GaaTema - A Downward Spiral
Title: A Downward Spiral
Word Count: 4,431
Comments/Rating: "T+" for vague sexual references, mild language, and *~*incest*~*. So, this started as a way to SHOW MY FRIEND THAT GAATEMA IS POSSIBLE, and I hope I did okay. The scenes are a little jumpy, but I think it works well enoughIhope.
How had it come to this?
She writhed beneath him, half in pleasure, half in an effort to get him off. This wasn't right. It was sick, and she was seriously fucked up in the head to ever have let things come this far.
It had started out simply enough.
"Do you love me?"
A loaded question. She had been sitting in her room, polishing her fan, when Gaara had pushed through the door without any warning of his presence, and jumped that statement on her. Temari had blanched, her first reaction prompting her to raise the weapon in her hand against the younger sibling hovering ominously in her doorway, as if her fan could shield her from the verbal onslaught soon to come her way.
It had happened ever since That Day. The day Gaara had been defeated for the very first time - and by a loud, brash, bumbling idiot, to boot! Temari was still incredulous at the idea of her traumatizingly scary little brother falling when faced with that obnoxious blonde from Konoha.
The first few days had been awkward. Gaara had shut himself in his room, coming out only to partake in meager amounts of food, before retreating back into the solitude their humble abode provided him. He was malnourished - both older siblings had seen his health dissipate each rare chance they saw him.
Both siblings were too afraid to confront him on the matter.
The murderous aura Gaara usually exuded had increased tenfold after his fight with Uzumaki Naruto. He was more volatile than usual. He was more apt to kill on a moment's notice.
The weeks to follow had been worse. He had started questioning things, pressuring his siblings to provide him with answers they couldn't readily give. The first round of interrogation had been fairly easy.
"Do you care about each other?"
He hadn't even bothered to group himself in with them. He already knew how they viewed him.
"Did you care about your father?"
Their father. As if Gaara had never been conceived, had never been 'born', but only created.
"Are you afraid of me?"
That one had been a little harder to answer. The maniacal gleam in Gaara's eyes had told them that, were they to answer in the affirmative, he would kill them both for showing him such pitiful weakness. Kankurou had always been hesitant to answer any of his questions, but this one had gotten him tongue-tied. Temari, feeling a surge of protectiveness for both her brothers, coincidentally, had been the one to answer.
It had been her downfall.
"We aren't afraid of you." And she had left it at that, had let the unspoken words hang in the air between them, because they were walking a fine line. If she dared lie to the redhead, he would kill them. If she showed weakness in front of him, he would kill them. She was cornered, and so had said what needed to be said. Strong, despite the fact that death was literally looking her in the eye.
Gaara had focused the brunt of his questioning on her ever since.
"If you aren't afraid of me, then what are you afraid of?" He was sneering at her, arms crossed over his chest in a stance that brooked no room for argument. Testing her. Probing her. He needed a reason to kill her. Just one small little reason, and all his confusion would be gone. All his concerns, his questions, would dissipate.
"You're powerful." She had been sparring at the time, and had used the pretense of regaining her breath to form a suitable answer.
If she admitted fear, she would die.
His sneer widened, taking on a demonic undertone.
"You're afraid of my power?"
"I didn't say that."
She had walked passed him before he could say another word. Safe. For now.
The next time he had been even more relentless.
"So you admit that I'm stronger than you?"
He had cornered her in the kitchen this time, still standing a suitable distance away, but his mere presence could barely be contained in a single room. The chilling waves of power had washed over her in a sickening caress. He was doing it on purpose.
But she would not be weak.
"You have a demon inside of you."
Blunt. To the point. The subject had rarely been breached between them - not since That Day - but Temari wasn't afraid. If she showed fear, she would die.
"And that frightens you?"
His smile had been too wide to be simply human.
"I didn't say that."
She had moved to brush passed him again, but he had stopped her with a hand to her shoulder. The contact was electrifying. It brought a rush of painful memories to the surface of her mind, made her want to jerk away and scream at him to not touch her again. She quelled the urge, and instead gave him as calm and cool a gaze as she could muster.
"What?"
He had watched her for a minute longer, scrutinizing her appearance, trying to pinpoint some source of fear on her features. Something he found there must have pleased him, because he let go soon after, a smirk on his lips. Temari could feel his gaze prick her back all the way to her room. She had shut the door and sighed, relieved to finally be rid of his presence...
... And had promptly retreated to her bathroom and retched.
He knew.
He knew, and she was screwed.
"You're afraid of me."
It was a statement now. Temari had been in the marketplace, picking up some things for dinner that night, when Gaara had materialized behind her, the fabric of his sash brushing against her back. He was close. People were watching. Temari froze, her breath hitched in her throat, and all she could think of was that he was so damn close, and it wasn't fair that he was going to kill her when she had so much to live for. It wasn't fair that he would pick her out from all the other people he could call victim. It wasn't right, and he was a sadistic bastard, and he was standing way too fucking close.
She couldn't say anything to that statement.
If she showed fear, she would die.
So instead she had redirected him.
