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tampered2008-12-01 03:40 am
sandmullet.livejournal.com) wrote in tampered2008-12-01 03:40 am
[LOG] [COMPLETE] [BACKDATED] ... pretension in ur shounen 8)
When; Sunday, the 23rd of November. After Gaara is Gaara again.
Rating; PG-13, idk idk idk? for, lol, angst, sry ): ...
& omg HUGE TL;DR but it's worth it so read it bitches READ IT
Characters; Gaara {![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sandmullet} & Temari {windwards}
Summary; Sixteen isn't so old; the monster is a boy and the girl is his sister.
Log;
Ever since then, he had been awake.
Ever since Rock Lee had slammed his knuckles across Gaara's face. If something cracked, he hadn't heard it; not above his screaming, because he'd lost his voice three days ago, singing and singing, but above that which had hooked into his skull and tore it apart. As the demon disappeared into so much sand, one last cry of protest ripping the skies, Gaara had remained oblivious to the stabilizing hold of Rock Lee's arms that kept him from a free-fall plummet to the concrete below. Everything after that was a blur of voices, commotion, too many faces, and through it all he had clutched his head. I'm not finished.
It hurt. Whatever the last nine days had been, it wasn't sleep, and he was tired, though that wasn't a new development. Tired, weakened through starvation, through please die and Yashamaru's smile, through the tearing, ripping, the struggle, the bruise blossoming over his cheek.
On the bed he never slept in, Gaara had pressed his face to his knees and his fingers clawed in his hair, and he breathed. Slow, air filtering through his nostrils, inhale. It's over. Tomorrow would be a pain in the ass. But it was today, and he focused on the minute.
The look Temari cast in her brother's direction was unreadable at best. She stood not far from the bed, leaning in the doorway from that room to the next, arms folded across her chest. There was in the apartment, the faint smell of soup, simple but sustaining, simmering in case someone wanted. Said someone, sitting in such a clutched position on the bed made her want to turn away, like most people did, like she had before. But she continued to watch, brow furrowing at last, just the slightest bit, big enough to be there, and just little enough to be unimportant, and not particularly telltale.
To say the sudden mission had been a success was too generous. A fair few people were hurt, and while Shikamaru's was acceptable in that it was his line of duty, it still bothered her, because it was, all of it, something that should not have happened in the first place.
What was that? She wondered. What happened to you?
Opening her mouth to speak, she ended up not saying a word, instead walking to the edge of the bed, staring down at the hands raking into the bowed head of hair. In ways, he was very small and in others not small at all, and rather frightening. Most importantly maybe, now, he was the Kazekage.
Or should it be: most importantly my brother?
Crossing her arms, Temari brushed such thoughts aside. That they had never been terribly close was obvious enough, but that there were some efforts made in recent days in their world was also true. Give and take. Push and pull.
"Gaara," she said at last, making the last concession or jump to sit on the bed as well. What could she say? Nothing particularly profound or helpful came to mind, so she did what she usually chose to do in those moments, no matter who she dealt with: she said nothing at all, contenting herself instead to just sit, and wait, eyes carefully trained on the body next to hers, the hands and the curl of the spine.
Whatever happened in his life, Gaara had never once considered giving up. When his life had moved from one living nightmare to the next, when all that shook his heart was pain he could not comprehend, when fearful looks became hate, when a broken tool became a monster, when the monster had suppressed the demon to preserve his personality, when his reason for living, strength and killing, had been removed with a single punch and defeat - he had shouted, to live. Just as he didn't know how people could smile and mean it without condition, he didn't know how to yield.
It was hard (but it was hard, but it had never been easy), and behind his eyes there was Yashamaru, Yashamaru, Yashamaru, smiling, his finger bleeding, his body bleeding, exploding, the sand - so Gaara wrenched open his eyes and stared at his arms curved over his face. A dream, for hundreds of hours. Gaara had never slept and so, never dreamed; no, he understood what it meant. Squeezing his hands together around his hair, he pushed it away.
And he dropped one hand from his scalp, holding it in front of his face, his black-ringed eyes focusing on the lines, fingerprint whorls. Strength and killing, strength and love. His fingers curled; he stared at his fist and granules of sand shook on the wood flooring; it wasn't intentional.
The weight of his sister, more than a lump of meat and blood, caused the mattress to sag some in the middle. His eyes flicked up, wide, bloodshot. Down again, over dirty fingernails, and up. What else could he say? His lips were cracked, his mouth dry; Gaara tried to make the words, but it was all sandpaper on sandpaper; he rasped.
