Blindsided Chapter 1

Chapter One
Includes introductions to sneaky!pervert!Naruto, crazy!grammarwhore!Zen!Gaara, and TsunadeClone!Sakura.

I can't believe I actually posted it. *nervous* I'm sort of stuck with it now, and that's a little frightening- I have a tendency to get caught up in things and never finish them, but I really want to finish this. It'll take me forever, and it will be exhausting and frustrating and strange, but I think it's about time I stopped cowering in my own little corner and did something.

It's interesting how my focus has shifted from Kakashi and Iruka (who is still my favorite character- but that only means I'm going to be horribly, horribly cruel to him) to Sasuke and Gaara; Sasuke, in particular, fascinates me because he's such a fundamentally weak person. Gaara, on the other hand, has endless potential as a character, and the fact that we're finally seeing that in the manga makes me wildly, wildly happy.

I love my Zen!Gaara. In my head it makes perfect sense; driven to become more like Naruto, he does everything he can to keep hold of reality and sanity. Clearly the best way for him to do this is to take up calligraphy and meditation. *grin* It gives him a chance to clear his head and partition off the various voices that have taken up residence there. Gaara is still quite a few cards short of a full deck, but he's more of a functional human being now.

Why calligraphy? Well, he briefly considered doing sand paintings, but discarded that as too easy. I could go on for a very long time on why this version of Gaara is the way he is; what it boils down to in the end is that as much as I love the manga and the person Gaara has become, I don't think three years is enough to undo the second six years of his life. I definitely don't think three years is long enough to earn the village's complete acceptance.

So he turned to Zen, because Zen solves all problems. (Temari thinks it's cute, because that's how Temari deals with Gaara; Kankurou thinks it's hilarious, because that's how he deals with his brother.) He has a t-shirt; Kankurou gave it to him (because Kankurou doesn't really like talking to people any more than Gaara does, and makes up for all those years of being a crappy brother by giving the boy things), and it says "More Zen Than Thou" on the front, with an Om on the back. Naruto is the one who usually ends up wearing it, because the irony makes Gaara smile.

I want to do pictures; Gaara and Sasuke wearing "Naruto is my anti-Shukaku/Orochimaru" t-shirts; Gaara with his "More Zen" shirt, Sasuke with a "Bitch" shirt, and Naruto with a "Foxy Lady" shirt; the three of them in the naked sprawl from chapter 12...*cough* The problem with that scene is that you can really only see Gaara, Sasuke's head, and Naruto's ass. Not that there's anything wrong with any of those things, of course.

Gwar. I need to start writing chapter two, don't I? *sigh* Chapter one should have been another five pages longer, but I had to cut it down; five thousand words was more than enough. So chapter two will also get truncated, and the whole thing will probably run closer to fifteen chapters than eleven, depending on how much time I want to spend building up the relationship bits as opposed to the creep!Kabuto bits.

Still can't believe I'm doing this...