A Shotgun Full of Rock Salt

By: firefly

Note: Lying sick in bed, so I decided to work on this to cheer myself up. :D Enjoy!

A Shotgun Full of Rock Salt ch.5

Temari trudged through the overgrowth, brushing brambles and branches out of her way as she explored the grounds.

There wasn't much else to do around here. She'd spent the previous days learning her way around her new house, and now she'd ventured into the jungle that swamped most of the Uchiha district.

As she emerged into a clearing, something reflected the sunlight back into her face and she looked up to see a camera mounted on a tree.

She raised her hand and gave it the finger before continuing onwards.

Sasuke had put it there after a series of reported break-ins in the area, and had thoughtfully gifted his sister-in-law a new accessory. Temari looked disdainfully at the walkie-talkie clipped to her waistband, still in disbelief over the fact that he'd convinced her to wear it.

Well, 'convinced' was a strong word. It was more like he'd threatened her with one of his homicidal stares until she'd accepted it just to get him away from her.

And to spite him, she'd tuned it to a radio station and used it as a makeshift walkman on her strolls around the district. Not that there was much to see. With the addition of the reno's uprooted pipes and broken concrete, the Uchiha district was a wasteland.

She frowned at the song that came on and reached down to find a different station. The music in Konoha sucked. The most interesting thing she'd heard all day was news that the Hokage had suffered a public meltdown.

Her stroll was interrupted with a high-pitched squeal coming from the walkie-talkie, followed by Sasuke's staticky voice.

"Temari."

She stopped and closed her eyes, wishing for something to fall from the sky and bash her head in.

"Come in, Temari."

Swearing under her breath, she grabbed the walkie-talkie and brought it to her lips. "What do you want?"

"Get back to the house and meet me at the southwest entrance in five minutes."

"Aren't you supposed to say 'over'?" she asked sarcastically.

There was no response.

"Asshole," she muttered, clipping the walkie talkie to her pants again.

She ambled back to the house, purposefully taking the long way around. When she came around the corner, she emerged to a cloud of dust and the deafening noise of a jack-hammer breaking up the stone path. Construction men swarmed the area like ants.

Coughing, she covered her mouth and ducked through, emerging to the sight of Sasuke and Itachi waiting for her.

Sasuke was waiting, at least. Itachi just looked like he'd been dragged along against his will. Temari slowed to a stop and gave Sasuke a mock salute.

"Am I late for the rendezvous, captain?"

Sasuke did not look amused. "I called you because I need to lay down some new rules."

He withdrew his arms from behind his back and unfurled a blueprint of the entire district. Then he pointed to three dots that represented them at the southwest entrance.

Temari stared at him blankly. "Are you serious right now?"

He ignored her. "Starting tomorrow, this area is completely off-limits. The roof is being re-tiled and they're going to uproot the gas line. Then they're going to install a cat-walk above us for the camera installation. It'll be a hard hat zone, so nobody comes out here without—"

Temari tuned him out, quickly glancing at Itachi to see if he was listening to any of this.

It seemed like he was, but on second glance she could see he was looking at the blueprint with a thousand-yard stare. He was listening, all right, but there was nobody home to process what he was hearing.

"Do you understand?" Sasuke said.

Temari blinked and gave him a thin smile. "Perfectly."

Sasuke turned from her to look at his brother. "Nii-san, do you—"

"Look out!"

They all glanced up at the same time, hardly registering the dark object falling towards them until it crashed to the ground, missing Itachi's head by mere inches.

The toolbox broke apart on impact, scattering nails and bolts in all directions. Moments later, a flustered worker peered over the side of the roof. "Sorry about that. Anyone hurt?"

Itachi came out of his reverie long enough to look at the toolbox in dismay, realising how close it had come to ending his wretched life. Sasuke said nothing and just stared at it with a vacant expression.

"Uh..." Temari noticed his eerie silence and slowly started backing into the house. "I'm just going to go inside now."

