Title: Automatic
Author: Dayadhvam
Rating/Pairings: PG. Gen.
Summary: Gaara’s shield defense is automatic; he has never had to consciously think about ordering the sand where it is needed. Kankurou and Temari have always known this.
Notes: Set sometime after the Sound-Sand invasion of Konoha; warning for Kankurou's language. Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

“All physical attacks are useless against him. Because regardless of Gaara’s will… the sand becomes a shield and protects him.”
—Kankurou, Naruto Ch. 82, “Lee’s Secret”

I. Kankurou

The most annoying thing about being on a team with Gaara, Kankurou thinks as he jerks his puppet away from a fireball, is that they always get sent out on the most dangerous missions. The council obviously hopes that someday Gaara will be defeated, like he was in the Konoha invasion, and gets taken out or something like that.

Well, that’s just about the most annoying thing—that is, besides Gaara’s tendency to kill whatever he likes. But that’s a given, anyway.

(Not that he doesn’t want dangerous missions, but can’t the council give them some damn rest?)

And damn it, the fireball just singed Kuroari’s hair—does the stupid missing-nin know how long Kankurou spent working on that?

(Not that he doesn’t like fighting, but couldn’t the missing-nin have run into them sometime else, instead of right after they just finished an exhausting mission?

“Kankurou, get your dolls out of the way,” says Temari, landing lightly next to him.

Mutter of protest—“They’re puppets, not dolls—“ He pulls them in all the same, leaving Gaara’s sand to do all the lunging and jabbing at the surprisingly quick shinobi.

Temari draws open her great fan to three spots, and runs a thin ribbon of blood over it; braces herself as she pulls it back, then—“Kuchiyose Kirikiri Mai!”

The twitchy weasel Temari’s always feeding at meals whisks out—oh no. Kuroari and Karasu are down on the ground quick as you please. He’s not about to risk having them get blown to bits by the wind, considering he finished oiling them only two hours ago. Gaara’s done the same with his sand, plastering it close against the ground around them.

(Kankurou also notes that Gaara is standing at least two trees away from him. He’s already calculating how much time that gives him to get away from Gaara’s sand. Just in case. They aren’t going to do anything short of killing the stupid man, and Gaara always gets that bloodlust of his when that happens.

Yeah, okay, so maybe he doesn’t do that so much now. Still, it’s Gaara.)

Most everything around them is leveled; Kankurou snorts. Trying to be showy, he thinks, but at the same time he’s trying to suppress a grin on his face at his sister’s jutsu. Temari lowers her fan warily. “Kamatari, where is he?”

The weasel is sniffing at the air, head cocked to one side. “Over here,” it calls, darting some ways off. “But wait—it just ends here—“

The shifting of dirt behind them is all the warning Kankurou has before he turns his head and sees the bastard coming out of the earth, a rain of kunai flying at them. His fingers twitch, but the puppets are too far away; Temari’s swinging around with her fan, but too late for her wind, too late to even get out of the way—

Oh, fuck—

II. Gaara

He turns on his heel and sees the man they’re trying to kill.

“Sabaku Kyuu,” he says. Then: “Sabaku Sousou.”

The blood flies.

He opens his hand, letting the pressure recede slowly as the sand spills away, leaving the ninja’s mangled body; looks up, to see Kankurou and Temari giving him strange looks.

He blinks. There is not much outright fear, as it’s always been; only a sort of odd surprise.

Kankurou says, “Oh—well—good job, Gaara. Thanks.”

He doesn’t say anything, jumps down to the ground, and looks back at them. They still haven’t moved.

“If we are done,” he says slowly, “then we can continue.”

Kankurou’s puppets click as they’re pulled back and wrapped up; Temari’s fan slowly snaps shut.

III. Temari

The light has long since vanished; their surroundings are lit only by the small fire.

“Look at it! I swear there must be chopped up paper in this thing!”

“Kankurou,” she says with exasperation. “I don’t care if you think the rations are disgusting—go complain to someone else about that. It’s all we have for now. Eat. Anyway, Kamatari likes it.” She pats the weasel on the head; Kamatari shifts and continues snoring.

“It’s a weasel. I’m not a weasel.”

“I’m not letting you starve just because you’re picky. Although I’m sorely tempted.” To beat you over the head with my fan, is the implied threat.

He grimaces and bites; grimaces again. “Ugh, this is almost as bad as your onigiri—and that’s saying something!”

“Baka!” Temari gives him a good slap. She wonders again, for who knows how many times, why she got stuck with a brother like this. Ungrateful brat.

Which reminds her of Gaara. She glances across the fire at him; Gaara has his arms folded across his chest. He’s staring at them. His face is very blank.

She smiles back at him.

An expression appears on his face, like he’s not quite sure what to make of her smile—and Temari knows, silently, that it’s because she’s never really bothered to smile at him before.

“Gaara,” she says, “did you eat yet?”

“No,” he says, and continues to eye her like she’s a particularly strange experimental specimen that hasn’t done what was predicted.

“Hmph,” Kankurou huffs. He tosses the food to Gaara, whose sand snaps out to catch it. “You can have that then—eat it for me, will you?” He grins. “I’m off. Wake me up when you switch for sentry duty.” He falls back and is fast asleep in the next minute.

It’s very quiet now. Gaara has never been one to talk much, and Temari doesn’t know what to talk to him about. So she putters about, cleaning her fan, putting Kankurou’s puppets to the side so she won’t trip over them, pulling out her blanket.

Gaara is staring into the fire now. Temari pauses to look at him; wonders what he’s thinking. He has always been closed off to her; literally when she was young, because she didn’t even really know she had another brother until their father brought an eight-year-old Gaara to her and Kankurou and told them, This is Gaara, and she realized then that the overheard whispers about a red-haired boy who walked with sand were true—figuratively, because from the beginning his face was like the front of an empty house, shutters closed tightly and door locked.

He wasn’t even looking, she thinks. Kankurou and her staring up at the weapons that streaked toward them, and all she remembers doing was glancing over at Gaara, who was too far away, who wasn’t even looking at them, who hadn’t heard the earth break behind them—

—and the kunai had slammed into sand.

The shield had fallen away as quickly as it had come up in front of them, and then Gaara had turned around, awareness and the cold killer look dawning in his black-rimmed eyes, but to Temari the sand jutsu that came afterwards is like a blur of ohI’veseenthatbefore.

She remembers, mostly, Gaara standing far away with his back to them, unknowing, and the shield of sand.

Gaara’s automatic defense.

She reaches out—stops—then ruffles Gaara’s hair. He practically jumps. “Are you done eating?” she asks.

His body is stiff under her touch. “Yes,” he says shortly.

She notes that he has, in fact, eaten the food Kankurou tossed to him. “All right,” she says, and pauses. Then: “Could you do sentry duty the entire night? I’m—tired.”

She hears the sand in his gourd shifting a little. “Yes,” he says again.

“Thanks, Gaara.” She leans down low and blows away the last small flames of the dying fire. She and Kankurou normally switch back and forth, so there was always two of them awake. Kankurou or her, and Gaara.

(Because, after all, they didn’t know if Gaara wanted to kill them while they were sleeping. Back then.)

No more fire, and the dark sweeps across their little campsite. Temari burrows deeper under her blanket.

In front of her, Gaara sits, and she watches the moonlight shine through the leaves in thin silver bands upon her little brother.

-fin-

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