"Here." She turned around, handing over a simple white box she had purchased only a moment ago. She had been saving it as a surprise, hoping, offhandedly, to make some kind of peace with her younger sibling before he decided to crush her in his trademark Sand Coffin.
Gaara eyed the box as if it would leap out and attack him, but after several long moments of contemplation, had taken the gift and tentatively opened it.
Gizzard.
He blinked once, twice, then snapped his head up to eye Temari speculatively, a scowl on his features.
"It's for you," she pushed, hoping it would satisfy him for now. Or, at least, distract him.
His scowl deepened, but he didn't say a word, instead disappearing in a swirl of sand.
He took the food with him.
It had spiraled out of control after that.
"Do you want to kill me?"
"Of course not."
He never believed her, she could see it in his eyes.
"You couldn't, even if you tried."
There was that dangerous sneer again, and suddenly Temari felt very angry with her situation. Cornered. Trapped. And she did not like that feeling.
"And what about you?" She had countered, crossing her own arms over her chest, a mirror image of the boy standing just outside her doorway. "Do you want to kill me?"
It was perhaps the worst question she could have ever asked.
"Yes." He said it calmly at first, and then he took a stop forward, breaching the inner sanctum of her room, and she could see how his entire body was shaking as he unraveled his arms from across his chest. "Every day."
Her breathing grew heavier, body tensing as she realized this was barely Gaara speaking anymore.
"I see you broken. I want you broken. But the thought of you breaking disgusts me."
... Oh-kay. So apparently she had prodded at a testy topic.
And then it hit her.
She... didn't know what Gaara wanted.
Kankurou was easy enough to figure out. He wanted new parts for his puppets, an endless supply of food and alcohol, and complete privacy when he brought home another of his ten dollar whores. (She consciously ignored his 'wants', of course.)
But Temari honestly had no clue what Gaara wanted... what he liked to do... what could make him happy.
Was death really the only thing he held dear in his life?
The answer to that was obvious.
A pang of something overwhelmed her, then, making her blanch if but for a split second.
Temari was, in most cases, an overachiever. Not because she wanted to do 'well', but because she felt the need to be better than the other shinobi around her. She was smart, strong, made tactful decisions and executed her plans with a sharp kind of precision.
And for the longest time, she had been working under the same knowledge and assumptions that all the others were working under. Essentially, she knew as little as they did, and Gaara was her fucking brother.
It was the momentum of that realization that really screwed her over.
If Gaara was going to pick apart her emotions, she would do the same in return. It was only fair.
So the next time he asked her a difficult question, she countered with one of her own.
"You're afraid of me."
Like a broken record, really.
"Do you want me to be afraid of you?"
Skirting around the truth, but this change in tactics instantly put the redhead on edge. His body tensed, but a dark smile lifted the corner of his lips.
"If you were afraid of me, you would be just like everyone else."
And she understood his meaning perfectly.
Gaara killed everyone else. He hadn't killed her yet.
The next time had been harder, not because of the difficulty of his question... but because she had almost enjoyed the tact laced in both their words.
"So I'm not like everyone else?" She had initiated it this time.
His cold glare hinted at the fact that she had said something wrong.
"Are you afraid of me?"
She was growing less and less afraid each time they talked, but she still couldn't answer that question.
"You think I'm weak?"
He had smiled at that.
"I think everyone is weak."
She had smiled in return. It was almost funny, in a way, even though she doubted Gaara had meant it to sound like that.
But then it hit her, again.
If he thought everyone was weak, then he thought she was weak... which meant he would kill her.
Only... he had given her a way out. If she feared him, she would be like everyone else, and would therefore be considered a target. If she didn't fear him, then she wouldn't be like everyone else, and...
And what?
The next question had chilled her to the bone.
"If I killed Kankurou, what would you do?"
It was stated so nonchalantly, as if the thought of killing a family member would be such an easy affair. Though, he had already killed one, once before.
"Why would you want to kill him?"
Question for a question.
He frowned.
"Why not?"
"Gaara... he's our brother."
Our. Not just hers. His, too.
"That doesn't mean anything."
"It means everything."
She was persistent. Kankurou and Gaara were all she had in this life. True, one was a jackass with a fetish for makeup and dolls, and the other was an emotionally stunted sociopath, but they were her family, and she had no idea how she could survive one day without having to kick either of their asses one way or the other.
Gaara eyed her for a moment, then breathed out long and low.
"You're just like everyone else."
Those were loaded words.
"How so?"
Guarded, instantly tense. Gaara noticed. Gaara smirked.
"You find worth in meaningless things."
She opened her mouth to protest, but stopped herself by the look her younger sibling was throwing her. One wrong move, and he would be justified in killing her then and there. It didn't take much to set him off.
"Kankurou isn't meaningless."
He opened his mouth to protest, as well, but she cut him off.
"You aren't meaningless."
He growled then - outright growled - and stalked forward, grabbing her wrist before she could flinch away.
"If you find my existence so valuable, then let me kill you to prove my own worth."
Let him kill her? But he could do that at any-
The realization was like a smack in the face.
Gaara, her little brother, lived by killing others... But he felt the greatest when killing an exceptionally powerful opponent. He wanted her to fight back. Her fighting back... was nearly the same as her telling him to kill her.
