InsaneJournal

Ficcy-poo. Storms.
Lalala Storms. Again. Last chunk of the fic before it starts matching up with Not Heaven again. This bit really, really needs a beta so don't be surprised if it changes in the final edition.

Also, I hate London. So bad. Am now in Durham again as well. My head hurts. Rawr.





Storms bit 3


Temari and Kankurou’s strange goodwill towards their little brother abruptly ran out when everything had been bought for the house and Gaara had moved in, perhaps because Gaara had begun pacing, measuring out the boundaries of his home and committing to memory the various routes around the house with a focussed single-mindedness that would ensure the least amount of time possible passed before Gaara knew every nook and cranny of the house. His siblings departed hastily, bidding Gaara hurried farewell as he prowled through the living room. Gaara paid it little mind; he was too busy pacing and trying to figure out his next course of action.

Gaara had quickly come to terms with the fact that even though killing was no longer his reason for existence, he would still need to kill. He was a shinobi; it could not be avoided, and thus there was little point to hammering out a new reason for existence that involved pointedly not killing. Besides, killing was something he was good at, and thus it would be necessary in order to both earn his living and develop a reputation as a competent, loyal shinobi of the Sand, instead of an insane, companion-murdering liability.

However, Gaara was well aware that simply refraining from killing those around him was not enough. He would still be feared, and no one would have been given any indication that he was no longer willing to kill aimlessly. His siblings, perhaps, had figured it out, but anyone else. . . .

He would have to visit the Godaime Kazekage.

~

“Kazekage-sama.”

“Gaara.”

The new Kazekage had previously been one of the Sand’s top-ranked jounin, which was no surprise. He was in his early thirties, and was primarily a genjutsu user, if Gaara recalled correctly. Gaara wasn’t in the habit of paying much attention to those around him who weren’t actively annoying him or trying to kill him, after all; he had no need to rely on the strengths of others, and thus they held virtually no purpose for him except – previously – when calming the storm in his mind. And then they were dead, and whatever skills they may have had irrelevant.

The new Kazekage sat perfectly still without looking tense, a single eyebrow raised in curious enquiry. “Might I ask what the purpose of this visit is?” he inquired. Gaara had no doubt that he was viewed as a danger to the Kazekage’s being, but the man himself gave no indication of it, completely in control. Gaara approved.

It was a distant approval, however, and would make no difference if the Kazekage did not listen to what he had to say.

Despite this, Gaara had decided to begin congenially, as he had observed that if one person liked another, they were more likely to help them. “Congratulations,” Gaara replied. It was customary for some form of accolade to be given when a shinobi ascended in rank, he had recalled.

“Thank you,” the Kazekage said. “Was that all?”

Gaara had never been one who was patient with what he saw as useless trivialities, so didn’t bother with any more small talk. “I came to see if you are as much of an idiot as my father.”

He was also not – and had never been – a tactful being.

The Kazekage’s eyebrows raised, one fist tightening where it rested on his knee. “The Yondaime Kazekage has not yet been dead for a fortnight,” he said, voice reproving.

Gaara didn’t see what that had to do with anything. “The Yondaime Kazekage repeatedly sent assassins after me from his own men. If a shinobi of a village is trying to kill me, then I must assume that all of that village may turn on me, which meant that I saw the shinobi of this village as potential enemies. Those were shinobi under his command, and therefore he was my primary enemy. They are now under your command. If you are an idiot, you will try to kill me. If you do so you will fail, and I will make sure it is your last failure. If you do not try to kill me, then I will have no reason to harm anyone in this village.”

“Your track record speaks otherwise,” the Kazekage said sharply. “You have never hesitated to kill another even when no provocation was offered.”

Gaara looked at him evenly, not particularly bothered. It was true; why deny it? “I am no longer that person.”

“And you expect me to take your word on it.”

“I have never lied about who I am.”

“Will you lie about what you are?”

Gaara frowned. “Explain,” he ordered flatly.

The Godaime scowled. “I am your Kazekage and you will treat me with respect,” he snapped.

Gaara stared at him, puzzled. “That is not an explanation.”

