Bonds

A Naruto Fan-fic

Shikamaru's cigarette was one long ash. Temari kept an eye on it, in case he went to yawn or snore and it fell into his mouth. The last thing she wanted was to try and Heimlich a fiberglass filter out of his throat.

She plucked the cigarette from her boyfriend's unresisting lips, tapped the ash off into the grass, and took a drag. One of their favorite teachers, Asuma, used to smoke. They would find him out in the parking lot sometimes between classes. He taught social studies and was the faculty advisor for the chess club. He was cool. When Shikamaru won the state chess championship one year, Asuma took him and Temari out to dinner to celebrate. He even bought them drinks.

After Asuma was murdered, Shikamaru took up smoking. He said he wouldn't quit until Asuma's murderers were brought to justice. Temari thought it was just his way of committing slow suicide. She figured if he was going to die, she might as well also.

Tch, how emo THAT sounded. She was starting to sound like the Uchiha kid, the one who always wore long-sleeved shirts with thumb loops so the sleeves wouldn't ride up by accident and show his razor scars.

The bell rang. Temari stubbed the cigarette out and left it in the dirt. "Oi, lazy-ass. Class time," she said in her husky voice, giving her reclining boyfriend a jab in the ribs.

"Unf," he replied.

"I'm not making myself late for you again."

"Go without me," he said, eyes still shut.

"Leave no man behind, soldier," Temari said and stood. She offered her hand. Shikamaru sighed, opened his eyes, and let his girlfriend haul him to his feet.

They were a strange pair: the lazy genius and the hardworking tomboy. Despite all that she tried to light some fire beneath Shikamaru's ass, Temari was secretly glad that Shikamaru wasn't ambitious nor haughty about his intelligence. Her father was ambitious, and she hated the man for it.

The clean-cut, cut-throat businessman was the reason she stalked around in her mother's old leather jacket and rode the loudest Harley she could find instead of dressing in the designer clothes and driving the Lexus he bought for her sixteenth birthday. Like every birthday, he hadn't been around to give it to her; he was overseas on business. The card wedged under the windshield wiper had his name signed by his assistant, Baki.

Her father was the reason her younger brothers dressed like backup singers for Marilyn Manson. He was the reason Gaara dyed his naturally ginger hair bright red and drew eyeliner around his eyes so thick that the other freshmen called him "the rabid raccoon." He was the reason that Kankurou painted his face and spent hours in his room making fucked-up voodoo-doll puppet things made to look like people he hated.

He was the reason her mother was dead. He wanted a strong son to take over the business, after one daughter and the "disappointment" that was Kankurou. Their mother had been so weakened after Kankurou's birth that her obstetrician had warned their father that she shouldn't try to have any more children, that it could kill her. He didn't listen.

At first Temari told herself that dating Shikamaru was just another way to get back at her dad. The slouching, lazy, unendingly casual and subtly disrespectful young man was everything she wasn't supposed to want. It didn't matter that he was a genius, that he was in her grade though he was three years younger, that he was a master at chess. Temari's father wanted her to go after someone like himself: hard-working, ambitious, ruthless. Someone like Neji Hyuuga, child of another powerful business family, someone with whom he could ally.

Shikamaru didn't seem to care about anything, especially not women. Temari couldn't imagine him actually giving a damn about anyone, least of all her, whom he constantly dubbed "troublesome" and used to think of as a spoiled rich brat.

"The hell do you see in him?" Kankurou asked once.

"He looks good, he's interesting, and he doesn't mind riding on the back of my bike," Temari answered.

"Likes to ride bitch, eh?" Kankurou chuckled. "As close to a woman as you can get without hopping the fence, eh Temari?"

She had ignored that. She was used to the lesbian rumors, though anyone who knew her knew she was no fan of women.

"He makes her laugh," Gaara piped up. "And smile."

Kankurou had frowned as though this was a terrible thing.

As it turned out, Temari was one of the few things Shikamaru did care about. He loved to surprise and impress her; she was the only person who could get him to get off his ass and actually make an effort at anything. And Shikamaru was the only person who could turn the snarling, strong-willed Temari into a purring kitten.

They were late for homeroom, but their teacher, Kakashi, wasn't there yet anyway. He always strolled in late, claiming the line for coffee was longer than he thought or that someone had parked in his space or his dogs were sick.

Once, for a month, road work made them detour from their usual route to school to the road the cemetery was on. They saw Kakashi's car parked there every day, and him standing at one of the graves further back. They went there a couple of times, trying to figure out which grave he was standing at, but they could never puzzle it out for sure. They invented plenty of theories, that it was a woman he had loved, a lost sibling, a friend or a parent, but they never asked him and it never came up.