She was screwed.
If she showed weakness, he would kill her. If she fought back, he would consider it an invitation to kill her.
He had left her, then, but the next time he came back, she had a question of her own.
"What do you want?"
It was the right question to ask.
"To kill you."
Simple. Quick, and to the point. She understood, too. He was goading her, had been goading her. He wanted to kill her, but he wanted it to be satisfying, as well. The more she fought back, the more satisfying it would be.
"That's not something I want."
Not afraid. Just making a point.
"It doesn't matter what you want."
Such a sadistic bastard.
Was this really the little child of years ago? The boy who had cried so hard when those around him rejected him time and time again? The one who had never cried again since the day their uncle had died?
"It matters to me."
Stubborn. Just like the redhead in front of her.
He eyed her for a moment, a sudden rage flaring up in his usually emotionless eyes, then was gone in the next instant.
Their next talk was infinitely more violent.
"You always get what you want." Coming from anyone else, the words would have sounded petulant. Coming from Gaara, they sounded nothing short of threatening. "You should suffer."
Temari blinked, incredulous.
"You were just as spoiled as us, Gaara. You can't blame me for-"
"That's not what I meant."
The sand shifted ominously in his gourd.
"Touch me." His voice was low, cold, and he said those words in the same tone he usually said, 'Shut up. I'll kill you.' It was disconcerting, and had Temari frozen to the spot. What did he mean by that? Gaara wasn't the touchy feely type, and he sure as hell knew that Temari wasn't, either. She could count on one hand the number of times she had hugged Kankurou, and even those had been out of mocking spite.
"Gaara, I-"
"Do it."
She could hear the Shukaku in his voice. The hairs on the back of her neck rose in warning, every nerve in her body screaming at her to run away, yet she pressed forward, fighting back her instincts and primitive urges.
It had started with a hug.
Something simple. Something completely platonic. Something easily escapable.
It evolved into something far more deranged.
The first time Gaara had brushed his fingers along her arm in a casual gesture, she had felt sickened by the touch. She couldn't jerk away. He would kill her if she ran, and yet staying on this course would lead to her inevitable death. Humoring him would buy her time, at least.
It took him a while to progress any further.
It happened one night, while Temari was fast asleep. A sudden shift in the air had alerted her to a presence in the room, and she had lifted up quickly on high alert. Gaara was there, on the far side of the room, watching her. He seemed unfazed that he had been caught snooping.
"Go to sleep."
"... Gaara?"
"Go. To. Sleep."
Blinking, she had laid her head back down and tried to force her breaths to even out.
Needless to say, she had gotten very little sleep that night.
Weeks later, the same thing had happened, only after about an hour or so of her trying to force herself back to sleep, she had felt that foreboding presence in the room shift and move closer. Her breath hitched in her throat as a smooth hand threaded its ways against her hair, smoothing out her tangled blonde locks in harsh movements. If she had had a sensitive scalp, she would have cried out in pain.
A week after that, his hands strayed downward, touching her neck, scraping his nails along her skin in a blundering, clumsy way.
"Gaara." Her voice was hard now, warning, but his was harder, more intimidating in its entirely legitimate threats.
"Speak again, and I will cut out your tongue and feed it to you."
Such a bland monotone to accompany such terrifying words.
She stayed quiet, resisting the need to shudder in absolute disgust.
He wouldn't go that far.
He wouldn't.
And then he had asked that question. The love question. And she knew that she was screwed. No matter where she turned, he would kill her. If she loved him, then he would kill her to confirm his existence - to prove her love. If she didn't love him, then he would consider it a betrayal, and would kill her anyways.
So she had diverted his attention. Again.
It physically pained her to touch him, and yet it was her only defense against the imminent death staring her down at all hours of the day and night. She had reached forward and stroked her fingers along his arm, just a quick, innocent touch, but he had pulled back and hissed at her like some kind of feral animal, eyes wide, teeth bared in a warning.
"Do not fuck with me."
It was probably the first time she had ever heard Gaara cuss.
She didn't touch him again after that. He left quickly, disappearing in a whirlwind, and didn't come back for days.
When he returned, Temari was the first to know. It had been late at night, and she was fast asleep in her bed, when that familiar, haunting presence had invaded her senses. She tensed up, listening for any hint of where he might be in the house, then nearly gasped in shock when the empty space on the bed behind her dipped with the added weight of another.
"Gaara, get out of my bed."
She wouldn't go this far.
She'd rather die.
She wouldn't, wouldn't, wouldn't!
His arm snaked upwards, along her side, around her waist. With a muffled cry of protest, Temari jerked away, stumbling out of her bed and turning on Gaara with a vicious look in her eyes.
"Do not fuck with me."
His own words thrown back at him.
She had promptly stomped out of the room and camped out in the living room until morning. When those first rays of sunlight finally peeked through the windows, she ventured back into her sanctuary, under the assumption that Gaara would have gotten bored and left by then.
He was still there, arms crossed behind his head in a lazy manner, lounging across her bed as if he owned the place.
"You are afraid of me," he taunted, and Temari clenched her teeth to keep from yelling at him.
