The color of gold

Gaara's silent obsession. One-sided Gaara/Temari. Sandcest, in theory.

I was challenged by INK to write this weird pairing, and I'm actually not too horrified with how it turned out.

Temari's hair is a sandy gold, and it's been carefully trimmed to the same length for as long as he's known her. It's frizzy, slightly unkempt sometimes, but Gaara will always remember it as one of the few constants in his life.

So when she returns from her mission one day and collapses, exhausted, onto the couch in his Hokage's office, he sits by her and runs his fingers through her brilliant hair. Each molten yellow strand slips through the crevices of his skin and embeds in him a strange longing that catches painfully in his throat.

She wakes up a few minutes later and feels the warm but hesitant strokes, smiles up at him bleary-eyed. "Mission complete, Hokage-sama. I haven't slept in two days, though."

"Stay here," Gaara tells her. "Just… rest here. Your room is too far away."

-o-

Sometimes, the Kazekage of Suna is jealous of the relationship his siblings share. It's closer than anything he's seen before, and maybe they've learned to survive together that way after living so long with a psycho for a brother. He cannot count how many times he's seen one creep into the others room during a still night, pillow tucked under one arm, blanket slung over a sleepy shoulder.

He's peered around the door to see them cuddled in the same sheets to keep company. Curled up like the two halves of an 'S', bodies fitted neatly against each other like they'd been born together instead of a year apart, like somehow, deep inside, they wanted to be the same. Then Gaara would return to his room, and to his lone bed.

"She's desensitized me to boobs!" Kankuro wails one day, legs slung over the couch. "Temari, what if I turn out gay because of you?!"

"Then I'd support your preferences," she replies stoically while shuffling around the drawers for her mission papers. "And maybe I'd help you find a nice guy."

Kankuro throws his arms up into the air in a gesture of defeat, looks towards Gaara with his 'can you believe her?' glare. "Hey Gaara, tell Temari not to change in front of me. You can do that as Hokage, right?"

"Oi! You sleep half-naked! And then when there's a storm it's 'Temari, I'm scared! Let me sleep next to you and protect myself with your bravery!'"

"I do not say it like that!"

Gaara watches silently, pen poised over his treatise papers. Something stirs in the pit of his stomach, a multitude of inseparable emotion that rushes up inside and scratches at the edges of his throat. Is this what it felt like to be jealous? When did it become strange that Temari changed in front of their brother? When did she become such a beautiful kunoichi, where Kankuro would find it strange that he's seen her entire collection of bras?

He listens.

And wonders.

If she'll ever do something like that around him.

-o-

What did they all mean by love?

Clearly it's not the kind he holds for Naruto and Kankuro, the deep friendship that draws up joy and has never stifled him like this. It's not the emotion he felt for Yashamaru, who was like a sturdy hand-hold in the blazing storm that had been his life. This is different, and it scares him with its uniqueness.

Gaara resorts to books, because they understand his condition better than most. He studies romance novels, skims uninterestedly through pages of porn, watches Suna's puppet shows of the great romantic tragedies of history. Yet nothing approaches the sort of love he sees between his siblings, and nothing could ever hope to match exactly with the sort of love he feels for Temari.

He has no time to do frivolous things while in his position, but he makes an effort to observe how people act while in love. He sees the shinobi and kunoichi running off to meet with their secretive lovers under the forgiving cloak of night, the civilians who walk proudly hand-in-hand through the streets of Sunagakure, the old men and women who smile like they can't imagine a day without each other in their eyes.

This love he reads about is red, alizarin red, the stark redness of pain and loss and hope. The love he feels is a washed out vermillion, something so soft it's barely there and if he hadn't been deprived of everything but anger for ten years of his life, he wouldn't be able to sense something so subtle. It's subtle, far too subtle, and he thinks of it.

It has no purpose, he decides. He should find no harm in taking the sibling-love they offer him and asking no more.

Can a person's love ever impede itself?

-o-

"You've really changed, Gaara," Kankuro tells him one day. "Ever since you became Kazekage, it's like you've transformed into a smaller version of our father." His nose wrinkles slightly. "Well, a more lenient version, anyway."

"But do you think I have become proficient in human interaction?"

"Ha, the fact that your asking that kind of answers the question, doesn't it?" He leans forward, resting his painted chin on his hands. "Don't worry, you're doing fine. You've always got me and Temari to teach other people how to interact with you, if it's needed."

"…thank you, Kankuro."

-o-

Temari's hand is always like gold, always, even when she comes back dragged through dirt and sand and blood. It glitters in the midday light as he reaches forward to touch it while she lies on the stretcher in the infirmary.

As he runs it through his fingers, he remembers a night she spent on the couch in his office, her head against the side of his leg, the wide brim of his Hokage's hat the only thing shielding her from the wisps of desert moonlight, his long fingers slowly stroking her temples, lulling her to a quiet tranquility as she dreamed in a fit-less sleep. Kankuro has lots of memories like this. Gaara only has the one, and it's placed carefully in the fresh front of his mind.

She cracks open a tired eye and sees him standing above her beside the bed. "Mission complete, Hokage-sama." A single grin, and it lights up the room. "Just wait until I get these stupid bandages off my arm. Maybe the three of us can go out for curry together."

And Gaara wonders if this is how the spurned tragic heroes of the puppet shows feel. But now Temari is before him in all her intransience and there is no time to think of anything but the present, where her viridian eyes are shining with fondness.

Feedback?