YAY! It's LONG! Bleh.

I don't own Naruto. Stupid disclaimer.

Anyway, if you haven't read B rank Hugs, go read it—it was supposed to be a oneshot, but since Kraecha loved it so flipping much I made a SEQUEL, which you happen to be reading! This has got more hurt, but more comfort as well, so it's very hurt-and-comfort-y. Whatever that means. Anyway, I like it, so review already!

More than once, Gaara had ventured to Kankuro's room, left in its state of messiness. He would stare at the unmade bed, the drawn curtains, the layers of clothing, as if the boy he missed so much would suddenly materialize there. Like a drug, he had quickly begun to want more, and soon the place where the puppetmaster slept and dressed and sometimes ate didn't hold enough. He had found himself in the back of the house, at the heart of a labyrinth of sitting rooms and living rooms and bathrooms and hallways and kitchens, in the only place that seemed truly alive:

The workshop.

He had marveled at how graceful his brother seemed to become here, his fingers working fast and tirelessly at the wood, sculpting it into smiling copies of life. These were tangible memories, ones he could reach out and touch, for they lived in the shapes that hung from the ceiling and littered the floor, in the bodies of handmade animals, in the bright jars of half-dried paint. He could finger afternoons sat watching a bird burst forth from a tangle of branches, stroke snakes that had twisted and slithered past boards and wires into the world. At the back of the room, propped against a chair, sat a wide-eyed fox, created in the quiet hours after midnight as one of his first real conversations with a nervous fifteen-year-old had floated shakily across the room.

Now, as those familiar noises of knife against puppet seemed to echo through the house, his longing had been replaced with a kind of disappointment. He had felt it first when Kankuro had arrived, grinning, without a scratch, from a B-rank solo mission after being informed he would fail it; it had resurfaced when the look in the Sand-nin's eyes told him he hadn't heard Gaara's last words to him before he left. Though the Kazekage had really known this all along, it hurt to see that it was more than a suspicion, and the mutual discontentment they shared kept them at opposite ends of a very large mansion.

Still, the thing that hurt more than anything was realizing that the puppetmaster was, in fact, an older sibling; being in such a position of power, it was easy for one to forget that he was still considered inferior to those closest to him. Kankuro didn't need protecting, and it stung like the loss of an innocent child to adulthood; he had felt like father, not a brother, but now he seemed younger than he had in years. It reminded him of the times when he would sit, gazing up at the to-be shinobi, wondering if he would ever be that great. Now, it was unfair that he was even greater, and for the first time he delved into his brother's mind—the brother that had always been in the shadow of a child, a monster, a demon.

Time had snuck up on him, grabbed him from behind; Temari was already waiting for Shickamaru's proposal, Kankuro gazing at every new house that was built. Lives away from the rest of the family were too much for them to resist, and Gaara knew of too many people who hadn't contacted their siblings in years. So, slowly, he placed one foot in front of the other. With excruciating deliberation, he made his way out of his room. He contemplated each word he might say as he plodded down a hall—through a kitchen—past a balcony—through a playroom. He thought of hundreds of blank, glassy eyes, staring; he thought of a pair of catlike ones, dark and unforgiving; he thought of blue, insomnia-lined eyes, staring back, breaking under the gaze—he almost turned back, sought the safety of his bed, made useless by the insomnia that remained even after Shukaku had gone, but he pressed on.

Now he could reach out grasp the door handle in his hand. He could turn it. He could enter the room. He could talk to his own brother.

He could.

But he didn't.

He stood, staring, as if the wall might come alive if he dared touch it; slowly, he extended a hand; biting his lip, he balled it into a fist; too late, he tried to stop what he knew he was about to do, but couldn't—

Knock—knock—knock—knock—knock.

He listened hard—after so many years, he could detect any slight change in Kankuro's mood. Even to the standard person, he wasn't all that hard to read—and Gaara could practically figure out whether he wanted coffee or milk with his cookies. Within a few seconds, a low grunt reached the redhead's ears:

Quiet, distracted: his brother was working. Hoarse, brief: he was tired. And of course the contented sigh mixed in: that could only mean he was happy. That meant any nervousness—a feeling the Kazekage almost never encountered—was unnecessary. The fluttering feeling in his stomach—why was that there? To stop him from doing what he was supposed to do? Well, it wouldn't work.

It wouldn't.

Well…it might.

Heck, it was working.

