Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Kindred ❯ Day Four - 2AM ( Chapter 7 )

Disclaimer: Naruto is the brainchild of Kishimoto-sama, and I am not worthy. I merely borrow the manga's characters and situations, and make no money off of them.

AN: Thanks for the mm.org reviews ^_^ Always happy to drag more people into this unusual pairing (unusual, but sooooo right ;) )

 

 

 

Day Four - 2AM

 

“I tried not to blame you. I tried to love you.” There were bubbles of frothy pink blood in Yashamaru's mouth. His eyes were glazed. The crackle and rasp behind his words meant a lung had collapsed and punctured beneath his broken ribs. “But she died-...because of you...I-...couldn't-...please, just die...“

“Gaara? Is everything okay?”

“It's your fault!” Temari's nose and eyes were red, as if she'd been crying when no one was looking, but she wasn't crying now. Her face was screwed up in hate and anger that made her look much older than six. “It's your fault my mother's dead! I hate you!”

“It wasn't even worth it,” his father said, disgust and anger and disappointment blended. “He's too unstable. A rabid monster. We have to get rid of him, he's useless and way too dangerous.”

“...Gaara?”

“You- you killed them- you fucking psycho! Why did you- Stay away from me!” Kankuro shouted, backing up so fast he tripped and fell over. Gaara felt a sense of cold validation at the fear in Kankuro's eyes. He existed; seeing himself reflected in that fear, he knew he existed. A streak of vicious amusement faded as Gaara decided if he wanted to kill this one too.

“Gaara!”

Gaara started awake, to find Lee crouched a few feet away, watching him cautiously and poised to leap back. For a heart-crushing moment, Gaara looked into Lee's eyes...but there, he found only concern and pain and fear and love and all of it for him.

The present came back in a rush. Gaara took a deep breath and let his head sink into one hand. He was sitting in a corner of the Kazekage's study- his study, he was the Kazekage, he was twenty-one, he defended his village, his siblings had forgiven him, he hadn't actually killed anyone in months and Lee loved him.

“You okay?” Lee whispered.

Gaara nodded soundlessly. The palm of his hand dug into his eye, sparking a minor ache and little flickers of light. He was back now.

“Wow. That was a bad one. I felt it all through the house.”

Gaara took in a breath of air that hurt like acid. Lee. Lee was here, uninjured, but- “Are the children alright?” Gaara rasped, as the darkness inside whispered of Sand crushing small limbs-

“Of course. Of course they are, they didn't even wake up. Your chakra was all over the place, but they can't feel that. Nothing else happened.”

Gaara cracked open his eyes and glanced around. Almost all the Sand had erupted from the gourd, trying to protect him from something that could not be defended against. It was riled, flowing back and forth before him like a deadly tide, scoring the tiled floor. It had knocked one of the ornamental scrolls off the wall and ripped it, but nothing more. Gaara quickly called it to order with a mental snap of the fingers, and it slunk back into its container.

Lee immediately crept nearer, watching Gaara carefully.

“A bad one,” Lee repeated, voice soft and full of love and concern. “And it's not even the full moon out.” There was a question there, but he wasn't pressing it.

If he thought it was Shukaku acting up, Gaara was going to let him believe that, though for once the Tail was almost blameless. Shukaku hadn't done much more than help Gaara's own memories savage him, while looking on in cruel delight.

“Are you okay? Is this...is this because of the kids? Is their presence-”

“No. It was something from the past,” Gaara answered, almost entirely truthfully. He wouldn't have slept any better tonight had Chiro not been in the house. As for the rest...he wouldn't burden Lee with it. Lee helped him in so many other things...such as now, strong arms wrapping around him cautiously, but without fear or disgust. Gaara touched his skin, the light t-shirt and training pants he wore to bed; the smells and warmth and texture of them were familiar and every-day and safe.

The dregs of the darkness were starting to seep away when he heard a muffled cry from upstairs. Lee started and twisted around where he sat as if he could see the bedroom if he squinted at the ceiling hard enough.

“It's Chiro. Sounds like he's had another nightmare.”

“He has my sympathies,” Gaara muttered into Lee's shoulder. “You should go.”

Lee was tense, hesitating. Gaara pushed at his arm and straightened up. “Go,” he repeated. Upstairs, Chiro was moaning, a high panicked whimper. He wouldn't wake up until Lee shook him.

“But-“

“He needs you. And you need that,” Gaara declared, perfectly logically.

Lee looked confused, but he didn't ask any questions. From the first floor, they could hear Chiro make that loud whimpering noise again. Lee got up into a crouch, touched Gaara's face and looked into his eyes. “I need you, too,” he said softly. “We all do. So please, take care of yourself, and let me help. I'll be down again as soon as Chiro is all right. Don't go back to sleep, okay?”

As if he needed Lee to tell him that. Something feral stirred at the back of Gaara's mind, a creature that didn't like depending on others, who'd rather kill the world and end up alone so nobody could hurt him again...but he leashed it in successfully, the result of several years of habit and hard work.