A minute after the late bell rang, Kakashi popped into the room. "Sorry I'm late. I got lost," he said, deadpan. The class laughed at the obvious lie. Shikamaru already had his head down on the desk, back to dreamland. Temari flipped open her planner to see if anything interesting was going on today. "Dinner with Dad" stood out in viciously red ink, complete with a sketch of Temari and her brothers as hanged stick figures while a stick figure of her dad blabbed on unconcerned.

"Fuck," Temari muttered.

"Mm?" Shikamaru asked, opening one eye.

"Go back to sleep," she told him, continuing to curse in her head.

Kakashi was droning the announcements out, reading from a sheet of paper in this hand. "The Autumn Waltz is next week, high schoolers only except for dates. One date per person. No sneaking in half of Konoha Junior High," Kakashi read, earning a smattering of titters for his ad-libbing.

Temari didn't pay much attention to this announcement. She didn't go to dances, which she thought were a waste of money. Instead she and Shikamaru would go out somewhere else, or spend the night in. Then at least they could listen to music they enjoyed.

Besides, the Autumn Waltz was a joke. She knew how to waltz. What people did at those dances, even the ones with fancy names, were about as related to a waltz as fucking was to polo. They had a dress code, they decorated the gym like a ballroom, but everyone still listened to pop music and didn't dance so much as gyrate and grind.

Hell, she could stay home and have some actual sex in private. For free.

"Ino's gonna want to go," Shikamaru said, his eyes still closed.

Temari's eyes narrowed. "You go with her, no sex for a week."

He opened his eyes to fix her with a scolding look. "Not that you could make good on that threat, but knock off the jealousy. I didn't mean with me, first of all." Temari felt her cheeks heating up. She hated when he accused her of jealousy, because that meant she was questioning the virtue of one of his best friends, which was one of the few things that could get her easygoing beau truly pissed off.

Ino and Temari had flat-out hated each other, partly because hanging out with Temari meant Shikamaru wasn't there whenever Ino needed him (which was whenever she broke up with yet another boyfriend and needed a shoulder to cry on, or when she needed a ride, or money, or a favor), partly because Temari didn't like women and didn't trust the social butterfly, and partly because Ino blamed Temari for Shikamaru's transformation into an "aimless loser."

It took one blowout, and Shikamaru locked them in his parents' barn and told them to talk it out or spend the night out there with the deer. Ino clarified that Shikamaru was a friend, nothing closer than a brother to her, and Temari clarified that Shikamaru was neither aimless, nor a loser, and dating her hadn't brought any such thing about.

So after a long talk, they went from loathing to slightly more friendly than tolerating each other. Ino was the de facto girl to go to whenever Temari needed to talk to a woman about something. But old reflexes tend to stick, and the girls could not be more different.

Ino was a cheerleader. Ino was on the student council. Ino got good grades and any man she wanted. Any man except Sasuke Uchiha.

"She'll want to go with Sasuke, of course," Temari said, chagrined. She couldn't think of anyone less suited for Ino, though she supposed the brooding bad-guy schtick had struck an "I must save him from himself" urge in the petite blonde. "Is she gonna ask him?"

"You haven't heard?" Shikamaru said. "He's dating Sakura Haruna now."

Sakura... Temari remembered a time when Sakura was just like Ino. The girls had been attached at the hip, best of friends, the whole chick-flick, young-adult novel cliché of "BFF." And just like in all those works of fiction, a stupid male shattered that like so many crystal unicorn figurines.

The rumor went that Sasuke's older brother, Itachi, was in a gang. As part of his initiation, he had to rob his parents' house. His parents came home, confronted him, and he or his accomplices shot them. Sasuke, who was lagging behind his parents to check the mail, heard the gunshot and rushed in. Instead of shooting him, Itachi pistol-whipped him into unconsciousness and fled the scene.

No one knew if it was true, or what Sasuke had been like beforehand, but the kid who left his posh private school to join the regular kids at Konoha High School wore all black, never smiled, and was rumored to slash his arms up with a box cutter. This, of course, made him irresistible to the girls at school who couldn't resist a mystery. They all fought with each other and vied to be the one to break down the walls he built up around himself.

Temari, who was intimate enough with all things fucked-up, was immune. Sure, he was handsome in a mopey sort of way, but she knew walls like that were usually as much to keep something in as they were to keep everyone else out.

But Ino, the charmer, was perplexed to find a handsome young man who ignored her seductive wiles. Sakura, with her cheery helpfulness, saw a soul in need. The two became rivals.

"Sakura and Sasuke? Are you sure?" Temari asked.

