Stability: Chapter 3 (Gaara/Naruto/Sakura/Sasuke Polyamory Fic)

2008-06-21T01:54:19Z

Read Chapter One or Chapter Two. Or read the whole thing at fanfiction.net.

Warnings, pairings, and disclaimers can all be found in the first chapter.

Author’s Notes: Well, it only took me a piddling four months, but here’s chapter three; in which some people’s lives suck more than others. A lot of characters are behaving oddly in this chapter, but the circumstances are pretty strange, too.

Chapter 3: Atrocity

The Council room was filled with the kind of stunned silence that you could hear your own pulse in. It made Kankurou wish that his wasn’t racing quite so rapidly, because the sound of his own jack-rabbitting heartbeat was doing nothing for his nerves. Beside him, Gaara looked completely unfazed by the aftermath of his proclamation that he was temporarily stuck with the results of a transformation jutsu. For a period of approximately nine months. The Council members may have been ancient and inflexible, but they weren’t stupid. It didn’t take more than a few seconds for them to puzzle out that little clue.

That silence was the calm before the storm. Before long the room was filled with a hushed murmur that quickly rose in volume to a full-on riot. It was a display more apropos to an academy classroom than to a group of purportedly wise and knowledgeable elders. People were all trying to ask questions at the same time, and the noise resembled nothing so much as a mass of carrion birds scrapping over a corpse. The racket continued for several minutes, while Gaara, in an admirable display of patience, waited for them to quiet down, and direct their questions to him one at a time. Kankurou could have told him that he was going to have to wait a good, long while, with the way that the old vultures were squawking, but he was trying to fade into the background. As a puppet master, and brother to a murderous Jinchuuriki, disappearing into the woodwork was something that he’d had many opportunities to practice. And although Gaara was no longer the dangerous animal that had killed people for so much as looking at him the wrong way, Kankurou didn’t like the barely noticeable twitch that had worked its way into his brother’s fingers.

“Shut up.”, Gaara didn’t kill anyone for the annoyance, but his bedside manner still left a lot to be desired. The quiet words slithered over the room and shivered down the spines of all present. Gaara was not in a tolerant mood.

The following silence was more morbidly anticipatory than stunned.

“Do not mistake my intent for assembling this meeting. My... situation, is not a subject open for debate. This is not a problem for you to fix. This is a personal matter. I am informing every shinobi of jounin level and above, because I do not wish to be attacked as an imposter in my own office. That is all.”, Gaara said. His altered voice was not the masculine growl that Kankurou had grown used to these past few years, but neither was it especially feminine. It had an androgynous quality that made Gaara seem even less human, the ambiguous tone of a wandering djinn, or the undulating howl of wind over the sands. The monotone lack of inflection or emotion was the same as always, at least. Kankurou probably shouldn’t have found that comforting, but he did. It helped him to ignore the fact that his little brother had temporarily become his little sister.

“Meeting adjourned.”, Gaara added, before disappearing in a swirl of sand, while the Council sat in indignant silence.

Kankurou and Temari exchanged a put upon glance. They had come to love their brother dearly, but it was difficult to remember that when he left them to fend off cranky, outraged elders by themselves.

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

Half a day’s travel from Konoha, Naruto came to a sudden stop. He’d had two and a half days to form a plan, and it was time to put it into motion.

Gaara had said specifically that Sasuke would be outside of Konoha in approximately four days. There was no guarantee that he would actually enter the village limits, so Naruto figured that there was no point in him returning to the village himself. He would just have to hope that he would be strong enough drag Sasuke home without backup, should it come to that. But why would Sasuke even be that near to Konoha, if he didn’t intend to return under his own power? Naruto’s attitude toward that conjecture was ambivalent. He loved Sasuke, his life had practically revolved around the bastard since they were twelve, but he wasn’t sure if he could so easily forgive the him without the catharsis of beating him half to death first. And extreme bodily harm probably wasn’t the positive reinforcement that would keep Sasuke in Konoha if he was planning to return of his own free will.

If Gaara had even had his facts straight to begin with.

Honestly, it seemed too easy. Every time that he had come close to retrieving his missing teammate in the past, it had required a lot more effort and lead up than this. It had involved trekking to far-off, obscure locations, and bullying even the slightest amount of information from a plethora of dangerous, obnoxious strangers. The past six months had been the hardest yet, because even those troublesome sources of information had dried up. It was as if Sasuke had vanished from the face of the earth. He didn’t think that Gaara had lied to him, but this entire scenario seemed implausible. With all of the concentrated searching and digging for information that Konoha had done, wouldn’t they have known that Sasuke was coming, long before Gaara, of all people, did?

Still, Naruto was more hopeful than he had been in a long, long time, and Gods damn it, if Gaara had been lying, Naruto was going to show him entire new worlds of pain. Having Shukaku torn clawing and wailing from his soul would be like having a splinter removed by comparison. Naruto was beyond sick of the emotional roller coaster. He didn’t know if he could handle another disappointment without breaking.

Naruto had been thinking in that same circle for two days, so there hardly seemed a point in dwelling on it further. With a determined cry of ‘Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!’, he was surrounded by a mass of nigh on one thousand clones. They didn’t wait for his order; they didn’t need to. With one intent, they shot off in different directions. It wasn’t elegant, but elegant had never been Naruto’s style. They would form a perimeter around the village, and alert him of Sasuke’s arrival. It wasn’t much of a plan, but with all of the complicated plans that Naruto had participated in in the past that had sooner or later gone pear-shaped, he didn’t think that a lack of planning could make the situation any worse.

With a few low-end genjutsu, and hastily thrown together camouflages, Naruto and his clones avoided the notice of the few people who crossed their paths. They settled in for a long wait.

It turned out to not be as long a wait as anticipated, and Naruto was glad that Gaara hadn’t wasted any more of his time, otherwise he may have arrived too late. At midmorning the following day, one of the clones spotted Sasuke. He was strolling through the forest at a leisurely pace, arms crossed over his chest and hands tucked into opposite sleeves. He looked exhausted, almost ill. The bags under his eyes stood out like bruises, and the clone was sharply reminded of Gaara. He walked with steps that, although graceful, had some of the wandering, shuffling quality of a somnambulist’s. Dark eyes lifted from their rapt contemplation of the forest floor to stare into the inadequately disguised bunshin’s.