The next time he slipped beneath her covers and went to pull her into his chilling embrace, she didn't protest, finding a sick kind of satisfaction in the rigid tenseness of his own frame. He wasn't nearly as confident as he tried to portray.
Maybe he was a little afraid of her, too?
Thus the game began.
He taunted her with a brush of fingers, and she purposefully strode past him close enough for their shoulders to touch. He tried to intimidate her with his physical presence, and she would pull him in for a mock-hug.
The touches became more intense.
The disgust warped, shifted, until the shivers of hatred were nearly pleasant, and the fear settled into her stomach was practically nothing more than smug confidence. He was just a child, after all. He was still so unsure, so easily manipulated, so... innocent, in his own twisted sense of the word.
"Do you fear me?"
He had asked her one last time while they both lay in her bed, her head nestled against his arm, his hand drawing light circles on her shoulder.
"No."
And it was the truth. This time, it was the truth.
He had tensed at that declaration, clearly not expecting it, and something in his demeanor had shifted.
She realized her mistake too late.
"Are you going to kill me now?"
There should have been hesitance there. There was nothing but resignation. Cold determination.
"... Not yet."
Indeterminable. A lapse in his usual careful planning. Had she cracked his cold facade?
Not yet. It sounded promising, at least.
And for each touch they shared, those 'Not yet's became more fierce, more angry, more furious.
If it had happened abruptly, she could have dealt with it. If it had been a month, a year, maybe longer, she would have--
Well. She didn't know what she would have done, exactly, but she definitely wouldn't have stood for it.
The first time Gaara kissed her, she had felt sick to her stomach. It was an innocent enough gesture, just a slight press of the lips against her forehead, but it was surprising enough to leave her feeling completely unguarded, and entirely too helpless. She didn't like that feeling in the least. She detested it.
She had pushed him off of her, disgust apparent on her features.
"We're siblings."
"So?"
"Siblings don't do that."
How could she beat that into his thick skull?
"You let me sleep with you."
She really had no comeback for that one.
Sensing her defeat, Gaara had ruffled her hair for good measure, then stalked off.
The next kiss hadn't been so innocent.
When she had seen him leaning in, obviously going for her lips, she had put a hand to his chest to push him away.
"No."
"Why not?" He sounded angry.
"I just- No, okay?"
He growled, again, another primal sound, and had looked on the verge of forcing her to kiss him, but had pulled back, leaving before his urges clouded his better judgment.
If he had kissed her then, everything would have been over. Whether he killed her or not, Temari simply wouldn't have stood for something so... so... utterly wrong.
Months later, it took an event of shattering ramifications to drive her to a point beyond reason. They had been sent on an escort mission, and something had gone terribly wrong. Kankurou had taken the brunt of an enemy attack to protect the target, and was sent directly to the hospital in Suna. He could have died.
Temari, irrationally, thought it was her duty to protect her little brother, and to see him so broken and bloody had torn at her insides. She never showed it, of course...
"Damn, Kankurou. You stop paying attention for one minute, and you trip and fall directly on a couple dozen kunai."
... but the pain was still there.
"You're breaking."
Temari had retreated to her room earlier than usual that evening, and had taken to huddling under her covers for some sort of comfort. She would regain her strength in the morning. For now, she just wanted to be left alone.
"Go away."
Gaara was having none of that.
He slipped beneath the covers and took up his usual position behind her.
"You're breaking, and I didn't do it."
Was that jealousy in his voice? The prospect made her cringe. Great. Just fucking wonderful. She had one brother in the hospital, and another trying to send her to the same place.
Temari groaned.
"Gaara, I'm not in the mood."
"I don't care."
"Well, you wouldn't, now would you?" she snapped, sick and tired of this whole situation. Why couldn't they be like a normal family? Why did Kankurou have to be a clumsy ass, and why did Gaara have to be a social retard? It wasn't fair.
"You're finally catching on."
And then he kissed her. Long and hard. Violently. Clumsily. There was no tact, no gentleness, no need to comfort. He was taking from her when she had absolutely nothing to give.
... And she wasn't too happy about that.
She kissed him back, equally as angrily, taking as much from him as he did from her. Stealing comfort from someone incapable of comforting, just as he was stealing love from someone incapable of loving him like that.
It had progressed far too quickly, then.
Week by week, they stole, and ate, and fought, and raped each others' emotions. Kankurou healed, returned, and even then Temari found the anger that had settled in the pit of her stomach would not go away. Only Gaara quelled it, intensified it, both pacified and fed it. She wanted to hurt him, her little brother, because he wasn't really her little brother after all, now was he? But she didn't want that. He was her family. She couldn't scar him the way he was scarring her - it just wasn't right.
Her mind was twisting. She could feel it. And damn it, there was no way out.
If she was afraid of him, he would kill her. If she showed weakness, he would kill her. If she threatened him, he would kill her. If she loved him, he would kill her.
There was no way out short of death, and maybe she had known that all along.
She was beneath him. Writhing, bucking, trying to get him off while, at the same time, trying to bring him closer. Carnal, feral. It wasn't even physical attraction. There was no love there. No mutual like. Nothing to persuade the senses into believing this was okay.
It wasn't.
And she knew it wasn't.