"Ino was on the phone crying her eyes out for three hours last night," Shikamaru said. "I guess whatever Sakura was doing worked." While Ino matured into an older version of herself, a little more self-assured, a little less flighty, Sakura had changed. Apparently she figured that to hunt the beast, you had to become it. Or maybe she outgrew the unicorn figurines. Either way, she cut her waist-length brown hair into a long shag and dyed it bubblegum pink. She wore band t-shirts with the sleeves torn off and camo pants. She listened to music that wasn't so much melody as synchronized screaming and wore enough makeup to put on an off-Broadway production of Cats. She wore combat boots, pierced her nose and wore dark sunglasses even inside.

"Huh." Temari poked at her lower lip with the end of her pen. "I doubt Ino will want to go to the dance then."

"Oh no. If she stays home, that's admitting defeat. She's going to go looking her best and acting like she doesn't give a shit about those two."

"But she wants you to go for moral support."

"Maybe."

Temari glared. Shikamaru shot a warning glare in return. Temari muttered something about clamps and Shikamaru's glare took on a slightly frightened tinge.

"She won't be hanging around me, if so. She wants to make Uchiha jealous, and everyone at school knows I'm with you, and that I'm her best friend. That would be too obvious."

"So I take it you're helping her devise a strategy?"

Shikamaru scoffed. "I'm not helping her play her girlie games, no."

Temari thought for a moment and laughed. "What?" Shikamaru asked.

"Do you really think those two will go to a lame Autumn Waltz?" she asked.

Shikamaru sat up. "Good point," he said. "Maybe. I dunno how much time they get alone. Dances are prime time to make out."

"Yeah, but they'd probably do what we do: take the money for tickets and go out somewhere else."

"True," Shikamaru said. "Do you think that'd stop Ino, though?"

"Probably not," Temari said with a smirk.

The bell rang and the class shuffled to their feet and out the door. "Want to come over after school?" Shikamaru asked when they got out in the hall.

"Can't," Temari grumbled, tapping a fingernail against her planner.

Shikamaru peered at the sketch. "Oooh," he said, wincing. "Do you want me to come over?"

"Sweet of you to offer but no, I like you too much," Temari replied and stuffed the planner back into her backpack. She slung the pack on her back. "See you at lunch," she said, and held out her hand. Shikamaru slid his fingertips from her palm to her fingertips. They never kissed goodbye at school; not only was it silly because they were going to see each other in a few hours, it was too troublesome to get bitched out by an overly-prudish teacher. And as Temari liked to say, if anyone wanted to see anything as hot as the two of them kissing, they had to pay cash.

---

"There's a new kid in my class," Gaara said as he carefully sawed his pizza into little triangular pieces with his dull plastic knife. Shikamaru hated eating lunch with Temari's weirdo brothers. Kankurou liked to growl at him and clandestinely fling bits of food at his head, and he hadn't caught Gaara blinking yet, at least not unless it was obviously deliberate.

"Oh yeah, who?" Temari asked, poking at her sandwich.

"That guy," Gaara pointed without diverting his attention from his meticulous task. "Naruto Uzumaki."

A few tables over, an energetic blonde kid appeared to be terrorizing the Hyuugas: Hinata and Neji. Hinata was, as always, hiding behind her long, indigo-black hair and glasses. She was blushing so crimson she was almost incandescent. The blonde kid was sitting next to her, occasionally putting a hand on her shoulder as if to make sure she understood his meaning. Every time he did, she seemed to blush even redder. Across the table, Neji was glaring, the crease between his eyebrows deepening more every time the Uzumaki kid touched his cousin.

"All right, look at Hyuuga's face," Temari cackled.

"Which one?" Kankurou asked, concentrating on lining up a gummi bear on a plastic spoon for a shot at Shikamaru's nose.

"Dude, do you think I don't see you?" Shikamaru sighed.

"Do you think I give a shit, Nara?" Kankurou replied. Shikamaru groaned. To think I might marry into this family someday, he thought to himself.

Kankurou flicked the candy. Shikamaru caught it in his mouth. "Thanks," he said, smirking as he chewed. "Send over another."

"Cocksucker," Kankurou muttered.

"Language, asswipe," Temari said and smacked her brother in the back of the head.

"Ow!" He rubbed his head and flipped her the bird.

"And give Shikamaru some more gummi bears."

"Fuck YOU sideways! Owowow! Lemmego!"

Temari released Kankurou's ear. "Let him eat them, Temari. Maybe it'll sweeten his mouth," Shikamaru said, sipping his iced tea and looking bored.

"Rot his teeth and widen his ass, more like," Temari hissed.

"Hey, sis, dinner with Dad tonight. Maybe I should let him know his daughter lets some farmer's kid use her as a finger puppet--" Kankurou cut off abruptly as Gaara's plastic fork halted millimeters from his eye.

"Enough," Gaara said in a perfectly calm voice, though the fork shook a little and his breathing was a bit harsh. He pulled the fork back, speared one of his pizza triangles, and ate it. He chewed slowly, still staring through Kankurou. Kankurou gulped.