She'd meant for the comment to serve as a warning for her unwitting husband, but he seemed too disappointed in his near-death experience to fully grasp what was about to happen. Deciding to run off while she still had the chance, Temari scrambled inside before the inevitable happened.

Sasuke went fucking berserk.

Enraged screaming, panicked yells and the noise of shattering glass immediately filled the vicinity. Temari hurried up the stairs, catching bursts of fire through the windows as she ducked into the nearest room. She quickly made her way to another window, glancing out in time to catch sight of a construction worker running off the property in flames.

Moments later, another man went sailing past the window with a shrill scream. He landed on the pavement with a dull thump.

Grimacing, Temari backed away and sat at the edge of the bed to wait out the storm. To her surprise, there was a sudden lull in the violence. Then thundering footsteps raced up the stairs and towards the room.

She leapt to her feet when the door flew open and Sasuke dragged Itachi inside.

"Nobody leaves this room until I come back!" Sasuke bellowed. He forced his brother into a chair and left without another word, slamming the door shut and barricading it behind him.

They listened to his footsteps disappear back down the stairs, the sound followed shortly by another door slam. Then there was silence.

Temari stared at Itachi in disbelief, noting the way he sat listlessly in the chair with his head lowered. He did not look surprised at all by what had just happened. Worse than that, he didn't seem concerned with the fact that Sasuke had just locked them inside.

Temari stood up and went to the door, trying fruitlessly to open it despite knowing Sasuke had probably thrown a sofa up against it. Then she let her arms drop back to her sides and turned to Itachi again.

"Is there any other way out?"

"No," he answered tiredly.

"Are you sure? Some of the other rooms had trap doors—"

"This is my room."

Oh. This was—oh.

Suddenly feeling awkward, she moved away from the door and found a chair on the opposite side of the room. They sat in silence for several minutes.

It didn't take long for Temari to realise Itachi would sit there forever so long as Sasuke saw fit, and that he had no desire to contradict his brother's insane orders.

The thought irked her and she looked at him with a blend of bewilderment and annoyance. "You could get out of here if you wanted, couldn't you?"

He didn't answer.

"Why do you even listen to him?" she demanded. "Don't you have a mind of your own?"

"Sasuke is only concerned for my well-being," he said half-heartedly, as though he'd grown tired of justifying his brother's crazy behaviour.

Temari balked. "Concerned? Obsessed is more like it. And you're okay with him running your life like this?"

He said nothing. Normally she would have grown frustrated at this level of passivity, but Temari felt the annoyance deflate out of her when she looked at his miserable face. She realised he probably didn't care about how Sasuke ran his life because he didn't want to live in the first place.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, wondering what twisted fate had brought her to this madhouse. True, she pitied Itachi enough to not hold a grudge, but she wasn't going to follow his example and just wait for his lunatic brother to come back.

She got back to her feet. "Well, we can't just sit here and do nothing."

Itachi looked at her, not understanding what she meant since he'd already told her there was no way out.

She walked over to the window and glanced outside. Then she closed the curtains and looked around the room. He watched with a growing sense of confusion when she moved towards his bed and pulled the comforter off. Then she started searching his bedside table for something, rifling through his eye drops and medications. When she couldn't find what she was looking for, she turned to him.

"Do you have any lube?"

Itachi's mouth went dry. "I'm sorry?"

"Lube," she repeated insistently. "Oil. Anything to help me get this thing loose."

He looked at her in a blank, petrified sort of way.

She suddenly took notice of his dresser and walked over to grab a jar of Vaseline. "This could work. Can I use this?"

"Temari-san," he began, rising out of his seat in preparation to run if she came any closer, "I am not—"

"I'll buy you new bed sheets," she said impatiently, trying to get the lid off the Vaseline jar. "Here, open this."

She threw the jar at him and busied herself with his sheets, pulling them off his mattress. Itachi stood motionless with the jar in his hands, feeling, for the first time, the fog of depression lifting to make room for panic.

He subconsciously took a step back towards the door. Temari looked up from where she was busy tearing up his sheets to see him standing in the corner, the jar of Vaseline unopened in his hands.