It would never be okay.
[END]
Word Count: 4,431
Comments/Rating: "T+" for vague sexual references, mild language, and *~*incest*~*. So, this started as a way to SHOW MY FRIEND THAT GAATEMA IS POSSIBLE, and I hope I did okay. The scenes are a little jumpy, but I think it works well enoughIhope.
How had it come to this?
She writhed beneath him, half in pleasure, half in an effort to get him off. This wasn't right. It was sick, and she was seriously fucked up in the head to ever have let things come this far.
It had started out simply enough.
"Do you love me?"
A loaded question. She had been sitting in her room, polishing her fan, when Gaara had pushed through the door without any warning of his presence, and jumped that statement on her. Temari had blanched, her first reaction prompting her to raise the weapon in her hand against the younger sibling hovering ominously in her doorway, as if her fan could shield her from the verbal onslaught soon to come her way.
It had happened ever since That Day. The day Gaara had been defeated for the very first time - and by a loud, brash, bumbling idiot, to boot! Temari was still incredulous at the idea of her traumatizingly scary little brother falling when faced with that obnoxious blonde from Konoha.
The first few days had been awkward. Gaara had shut himself in his room, coming out only to partake in meager amounts of food, before retreating back into the solitude their humble abode provided him. He was malnourished - both older siblings had seen his health dissipate each rare chance they saw him.
Both siblings were too afraid to confront him on the matter.
The murderous aura Gaara usually exuded had increased tenfold after his fight with Uzumaki Naruto. He was more volatile than usual. He was more apt to kill on a moment's notice.
The weeks to follow had been worse. He had started questioning things, pressuring his siblings to provide him with answers they couldn't readily give. The first round of interrogation had been fairly easy.
"Do you care about each other?"
He hadn't even bothered to group himself in with them. He already knew how they viewed him.
"Did you care about your father?"
Their father. As if Gaara had never been conceived, had never been 'born', but only created.
"Are you afraid of me?"
That one had been a little harder to answer. The maniacal gleam in Gaara's eyes had told them that, were they to answer in the affirmative, he would kill them both for showing him such pitiful weakness. Kankurou had always been hesitant to answer any of his questions, but this one had gotten him tongue-tied. Temari, feeling a surge of protectiveness for both her brothers, coincidentally, had been the one to answer.
It had been her downfall.
"We aren't afraid of you." And she had left it at that, had let the unspoken words hang in the air between them, because they were walking a fine line. If she dared lie to the redhead, he would kill them. If she showed weakness in front of him, he would kill them. She was cornered, and so had said what needed to be said. Strong, despite the fact that death was literally looking her in the eye.
Gaara had focused the brunt of his questioning on her ever since.
"If you aren't afraid of me, then what are you afraid of?" He was sneering at her, arms crossed over his chest in a stance that brooked no room for argument. Testing her. Probing her. He needed a reason to kill her. Just one small little reason, and all his confusion would be gone. All his concerns, his questions, would dissipate.
"You're powerful." She had been sparring at the time, and had used the pretense of regaining her breath to form a suitable answer.
If she admitted fear, she would die.
His sneer widened, taking on a demonic undertone.
"You're afraid of my power?"
"I didn't say that."
She had walked passed him before he could say another word. Safe. For now.
The next time he had been even more relentless.
"So you admit that I'm stronger than you?"
He had cornered her in the kitchen this time, still standing a suitable distance away, but his mere presence could barely be contained in a single room. The chilling waves of power had washed over her in a sickening caress. He was doing it on purpose.
But she would not be weak.
"You have a demon inside of you."
Blunt. To the point. The subject had rarely been breached between them - not since That Day - but Temari wasn't afraid. If she showed fear, she would die.
"And that frightens you?"
His smile had been too wide to be simply human.
"I didn't say that."
She had moved to brush passed him again, but he had stopped her with a hand to her shoulder. The contact was electrifying. It brought a rush of painful memories to the surface of her mind, made her want to jerk away and scream at him to not touch her again. She quelled the urge, and instead gave him as calm and cool a gaze as she could muster.
"What?"
He had watched her for a minute longer, scrutinizing her appearance, trying to pinpoint some source of fear on her features. Something he found there must have pleased him, because he let go soon after, a smirk on his lips. Temari could feel his gaze prick her back all the way to her room. She had shut the door and sighed, relieved to finally be rid of his presence...
... And had promptly retreated to her bathroom and retched.
He knew.
He knew, and she was screwed.
"You're afraid of me."
It was a statement now. Temari had been in the marketplace, picking up some things for dinner that night, when Gaara had materialized behind her, the fabric of his sash brushing against her back. He was close. People were watching. Temari froze, her breath hitched in her throat, and all she could think of was that he was so damn close, and it wasn't fair that he was going to kill her when she had so much to live for. It wasn't fair that he would pick her out from all the other people he could call victim. It wasn't right, and he was a sadistic bastard, and he was standing way too fucking close.
She couldn't say anything to that statement.
If she showed fear, she would die.
So instead she had redirected him.
"Here." She turned around, handing over a simple white box she had purchased only a moment ago. She had been saving it as a surprise, hoping, offhandedly, to make some kind of peace with her younger sibling before he decided to crush her in his trademark Sand Coffin.
