates with slow, agonizing death if they allowed him to take even one more document from them. Of course, a person would have to be an imbecile to deny her brother anything, so she’d better think of something convincing to say to him.

She wondered where he was.

Well, there was no use looking for him. He was probably out in the desert, chasing gazelle over the dunes, or whatever it was that he found so fascinating out there. If there was one thing that she could count on, it was that he knew how to look after himself in that wasteland. Now if only he managed half so well in captivity.

With a frustrated sigh, Temari sat down in Gaara’s rigid, posture-enforcing chair, and shuffled through the shortest stack of papers for ones that she was allowed to sign off on. That turned out to be almost all of them. She made a silent vow to speak to Gaara about delegation of authority the very next time that she saw him, because this was ridiculous.

It was a full half hour before Gaara set foot in his office. He looked blanker than usual. In fact...

“Gaara, why am I talking to a sand clone?”, She asked. This was unlike him. He barely used clones in battle, much less to run errands for him. The lack of practice showed. The clone’s face had a grainy, non-reflective quality that wasn’t as skin-like as Gaara’s own sand barrier.

“There is something wrong with me.”, It said. Temari’s first thought was, ‘No shit’, because there were a lot of things wrong with Gaara, but dread caught up with her a moment later. Whatever the problem was, it was guaranteed to be major, because he wasn’t the type to ask for help.

“Tell me.”, She demanded.

“I’m in my room”, It replied, before it disintegrated into a swirl of sand and disappeared. The information wasn’t what she had asked for, but she wasn’t going to complain. Speaking to Gaara directly would be more useful. A sand clone did only what it was told to, and didn’t have the full range of its maker’s memories and personality to draw on the way that a shadow clone did. She needed to see her brother in person.

She walked briskly down the hall to Gaara’s quarters. However quickly she wanted to get there, it might send the ANBU into a panic if they saw her moving at a dead run. The apartment that she was heading for wasn’t fit for a kage, no more than redecorated office space, to be honest. But Gaara liked having rooms so close to his work, and he barely spent time there any way. If someone had the temerity to say to his face that the Kazekage should live in a more dignified home, Gaara pointed out that, as Kazekage, he could live wherever he damned well pleased. His father’s estate had been donated as a new educational facility as soon as Gaara came into power, and neither he nor his siblings were sad to remove themselves from it. It housed too many unpleasant memories for all of them.

Temari’s anxiety level increased exponentially when another clone answered Gaara’s bedroom door. It peered at her with a vacant expression, blocking the entrance as she shifted her weight restlessly from side to side out in the hallway. After a few second of unhelpful staring, she shoved past it, then locked and bolted the door behind herself.

“Gaara, I’m sick of talking to your idiot statues! Tell me what’s wrong.”, She spoke loudly, ignoring the clone entirely, and raked her eyes over the room. Her brother didn’t seem to be in it. However, the clone grabbed her arm before she could conduct a more thorough search, and turned her around to look at it.

“Temari.”, It said. She could have dispersed it with one good punch, but she decided that the quickest way to get to the root of this problem was probably to play by Gaara’s rules. However strange they were.

“Tell me.”, She repeated.

“I was testing a new transformation jutsu, and I can’t reverse the effects. It’s hard to explain.”, It said. Then added, “I’m in the bathroom.”, before it dissolved into a small dune at her feet.

Temari wasn’t sure why Gaara couldn’t have just explained that to her in person. Whatever new transformation he had managed, it must have been beyond disturbing, if he thought that she couldn’t handle the sight of it without a warning. Maybe he’d sprouted fangs and claws, and Shukaku didn’t want to give them up. That would be pretty horrifying, but it she didn’t think that it could rival the grotesque sight of Gaara in his mini-Shukaku form. That Tanuki was one ugly animal. Even if by some chance it was more shocking than that, Temari promised herself that she wouldn’t shrink away from him. It had taken her too many years to see the human being under the layers of insanity, and she wouldn’t allow any superficial change to alter that. He had come so far from those days of bestial violence, so she would accept any skin-deep deformities unflinchingly.

Easier said than done, but with that mental pep-talk, she felt ready to tackle the bathroom door. She found Gaara sitting on the edge of the bathtub, looking very unlike the Tanuki. In fact, other than a few minor alterations, he looked perfectly normal, if a little bit embarrassed. There was an emotion that she didn’t think she’d ever seen cross his face before.

“This was your big emergency? And here I was all worried, damn it.”, She mused.

o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

Gaara stared up at his sister incredulously. This was an emergency. And he was mortified that he needed her help. He frowned in irritation at her easy dismissal of his problem, and wondered if he should have contacted Kankuro, instead. Probably not. His brother might have actually laughed at him.

“This is Naruto’s jutsu, right?”, She said, as she tried and failed to hide an amused smirk.

“No. It’s not. This is somewhat more advanced.”, Gaara corrected her. At that, Temari’s expression dimmed.

“Are you telling me that you don’t just look like a girl.”, she growled.

“Yes.”, He confirmed. Temari had a look that suggested the she was simultaneously very impressed, and very tempted to strangle the life out of him for being so stupid.

“And you thought that it would be a good idea to test an advanced transformation jutsu, for the first time, without proper medical supervision, why?”, She demanded. Gaara avoided her angry gaze, another behavior that was unlike him. His usual tactic when his sister was mad at him was to stare at her until she got tired of badgering him for a response, and left.

It took him a long time respond. He wasn’t eager to divulge the last piece of pertinent information to her.

