Step On A Crack

In the month following their return to Hidden Sand from the disaster of the Chuunin Exams, attitudes between Gaara and his siblings had been going through definite changes.

They started out subtly enough. The first thing Gaara did when he was strong enough was to lock himself up in his room at the deceased Kazekage's house for nearly a week, emerging only in the middle of the night to rifle in the kitchen for tidbits. Gaara had never had a very big appetite. This state of affairs was more of a great relief that anything to the members of the Sand that had to be in his proximity. Most of them, at any rate. Ironically, it ended up bothering Temari and Kankuro to an extent that surprised them.

Despite his homicidal inclinations and reputations, Gaara was a surprisingly easy person to live with before. He was low maintenance. He took care of himself mostly, and, being a rather antisocial animal, his sibling didn't really have to worry about encountering him around the house unless he wanted them to, which was not often. If he did manage to cross their paths, unless it was about a mission or other official business, he pretty much ignored them, and they had found it much easier to just return the favor. The only times he really gave in to his killing urges was during missions. One of the reasons the siblings were the crack team of Hidden Sand's shinobi, despite their rank, was because they were deliberately given the missions that ran to heavy hostility. It got the hardest missions done quickly, and gave Gaara the chance to indulge his blood thirst. All Temari and Kankuro really needed to do for him was make sure the kitchen had enough for him to forage on, and leave him to himself.

It was that fear of Gaara and the thing he contained that made hostilities within the family run high. Anger is always fear in disguise. And being in a constant state of it was sure to cause tension.

But familiarity breed content, and whatever else they may have felt for their younger brother, they were used to him being around. If he was less than social to begin with, he was downright reclusive after the exams. When Temari noticed that he was no longer making his normal kitchen raids, she started bringing food up to him. She would always find him doing the same this: staring at nothing. Not that he ignored her when she came. In fact, he seemed more mindful of her and Kankuro than he had ever been. When she came to him room, he would watch her bring the food as if he were trying to workout a complex problem. He would make a sound of acknowledgement, and then watch her leave.

Temari tried to engage him in dialogue a couple of times, asking him if he were alright, trying to surreptitiously divine from him whether his encounter with Naruto had finally blown his last mental hinge or not. It was no use. Gaara did speak back, an unusual thing in itself, but as evasively and economically as possible, so she was never sure if he had actually answered her questions or not.

And it seemed to pain Gaara in some subtle way to talk to her. He couldn't seem to look her in the face. Which, again, was odd, as he'd never had a problem meeting people's eyes before. He seemed almost…ashamed.

One other thing she noticed, wherever her happened to be in the room, he was always facing the northwest corner of the room. Where the gourd sat. Filled with sand marinated in the blood of Gaara's victims. It was as though he was afraid to turn his back on the thing. Temari made a mental note of it.

As for Kankuro, he would occasionally peek in on Gaara, they would blink at each other in silence for a few moments, then Kankuro would mumble his excuses and leave him. He would religiously ask Temari how she thought Gaara was doing when she down from her deliveries. After a few weeks his asking steadily increased in urgency, something which wryly amused Temari. Kankuro reminded her of a housecat; the sort that would wait anxiously by the door for it's human to return home, then as soon as you arrived would immediately pretend that you were beneath it's notice, and stalk off to the kitchen with it's nose and tail in the air. They were both worried about their brother, and both doing their level best to pretend otherwise. Of course, each knew that the other was full of it, and each knew that the other knew that, so it wasn't even worth mentioning. But still, all she really had to report to Kankuro's interrogation was that Gaara was still alive.

One night, around two in the morning, Kankuro was heading down the hall to bed when he heard Gaara's voice, low and tremulous, coming from his room. He paused at the door to his own room and listened carefully. Yes, that was definitely Gaara. Who could he be talking to? Temari had gone to bed hours ago, and he couldn't imagine what would have her conversing with Gaara at this time night. He strained his hearing but could make out no words. All he could make out was that Gaara sounded upset.

Curiosity finally got the better of him and he crept closer to the door, and stood against the wall just beside it, trying to do that trick of breathing so softly that he could no longer hear it by bone conduction. Now he could make out some of Gaara's words.

"…I know…I know I haven't……. I just…just can't anymore……. But it hurts me…….. It doesn't work…never did……. I don't care…… I don't need it…. I can do with out it……… Yes, I can…. I won't….you can't force me anymore, Mother."

Oh, Kankuro though, I get it. Is 'she' trying to get him worked up again? He hoped against all hope that "she" wouldn't succeed. Gaara had gone nearly a month without a kill, and Kankuro thought that that could hardly help but do him good. And whatever it was that Gaara spoke to like this, he was pretty damned sure it wasn't their mother, in any way, shape, or form.