"Sorry," he tried to say, "I wasn't enough." Still. Still. Even for Gaara, it was almost enough to give up.
"Don't be ridiculous," was the quick reply and with a fleeting look, she stood up again, moving into the kitchen only to return with a glass of water. It was filled three quarters of the way full and when she paused in front of him, she extended it.
In a way, they had come far, to the point where she did not feel the absolute necessity of being on her guard the whole time, not for the same reasons at least. On the other hand, she still failed to understand the kazekage in many areas, if only because she refused to believe things might be as simple as they appeared. Granted, 'simple' hardly ever meant something demeaning so much as a factual description, similar to 'blue' or 'windy' or, at times, 'different'.
"....would you prefer tea?" she asked suddenly, considering mixing it with honey, her eyes not missing the quite nearly blistered lips, detecting with ease the hoarse quality of his voice, the bend of his will--neither seen, nor heard, so much as felt. Temari would be the first to deny any ability to clearly empathize or sympathize with most people, and especially Gaara, for obvious reasons, but just because lines drew themselves between them did not mean, she thought, they had to divide. They simply provided separations, degrees that showed: this is how you step.
Not necessarily where.
He took the glass, having to do so with both hand due to the unsteadiness of his grip, the ever present quaver in his fingers. Gaara had not thought it ridiculous, had furrowed his brows with the frustrating intensity of his sincerity, but she had already moved, already brought back the water.
By the time she asked her question, Gaara had already finished the water, though a little less than half of it had spilled over his chin, down his neck, and into his high-collared shirt. He looked at her in response, silent at first, his hands closer to stability around the cool glass. This, this was too much, hard, sitting weak, dependent, having been the threat rather than the protector. And Yashamaru. And Yashamaru. And-- His eyes closed, lids so bruised by deprivation that they were black; his eyes opened.
Unable to see how it would matter, he nodded. "Okay," though it would matter, heat, something closer to solid food that he perhaps would struggle to keep down, at first. His eyes searched her; not her eyes, though he could have looked her in the eye without quailing, perhaps. Her arm had the support of a sling. Gaara's eyes fell again to his hand, his hands.
His mouth moved. It took him a second try to produce sound.
"Why are you here?"
When he said 'okay' she turned to go and retrieve the tea but his next words caught her at the door. To say she was surprised would be inaccurate. Though she could never claim to directly empathize with her brother, there was always something to be said for basic observational skills. While having a watchful eye and ear proved well as far as their work, it could also be applied to more everyday things, such as discerning truths from impassiveness, lies from words, reality from unreality, and, sometimes, the inability to know from the inability to accept. Fingers on the door's frame, she refrained from sighing, lest she sound as though she was annoyed or worse, patronizing. Some people would garner only the dry answer of 'Why do you think?' But in Gaara's case...well, he never really did fall into the category of 'some people', did he? No.
"It would be irresponsible of me to leave you alone," she said after a few thoughtful minutes, minutes that she trusted Gaara to give her because silence had never been a problem for them, not that she acknowledged at least. "I am your sister." And you are the kazekage.
That unsaid thought was not the most important of the two, but rather than saying so, she opted to leave the room, let him think on it if he wanted to, or not. She was in no position to force him to do anything, and never would be. Temari could never allow herself to be a delusional type, on pain of death. Bringing the tea back, she had also thought to make herself a cup. Personally, she felt weird drinking or eating while the other person watched, not exactly self-conscious, but not like it was really fair either. One person could use the drink to pause in conversation, while the other could just barrel on.
"Here," she said, unnecessarily but also, perhaps more notably, with kindness as she offered him the cup. Her lips did not quite form a smile, but her eyes provided something of a glimmer, as if to say: it's okay.
Precisely what was okay, she didn't feel the need to clarify yet. There was always the fair chance, on any given day, at any given moment, that people could, given the opportunity, just get one another, if only on rare occasion...if only for a second in the midst of years past and years yet to come.
Minutes he could spare. Minutes of him watching her, indifferent to how uncomfortable it might make a person, to have the pressure of his unwavering gaze. It was not meant to be impatient, rushing. But Gaara could not help but be demanding; it was not deliberate, not conscious, simply what he was, a composition of so many like grains of sand. Minutes he gave her, but after she relieved him of the anticipation, the answer to a question that in that time left him conflicted, his already uncommonly stormy emotions, she left the room.
The clock ticked; on the wall and in his skull. The bone throbbed, or cranial tissue, or that force. Ticking, his eyes dropped again to his hands, his left thumb twitching, only just, in sync with the clock. Grains of sand skipped along the floor, tick. What is irresponsible, he thought, is...