“I've got a couple of edicts to go through,” Gaara said prosaically, getting to his feet. “I'll work on that.”

“Wasn't what I meant by taking care-“ Lee muttered as he rushed out the door, before the curtain swung back into place and muffled his words.

Gaara sat at his desk, picked up his brush, checked that his seal and wax and files were all in place; a habit he had, particularly when he wanted to centre himself. But today, the order of his desk, of his current life, did nothing to help. He stared at some papers; he would never be able to say what they were about later, his mind was on dark and forbidden things until Lee showed up at the entrance to his study.

Lee started to say something about Chiro, but he took one look at Gaara's face and stayed silent. He marched over to the desk instead, manhandled Gaara out of his chair and over to the couch, and held him. Three years ago, it would have been too dangerous to do this. Now, it was a comfort. Gaara travelled slowly out of the paths of his past and of his mind, working through the twists and the memories, hidden in Lee's warmth and strength.

A grey dawn poked at the window, with that crystal quality that spoke of the desert. Lee fell asleep at some point, for which Gaara was thankful. His lover needed the rest. Finally he prodded Lee awake and sent him to bed to sleep some more in a way that would not give him a crick in the neck.

And then he got to work for real, burying himself in his duties as he had years ago, when he used to have nightmares like that or worse every night, every time he closed his eyes. Gaara was constantly amazed that he'd survived those early days after the Chuunin exam without going completely insane.

A couple of hours later he heard Lee come down the stairs. Gaara remembered that the kids and his lover were going to Taidaka Minne's today; it felt like a month since he'd made those arrangements. Aki burbled, he sounded chirpy this morning. Gaara could hear Chiro's feet drag and he could just imagine the reluctant, hollow look on the boy's face. He'd stay in his study until they left and not distress the child further; it was about all Gaara could do now.

Lee seemed to be cajoling his young cousin. “- a very nice lady, you'll see. I know her brother, and he's, er, a pillar of the community. Come on, put on your shoes.”

“I don't want to go.”

Gaara had the feeling he'd heard this conversation before.

“What? Why not? You've been stuck in this house for days, and I've not been taking very good care of you, what with your brother being sick,” Lee said with a sigh. “Come on, Chiro. You'll have fun, you'll see. Minne-san has two boys, and one of them's your age! Won't that be fun? You can- Chiro? Where are you- hey, wait-“

Gaara lifted his head at the tone in Lee's voice. The curtain to his study twitched aside and Chiro wormed his way under it.

The boy's eyes were round and wide with white showing around the brown pupils. His hair was a mess and his face was tired and puffy. He had the notebook and pencil clutched to his chest. He stared at Gaara, who stared back. As Lee lifted the curtain, though, Chiro broke into quick, deliberate steps making towards the nook under the window seat. Gaara had stood up automatically, but Chiro walked right past him as if the monster that had scarred him yesterday wasn't even there.

Gaara stared at the child, then at Lee, who returned his look of bewilderment. Lee walked slowly over to Gaara's desk with the gait of someone trying not to frighten a small animal. He ignored the way Aki had pitched forward in his arms, wiggled beneath his elbow and was trying to yank his belt off.

“Chiro...?”

There was a fraction of a huddle from Chiro, the only response.

“Um, Gaara needs to work today,” Lee said weakly. “You shouldn't-”

“He can stay,” Gaara said, surprising himself, and certainly startling Lee. “But he'll have to stay here, in the study. Or wherever I am,” Gaara added, with a sharp look at Chiro to see if the kid would look scared and start to cry at the prospect.

Chiro didn't even flinch. It was as if Gaara hadn't spoken at all. For a fraction of a second, Gaara's existence seemed to become dangerously tenuous, as if he'd suddenly disappeared without anyone noticing or caring; a jarring moment refracting the darkest fears of his childhood. But Lee was looking at him and that grounded him, especially the warmth in his lover's gaze.

“Gaara, are you sure you don't mind?”

Gaara wordlessly shook his head.

“That's good then. Minne-san will already have her hands full with just me and Aki today. I'm glad you two are getting along so well,” Lee added suddenly, with a brilliant smile. He impetuously leaned forward to kiss Gaara, since Chiro had his back turned towards them and Aki was nearly upside down in Lee's arms and apparently enjoying it. Gaara just stood there and didn't react, but his lover didn't really notice, as he was giving Chiro some quick last minute injunctions to be polite and respectful and to do everything that Gaara said.

Lee left in a hurry, since he was running a bit late; tardiness was tantamount to disrespect and dishonour, and Wrong in the Jounin's view of the world. Gaara was still standing at his desk, trying to make sense of all this. He finally sat down and stared hard at Chiro. The kid was drawing in his notebook already and apparently paying him no attention, though the way he was huddled suggested some strong emotion and a good dose of fear.

This was unexpected. This was strange. Even by Gaara's standards.

He'd made the child cry. He'd made him scream like his soul was splitting in two. He'd scared him and shown him the Sand and thrust the ugly truth at him like he was stabbing the boy through the chest with it, and now the kid wanted to stay home with him?