“Naruto.”, He said. His voice was soft and weary, void of any hint of aggression. “I’ll wait here for the real you.”, He added. The clone disappeared an instant later.

Naruto blinked as the clone’s memory of that anticlimactic conversation worked its way into his brain. That hadn’t been what he expected. Part of him was wary of it being a trap, but Sasuke had never been subtle about his treachery in the past. Naruto was surprised that he had peaceably passed along a message to the clone, rather than dispelling it more pointedly with a kunai. There was also an unprecedented lack of a monologue about how he was going to sever his bond with Naruto irrevocably by killing him. The change was refreshing, but Naruto wasn’t sure what to make of it.

Despite his misgivings, he didn’t hesitate as he sped toward the location that his clone had relayed to him. If Sasuke decided to leave, the extra speed wouldn’t do him any good, and the bastard probably deserved to wait, but Naruto couldn’t have slowed himself down even had he wanted to. He was impossibly keyed up.

Naruto found Sasuke in nearly the same spot that the clone had, resting wearily against a towering white birch, legs splayed in artful asymmetry over the leaf mould before him. The silvery-pale bark with it’s darker whorls, and Sasuke’s own black on fair palette gave the scene the delicate, monochrome quality of an ink wash. Like an illustration of a fallen warrior in some revered history text. Something that you would find in a museum, that Naruto would be scolded for touching or looking at too closely. That serene position of repose was not how he had expected to find Sasuke at all, and although it suited the Uchiha, Naruto didn’t trust it. It made the rage drain out of him, and something softer well up in the confines of his chest. He couldn’t afford to be less than battle-ready at a time like this, but the vision before him made him want nothing more than to lay down and stare up at the leaves with his head in Sasuke’s lap, at though that were the natural order of things. Which was absurd, because even before Sasuke’s defection, such a scene would have been surreal.

“Are you so much better than me now that you don’t even have to stand to fight me.”, Naruto growled, although he was dismayed to find that his voice lacked conviction. He no longer felt angry enough for this confrontation. He was so confused.

“...What if I don’t want to fight you?”, Sasuke asked, leaving a pause long enough before the words for the muted sounds of the forest around them to come into focus. He raised his gaze from some indeterminable point around his sandals to Naruto’s face, head tilted back against the tree. Strands of blue-black hair tangled and shifted against the bark with the motion, like fragile lines of ink on parchment. Black eyes bore into blue with a diffuse intensity, while Naruto digested the unplanned for concept that Sasuke seemed disinclined to either fight or flee.

“What if I don’t care what you want?”. The words were aggressive, fighting words, but Naruto’s tone was flat. He wondered if Gaara’s speech patterns had rubbed off on him a little bit.

“I can’t stop you from doing what you want, but I couldn’t give you a worthwhile fight right now if my life depended on it. I’ll just ask, does it?”, Sasuke replied, voice low with what Naruto pinpointed now as profound exhaustion, rather than calm. Was Sasuke injured in some way? Naruto could neither see nor smell blood on him, but there was a pinched, rigid set to Sasuke’s face that spoke of pain. He was distracted enough by his visual assessment of Sasuke’s health that it took a moment for him to process the question.

“No! What kind of person do you think I am?”, Naruto shouted, genuinely hurt. Did Sasuke really think him capable of murdering in cold blood someone who couldn’t even defend himself? Much less someone that he really lo-, one of his most precious people, bastard or not. “If you’re not lying, if you really can’t fight, then I’m not about to kill you while you’re too pathetic to stop me. That doesn’t mean that I’m not going to hogtie you and drag you back to Konoha myself.”

“That won’t be necessary.”, Sasuke said. Naruto stared at him with saucer-wide eyes. Surely it couldn’t be this easy. Trap!, his mind screamed. Trap! But this kind of trap wasn’t Sasuke’s style. Something in his gut unclenched as he stopped trying to strangle his own optimism. Maybe it really would be that easy. Maybe Sasuke really just wanted to come home. Naruto moved closer to the elegant sprawl of his friend, and knelt in front of him.

“Do you.. Are you really...?”, Naruto couldn’t make a proper sentence of the question, but it was obvious what was meant.

“Everything that I need now, is in Konoha.”, Sasuke said, voice quiet but sure. Naruto was looking him straight in the eyes as he said it, and unless Sasuke’s ability to lie had increased exponentially, he was sincere. “Naruto, I... Could you help me up?”

Naruto felt a smile tug at his lips, as he clasped Sasuke’s pale hand in his own, and hauled him up. Sasuke’s grip was weaker than expected, and Naruto had to put more effort into dragging him up than he would have thought. It was worrisome to say the least, but surely nothing that Tsunade couldn’t fix. He also knew that his current lack of animosity was born of unspeakable relief. Make no mistake, once Sasuke was back in fighting shape, there was going to be an almighty row.

For now, though, it was more than enough that Sasuke was coming home.

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

Naruto spotted the first ANBU a few miles outside of the village. He expected a confrontation, or at least some form of acknowledgment, but the masked man disappeared in a translucent puff of smoke almost instantly. It was puzzling the first time, but as each ANBU that he encountered followed suit, it became outrageously suspicious. For that matter, what were so many ANBU doing in the forest just outside of the village? Didn’t they have missions to run, fingernails to shove bamboo under, and a Hokage to protect? That sort of thing. It was very strange to see so many of them idling near the village proper.

Naruto cast a doubtful glance at Sasuke, who was shuffling along at what felt like a snail’s pace, with his arm thrown over Naruto’s shoulders for support. His left foot, the closest to Naruto, was dragging almost imperceptibly at the beginning of every step, and his arm tremored in a way that hinted at something much more ominous than simple exhaustion. Pinpricks of sweat were visible on his brow, and Naruto would have been willing to bet Gama-chan’s entire contents that if he felt Sasuke’s skin it would be cool and clammy to the touch. The scent of said perspiration had the sharp, off-putting tang of fear, pain, or long illness. Sasuke didn’t seem afraid, so it was one, or both, of the other two that was the source of that reek.