Tock, his hands closed around the hot cup, and his thumb shook against it. Gaara looked up as the heat traveled through the pads of his fingers, along his palms, wrists. "You're hurt," he said, voice marginally improved, "It's irresponsible not to be at the hospital."
It could have been a command, but weakness made authority diminished. He lifted the drink and the honeyed tea eased down his raw throat. Irresponsible to leave him alone; because of the monster. She had said, I am your sister, and this would have been enough before everything, in view of the family they had managed to hack out of years of lack. But for nine days Gaara had dreamed, and in the aftermath as the dust settled, the former shapes were only just beginning to resemble what they had been.
He sipped his tea, and deplored the weakness in himself. If it wasn't love. If it wasn't hate.
Then maybe it was neither, but if Temari could read his mind--she was glad she couldn't to be honest--she would tell him this much: the space between the two usually withstood to be enough. Maybe it wasn't very much, as love might be, and maybe it was not very little as hate made itself, but just maybe enough could simply be enough and provide as such. She had never been a particularly philosophical type, more accustomed and suited to concrete words and feelings, analysis-responsive things. It was just her way. Still, there had been room for even Temari to open her mind a fraction or so more to more unpredictable thoughts, things swayed by hearts or lack thereof.
Having carried the cup she offered to Gaara in the hand attached to her good arm, she now transferred her own cup to that hand, sipping at it as she peered over at him, cleanly, clearly, no hidden agenda or furtive looks here. He would know she was watching if she was hundreds of feet away, no doubt. There was no point in disguising her scrutiny, but then, even if there was, she probably would not bother.
After all this time, if the kazekage, if her brother had earned anything--and he had earned a great deal--it was the candor she treated everyone else with. To know what it was to question normality was not for her, but she could offer a breath of it at least, the less than subtle gust of change stirring the sand at its edges when the sand allowed, when it chose, and not before.
"It would be irresponsible for me to not be at the hospital if I didn't already have this," she gestures with the cup of tea at the sling her other arm rests in. "Right now it would be irresponsible for me to be there, because I don't need to be and it's a waste of space," she corrected more thoroughly, expression relaxed but attentive, even without looking at him now as she turned her gaze to the ceiling, uninteresting as it was. "Like that crybaby," she added, scoffing.
It was not necessary to elaborate on who said crybaby was.
Taking another sip of tea, she let a minute or so pass before turning back toward the only other person in the room.
"It would be stupid to think too much about this." To dwell. To blame yourself. To take that many steps backward.
You are better than this.
As this was a bold and possibly rude--very rude--thing to say, the eldest of the siblings had enough forethought to pay careful attention to the sand, but more than that, her attention was for the expression on her brother's face, waiting for some manner of reaction. Her only other pause was a second or less before she added, "Unless you're thinking about who caused all of this. That's not a waste. That's just business as usual."
Meaning every word, she sighed, shaking her head, to no one in particular. She didn't expect her words to be comforting, but there they were, words, honest ones, if nothing else particularly special beyond that.
Something like a stare, like scrutiny; these things did not cause Gaara discomfort. Beneath her gaze, the brother was ever stolid, unshifting, aware of the pressure of her eyes and yet it was inconsequential. And yet it was tremendous. Without physical discomfort, he sought meaning to the look, though he often looked so freely and intensely and absolutely, what did she want, what did he.
It was as close as Gaara had ever come to needing the distraction; the tea cup he could lift to his lips, the hot, honeyed liquid easing down his rough throat. It had been impractical of him to worry after her condition, when what she had said had been obvious. It had been impractical, perhaps only an effort to push her away, even as he needed to draw her close. Her reference to the lazy Leaf ninja fell on deaf, unappreciative ears; that Shikamaru had remained in the hospital, that there was any possibly comical debate about it, it had little relevance to him.
What he heard was what mattered, what she ventured to say: don't think about this. Only the cause, culprit, ninja, business, target, analysis, elimination. Gaara knew it, but he said nothing.
It would be stupid to think about it, and strictly, he did not consciously turn his mind in that direction. But the dramatic disparity between what he had been and what he was, the sniveling, shredded vulnerability of a monster, boy, monster, left wracked by tears and betrayal and ever-expanding insanity - days, and days, and hour, minutes, seconds, days. Settling into his new skin proved an awkward fit, shaking off the nightmare, Shukaku's rampage, the ravage of his mind, the continuous, terrible ache--
Temari couldn't know. How could she know that he was weaker, after all, that it went beyond losing control to Shukaku. He finished the tea, he leaned back, and when he closed his eyes abruptly Gaara felt it, in his eyes, a stinging, something he hadn't felt for nine years or a few hours, and it disgusted him. It so repulsed him that he lurched forward, tense and more than upright, leaning at a sharp angle over his legs. It so disgusted him that it set off ripping, scalding ripples in his skull, a monstrous backlash, the demon latching claws into anything like emotional intensity, feeding off it, weak, weak, weak, human.
