Prey (Gaara fic for Starry_Screamer)

[Natto]

Hello everyone! This is a Naruto fanfic, written for Starry_Screamer as part of a trade. It focuses on Gaara, who is suffering from allergies during the chuunin exams, and his siblings, who are simultaneously concerned about him, and terrified of him. Midway through the story, Shinkei, Kuna, and Tsubasa show up--these are Starry's OCs. Shinkei is also concerned about Gaara, but in a far more forceful way.

Starry, I hope that you like the story! I'm not sure if I was able to capture your OCs effectively, but I did my best. Enjoy!

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Prey

by Natto

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“Hehh…hrrphfchhh! Hnnnehphchh! Heh-CHHOO!” Gaara swipes at his nose, and sniffles. Kankuro and Temari, his siblings and teammates, exchange a worried look. Both want to ask him to stop sneezing, but they’re stopped by the impossibility of the request, and the high risk of being killed for it. Temari wishes that Gaara could at least pinch his nose and try to stifle.

“Do you have a cold?” asks Temari. This is a stupid question, and she realizes that as soon as it springs from her mouth. It’s stupid because Gaara has been sick approximately twice in his life before now. His immune system is entwined with that of Shukaku, the sand demon that nests inside him like an unborn child. Gaara rarely gets sick, but when he does, his immune system reacts so strongly that his symptoms are cataclysmic. Both times, he was dreadfully and dramatically ill for less than 24 hours, and after that, he was fine. It is very unlikely that Gaara has a cold, but if he does, they had better quit the chuunin exams right now, because he’ll be spiking a stratospheric fever within minutes.

“No,” he says. His voice is scratchy though, and congested. “It’s these stupid plants. I’m aller…a...lergic….HAHHCHHOO!” He sniffles again, scratches his nose. It’s getting pink around the rim, and a little bit of mucus is pooling on his upper lip. Kankuro points to it, raising his eyebrows at Temari, indicating, should we tell him? “What,” asks Gaara. “Nothing,” says Kankuro. Gaara wipes away the snot, and clears his throat.

“I’m sorry you’re not feeling well,” says Temari, her voice as even and pleasant as possible. Gaara has a hair-trigger temper at the best of times, and an irritant like allergies isn’t likely to improve it. Still, she has to ask him to try to sneeze more quietly. “Do you think that you could try to muffle your sneezes?” she asks. “They’re…they’re very loud, and we don’t want to have to fight anyone else before we deliver the scrolls. We’ll definitely have to do that if one of the other teams hears you.”

“Who cares? If an enemy team shows up, I’ll just kill them.” Kankuro and Temari exchange another glance. This one says, we don’t want him to kill anyone else. It’s terrifying. Neither one says anything. Gaara might have been about to speak, but he’s interrupted by another flurry of sneezes. “I hate sneezing…” he growls. “It unsettles the sand.” Temari sighs. Sand troubles all of them, collecting under their nails, crunching between their teeth, and studding their scalps like dandruff. For Temari and Kankuro, the sand can be washed away, but it follows Gaara everywhere. It's supposed to be protecting him, but it has a tendency to collect in his lungs, stopping his breath, and in his nose, giving him the semblance of a congestion.

“Are you sure you're not just sneezing because of the sand?” she asks. Gaara nods, sniffling. He assures her that it's allergies. “I didn't think that you had allergies,” she says.

“I do,” rasps Gaara. “Remember that cat that you guys were trying to keep as a pet? I killed it because it was making me sneeze all the time.” Temari shudders. There's something painfully false about his proud declarations of death. She knows, of course, that he does this. He kills animals, kills people all the time...but it isn't him. It isn't the little brother that used to ask her to look at his drawings or help him into his boots. It's the demon inside him using his mouth to speak.

“I really liked that fucking cat,” mutters Kankuro. Temari punches him in the shoulder. She knows he liked the fucking cat, she liked it too. He had cried in her arms with his face pressed against her chest, and her tears had dripped down onto his head. Temari doesn't have time to take care of Kankuro's feelings right now, they have an exam to complete, and they have to somehow deal with Gaara's allergy problem.

“Ugh...nobody brought any antihistamines or anything, did they?” she asks. Her brothers shake their heads, and Gaara sneezes again. He sniffs up a watery strand of snot, and rubs his nose. It makes a horrible squelching sound, calling attention to how drippy it is and how badly he needs to blow it. “We need to find you a tissue,” says Temari. “Kankuro, give him your hat.” Before he can protest, she snatches it off of his head. “Here Gaara, blow your nose on this.”

