Chapter Text
"Gaara, I'm afraid I have some bad news for you.”
There was a pause as Gaara stared at the therapist with his dull green eyes. He didn't really expect Gaara to answer him, did he?
"Now, don't you want to know what that news is?"
Apparently, the stuffy fool did expect him to answer. Yet another clue that this therapist had no idea who he was dealing with. Not that Gaara expected him to. The therapist had been very vocal about all his achievements and capabilities to him, but Gaara was very concerned that the therapist had bitten off more than he could chew.
Again, there was a pause. The phone rang, interrupting their bout of silence.
"Excuse me a moment," said Mr. Bear, as he picked up the phone, "this will only take a second." His shining, black eyes gleamed in the light as he spoke animatedly into the receiver.
Gaara stopped his gaze from wandering and continued to glare menacingly at Mr. Bear, as though meaning to drill a hole straight through his overly large head. He was incredibly annoying, even for a therapist. Gaara really didn't know why he continued to come to these sessions. He didn't need someone else to tell him what was wrong with him; he already knew: he was antisocial and vaguely misanthropic. If it were up to him, he'd destroy anything that rubbed him the wrong way. Who really cared if that meant just about everything?
"All right then," said Mr. Bear, interrupting Gaara's train of thought. "Where were we? Ah, yes, don't you want to know what's going on?"
Gaara decided to humour the guy. Why? Well, because lying on an uncomfortable red chaise lounge for over an hour, answering silly questions ("If you were a cloud, what kind would you be?"; "How many types of pretzels do you think there are in the world?"; "If you could dance naked down the halls, would you?") was annoying as hell and the sooner he could leave the better.
He wished that the Hokage hadn’t convinced him to not kill anymore, and to find a therapist. Not killing left his nights empty and himself as well for something he wasn't sure of. He wanted to stay alive and free, and if not going on murderous rampages would allow him to liberally stroll the streets of Konoha without being attacked by a squad of jounins every five minutes, he'd do it. But he didn't have to be happy about it.
Did he really have to go to these therapy sessions just to cure his "antisocial personality?" Well, maybe "antisocial personality" shouldn't have been in quotation marks. But that still didn't mean that he needed to go to these stupid sessions. After taking various online tests and reading up on personality disorders, he knew exactly what was wrong with him. And just what was wrong with doing things that were the violation of the rights of others?
And why hadn't the therapist just given him a bunch of personality tests to see what was wrong with him? Asking him "Which colour do you think best personifies the mockingbird?" just didn't seem to cut it.
"Yes, Mr. Bear," he answered in his usual monotone.
"Oh, really," Mr. Bear chuckled. "Call me Ted; it's so much more hip!"
Gaara went back to his usual answer of silence.
“Well, Gaara, it seems that you have a few problems.”
No shit, Sherlock. One of his biggest “problems” that had been identified was that Gaara liked to kill people. You didn’t see a whole lot of people writing that under "hobbies and interests" on their resumes, now did you? Well, not a lot of sane people, anyway.
“You see, Gaara, you have antisocial tendencies. Well, more than that, you have an antisocial personality. An antisocial personality is characterised by continuous and persistent patterns of aggressive behaviour in which the rights of others are violated. There are times when your demon friend, Shukaku, comes out and you become psychotic. I do believe you're taking pills to fix that problem?"
"They don't let me sleep."
At all.
Hence the dark eyeliner and mascara; it wasn’t there to look pretty, it was there to cover up the dark circles under his eyes. And maybe to look a little pretty, though Gaara wouldn't admit that to anyone but himself and grudgingly so even then. He had noticed several people walking around with eyeliner like his, thick and angled. He may have started a trend.
He didn’t know how he felt about that.
“Ah, well, that's just a minor side effect! They are helping you stave off your eminent psychosis. As you go on in life, if you allow your antisocial behaviour and your tendencies towards misanthropy to flourish, you may begin to suffer from a host of various side effects which may include psychosexual dysfunction.
“Do you know what that is?”
Gaara continued to look at him blankly, arms crossed, with his legs crossed at the ankles..
Mr Bear continued. “Psychosexual dysfunction includes impotence, anorgasmia, and premature ejaculation.”
Gaara stared at Mr Bear, horrified. However, his horrified stare looked just like all of his other stares, so Mr Bear didn't notice this change in his demeanour.
Premature ejaculation? Mr Bear had just said premature ejaculation. Gaara was sure Mr Bear had just said premature ejaculation.
If he didn't fix his stupid antisocial personality he would be doomed to be known as the early cummer?
And anorgasmia? What the fuck was that? It sounded spider-like.
“Now, Gaara,” continued Mr Bear, unaware of Gaara’s inner panic. “To keep yourself from developing these side effects, there is only one thing you can do.”
Gaara stared at Mr Bear. This was where Mr Bear was going to tell him what he had to do, to interrupt his development of premature ejaculation, right?
”I've been wondering what could have happened to you to make you think this way, Gaara.”