Gaara grit his teeth, clutched his head, and hissed out his breath. The cup had fallen; the handle breaking off on the floor as sand kicked up, lashed at the glass.
Her movement tentative and yet simultaneously right, Temari was over to him in seconds, hands reaching out to cover his shoulders, even as she peered down at him, then kneeling in front of him because to look down on him, even physically, would not help anything.
"Gaara," she said his name, just his name.
The hands on his shoulders were there for comfort to a degree, but more than that, to remind him that someone else was here, is here, would be here. She could no sooner muster up sentimentality that others might draw upon, or the basest of loves, but what she used instead would suffice: an honest grip, a clear gaze, and acknowledgment that she saw him. True, she could not begin to imagine those days of darkness in his childhood and certainly not the nightmares just past, but Temari had never been the type to try and imagine other people's suffering. It was their business and if they wanted to share it they would, hopefully. There was no need or right to go barging in on people and a turn of the head to hide anger or the exiting of a room to keep from crying was not hers to decide. That said, she was in fact the type to flatten past the nonsense of niceties and get to the point, and as she held onto the kazekage, to Gaara, to her brother, her fingers dug into his shoulders as if to communicate what words would only fail to.
You worry me. This whole thing worries me. But I have a lot of years yet to make for not worrying in the way that I do now. And I'm here, so don't forget it. Nightmares or not, the moments you are awake, those are just as real, that control, that willpower. It doesn't disappear like that because that?
Well it would be too easy, wouldn't it.
Don't, he wanted to say, don't touch me, but all that choked out of his recovering throat was a strangled cry, more a whimper than anything. His body, suddenly small, writhed, though in a limited way; his shoulders shaking, squirming beneath her hands, though surely it was only in his head that everything churned to think of being touched.
Yet, his hands did not drop from his head, did not shove her, the sand did not latch onto or tear at her; there had not been enough in the room to fend off her hands, only a thin rope that struggled now between her palms and his cloth.
"Shut up," he rasped at the sound of his name, his voice too weak. And she would see him this weak.
Weak, weak, weak, this was pathetic, this he could not accept, but the way in which it revolted him was a way that surged in chemical explosions, in the heaviness of emotion that Gaara so little humored. It wasn't only his way, it wasn't only his character; there was more utility to the way in which he so perpetually existed in shades of gray, in monotonous stability. Weak, and his teeth were pressed together so hard that it hurt, the way that so much of him hurt. This was unbearable.
He sucked in a breath, long and quivering, and strove to suppress. Shove it all down, stop it.
"I'm fine," he said, or rasped, after a minute or two, trying to look up with wet, wearied, and bloodshot eyes. "I'm fine. Let... go."
But Gaara spoke without realizing that he had dropped a hand from his head, and with it, grasped at hers.
The hand did not have to grasp much, finding hers as she moved it from his shoulder, covering her wrist as a result. Turning her own hand slightly, under, she curved her fingers around his wrist in return. His order to shut up, or his request, or his plea, she could heed without offense, familiar enough with his way to not be so stupid as to become defensive or hurt. This was not about her, and that was important to remember in anything remotely like this, and even in things so far removed from it as to being alien and alternate, things that they would never have to deal with, because things like this presented themselves instead.
Carefully she removed her other hand from his other shoulder, which was a bit of a relief as that was the injured one. It wasn't that it hurt, but more that it was awkward to keep it there when the sling did not want to allow her that movement in the first place. That Gaara was in pain was at least evident, but all the extents of that pain, she couldn't account for, no matter how hard she stared, or for how long. Just like she couldn't make up for wasted years, or take back lack of action, she could not imagine the dark fragments in her brother's mind, the perception of weakness that so plagued him. In knowing her own limit, however, there was something of merit and as she stayed there, his hand over her wrist, as if to push away and her hand around his as if to hold on, she could not help, as he claimed to be alright, but think: what a liar you are.
She just never had the heart to notice how much of one he was before.
Her silence would hopefully speak for her, her continued presence as well, in the small, unlit space of the private apartment, the quiet walled in squares that mimicked order for people who adhered to it but often lacked it in just as many spades, on one hand or the other.