Kankuro listened to this strange conversation go on in the same vain for some minutes more, steadily increasing in intensity, but thankfully not in volume. At least until Gaara finally said "That's it," in something close to his normal speaking voice. He heard shuffling and scuffing in the room, and then Gaara's footsteps approaching the door. He barely had time to flatten himself against the wall behind the door before it opened and Gaara emerged, noticing his brother not at all, dragging the gourd by its sash. Not strapped to his back, Kankuro noted. Gaara moved quickly but silently down the hall, and as he turned the corner to the front room Kankuro caught a brief glimpse of his face in the moonlight from the hallway window.

The expression on it was desperately sad, almost like grief.

Kankuro felt panic grip his stomach and twist it as he heard the front door open and shut, and Gaara's footsteps dopplering off into the night. He shook off his stasis, rushed down the hall and out of the house, and looked wildly around for Gaara.

Nowhere in sight.

After wasting a few moments pacing wildly around the perimeter of sandy patch in front of their house, Kankuro spotted faint shoeprints at the west edge of it. He followed them through to the very edge of the Sand Village, leading out into the desert, where they disappeared into the windswept dunes.

This completely flummoxed Kankuro. The idea had struck him back at the house that Gaara couldn't stand it anymore and had gone out for a kill. But that couldn't be if he was heading out into the desert. What was in that direction, anyway? The creek? The nearest free-flowing water source within reasonable hiking distance of town. Nothing beyond it but sand.

Maybe, Kankuro thought, he's just gone for a walk to calm down. Since he'd got back home he'd seemed noticeably determined not to murder. Perhaps he'd gone out to avoid the temptation. That was good, right?

On the other hand, his mind reluctantly wondered, what if he doesn't come back? He sure had looked upset when he left. Maybe he was trying to run away? If that were the case, and Kankuro hadn't seen him leave, neither would have known it until Temari had gone up to check on him the next night.

Then again, if he woke Temari up and they both went after him now, and it turned out that he was in a murderous mood, they'd be in real danger when they caught up to them. Despite his frequent threats to do so, Gaara had always seemed to make an effort not to kill his brother and sister. But then he rarely went two weeks without a kill. After a moth of abstinence, he might not be able to help himself.

At a loss, Kankuro plunked himself down against the west wall of the village and waited, straining to hear the slightest alien noise among the usual sounds of wind against the buildings and the sand shifting in its path.

He sat there for over forty minutes. At last he heard the soft footsteps in the sand. He looked up, and sure enough, there was Gaara, trudging across the dunes. Kankuro stood up and watched him approach.

He really looked awful. Every part of him seemed to slouch, and, even in the moonlight, he looked unnaturally pale. His expression was slack and listless, with a crease on his brow that told of a serious headache, but he seemed so bone-deep exhausted that he had ceased even to mind the pain. He looked, really, like someone wandering around in shock after a major accident. Kankuro wondered if maybe he'd found an animal out there to kill, but something about his brother told him that wasn't the case, although he couldn't immediately say what it was.

Kankuro's relief at seeing his brother was all right was almost immediately joined by confusion, and something close to sadness. A couple months ago, he would still have been relieved, but more relieved for himself than Gaara. It was he and his Temari that would get in trouble if Gaara ran loose. But his relief now was that his brother was safe, and its intensity surprised him. Ever since that completely out-of-the-blue apology during their retreat from the Konoha, Gaara had noticeably changed, and the fact that neither Kankuro nor Temari had been able to get a handle of this new version of their brother upset Kankuro. He had tried very hard not to hope that maybe, just maybe, he could start to actually get along with Gaara, like a brother. But it seemed that Gaara was just drifting further away, and this time they had no idea why. When he'd looked in on Gaara during this past month, Gaara always looked slightly freaked, as though whatever he expected to see scared him silly.

Dammit, Kankuro thought, I did not endure all these years of bullshit to get my brother back, and then lose him again for no apparent reason!

Gaara's eyes were focused on the sand a foot or so in front of his steps, so he did not notice Kankuro until he was almost to the village gates.

"Hey," Kankuro said softly.

Gaara's head lifted, and he blinked at Kankuro in the dark. "Kankuro?" he asked. His voice was almost timid.

"I saw you leave the house." Kankuro explained, trying to keep his tone casual. "What's up?"

Slight shrug.

"Where were you?"

Short pause. "River." Gaara said.

Nice, Kankuro thought, push. "Any particular reason?"