Gaara looked through his instincts, but they were just as baffled at his intellect. Oh, a few of the more paranoid ones were coming up with possible explanations for this, but he didn't really think Chiro would try to kill him. Not unless he was a hopeless idiot to have missed the difference between their levels. Maybe in ten years time and with a lot of training he might stand a chance, but not today.

Why didn't the boy hate him? Why was he sitting there, looking like he preferred this to a normal woman's home? What Gaara had done yesterday had been ugly and painful and, unfortunately, necessary. At a very instinctive level, Gaara felt sure he'd done the right thing, but surely the boy should hate him for it. Maybe it was too late, maybe the child was insane. How was Lee going to take that?

At the back of Gaara's mind, a memory of Naruto was causing further disorder to his certainties. How the Nine-Tail bearer had crushed him, body and soul, and saved him, body and soul...The memory was confusing, and didn't apply to Chiro for so many reasons that Gaara dismissed it with a flash of annoyance. But he couldn't get rid of it entirely; with that past recollection twisted in his mind like scar tissue, he didn't feel sure of anything anymore.

Chiro was quiet in his corner. Gaara flipped over a few papers, pretending to work while he observed the boy discreetly, trying to figure this one out. He normally didn't bother decrypting human behaviour aside from Lee and his family and small circle of friends, but Chiro was now, in a small way, his responsibility. Like it or not, they shared something, and the boy had come to him for the truth. Gaara had had to fight long years to be accepted and trusted and relied on by his village; he'd never had a responsibility unexpectedly thrust upon him like this before. He wasn't sure he liked it, but liking it wasn't required and never had been.

The boy was drawing those squares again, Gaara could tell from the regularity of the pencil strokes. But he would glance around at the adult in the room occasionally, gaze quickly flinching away when brown eyes met green.

Finally Chiro put down his notebook as if it was something heavier than it was and very delicate. He stood up and came to stand near the desk again, closer than the other day. He hesitated for a long minute, and then, addressing the foot of Gaara's chair, mumbled: "It's not my fault?"

“No.”

Chiro's eyes filled with tears, to Gaara's unease. If the kid started bawling like that again...he'd do what Lee had, put him to bed and all that, but he didn't have Lee's presence, his heart or his warmth. He'd have to send one of the ANBU to Minne's to get Lee.

But Chiro scrubbed his eyes with a gesture that was almost vicious, and then he gave Gaara that searching, expectant look again.

“They said I would be blamed too, because I share his blood,” Chiro whispered, as if `they' might hear and come and confirm it. Or was he expecting Gaara to confirm it. Was that what he'd been waiting for all this time? For someone to finally tell him what he thought was the truth and blame him?

“They said I was a shame to my family.” Chiro rubbed his eyes again. His face was getting red and puffy, but he wasn't really crying.

“Who did?” Gaara finally asked. “The people of your clan?”

Chiro's face scrunched up. There was still some fear in the child's demeanour, Gaara could tell. But it seemed to not matter that he was afraid of Gaara, he was still relying on him. The kid stared at him for awhile, and maybe he finally decided that, whatever monstrous thing he was, Gaara wasn't `them', and so he finally nodded quickly.

“They said that me and Aki would have to run away and then the ANBU would hunt us down and they would cut us up and then they would bury the pieces,” Chiro confided in a whisper, with something like morbid fascination at the thought.

What...?

Was there any likelihood that Lee might have a family reunion at some point in the future? The Kazekage would be accompanying him in that case. He needed to have a word with some people. But no, on reflection, this didn't make any sense. Gaara had cause to know that there were some very sick people out there, and others who raised cruelty to a fine art, but nobody related to Lee even distantly would be capable of this.

“Nobody is going to hunt you down and kill you,” he said abruptly. His voice sounded too loud, too deep and real after Chiro's childish whispers.

“Even the ANBU?” Chiro asked, looking at Gaara from the corner of his eyes.

“The Konoha ANBU are not coming for you. The ones you've seen these days were mine. From Suna.”

Chiro didn't leap about in relief, or even comment. He just stared at Gaara blankly as if the Kazekage's words had been so alien he wasn't even going to try to make sense of them. The distinction, and the intricacies of intra-village politics and the rule of Shinobi law probably escaped him, but Gaara's blunt tone must have been reassuring nonetheless, because something in the boy seemed to unwind a fraction. He rubbed his reddened nose, then paused to pick at something inside a nostril. He wiped his fingers on his t-shirt and finally gave Gaara a look which was much more searching and potent than a four-year-old should be allowed to give a Kazekage.

“The Konoha ANBU really won't come here and kill me n' Aki?” he asked probingly.

Gaara closed his eyes and rubbed them. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Who could have told him...?

A memory floated up from Gaara's childhood. His intuition stirred.