A sound left the air, one that had been there for so long it went unnoticed: the rough noises of wood against metal. It wasn't hard to picture the look on the puppetmaster's face: the one-eyed squint, the mouth set in a confused and annoyed frown—hello, I'm waiting here! Still Gaara hesitated, and soon the grating screech of a chair scooting across a rough floor reverberated through the hallway. There was the quietest of swishing noises—clothes repositioning themselves as their owner stood—followed by heavy footsteps. He had to open the door…why wouldn't he open it?

Tentatively, a hand reached toward the door; cautiously, it gripped the doorknob; slowly, it turned and moved toward him, the darkness behind it swallowing him—

And suddenly, he was standing in a room barely recognizable as a room. Against the wall leaned board after board, logs and sticks and driftwood and every other form of tree known to man. The floor was carpeted in wood shavings and the air thick with sawdust that caught in his throat and eyes, but, like everyone else in the house, he had long since learned to ignore it. With the crunching rug, rotting wallpaper and choking atmosphere forgotten, there was only one thing setting it apart from a hideously dusty office with terrible décor: the reason for which the room was created.

This reason lay scattered across the floor in various states of completion, curled under spilled jars of paint. It hang from the ceiling, tethered to metal hooks with sturdy straw-colored ropes. It was mounted on the rows of shelves that lines the wall, coated the small table under the drawn curtains, clung to the chair and the lamp and every available surface. It was the hundreds of puppets that had writhed into existence under their master's watchful eye, guided by wires and brushes and knives, and it was everywhere: solid evidence of the existence of the man named Kankuro.

In the center of the mayhem, the very eye of the hurricane stood that man himself. The half-finished leg of some wooden creature—a wildcat of some sort, from the look of the claws—was slung over his shoulder; both hood and face paint were absent. Even to Gaara, the look on his face was unreadable—still, the redhead grimaced as his brother produced a strong why-the-hell-does-he-think-I-want-to-see-him vibe.

"If you've come to say goodbye, I'm afraid you're about a month to late," the feline shinobi growled; his eyes narrowed, and the Kazekage couldn't help but be reminded of a cat about to pounce. Breathing deeply, he prepared his response:

I'm sorry…I was worried about you, I really was! I just didn't want you to get hurt, and you surprised me, I wasn't ready for you to go. I thought I could make you stay—that was what I was ready for. I couldn't accept you were leaving, I didn't mean to be so cold…I couldn't think of anything to say…especially not "goodbye…"

A whoosh of air escaped his mouth. No words. Damn it!

"Or maybe you just think if you stare enough I'll die and then you'll be right. That it? You're so upset you were wrong and I can actually handle life?"

No! No, that's not it, that's not it at all!

Whoosh.

"Well, I'm sorry I disappointed you." There was sharpness in his voice now, iciness.

You didn't! I just…just…

Now there wasn't even anything to think except one word: it dominated, it wouldn't go away, rose and rose and filled him up until it had to spill over—he was going to cry, but the tears wouldn't come—

"Sorry!"

"Excuse me?"

"I-I'm sorry."

Kankuro's features softened a bit, though they were still nowhere near apologetic. "You? Sorry? Why?"

"Because I—I just didn't want—I wasn't ready for—you—I—I wanted you to stay, and I'm sorry!" It was like being six again, trying to tell his uncle what he'd done to the poor girl who'd taken his teddy bear. Impossible. Not the way twenty-year-old Kazekages should feel. They shouldn't let their bodies heave with dry sobs because of the words I love you. But somehow, they do. Somehow, it cracks their brother's defenses. Somehow.

"Oh…"

"I…I did say it, you know. 'I love you.' Only you didn't hear me."

"Oh." The puppetmaster wasn't like Gaara. Tears came easily for him, tears that ripped away the wood and the skin and the years and trickled slowly down his cheeks, tears he barely knew were there. It was like the day, so long ago, that a demon had turned to the people he finally regarded as his family and said—

"I'm sorry."

And two people stood in a room that was hardly a room, surrounded by dull imitations of life, and thinking about how two words changed the real thing forever. Slowly, ever so slowly, one of them grinned, a single tear track still fresh on his face. A bit more quickly, he opened his mouth; then words came, faster and faster, picking up speed until they were a joyful buzz:

"I've just started a tiger. I saw one. On the mission, I mean. Come on—I'll tell you about it."

"Yeah," Gaara said, and for the next few hours it wouldn't matter that they were adults because really they were kids and they were carving tigers and talking, just talking, and that was all that mattered, because they were brothers and that's what brothers do. "Yeah, I'd like that."