God damn it
So this was how therapists made their dollars. They stretched their sessions on for hours by talking about nothing and asking you "Why do you think the sky is blue?"
It was a conspiracy, that's what it was.
“I think it might have had something to do with your mother dying so suddenly after childbirth. We talked about this, yes? What did I tell you to repeat every night?”
Gaara answered dutifully instead of his usual answer of silence. He'd do anything to find out how to ward off premature ejaculation. “My mommy's death wasn't my fault.”
"Now, if only you'd come to see me before that Yashamaru fellow drilled those silly ideas into your head. You've been saying it every night before you go to bed?"
Over his dead body.
"At bedtime," he lied.
When was the last time Gaara had gone to bed? When he was six?
“Right, so I also thought that it had something to do with having your father try to kill you all the time. I'm sure he was suffering from a disorder as well, but which one? Ah, we'll never know. And then, I'm sure this upheaval from your hometown and being relocated in Konoha has put a considerable amount of stress on you. Having to leave all your friends behind and all.”
What friends?
The longer the therapist spoke, the more misunderstood Gaara felt. Which while not a new feeling, wasn’t one he’d hoped to develop toward a therapist. Understanding Gaara was Mr Bear’s job.
Gaara wished he would hurry up and tell him how to stop the onset of his premature ejaculation and anorgasmia and whatever else he had mentioned.
“So, to stop the development of psychosexual dysfunction, there is only one thing you can really do.”
He paused and Gaara seriously considered hacking him to bits, regardless of what the Hokage had said, and simply Googling "premature ejaculation anorgasmia prevention" online.
“You, Gaara, will have to become a progressive member of society!”
Gaara sulked down the stairs of the two-story, five-bedroom, tastefully decorated house he was currently residing in with his siblings, Temari and Kankurou, at six o'clock in the morning.
Gaara was sulking because of the horrific predicament he found himself in at the moment. Normally, he didn't sulk while going down the stairs. In fact, normally, he never even went down the stairs. Gaara had only used the stairs of his new house three times. Once to go up and see how it compared to the downstairs, once to go down and tell his brother and sister that he preferred the upstairs, and once to go back upstairs. After that, he just walked onto the balcony, which was conveniently located in his room, and leaped out onto the road below (or occasionally onto the roof of the next building) when he felt like getting some fresh air.
He jumped in, and he jumped out.
Simple.
So why was he perusing the stairs this fine and sunshiny morning which was so not helping his bad mood?
To have a calm, lowkey breakfast with his siblings, of course. Therapist's orders. Well, the therapist had given him many orders; some of which he did not want to think about. Ted (Mr Bear had insisted on the nickname) had given him many bits of advice on how to become a progressive member of society.
The first had been to have a family breakfast. The second… well, he didn't want to think about it at the moment.
He got to the floor and shuffled through the rooms until he found the kitchen where Kankuro and Temari were sitting at a small table, eating what appeared to be waffles. He paused in the doorway, wondering what to do. What had he been instructed to do?
Oh, yeah.
“Hi.”
There, he had greeted them. Now, by obligatory rights and rules and this odd thing called "manners," they were supposed to respond to him.
"Ga-gaara!" shouted Temari, her eyes as big as saucers. She stood so suddenly that she knocked her chair out from under her and it fell to the floor with a clatter.
"What are you…" she paused, gave Kankuro a worried look and then glanced back at Gaara who was still frozen in the doorway, arms crossed across his chest. Oh, right, he was supposed to be less defensive.
He uncrossed his arms.
"Gaara," said Kankurou slowly, as he rose from his chair. "What are you doing down here?"
Gaara stopped from twitching his right eye. Granted, he never came downstairs, but that didn't mean that when he did come downstairs that they had to make a big deal out of it.
"Is, is something wrong?" asked Temari, as she shuffled around the table, slowly edging farther and farther away from him. "Did something happen?"
Gaara's left eye twitched and he rubbed at his temple. This was not supposed to happen. They were supposed to ask him to sit down and have breakfast and ask him how his day was and ARGH!
He stalked over to the table, glowering horrifically. "Nothing happened," he informed them. "I'm here for breakfast." He pulled out a chair and sat down at the table.
"Oh…" said Kankurou. "Well, here, you can have my waffles," he said, pushing his plate towards Gaara. "I'm not hungry."
Kankurou's stomach growled.
His siblings both made to move for the door.
"No, don't go," said Gaara. But if you touch these waffles, I will kill you. Oops, best to not say that out loud.
"Sit down. Let's all have breakfast together,” he continued.
Gaara watched as his siblings looked at each other and then back at him. Was that some sort of secret signal? Or were they just seeing which one of them would flee first? And more importantly, where was the maple syrup?
As Gaara searched the tabletop for the maple syrup, Kankurou and Temari hovered anxiously at the sides of the table. Temari had righted her chair, but both of them were refraining from sitting down. Temari passed Gaara the maple syrup which had been hiding behind the floral centrepiece.