“Who told you-“ about your mother's murder, was what Gaara had been about to ask, but his instincts kicked in and informed him that if he really wanted to deal with a hysterical child, that was definitely the question to ask. “Who told you that the ANBU would be after you? Was it the children of the people you stayed with, before Lee brought you here?”

Chiro nodded glumly.

Of course. The children. They'd have overheard a garbled version of what the adults were talking about between themselves, and Gaara knew they would not hesitate to use it. Children had no tolerance for the different, the alien. It was either a danger, and avoided, or a weakness, and exploited. They'd have also picked up on their parent's subconscious hostility towards the traitor's children, and at least they'd be open and honest about it.

“Chiro.”

The boy had been staring fixedly at the gourd leaning against the front of the desk, but he looked up at the sound of command in Gaara's voice.

“Those children were idiots. The people of Konoha are after your father, not you.” He just wished he could say that they would treat Chiro fairly and not blame him, even unconsciously, for his father's crimes, but that would be a lie. Chiro was upset enough at the mention of his father, his eyes wide and fixed and chewing desperately on the end of his pencil; he didn't need that ugly, unfair truth on top of it.

Gaara leaned forward, making Chiro start a bit at his proximity. “None of this is your fault, and you should not worry what fools think of you. You're in Suna now anyway. The Konoha ANBU are not going to hurt you. The Shinobi in this village will protect you. You are not a shame to your family. Your family is Lee. He loves you,” Gaara said, tone blunt and unarguable.

From Chiro's pinched face and distracted expression, he did not find that of any particular comfort. This was beyond Gaara's capacity to understand. Who wouldn't be comforted by knowing that at least one person loved you?

Chiro went back to staring at the gourd and chewing on the end of the pencil. Then he turned without a further word, walked back to his little den and started to draw. He was at an angle where Gaara could see what he was doing now; he was still drawing squares and triangles, but they meandered across the page and there were other figures inside them instead of those rigorously geometrical hatches. The pencil was hopelessly blunted by now, and the drawings crude, but after a moment of discreet observation - and remembering things a lonely little boy of four had once drawn in the sand of deserted playgrounds - Gaara figured out a few of them: pictograms of shuriken, or perhaps stars; stick figures like crosses and things with four legs; red bumps and dots. Chiro smudged old drawings with his fist as he worked on new ones, until the paper, his hands and his face were pinkened with it.

Finally, even the attraction of the paper dwindled. Chiro stared at nothing much, the pencil still drifting aimlessly across the red world he'd drawn. Then he scrambled out from under the window seat, glanced at Gaara with those big, hesitant eyes, and hoisted himself onto the wooden plank, now cushionless. He stayed on his knees, staring outside as the sun slowly crept over the rock garden and the sand.

Gaara was getting a bit restless as well. He'd tried picking at his work, but between the dregs of his nightmare, Chiro's questions, Lee's absence and memories of the past haunting him, he wasn't going to be very focused unless he really pushed himself and concentrated, and he would not be able to do that with someone else - other than Lee - in the room. He fingered a folder, and realized it was Taidaka's latest status report on the hunt for Rock Katsuro. Since nothing new would have miraculously appeared in the folder within the last few hours, Gaara pushed it aside.

A note from Tetsuyo caught his eye; it was on a pile of old logs he'd asked for. Gaara picked it up, remembering something that he'd planned to do later today. That was before he'd been left with Chiro. But though Gaara had told Lee he'd keep an eye on the boy and that no harm would befall him, that didn't mean he had to watch and protect him here, at the house.

He stood up, making Chiro start and look around quickly.

“We're going to the gates. Come on.”

Chiro looked reluctant, but he didn't whine like he'd done with Lee. He slipped down from the seat and followed Gaara to the door of the study.

It took Chiro a little while to get his sandals on; one reason for the delay being that he was still clutching his red pencil in one hand, though he'd left the notepad behind. Gaara said nothing, and waited until the child was ready before opening the door and watching the kid trip out into the sunshine.

Gaara headed down the hill from which his house dominated the village. It was past nine in the morning, the air felt cool with a prickly promise of heat to come. Gaara's footsteps raised dust from the street. Chiro trailed behind him, walking irregularly from a slow tread to a half-trot to catch up.

Gaara slowed when they rounded the bend at the bottom of the hill and neared the playground. The swings where he had occasionally sat to watch the other children had been damaged in a sandstorm a couple of years ago and not yet replaced. The frame stood like the skeleton of a bad memory in the sand of the small park. Three children were chasing each other around its scarred and twisted metal.

`You should listen to the children play sometimes', Lee had told him. Gaara normally ignored the playground and its occupants entirely, not caring for the memories evoked. Today his eyes were drawn to their game. Were they playing some form of tag? Was the Oni pretending to be the beautiful and evil sorceress Tsunade? He didn't think it'd be Gaara of the Desert; he'd make an appropriate bogeyman in other villages, but not when playing within the long shadow of his residence.