She frowned. "What are you doing? The least you could do is help me."

"Temari-san," he said in a measured voice, "this is not going to happen."

This time, her eyes narrowed into a glare and she got to her feet. Itachi silently willed her not to come any closer. He didn't want to have to hurt her.

"Don't you people have an obsession with honour or something?" she demanded. "Like it or not, I'm your wife, and that means you have to help me. Sasuke said it himself. You're obligated to do it."

Itachi stared at her in shock. Sasuke said what?

"What's your problem?" Temari said angrily, suddenly taking a step closer. "You were willing to help me out yesterday. What's different today?"

Itachi looked at her like she'd lost her mind. "This…is completely different."

"Are you crazy, Uchiha? How difficult is it for you to help me open a goddamn window?"

Itachi stopped, then, and looked at her in confusion.

"For the love of—" Temari fisted her fingers in her hair and spun away to calm herself down. After a minute of deep breathing, her hands drifted back to her sides and she turned back to him with a resigned look on her face.

"You're on psychiatric meds, aren't you? I shouldn't have yelled. Just forget I—"

"You wanted this," he said suddenly, holding up the Vaseline, "for the window?"

She shrugged helplessly. "The latch is rusted shut. You didn't have to come with me. I just needed you to open it while I worked on the rope."

Itachi's eyes drifted past her to his shredded bed sheets. There was a half-formed rope lying on the floor.

Wondering at his silence, Temari followed his gaze to see what he was looking at. Then her brow furrowed and she looked at the way he'd backed himself into the corner—that strange expression on his face—the Vaseline, and—oh dear God.

Temari made a strangled noise in her throat. "You—you thought I was going to—?"

Itachi seemed too shocked to answer.

There was an unbearable silence.

Slowly, Temari placed a hand on her hip and reached up to rub her chin with the other. Her lips were pressed tightly together and she was staring fixedly at the floor. Then a snort of laughter escaped her. She haplessly covered her mouth, the gesture doing little to help because her shoulders started shaking.

Then she was gone, seized by a paroxysm of laughter that left her doubled over and sitting on the floor.

Itachi watched this all in silence, vaguely wondering if she was suffering a mental breakdown.

The laugh attack subsided after a few minutes, though, and Temari reached up to cover her face with her hands as she caught her breath.

"Oh, God, this is so screwed up," she said weakly, finally calming down. "What the hell is happening to my life?"

There were a few more exhausted giggles, and then she seemed to gather her bearings after a while. She dropped her arms back to her sides took a few deep breaths.

Itachi was still standing in the corner, watching her with an unreadable look on his face.

"Relax," she said, dropping her head back against the wall. "I'm not going to do anything."

"I gathered that," he said, sounding surprisingly calm. "Are you all right?"

"Yes," she said in a wry voice. "Better than before, at least."

He slowly came forward and sat back down in the chair. Temari snorted another laugh when he put the Vaseline back on the dresser. The inhibition had gone out of her and she smirked at the ceiling.

"You look a little livelier yourself," she said.

He didn't respond to that, but at least this time she didn't feel like she was talking to the wall. They sat in comfortable silence for a minute, and she felt like a little bit of the invisible wall had come crumbling down between them.

"Sorry," Temari said eventually. "About the mess."

He studied some indiscernible spot on his folded hands. "It's not your fault."

"I tore up your room."

"Anybody else would have done the same."

Temari raised her head, looking at him curiously. "Can I ask you something?"

He glanced at her with a questioning look.

"How do you tolerate all this?" she asked.

He didn't answer. She found herself regretting the question because the shuttered look slowly reappeared on his face and his eyes turned distant. She didn't think he was going to respond, so she let her head drop back against the wall.

The bedside clock filled the room with its gentle ticks for several seconds.

"When you stop caring," he said suddenly, "it's not that difficult. Because you learn apathy, not tolerance."