“I have tested it many times before this. I have never been unable to change back.”, He said, his voice so quiet that it was almost a whisper. His sister was as shocked as he expected her to be. She raised a hand to straighten one of her ponytails, a nervous gesture, and opened and closed her mouth a few times, unable to find the right words. She unceremoniously grabbed one of his hands, and hauled him to his feet. It was the first time that she had ever held his hand like that, and he looked at her with wide, startled eyes.

“We’re going to see a medic.”, She said. Her no-nonsense tone brooked no room for argument.

o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

Elder Azami was a shriveled, twig-like husk of a woman, with a piercing cackle that immediately set Temari’s teeth on edge. She forced herself to ignore it, because Azami was also the best medic that the village had to offer.

“The last I checked, the Kazekage was a man. Being his sister, I would expect you to know that sort of thing.”, She crowed. She wouldn’t even accept Temari’s word that the red-haired girl in front of her was Gaara, much less examine him.

“Just look at his chakra, if you don’t believe me.”, Temari forced the words out through gritted teeth. The old woman, in an obvious effort to humor her, raised a hand to Gaara’s forehead in order to assess his chakra patterns. A raised eyebrow was her only response to the unmistakable pulse of demonic chakra mingling with her patient’s own.

“My apologies, Kazekage-sama. But I’m surprised that you would be so foolish as to test a new jutsu without the supervision of a medic nin.”, She said, though she didn’t sound apologetic in the least. On any other day, she may have been taking her life into her own hands by showing her Kazekage such disrespect, but Gaara barely seemed to hear her. Temari may as well have been standing next to one of his clones, from the level of reactivity that he was demonstrating. After an awkward few seconds of silence, Temari replied on her brother’s behalf.

“He told me that it’s not a new jutsu. That he’s tested it many times before, and has never had this problem.”, She said, hoping fervently that her brother would take over his part of the conversation soon. Acting as his parrot was getting old.

“Hmm. Well then, I’m going to have to ask your brother to strip, and lay down on the exam table. As family, you can stay.”, The last part was clearly a , ‘you will stay.’, and not a polite invitation. She wasn’t fool enough to lay a hand on the Jinchuuriki without backup from someone who (presumably) knew how to calm him if he became agitated.

Azami no longer displayed the aura of skeptical good humor that she had greeted them with. Her mouth was puckered, as though she had just sucked on a lemon, and her salt and pepper brows were scrunched down close over her eyes in disapproval. She watched as Gaara, who was strangely nonchalant about being spoken of as if he wasn’t in the room with them, followed her instructions without complaint. As he wasn’t wearing his coat or gourd, it didn’t take long for him to undress, and settle himself on the table.

Temari had never seen her brother naked before, so she wasn’t sure if seeing him this way was better or worse than seeing him as his usual self would have been. Although he had been embarrassed earlier, it didn’t seem to stem from the change in his body. He disrobed without making eye contact, but also without hesitance. He probably just felt incompetent for not being able to reverse his own jutsu. And to be honest, Temari was becoming increasingly concerned by that herself. A person didn’t just stop being able to use a jutsu, for no apparent reason. Especially if they had invented it in the first place.

Azami poked and prodded Gaara, starting with his extremities. She tested his reflexes, and the mobility of each individual joint. Temari felt sick watching it. Gaara let his body be manipulated by Azami in a limp, unflinching manner that made the scene resemble nothing so much as Kankuro doing maintenance on one of his puppets. Temari was sure that there had to be a faster, more dignified way to go about it, but when she tapped her fingers against her hip and glared at the old woman with impatience, all she receive in return was an impenetrable stare. Finally, Azami began checking his eyes, ears, and airways. She moved down to the heart and lungs, and frowned when she seemed to find nothing of note there. At last, her hands paused just below Gaara’s naval. They hovered there for a long while, her gnarled fingers slightly atremble, surprise plain on her face until she forcibly blanked it. Temari waited in anxious silence for the diagnosis.

“Well, this day is just one surprise after another.”, Azami said, some of the amused cackle that so annoyed Temari seeping back into her voice. She turned to addressed Gaara directly. “Kazekage-sama, after a thorough exam, the reason that you haven’t been able to complete the reverse transformation is obvious. You have acquired a third source of chakra. To put it bluntly, you’re pregnant.”

Gaara’s eyes as he turned to look at his sister were wide with shock, irises constricted into pinpoints of translucent green, which was always an ominous indicator for his mental stability. Temari spared a moment to be grateful for the absence of his gourd. Not that he couldn’t summon it at any time, but she hoped that it wouldn’t come to that.

“You can’t be serious.”, She snapped. This had to be some kind of stupid revenge for giving the old harpy such a shock. The idea was absurd, even more so than the rest of this insane morning.

“I am dead serious, I assure you.”, Azami replied. If she was lying Temari could see no sign of it.

“How could that even have happened?”, Temari enunciated, being very careful not to yell. Gaara looked more dazed than potentially murderous, but considering the situation, it would be better not to agitate him.

“The way that it usually does, I expect. Unplanned pregnancy is always a shock to those involved. I understand that this is even more of a surprise than usual, but denying it won’t make it go away.”, Was Azami’s tart reply.

“Look, there’s no way that... I mean, I would know if...”, Temari trailed off. She would know if her baby brother was sexually active, wouldn’t she? He wasn’t very forthcoming, but surely she couldn’t have missed something that huge. However, looking at Gaara’s distant expression, and the tense line of his jaw, she felt a miserable ball of distress knot up in her gut. He wasn’t saying anything to the contrary. Hadn’t she just been thinking this morning that he was hard to keep track of?