“You come into my house, threaten me, ask if I am an idiot and order me to explain what I mean. None of those are actions appropriate for a shinobi of the Sand when speaking to their leader. You will treat the office of Kazekage with respect.” The Kazekage stared back at Gaara, eyes hard.

Gaara did not budge. “I was not given reason to do so by the previous Kazekage. I have not yet been given reason to do so by you.”

“Then this discussion is over.”

Gaara sat in silence for a moment, before a familiar and violent surge of rage welled up in him. Shukaku shifted at the back of his mind, reminding Gaara’s darker side that it would be so easy, too easy, to simply reach out with his power and crush this insignificant being that stood in their way. If its appointment to Kazekage was justified, perhaps it would even provide some entertainment before—

Gaara wrenched himself away from the seductive call of his old life, and reminded himself that he was no longer that person. He refused to be that person. Shukaku was an influence he would have to fight against all his life, but he refused to fight against his own mind. Gritting his teeth, he forced his anger down, and ignored Shukaku’s grating laugh as it settled again at the back of his mind.

The Kazekage was staring at him.

No – he was staring slightly to the side of Gaara’s face.

Gaara turned his head slowly, and realised with a jolt that the cork of his gourd was hovering to the side of his face, supported by a wave of sand. A sick feeling that he didn’t recognise churned his stomach as he stared at the cork, his skin gone cold and clammy.

It took more effort than it should have, but Gaara forced the sand back into the gourd and wedged the cork in tight. His arms were trembling.

“That is what you call being a new person?” the Kazekage said, still staring.

Gaara looked at him. “Yes,” he said, dimly pleased that his voice was as flat and expressionless as ever. “Before, I would have killed you.”

At that, the Kazekage looked thoughtful, his hard gaze switching to Gaara. “We will speak again tomorrow,” he said, and four ANBU materialised in the room to escort Gaara off the premises.

~

Later that night, Gaara found himself huddled in the main bedroom of his new house, crammed into a narrow corner between two walls and the bed. He had left the gourd downstairs, but had summoned a small lump of sand that now hovered in midair between his outstretched hands.

He formed the sand into a sphere, hard and round and compressed as tightly as he could. Then he slowly pulled it apart, grain by grain, creating bigger and bigger gaps in the sand until it looked like a tiny, sand-based explosion contained by his fingers. He let the sand drop, falling to the floor in a messy pile, then summoned it back up and started all over again.

Gaara’s loss of control scared him.

It was not a feeling he was familiar with. He knew the wrenching pain of betrayal, the savage joy in death, the deep cloud of apathy that coated most of his days, but not fear. Fear was something that other people felt, people who came across him at the wrong moment. And they were always afraid of something else, never themselves. It made no sense to be scared of yourself.

But he was.

Always before, as far as he could remember, the sand had followed his instructions. It moved involuntarily to his defence, but if there was no direct, physical attack aimed his way, it did not move until he commanded it to do so.

Or so he had always thought.

Perhaps Shukaku had more control over the sand than Gaara had ever realised. Perhaps . . . perhaps he had only thought he was in control because he had agreed with Shukaku for so long. And perhaps, if that was so, the next time he needed the sand . . . the sand might not obey him.

The thought that his sand was not in fact his was the most terrifying thing that Gaara had ever come across. Not even the thought of his own death could make his throat clench in the same way, or set his stomach to churning and a chill wash over his body. Gaara judged himself by what he could do, and if the sand was not his to control, then—

He didn’t know.

But that was irrelevant if he could ensure that it never happened again. One lapse could not define a person, so long as it remained only one lapse.

And it would.

All of Gaara’s life had been an exercise in control, of one form or another. This was just another type of control he needed to cultivate.

~

The following day Gaara was escorted by the Sand’s ANBU into the Kazekage’s presence once more.

“Sit,” the Kazekage told him. Gaara couldn’t read his expression, but that only meant that the Kazekage was not angry, afraid, or prepared for a fight. Although Gaara had come into contact with other types of emotion, he had not yet done so in sufficient quantities to be able to identify them immediately, leaving most people a mystery to him. It was something he would have to rectify as soon as he worked out the proper training method, as it was a weakness that he could not now afford to have.