Temari raised her head, blinking in surprise at the response. Before she could speak, there was a sudden bang at the door and it swung open. She scrambled to her feet and Itachi stood when Sasuke strode into the room. He stopped halfway in, looking around at the mess.

"What the hell happened in here?"

"Nothing. I tried to escape," Temari admitted.

Sasuke gave her an exasperated look, but he seemed too worn out to get angry. There were mud stains and singe marks all over his clothes.

Temari studied his appearance and raised an eyebrow. "What did you do to the workers?"

"I fired them," Sasuke said evenly.

Temari decided not to question him further.

"It's 6:45," he said, acting as if nothing had happened. "Dinner is at 7:00. I'm going to get washed up."

Then he turned around and left.

Temari decided to help Itachi clean his room in the time they had remaining and began gathering the shredded sheets from the floor. He didn't try to stop her. After the room looked more or less normal again, Itachi remained behind to put new sheets on his bed while Temari started toward the door.

She paused at the threshold and looked back at him. "Hey."

He glanced up.

"Why don't you get a hobby?" Temari asked. "Or build something? Sitting still isn't doing either of us any favours."

He looked at her like he wanted to ask why she'd said such a random thing, but doing so seemed like too much effort. So he merely nodded.

There was a sudden burst of static from the walkie talkie at her side and Temari looked down to hear Sasuke's irritated voice coming through.

"It's 7:03."

Rolling her eyes, Temari headed into the hall and raised the walkie talkie to her lips. "Roger that, captain. We'll be there in ten seconds. Over and out."

She snickered as she heard a rush of static from Sasuke's annoyed sigh, and through the interference, she could have sworn she heard a soft laugh disguised as a cough coming from Itachi's room.

True to his word, Sasuke had fired (or murdered) every last one of his previous construction workers. There was a new crew working the grounds today, and the spot where the toolbox nearly brained Itachi had been cordoned off with caution tape.

Sakura did not know any of this, of course, but didn't seem bothered by the mysterious burn marks and blood stains dotting the ground near the mansion as she went to knock at the front door.

She wasn't exactly sure what had compelled her to come here, but she'd woken that morning with the belief that, despite barely knowing each other, Temari could benefit from her inappropriate and unsolicited sex advice and a full interrogation on how far she'd gotten in her marriage. After all, being Temari's only female acquaintance in a foreign village automatically upgraded her to BFF status.

She smiled brightly when the lock slid aside and Temari opened the front door. "Hello, Temari-san."

"Sakura," Temari said, surprised at the sight of her. "What are you doing here?"

Before Sakura could answer, she heard Sasuke shouting something from inside the house.

"It's just Sakura!" Temari shouted back, sounding irritated. "You paranoid bastard."

She turned back to her. "Sorry. You were saying?"

"I don't know why I came," Sakura said, feeling a little confused. "I just had this strong impulse to come see you."

"Okay," Temari said slowly, "well, you're here now, so you might as well come in."

She stood aside and held the door open. Sakura crossed the threshold and entered, following Temari to the kitchen. Sasuke passed them in the hall, fiddling with something resembling a bear trap.

"Good morning, Sasuke-kun," Sakura chirped.

Sasuke ignored her and kept walking.

Temari gestured for her to have a seat at the table and busied herself with making tea. Sakura scanned her surroundings, taking her time scrutinizing Temari as well.

Strange. Temari was still dressed in her pyjamas. Her hair was up in a messy bun and she wasn't even wearing makeup. She looked—Sakura noticed with a frown—tired. Not at all like someone who was rosy and euphoric with love.

When Temari knelt to get milk from the fridge, Sakura craned her head to the side to catch a glimpse of her neck, finding nary a love bite.

This was troubling.

A moment later, Temari sat down with a cup of tea and handed one to Sakura. She accepted it, about to start with a casual mention about the weather when the door opened and Itachi walked in.

Sakura was shocked when Temari didn't even look at him and instead took a sip of her tea. Itachi seemed preoccupied with his own thoughts, as well, and only stopped when he caught sight of Sakura.