Another pause. "Not really."

Kankuro gave up. "Well, let's get home before Temari wakes up and has a fit."

Gaara lowered his head again and continued his trudge. Kankuro followed behind.

They were halfway through the village Kankuro staring at Gaara's back, when the penny dropped. He froze in mid-step. "Gaara," he said in surprise. "Where's the gourd?"

Gaara stopped with a slight sigh and turned slightly to peer at Kankuro over his shoulder. "Gone." He said simply.

"What? Where?" Kankuro looked reflexively, as though he suspected the gourd had wandered off on it's own and was now tailing them back home.

"At the river." Gaara said,

"You left it there?" Kankuro said.

Small nod.

"You tossed it?" Kankuro said in amazement.

Small sigh. Another nod.

Kankuro tried to speak a couple of times, but what he finally came up with was "Okay!"

And it really was. If Gaara wanted to ditch that godawful thing, well, that was more than all right with Kankuro, and he wanted Gaara to know this. He wished like hell he knew what brought it on, but he sure wasn't going to protest.

Gaara cocked a brow at him, then turned back and continued on. Kankuro followed.

Another few blocks and Kankuro noticed that Gaara was shifting his spine a bit, and making little voiceless sounds of discomfort.

"Something wrong?" He asked.

Gaara made a small "Hrm," sound that could have been a resigned affirmative or a casual negative.

"Seriously," Kankuro said. "Does it hurt?"

"All the time," Gaara murmured. Kankuro wondered if he'd meant to say that aloud.

Small wonder, he thought, he's been carrying that damned bucket of blood around for over almost a decade. It's as big as he is, probably weighs twice that…

Without thinking, Kankuro stepped up behind Gaara and put a hand between his shoulder blades, to check for tension. He'd done it for Temari so many times after training and missions that he thought nothing of it. Until Gaara jumped under his hand and he felt the sand at his feet shiver. Gaara may have gotten rid of the gourd, be had lost none of his power of the sand.

"Easy," he said, like he was calming a horse, wondering who he was trying to reassure. "How's it hurt?"

Another sidelong look over the shoulder. "How do you mean?"

"I mean, just aching? Something out of place? What?"

Pause. "Out of place." Gaara said. "Why."

Kankuro thought. He might not go for it, but no harm in trying. "Maybe it's just got to pop, or something." Give it a shot. "Here, turn around."

Gaara turn to him slowly, eyes looking in any direction but his brother's. He knew how it worked; he'd seen Kankuro pop Temari's back before when she was in pain. But he didn't know how it helped. The popping noise always sounded painful to him, but it seemed to help Temari. Then again…

That final fight with Naruto had caused Gaara to completely redecorate the inside of his head. Naruto's power, according to him, was is ultimate desire to protect his friends. Naruto was in a situation very much like his own, but His bonds with his friends had kept him sane. That had run through his head during their retreat, and he had realized that he could have an even more volatile being if it hadn't been for his brother and sister. They insisted on protecting him even though it was clear his required no protection. Their combined efforts to calm him down had been able to keep his last shred of sanity from being blown away by Shukaku.

Gaara had finally admitted to himself that what really drove him to be cruel to them was fear. Fear that they might betray him the same way his uncle did. Not that they could have killed him if they tried, what scared him was the idea that he wouldn't be able to stop himself from killing them. And if that happened, that fact that he would not be able to kill himself.

He'd spent much of his time with them trying to convince himself as well as them that they meant nothing to him, but in the end that argument just could hold. Even then, it would have been the ultimate insult if someone had managed to kill them before him. Afterwards, he had to admit that even that would have been intolerable. Of all the definitions of love he had come across, in word or in print, the most perplexing to him had been one he had read in the fiction section of the village library (where he'd spent a great deal of his nights for years, with nothing better to do). It said: "Love is when the life and well-being of another becomes essential to your own." By that definition, had he cared about them all this time and not even knew it? Or, more unlikely, could they have cared for him all this time, and he refused to see it? He could have been fooling himself that he loved himself; he'd done that for years. But he could not have convinced himself that they loved him, he simply wasn't that good a liar.

He wanted, above anything else now, to somehow make it up to his siblings, for all the nonsense he'd put them through. He had no idea where to start. That final apology had been the best he had come up with so far, and to it was pitifully less than inadequate. He had settled, for now, for removing himself from their presence as much as possible, keeping Shukaku's compulsions subdued, Mother's cravings calmed, and puzzling over why they still insisted on seeking him out regularly. Ideally, the best thing he could think to do for them was cut his throat. But that wasn't an option, of course. He had tried a few times, knowing it was useless; Mother's curse protected him from everything he tried. He'd just been considering whether poison might do the trick when Mother began demanding again.