The Kazekage did not wait for Gaara to finish seating himself before speaking. “I have thought on what you said yesterday,” he said. “I believe I understand what you are asking of me. You wish me to treat you as just another one of the shinobi of the village. You wish me to ignore the people you have killed – both civilians and shinobi – and wipe the slate clean. And you think that I will do this without qualm . . . if I am not an idiot.”

Gaara stared at him flatly, saying nothing and silently revising his estimate of the Kazekage’s intelligence down a notch or two. It had been perfectly evident from what he had said that that was what Gaara wanted. The Kazekage should not have needed to think on it.

It appeared he had not finished, however. “I say I would be an idiot if I agreed to do so without any qualifications,” the Godaime concluded.

“What qualifications?” Gaara wanted to know.

“The first being that you treat the office of Kazekage with due respect,” the Kazekage replied, his smile hard. “The second being that you understand that the moment you cause undue harm to a civilian or another shinobi without provocation – provocation that is witnessed by at least two other Sand shinobi, mind you – this agreement is revoked. The third being that you must swear to me, here and now, that you will act as a shinobi of the Sand is expected to act in all endeavours. If you’ve forgotten what that is, I suggest you get a copy of our handbook. Or enrol in the academy again, it’s up to you.”

“What do you consider due respect?” Gaara wanted to know.

“Common courtesy,” the Kazekage snapped. “Which you seem to afford to no one.”

Gaara stared at him. “What do you consider common courtesy?” he asked.

“Don’t mock me! Either agree to the conditions or leave the village,” the Godaime snarled at him.

“I cannot agree to the conditions when I do not understand one of them,” Gaara replied. “I am not mocking you. I do not know what you consider to be common courtesy.”

The Kazekage stared at him, incredulous. “Then use what you consider to be common courtesy,” he said.

“I have,” Gaara replied. “You find this inadequate.”

For a moment, Gaara wondered if the Kazekage was going to attack him. The man had gone unnaturally still, and was staring at Gaara with narrowed eyes. Then the moment passed, and the Kazekage said, “Address me as Kazekage-sama. Say please and thank you. Do not give me orders. Avoid giving offence, and apologise if I tell you offence has been taken. Is that clear?”

Gaara nodded. “Then I agree to your conditions, Kazekage-sama, and I apologise if you have taken any offence.”

“Good. Now get out.”

~

Initially, it seemed as though the Kazekage was as good as his word. He retracted all of the shinobi formerly assigned to watching Gaara, and nobody came after him on a contract from his own village – not that that had ever been a particularly regular event, but under the previous Kazekage there had always been the threat from the ANBU assigned to watch him. Now, that threat had vanished, and Gaara was satisfied.

At first.

The first time Gaara had left his new house to buy groceries was before the Kazekage had agreed to his request. The people in the market were wary of him, but supplied him promptly (perhaps a little too promptly, though Gaara was not objecting) and while they spoke in hushed voices as he passed, their speech rose to a normal level again almost as soon as he had moved on, well before he was out of range. It was a start, he concluded.

Then he went out after he had made his agreement with the Kazekage.

Something Gaara had noticed shortly after his final meeting with the Kazekage was that, all of a sudden, there were no ANBU observing him. Previously, there had always been at least two ANBU assigned to a sort of guard duty around him, who followed him wherever he went though they never interacted with him. Their absence was pleasing, an indication that the Kazekage was taking his promise seriously.

Gaara’s groceries lasted him less time than another person’s would have, as his sleeping habits meant that he ate at least four full meals a day in order to keep himself going. Having planned his meals carefully so that he would have enough left for breakfast on the day that he would need to shop for food again, Gaara ate the remaining food and washed the bowl before shouldering his gourd and leaving the house.

He walked the three steps down the small path from his house to the main road. The entry to his house was in shade, making it difficult for those on the main road to see him in the fierce sunlight, so it was a moment before Gaara was noticed by those around him. That moment had been filled with bustle and noise, with laughter and shouts and the general noise of a busy town at midday.

Then he stepped out into the light.

The first person to notice him was a stocky middle-aged woman in conversation with another woman of roughly her build and age on the other side of the street. Gaara saw her stop dead in the middle of a sentence, blood draining from her face, and from there it was a domino effect. Her companion noticed, and then those closest to them noticed, and it spread out in waves around Gaara. People had ceased speaking. Most had not stopped moving, although many changed direction as they saw him. Strangest of all, though, was that their eyes kept darting up to the roofs of the houses and into dark alleys as though searching for a saviour in an unlikely place.