Rating; PG-13, idk idk idk? for, lol, angst, sry ): ...
& omg HUGE TL;DR but it's worth it so read it bitches READ IT
Characters; Gaara {
sandmullet} & Temari {windwards}Summary; Sixteen isn't so old; the monster is a boy and the girl is his sister.
Log;
Ever since then, he had been awake.
Ever since Rock Lee had slammed his knuckles across Gaara's face. If something cracked, he hadn't heard it; not above his screaming, because he'd lost his voice three days ago, singing and singing, but above that which had hooked into his skull and tore it apart. As the demon disappeared into so much sand, one last cry of protest ripping the skies, Gaara had remained oblivious to the stabilizing hold of Rock Lee's arms that kept him from a free-fall plummet to the concrete below. Everything after that was a blur of voices, commotion, too many faces, and through it all he had clutched his head. I'm not finished.
It hurt. Whatever the last nine days had been, it wasn't sleep, and he was tired, though that wasn't a new development. Tired, weakened through starvation, through please die and Yashamaru's smile, through the tearing, ripping, the struggle, the bruise blossoming over his cheek.
On the bed he never slept in, Gaara had pressed his face to his knees and his fingers clawed in his hair, and he breathed. Slow, air filtering through his nostrils, inhale. It's over. Tomorrow would be a pain in the ass. But it was today, and he focused on the minute.
The look Temari cast in her brother's direction was unreadable at best. She stood not far from the bed, leaning in the doorway from that room to the next, arms folded across her chest. There was in the apartment, the faint smell of soup, simple but sustaining, simmering in case someone wanted. Said someone, sitting in such a clutched position on the bed made her want to turn away, like most people did, like she had before. But she continued to watch, brow furrowing at last, just the slightest bit, big enough to be there, and just little enough to be unimportant, and not particularly telltale.
To say the sudden mission had been a success was too generous. A fair few people were hurt, and while Shikamaru's was acceptable in that it was his line of duty, it still bothered her, because it was, all of it, something that should not have happened in the first place.
What was that? She wondered. What happened to you?
Opening her mouth to speak, she ended up not saying a word, instead walking to the edge of the bed, staring down at the hands raking into the bowed head of hair. In ways, he was very small and in others not small at all, and rather frightening. Most importantly maybe, now, he was the Kazekage.
Or should it be: most importantly my brother?
Crossing her arms, Temari brushed such thoughts aside. That they had never been terribly close was obvious enough, but that there were some efforts made in recent days in their world was also true. Give and take. Push and pull.
"Gaara," she said at last, making the last concession or jump to sit on the bed as well. What could she say? Nothing particularly profound or helpful came to mind, so she did what she usually chose to do in those moments, no matter who she dealt with: she said nothing at all, contenting herself instead to just sit, and wait, eyes carefully trained on the body next to hers, the hands and the curl of the spine.
Whatever happened in his life, Gaara had never once considered giving up. When his life had moved from one living nightmare to the next, when all that shook his heart was pain he could not comprehend, when fearful looks became hate, when a broken tool became a monster, when the monster had suppressed the demon to preserve his personality, when his reason for living, strength and killing, had been removed with a single punch and defeat - he had shouted, to live. Just as he didn't know how people could smile and mean it without condition, he didn't know how to yield.
It was hard (but it was hard, but it had never been easy), and behind his eyes there was Yashamaru, Yashamaru, Yashamaru, smiling, his finger bleeding, his body bleeding, exploding, the sand - so Gaara wrenched open his eyes and stared at his arms curved over his face. A dream, for hundreds of hours. Gaara had never slept and so, never dreamed; no, he understood what it meant. Squeezing his hands together around his hair, he pushed it away.
And he dropped one hand from his scalp, holding it in front of his face, his black-ringed eyes focusing on the lines, fingerprint whorls. Strength and killing, strength and love. His fingers curled; he stared at his fist and granules of sand shook on the wood flooring; it wasn't intentional.
The weight of his sister, more than a lump of meat and blood, caused the mattress to sag some in the middle. His eyes flicked up, wide, bloodshot. Down again, over dirty fingernails, and up. What else could he say? His lips were cracked, his mouth dry; Gaara tried to make the words, but it was all sandpaper on sandpaper; he rasped.
"Sorry," he tried to say, "I wasn't enough." Still. Still. Even for Gaara, it was almost enough to give up.
