Chapter Text
She had her back to him, laboured breaths in sleep the only thing to move her. In the early hours, when tiredness took over, he thought she would leave to go to bed. For all intents and purposes, this was his room now. This was where he belonged, until Baki saw fit to let him out.
But Temari didn’t leave him.
‘I’m just going to rest my eyes for a bit,’ she had said, and lay down on the floor, still facing him.
In between her tiredness, and his exhaustion, they had reminisced about the few positive memories they shared, followed by a tentative exploration around the issue of his future in Suna. There came a point when his contributions were nothing more than nods, and choice looks; whilst Temari could doze, and drift lazily into sleep, Gaara’s only relief from an unending period of self-imposed wakefulness was to conserve energy in any small way he could.
For a while, he stayed upright, fighting the urge to close his eyes, occupying himself mentally with games and puzzles that had comforted him since he was a child. But his gaze always drifted back to the space where his sister lay, every movement she made a distraction he was unused to.
The last person to sit with him through the night like this had been Yashamaru. Since then, Gaara had grown used to extended periods of isolation. Maybe even tricked himself into believing it was what he preferred.
In the end, he had given in. Not to sleep, but to the need to stay close to what was left of his humanity. With the Shukaku severely silent, Gaara sank to the floor, mimicking Temari’s pose. Already wracked with shivers, his wet clothes sticking to his pale, sand-dappled skin, the chill from the stone all around him almost felt warm in comparison. Eyes closed, feigning sleep, he distracted himself by imagining himself waking up again in his own room, before going to eat breakfast with both of his siblings at the table.
That was what he would have to do from now on. To make that normality his own, he had to adopt it. He had to live it. All of the things he had learnt to do by himself, he would now have to do with his family . Not alone under the cool Suna morning outside, or by the light of its pale moon and stars, but next to Temari and Kankuro: the two very first people he had to prove himself to.
One person at a time, Gaara knew he was going to show Sunakagure that he wasn’t somebody they had to fear. He could also be something precious to them, and perhaps they could be precious to him in return.
The hours slipped by, and Temari remained peaceful throughout it all. Every so often, Gaara would open his eyes, to check she was still there. Not that he wouldn’t hear her if she made any motion to leave, but it instilled in him a nice feeling to see for himself that she could relax around him, maybe even just for a little bit.
Or so he thought.
‘A-Are you awake?’
Gaara snapped his eyes open and got to his knees, tense with chagrin at being caught. Temari had rolled over too quietly for him to have heard after all; had he simply underestimated her agility, or become too comfortable to maintain his usual heightened level of vigilance?
The Shukaku rumbled within him, all too quick to tell him its opinion. To assert that he was weak, and that this weakness would put him in danger.
Temari was sat upright, face pale, hair askew from her restless few hours of sleep. This would probably be the case for a long while. He knew he couldn’t expect that her innate fears of him, of the monster he shared a body with, would disappear after a few kind words and an apology.
But it still stung, and the journey he had to take to improve that looked longer than ever. Especially with the Shukaku’s bitter input.
He fixed her with a stoic stare, still half-thinking of what to say, when footsteps drew both of their attentions away from one another.
The steps were slow and uneven, the person in descent either very afraid of entering the chamber, or too elderly to have any hurry.
Or, Gaara mentally tacked on as their mystery guest came into view, ailing and weak. He felt the Shukaku shift within the recesses of his mind, alerted at the faint tang of blood. The trembling that then took him had nothing to do with the cold.
Temari was already on her feet, hand ready to tug the spare kunai free from her weapons pouch as she tentatively moved towards the noise. Before she could even get to the foot of the stairs, Kankuro staggered out into the open, unbalanced and shaky.
He put his hands flat to the wall, looking for something to hold onto.
‘What are you doing here?’ Temari snipped as she helped him to a proper stand. ‘You were taken to the hospital for a reason!’