It was just the final straw. The only thing he could think of to try and stop the craving was to get Mother's sand out, anywhere, just away! He dragged the gourd down to the river, crushed the shell of it to particles, and let the whole bloody lot of it be swept downstream.

It seemed to help. Probably more psychologically than anything, but it did help. Pain is defined by its relief. Gaara hadn't realized just how horrendous a burden that thing had been until he literally and figuratively cast it off. He also now realized what a mess it had made of his spine. Just as well, it gave him something to concentrate on other than the impending panic he was probably going to endure, now that he'd gotten rid of the best of his ultimate defense. He'd have to learn to live without it.

So he was a little reluctant to allow Kankuro to help him get rid of the pain. That, and the fact that he'd swore to keep his distance from them, for their safety. The competing forces within him were just too unpredictable, he had no idea if he could keep Shukaku down if the creature had a mind for him to suddenly slay his brother, right here and now. He was no longer so sure of his control; it had been shaken up so badly, too recently.

On the other hand, the demon had been unusually quiet since the final fight. Almost as if it was in just as much shock as Gaara was. So he stood still and allowed Kankuro to move forward, put his arm around him and settle the heels of his hands against his lower back. It was kind of unnerving. Barring the times when one or the other of his sibling had to drag his delirious carcass to and fro, he had never voluntarily been within touching distance from them. He could help tensing up further, which made his back complain bitterly.

"Put your arms up." Kankuro told him. Gaara put his arms up around his brother's shoulders, like he'd seen Temari do. Weirder and weirder.

"Now, relax," Kankuro said, "and exhale."

Gaara relaxed as best he could, and let his breath out through his nose, slowly, as Kankuro pressed in and up against his spine. He didn't have to press to hard when there was a small cacophony of snaps and pops from Gaara's abused vertebrae.

It didn't hurt, really, but it was an unfamiliar sensation. Gaara started and gasped slightly. Even Kankuro made a small noise of surprise at the sound. He moved his hands up several inches. "Try again."

They repeated the procedure three more times, up the length of Gaara's back, ending just below where his neck hooked onto the rest of him. Each attempt was awarded with an impressive assortment of pops, snaps and cracks. And, surprising Gaara immensely, the pain in his back receded considerably, down a much more manageable level. He unthinkingly sagged a bit against Kankuro in relief. It took them both a couple of seconds to realized he'd done that, then another few to remember to be embarrassed.

They both pulled back, Gaara worked his shoulders slightly, experimentally.

"Did that help?" Kankuro asked.

"Think so." Gaara said softly, still focusing his eyes on the middle distance. He turned and started walking again, Kankuro following. "Um," he started, after a few minutes.

"Yeah?" Kankuro prompted.

"Thanks?" Gaara said. It was almost a question, and Kankuro wasn't sure he heard it right at first.

"Eh?" he said, replaying it in his head. "Oh. No problem."

They said nothing more on the way home. Which was fine with Kankuro, because he was trying to think. Gaara had always been a force to be reckoned with in his head, so he had probably unconsciously expected Gaara's physical strength to be notable. He'd been able to gauge Gaara's strength during the encounter, and it wasn't too far above average for someone of his size and age. Oh, he was in shape, he trained as hard as any ninja, but he never needed to really use those skills in battle. So even though it did make sense, the difference in what Kankuro thought and what he found was surprising.

Also the fact that…well, let's face it, it was the closest that he had ever come to hugging his little brother before, and they'd both survived it with a minimal amount of fuss. Gaara didn't seem to mind it. That was good, right?

He sure hoped so.

END

Well, did you make it this far? Did you like? Do tell if you did. This just sprang fully formed in my head after coming home from a friends' house one night. I'd been having a pain in the back-left side of my ribs for a few days, and was hoping that George would be able to help. Normally, I really don't care to have people mess with my back, but I was hurting enough to let George try and crack it, to see if that helped. My roommates like to get him to crack their back, and it seems to help them. Unfortunately for me, my back just doesn't. Crack, I mean. Not a sound. So, for the first time, I found myself envying my roommates that their did.

This is meant to be a oneshot, but I might add to it.

Nitpicks: Before anyone even bugs me about it, I know. Gaara shows up to save Lee later on and still has a gourd on. Well, obviously, it's a new gourd, with much cleaner sand in it. He needed to lug the stuff around somehow, might as well go with what works. I won't be responsible for readers who can't or won't think around these small things. I like to trust people to be able to make their own excuses for small inconsistencies.