Since the ANBU were obviously on alert already, they took the main road for the last mile to the village. They encountered no one along the way, which was just another oddity to add to the list. Before long the gates of Konoha peered at them over the nearest rise. Or rather, it was the massive crowd of people gathered in front of it that did the peering. Many ANBU were among them, and Naruto recognized a few of the masks as belonging to some of the elusive shinobi that he had spotted along the way. At the center of that softly murmuring, shifting group stood the Godaime Hokage. She looked more sober than Naruto had seen her in recent memory. Legs planted wide in a proud, challenging stance, she appeared immovable, a mighty tree with deep roots. She was flanked by a worried Shizune on the right, Tonton snuffling from behind her heels, and a noticeably keyed-up Sakura on the left. Sai, Kakashi, and Yamato were weaving through the crowd, silent and watchful as sharks, gravitating toward individuals who became too loud or angry in clear warning.

Naruto noted that none of those assembled were civilians.

It didn’t have the dark aura of a lynch mob, but it was more tense than the triumphant return that Naruto had always envisioned for this day. His lips were momentarily weighed down by a petulant frown as he ruminated over the idea that maybe they would have gotten a more awesome heroes’ welcome if Naruto had been allowed to do things his way. If he’d been a catalyst for the event, instead of a last-minute walking stick. But stupid bastard Sasuke had to move events along at his own pace as usual, leaving Naruto to shake off the confusion and catch up, once again.

Still, as Sakura broke free of the formation and ran to the both of them, with the most profound expression of relief that Naruto had ever seen on her face, he couldn’t bring himself to care much. Resentment was further swept away as she wrapped him in a quick, one armed hug, followed by the equally quick trail of her green-haloed fingers over his chest as she probed his chakra channels for damage. After a moment’s hesitation, she did the same for Sasuke. Surprise passed over her features for just a moment before she pulled away, as if she had found something unexpected, but Naruto was proud to see that she neither trembled nor hesitated at the contact. She was taking this whole situation with better grace than he had, for sure.

Sakura gave a small nod to Tsunade. Naruto had no idea what the significance of the gesture was, but it made the Hokage relax, and brought a sigh of relief from Shizune. With a discreet hand signal from the Godaime, most of the ANBU dispersed. The noise from the remaining ninja increased sharply, but dulled down again as Tsunade spoke.

“Uchiha Sasuke. If you truly intend no harm to the village of Konoha, or to its people, and are prepared to face the consequences of your actions, then I will speak to you in my office.”, She proclaimed. She then blinked as Sasuke performed what was likely the most surprising action that any of them had ever seen from him; he bowed. Bent at the waist, torso almost perpendicular to the ground, and head hung low, it was an apology and an indication of submission.

“Oh, stand up you fool. You’ll only aggravate your injuries that way.”, came Tsunade’s flustered snarl of a response, only after which did Sasuke rise.

That was the last that any of them spoke as they set a brisk pace to the Hokage’s office. Kakashi, Yamato, and Sai followed at a distance, seeming prepared to perform crowd control as needed. Fortunately, although whispers and accusations rose from the sidelines as they walked, no one was inclined to make an issue of it. Naruto, conditioned to strange stares and hostile muttering from an early age, barely even noticed.

Eight people and a pet pig in the Hokage’s personal office made for a more snug gathering than usual. More disconcerting was the atypical lack of empty sake bottles around and on the desk. There didn’t even look to be the usual backlog of moldering paperwork. It was a shining model of efficiency.

It became less so when Tsunade knocked everything off of it with one bear-like sweep of her arm.

“I’ve always wanted to do that.”, She said with immense satisfaction. She addressed Sasuke then, “Now sit the hell down, before you fall down.”

The last surviving Uchiha gave her a look that clearly expressed how big of a lunatic he though her to be. Nonetheless, he perched himself on the desk like a patient on an exam table. Tsunade didn’t quite tell him to open his mouth and say ‘aah’, but it was a near thing. She ran her hands over his body, hovering just over the skin for most of the time, only pausing to poke and prod at points of particular interest. An occasional ‘hmm’ or ‘huh’ was uttered sporadically, while Naruto shifted uncomfortably. It was becoming increasingly strange to him how not-freaking-out everyone was. Something was off.

“Nerve damage.”, Tsunade announced at last, with the self-satisfied air of the only student in the class to know the right answer to a difficult question.

“Yes. I was thrown a large distance onto some very sharp rocks. I was surprised not to break my spine.”, Said Sasuke, scowling. Tsunade deflated a bit at the announcement that he already knew the nature of the problem, while Sakura frowned over the diagnosis.

“Well, actually you did break it. Just a little bit.”, Tsunade hastened to add the latter sentence when she saw his ill expression.

This was all very congenial, but Naruto’s suspicion of how very reasonable everyone was being had finally reached the boiling point.

“Why are none of you surprised?”, He asked, voice accusatory. Tsunade and Kakashi traded a look, before mustering paired expressions of contrived puzzlement. Their act was made even less believable by Sakura’s obvious display of guilt.

“Naruto, I swear that no one told me until the day after you left for Suna. I would never have kept something like that from you. I don’t agree at all-”, Tsunade looked on with exasperation, if not surprise, as her apprentice spilled her guts. Honestly, the girl was trained to withstand physical and mental torture, but one wretched look from her teammate had her singing like a nightingale. Oh well, what woman didn’t have her little inconsistencies? She graciously forgave the girl.

“Ugly, it’s a good thing you don’t take away-missions often. Every hidden village on the continent would have Konoha’s inside information within a fortnight.”, Sai wasn’t nearly as understanding.

“Why you-!”, Sakura began, voice shrill, before Tsunade cut her off.

“Naruto, I know that what I’m about to say will upset you, but it was done for your own safety. A few months ago, we started to hear rumors that Uchiha Itachi was dead, by his brother’s hand. To be honest, we’ve known that Uchiha Sasuke was approaching Konoha for weeks now. A few select members of ANBU even observed him covertly during that time.”, Tsunade rolled her eyes as Sai waved cheerfully at Sasuke after that last. Sasuke’s left eyelid twitch slightly in response. Sometimes she felt like she was running a daycare instead of a ninja village. Ignoring the urge to sigh in a world-weary fashion, she forged onward.

“Taking into consideration the increasingly severe injuries that you sustained during confrontations with the Uchiha, in addition to the massive property damage that you have been known to cause in an emotionally involved battle, I decided that it would be better for both Konoha and you if you were in another country entirely while we ascertained Sasuke’s motives and intentions.”