Gaara eyed the box as if it would leap out and attack him, but after several long moments of contemplation, had taken the gift and tentatively opened it.
Gizzard.
He blinked once, twice, then snapped his head up to eye Temari speculatively, a scowl on his features.
"It's for you," she pushed, hoping it would satisfy him for now. Or, at least, distract him.
His scowl deepened, but he didn't say a word, instead disappearing in a swirl of sand.
He took the food with him.
It had spiraled out of control after that.
"Do you want to kill me?"
"Of course not."
He never believed her, she could see it in his eyes.
"You couldn't, even if you tried."
There was that dangerous sneer again, and suddenly Temari felt very angry with her situation. Cornered. Trapped. And she did not like that feeling.
"And what about you?" She had countered, crossing her own arms over her chest, a mirror image of the boy standing just outside her doorway. "Do you want to kill me?"
It was perhaps the worst question she could have ever asked.
"Yes." He said it calmly at first, and then he took a stop forward, breaching the inner sanctum of her room, and she could see how his entire body was shaking as he unraveled his arms from across his chest. "Every day."
Her breathing grew heavier, body tensing as she realized this was barely Gaara speaking anymore.
"I see you broken. I want you broken. But the thought of you breaking disgusts me."
... Oh-kay. So apparently she had prodded at a testy topic.
And then it hit her.
She... didn't know what Gaara wanted.
Kankurou was easy enough to figure out. He wanted new parts for his puppets, an endless supply of food and alcohol, and complete privacy when he brought home another of his ten dollar whores. (She consciously ignored his 'wants', of course.)
But Temari honestly had no clue what Gaara wanted... what he liked to do... what could make him happy.
Was death really the only thing he held dear in his life?
The answer to that was obvious.
A pang of something overwhelmed her, then, making her blanch if but for a split second.
Temari was, in most cases, an overachiever. Not because she wanted to do 'well', but because she felt the need to be better than the other shinobi around her. She was smart, strong, made tactful decisions and executed her plans with a sharp kind of precision.
And for the longest time, she had been working under the same knowledge and assumptions that all the others were working under. Essentially, she knew as little as they did, and Gaara was her fucking brother.
It was the momentum of that realization that really screwed her over.
If Gaara was going to pick apart her emotions, she would do the same in return. It was only fair.
So the next time he asked her a difficult question, she countered with one of her own.
"You're afraid of me."
Like a broken record, really.
"Do you want me to be afraid of you?"
Skirting around the truth, but this change in tactics instantly put the redhead on edge. His body tensed, but a dark smile lifted the corner of his lips.
"If you were afraid of me, you would be just like everyone else."
And she understood his meaning perfectly.
Gaara killed everyone else. He hadn't killed her yet.
The next time had been harder, not because of the difficulty of his question... but because she had almost enjoyed the tact laced in both their words.
"So I'm not like everyone else?" She had initiated it this time.
His cold glare hinted at the fact that she had said something wrong.
"Are you afraid of me?"
She was growing less and less afraid each time they talked, but she still couldn't answer that question.
"You think I'm weak?"
He had smiled at that.
"I think everyone is weak."
She had smiled in return. It was almost funny, in a way, even though she doubted Gaara had meant it to sound like that.
But then it hit her, again.
If he thought everyone was weak, then he thought she was weak... which meant he would kill her.
Only... he had given her a way out. If she feared him, she would be like everyone else, and would therefore be considered a target. If she didn't fear him, then she wouldn't be like everyone else, and...
And what?
The next question had chilled her to the bone.
"If I killed Kankurou, what would you do?"
It was stated so nonchalantly, as if the thought of killing a family member would be such an easy affair. Though, he had already killed one, once before.
"Why would you want to kill him?"
Question for a question.
He frowned.
"Why not?"
"Gaara... he's our brother."
Our. Not just hers. His, too.
"That doesn't mean anything."
"It means everything."
She was persistent. Kankurou and Gaara were all she had in this life. True, one was a jackass with a fetish for makeup and dolls, and the other was an emotionally stunted sociopath, but they were her family, and she had no idea how she could survive one day without having to kick either of their asses one way or the other.
Gaara eyed her for a moment, then breathed out long and low.
"You're just like everyone else."
Those were loaded words.
"How so?"
Guarded, instantly tense. Gaara noticed. Gaara smirked.
"You find worth in meaningless things."
She opened her mouth to protest, but stopped herself by the look her younger sibling was throwing her. One wrong move, and he would be justified in killing her then and there. It didn't take much to set him off.
"Kankurou isn't meaningless."
He opened his mouth to protest, as well, but she cut him off.
"You aren't meaningless."
He growled then - outright growled - and stalked forward, grabbing her wrist before she could flinch away.
"If you find my existence so valuable, then let me kill you to prove my own worth."
Let him kill her? But he could do that at any-
The realization was like a smack in the face.
Gaara, her little brother, lived by killing others... But he felt the greatest when killing an exceptionally powerful opponent. He wanted her to fight back. Her fighting back... was nearly the same as her telling him to kill her.
She was screwed.