"So, Hinata, I hear there's an Autumn Waltz coming up," a loud voice with a hint of growl broke through the sudden quiet. "Want to go with me?"

As one, they turned their heads to the Hyuugas' table. Hinata's reply was too quiet to hear, but apparently it was the affirmative. Neji got to his feet to launch a protest, too quiet to catch more than "father" and "too young to date," but Naruto was already grinning. "Great!" he said. "I'll pick you up so your father can meet me. Until then, though, maybe you can show me around school a bit." He stood up, taking Hinata's hand.

He was medium height, and wiry as far as any of them could tell, though he wore a calf-length coat, black with a blindingly orange lining. Around his forehead he had tied a plain black bandanna as a sort of headband. His blonde hair stuck up all around it.

Shyly, not looking at him directly, Hinata let him hold her hand and followed him to another table, where he introduced himself while Hinata stood there looking ready to flee and yet rooted to the spot.

"Who IS he?" Shikamaru wondered.

"If he can make Neji shit a brick, he's my new best friend," Temari declared, watching the older Hyuuga standing frozen, his fists on the table.

"He's an orphan. His adopted father is a man named Iruka, one of the junior high school teachers. He runs track, cross-country," Gaara informed them. "His favorite animal is foxes. And he wants to run for student body president."

"Got a crush, Gaara?" Kankurou teased. Temari elbowed him sharply in the ribs.

"So violent," Shikamaru said.

"No." The word dropped from Gaara's lips like a stone. "There's just something about him. Him and Sasuke Uchiha."

"Hey, maybe you can make some friends, huh Gaara?" Temari said encouragingly. She finished off the last of her sandwich and stood up. "Shikamaru," she beckoned with a jerk of her head. He got up to follow. "Later, guys. Don't be late tonight," Temari told her brothers.

The sun was bright, though the air was brisk and nibbling, if not biting, at their exposed skin. "It'll be too cold for the bike soon," Shikamaru said as they strolled to the end of the parking lot, right before the dirt lot for overflow parking, where Temari had the Harley parked.

"Our leather jackets are plenty warm."

"Not that warm."

Temari dug through her saddlebag to find their pack of cigarettes. Getting caught with a pack on school grounds was a great way to get suspended, and since they always went out to the parking lot to smoke anyway, they just left them there. She handed them over to Shikamaru, who spanked the pack for a minute before drawing one out and lighting it, his palm cupped over the end to keep the wind from blowing out his lighter flame.

Smoke spiraled from his lips and nose and was borne away by the wind. He handed the cig to Temari. "For Asuma," he said. His voice was getting rougher, Temari noticed. He was coughing more too. He smoked more often now than when they started. As for her, she craved it but could control it to just a few daily puffs.

"For Asuma," she murmured in response and took a drag.

"Are you sure you don't want me to come over tonight?" Shikamaru asked.

"My father never lets us have guests over when he eats dinner with us. 'Quality time' yknow." Another gust of wind blew and Temari watched the glowing tip of the cigarette flare to life. "Even if he did though, I wouldn't inflict that upon you. Plus it'd probably be easier for me to keep my temper if you're not around."

"Why's that?" Shikamaru took the cigarette back and set it back between his lips. He looked good like that, Temari thought. Somehow his usual expression looked less bored and more contemplative. And the cigarette drew attention to his lips, how he pursed them around it. "Do I embarrass you?"

"No, my father embarrasses me," Temari said. "I don't want him to give you a hard time." Her father would never understand what made Temari go damp for some deer farmers' kid. She didn't want to sit through a dinner listening to her father "politely inquiring" about every aspect of Shikamaru, making subtle jabs, the kind he always thought were motivational instead of destructive. She didn't want to grip the handle of her butter knife until she had the imprint of roses in her palm while her father listed every reason why Shikamaru was not worthy to even glance at his daughter.

But what would be even worse was when her father would inevitably turn his magnifying glass on her, point out every flaw while she writhed with the overwhelming desire to thrust her steak knife through his throat to shut him up. Every failure, every shortcoming, every tiny mistake would be regurgitated.

"And I don't want you to hear all the things he finds fault about in me," she finished, wrapping her arms around herself. It was colder, suddenly. She shivered.

Shikamaru looked at her then, dark eyes under half-closed lids. "And you think anything that asshole could say would hold any sway with me?" he asked quietly.

Temari reached up, removed the cigarette from his lips, and pulled him down for a kiss. He tasted like ashes and smelled like smoke. Shikamaru's arms tightened around her.

The distant ring of the end of lunch bell interrupted. "Damn it!" she snapped. She took an angry drag off the cigarette and an inch's worth of ash flew with the wind into her face. "Let's skip," she decided, grabbing her helmet from where it hung on the side of the bike.