Naruto just stood there, gobsmacked, as Tsunade explained the entire deception to him. He couldn’t believe it. Literally, he could not accept her words as truth, although he felt in some way the massive outline of the rage that was going to come crashing down any minute, as soon as he came to terms with the facts. How could she trust him so little? She had all but promised that he would be Hokage some day, yet she couldn’t trust him with something like this?

Apart from that, the gears in his mind were churning over a tangential subject; Gaara. Had Tsunade informed Gaara of all this herself, or had he used his own avenues of information?

“What... did you tell Gaara, exactly?”, Naruto asked. His voice sounded far off to his own ears, weak and strange. Tsunade narrowed her eyes at his question, then shrugged as if to say ‘the hell with it’.

“So Gaara couldn’t keep his mouth shut, eh. I would say I’m surprised, considering his legendary taciturnity, but he’s always been different with you. I should have expected it. Maybe some part of me did, and I was determined to sabotage my own plan all along. In the end, it doesn’t really matter. I informed Gaara of the situation a few days before you left. He had some inkling of it from his own network, but nothing confirmed. He had been preparing to pass the information on to me, in fact, although I have no doubt that he would have done so as a personal favor to you, and not out of any overwhelming concern for Konoha in general.”

“I wasn’t certain that Suna was where you would go, and he seemed doubtful, but I wanted to be prepared. I specifically requested, kage to kage, that he not say anything about it to you. I also included a less formal request for him to contrive some kind of distraction for you. I wasn’t lying when I said that you needed a vacation.”

“Come to think of it, the reply that he sent wasn’t so much an agreement as a ‘message received’. I should probably be pissed off that he took my request so lightly.”

Naruto felt the force of his ascending rage dampen under a lurching sensation of guilt-induced nausea. Gaara hadn’t really betrayed him. His friend (did he have a right to call the Kazekage that any more?) had not been as forthcoming as Naruto would have liked, but “forthcoming” was not a word that he associated with Gaara in the first place. In fact, Gaara had expressly ignored the wishes of a fellow kage, which could have been the basis for a war between two countries that were less closely allied than Konoha and Suna were. As it was, Gaara was lucky that Tsunade was more likely to stomp on than stand on ceremony, because his unwanted interference would be seen as rude to the point of insult. On the heels of his realization of how badly he had misread the situation came a wriggling tendril of dark curiosity. The Hokage had requested that Gaara distract Naruto.

What exactly had been going through Gaara’s mind? Naruto was sure that the whole sex thing had been preying on Gaara’s thoughts for awhile, and that no one could force him to do anything that he didn’t want to do. But had Tsunade’s request, combined with the threat of Sasuke’s return, sparked something desperate in that twisted brain of his? Because Gaara was blunt and socially clueless, but he really had gotten a little bit better over the years. He must surely have had some inkling that asking your best friend just out of the blue to have sex with you was not normally done. He had been so tense and grim for most of his interaction with Naruto, like a man fighting a battle that he knew he couldn’t win. But if he had expected defeat, why had he spent eighteen months perfecting that jutsu? Gaara was an obsessive type, sure, but he was usually more expedient than that. Had he initially had some other, less crazy plan up his sleeve, and the letter from Tsunade had forced his hand?

Although, Naruto could just be attributing more tact and rationality to Gaara than the Kazekage actually possessed.

The puzzled look that Tsunade was giving him was enough to let him know that his thoughts were showing up on his face in a way that he didn’t want them to. Now wasn’t the time to be thinking about Gaara. He could sort all that out the next time he was in Suna, which would hopefully give both Gaara and himself enough time to distance themselves from the issue. The important thing at the moment was that Sasuke had come home.

Thinking it so clearly somehow made it real.

Sasuke was back!

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

For two weeks after the excitement of the Council meeting, Kankurou observed his siblings’ inhuman powers of denial, with increasing incredulity. No one jounin level or below had been informed of his brother’s unintentional sex change, and those who did know were doing their best to forget all about it. Gaara and Temari were happy to follow suit, and the awkward parody of business-as-usual that resulted was as painful to watch as an amateur puppeteer’s blundering first performance. Really, excruciating.

Gaara had henged herself to look like, well, himself again, and after some practice was able to speak in a tone close to the usual. She was also using an unprecedented number of sand clones. It had done a lot for her technique, but nothing for her coping skills. Meanwhile, Temari was hard at work cleaning her already tidy apartment, and rearranging her furniture multiple times a day. Once she started wearing grooves in the floor from her dedicated furniture relocation program, she came over to Kankurou’s place and started decimating the clutter there. While it was nice to have clean laundry, it didn't take long for his sister’s obsessive meddling to grate on his nerves.

And then, both she and Gaara had found increasing numbers of documents that they just had to sign right-this-minute-can’t-talk-now. The secretaries were looking bereft these days. Most had become prone to taking two hour long lunch breaks, and flicking balls of scrunched up paper at each other to pass the time. With his siblings plowing through the paper trail like demons, there just wasn’t enough work to go around.

All of that would have been cause for concern enough, but to top it off, his, uh, sisters seemed to have stopped talking to, visiting, or even making eye contact with one another. Gaara he could understand, because the kid was normally antisocial when stressed. It was Temari that he couldn’t figure out. From time to time he would catch her furtively sneaking a look at the Kazekage at the office, eyes suspiciously bloodshot, with bags under them that were starting to rival Gaara’s own. Her expression as she looked at their ‘sister’ was a sharp blend of resentment, fear, and longing. Kankurou wasn’t sure what to make of it. Temari was a stubborn, blunt sort of woman, and although she could be subtle on the job, what emotions she did display were in general not hard to read. To him, that conflicted gaze was a strong source of puzzlement and unease.

Kankurou was also in a position to see Gaara’s own eyes follow their sister when Temari’s back was to them. She was less obvious about staring, but the look itself was easier to read; confusion, and no small amount of hurt.

Living in a part of the world with such a low population density, this was the first time that Kankurou had ever seen two people so miserable about the creation of new life. Yeah, the circumstances were pretty fucking weird, but still, didn’t women usually get all joyful and excited about this sort of shit? He had plenty of evidence to support the existence of Temari’s hidden sappy side, at least, so why wasn’t she lecturing Gaara on his diet (which involved no more calcium or folic acid than it had previously), or learning to knit baby booties, or even just talking about it. She was acting as though their little bro-, sister, had contracted leprosy rather than morning sickness. Which hadn’t started yet, thank the gods. That was all he needed right now.