The faint prickle of curiosity had pushed him to venture closer to the park than he usually did, close enough to listen to them. But all activity had immediately ceased as soon as he'd crossed the low stone border around the playground. The children were staring at him wide-eyed; they were the ones who usually played here, but they'd never have seen him this close. They were older than Chiro, he estimated; they might already be in the Academy, on the path to becoming Shinobi and his subordinates.

They were staring at Chiro, too, and suddenly Gaara felt an unexpected contact; the Sand hissed in the gourd, roiling against the sides. Gaara stilled his reflexes to defend and retaliate, and glanced down. Chiro had stepped behind him and was hanging on to a panel of his coat.

Gaara looked at the perfectly harmless children and the one hiding in the shadow of Gaara of the Desert, and wondered just why his life had gotten so very weird.

Ignoring all children, Gaara walked on- there was an unintentional tug on his coat as Chiro stumbled after him.

Gaara stopped and looked down again. Chiro looked back, big eyes round, hesitant, even a little scared. He stepped back. But at the same time, his hands fastened on Gaara's coat even harder, making his body language a jumble of contradictions and pulling Gaara's coat out as Chiro took another step away.

Gaara stared at him. Questions fused in his mind, frustrated at his usual lack of being able to figure out another human creature. Why aren't you terrified? Why are you here with me and not with Lee? Why aren't you afraid of touching me? Do you realize I could kill you with barely more than a mental twitch? That a part of me feels like doing so just because you're confusing me and that's annoying?

He glanced from Chiro to the far side of Suna, the north wall distantly visible over the houses, and he gave up on questions he had no chances of formulating, and wondered, more prosaically, if Chiro was capable of walking a little faster. At the rate they'd been going down the hill, it would take them an hour to reach the gates.

Chiro stoically bore the long scrutiny that followed. He still looked wary. He was still clutching Gaara's coat.

“You're too slow. I'm going to have to carry you,” Gaara stated, and waited for a reaction to that.

It wasn't the one he'd expected, though at this point that was no longer surprising. Chiro, to his credit, gave him a long suspicious look, but then he dropped the coat and stepped up to Gaara and lifted his arms. Gaara was sufficiently off-balance by all that had happened since yesterday that he gave Chiro's grubby hands a suspicious look of his own before realizing that the kid was not armed and that he was only making it easier for Gaara to pick him up.

He hauled the kid into his arms the way Lee had done on previous occasions. Chiro started to wiggle, and Gaara almost put him down again, but then he realized that the boy was just trying to get comfortable. Chiro, who obviously had more experience than Gaara did at this, squirmed until he was almost sitting on Gaara's left forearm. Gaara shifted his balance to compensate for the four-year-old's weight, but other than that he let Chiro settle himself without trying to help.

Once Chiro stopped moving, Gaara walked on, having wasted enough time. He ignored the children staring at him in amazement from the playground.

Chiro put his hands on Gaara's shoulder for balance, twisting his head around to face forward, and didn't look particularly freaked out. The same couldn't be said for the people they passed. The two Shinobi on patrol merely stared for a brief astounded second before walking on quickly, eyes focused on their route, but the fruit-seller where Gaara and Lee bought their melons, figs and oranges, dropped some of his merchandise on his stall's floor and then stepped on it in his confusion.

Gaara walked on steadily, faster than before, though he didn't take to the roofs; he had this vague notion that children were fragile, breakable things and shouldn't be jarred too badly.

Chiro's eyes went from the street to Gaara. He had his fist curled around his pencil, but that left him with one free finger to stick in his mouth. He scrutinized the Kazekage up close. Gaara tamped down on a few stray instincts. Lee, Naruto and his family had all habituated him to contact with others over the years, though Gaara still had a hard time letting his guard down. He didn't shake hands, or let strangers within his personal space. But Chiro's proximity did not feel threatening; the boy was way too weak. As long as the kid wasn't too scared, this would work out and save time.

In a side street, an older Genin with a courier pouch twisted his head around to stare and walked straight into a pylon. Gaara paid the man no heed.

“What's that stuff on your eyes?” Chiro suddenly asked, not too intelligibly.

It took Gaara a couple of seconds to figure out what Chiro was referring to.

“This?” he asked, touching the dark circles with the hand that wasn't carrying the kid. Chiro nodded. “We're not sure. These marks appeared when I was a few months old. Some say they're caused by the lack of sleep. I don't sleep much,” he added, remembering that this child might not know the details. “I use chakra to survive and stay sane. Somewhat sane. Other people say that they're the mark of Shukaku. They may be right.”

Chiro nibbled his lip, shoving it into his mouth with his finger. This left grime marks on his chin. Gaara knew that Lee washed the kid every night, which was already a waste of water in Gaara's books. It beat him how the boy could get so grubby again in so short a time.

Chiro looked puzzled, and Gaara realized his explanation had been a bit lacking.

“Shukaku is the demon that was bound inside me when I was a baby,” he elaborated, since that was also something the child was probably the only person in the village not to know.