Gods, her little brother had gotten himself knocked up. Some bastard was going to die for this.

o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

Gaara sat cross-legged on one corner of his bed. The maids had been in to change the sheets, and there was no sign of his and Naruto’s earlier activities. As if it had never happened. Except that, according to the medic, he was carrying a much more lasting reminder of the previous night around with him. He believed her, but he couldn’t seem to dredge up any genuine feeling over the matter. Temari kept sending him anxious glances, making frequent motions to reach out to him, before halting at the last second. He wanted to tell her that he was fine, that she didn’t have to worry about him losing control over himself or over his demon, but he couldn’t seem to summon the energy that such reassurances would require.

He felt like he was having an out of body experience. That only seemed right, since this wasn’t really his body at all. The longer he stayed in this alien form, the more disconnected he felt. When he smoothed a hand over the sheets beside him, it was like watching a stranger do it. He could barely feel the soft, somewhat slippery texture of the cotton against his fingertips. The numbness he felt inside was contaminating his other senses. Temari was saying something to him, but the only thing he heard was a faint buzzing sound inside of his own head. His vision tunneled and blurred, glazing everything the same shade of red as Naruto’s angry eyes. His existence felt tenuous, as if he was trapped in a waking dream.

It was the thought of dreams that snapped him back into himself enough to make him take a closer look at his own body. There were glowing, blue lines creeping down around his arms. With this self-awareness came the renewed ability to hear what Temari was saying, screaming really.

“-hold of yourself! Damn it, everything will be fine! Just... calm down.”, Her voice wavered and faded as she noticed that her brother was finally looking at her, and not through her. She was trembling badly, and her eyes gleamed with unshed wetness. Gaara knew that she was trying to convince herself as much as him that everything would be OK, but her obvious hysteria was only setting him more on edge.

He needed to leave before he hurt her, or some other person who didn’t deserve it. He wasn’t safe to be around.

“Temari, stop. I’m going out. I’ll be back when... I’ll be back.”, Gaara hissed. He raised a hand to his head as it began a sudden throbbing, and dug his fingers into his hair in a vain attempt to dull the pain. Naruto had run his fingers over Gaara’s scalp in a way that had made him feel warm and calm, but he couldn’t replicate that peace on his own. It seemed that, like love, that feeling was something that had to be given to him by another person. And no one was likely to offer it to him.

“Be safe.”, Temari whispered. She stepped forward and raised a hand to cup her brother’s cheek, but he vanished in a swirl of sand before she could make contact.

o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

Temari barely spared a look for the concerned ANBU standing guard outside of Gaara’s door. She swept down the corridors of Hidden Sand’s government building like a hurricane, eyes in search of a familiar, painted face. She had to tell Kankurou, although as a loyal shinobi to Hidden Sand, her first thought should have been to inform the ANBU or the Council of Elders. The situation had made Gaara more unstable than she had seen him in a long time, and they needed to be informed of the potential threat.

That’s what she should concern herself with, but the Council could go fuck themselves. This was a family affair.

Gods,where was her brother? That could go for either of them, but Kankurou was the one that she needed to find. Gaara would be deep in the wastelands by now, protecting his village from himself. No harm would come to or from him, out there.

She eventually spotted Kankuro less than a block from his apartment. He was clearly on his way home from the market, bags of groceries hung from each arm. They swayed and bumped each other as he walked, dust flirting with his ankles in the heat of the noonday sun. He was smiling a little to himself, as if he had just recalled an amusing joke. Temari felt almost bad about needing to ruin his good mood. A larger, less charitable part of her wanted some company for her misery, and was eager to wipe that stupid grin off of his face.

She trotted up to him, and he raised one grocery-weighted hand in greeting. Her expression must have been grim, because the faint smile disappeared completely, and he looked her over with frank concern. She didn’t answer his unspoken question, but grabbed the bags from his right hand in a brief meeting of calloused fingers. She settled the bags around her own right wrist. The weight of a milk bottle and what felt to be a whole lot of instant ramen settled against her thigh in a comforting lump. As long as the world still contained such mundane activities as grocery shopping, it couldn’t have gone too far to hell. Everything would be fine. It wasn’t as if war had been declared, or some other real catastrophe had come to pass.

She shoved aside the thought that she would prefer a war, because at least she knew what to do in one. Instruction on how to take care of your pregnant younger brother wasn’t something covered by the academy curriculum. She wondered if it soon would be, once Gaara’s stupidly useful new jutsu made it into circulation. In all honesty, right now she didn’t care about anybody’s little brother but her own.

“I need to talk to you.”, Temari said as she followed Kankurou into the cool, messy recess of his bachelor pad. His apartment was no bigger than Gaara’s, but unlike his brother’s, his actually looked lived in. It smelled very lived in as well, Temari thought as she wrinkled her nose at his overflowing laundry basket. At least, she assumed that the basket was buried somewhere under the pile of ripe, black clothing. Maybe she would hire him a maid for his next birthday. She sure as hell wasn’t touching his mess.

“Yeah, that was my first thought when you ran up to me, looking like someone had just killed your dog. Which you don’t have. So what’s the problem?”, He said as he set his grocery bags down on top of a stack of unopened mail. The pile of clutter on his kitchen table rustled a bit, but nothing fell off, to Temari’s surprise. She decided that she wasn’t going to hire him a maid after all. She’d buy him trash bags, and a mop. How any one could live like this, she didn’t know.

“You won’t believe me. You’ll think I’m joking.”, She said, and oh how she wished that the whole thing was one sick jest.