“He can't blow his nose on my hat!” yelps Kankuro. “Give it back!” Gaara does it anyway, hard. It's wet with snot and Kankuro probably doesn't want it back anymore. Blowing his nose appears to irritate it more, because he's sniffling incessantly and pinching his nose shut, apparently trying not to sneeze.

It doesn't work. He sneezes three times into the hat. They sound itchy, painful, wet, and nowhere close to being finished. At least the hat is muffling the sound. A forth sneeze causes him to drop the thing into a patch of grass. He doesn't pick it up, and neither do his older siblings—they do not want to touch his mucus, and they don't think it's a good idea for him to put something dropped in pollen to his face. Gaara sneezes again, a loud “Hyyyehhhp-CHOO!” covered up with his sleeve. He snorts, and says, “I'b totally codgested dow. I cad't breathe through by dose.” He just says it, with no comment or complaint. If it were Kankuro, there would be a monologue about how uncomfortable and annoying it was, and if it were Temari she wouldn't mention it at all. Gaara just says what the problem is, and keeps sniffling and rubbing his nose.

After a sixth sneeze, the sound attracts a rival team. Three girls, two blonde and one with red hair, leap out from behind a bush. Fuck. Temari had been so preoccupied with appeasing Gaara that she had completely ignored their obvious rustling. She knows this team, but she isn't happy to see them. “You guys already have your scrolls, don't you?” she asks. “We have no reason to fight, so let's just leave each other alone, alright?”

“I'm not here to fight!” snaps the taller blonde girl, a hand clasped firmly to her hip. “I was thinking about it, but it seems as if my prey is under the weather. I thought that I'd be magnanimous and see what I could do to help.” She is completely ignoring her two sisters. Kuna, the youngest, is cowering behind Tsubasa, the redheaded eldest. Temari sighs. This family is like an inversion of her own. Their own youngest wouldn't be caught dead cowering and clinging to her back, like he loved her, or like she could protect him.

“Stop calling him that!” yells Kankuro. “He's not your prey. He's not anyone's prey. Fuck off!” Gaara mutters something about it being okay for Shinkei to call him that, about the moniker being mutual. Temari doesn't like it either. Gaara has been treated as prey by his own father. The casual use of the term makes her stomach hurt, and she has to remind herself that it is Gaara's right to use the term as he pleases.

Shinkei rolls her eyes. “You fuck off,” she hisses. Kuna shivers, her body betraying a fear for her sister that Temari and Kankuro never allow themselves to show toward Gaara. Shinkei strides over to Gaara, whose hands are fluttering in front of his face in anticipation of a sneeze. He hunches over, exploding into his cupped hands. Kankuro's hat makes its way back into his hands, and he blows his nose violently. Mutters about how blowing his nose isn't helping at all.

“Are you sick?” asks Shinkei, attempting to clap a hand to his forehead. The sand blocks her hand, and she swats at it, fights with it like a cat. “Tell your sand to let me check you for a fever!” she snaps.

“I'b dot sigck,” rasps Gaara. “I'b allergic to polled...ad sobe other thigs...ehhk-SHH! CHH!...sniff.” He blows his nose again, then wrinkles it, as if attempting not to sneeze. Temari really wants him to stop, both for his own comfort and for not attracting anybody who might actually want to fight. She unwinds the ribbon from one of her ponytails, letting a quarter of her hair spill down around her shoulder. She tells Gaara to turn his back to her. He is reluctant at first, but agrees once she explains her idea.

After borrowing half the contents of Shinkei's water bottle to was the pollen and mucus off of Kankuro's hat, Temari presses the wet cloth to her brother's face, and ties it there with the ribbon. “There,” she says. “That should help keep most of the pollen out until we can get you some medicine.”

“Which I will pay for!” says Shinkei, digging in her pocket for money good in Konoha. “He's my prey, so I have to make sure he's up to the challenge of fighting me.”

“Save your money. He's my brother, and it's literally my job to take care of him.” This despite the fact that their family barely has any money, and certainly none of the spare for luxuries like antihistamines. Kankuro elbows her, whispers that she should take the money. “No, don't you have any pride? That's our job.” Kankuro insists that it isn't. Shinkei yells at them that she's going to buy the medicine and there's nothing Temari can do to stop her.

Gaara ignores them all. His eyes are screwed closed, and his chest is heaving. Temari can't see his nose underneath Kankuro's damp hat, but she can guess that it's probably twitching. He needs to sneeze, and it isn't happening. Gaara rubs his nose through the hat, causing his breath to hitch. Tears stream from his eyes, and he sniffles, snorts, and scrubs at his nose. Shinkei grabs a handful of flowers from a nearby patch, rips the hat from Gaara's face, and shoves the flowers underneath his pink nose. “Breathe in,” she says. “You'll feel better once you sneeze.”