Shikamaru grabbed her wrist. "Temari, you have a calculus test," he reminded her.

"Fuck calculus, I don't care," she spat. She didn't struggle against his hold though.

"I'm rubbing off on you in all the worst ways," Shikamaru sighed.

Temari traced his jaw with her fingertips. "Rub off on me in the best ways then," she murmured.

"You want your father to come home and catch us in bed?"

"Yes."

"No, you don't. Come on." Shikamaru started sprinting back towards the building. Temari followed. They parted just inside the door. "Call me later on, afterward," Shikamaru said.

"I will," Temari promised. "Have a good class."

"Good luck on your test," he replied, his fingertips leaving hers. "And tonight at dinner."

"I'll need it," Temari muttered to herself as she sprinted to her class.

---

Temari sat stiffly at the dining room table, which had until recently been covered in plastic so Chiyo, the housekeeper, didn't have to worry about scratches or dust. Now it was covered with a cloth so white that it hurt her head. She wanted a cigarette. She never wanted a cigarette this badly.

Chiyo had sniffed her when Temari came in. "Go wash; you smell like ciggies," the old woman had said. She always called them ciggies. A habit from her youth, Temari guessed. "And dress nice," the old woman added, wrinkling her nose at Temari's leather jacket, her faded t-shirt, her low-slung jeans.

"I know the drill, Chiyo," Temari had answered. She took a shower and, because she knew her father wanted to see her in a skirt, wore pinstriped black pants and a red cashmere sweater, both still stiff and smelling like the store they came from. They were gifts, probably, but from when? What holiday or event that the old bastard couldn't make it to?

To avoid an argument, she left her hair out of her customary four ponytails and just brushed it. The necklace her father gave her for her seventeenth birthday was sitting on her dresser. She joked with her brothers that a single pearl on a pendant did not even begin to represent the incredible irritation he had inflicted upon her.

Temari considered wearing it. "Why? To please him? Fuck that," she said to herself and instead put on the necklace Shikamaru had given her once, for no reason at all, just because he saw it in a store when he was out shopping with Ino and thought she would like it. It was a pendant on a thin gold chain, a gold fan enameled white with three purple dots.

Now she sat poking at the turkey that Chiyo had spent all day slow-roasting in honor of this momentous occasion, the master of the house actually being home. He sat at the head of the table, ramrod straight and practicing perfect table etiquette. Temari sat to his left, Kankurou and Gaara opposite her, Gaara at their father's right in the chosen heir's place of honor.

Temari scrutinized her father out of the corner of her eye. He looked a lot like Gaara might look when he grew up, even down to the same ginger hair. Gaara had been unable to hide his dye job, but had at least combed it down instead of spiking it out like he usually did.

Both of her brothers looked strange. Gaara had dug some button-down shirt out of some forgotten drawer, and apparently Chiyo hadn't gotten to him in time, because it was as wrinkled as if it had been crumpled and then sat on. It was also too small; he had noticeable difficulty raising his arms. Kankurou had put on a red and yellow striped polo shirt that still had fold marks.

Their faces were scrubbed clean, that was the strangest part. Temari was used to both of her younger brothers wearing more makeup than she ever did. Kankurou without his face paint and Gaara without eyeliner made them both look naked somehow.

"Is there something wrong with the turkey, Temari?" her father asked, his dry, deep voice echoing in the nearly empty room, startling her.

"No, it's fine," she replied quietly.

"So, Gaara, how did your English exam go?" he asked, apparently thinking that the way was made for conversation. Gaara blinked, the closest he came to flinching.

They all knew that their father knew how the exam went. He never asked questions to which he did not already know the answers. Gaara mumbled something unintelligible.

"Your teacher told me that your writing is abysmal. Really, Gaara, how do you expect to take over my business someday if you cannot express yourself clearly in writing?"

"Maybe I don't want to take over the business," Gaara replied under his breath. Still, it carried in the echoey room.

Their father sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Let's not argue about this again. Who else is supposed to take it over, Gaara? Your brother still plays with dolls--" Kankurou bristled, gripping his knife tightly "--and Temari is a woman." Temari's head snapped up at this. A growl ached to break forth from her throat, but she swallowed it down, tore a piece of turkey, and stuck it in her mouth. It tasted like a paper napkin.

"Chiyo has been after me to let her clean out your room, Kankurou. Apparently you barred her from entering after she threw out some of your dolls?" In truth all three of them had deadbolts on their doors, so that they would have at least one room that neither their father nor his housekeeper could invade.

"They're puppets," Kankurou snapped. "They're art."

Temari zoned out from the argument. Her sweater itched. Cashmere wasn't supposed to itch. Had she left the tag in? She tried to reach back behind her, underneath the sweater, to feel around for what was picking at her.