“Temari, I think that I know better than anyone the limits on your sense of humor. You didn’t even think it was funny that one time I-”

“That’s because it wasn’t! But I’m not getting into that right now. I... It’s about Gaara.”, She choked out. She didn’t know how she was going to explain. She’d seen it with her own eyes, and it was still hard for her to accept.

“You know Uzumaki’s stupid party trick?”, She asked. It seemed like a good way to ease into the conversation.

“The Oiroke no Jutsu? Sure, I know it. I think that anybody who’s ever seen the kid tipsy knows that jutsu, and the story of how he ‘invented it all by himself’. Why, did he use it on Gaara or something? More power to him, if he managed to defrost our little brother a bit.”, Kankurou speculated. He seemed very puzzled about the direction their conversation was taking.

“What? No, that’s not it. I mean, Uzumaki’s not even in the village.”, Temari said.

“Sure he is. I ran into him yesterday. I took him to see Gaara myself, even though he needed a shower like the desert needs rain. Haven’t you seen him yet?”, Kankurou replied.

Temari felt shock claw through her chest like a panicked animal. Rage stalked swift at its heels. Uzumaki Naruto was in Suna. Or he had been, yesterday. She had known that Gaara was obsessed with the boy, his first and only real friend. The only other person who knew what it was like to carry a demon inside of them. She knew that Gaara loved him, or felt something for Naruto as close to love as he was capable of. She just hadn’t considered the possibility of it turning into something sexual. She also couldn’t imagine Naruto returning Gaara’s interest. Despite his status as Kazekage, Gaara had very few people that were really a part of his world. Of that short list, Naruto’s name was at the top as his most important person. Naruto, on the other hand, drew others to him like a street lamp draws bugs. He had any number of people that he was closer to than Gaara. It didn’t make sense for him to start a relationship with someone so far from home.

Of course, she was assuming that it was a relationship. There didn’t need to be a relationship for there to be sex.

“Uzumaki is a dead man.”, She breathed. Maybe she was assuming the worst, but the worst seemed likely given the evidence. If they were in a relationship, Gaara would have sought out Naruto before her. Hell, Naruto would have been there when Gaara realized that he couldn’t change back. And if they were in any kind of healthy relationship, Gaara wouldn’t have had to invent that fucking jutsu in the first place, because Naruto would have wanted him the way that he was. But she had seen neither hide nor hair of the boy, who was impossible to miss, being so loud and being so fond of the color orange. She could only assume that he had left, after staying just long enough to fuck her brother. She didn’t care how often he had rescued Gaara from the brink of death and madness in the past. For this offense, his life was forfeit.

Kankurou watched helplessly as his sister overturned his kitchen table in a violent rage. The burst carton of milk leaked a puddle under some crumpled packages of ramen. The sight of them made Temari want to hit something even more.

o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

The desert had been calm that morning, and Gaara was able to pick up the trail of Naruto’s footprints with little difficulty. He followed them for a few miles, out of some vague notion of confronting Naruto, and explaining the situation to him. Gaara would be able to catch up before Naruto reached the border, if he pushed his chakra reserves to the limit, and traveled in a series of transportation jutsu. However, just as Hidden Sand was swallowed out of sight behind him by the looming, pale forms of the dunes, Gaara abandoned that plan. Naruto didn’t want to see him right now, and they would probably end up wasting a lot of time brawling before Gaara had a chance to speak with him at all. That wasted time would only make Naruto more angry.

To be perfectly honest, Gaara didn’t feel like he wanted to see Naruto, either.

Even though Naruto’s righteous fury was about what he had expected, it still hurt. Part of him had hoped that Naruto would once again exceed his expectations. He had wanted to believe that Naruto would be able to surprise him with hope and acceptance, like a hidden weapons specialist pulling blades out of thin air. It wasn’t like he hadn’t set a precedence for that kind of thing in the past. So while Gaara hadn’t been shocked by his friend’s anger, he had still felt a crushing disappointment in reaction to it.

He’d been surprised, as well, that Naruto had been so deliberately hurtful with his words. It wasn’t a side of him the Gaara had seen before. He had expected Naruto to react with impulsive physical violence, not cruel accusations. Naruto was usually the type to throw a punch first and talk later. Gaara would have vastly preferred that Naruto struck him. Hearing his only friend rage and call him pathetic had made his chest ache with a debilitating pain that he hadn’t felt since the days following Yashamaru’s betrayal. How loathsome was he in Naruto’s eyes that his friend would reserve that kind of scorn only for him? He hadn’t even been worth hitting.

Gaara clenched his fingers in distress as he altered his path to go south. Today had left him with the familiar urge to slowly squeeze the life out of something, until it died feeling even more horrible then he did. That wasn’t the kind of therapy that he indulged in any more. He certainly could hunt down some mindless animal to take his hurt out on. There was life aplenty in the desert if one knew where to look. But spilling blood of any kind without necessity was a slippery slope that he didn’t want to skid down again. His village needed him rational. So he ran, heedless of the blazing sun above, toward one of the true wastelands of Wind Country.

There was life in most of the desert, though hidden from untrained eyes. Small, brown shrubs with bulbous roots buried under the sand. Spiny lizards, and dust-colored snakes that mimicked the motion of wind over the dunes. There were chitinous black beetles, and large-eared foxes that came out of their burrows only in the cool relief of night. Even tribes of gazelle and more elusive oryx that wandered between oases. It was surprising what could live in such a barren environment, one which cycled through daily extremes of burning and freezing, with no shelter but the windblown, shifting sands. However, in the midst of such tenacious life, there were a few bleak pockets of desert where not even the most determined of organisms could survive.