He slung one arm behind her neck and over her shoulders, allowing her to help him further into the room.
‘Don’t be mad,’ he said, breathless, ‘Baki already is. Probably.’
There had been guards stationed at the top of the stairs, meant to prevent anyone unauthorised from coming down into the chamber. Temari didn’t even want to think about what he might have done to bypass them.
‘Just sit down,’ she said, crouching to help him get down onto the floor. ‘You look a state.’
‘Hah. Speak for yourself.’
Once Kankuro was off his feet, Temari unhooked his arm from around her shoulders and took his face into her hands; she looked into his eyes, checked him over for any signs of delirium or evidence that he was about to imminently faint. Other than being exhausted and pallid from the blood loss, she didn’t see any reason to be worried.
And neither did he. With a swipe of his hand, he got her to stop fussing, only to realise his wrist was still injured, and not fit enough to move around just yet.
‘Ow, ow,’ he said under his breath.
‘It serves you right.’
Gaara eyed them during this gently intimate exchange, his heart pulled downwards, aching just a little. For all it was a hard thing to do, he had to accept that the closest he could ever get to either one of them for now, was through the bars of his cage.
The truth was, Kankuro didn’t want to have a conversation with Baki. Not out of a lack of trust in him, but because under his supervision, Gaara wouldn’t talk properly.
Their teacher could tell him a thousand times that they were his main priority; that himself, Temari, and Gaara were always at the forefront of his mind. But in the end, the village would always win. With their father gone, they were now second to the needs of Suna, no matter what the circumstances.
He looked across at his younger brother, a small, shivering shape behind thick stone bars, forced into a dank, damp cage like an animal. And this was Baki’s idea of protecting him.
Once upon a time, this brand of isolation had been Rasa’s idea of protection too. Locking Gaara up in his own wing of the mansion, plying him with sweets and toys, but depriving him of a family life that might have inspired him to try harder against the Shukaku’s whims.
Not that there was any point in despairing over the time lost. What had been done in the past, was done now. That was all there was to it.
‘I’m fine, Temari,’ Kankuro said, brushing her aside so that he could get back on his feet. ‘The painkillers have worn off, that’s all.’
‘You’ll need that bandage changed soon too.’
She put her hands on her hips, assessing him from head-to-toe. Her ‘mothering’ pose, he liked to call it. Although if Temari was ever a mother, she wouldn’t be the soft, nurturing kind. She was more like a lion; even had that cat-like look of disapproval, like the pain he was in, and his struggle, was all his own doing.
‘Right,’ he sighed. ‘You’re right, I mean; I’m not supposed to be here. Baki didn’t want me to see either of you until tonight, but…’
Kankuro approached the stone bars, the gap wide enough for him to press his face between them. Gaara was on his feet, arms crossed and shaking under his damp clothes, his expression as empty as ever. They - Baki, maybe others - had soaked him with water, Kankuro realised; it was a method used to quell the strength of his sand-reliant jutsu. The Shukaku couldn’t help him mould wet, cakey sand.
He gritted his teeth behind his lips, jaw set. Was this their long term plan? Douse him with water in some hole under the mansion until he couldn’t survive the cold anymore?
‘I’m not gonna let them keep you in here this way,’ he said, voice gravelly, ‘I wanted to get here first because Baki can’t justify this.’
‘Do you think I would let them do that?’
Kankuro looked back at his sister tiredly, ‘I didn’t mean... It’s just… we have to stand together. All three of us. If this is gonna work.’
Temari drew level with him and bumped him with her shoulders. She then directed a look at Gaara, a warm smile that captivated his attention for as long as she held it. The two of them had been together all through the night; what they had talked about, whatever kind of understanding they had reached, was something he wished he had been able to see; Temari had always been the one with a weaker sense of trust in their brother. Not that Kankuro blamed her, but it was nice to see her finally coming around to the idea that all three of them had the power to change the course of their future.