Or for ANBU, Gaara realised with a jolt.

The average civilian would not be able to detect an ANBU if they were set on hiding themselves, but it was the only thing that made sense. The villagers were looking in the places they expected ANBU to be watching Gaara from.

But why would they be looking for the ANBU?

Moving slowly, Gaara walked out into the middle of the road and turned towards the centre of town, heading for the market. In a direct contrast to his previous shopping trip, before the agreement with the Kazekage, those around him went dead silent as he passed, frozen in place, and did not resume their usual business once he had gone – instead, they slowly filtered away from the market into the other parts of the village, leaving what should have been the busiest street in Sunagakure virtually empty. A few shopkeepers stood their ground, but most began hurriedly packing up their stalls as soon as he appeared.

Gaara had expected a certain level of wariness around him – the person he had been in the minds of the villagers and other Sand shinobi could not be undone overnight, and their wariness would take time to fade. He had expected to be shunned and treated as dangerous by those around him for a long time to come, until it sank in that he was not going to harm any of them. He had expected it to be difficult.

He had not expected this. He had not expected it to get worse.

Gaara was not stupid. He was sure that the abrupt about-face in attitude had something to do with him, and something to do with his agreement with the Kazekage. But the actual problem itself eluded him. Was it him? No, or else the same thing would have happened on his first visit. Nothing about him had changed since then. Was it his agreement with the Kazekage? No, because that should have reassured the villagers, not scared them.

He was left with the question of why the absence of ANBU made the civilians react in such a manner. The Kazekage had ordered the ANBU to watch Gaara so that they would be ready to kill him either if Gaara himself showed signs of defecting from Sunagakure or if the Kazekage so willed it. Their absence meant that Gaara was free from the constant, immediate threat of assassination; it should not have had any effect at all on the average citizen.

Gaara stared around him in confusion, noting the way people avoiding looking at anything near him and were rapidly moving away, leaving him at the centre of a widening circle of emptiness. There had to be something he was missing, but Gaara could not think of it.

Temari and Kankurou would know.

~

He abandoned his previous plans for that day, and instead of going to the market went straight to Temari’s. It was likely that both his siblings would be there, as Kankurou usually went there when not on a mission, trying to beg a meal off their sister, while Temari used her time off to relax at home.

Gaara didn’t bother to knock, pushing the door open and walking straight in. He didn’t take off his gourd as he usually would have in his sister’s house, either, too tense from the walk through Sunagakure, and simply stood in the hallway and waited. It felt like there was something squeezing his chest, making it hard to talk, so he just waited for Temari and Kankurou to acknowledge his presence. They would have sensed him; they wouldn’t be alive today if they weren’t sensitive to the chakra of those around them.

“Who’s there?” Temari called from the kitchen a bare second later, her voice getting louder as she walked through the house towards him. “If that’s you, Shinichi, I’m going to rip you a new one. Just because the door is open doesn’t mean—” She stopped as she saw Gaara, eyes widening. “Gaara? What’s wrong?”

“Gaara?” Kankurou stuck his head around the corner, a half-eaten sandwich in one hand.

“Why are the villagers afraid of me?” Gaara asked them both without preamble.

Kankurou glanced at his sister and disappeared around the corner. Temari opened her mouth. She stayed like that for a full second, then shut it again. Kankurou reappeared, sans sandwich.

Gaara scowled at both of them. “They are displaying an inordinate level of fear,” he said.

“Um, Gaara, you do realise—” Kankurou began.

Gaara turned on his heel and strode back out into the sunlight, stopping just outside the door.

After a moment, he felt Temari and Kankurou cautiously come up behind him. As soon as they reached him, he strode forwards, observing once again how the few people still in the road caught sight of him and went silent, edging away as quietly as they could. Standing in the centre of the road, he turned back to stare at Temari and Kankurou and crossed his arms over his chest.

The bemused, startled expression faded from their faces as they took in the reactions of those around Gaara. Eyes narrowed, his siblings looked at one another.