He could harm nothing there. The wastelands would become no more inhospitable, despite whatever damage he unleashed on them.

Gaara traveled for hours, until the yellow-orange dunes under his feet flattened out into an expanse of pale gray. He wrinkled his nose at the texture of the earth under his feet. It was closer to silt than sand, and he sunk into it with each step, sending bone-dry motes to float up to his knees.

He untied the sash from around his waist, and wound it twice over his nose and mouth, allowing the long ends of the fabric to flutter behind his head in the inconstant breeze. It would not be a good idea to breathe in the minerals that he kicked up. The particles would settle into his lungs, and no amount of medical jutsu would remove them. That was bad enough, but some of the components of the ashy sediment were poisonous. If he thought that he felt bad now, it would be nothing compared to the terminal agony of swollen, burning lungs that awaited anyone ignorant or foolish enough to wander through this particular patch of wasteland bare-faced.

Gaara was not a fool, and he knew the desert better than he knew himself. There was no naturally occurring danger in his own territory that he couldn’t compensate for.

The gourd dissolved off of his back, and into a seething mass around his legs. It did not settle into a definite form, but instead serpentined around him like a nest of snakes one moment, then formed small arms and claws the next, scratching hungrily at the ground. A second later it resembled a hedgehog’s spines, jutted outward in a defensive posture. He allowed the sand to shift and change as it willed, while he took a few deep, calming breaths through the linen cloth pressed over his nose.

His sand had always moved on its own. In later years, he had learned how to manipulate it as he wished, but without his firm intent to guide it, it remained in constant motion. He no longer believed that the sand was his mother, but it still seemed to possess some supernatural intelligence that belonged to neither Shukaku nor himself. It was a mystery that he had long since lost interest in puzzling out. As long as it did what he needed it to do, the how’s and why’s of it didn’t concern him.

Here, he would be limited to only that chakra-infused sand. The toxic earth around him did not respond well enough to his will to make it worth using. Still, what he had would be more than enough.

With that thought, he began running again. There wasn’t much to destroy out here, but the cluster of twisted rock formations in the distance would suffice.

As he ran, the sand bubbled over his body. Most of it settled along his arms, and elongated into blue-veined claws that covered and extended beyond his own hands. Once they were fully formed, he dropped down to run on all fours in a lurching gallop, his claws leaving soft furrows in the dust beneath him. A fine trail of sand slithered down his spine, and stretched out behind him in a vague tail. Bit by bit, he let go of the feeling of hurt that Naruto had caused him, and let his own anger rise up to displace it. His eyes bled to black and gold, Shukaku a violent, rising presence in his mind.

The Tailed Beast did not, as many people seemed to think, manifest as a voice that spoke to him. If that had been the case, he could have sifted it out as ‘other’, separate from himself, even as a small child. Shukaku was instead an insidious tangle of thoughts and impulses that coiled through Gaara’s own. It had taken him years to be able to differentiate between his own desires and the demon’s. Sometimes he still had difficulty, especially when he was angry, and his and the Tanuki’s rage thrummed in one synchronous, bloody urge to tear and destroy.

The only time that Shukaku was aware enough to have a voice was when Gaara was in deep sleep. For one of them to be fully ascendant, the other had to be smothered in the dark of dreams. The Tanuki dreamt solely of destruction, and sometimes that slumbering madness sent Gaara spiraling down into a black mood, although he rarely let it effect his outward behavior. Likewise, Gaara’s own feelings could stir its sleeping mind to greater depths of hatred, but even on such occasions it did not become self aware enough to speak to him.

Gaara allowed his rage to meld with Shukaku’s own bestial hatred as he leapt onto the nearest rock formation. It was bone white, and formed an arc like a great doorway over the gray earth. It may have been pretty, if it hadn’t looked so eerie in the twilight of the wastelands. Regardless, Gaara clawed senselessly at it, and soon it was nothing more than a pile of chalky rubble left to sink into the dust. After a moment of digging vainly through the remains, he moved on to the next monolith, taking a swing at it with one fisted paw. It cracked gloriously under the force of his blow, and before long it joined the archway as a heap of crumbled rock.

In the same manner, he leveled the rest of the surrounding rock formations. The last one to be conquered was a massive, rectangular obelisk. It heaved up a great shower of dust when it slammed to the ground, and left Gaara’s hair and clothes an ashen white under the waxing moon. Covered in it as he was, his sand barrier did not allow the poison to touch his skin, and his sash protected him from inhaling much of it.

He scored long furrows in the stone, breaking it into smaller pieces to pound on with his fists. It wasn’t a subtle or elegant method, but it gave him a visceral pleasure that standing back and watching his sand destroy from a distance never came close to touching.

He paused at the last and smallest segment, the narrowed tip of the formation. It was still easily twice as big around as himself. He hauled himself up onto it to lay on his back. His chest heaving in exertion, and his heart throbbing a thunderous rhythm beneath his ribs, he allowed himself to cool off. The stirred dust drifted down in ghostly clouds around him, and the sky was littered with more stars than could usually be seen in the artificially lit confines of his village. It was lonely as well as peaceful, and Gaara had finally exhausted himself enough to appreciate that.

He could head back to the village now, without the threat of causing harm to the place and people that he had sworn to protect looming over his head. He could head back, but instead he lingered, allowing the fierce burn to fade from his limbs in the chill air. His ANBU would worry more the longer he stayed missing, but there was still plenty of time to make it back to Suna before the sun rose. His village had no great need of him at this time of night, and he himself needed the calm that laying out under the stars provided. For now, he would indulge himself in this one small thing.