Two full-grown shinobi should know better than to tackle a problem by hoping that it would go away of its own accord if they just ignored it for long enough. They weren’t being very good role models. Not that the academy kids had any inkling of what was going on with their Kazekage and his immediate family. Which was good, because they would only pick up bad habits if they observed his stupid relatives right now.

It was enough to make anyone tear out their hair in frustration, but Kankurou was a flexible sort of guy. He would cope. And if he couldn’t actually cope, he would fake it far more convincingly than his sisters were doing. Honestly, looking at them, one wouldn’t think that they had a professional performer in their immediate family. Thankfully, they did, and with any luck, he would be able to pull their proverbial strings like the master puppeteer that he was.

Harmony would be restored to his family, even if it killed someone. Preferably Uzumaki Naruto.

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

It took nearly three weeks for Naruto’s anger to revive enough for an out and out brawl with the last Uchiha.

To be honest, it wasn’t a completely fair fight, since Sasuke was still seeing Sakura on a daily basis to work out the last of the kinks in his fine motor control. Tsunade had handled the initial surgery, but once he was out of the hospital, she left his aftercare in her student’s capable hands. When Naruto apologized for taking advantage, as they both lay on the ground covered in sweat and bruises afterward, Sasuke just said that it had been a good way to level the playing field, since Naruto wouldn’t have been able to keep up with him otherwise.

That almost started another fight, but Sakura forestalled it with two loving punches to the head, one for each of her boys. Those punches had enough ‘love’ packed into them to have Sai wincing from the other side of the training field, where he was sparring with Yamato. The two of them didn’t really need all of that room to spar, but had decided via shared dubious glance, that it was a good idea to give the original members of Team Seven adequate time to work through their issues in their own trademark rowdy fashion. Kakashi-sensei seemed to agree with them, as he had removed himself even further from the scene, to a tree at the very edge of the field. He was reading a book with a tell-tale cover of ragged orange, and seemed to have not even noticed the dispute between his students. Naruto knew that their teacher’s inattention was just an act, but he couldn’t help but feel that Kakashi was getting even lazier in his old age.

Still, Naruto didn’t spare to much though for the slightly muted presence of his teacher and more recently acquired teammates. Sakura and Sasuke had his full attention.

He was happy that Sasuke was receiving equal treatment to him from Sakura. If anything, Sakura seemed less willing to forgive their prodigal teammate than Naruto himself was. But maybe he wasn’t wholly forgiving either, since he got a mean satisfaction out of Sakura’s new, slightly frosty attitude toward the Uchiha. Regardless, it was obvious to anyone who had eyes to see with that she still loved him. Naruto was just glad that it wasn’t the petty, exclusive love that she had felt back in their genin years. He never doubted his welcome with her these days. In fact, he had recently caught her looking at him with a speculative gleam in her eye that, well... He couldn’t actually be that lucky, right?

The weird thing was that he wasn’t falling all over himself in reaction to it. Nor did he feel angry when he saw her level the same glance at Sasuke. Maybe his bizarre sexual encounter with Gaara had been good for something after all, and had increased his confidence in his own sex appeal. Although, he tried not to think of Gaara much. That was a barrel of snakes that he didn’t want to pry open just yet. Not for a long time, if he could help it, cowardly as that was.

There was also the fact that Sasuke himself had taken to sending heated looks his way when he thought that Naruto wasn’t paying attention. And they weren’t heated in the ‘fight me’ sort of way, either. In fact, between Sasuke and Sakura’s ocular teasing, Naruto spent large tracts of his day feeling hot and bothered in the best possible way. The question was when and how to act on it. There was no ‘if’.

After years of frustration and mental anguish, not to mention a fair amount of simple bodily harm, it seemed as though things were finally going Naruto’s way. It would be criminal not to take advantage of it. He just had to do so without getting himself slapped, punched, or otherwise bloodied. But he was nothing if not resourceful, and if he played his cards right he could be sharing one of the houses at the Uchiha compound, including a king-sized bed, with his two unfairly sexy teammates by winter, he was sure of it! They could snuggle up around the kotatsu with piping hot bowls of ramen, and it would be-

“...ramen?”, Naruto was startled from his daydream by the tail end of a question from Sakura. For one dazed moment he thought that she had read his mind, but the growing impatience indicated by her tapping foot sparked his sense of self-preservation. He had no idea what she had just asked, but she obviously expected an answer.

“Wha-huh?”, He inarticulated. Sakura rolled her eyes and repeated the question.

“I said, how about I take you boys out for ramen. I guess the answer’s ‘no’.”, She teased.

“No! I a mean yes! Yes I want to go! I was just, uh, lost in thought there for a minute. And Sasuke wants to go too, don’t you Sasuke!”, He nattered. Sasuke looked both smug and disgusted in his general direction, as if he knew exactly what his teammate had been ‘lost in thought’ about. Naruto had a terrible suspicion that he was blushing by now.

He was completely certain that he blushed when Sakura latched with enviable nonchalance onto first his arm, then Sasuke’s, and dragged them in the direction of Ichiraku Ramen.

“Are you feeling all right Naruto? I know my own strength, and I didn’t hit you that hard, even if you are looking dopey and concussed.”

“Hey, what part of my expression is dopey?!”, He demanded. That was her future Hokage that she was sassing!

“What part isn’t?”, asked Sasuke, peering up into the sky philosophically, as if waiting for the gods to answer him.

“Heeey you guys, don’t be so mean. I’ll start to think that you don’t love me any more.”, He whined. It took a second for his brain to catch up with his mouth, and he blanched as he realized how needy and desperate he sounded. That wasn’t how he had planned to do things at all! Where had that confidence that he had felt just minutes ago gone to? He shuffled his feet a little bit in embarrassment, and blushed all the harder as the three of them lurched to a stop in the middle of the street.