“You know why,” Gaara said. It wasn’t a question.

Kankurou shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “Yeah, but I didn’t know that I knew until now,” he said.

“Let’s go inside,” Temari decided, walking back into the house. “I’m not having this conversation on the doorstep.”

~

The ANBU.

True to his word, the Kazekage had removed the ANBU from the constant watch Gaara had been under almost all of his life. Gaara had relaxed somewhat, free from the immediate, omnipresent threat of assassination. That the ANBU were no longer watching Gaara had leaked out into the population, and the news had spread like wildfire.

Gaara had thought that that would allow the residents of Sunagakure to trust him more than previously. Look, they no longer need to watch me. I am not the person I was.

But no one had told him the full purpose of his ANBU watch.

They presented a constant threat of assassination, true.

But they had also been put in place to provide some measure of protection for the average citizen.

Protection.

From him.

And now that protection was gone, and the civilians knew about it. They knew that when they dealt with him, they were on their own. If Gaara decided to kill them, they would have absolutely no chance. Not that many of the ANBU would have been able to put up more than a token resistance against Gaara – but then the self-deception the human race was capable of never ceased to amaze him.

They did not feel safe around him, and now it was doubtful whether they ever would.

~

Temari had offered to buy his groceries for him. Gaara had refused.

Which was how he came to be walking down the market street of the Hidden Sand with Temari on his left and Kankurou on his right. The reactions of those around them were still far more tense than was warranted, but the presence of his siblings seemed to reassure the civilians somewhat. They weren’t running from him now.

“You don’t have to do this, Gaara,” Temari muttered, scowling blackly at one man who was staring at Gaara with naked hatred on his face. “I can deal with these jackasses for you—”

“I will not hide,” Gaara said.

Strangely, that made her step hesitate for the barest moment, before it passed and she resumed her smooth stride. On his other side, Kankurou shifted, and his shoulder brushed against Gaara’s a little too firmly to be entirely accidental. When Gaara glanced over at him, he had the strangest little half-smile on his face that widened when he saw Gaara looking.

Shrugging mentally and dismissing it, Gaara continued on.

~

Gaara continued to visit the market with both of his siblings for another month. After that, Kankurou was sent on a long mission that would mean his absence for an indeterminate period of time, and Temari was his sole companion on those shopping trips.

Gaara learned a lot about his siblings on those trips, enough to realise that he had never known them before at all. One of the strangest things he learned was that despite their previous fear of him and reluctance to associate with him, they had both always defended him from critics.

“You’re my brother,” Temari had said. “Only I can beat you up and be mean to you. Not that I could, or would have,” she added hastily. “Just . . . you’re my brother. My brother.”

Gaara had not seen why this was an explanation for their defence of him – or really anything other than a declaration that Temari had wanted to beat the crap out of him, which Temari hastily assured him was not what she meant – but she had not been able to explain further. Gaara had concluded that sibling relations had nothing to do with sense or sanity, but he quietly resolved to offer the same loyalty that Temari and Kankurou had shown to him back to them. He wouldn’t threaten them with physical harm, though; he’d already threatened them enough in his life that he did not feel obligated to observe that apparent part of sibling interaction.

Temari accompanied him to the market every time he needed shopping for the next four months, even going so far as to work out whether Gaara would need to go shopping while she was away on a mission, and compensating for that accordingly in the amount they bought. She also worked out what type of food Gaara would needed dependent on the missions he was taking, and so made sure they only bought perishables when Gaara would be at home for long enough to use them all. She seemed to regard making sure that Gaara would never have to go shopping on his own with the seriousness of a mission.

Gaara, however, had been observing that the attitudes of the civilians of the Hidden Sand had gradually been thawing. As time passed, it became more and more apparent that for whatever reason, Gaara was no longer as homicidally dangerous as he had been before, and some of the villagers began to relax as a result. Many remained suspicious, but a sufficient number were no more than ordinarily wary of him when he told Temari that he would go shopping on his own the next time he needed groceries. Gaara had to make it clear to her that he did not intend to suddenly jump from chaperoned to always alone, however, before she would agree – his intention was to gradually allow them to become more used to him being on his own and not being a danger, not to scare them badly with sudden moves.