She gave him a cheerful smile. "Hello, Itachi-san."

When there was no response, Temari looked up and found Itachi regarding Sakura with an emotionless face.

"Haruno-san," he said a little stiffly. Then he turned around and left the kitchen.

Temari raised an eyebrow when Sakura gave her an awkward smile.

"He hates me," she offered in explanation.

Temari scoffed. "Itachi? He doesn't hate anyone. What did you do to him to make you think that?"

Sakura looked sheepishly at the table. "I saved his life."

"Oh." Temari paused. "Yeah, that would do it."

"So," Sakura said innocently, raising the cup to her lips, "how are things?"

Temari shrugged. "The same. Kinda boring."

Sakura blinked, caught off guard by the response.

It seemed unfathomable to her that things were anything less than perfect. After an arranged marriage, the couple was supposed to be endearingly awkward with each other for a few weeks. Then the sexual tension would kick in and they'd go around sending each other mixed signals until one of them got angry. Then they'd tackle each other to the floor and have sex and the next day they would be in love. The end.

It was funny, Sakura thought. People protested against arranged marriages like they were a bad thing. Little did they know—marrying a total stranger was the most romantic way to go.

Dabbing her lips with a napkin, Sakura decided to delve a little deeper. " I'm sorry to hear that. How have things been with Itachi?"

"All right, I guess. He spends a lot of time with his birds."

"Is he good in bed?" Sakura blurted.

Temari choked. "What?"

Almost instantly, Sakura slapped her hands over her mouth, looking horrified.

"I'm sorry," she squeaked, "I don't know what came over me."

Temari bristled and set her cup down, about to give her a piece of her mind when a thought suddenly occurred to her. She paused, looking at Sakura uncertainly. "This is going to sound weird, but has that been happening to you a lot lately?"

Sakura lowered her hands, relieved Temari hadn't bitten her head off. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, you saying stuff you don't mean. Like—" she grimaced, trying to find the right words. "I've been hearing this voice recently. Not out loud, but more like in my own head, telling me do things I'd normally never do. Telling me to…not be myself."

"You too?" Sakura said in a hushed voice. "I thought I was the only one."

"Really?" Temari said, sounding immensely relieved. "I thought I was going insane."

"I'm not even sure how I ended up here," Sakura admitted. "It's Monday morning. I'm supposed to be at work."

"What do you think is causing it?"

"I'm not sure," Sakura said, sounding troubled. "Whatever it is, I think it's causing us all to act out of chara—"

"Goddamn it! I told you to lock the tools in the fucking shed!"

Sakura blanched, falling silent as Sasuke chased after the workers outside and hurled a brick at them. Temari was too used to this by now to care, but the distraction had been enough that she couldn't remember what they'd been talking about.

She shook her head, feeling mildly disoriented. "Sakura, you were saying…?"

"Huh? I was asking how things were with Itachi."

"Oh," Temari said, sounding doubtful. Her memory felt fuzzy all of a sudden. "Well, like I said, nothing's changed. I don't think it ever will."

Sakura seemed genuinely upset at her answer and was quiet for a long moment. "Then…do you ever see this working out?"

"No," Temari snorted. "Of course not."

"What'll happen to you, then?"

Temari shrugged. "One of three things. Itachi dies and I go free. Sasuke snaps and kills all of us. Or my brothers come to their senses and call me back home."

Sakura floundered, trying to find at least one ray of hope in this dismal situation. "Is Itachi any happier, at least?"

Temari almost burst out laughing, but managed to save face by turning it into a cough midway. She stared down at the counter in an attempt to gather her thoughts and answer the question seriously.

"Itachi's just…" she started, scrunching up her face. Then her features slackened and she shook her head.

"Sad," she said eventually. "He's just really, really...sad."

Sakura left a little while later, looking disheartened by the entire conversation. Temari had a feeling the visit hadn't gone the way the pink-haired girl had been hoping.