"That's a nice necklace, Temari," her father said. Damn! He caught her off-guard. "Where did you get it?"

"Nowhere," she answered automatically. "I had a calculus test today," she began, trying to change the subject.

"Nowhere?" her father said, obviously wanting to pursue this. "You didn't shoplift it, did you?"

"No!" she retorted.

"Her boyfriend gave it to her," Kankurou said, somewhat smugly now that the fire was off of him. Temari glared at him. This was another thing she hated about her father, how he could turn them against each other, like neighbors ratting out neighbors in a witch hunt. Anything as long as it wasn't hurting them.

"Boyfriend? Oh," he said, his tone derisive, "are you still dating the farmer kid? What's his name..."

"Shikamaru Nara," Gaara supplied. Temari happily sifted through several methods of death for her brothers.

"That's the one," their father said grimly. He was silent for a moment. "If he gets you pregnant, so help me I'll disown you," he said with surprising venom.

"Dad!" Temari cried, rage rising and making her skin burn hot. "I'm on the Pill!"

"Things happen, Temari. Just know I won't pay for your mistake."

Temari got to her feet so fast that her chair hit the wall behind her hard enough to leave a dent. "Don't worry," she hissed, "I'm sure Shikamaru's parents will let us live in the deer barn." She stalked away from the table.

"Temari!" her father bellowed. She froze in the doorway. "Sit down," he commanded. Every part of her wanted to belay that command, to run from the room, the house, to jump on her Harley and flee to Shikamaru's.

Instead she turned, righted her chair, and flopped down into it. She pushed her plate away and scowled at it.

Her father eyed the dent in the wall, disappointment in his eyes. He sighed, shaking his head, then looked at her plate. "Aren't you hungry?" he asked.

"I've lost my appetite," she said icily.

Her father gave another put-upon sigh. "Why do you insist on dating beneath you?"

"I love him," Temari said, wishing she didn't feel so stupid saying it. How did her father do this, make her feel so stupid for speaking the truth just because he didn't agree with it?

He gave a harsh, barking laugh. "Love is overrated, Temari, compared to connections, to status." He swirled the wine around in his glass. "Your mother was a beauty, just like you--" Temari ignored the compliment, knowing that it was wrapped around a dagger "--but she used that beauty. She didn't squander it on those beneath her."

"No, she squandered it on you," Temari retorted.

"Shut up!" Everyone jumped and stared at Gaara. He was on his feet now, fists pressed up to his forehead. He was shaking. "Don't talk about Mom," he growled, his usually husky voice like gravel in a woodchipper now.

"Calm down, Gaara," their father snapped. "It's not like you ever knew her."

Temari couldn't help but gasp. There was a clatter as Kankurou's knife fell from his limp fingers. They sat rigid, waiting for Gaara to explode.

Instead, he strode from the room. Their father's booming command didn't seem to affect him.

Kankurou and Temari stared at their plates and let out a slow, long breath.

Their father went on as though nothing had happened. "I was talking to Hiashi Hyuuga today. He tells me Neji doesn't yet have a date to the Autumn Waltz." Every muscle in Temari's body tightened, knowing what must be coming next. "I told him you were available."

Temari's fists clenched in her lap. "I am NOT going to a dance with Neji Hyuuga," she declared.

"You WILL go, because it is about time you spent time with your own kind!" her father yelled.

"You can't make me go," she retorted, her voice low and dangerous. "I won't. Ground me, take away my Harley--"

"I've been thinking," he plowed ahead as though Temari hadn't spoken, that the subject was finished, "it's ridiculous that you've been going to Konoha High. Initially I wanted you to be able to relate to everyday people, but it's obvious now that certain... unsavory elements have been leading you astray. Hiashi Hyuuga agrees. After realizing what sort of people attend your school--" Temari thought back to lunch, to Neji turning purple while Naruto Uzumaki walked around hand-in-hand with Hinata "--he's prepared to pull Neji and Hinata out of Konoha High and enroll them in Anbu Academy."

"You wouldn't," Temari breathed.

"Only uptight assholes go to that school!" Kankurou shouted. "You can't say there aren't criminals coming out of there! Itachi Uchiha--" he cut off.

"An unfortunate rumor," their father intoned.

"Are you threatening me?" Temari asked, astonished. Sure, it was her senior year, but being pulled from Konoha High, from her friends, her classes, her teachers, Shikamaru...

"Well, you sure haven't proven to me that your current school has done anything but transform you into a disobedient, sass-mouth brat," her father countered.

Temari squeezed her eyes shut. It's just one dance, she thought. "Fine," she grunted through gritted teeth. "I'll go to the dance with Neji."

"Excellent," her father said, his mood instantly improved. "He's a rather nice young man, from what I've seen. And he comes from a very well-off family."