For the most part, it worked. Gaara was still not actively accepted among the villagers, but they were gradually working down to the usual level of suspicion and fear. Gaara accepted that those would take longer to change.

Slowly, Temari began to leave him on his own more and more, until eventually he always shopped alone. Outside of that, he rarely had cause to interact with other members of the village. He saw his brother and sister, he saw the shopkeepers, and he saw the shinobi in the mission office. Beyond that, he remained alone.

~

Weeks passed with no change.

Then months.

Then years.

~

Gaara had stagnated.

He had achieved much – far more than he would have thought possible before he met Naruto. Shukaku’s influence over him had decreased; the more he distanced himself from Shukaku’s screaming-scraping-clawing, the easier it became to control it and ignore it. He still did not have enough control over Shukaku to allow him to sleep, but it was no longer so difficult to ignore Shukaku’s call during his waking hours, and from the benefit of hindsight Gaara saw how close he had been to allowing Shukaku to destroy his mind completely. He had learned so much about his siblings that it was as if the Temari and Kankurou of before Naruto and the Temari and Kankurou of after were entirely different people; then they had been objects to him, sentient but unimportant – and now they were people who worried over him, trained with him, talked to him and even sometimes argued with him. They were people to him now, important people.

He owed Naruto for his sanity, and for his family.

And yet he was still alone and still hated, with no idea of how to move forward.

Gaara believed that a major part of the problem was that he still did not understand what it was that had made Naruto keep going when it seemed like he had no reason to do so. Intellectually, he knew – Naruto had told that he had precious people to defend, and because of that he had continued to fight. But. . . . Gaara supposed that Temari and Kankurou, of all the people in the world, would count as his precious people, but it was hard to think of them as ones who needed protecting when they could quite obviously protect themselves. His siblings were among the village’s most powerful shinobi, and although Gaara was stronger than them he knew he would not be thanked if he tried to protect them from anything. He felt no drive to protect them from what they were fully capable of handling and would not thank him for depriving them of.

He did not understand why a precious person would be a reason to fight. He did not understand why anyone would fight to defend for another person at the risk of their own life.

This puzzle fixed itself in Gaara’s mind, playing over and over as he tried to find a solution. Temari and Kankurou had become important to him, but he trusted them to take care of themselves. They did not need him to defend them. How, then, was a precious person so important as something to risk your life defending?

The only people Gaara had any meaningful interaction with were other shinobi. Shinobi tended to stick to themselves; other shinobi were the only ones who could truly understand what their life was, and what that life meant. A result of this was that Gaara did not see how one could possibly have meaningful interaction with a non-shinobi, and thus did not see how a non-shinobi could come to be a precious person. He was gradually coming to realise that one could define oneself not in relation to what one could do to others, but in how one related to others, but if it was impossible to have meaningful interaction with a non-shinobi and they were the ones who most needed protecting, then how was Gaara to understand Naruto? If one was able to connect more closely with a shinobi of power comparable to oneself, then why was protection such an essential part of having a precious person? People precious to yourself did not need protection. That was why they had become precious to you.

Gaara knew that he was not the most socially adept of people, and that his interaction with other humans left much to be desired. He only truly spoke to Temari and Kankurou, and only exchanged a few words with other villagers and shinobi that related purely to business exchanges. He knew that he was missing something, and he knew that he had no idea of how to go about filling in his missing knowledge. He had no opportunity to do so, and he did not know how to make an opportunity. Temari and Kankurou were useless when questioned on this topic, hopelessly unequipped to deal with such a socially retarded younger sibling.

It was only the knowledge of his own lack of knowledge which prevented Gaara from dismissing Naruto’s ways out of hand. Naruto had shown him a path which Gaara had benefited from, but there was nothing to say that it was all correct. Gaara had his doubts; it was only because Gaara knew he was missing things that he decided he could not dismiss the parts he did not understand. If in future his knowledge increased so that he had a full understanding of the situation and it was still nonsensical, then he could dismiss it. Until then, he would not reject something he did not understand solely because he did not understand it.

And so, stagnant, he found himself waiting.

And waiting.





Eleven thousand, three hundred words in, and I'm still only barely halfway. Argh.