He breathes in whether he wants to or not, and before Temari can snatch the flowers away, he explodes into a breathy, desperate fit. “Hyyiieh-SHH! Ehhh...hhech...HECHOO! CHHIUU! Ahh...hmmphCHHIU!” When he's finished, he's a dripping mess. He wipes his nose on the sodden hat, and looks at Shinkei with something strange in his eyes. “Thag you,” he says. “I deeded that.”

Temari sighs, and crosses her arms. Apparently, Gaara appreciates Shinkei's intrusive assistance, so she'll let her do what she wants. “Okay fine,” she says. “You can pay for the antihistamines. But you'd better buy only the absolute best.”

“Of course,” says Shinkei, a snakelike grin stretching across her face. “Only the best for my prey.”

[Starry_Screamer]

EEEEEE NATTO~!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*hugs you a million times*

OH MY GOD IT WAS SO AWESOME AND AMAZING AND........

... Aaaaaaaand there goes Star's brain. XDDDDD *starts cleaning up the ashes*

Aw geez poor Gaara! xD He must REALLY be allergic to something! You should have seen me reading through it, I was grinning so hard I don't think it's possible to get rid of it now.

Squeeeeee, his cute sniffling and nose rubbing. Lol, I love that Kankuro had to give up his hat. And the line about the "fucking cat". For whatever reason I find it so funny whenever Kankuro can't get a break. XD

Oooh you wrote Shinkei, Kuna, and Tsubasa perfectly!! The mental image I got of Kuna cowering behind Tsubasa during this whole thing was pure gold. And the way you write Shinkei is so unbelievably badass. I love how she's just all "NO. NO, I'LL DO EVERYTHING. MIIIIIINE." xD Lulz, that's SO completely her.

Also, Shinkei telling Kankuro to fuck off is quite possibly the most awesome thing ever.

Oh the way she grabbed the flowers and basically forced them into his face was just...... Oops, there goes my brain again. XD That might have just been my favorite part.

In short: I LOVED EEEEEVERYTHING ABOUT IT. AND NOW I'M OFF TO GO READ IT ABOUT A BAJILLION MORE TIMES AND GIGGLE LIKE AN IDIOT.

I love youuuuuu~! XDD Thanks so much for agreeing to do this!!!!!

[SpookyScarySkeleton]

Oh my god I freaking love this<3

[Natto]

Starry_Screamer: I'm so glad that you enjoyed it! I was worried that I wasn't going to be able to write Shinkei or her sisters in an accurate or interesting way, so I'm really glad to hear that I managed it well enough.

Hehehe, I don't really do mild allergies when I write this kind of fiction. The point, to me, is to make everything really over-the-top. I do like to have character development/emotional content/etc., but the fetishy stuff has to play a big big part. So...if he was just sniffling a little from the plants it'd be kind of boring! At least, I think so.

Yeah, I really liked that scene too. I wasn't really sure how to end it, and then suddenly I thought, wow wouldn't it be just awesome if she shoved some flowers into his face and made him explode??

This was really fun to write—plus I got something great out of it too, your story was rockin'. I'm glad we did this trade! Maybe sometime we should do another one.

DeathNoteUser: Thank you so much! I'm glad that you love it, that's fabulous.

[Starry_Screamer]

Natto: Oh yeah it's AWESOME!!! I think I actually squealed a little when I saw that it was posted. XD You did a great job with Shinkei and her team! My favorite part about how you characterized her was how mouthy she was to Temari and Kankuro and how insistent she was. "Just because you're older than me and you're his siblings you think you have the right to tell me what to do? .... HAHA, NO." And Tsubasa and Kuna just killed me. xDD

I know! Neither do I, lol. Over-the-top is soooo much fun~! I admit to making my stories a bit plot-heavy at most times, but not at the expense of leaving out all the interesting stuff. And yes, that would have been boring. THIS, however, was veeeery exciting!!

AND YOU THOUGHT RIGHT BECAUSE IT WAS MOST AWESOME INDEED. And kind of adorable too, just the kind of thing she'd do for him. AND HE THANKED HER OMG IT WAS SO SWEET THE FEELS~

It was fun to read as well!! And I'm glad you enjoyed your half of it, I had fun writing that too. Hey, if you'd be up for another one sometime, that would be great!

In conclusion, I WUB YOU AND THIS WAS AMAZING~