The kid seemed to repeat Shukaku slowly under his breath. That explanation should have given rise to other questions, among which should have been the obvious one, `was Gaara really a demon then?' But Chiro didn't ask anything else. Since Gaara hadn't fully figured that one out himself to his entire satisfaction, he didn't add anything, and the walk towards the gate was spent in silence, with only the occasional wide-eyed stare from Suna's inhabitants.

 

Day Four - 11AM

 

Gaara could have sent for the gate entry logs, but he liked to inspect the defences on a regular basis, and it was good to get away from his desk from time to time. The sun was starting to beat down on the gate fort, but it was still pleasantly cool in the large room mostly made of windows and murder holes, giving the watchers a good view of the entrance to Suna and an excellent defensive position.

Chiro had scrambled up onto a chair, then a table and, on his hands and knees, leaned out of the window, apparently fascinated at how small the guards below looked from this height. The Shinobi who'd been going through the logs with Gaara had been getting increasingly distracted by this. Gaara just made sure that, in the unlikely event Chiro managed to fall out the window, the Sand would be able to catch him before he tumbled more than one story. He'd promised Lee that no harm would befall the child, after all. He didn't think the guard's tension every time Chiro leaned out was justified, but it finally got on his nerves so he asked Chiro to stop doing that.

The Chuunin relaxed enough to go get the next stack of log observations from the safe room. Gaara closed the files he'd been examining, automatically reapplying the warding seals locking away the date and time of entrance, reason for visit, ID and letter of transit of any foreigner entering Suna. He put down the dossier, glanced around and noticed Chiro's pencil lying on a chair a few feet away. The boy wasn't looking his way, he was still at the window staring out, so Gaara picked it up. He applied a flicker of concentration, mostly aimed at not breaking the fragile thing in his fingers. Sand crept up the pencil and abraded it to a sharp point. It would have been easier with a kunai, but Gaara didn't carry other weapons. The pencil's bluntness had been distantly annoying him, like a faint itch he couldn't scratch.

The Chuunin returned, Gaara opened a new log at random, and Chiro hopped down from the table and wandered around the room, looking at the weapons and jutsu scrolls readily available for defence. The Sand Shinobi had briefly relaxed when the boy had moved away from the window, but now he tensed up again, and looked at Gaara beseechingly.

“Don't touch anything,” Gaara told the boy without looking around.

Chiro made some kind of nuh-huh noise, but he sounded distracted and a bit antsy. Well, it was time to go anyway. Gaara had inspected the logs and adherence to procedures, and memorized two dozen entries at random; he would compare them to the official copies on his desk. He'd been told that his father had only rarely double-checked the books, and he'd let his secretary handle the matter. Gaara trusted the people in his village and would defend them to the death, but he'd developed caution and self-reliance at a tender age, and it wasn't a habit he felt like relinquishing, so he ran the checks himself on a frequent basis. Maybe it was paranoid to want to check all his sources of information personally from time to time, but the way Gaara saw it, his father had been murdered by a man he'd thought his accomplice, while Gaara was still alive and well despite a good many assassination attempts and dangerous situations, so paranoia paid off in the end.

“Let's go,” he said, just as the kid was reaching out a tentative finger towards a scintillating straight blade. Chiro went to grab his pencil, completely failed to notice its new sharpness and followed at a trot.

The changing of the guard was about to start when Gaara descended into the courtyard of the defence outpost, so he stopped to watch. The manoeuvre looked like it was going to be picture-perfect, with their Kazekage standing there watching them. Gaara observed dutifully, but he was distracted by the feel of a familiar presence approaching him from behind. A rare edge of a smile twisted his lips, but he kept his eyes on the manoeuvre, noting how the patrollers correctly identified their colleagues, checked for henges and reported to the officer to sign out. Only then did he turn around to greet his brother.

“You're back,” Gaara said. Then he dropped his gaze in surprise. Kankuro was crouched down loosely, his puppet scrolls canted on his shoulder to avoid dragging them in the dirt, and he was staring in fascination at Chiro who had just now started violently and scurried around Gaara.

“Okay,” Kankuro said, scratching his hooded head, “what did I miss? Why do you have a miniature Lee hiding behind you? Did you guys do something really, really weird while I was away?”

Gaara frowned. “I'm not sure what you mean and I'd rather not know. This is Lee's cousin, Rock Kichiro. Chiro, this idiot is my older brother Kankuro.”

“Oy, who you calling an idiot?”

Chiro was still staring at Kankuro. Just as Gaara wondered why, the boy whispered, loudly enough for the garrison to hear: “What's wrong with his face?”

Oh. Right.

“Nothing. It's paint. Kankuro, stop that, you're scaring the boy” His brother was leaning around Gaara to get a better look; Chiro was edging back.

Kankuro exploded into raucous laughter.

“I'm scaring him? I'm scaring him?! Oh man, that's like- right, the world is spinning clockwise today. That explains everything.”

Gaara had to admit that that was pretty weird, on reflection.

“So...Lee's cousin?” Kankuro asked, straightening up and giving Gaara a piercing look.

“Yes.”

“Lee's taking care of him?” There was another question behind that one, an obvious one to any Jounin who'd lost men in a campaign before.