If she showed weakness, he would kill her. If she fought back, he would consider it an invitation to kill her.
He had left her, then, but the next time he came back, she had a question of her own.
"What do you want?"
It was the right question to ask.
"To kill you."
Simple. Quick, and to the point. She understood, too. He was goading her, had been goading her. He wanted to kill her, but he wanted it to be satisfying, as well. The more she fought back, the more satisfying it would be.
"That's not something I want."
Not afraid. Just making a point.
"It doesn't matter what you want."
Such a sadistic bastard.
Was this really the little child of years ago? The boy who had cried so hard when those around him rejected him time and time again? The one who had never cried again since the day their uncle had died?
"It matters to me."
Stubborn. Just like the redhead in front of her.
He eyed her for a moment, a sudden rage flaring up in his usually emotionless eyes, then was gone in the next instant.
Their next talk was infinitely more violent.
"You always get what you want." Coming from anyone else, the words would have sounded petulant. Coming from Gaara, they sounded nothing short of threatening. "You should suffer."
Temari blinked, incredulous.
"You were just as spoiled as us, Gaara. You can't blame me for-"
"That's not what I meant."
The sand shifted ominously in his gourd.
"Touch me." His voice was low, cold, and he said those words in the same tone he usually said, 'Shut up. I'll kill you.' It was disconcerting, and had Temari frozen to the spot. What did he mean by that? Gaara wasn't the touchy feely type, and he sure as hell knew that Temari wasn't, either. She could count on one hand the number of times she had hugged Kankurou, and even those had been out of mocking spite.
"Gaara, I-"
"Do it."
She could hear the Shukaku in his voice. The hairs on the back of her neck rose in warning, every nerve in her body screaming at her to run away, yet she pressed forward, fighting back her instincts and primitive urges.
It had started with a hug.
Something simple. Something completely platonic. Something easily escapable.
It evolved into something far more deranged.
The first time Gaara had brushed his fingers along her arm in a casual gesture, she had felt sickened by the touch. She couldn't jerk away. He would kill her if she ran, and yet staying on this course would lead to her inevitable death. Humoring him would buy her time, at least.
It took him a while to progress any further.
It happened one night, while Temari was fast asleep. A sudden shift in the air had alerted her to a presence in the room, and she had lifted up quickly on high alert. Gaara was there, on the far side of the room, watching her. He seemed unfazed that he had been caught snooping.
"Go to sleep."
"... Gaara?"
"Go. To. Sleep."
Blinking, she had laid her head back down and tried to force her breaths to even out.
Needless to say, she had gotten very little sleep that night.
Weeks later, the same thing had happened, only after about an hour or so of her trying to force herself back to sleep, she had felt that foreboding presence in the room shift and move closer. Her breath hitched in her throat as a smooth hand threaded its ways against her hair, smoothing out her tangled blonde locks in harsh movements. If she had had a sensitive scalp, she would have cried out in pain.
A week after that, his hands strayed downward, touching her neck, scraping his nails along her skin in a blundering, clumsy way.
"Gaara." Her voice was hard now, warning, but his was harder, more intimidating in its entirely legitimate threats.
"Speak again, and I will cut out your tongue and feed it to you."
Such a bland monotone to accompany such terrifying words.
She stayed quiet, resisting the need to shudder in absolute disgust.
He wouldn't go that far.
He wouldn't.
And then he had asked that question. The love question. And she knew that she was screwed. No matter where she turned, he would kill her. If she loved him, then he would kill her to confirm his existence - to prove her love. If she didn't love him, then he would consider it a betrayal, and would kill her anyways.
So she had diverted his attention. Again.
It physically pained her to touch him, and yet it was her only defense against the imminent death staring her down at all hours of the day and night. She had reached forward and stroked her fingers along his arm, just a quick, innocent touch, but he had pulled back and hissed at her like some kind of feral animal, eyes wide, teeth bared in a warning.
"Do not fuck with me."
It was probably the first time she had ever heard Gaara cuss.
She didn't touch him again after that. He left quickly, disappearing in a whirlwind, and didn't come back for days.
When he returned, Temari was the first to know. It had been late at night, and she was fast asleep in her bed, when that familiar, haunting presence had invaded her senses. She tensed up, listening for any hint of where he might be in the house, then nearly gasped in shock when the empty space on the bed behind her dipped with the added weight of another.
"Gaara, get out of my bed."
She wouldn't go this far.
She'd rather die.
She wouldn't, wouldn't, wouldn't!
His arm snaked upwards, along her side, around her waist. With a muffled cry of protest, Temari jerked away, stumbling out of her bed and turning on Gaara with a vicious look in her eyes.
"Do not fuck with me."
His own words thrown back at him.
She had promptly stomped out of the room and camped out in the living room until morning. When those first rays of sunlight finally peeked through the windows, she ventured back into her sanctuary, under the assumption that Gaara would have gotten bored and left by then.
He was still there, arms crossed behind his head in a lazy manner, lounging across her bed as if he owned the place.
"You are afraid of me," he taunted, and Temari clenched her teeth to keep from yelling at him.