He would face his people in the morning.

o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

“It’s not that I don’t believe that you believe what you’re saying. It’s just that I’m wondering if you banged that blonde head of yours on something hard today. Here, let me check your pupils.”

Temari punched her brother’s shoulder as he leaned in to examine her eyes, concern plain on his face. It transformed into a pained scowl as she struck him, and he jerked back to rub at his arm, glaring daggers. Gaara wasn’t the only member of the family with a frightening glare, but Kankurou’s did nothing to phase Temari. After all, Gaara still did it best, and she irritated him on a regular basis.

“I am not concussed, poisoned, or suffering from sunstroke.”, Temari hissed at him.

“You have to admit, it’s hard to believe. If I told you something like that, you would beat me for lying.”, He pointed out, rightfully.

“Yes, well, you’re more prone to lying than I am. And be thankful that you’re hearing it from me, and not Elder Azami. You didn’t have to stand there and watch when she gave our brother a pelvic exam. Or listen while the old bitch harped at him about the importance of folic acid, and the dangers of mercury in seafood. I don’t even know why she bothered with that last part, since we live in the desert. You don’t catch too many tuna flopping around in the dunes.”, She said, with a disgruntled snort. It had been a traumatic experience that not even intense amounts of palm wine could wash away, though she was inclined to try. The image of those crabbed, leathery hands spreading her brothers thighs in a no-nonsense fashion was going to give her nightmares. Gaara had done his worrisome new unstrung puppet act through the entire ordeal, while Azami cackled on and on about what he should and shouldn’t eat, and scheduled his next appointment without his input or acknowledgment.

Kankurou’s nose wrinkled fastidiously at the words ‘pelvic exam’. He looked like he was disgusted enough by her story to believe it. Good. There was the added benefit that ruining someone else’s day with mental scarring made her own seem less horrible.

“Thanks for that surplus of information, Temari. Like my brain wasn’t broken enough when you told me that Uzumaki screwed my little brother.”, He sulked. Temari’s expression hardened into something cold and dangerous at the mention of that name. Never had her shared blood with Gaara made itself more apparent than in that flat, belligerent stare.

“When I find myself in Konoha again, Uzumaki had better pray that he’s away on a mission. If I see him, I’ll have Kamatari gnaw the flesh from his bones.”, She seethed. Kankurou shuddered a little bit at her tone, and cast about for a change of subject.

“When do you think Gaara will be back, any way? This is something that I have to see for myself.”, Kankurou tossed the question out like a shiny lure, and lucky for him, Temari latched on to it.

“I’ll be surprised if he isn’t back by morning. You know how he is about his damned paperwork these days, he won’t be able to leave it alone.”

“Yeah, it has gotten pretty bad, hasn’t it? Maybe we should return some of the documents to his minions while he’s out. They’re starting to look bored and edgy, with so little to do.”, He suggested. Having so many bored, desk-bound ninja in one place was a recipe for disaster. And they had more than enough disaster on their hands already.

“That’s the first decent idea you’ve had today.”, Mused Temari. She hopped down off of her brother’s kitchen counter, and formed the seals that would jutsu her to the Kazekage’s office. Kankurou blinked, nonplussed, but followed close behind her.

“I didn’t necessarily mean right this minute.”, He complained, with an unbecoming whine in his voice. Nonetheless, he set to work helping his sister sort through the pillars of documents that dominated his brother’s desk.

It didn’t take very long to sort out Gaara’s real paperwork from his subordinates’, as it turned out that only a small of fraction of the documents required kage-level security clearance. The real challenge was figuring out which documents went where out of the remainder. It soon became clear that sorting them was taking as much time as signing them would. Soon, Temari was experiencing a sense of deja vu as she signed one paper after another. At least this time, Kankurou was here to make the work go faster. As much as her brother liked to complain, he was a good shinobi, and he knew when it was fine to grumble, and when it was time to shut up and get to work. She didn’t hear so much as a peep out of him until well after sundown.

By that point, even she agreed that it was time for a break. She yawned indelicately, and stretched back over Gaara’s horrible, pain-inducing chair to unkink her aching spine. Kankurou raised an eyebrow over the punctuated popping of her vertebrae, but didn’t dare comment.

The stacks of paper had been seriously reduced, although there was still what most people would consider to be a lot of work left to do. Of course, most people slept six to eight hours a night, and didn’t assign themselves eighteen hour work days. Temari knew that he was just validating his existence in the most healthy way that he knew how to, but she still wished that Gaara would find himself a hobby. Sand mandalas or something. That would fit his new Zen outlook on life well enough.

She suppressed a sigh at the thought. A year ago she might have been bold enough to suggest it to him, but a year ago he had been taking much better care of himself. Shortly after his Tailed Beast was returned to him, that aura of calm that he had worn since before he was elected as kage began to twist and fade into apathy. It was hard to tell the difference if you didn’t know him well, but to his sister it was as obvious as the desert was dry that he was depressed. She couldn’t fault him for it, especially as the current direction of Wind Country politics wasn’t doing anything for his peace of mind. The noble families to the west were murmuring to the tune of, ‘remind us why we need a Kazekage, exactly’. It was a cycle that kicked up at least once during every Kazekage’s rule, so it wasn’t unexpected, it was just awful timing.

“I wish that I could make life easier for him.”, Temari said, voice soft and laced with rare affection that she hated for people to notice.