"Don't be ridiculous," was the quick reply and with a fleeting look, she stood up again, moving into the kitchen only to return with a glass of water. It was filled three quarters of the way full and when she paused in front of him, she extended it.
In a way, they had come far, to the point where she did not feel the absolute necessity of being on her guard the whole time, not for the same reasons at least. On the other hand, she still failed to understand the kazekage in many areas, if only because she refused to believe things might be as simple as they appeared. Granted, 'simple' hardly ever meant something demeaning so much as a factual description, similar to 'blue' or 'windy' or, at times, 'different'.
"....would you prefer tea?" she asked suddenly, considering mixing it with honey, her eyes not missing the quite nearly blistered lips, detecting with ease the hoarse quality of his voice, the bend of his will--neither seen, nor heard, so much as felt. Temari would be the first to deny any ability to clearly empathize or sympathize with most people, and especially Gaara, for obvious reasons, but just because lines drew themselves between them did not mean, she thought, they had to divide. They simply provided separations, degrees that showed: this is how you step.
Not necessarily where.
He took the glass, having to do so with both hand due to the unsteadiness of his grip, the ever present quaver in his fingers. Gaara had not thought it ridiculous, had furrowed his brows with the frustrating intensity of his sincerity, but she had already moved, already brought back the water.
By the time she asked her question, Gaara had already finished the water, though a little less than half of it had spilled over his chin, down his neck, and into his high-collared shirt. He looked at her in response, silent at first, his hands closer to stability around the cool glass. This, this was too much, hard, sitting weak, dependent, having been the threat rather than the protector. And Yashamaru. And Yashamaru. And-- His eyes closed, lids so bruised by deprivation that they were black; his eyes opened.
Unable to see how it would matter, he nodded. "Okay," though it would matter, heat, something closer to solid food that he perhaps would struggle to keep down, at first. His eyes searched her; not her eyes, though he could have looked her in the eye without quailing, perhaps. Her arm had the support of a sling. Gaara's eyes fell again to his hand, his hands.
His mouth moved. It took him a second try to produce sound.
"Why are you here?"
When he said 'okay' she turned to go and retrieve the tea but his next words caught her at the door. To say she was surprised would be inaccurate. Though she could never claim to directly empathize with her brother, there was always something to be said for basic observational skills. While having a watchful eye and ear proved well as far as their work, it could also be applied to more everyday things, such as discerning truths from impassiveness, lies from words, reality from unreality, and, sometimes, the inability to know from the inability to accept. Fingers on the door's frame, she refrained from sighing, lest she sound as though she was annoyed or worse, patronizing. Some people would garner only the dry answer of 'Why do you think?' But in Gaara's case...well, he never really did fall into the category of 'some people', did he? No.
"It would be irresponsible of me to leave you alone," she said after a few thoughtful minutes, minutes that she trusted Gaara to give her because silence had never been a problem for them, not that she acknowledged at least. "I am your sister." And you are the kazekage.
That unsaid thought was not the most important of the two, but rather than saying so, she opted to leave the room, let him think on it if he wanted to, or not. She was in no position to force him to do anything, and never would be. Temari could never allow herself to be a delusional type, on pain of death. Bringing the tea back, she had also thought to make herself a cup. Personally, she felt weird drinking or eating while the other person watched, not exactly self-conscious, but not like it was really fair either. One person could use the drink to pause in conversation, while the other could just barrel on.
"Here," she said, unnecessarily but also, perhaps more notably, with kindness as she offered him the cup. Her lips did not quite form a smile, but her eyes provided something of a glimmer, as if to say: it's okay.
Precisely what was okay, she didn't feel the need to clarify yet. There was always the fair chance, on any given day, at any given moment, that people could, given the opportunity, just get one another, if only on rare occasion...if only for a second in the midst of years past and years yet to come.
Minutes he could spare. Minutes of him watching her, indifferent to how uncomfortable it might make a person, to have the pressure of his unwavering gaze. It was not meant to be impatient, rushing. But Gaara could not help but be demanding; it was not deliberate, not conscious, simply what he was, a composition of so many like grains of sand. Minutes he gave her, but after she relieved him of the anticipation, the answer to a question that in that time left him conflicted, his already uncommonly stormy emotions, she left the room.
The clock ticked; on the wall and in his skull. The bone throbbed, or cranial tissue, or that force. Ticking, his eyes dropped again to his hands, his left thumb twitching, only just, in sync with the clock. Grains of sand skipped along the floor, tick. What is irresponsible, he thought, is...
