I got me some bad news for you, Sunshine [2/2]
Title: I got me some bad news for you, Sunshine
Pairings: Kankuro/Temari, one-sided Hinata/Kankuro, Shikamaru/Temari, Hinata/Neji
Summary: The pain he caused me; nobody ever thought about that.
Warnings: violence
Disclaimer: I just take them out to play
A/N: Same story, Temari's POV. Title is a line from In the Flesh by Pink Floyd.
I got me some bad news for you, Sunshine
-Right
I have the sudden urge to cry, as I stand here, on the doorstep of the rented house. It might as well be ours: we’re here so often that it’s started to feel like home. No, it’s not that, and I know it. It’s never where I am, but as long as you’re there with me, I’m home. I don’t need anyone else. Certainly not Shikamaru.
And there, your face as you open the door, for once, so very vulnerable as your gaze flicks almost imperceptibly down the street. She’s not with me, and you know why. Your face closes off instantly, taking in the blood sticking to my skin, the rips in my clothes. I’m struggling to remain upright, and you’re by me the next second. But your concern isn’t for me, it’s for her, the girl I failed to bring home to you, or to her husband. I try and glare at you through the one eye that I can still use, but I don’t think it works. You won’t yell, or even be angry at me, though it’s my fault, I know you, but you could do something un-you, something I can’t predict, and I freeze with fear at the possibility.
But you do nothing, just help me to our bedroom. It’s not actually yours, but you always sleep in my room when I’m here, and I can tell that you have been this last month, since I’ve been on that bloody mission.
Your voice interrupts my realisation that maybe, just maybe, you’d missed me. “Does he know?” Oh. You mean the Hyuuga. Of course. Its always about the fucking Hyuugas. I shake my head, hide behind my hair. You hate me, now; I can feel it in my bones. “Where is she?”
I can’t stand it any longer. I stare at you, letting you see the pain you’re causing. How I want to hurt you, so you can feel what it’s like. But as for now, I’m still ashamed. No, not ashamed. I’m never ashamed. “On their doorstep. I couldn’t stay.”
You seem to sort of collapse in on yourself, falling to your knees, “Oh god.”
“Kuro...” I reach out, touch your shoulder. You hit my bruised and broken hand away. I gasp.
“Did you do anything to stop it?” Um, hello? See the blood? “But did you give everything to keep her safe?”
Something in me snaps then. Oh, how dearly I want you to hurt. “Why do you care, Kuro! She was a wimp! You’ve always scoffed at her weakness before, what’s different?” It’s a rhetorical question, but I’m not admitting to anything. “Why is it all you men fall for these pathetic excuses for kunoichis here in Konoha!”
Gods, his face filling my vision. I can’t think, can’t breathe. His smell, the feel of his skin on mine, suffocating me. But you do nothing as I drown in my own memories.
“I feel sorry for him.” I say, trying to make you respond to something. “But for you too. Maybe more for you, though.” It’s meant to sound affectionate. Comes out sarcastic.
“He’s lost his wife. I’ve just lost the girl who could never be mine.” You sound so lost, so helpless. But you keep mentioning her! “There’s a difference!” NO THERE’S NOT!
“Oh yes. She always turned you down, didn’t she?” Hurthurthurt. “Even in those first few weeks of her unhappy marriage. To her cousin. Upper-class bastards.” You wince, but not at my language. “And then of course they fell in love. Predictable, really. You never stood a chance. Noble and pious she is.” The muscles in your back tense, and I realise my mistake. “Was.”
You turn back to me, sighing. The dim streetlight from outside lights up your face. A surge of want floods through me. “Where’s Gaara?”
“Suna.” You say, knowing why I asked.
“Oh.”
“Come on, then.”
I crush you to me, fingernails scrabbling at the back of your neck, digging in cruelly. You have always thought I’m the sadistic, cruel, violent one. But if only you could see yourself, now. Your thighs pressing against mine, rolling against the wounds you had only just bandaged, opening them again. Your fingers, knowing precisely where I’ve been injured, always seemed to find the miniscule places that make me cry out in pain. You flip us over, again and again until we land on the hard floor, the bruise on my tailbone causing me to dig my teeth deep into your neck. You’re trying your very hardest to forget. So I don’t let you. “Siblings. Together. Fucking.” I gasp into your ear. You tug on my hair, so hard you must have ripped some out. I say the nickname that only I call you, over and over, shout, whisper, pant, scream, whimper. You can’t forget. When you come, it’s my name you yell out, clutching at my back. Two seconds later, I’m holding your neck so tight it might snap, and then it’s over.
You get up immediately, pick up your clothes and sit on the edge of the bed to pull them on. “Kuro...” I whisper sadly, slipping my arms around your neck, tentatively. You let me keep them there. Just this, you not pushing me away, for once, makes me say it. “I, I love you. You know that, don’t you?”
Your words, when they finally come, are like a slap in the face. “No, Temari, you don’t. I love you, and I loved her. But in very different ways. You should know that.”
I draw back from you, my head reeling. You stand, look back, just once, then walk out. I can’t move. You had never said that to me before. Of course, I’d always known your thoughts: brother and sister telepathy; but never had I dreamed you say them. Not to me. I’d always thought you cared about me too much to do that, to destroy me so very completely.
That’s when I find I can get up, run to you - already by the door - and throw my arms around your neck tightly. I’m crying, I realise, when I rub my cheek against the back of your neck, and feel them on your skin. “I did know, you bastard. I always knew you loved me too much, and not in the right way.” I pause on that word: right. “Well, not the right way, but the right way. You bastard.”
You turn, put your arms around me carefully. This only makes me cry more; the realisation that you can be gentle, too. “Let’s just stay here, sunshine.” You used to call me that, when we were children, playing in the sand fields that stretched for miles. It was always just the two of us.
I find that I can still smile, “Come back to bed,” I say, and you take my hand, and we walk down the hallway with my head on your shoulder, my hair falling down my back in a blood-knotted tangle.
We cling to each other, desperately, and cry silently, bitter, angry tears that shine through with desperation. We stay like that until morning.