In the cringing silence that followed, he stared down at his sandals, wriggling his toes as he waited for one of them to protest the fact that they had ever loved him at all. Actually, toes were pretty fascinating. They were like misshapen fingers, or something. It would be cool if he could grab stuff with them. He could be, like, a monkey-warrior-ninja, and throw kunai with his feet. He wriggled his right big toe experimentally at a blade of grass to see if he could grab it, with no success. Bummer. Cold sweat ran down his jaw line as he anticipated that any moment, and second, the excruciating rejection would-

Sakura untangled the arm not wrapped around Naruto’s from Sasuke long enough to pull Naruto into a quick hug, and pecked him on the cheek with equal speed, right over one of his whisker scars. That certainly didn’t feel like rejection. A swipe of wetness on his other cheek drew his attention to the fact that Sasuke had shunshin’ed over to his other side, and...

“Argh! You licked me!”, It wasn’t the most suave thing that he could have said, but Sasuke at least had the grace to look embarrassed in response. Especially when Naruto yelled loud enough for an entire village block to hear.

“Hn.”, Now the bastard was trying to look all aloof about it, which he knew from experience was hard to do with Sakura giggling at you with such enthusiasm. Although, he’d never had the pleasure of her doing so right next to his ear, with little puffs of her breath dancing over the sensitive skin of his neck. It was something that would bear repeating. And speaking of things that bore repeating-

“It was kind of hot, actually. You should do it again. But maybe other places...”, Naruto trailed off with a leer. Sasuke actually turned red at that, almost the same shade as the tomatoes that he so enjoyed. Less pleasant than the blush was the hard elbow to Naruto’s ribs that followed.

A moment of pain was worth it, though. Now with a teammate on either side, Naruto set off to Ichiraku’s with a beatific smile and a bounce in his step.

Life was awesome.

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

Four weeks in, and Kankurou still hadn’t discovered a way to make his siblings stop acting like idiots. Even some of the chuunin around the administrative building had a jittery look to them that signaled their knowledge that something was wrong, even if they didn’t know the precise nature of the problem. That was bad. When the Kazekage and his sister were noticeably upset, it was a headache for the entire village.

Gaara had also been avoiding foreign dignitaries, wary of them seeing through his henge. The Hidden Village of Sand didn’t get many visitors, so it was not immediately obvious, but people were finally beginning to notice. There were rumors circulating that the Kazekage was ill. That the Kazekage had been abducted, and that one of the higher-ups was standing in his place until the real Kazekage could be recovered. That the Kazekage was having trouble controlling his demon. The list of wild speculations went on and on. Gaara needed to address his people quickly, if not with the truth, then at least with some official-sounding lie that would set the village at ease. With the disquieting rumble of political change being called for in the west, now was a bad time for Sunagakure to be so weak with anxiety.

To that end, Kankurou had staged a devious plan to reunite his family, and address his concerns about village politics in one fell swoop. He had invited his siblings over for dinner.

It hadn’t been an easy mission. Although self-imposed, he would list it as A-rank, at least. He’d had to pull out all the stops, right down to his puppy-dog-eyes no jutsu, to get both of them to agree. Not to mention the lamentable fact that he had to pay for dinner to be delivered out of his own pocket, since his skills in the kitchen were limited mostly to fried eggs and instant ramen. And Temari wasn’t feeling kindly disposed toward ramen these days. Still, they were due at his front door any minute, and assuming that they both showed, it would be more than worth it. At least he didn’t have to clean the place, thanks to Temari's new OCD streak.

Gaara was the first to arrive, the henge that made her appear male dissipating as soon as the door closed behind her. Kankurou was a bit surprised. Temari usually liked to show up early to this sort of thing, to make sure that everything was in order beforehand (like he could screw up placing an order for delivery). Kankurou got his little sister a glass of water, and badgered her as much as he felt safely able to for the details of her latest visit with Elder Azami that morning. He interpreted the responding flat stares to mean, ‘Yes, still pregnant’, and ‘No, I’m not going to talk about it’. Not that he really needed confirmation of the ‘still pregnant’ bit. The fact that his brother was still a girl was a good indicator. He did manage to pry from her reluctant lips the fact that Azami had forbid her to make any more attempts at reversing the transformation by herself, as it just caused her unnecessary pain and stress. She would have weekly appointments with the elder from now on to monitor her health and the progression of her pregnancy. From the strength of the fetus’s chakra, Azami thought it unlikely that she would miscarry, and had sent Gaara off with a stack of books on pregnancy and child-rearing with the clear understanding that the Kazekage would read them or else. Gaara’s petulant expression told Kankurou that she had badly wanted to ask, ‘Or else what?”, but had admirably restrained herself from throwing her weight as kage around.

“So, have you started reading them yet?”, Asked Kankurou, fairly sure of the answer.

“No, of course not. It’s too early, and I have more important things to do”, Gaara growled. That tone of voice sounded so much more cute now that she was a girl. Ugh. Suddenly having two sisters was doing weird things to his brain, if he had just thought of any part of Gaara as cute.

“Ah”, Kankurou nodded sagely. “I understand. Lots of papers to sign”, he added. His sister stabbed him with a look that informed him on no uncertain terms that she knew she was being mocked, and that such insolence wasn’t good for his continued well-being. In the past, that would have sent cold shivers down his spine, but these days he would happily take a death glare over the blank automaton act that she’d been displaying lately. It was a sad state of affairs when a spark of killing intent from Gaara was a relief.

Before their banter could either progress further, or disperse into awkward silence, a knock at the door informed him that Temari had arrived. She didn’t wait for him to answer it, but let herself in with the confident air of someone who had been spending far too much time at her brother’s apartment. She’d reorganized the place so furiously that she probably knew where more of his stuff was located than he did. Her lips were set in a smile that was only comforting until he saw the forced nature of it.

Still, as she reorganized his already immaculate table, Kankurou was just glad that she had come. Problems always seemed less overwhelming with his big sister at his side. Not that Gaara wasn’t a capable problem-solver in his own right, but Temari was easier to talk to. Well, she had been, at least. Listening to her dull attempt at small talk as she shifted all of the flatware to match at each place setting, Kankurou was no longer sure. She was really a wreck

The three of them sat around the table for a few minutes, fiddling with the silverware, and looking at one another while trying to look like they weren’t looking at one another. Which was confusing enough to think, much less to actually do.

