The Put-Up Family
Anji Michalski

For most of her childhood, Temari had been without a family. Sure, she'd had two brothers and a father, and for a short while she'd even had a mother and an uncle, but they weren't what one would call "family". They were more like co-workers, or semi-casual acquaintances. So now that Temari and her brothers had developed a relationship that she considered familial, she was willing to put up with a lot in order to keep it that way.

She was willing to put up with the fact that Kankurou took showers that lasted for nearly an hour. She was willing to put up with the fact that Gaara managed to get sand in everything, including, somehow, her underwear drawer. She ignored it when Kankurou tracked mud through the house, or when he played rap music and she ignored the way he seemed incapable of closing drawers that he'd opened. She ignored it when Gaara commandeered the TV remote, or paced the house in the middle of the night, and she ignored his disturbing obsession with soap operas. She put up with the fact that Kankurou was lazy and whiny and foul-mouthed, and she put up with the fact that Gaara was cranky and anti-social and occasionally just bat shit crazy. In turn, they never once complained about the fact that she had more than sixty pairs of shoes, or that she ate with her fingers, and they never complained that she often trained in the nude.

With this delicate system of putting up with and ignoring, they managed not to kill each other. They managed to get along. And they managed, most importantly for Temari, to become more and more like a family.

But there were some things that she just couldn't put up with. It wasn't that she was being a hard-ass, because lord knows she had tried to put up with it, but some things were just too much. See, Kankurou was naturally loud. He talked a lot, and he talked loudly. He was loud on the phone. He was loud at the dinner table. He was loud when he trained. He was loud when he sang in the shower. He was extremely loud when he masturbated, which she rather embarrassingly discovered when she once ran into his room, thinking his shouts meant someone was attacking him. But she put up with all of this, because she loved her brother.

Kankurou's boyfriend was also loud. He shouted when he was happy. He shouted when he was angry. He shouted when he was bored, and he shouted when he was excited. And the more he shouted, the more his dog barked. But Temari put up with this, because she loved her brother.

When Kankurou and his boyfriend were together, they both grew even louder. It seemed they had to scream at each other in order to be heard over the other's shouting. Everything they did together, they did at the top of their lungs. They fought at the top of their lungs. They laughed at the top of their lungs. They trained together at the top of their lungs. They even somehow managed to cuddle at the top of their lungs. And Temari even put up with this, although it did require the liberal use of earplugs.

But then Kankurou and his boyfriend got to the point in their relationship where they started having sex. And this was the one thing she could not, would not put up with. Never in her life had she thought that anything could reach the sheer decibel level that Kankurou and Kiba achieved during intercourse.

The first time it happened, Temari had been sitting downstairs in the kitchen, eating her supper. It started with a thump. Then a bump. Then the CRASH BANG SMASH of a headboard being repeatedly hammered against the wall. Then the ceiling started to shake. Temari, who had already inserted her earplugs after the first "bump" sat, watching in shock, as the light above her head flickered on and off.

And then the moans started.

It started with shouts of "yes" and "more", and moved to "oh Gods" and high-pitched keening. Then came the horror of hearing her own brother's dirty talk, and Kiba's answering lewd wails. When the wet, slick sex noises of sweaty bodies sliding against each other started to resound throughout the house, Temari fled.

After several weeks of repeatedly fleeing from her own home, Temari was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She could no longer Put Up. She could not possibly Ignore. She loved her brother, she wanted a family, but it simply was not worth the sacrifice of her sanity.

It was on the day that Temari had finally resolved to complain that Gaara returned from his lengthy mission. They were watching soap operas and eating chicken with their fingers when the bumping and thumping and crashing began. When the moans started, Gaara left the TV and stormed up the stairs, Temari at his heels, just in case she needed to prevent any murders.

"Kankurou," Gaara said, as he threw open the bedroom door, and Temari blanched at the sight of her naked brother entangled with his boyfriend, "stop it."

Then Kankurou whined, and Kiba shouted, and Akamaru growled, and Gaara hissed and Temari developed a headache.

And then Gaara said that the bumping and thumping and crashing was bothering the demon, and Temari realized she loved her youngest brother with all her heart.

"I-it's... why would it...?" Kankurou stuttered and shook, because he had never learned to entirely put up with creature sealed within Gaara.

Gaara shrugged. "I don't know. I think he's jealous." He turned to leave the room, and finished over his shoulder as he walked out, "Maybe he wants to join in."

After that, Temari's happy family life went back to normal. As a group they continued to Put Up with and Ignore each other's little quirks and mannerisms, and so they continued to grow closer and closer as a family.

And Kankurou and Kiba rented a hotel room whenever they wanted to have sex.

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