“Gaara,” said Kankurou once more. "Why do you want to have breakfast with us?" He paused when Gaara's stolid gaze fell upon him.
"I mean, not that it's unwelcome or anything, but a guy wonders, ya know?" He finished it off with a cheesy laugh which turned into a cough as Gaara glared down at his waffles.
He looked up again as he poured maple syrup onto the waffles. They were chocolate chip. Yum. "Ted said to have breakfast with you."
"Oh, oh," said Temari, smiling and blinking her eyes at Kankuro. Kankuro looked at Temari in confusion as he returned her smile, albeit a tad awkwardly. "Ah, well, that's nice, Gaara."
They both smiled at him.
And suddenly Gaara realized he had to do the second thing on the list of what he had to do. Oh, why, oh, why hadn't he taped his eyes shut today?
He shut his eyes and smiled at his two siblings.
When he opened his eyes… neither of them was there.
"Step two, Gaara," said Ted, in a loud voice, "is that whenever someone smiles at you, you must smile back."
Gaara stared at him in disbelief. Which again, was not quite so different from his stare of belief, or his stare of anger, or his stare of murderous rage. Well, maybe a little different from his stare of murderous rage.
Perhaps it was because Gaara kept on staring at him that Ted thought he was paying the utmost attention.
He wasn't.
"Well, show me that winning smile!" Ted exclaimed boisterously.
Gaara smiled, or at least tried to. His features contorted into the usual demonic, snarl-like grin that took control of his face when he was on a mad killing spree. His usually dull eyes shone with the manic glitter of insanity and he subconsciously clenched and unclenched his hands.
But of course, Gaara couldn't see this.
But Ted could.
"Ah, right," said Ted, loosening his tie. "Well, um…" He paused. "Well, you might want to work on that smile, there, Gaara, before you try it out." He coughed and moved onto the next order, leaving Gaara vaguely confused.
What was wrong with his smile?
What was wrong with his smile?
Gaara wondered this again as he trudged through the house into the living room. In the living room, atop the fireplace, Temari had made the decorator hang a large, gold-gilded mirror. Gaara didn't know why she had done so (nor did he care, for that matter), but he was glad of its presence now that he was in need of it.
Did he have something perpetually stuck between his teeth? Were his teeth rotting out of his skull? That couldn't be possible, though; he brushed (and flossed) after every fucking meal. (Hey, a guy had to do something to pass the time, right?) And it couldn't be his breath. So…
What was it?
After pacing back and forth for a few minutes, Gaara finally decided to use his sand to move an ottoman in front of the fireplace. He stepped on top of it, finally able to see his reflection in the mirror. He exhaled slowly, took a deep breath, and then smiled into the mirror.
Shortly after, he found himself cowering under the dining room table.
Did he really look like that when he smiled?
No wonder everyone screamed before he killed them. It wasn't death that scared them, it was his smile. If you could call it a smile.
Most people would have been terrified of facing themselves after such a devastating realization. But most people weren't Gaara. In fact, no one was Gaara but Gaara. And so, it was only Gaara who was brave enough to face himself in front of the mirror again.
But once in front of the mirror, he ran into a little problem.
What was a normal smile supposed to look like? And how did a smile come about one's face? How did the muscles pull and which ones moved first? How did one do those little smirks and those large cheesy grins?
Surely, there was a trick to this smiling business. And Gaara was going to find it.
Now… who could he watch smile? He couldn't watch any people in real life, that was for sure. It would be too troublesome and annoying. He'd never be able to copy the moves fast enough. If only he had the Sharingan, or some sort of machine that made everything appear in slow-motion.
His eyes were scanning the room when they came across the TV.
Bingo.
Several hours later, Gaara had perfected the art of smiling.
After hours of watching and rewinding and fast forwarding and mimicking, he had mastered almost every smile that a human could make. Well, he had only mastered the ones that seemed like they would make him look cool. None of the simpering smiles, only the bright manly ones.
He pressed pause on the TV, freezing a movie star who had recently made it big as he flashed the cameraman a devious smirk. Gaara looked into the mirror and smirked a devious smirk.
Whoa.
He looked good.
Shukaku grumbled appreciatively, and Gaara agreed.
He fast-forwarded to a happy, middle-aged male who was smiling very cheerily. Gaara again looked into the mirror and smiled cheerily.
He was so good at this. He could probably become a mime. He would mime a smile for five dollars. He'd make millions.
Gaara deadpanned into the mirror as he fast-forwarded the awards show to a movie clip of a very handsome half-naked male looking at a very beautiful, long-legged female. As it played out, he realized that he was glad he had found this awards show of Temari's. All of Kankuro's movies consisted of naked people having sex. The only smile he had seen there had been on the men and they had looked… creepy. Thank goodness Temari liked awards shows.
He looked himself up and down. "Looking good, hot stuff," he said in perfect timing with the actor.
He turned off the TV. He had mastered the art of smiling.
Now, it was time to deal with his third mission.