She didn't want to hear this, bile rising in her throat, feeling cheapened and prostituted. "May I be excused?" she asked harshly.

"Very well," her father allowed. Temari got up and left, waiting until she reached the hallway to run up the stairs and into her room. She slid the bolt and buried her face in her pillow to scream and cry.

---

"I'm sorry," Shikamaru's said on the other end of the line half an hour later, once Temari had pulled herself together enough to talk without choking. She had found a pack of cigarettes under a pile of clothing; apparently it hadn't been empty after all, because one lone cigarette remained. It was in her hand now, out the window, streaming its smoke up into the night air.

"So fucking embarrassing," she groaned. "Why do I care? Seriously, why? Just because he's my father? Like that fucking matters. It should've stopped mattering years ago. Why is it that if anyone at school said any of those same things to me, I'd just brush them off without getting more than annoyed?" She leaned out the window and took a drag. Damn cigarettes, she thought. I have to quit.

"Because fathers aren't supposed to say that stuff," Shikamaru answered.

"Can you believe he actually said he'd disown me if you got me pregnant?"

"Really? Awesome, ditch your pills and get over here."

"Hah hah."

"That can't be why you were so upset though. What did he say?"

Temari took another drag and cleared her throat. "He's making me to go the Autumn Waltz."

"I'll dust off my good shoes."

"With Neji Hyuuga."

"What?" Bless him, there was no touch of jealousy in his voice, just disbelief.

"He threatened to send us to Anbu Academy if I didn't give in. He claimed to be talking it over with Hiashi Hyuuga, and I think he was bluffing, but I've learned never to assume that."

"It doesn't make sense," Shikamaru said. "Why the hell does he want you to get with Neji so badly? It's like he's trying to breed you like a prize doe--"

"Thanks for the analogy."

"Hey, I'm just a lowly farmboy, what do I know?" He paused. "Well I suppose I can go for moral support, or in case Neji gets a bad case of cramps and has to go home." He laughed.

"No," Temari said. The hand holding her cigarette was shaking.

"Why not?"

"Please, Shikamaru," Temari whispered. "It's bad enough I have to fuckin' prostitute myself like this. It'd be even worse to have you watching. Please."

There was a pause. "How far does he expect you to go with this?" he asked, his voice dark.

"I didn't mean literally prostituted."

"Is he entitled to a just a few slow dances or does he get a free grope and a side of fries with this deal?"

"If he gets fresh, I'll ruin him."

"I know you will." Another pause. "Okay, I'll stay away."

"Thank you," she breathed. She tapped some ash out the window. "This is gonna suck."

"It's just one night."

"I keep telling myself that," Temari said, staring out into the blackness. "But then I think what if this is just the first step to soften me up? Like my father will keep threatening and demanding more and more until-- I dunno."

"Well, do me a favor and just don't marry Neji, okay?"

She laughed. "Don't worry."

"One year," Shikamaru said. "One year and you're free. Forever."

"That's what I keep telling myself." She looked at her watch. "I should go to bed."

"Me too. Picking me up tomorrow?"

"You know it. Zip the liner back in your jacket; it's supposed to be colder," Temari advised.

"Aye, ma'am. Goodnight. Love you."

Temari smiled. "I love you too," she whispered. "Goodnight."

She slid her phone closed and let a long, smoky sigh out through her nose. "Who knows," she said to herself, "maybe Neji is just as pissed off about this as I am." She stubbed out the cigarette on the windowsill and tossed it out the window. She half-hoped it was just smoldering, that it would set her father's too-huge house full of expensive junk ablaze. She and her brothers would escape while her father's bones turned to powder.

Rain was already starting to beat against the roof and splash into her open window. Temari heaved it shut and lay back in bed, switched off the lamp, and closed her eyes to sleep.

---

Gaara sat at the desk in his room, the lamp burning, his face in his hands. He was shaking, struggling to breathe. He didn't cry. Sometimes he wished he could.

He never knew his mother. He was the one who killed her.

It hurt more than he let on. It hurt even more that the only time his father spoke of her, he had the hint of derision in his voice suggesting that it was her fault for being too weak to survive.

Temari was the one who remembered the most, though precious little herself, about their mother. And she didn't like talking about it.

Gaara had been tonguing his anti-psychotics for months, spitting them in the toilet and flushing them. It was so hard to keep himself under control without them. But it was worth it.

It was worth it because without them, he could sometimes hear his mother's voice. Whispering, as if from far off, like on the other end of a bad cell phone connection.

She didn't always tell him to do bad things and when she did, he knew she was just testing him.

Still, the commands were hard to resist. A lot of them involved hurting his father, whom he knew deserved it. It didn't surprise him that his mother thought so too.

She didn't blame Gaara for killing her. It wasn't his fault he was born. That's what she told him, anyway.