The next time he slipped beneath her covers and went to pull her into his chilling embrace, she didn't protest, finding a sick kind of satisfaction in the rigid tenseness of his own frame. He wasn't nearly as confident as he tried to portray.
Maybe he was a little afraid of her, too?
Thus the game began.
He taunted her with a brush of fingers, and she purposefully strode past him close enough for their shoulders to touch. He tried to intimidate her with his physical presence, and she would pull him in for a mock-hug.
The touches became more intense.
The disgust warped, shifted, until the shivers of hatred were nearly pleasant, and the fear settled into her stomach was practically nothing more than smug confidence. He was just a child, after all. He was still so unsure, so easily manipulated, so... innocent, in his own twisted sense of the word.
"Do you fear me?"
He had asked her one last time while they both lay in her bed, her head nestled against his arm, his hand drawing light circles on her shoulder.
"No."
And it was the truth. This time, it was the truth.
He had tensed at that declaration, clearly not expecting it, and something in his demeanor had shifted.
She realized her mistake too late.
"Are you going to kill me now?"
There should have been hesitance there. There was nothing but resignation. Cold determination.
"... Not yet."
Indeterminable. A lapse in his usual careful planning. Had she cracked his cold facade?
Not yet. It sounded promising, at least.
And for each touch they shared, those 'Not yet's became more fierce, more angry, more furious.
If it had happened abruptly, she could have dealt with it. If it had been a month, a year, maybe longer, she would have--
Well. She didn't know what she would have done, exactly, but she definitely wouldn't have stood for it.
The first time Gaara kissed her, she had felt sick to her stomach. It was an innocent enough gesture, just a slight press of the lips against her forehead, but it was surprising enough to leave her feeling completely unguarded, and entirely too helpless. She didn't like that feeling in the least. She detested it.
She had pushed him off of her, disgust apparent on her features.
"We're siblings."
"So?"
"Siblings don't do that."
How could she beat that into his thick skull?
"You let me sleep with you."
She really had no comeback for that one.
Sensing her defeat, Gaara had ruffled her hair for good measure, then stalked off.
The next kiss hadn't been so innocent.
When she had seen him leaning in, obviously going for her lips, she had put a hand to his chest to push him away.
"No."
"Why not?" He sounded angry.
"I just- No, okay?"
He growled, again, another primal sound, and had looked on the verge of forcing her to kiss him, but had pulled back, leaving before his urges clouded his better judgment.
If he had kissed her then, everything would have been over. Whether he killed her or not, Temari simply wouldn't have stood for something so... so... utterly wrong.
Months later, it took an event of shattering ramifications to drive her to a point beyond reason. They had been sent on an escort mission, and something had gone terribly wrong. Kankurou had taken the brunt of an enemy attack to protect the target, and was sent directly to the hospital in Suna. He could have died.
Temari, irrationally, thought it was her duty to protect her little brother, and to see him so broken and bloody had torn at her insides. She never showed it, of course...
"Damn, Kankurou. You stop paying attention for one minute, and you trip and fall directly on a couple dozen kunai."
... but the pain was still there.
"You're breaking."
Temari had retreated to her room earlier than usual that evening, and had taken to huddling under her covers for some sort of comfort. She would regain her strength in the morning. For now, she just wanted to be left alone.
"Go away."
Gaara was having none of that.
He slipped beneath the covers and took up his usual position behind her.
"You're breaking, and I didn't do it."
Was that jealousy in his voice? The prospect made her cringe. Great. Just fucking wonderful. She had one brother in the hospital, and another trying to send her to the same place.
Temari groaned.
"Gaara, I'm not in the mood."
"I don't care."
"Well, you wouldn't, now would you?" she snapped, sick and tired of this whole situation. Why couldn't they be like a normal family? Why did Kankurou have to be a clumsy ass, and why did Gaara have to be a social retard? It wasn't fair.
"You're finally catching on."
And then he kissed her. Long and hard. Violently. Clumsily. There was no tact, no gentleness, no need to comfort. He was taking from her when she had absolutely nothing to give.
... And she wasn't too happy about that.
She kissed him back, equally as angrily, taking as much from him as he did from her. Stealing comfort from someone incapable of comforting, just as he was stealing love from someone incapable of loving him like that.
It had progressed far too quickly, then.
Week by week, they stole, and ate, and fought, and raped each others' emotions. Kankurou healed, returned, and even then Temari found the anger that had settled in the pit of her stomach would not go away. Only Gaara quelled it, intensified it, both pacified and fed it. She wanted to hurt him, her little brother, because he wasn't really her little brother after all, now was he? But she didn't want that. He was her family. She couldn't scar him the way he was scarring her - it just wasn't right.
Her mind was twisting. She could feel it. And damn it, there was no way out.
If she was afraid of him, he would kill her. If she showed weakness, he would kill her. If she threatened him, he would kill her. If she loved him, he would kill her.
There was no way out short of death, and maybe she had known that all along.
She was beneath him. Writhing, bucking, trying to get him off while, at the same time, trying to bring him closer. Carnal, feral. It wasn't even physical attraction. There was no love there. No mutual like. Nothing to persuade the senses into believing this was okay.
It wasn't.
And she knew it wasn't.
It would never be okay.
[END]