As by the hand of some benevolent god, the doorbell rang to signal the arrival of the delivery boy, before Temari could fuss too much, or they could all go cross-eyed from their looking/not-looking at each other. It was curry again, mostly ordered because it usually survived the delivery trip better than other foodstuffs did. The flatbread was still piping hot in its foil container, so Kankurou tipped the boy extra. That kind of fast service was something to be encouraged, after all. He wondered if the kid were a Genin at the academy, which would explain his speed. Genin weren’t technically supposed to work, as it was considered a distraction from their studies, but most family-run businesses in Suna couldn’t afford to hire outside help, so they weren’t judged harshly for assigning their children some light work outside of academy hours. The children were usually happy with the extra pocket money as well, a fact displayed admirably by the boy’s gap-toothed grin, and his enthusiastic wave as Kankurou shut the door after him.

Steam rose from the containers as Kankurou removed the lids, and encouraged his siblings to sit and eat. Temari and Gaara both seemed relieved to have something to focus on rather than each other, and set to their food with a grim determination that made Kankurou wince. Though despite the reason for it, he was still overjoyed to see Gaara eating so well. The morning sickness hadn’t even started yet, and she was already looking haggard. Kankurou was reasonably sure that pregnant women weren’t actually supposed to lose weight. The unhappy thought that maybe it was Gaara’s intention to starve her pregnancy away occurred to him. If Gaara would actually read any of the books that Elder Azami had given her, she would know that it didn’t work like that, and that doing so would just serve to make herself dangerously ill.

Of course, the weight loss could be completely innocent. The unnerving stare that Temari had once again leveled at Gaara was enough to put Kankurou off of his food, and he wasn’t even the recipient of it.

“Gaara...”, Kankurou started a bit at the sound of his older sister finally addressing their younger sibling. He felt light-headed with relief. If Temari was talking to Gaara now, then surely they could work out their issues and be a proper family again. This situation was too much like a flashback to his genin days, and he wanted it done and over with.

“Gaara, I know that I haven’t... That I haven’t been a good sister to you lately. That I’ve been distant. And I’m sorry for that. I’ve just been so scared for you. Can we just start over?”, she asked. Gaara scrutinized her, gaze intense but unreadable, and finally gave a tight nod. Temari replied with an equally tight smile, and everyone went back to eating dinner as if they’d never been interrupted.

It was so strange. There was the reconciliation that Kankurou had been waiting for, but it didn’t feel like anything had changed. Temari was acting so unlike herself that Kankurou actually formed the seals for an inconspicuous kai below the table. As no stranger appeared in her place, he could only assume that it really was her, and that she was just nervous. Still, that explanation didn’t fit either. Kankurou had accompanied his sister on any number of high risk A-rank, and a few S-rank missions, and he had never seen her act like this before. Was this just different because it was personal?

Gaara was the first to finish her meal, and unceremoniously shuffled over to the sink to deposit her dishes. Kankurou was relieved that she didn’t wash them as well. One sister in a cleaning frenzy was more than enough. He also made note, with a small measure of resentment, of the fact that she hadn’t figured out how to walk like a girl yet. His life would be less complicated if Gaara either kept up the henge in private, or acted properly girly. As it was, Kankurou had a perpetual headache from the confusion of it all. He didn’t know wether to think of her as a brother or a sister, and took his cues from her appearance. When she looked like a girl but didn’t act like one, it made the issue of pronouns that much more convoluted.

Kankurou and Temari finished their food at about the same time, and Temari did insist on doing the dishes. Meanwhile, Kankurou tried his best to steer the conversation toward important issues, while his siblings foiled his master plan with uneasy pauses and inane small talk.

“Gaara, I was wondering when you were planning to make an official proclamation. There’s a lot of bullshit going around right now, and I think it would be good to give the villagers some firm explanation to hold on to.”, Kankurou suggested.

“There are always rumors about me. It comes with being a Jinchuuriki. The public can mind their own business. Which curry place did you order from? It was good, but the rice was a bit salty.”

“Ah, the one three blocks down. Should I try the one across town next time?”, he asked with a sense of resignation. Gaara wasn’t talking. Well, that still left Temari.

“Temari, how was the appointment with Elder Azami this morning? I could barely get Gaara to talk about it. You’ll use your big sisterly powers for the side of light, and make sure that she actually reads those books, won’t you?”, He tried gamely.

“It was... fine. I bought some tea from one of those nomad merchants today. His camel was the most cantankerous bastard I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting. I’ll put some water on to boil, and we’ll see if it’s a blend good enough to be worth getting spit on by a dromedary with a grudge against mankind.”, Temari said, her attempt at levity falling flat.

“Mm”, was Gaara’s barely vocalized agreement. Kankurou was outnumbered and outgunned.

“Yeah, OK.”, he said with a helpless shrug. Maybe the tea would help them all to relax, and then they could tackle some serious issues. They would talk, and Temari would get back to her usual bossy self and take charge, which would be a huge weight off of his shoulders, because puppets were one thing, but he really hated to be in charge of people. And Gaara would get annoyed by Temari’s meddling, and glare, and make unsubtle threats, and everything would be back to fucking normal.

And while I’m wishing for all of that, I may as well wish for Suna to be a hot springs resort, and for Shukaku to be an advocate for world piece, He thought bitterly.

He watched his sister glide through the mundanities of making tea with the practiced motions that came of having done something countless times before. A quick glance to the side revealed that Gaara had a keen eye on her as well. Temari didn’t seem to notice, focused as she was on the daily ritual of pouring and boiling water. Once the kettle was on, she did not rejoin her siblings, but instead leaned against the counter to wait for the first wisps of steam to rise up from the spout.

“It’s an herbal blend from the west”, she explained. “It’s supposed to taste best if you take the water off before it reaches a rolling boil.”

Kankurou nodded with polite interest, and murmured a response that he forgot even as the words left his mouth. His attention was fixed on his sister’s left index finger, which was tapping an inaudible rhythm against the granite counter top. Kankurou frowned as he watched that same hand rise to fidget with one of it’s owner’s ponytails in a nervous tell. Temari wasn’t one for restless movement under most circumstances, and the boredom that came with watching a kettle of water boil was not an exception to that rule. What the hell was going on with her?

The kitchen was soon filled with the soft whisper of simmering water, and Temari poured the hot liquid with neat efficiency into Kankurou’s plain earthenware teapot. The scent of steeping herbs reached his nose, pungent but not unpleasant, smelling slightly of anise. Temari watched the clock to keep track of the steeping time, and poured the aromatic fluid through a small strainer into each of their cups after exactly five minutes. It was green, with a murky translucence that was at once repellant and intriguing. Kankurou hoped that she hadn’t been tricked into buying some dried up roadside weeds that a dozen camel-trains had pissed on. The smell of it was promising, at least.