"Someday when I'm not so weak, Mom," he promised. He got in bed but didn't turn the light off. He knew he wouldn't sleep. At most he would doze, but he couldn't remember the last time he truly slept. The eyeliner he layered so thickly around his eyes only darkened the rings that were already there. His dead expression was due as much to his half-asleep, zombie-like existence as to his emotional detachment.

His mother sang a lullaby in his head. For the first time that day, Gaara smiled.

---

Kankurou was working on his puppets. He'd had to rebuild the one representing his father more times than he could remember. The lump in his throat that developed when Temari left the table was still lingering on. He hated turning his father's focus on her, but it was like giving in under torture. He wanted to escape, and he threw his sister in the way to do so. He hated himself for it.

He carefully smoothed the glue over the ragged wooden edges of a leg piece.

He might not be good in school, he might not be any good at sports or music, but he was good with his hands, and he could make puppets dance so intricately that people thought they were mechanical instead of wooden and jointed, powered by twitching strings.

Gaara used to love it, when he was a baby. It was one of the few things that could make him soften, if not smile. This was back when they feared he was autistic, so their father let Kankurou put on his puppet shows for Gaara whenever possible.

The walls of Kankurou's room were covered in hooks, drilled into the plaster, rows upon rows offset, each hung with another puppet. Some were of people he liked, or at least tolerated. Most were of people he hated. Those were the ones most often mended, most often destroyed, most often still bearing drill or pin holes, slashes, gouged out eyes or broken limbs.

Life sucked lately. He found out today that Sakura Haruna, the only girl he thought he might have some feelings for, had finally hooked Sasuke Uchiha, that limp-dicked emo faggot who used himself as a chopping block.

Kankurou set the puppet carefully aside so the glue would dry, picked up one of his X-acto knives and looked it over. He wondered how it felt. He shook his head; he knew how it felt already. He'd cut himself accidentally plenty of times.

How stupid, he thought. Others hurt him enough already. Goths shouldn't hurt themselves. They should hurt other people.

He stood up and pulled the Sakura puppet off its hook and sat down to consider it. She had started out as a little girl with long brown hair and a red dress. Then he had to cut her hair short, bleach it and dye it pink, carefully peel off the cloth, and change the body shape. He constructed blue jeans from scraps of old ones, a little t-shirt on which he spent an afternoon painting the logo of her favorite band with a tiny brush.

He ran a finger gently over the face.

After a moment's thought, he took his own puppet down from the wall too, looped his fingers through the strings of it, then through that of the Sakura one. The wood clacked and clattered slightly as the puppets moved, the puppet Kankurou lying on the ground, the puppet Sakura kneeling beside him with a hand on his head.

He remembered that afternoon, many years ago. It was gym class, and his class was doing their damned physical fitness test, the damned mile run, and he was shuffling around the track, sweating, hating every athletic classmate of his as they passed him by looking barely winded, muscles flexing magnificently in the blazing sun, as he dragged his bulk forward pretending not to hear the hisses of, "Run, piggie!"

Something landed on his face and he instinctively swatted it away. Pain erupted in his cheek and he froze. He was allergic to bees.

"Keep moving, Kankurou!" the gym teacher had shouted.

"I think I've been stung!" he tried to shout, but his voice was faint. His tongue felt like a huge, sweaty washcloth in his mouth. He couldn't breathe. The world went sideways. Sneakers passed inches from his face. He heard a laugh. He started to panic. He wheezed. Tears stung his eyes. I'm going to die! They were going to let him. They were laughing, watching him turn red and purple, taking joy in his suffering.

A cool hand lay on his forehead. "Are you allergic?" Sakura asked. He managed to nod. " I need an Epi-pen NOW!"

Her face filled his vision. She was pink with exertion, determined looking with her eyebrows knitted together. She softened, became soothing. "Kankurou, listen to me. Try to breathe, slowly. Don't go into shock. We're getting you help."

The teacher hurried up, handed something to Sakura. He felt a sting in his arm, but this one brought the cure, not the poison. He relaxed. His throat opened, just a bit. "You're gonna be all right," Sakura said, and smiled. She still had her hand on his forehead. She wasn't afraid to touch him. She didn't think he was gross, even all sweaty as he was with his purple paint a greasy smear on his face.

My heroine, he thought.

Kankurou shoved the puppets aside. The only one at school who ever showed him a speck of kindness and she was dating HIM.

He seized the Sakura puppet again, two fingers clamped on the hand that had just been on his puppet's forehead.

He stopped, set her gently aside. He couldn't hurt her. His eyes lit on the Sasuke puppet, the arms of which were already crosshatched with slices.

One more won't hurt, he thought, picking up the X-acto. Or better yet, it will. Kankurou's grin widened as he chuckled in the back of his throat and brought the knife to bear.