“We do the best we can.”, Kankurou said. He knew how much his sister cared, even when she was spitting mad. Still, seeing it so plainly made him uneasy. Temari had had a long day, and he could tell that she wasn’t coping with everything as well as she wanted to appear she was. “Unless you discover a long lost scroll of Make It All Better jutsu, which allows you to tap into your big sisterly powers for peace, justice, and the Sunagakure way, our best will have to be enough.”

Temari gave him a crooked, watery smile, and smacked his shoulder. It didn’t even hurt (much), so he knew that she was grateful. He may have been younger than her, but family was supposed to stick together, and he was glad that he could take care of her in some small way.

“Gaara won’t know what to do with himself if we don’t at least leave the rest of this for him. I vote that we get some food, and wait for him in his room. He probably won’t think to feed himself as soon as he gets back, but I’m sure that he’ll need to eat by then.”, Kankurou suggested, ever the voice of reason. His siblings may have been good in crisis situations that involved important decisions, and sweeping (often bloody) gestures, but somebody had to remember the less dramatic but equally important things in life. Temari wondered why that didn’t extend to de-cluttering his kitchen, or doing his laundry before he ran out of clean underwear.

Oh well. None of them were perfect. And her stomach was letting her know the food was a marvelous idea.

“As long as it's not ramen.”

o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

Gaara ghosted over the desert on a platform of sand, under the ephemeral, pale light that comes just before dawn. He had stopped at an oasis near the poisonous wastes, and his hair and clothes were still damp from the quick bath that he took there. He would not have defiled pure drinking water in such a way, but that small, placid pool had been contaminated long ago by the runoff of toxic minerals. The particles were not nearly as dangerous when suspended in fluid, but they still were not safe to drink, and he would need to rinse the last of them from his skin in his own quarters. He should probably dispose of the clothes, as well. No amount of washing was going to remove the beaten in dust and torn threads from that fabric.

When the walls of Suna were clear before him, he stepped off of the disc of sand, and willed it to stream back into his gourd. He didn’t want to have to explain himself as he walked through the streets, empty as they were likely to be, so he teleported back to his room. On most days he would have considered that a stupid waste of chakra, but today was very different from any other day.

It wasn’t dark in his bedroom as he expected it to be. He had to squint for a few seconds to adjust to the soft glow of his desk lamp. It took him another embarrassingly long moment to realize that he wasn’t alone in the room.

Temari and Kankurou were on the floor, propped up against the bed and each other. White cartons of takeout curry were scattered haphazardly across the carpet, plastic utensils strewn between them like fallen soldiers in village streets. The scent of curry spices tickled his nose. It was probably still fresh enough to eat, but he didn’t feel hungry. Fortunately, neither of his siblings stirred to nag him about it. They had obviously fallen asleep while waiting for him to return.

With one last penetrating stare in their direction, he skulked past them and into the bathroom. His clothes went straight into the trash can, with the bag tied shut over them. Another waste, but he had plenty of identical items to replace them. He stepped into the shower, and turned on the spray. It was cold, but he was appalled by the way that some people squandered water while they waited for it to warm up.

He scrubbed his hair and body twice to be safe, as quickly as he could. While he toweled himself dry, he suddenly wished that he owned a bathroom mirror. It had never seemed necessary before. He didn’t enjoy seeing the dark rings around his eyes and the scar on his forehead any more often than he had to. But at that moment, he wanted to see if any feral glint, any trace of bloodlust remained in his eyes. He refused to walk around all day looking like some wild animal, even if that may be truer to his inner landscape than the serene mask that he’d cultivated over the years. He gripped the sides of the sink, and drew in a few deep breaths through his nose, expelling them through his mouth in shuddering sighs. In the predawn quiet, he could hear the sound of his own pulse. It was steady and slow, so he trusted that he was wearing an expression to match.

He was as safe to be around as he ever was. It would do.

o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

Temari cracked open an eye as soon as she heard the bathroom door click shut. Trust Gaara to go rampaging through the desert, but not even slam a door in his own village. Kankurou mirrored her motion almost simultaneously, and they stared at one another until the sound of running water made its way to their ears.

“Do you think he noticed that we were awake?”, She asked, voice barely more than a whisper. When Gaara had appeared in the room, his expression and the state of his clothing had inspired them to feign sleep. The family meeting could wait until after he pulled himself together. Those gleaming eyes had reminded her too much of their genin days, when trespassing into his room would have been a kill-worthy offense. Meanwhile, the part of her that wasn’t focused on self-preservation took note of the fact that he was dusted head to toe in what looked suspiciously like the poisonous mineral powder that was found only in the southeast wastelands. The danger was minimized with the correct safety precautions, but she was unsettled by the idea of him being there at all.

“If he did, he didn’t call us on it, and that’s really all I care about.”, Kankurou replied.

The sound of water petered out after a short time, and soon Gaara emerged from behind the door. At the sight of her brother clad only in a towel, Temari scrunched her eyes shut again. Just because she’d seen it all before, that didn’t mean that she wanted to look at it all over again.

She soon made a liar of herself, and watched her brother through slitted eyes as he dropped the towel to root through his drawers for a change of clothes. In the dim light, he barely resembled himself. She realized, with a tight feeling in her chest that set her eyes burning for the third time in less than a day, that he strongly resembled their mother. She had only been three years old when her mother died, and her personal memories of the woman were scattered and vague, but she had a book of old photographs that she took out once a year as a reminder.

Gaara’s looks, other than the red hair, had always favored their mother much more than their father. For years, that had just been one more thing that made it painful to be near him. As he had matured, the resemblance had faded enough that Temari was finally able to look at him without resentment. Now, his appearance was more disturbing to her than it had ever been before.