Tock, his hands closed around the hot cup, and his thumb shook against it. Gaara looked up as the heat traveled through the pads of his fingers, along his palms, wrists. "You're hurt," he said, voice marginally improved, "It's irresponsible not to be at the hospital."
It could have been a command, but weakness made authority diminished. He lifted the drink and the honeyed tea eased down his raw throat. Irresponsible to leave him alone; because of the monster. She had said, I am your sister, and this would have been enough before everything, in view of the family they had managed to hack out of years of lack. But for nine days Gaara had dreamed, and in the aftermath as the dust settled, the former shapes were only just beginning to resemble what they had been.
He sipped his tea, and deplored the weakness in himself. If it wasn't love. If it wasn't hate.
Then maybe it was neither, but if Temari could read his mind--she was glad she couldn't to be honest--she would tell him this much: the space between the two usually withstood to be enough. Maybe it wasn't very much, as love might be, and maybe it was not very little as hate made itself, but just maybe enough could simply be enough and provide as such. She had never been a particularly philosophical type, more accustomed and suited to concrete words and feelings, analysis-responsive things. It was just her way. Still, there had been room for even Temari to open her mind a fraction or so more to more unpredictable thoughts, things swayed by hearts or lack thereof.
Having carried the cup she offered to Gaara in the hand attached to her good arm, she now transferred her own cup to that hand, sipping at it as she peered over at him, cleanly, clearly, no hidden agenda or furtive looks here. He would know she was watching if she was hundreds of feet away, no doubt. There was no point in disguising her scrutiny, but then, even if there was, she probably would not bother.
After all this time, if the kazekage, if her brother had earned anything--and he had earned a great deal--it was the candor she treated everyone else with. To know what it was to question normality was not for her, but she could offer a breath of it at least, the less than subtle gust of change stirring the sand at its edges when the sand allowed, when it chose, and not before.
"It would be irresponsible for me to not be at the hospital if I didn't already have this," she gestures with the cup of tea at the sling her other arm rests in. "Right now it would be irresponsible for me to be there, because I don't need to be and it's a waste of space," she corrected more thoroughly, expression relaxed but attentive, even without looking at him now as she turned her gaze to the ceiling, uninteresting as it was. "Like that crybaby," she added, scoffing.
It was not necessary to elaborate on who said crybaby was.
Taking another sip of tea, she let a minute or so pass before turning back toward the only other person in the room.
"It would be stupid to think too much about this." To dwell. To blame yourself. To take that many steps backward.
You are better than this.
As this was a bold and possibly rude--very rude--thing to say, the eldest of the siblings had enough forethought to pay careful attention to the sand, but more than that, her attention was for the expression on her brother's face, waiting for some manner of reaction. Her only other pause was a second or less before she added, "Unless you're thinking about who caused all of this. That's not a waste. That's just business as usual."
Meaning every word, she sighed, shaking her head, to no one in particular. She didn't expect her words to be comforting, but there they were, words, honest ones, if nothing else particularly special beyond that.
Something like a stare, like scrutiny; these things did not cause Gaara discomfort. Beneath her gaze, the brother was ever stolid, unshifting, aware of the pressure of her eyes and yet it was inconsequential. And yet it was tremendous. Without physical discomfort, he sought meaning to the look, though he often looked so freely and intensely and absolutely, what did she want, what did he.
It was as close as Gaara had ever come to needing the distraction; the tea cup he could lift to his lips, the hot, honeyed liquid easing down his rough throat. It had been impractical of him to worry after her condition, when what she had said had been obvious. It had been impractical, perhaps only an effort to push her away, even as he needed to draw her close. Her reference to the lazy Leaf ninja fell on deaf, unappreciative ears; that Shikamaru had remained in the hospital, that there was any possibly comical debate about it, it had little relevance to him.
What he heard was what mattered, what she ventured to say: don't think about this. Only the cause, culprit, ninja, business, target, analysis, elimination. Gaara knew it, but he said nothing.
It would be stupid to think about it, and strictly, he did not consciously turn his mind in that direction. But the dramatic disparity between what he had been and what he was, the sniveling, shredded vulnerability of a monster, boy, monster, left wracked by tears and betrayal and ever-expanding insanity - days, and days, and hour, minutes, seconds, days. Settling into his new skin proved an awkward fit, shaking off the nightmare, Shukaku's rampage, the ravage of his mind, the continuous, terrible ache--
Temari couldn't know. How could she know that he was weaker, after all, that it went beyond losing control to Shukaku. He finished the tea, he leaned back, and when he closed his eyes abruptly Gaara felt it, in his eyes, a stinging, something he hadn't felt for nine years or a few hours, and it disgusted him. It so repulsed him that he lurched forward, tense and more than upright, leaning at a sharp angle over his legs. It so disgusted him that it set off ripping, scalding ripples in his skull, a monstrous backlash, the demon latching claws into anything like emotional intensity, feeding off it, weak, weak, weak, human.