“He's taking care of both of them. Chiro has a younger brother, too.”

Kankuro winced. “Two of them? Damn, poor guy. But that's the way it goes. It happens.”

Kankuro was assuming the kids were orphans, which was certainly the first explanation that would spring to a Shinobi's mind. Gaara would have a word with his brother later to inform him that his assumption was unfortunately not quite correct. But that could wait until Chiro was out of earshot. Gaara had all the empathy of a lizard, according to his loved ones, but he wasn't that insensitive. Neither did he want to deal with another fit of hysteria; the last one had been noisy and harrowing enough.

Kankuro was staring down at Chiro's head and rubbing his nose, effectively covering whatever expression on his face wasn't camouflaged by the paint.

“So that means...they're living here? With you?”

“Yes,” Gaara said, eyes narrowing in warning.

“You're living with two kids.”

“Yes.”

“How old's the other one?”

“Ten months.”

Something suspiciously like a snigger escaped Kankuro's muffling hand, but apparently he wasn't quite sure how annoyed Gaara was at this point, so he was trying to control it.

“...Really.”

“Yes.”

“Poor little buggers.”

Kankuro coughed without looking Gaara in the eye, then he crouched down again and extended his hand at a distance that wouldn't frighten Chiro and would force him to come out from behind the Kazekage.

“Hi kid. How you doin'? Don't worry,” he added with a wink, as Chiro leaned away, eyes still fixed on his face, “it's just paint.”

“...Hana Kyo has two red marks on his face. Back home.”

Gaara couldn't see what that had to do with the situation, but Kankuro nodded wisely and said: “Does he now?”

He still had his hand extended. Chiro's gaze finally dropped to it, and he took a step forward and shook it at arm's length, though he kept the other hand knotted in Gaara's coat.

“His sister Rika does too. She says it's the mark of their clan.”

“Really?”

“She's seven years old and in the academy and she thinks she knows everything,” Chiro said disparagingly.

“Yeah, big sisters are like that. Right, bro?”

“I'm going to be five in a few months. Rika has a puppy. Her whole clan has dogs. Their three Inuzuka cousins are all Jounin, and their dogs go with them on missions.”

“Yeah, I know the guys you're talking about, shrimp. Scruffy as their mutts, but I guess they're okay fighters. Though of course, I'm better.” He grinned at Chiro, who stared back in fascination.

Gaara was looking from one to the other. This was the most he'd heard Chiro speak in a normal conversation that didn't involve death and killing. He'd had no idea his brother was this good with kids. Kankuro had been a bit of a bully when they were younger, transferring onto helpless targets his aggression for the younger brother he couldn't beat up and who was a constant, nerve-wracking threat at his side. Gaara and Kankuro had mostly sorted that out by now, but that didn't explain where the latter had picked up this ease with children, an ease that completely escaped Gaara.

Gaara found himself looking Kankuro over thoughtfully; the unfamiliar word `babysitter' was hovering in his mind.

“Man, you really look like Lee. Gonna grow up to be a Taijutsu master like your coz?”

“...donno...”

“How was your mission?” Gaara asked, not particularly interested in Chiro's long-term plans for the future.

“Hm, you asking as my brother or as my boss?” Kankuro asked, straightening up again. “Because I'd tell my boss `mission accomplished', but I'd tell my brother that it was fuck- that it wasn't fun. Next time the council has a- that kind of job to do, tell them to send a grunt.”

“They needed a high security clearance.”

“Tell them to send a high-security clearance grunt. I hate these bloo- stupid courier jobs.” Gaara wondered why Kankuro kept interrupting himself and glancing down at Chiro, who had nothing to do with the council, the mission or anything in Suna.

“I would have rather you stayed here as well,” Gaara admitted as he turned towards Suna's main street. “With Temari and myself away-“

There was a sharp tug at his coat as Chiro stumbled after him, not quite fast enough. Gaara turned back and picked the kid up a bit more proficiently than the first time. He ignored the way the guards on the wall were gaping and Kankuro was snickering in a mildly hysterical way, and decided that now was the perfect time to go home, get an early lunch and try to imagine his life was normal again.

 

Day Four - 3AM

 

Remnants of exhaustion and stress still lurked in Lee's movements when the Jounin showed up, but he was brimming over with proper Lee-like enthusiasm. He proudly showed Gaara the small notebook full of scribbled wisdom he'd garnered. Gaara wondered if he'd taken to calling Minne `sensei' yet.

“Chiro!” Lee exclaimed, going over to the window seat. He shifted a sleepy Aki to his other arm and reached under the wooden plank to give his cousin a pat on the head. “How was your day? Did you behave for Gaara?”

Chiro stared at him and gave a vague nod. The kid looked a bit tired, even grubbier than before, and he had a faint pink flush of sun across his cheeks and nose, but otherwise he was hale and unharmed, which was what mattered as far as Gaara was concerned.