“If you’re going to stare, don’t pretend otherwise.”, Gaara said, without turning to look at her. He didn’t sound angry. He didn’t sound much of anything, and Temari wasn’t sure that was an improvement. She gave up feigning sleep, and beside her Kankurou’s eyes opened to the size of saucers. Then he blushed a sunburned shade of red, and turned his head away to look at the wall.

“How did you know we were awake”, Kankurou mumbled. That blush was going to take a while to fade.

“Any jounin who slept through that kind of racket, I would send back to the academy”, Gaara said, voice muffled as he pulled a loose, black shirt over his head. Temari made a mental note to have some of his clothes altered in the near future. He wasn’t exactly swimming in them, but they would still be a liability in a fight. Maybe he could borrow some of hers, until then. Maybe she could alter them herself. That might be best. She didn’t know how many people they would be informing of his transformation just yet, and sending his things to a civilian tailor could be a security risk.

As long as she was focused on his wardrobe, she didn’t have time to dwell on his uncanny resemblance to a dead woman. Although his expression was all wrong. Mother had never looked so hardened and suspicious, at least not in her pictures, although she couldn’t have been smiling much in the final nine months of her life. Temari knew that a large part of it was the black rings around his eyes, but her brother had a face that rarely looked anything but fierce.

And there she went, dwelling on it.

“I need to do something about your clothes.”, She suggested tentatively.

“Mm.”, He acknowledged. It could have meant anything from ‘I heard you’, to ‘yes, go ahead’. She decided to take it as agreement.

“I have to address the Council.”, He added as he strapped his gourd into place.

“Do you have to do that immediately? Maybe you should take a personal day, take some time to adjust...”, Kankurou said, tossing a plastic spoon from hand to hand. Temari wasn’t at all surprised when Gaara shook his head in disagreement.

“The ANBU will have noticed that something is wrong by now, if not the precise nature of the problem. Everyone with jounin clearance and above needs to be informed of the situation as soon as possible.”, Gaara replied. His brusque tone made it seem like the so-called ‘situation’ was a military threat, and not a personal problem. Temari wasn’t sure if she should be relieved at how well he was coping, or if that was just a sign that he wasn’t coping at all. He seemed to be externalizing everything, rather than accepting it.

Well, she wasn’t about to call him on it. It had already been made clear to her that morning that she had her own issues to work through. As long as her little brother was home, and not rolling around in poison dust, that was enough to satisfy her. It had only been a day since he and Naruto had... Well, it was early stages yet. It was entirely possible that he could miscarry.

She tried, unsuccessfully, to not make that thought into a prayer.

o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

Gaara wasn’t sure what to make of his siblings’ presence in his rooms. On the one hand, he felt a slight twinge of desperately needed warmth at the fact that they had cared enough to wait up for him. On the other, their nerves were only amplifying his own insecurities. Kankurou’s blatant shock was bad enough, but it was nowhere near as unsettling as the lost look in their sister’s eyes. He hadn’t seen that expression directed at him in years. It made him feel cowardly and monstrous. He wanted to hole himself up some place where she wouldn’t look at him that way, or to lash out at her until a harder expression replaced that soft, sad gaze.

He wouldn’t allow himself to do either. There was work to be done.

His siblings followed him out the door, and almost trod on his heels as he stopped to wave over the ANBU standing rigidly in an alcove down the hall. The masked man walked up to him without hesitation, his manner formal and unfazed. He did not seem surprised or disturbed by the changes in Gaara’s body, which did a lot to confirm his Kazekage’s suspicions that his personal guards had know about his little side project for quite some time.

Good. He would have been worried for their competence if they hadn’t.

“A Council meeting is to be assembled at the earliest possible convenience. Inform your fellow ANBU, and see it done.”, Gaara ordered. The man tipped his head in a quick but formally correct bow, then vanished, leaving only a faint wisp of smoke behind him. Gaara turned to address his siblings.

“Kankurou, stop hovering. I’ll eat some of the curry, while you and Temari ready yourselves for the meeting.”, Gaara said. They stared at him in puzzled incomprehension as he squeezed past them to his own doorway. “Specifically, go change. You’ve spent twenty-four hours in the same clothes. It’s not difficult to tell.”

The door clicked shut behind him, leaving his mildly offended siblings together in the corridor.

o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

End Notes: For me, this was The Morning After chapter in more ways than the obvious. After the giddy ease of producing the Chapter 1, it felt like an unwanted dose of reality. The bright, fun writing style of the previous chapter went out the door with Naruto, and I was suddenly left with only an understandably moody Gaara, and his confused siblings. There wasn't really much to laugh about. Unplanned pregnancy is a Serious Business.

In any case, I am overjoyed that this chapter is complete. I feel much more fondly toward it now that it's finished.

You will have noticed that the pronouns were constant throughout this chapter. The way I see it, Gaara still thinks of himself as male, and Temari knows that it takes more than ovaries to make a woman. The next chapter will likely involve more switching around, as some of it will be Kankurou-centric, and I suspect that he shares Naruto's simple attitude toward sex and gender.

The next chapter will also cover what is likely to be one of the most upsetting moments in this entire story, so I can't say that it will be any perkier than this one. I may, however, include a brief look at what's going on in Konoha, so that we don't all forget that Naruto is an important part of the story, too. If I can't squeeze that in during Chapter 3, then it will definitely be included in Chapter 4.

As usual, this chapter was entirely self-edited. Please feel free to point out any errors or inconsistencies to me via review, e-mail, or a reply on my LiveJournal. I am happy to accept full-contact critique, or anything else that you would like to say about my work.