“Oww.”, An impulsive gulp reminded him why drinking hot tea with such gusto was a bad idea.

“Drink it slowly, idiot, or you’ll burn your lips off and really have a reason to cover yourself in ‘war paint’”, Temari snapped shrilly. Kankurou gave her an odd look for that overreaction as she demonstrated how tea was intended to be drunk, and took a small sip from her own cup. Gaara watched her siblings squabble for a moment with detached interest, then picked up her cup and raised it to her lips.

It happened so quickly that all Kankurou saw was an angry flash of ruddy sand, thrumming like a thousand enraged wasps, before the particles settled to reveal Gaara sitting, eyes startled wide, in a ruin of smashed pottery and puddles of vivid green tea. On closer inspection, the mess had ended up entirely on the table and floor, with none of it touching Gaara herself. Sand barrier, was Kankurou’s sluggish, hysteria-tinged thought. Temari had also born the brunt of some of the shrapnel. Her shirt was dotted with splodges of the liquid, and there was a small cut on her cheek from a stray fragment of teacup. More worrisome than that small wound were the tremors that wracked her body, and the chalky tone of her complexion. And gods, oh gods, she looked like she was going to cry.

“Temari”, Gaara said, voice lost and small. “Temari, what have you done?”

“I- you can’t do this. It’s impossible, and ridiculous, and you can’t have a baby. Don’t you know how dangerous it is? You only know Mother from pictures, but I remember her being pregnant with you, before they took her away for her confinement. And Gaara, you look so much like her, right down to that wasting despair in your eyes when you think no one’s looking. This will ruin you, just like it did her...And I just wanted... I just want...”, here Temari broke down, heaving great lungfulls of air and releasing them in shuddering sobs. Kankurou winced at his sister’s choice of words as Gaara seemed to curl in on herself at the mention of their mother’s final pregnancy ‘ruining’ her. The sand was curved up over the back of Gaara’s chair in a protective, spiny mass, like half of a thorny husk of some exotic fruit.

“What, exactly, was in the tea?”, Kankurou asked once it became clear that Gaara wasn’t going to. Temari lifted her head from her hands enough for him to see her bloodshot gaze

“It really was an herb from the west, though not one you would want to make tea from. It... causes severe muscle spasms.”, she clarified, and punctuated the last sentence with an unattractive sniff.

“Was it in the pot, or just Gaara’s cup?”, Kanurou growled.

“The pot. Which means that you got the worst of it. Uh. Sorry Kankurou.”, She said. Kankurou just stared at her. “It’s not fatal or anything.”, she added helpfully.

“You were trying to make me miscarry.”, Gaara said. She didn’t look very angry at Temari’s attempt to poison all of them. In fact, she was looking at her sister’s unharmed teacup in open speculation. Kankurou watched as she reached for it. She couldn’t really mean to...

Kankurou felt a small noise of distress bubble up from his chest as Gaara slid Temari’s cup to her own place-setting. He had killed people in cold blood for pay, but he found that when faced with this, he felt sick. He had to stop her, had to do something. Any second now, he would reach out and-

Gaara lifted the cup from the table, and the sand acted before Kankurou could. This time it reduced every cup and plate in sight to potsherds. Gaara contemplated the handle that was left in her grasp, the rest of the vessel smashed to pieces. With incongruous care, she set it gently on the placemat in front of her.

“I was right, it won’t work. It’s the same reason that I can’t reverse the transformation spell. The sentience in the sand recognizes the... third source of chakra... as mine, and won’t allow harm to come to it. I had hoped that if I willed it hard enough, I could overcome it, but it’s no use. I can’t control it any more than I ever could.”, Came the bitter explanation. Gaara looked angry now, but only at herself. Angry and disappointed.

Kankurou looked at the wreckage of his kitchen and his family, and wondered what the hell he could do to fix it.

End Notes: This chapter took me four months to finish, even though I’m sure the number of hours I spent writing was probably the same as for the first two. I hope to not have that happen again, but I confess that I am not very reliable when it comes to this sort of thing. I’ll try!

Writing from Kankurou’s PoV was unexpectedly hard. The other two sandsibs are easier for me to understand, for some reason. It will be a relief to write from Gaara and/or Temari’s PoV next chapter. If I’m feeling brave, I may even throw in some Sasuke (although I don’t think I’ll be feeling that brave, honestly).

If Sasuke's return seemed a bit glossed over, that's because it was. I figure that there are enough wonderful stories out there entirely on that very subject that I needn't dwell on it in this particular story. A few more details will likely be revealed in the next Sasuke-centric chapter, but since he's stolen the show in the manga well enough for a while, I don't feel compelled to indulge him in my own fan-scribble as well.

This story isn't supposed to be any sort of pro-life or pro-choice commentary, so please don't make it about that.

With the third chapter of this story complete, I am now one fourth of the way through my initial outline. However, that outline was written up with the expectation that chapters would be approximately 5,000 words apiece, not 10,000, which is what they’ve turned out to be. Because of that, some of my outline has not enough stuff happening per chapter. I think 12 chapters still sounds like a nice number, so I’m working on combining the content of some of the earlier chapters, and expanding the later ones with more plot (Horrors! Plot in my smut story!?). We’ll see how it goes. I may end up with only 10 chapters, but I doubt very much that there will be more than 12. I have other stories that I want to work on, including ones starring my own characters.

Thank you to the lovely people who have read this story, and to those who have reviewed. I really do love reading what you have to say about my work. To the lurkers out there; I appreciate you too! I look at the stats for my stories on ff(dot)net on a regular basis. To date, more than one third of the people who have clicked on the first chapter of my quirky little story have continued on to the second chapter. I consider that a great success! I know that the warnings at the top of chapter one alone are enough to scare most people off, and that this story is something that not everyone will enjoy reading. I’m glad that some of you are enjoying it. I know that I am!

As usual, this chapter was entirely self-edited. Please feel free to point out any errors or inconsistencies to me via review on ff(dot)net, 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.

Ophiomancy

Stability: Chapter 3 (Gaara/Naruto/Sakura/Sasuke Polyamory Fic)

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