“What's that you're drawing?” Lee asked brightly, glancing down at the notepad where a fresh piece of paper had a scribble of lines over it.

Chiro gave the paper then his cousin a solemn look. “It's a puppet.”

“A-...a what?” Gaara could understand Lee's confusion; the pencil had been sharper, but the drawing was still nothing more than a bunch of barely cohesive lines and circles, and still locked inside a large box.

“Can I have one?” Chiro asked.

“A puppet?” Lee sounded completely lost.

“My brother's back,” Gaara informed him, rolling up the scroll he'd been checking. “We had lunch at his place.”

“Oh, I see. Well, Chiro, those puppets are really big, and they're not for little boys.”

“He let me play with one,” Chiro said as if Lee hadn't spoken.

“He what?!”

“A model,” Gaara said, setting his seal into a dribble of warm wax. “He had a small half-articulated model of Karasu in his workshop.”

“There are poisons in his workshop,” Lee said plaintively.

“A fact my brother is aware of. Kankuro fetched it for him and let him play in the kitchen.” Gaara, who had naturally assumed that Chiro would avoid anything with a skull and crossbones label on it, had re-evaluated his ability to watch over small children after seeing his brother's precautions. Tomorrow, Chiro was going to Minne's.

“Oh, that's okay then. Sorry, I was just worried. You should see how Minne-san has everything locked away or out of reach, even the cleaning liquid and the bleach. I didn't think of that- I mean, who would drink bleach? But apparently that's what Responsible Adults do. Um, our bleach is in the kitchen closet with the broom...“

“Feel free to put it somewhere else.”

"There are a lot of things I have to put up out of reach, starting with that weapon's rack over there. I know this is your study...I hope you don't mind?"

"No."

“Okay, I'll- yes?” Chiro had scrambled out from under the seat and given Lee's arm a tug.

“Can we play?”

Gaara was not by nature an optimist, but he dared to feel a trifle relieved. That was new, and hopefully a sign that the boy wasn't screwed up too badly.

Lee appeared both startled and delighted. “Sure! What do you want to play? Ninja and Samurai?”

Chiro blinked. “I can't play that. Mommy says-“

Needless to say, a nasty little silence followed. Chiro closed up, that brittle look back in his eyes, and Gaara could measure how much better he'd been just before that unfortunate word had popped up. Lee looked at him sadly, and Aki burped and then sucked his thumb, eyes closing. Gaara stayed firmly out of it all, though he watched the scene with a prickle of morbid interest.

“I'm too little,” Chiro finally said, talking to the tiles beneath his feet.

“Really? I used to play that at your age. It's fun. Though the bigger kids always used to push us smaller ones around and make us the samurai each time.” Lee was speaking in the tone of voice with which he filled unpleasant silences with the first words off the top of his head.

Chiro didn't say anything. Lee reached out and parted Chiro's bangs from his face. “Do you want me to tell you a story?”

Chiro was silent for awhile, but just as Gaara had stopped expecting him to answer, he nodded.

“Good! Let's put Aki in his crib, get you some sliced apples and juice, and then I'll tell you the story of Gai-sensei and the Moon Bandits! You'll love it. How about you, Gaara?”

“I've already heard it,” Gaara said dryly.

“I meant, do you want something to eat?” Lee said, with an indulgent roll of the eyes for his obdurate boyfriend. Gai-sensei was another one of those subjects where the lovers agreed to disagree, since Gaara somehow could not be convinced that Gai-sensei was the embodiment of all that was Good and Pure and Youthful. The best Gaara could do was grant that Gai was a good Jounin, a Taijutsu master with only one peer, and at least said what he meant, very, very loudly.

“I need to get some work done.”

“Want me to bring you something?”

“You already have enough to do. Go tell your story.” Gaara noted that Chiro was still looking preoccupied and withdrawn, but when Lee reached for him, the boy slipped a grimy hand into the big strong one.

Gaara followed Lee's progress out of the study and into the reception room. The Jounin still looked so tired and there were echoes of unrelieved stress in his movements, but he probably hadn't even noticed, his whole attention centred on the children, too busy worrying about them to care about his own health.

Lee desperately needed a restful night, but he didn't get it. Gaara heard him get up multiple times; once for Aki's diapers, once for an accompanied trip to the bathroom, once to fetch Chiro a drink, twice for the boy's nightmares. Lee, glass of water in hand, popped his head into the study to say hi just as Gaara picked up the last of the backed up reports. Maybe he was checking in on Gaara as well, making sure his lover hadn't had another nightmare too. A needless verification, since Gaara had no intention of sleeping that night or the next. As for Lee, the Jounin was starting to have circles under his eyes that were threatening to make the two young men a matching pair. The stress lines in his shoulders were also of some concern.

After chasing his lover off to bed, Gaara scribbled a note out. He'd hand it to the ANBU guard who was trying to be discreet out there in the moon-washed courtyard; the man could carry it to its destination. Time to ask the Taidakas for another favour.

 

TBC...

Next chapter is some much-deserved one-on-one time for the guys ^_^