On the other hand, voicing her thoughts to another person had helped her make better sense of how she was feeling, and now that she was alone again, she found herself remembering that little inkling of friendship she'd felt with Itachi the night before.

Granted, how it had come about was fucked up, seeing as how he'd thought she was about to rape him, but they'd cleared up that misunderstanding. More or less.

She sat there a little longer, drumming her fingers against the counter in contemplation. Then she stood up and decided she was going to give it a try.

Because if there was one person in whom she'd glimpsed some sanity, it was Itachi. And she needed to bring some of it back into her life.

She knew Sasuke prepared a cup of tea for him every morning. It seemed Itachi had skipped it today because Sakura had been in the kitchen.

There. That seemed easy enough. There was nothing more harmless or inviting than tea. With that, she got up and prepared it, using the same brand Sasuke always used. Then she strode to the back door that faced the yard, knowing Itachi was out there with his birds.

"Hey, Uchiha," she called. "Come into the kitchen."

A few seconds later, he trudged inside, a flicker of surprise passing over his face when he spotted her sitting at the table with two cups in front of her.

"Have some," she said, gesturing for him to sit.

He stood there a moment, eyes flitting between the cup and the window. "Where is Sasuke?"

"Outside harassing the workers. I know you didn't get a chance to have any this morning, so I made you some."

At that, he slowly came forward and seated himself at the table. Temari didn't exactly expect him to start chatting, so she busied herself with the crossword in the paper as he made himself comfortable.

"Thank you," he said after a while.

She shrugged one shoulder. "No problem."

The ensuing silence was comfortable; almost companiable, and for the first time since she'd arrived Temari was beginning to feel a wisp of contentment. Then she heard a bang and they looked up to see Sasuke storming into the house.

He came into the kitchen and stopped short, eyes darting sharply to the cups on the table. Then his face froze and he looked at her.

"What are you doing?"

"What's it look like?" Temari deadpanned. "We're having tea."

Sasuke clenched his jaw. "You know he can't have anything I don't make myself."

"Why not?" she retorted. "You said it yourself. I'm his wife so I'm doing wifey things. What more do you want?"

Sasuke took a step closer, his hands clenching into fists by his sides. "I told you before. This was part of the rules—"

"To hell with your rules," Temari snapped, getting up in his face. "You really think I can't be trusted with your brother's freaking tea?"

Sasuke's face clouded over with fury. "He's sick. You don't know what you could have done. You don't know anything."

Itachi watched the exchange from where he sat, growing increasingly concerned as a vein began to throb in Sasuke's neck. Temari looked no better. It looked like her hair was standing on end.

He cleared his throat. "Sasuke—"

"Are you that paranoid?" Temari interrupted, drowning him out. "What do you think? That I put poison in his tea?"

Itachi fell silent at that and furtively drained the rest of his cup.

"You need to shut up," Sasuke said, in a voice of deadly calm. "Shut up and sit down."

Temari glared up at him in contempt. "Or what?"

Sasuke violently slapped the tray off the table. Tea splattered the walls and the cups smashed against the floor. Temari remained frozen in shock for all but five seconds before she reacted and punched Sasuke in the jaw. The blow sent him stumbling back into the puddle of tea where he slipped and crashed to the floor.

Itachi rose out of his seat, about to intervene when out of nowhere he began bleeding profusely from the eyes.

Temari reeled back with a yelp of disgust when some of it landed on her clothes.

"I'm sorry," Itachi said from behind his hands as he tried to stem the bleeding. The gesture didn't do much besides smear blood on his palms and cheeks.

At that exact moment, the new contractor walked in with a stack of blueprints. "Uchiha-san, I was taking measurements for the electric fence and I wanted to know if you—" he stopped, taking in the scene in front of him.

Sasuke was lying on the floor, nursing his bleeding head; Temari was splattered in blood, standing frozen in surprise; and Itachi was hunched over the sink, apparently suffering stigmata.

"Uh..." the contractor lowered the papers and slowly backed out of the room. "I'll just come back later, then. Um, goodbye."

He ran out of the house.