Gaara grit his teeth, clutched his head, and hissed out his breath. The cup had fallen; the handle breaking off on the floor as sand kicked up, lashed at the glass.
Her movement tentative and yet simultaneously right, Temari was over to him in seconds, hands reaching out to cover his shoulders, even as she peered down at him, then kneeling in front of him because to look down on him, even physically, would not help anything.
"Gaara," she said his name, just his name.
The hands on his shoulders were there for comfort to a degree, but more than that, to remind him that someone else was here, is here, would be here. She could no sooner muster up sentimentality that others might draw upon, or the basest of loves, but what she used instead would suffice: an honest grip, a clear gaze, and acknowledgment that she saw him. True, she could not begin to imagine those days of darkness in his childhood and certainly not the nightmares just past, but Temari had never been the type to try and imagine other people's suffering. It was their business and if they wanted to share it they would, hopefully. There was no need or right to go barging in on people and a turn of the head to hide anger or the exiting of a room to keep from crying was not hers to decide. That said, she was in fact the type to flatten past the nonsense of niceties and get to the point, and as she held onto the kazekage, to Gaara, to her brother, her fingers dug into his shoulders as if to communicate what words would only fail to.
You worry me. This whole thing worries me. But I have a lot of years yet to make for not worrying in the way that I do now. And I'm here, so don't forget it. Nightmares or not, the moments you are awake, those are just as real, that control, that willpower. It doesn't disappear like that because that?
Well it would be too easy, wouldn't it.
Don't, he wanted to say, don't touch me, but all that choked out of his recovering throat was a strangled cry, more a whimper than anything. His body, suddenly small, writhed, though in a limited way; his shoulders shaking, squirming beneath her hands, though surely it was only in his head that everything churned to think of being touched.
Yet, his hands did not drop from his head, did not shove her, the sand did not latch onto or tear at her; there had not been enough in the room to fend off her hands, only a thin rope that struggled now between her palms and his cloth.
"Shut up," he rasped at the sound of his name, his voice too weak. And she would see him this weak.
Weak, weak, weak, this was pathetic, this he could not accept, but the way in which it revolted him was a way that surged in chemical explosions, in the heaviness of emotion that Gaara so little humored. It wasn't only his way, it wasn't only his character; there was more utility to the way in which he so perpetually existed in shades of gray, in monotonous stability. Weak, and his teeth were pressed together so hard that it hurt, the way that so much of him hurt. This was unbearable.
He sucked in a breath, long and quivering, and strove to suppress. Shove it all down, stop it.
"I'm fine," he said, or rasped, after a minute or two, trying to look up with wet, wearied, and bloodshot eyes. "I'm fine. Let... go."
But Gaara spoke without realizing that he had dropped a hand from his head, and with it, grasped at hers.
The hand did not have to grasp much, finding hers as she moved it from his shoulder, covering her wrist as a result. Turning her own hand slightly, under, she curved her fingers around his wrist in return. His order to shut up, or his request, or his plea, she could heed without offense, familiar enough with his way to not be so stupid as to become defensive or hurt. This was not about her, and that was important to remember in anything remotely like this, and even in things so far removed from it as to being alien and alternate, things that they would never have to deal with, because things like this presented themselves instead.
Carefully she removed her other hand from his other shoulder, which was a bit of a relief as that was the injured one. It wasn't that it hurt, but more that it was awkward to keep it there when the sling did not want to allow her that movement in the first place. That Gaara was in pain was at least evident, but all the extents of that pain, she couldn't account for, no matter how hard she stared, or for how long. Just like she couldn't make up for wasted years, or take back lack of action, she could not imagine the dark fragments in her brother's mind, the perception of weakness that so plagued him. In knowing her own limit, however, there was something of merit and as she stayed there, his hand over her wrist, as if to push away and her hand around his as if to hold on, she could not help, as he claimed to be alright, but think: what a liar you are.
She just never had the heart to notice how much of one he was before.
Her silence would hopefully speak for her, her continued presence as well, in the small, unlit space of the private apartment, the quiet walled in squares that mimicked order for people who adhered to it but often lacked it in just as many spades, on one hand or the other.
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can't believe I read the whole thing...
and yeah, Shikamaru got kicked out by Sakura. 8D in the hospital.