A/N: This idea is silly, and possibly already written, but my younger brother gave me the idea, so I felt the need to write it out for myself.
"Come on, Gaara, let me see."
"No."
"I need to see how bad your wound is, in case it needs to be treated. Now let me see!"
"No."
This has been going on for a while now. Team Kakashi had been sent on a mission to escort the Kazekage and his council to a neighboring village; Naruto insisted on being there for Gaara since he couldn't be there when the Akatsuki had kidnapped Gaara. It just so happens that the village is an ally of the Leaf but not of the Sand (hence the need for a visit by Sunakagure's leader), and being an ally gave Naruto the chance to win the argument to tag along.
Currently, the band of council members, Sand nin, and Leaf nin is recovering from an attack by a handful of rogue ninjas from the village they are trying to travel to.
And Gaara is being stubborn.
"Gaara-sama, please, you have to let someone examine your wound; if it got through your defenses, it must be bad –" Sakura attempts to persuade the other teen, but the redhead is frowning minutely and shaking his head.
"It's fine. Let's keep walking."
"Dammit, Gaara!" Naruto scowls, and he is nearly tempted to tackle Gaara to the ground. "There's blood running down your leg! We have to look at it, or at least bandage it."
Gaara grinds his teeth, but doesn't decline nor accept. Naruto takes it as an opening to grab hold of his friend by the arm. Gaara struggles, but stringing, burning spikes shoots up his body from his open wound. He hisses in frustration and pain. He wouldn't allow the medical nin of Team Kakashi to touch him, and he curses himself for even allowing Naruto to. "Release me," he demands.
"I'm sorry, Kazekage-sama, but you're not my leader, so I don't have to obey your orders," Naruto retorts. "Because since you're not my leader and are my friend, I want to look out for your well-being. And that includes mending your wounds! – I mean, what if you need stitches? What if you bleed to death?!"
"I'll be fine, Naruto. Truly," Gaara reassures as best he can. But a small wince is forced out of him as Naruto protectively tightens his grip on Gaara's wrist.
"No, you won't be, unless I get a good look at your wound. Now turn around and take your pants off!" the blond barks.
A few standers by flush, or cough, or advert their eyes. Sakura in particular does a combination of all three. "Uh, Naruto," she murmurs as she steps close enough for him to hear her. "Why don't you be… a tad more polite with this? I mean…"
"What?" Naruto replies, absolutely clueless as to the implications of what he had just said. For a pervert, he sure doesn't catch innuendo.
Sakura shakes her head. "Never mind. Why don't you take Gaara-sama into one of the marquees? For privacy reasons? – I'm sure that Gaara-sama would be a bit too embarrassed to –"
"What d'ya take him for, a girl? That's insulting, Sakura-chan! Male ninjas aren't embarrassed by dropping their pants! It's not like I'm asking him to get naked, 'dattebayo," Naruto chuckles. He draws Gaara closer and loops his arm around the redhead's neck. "You're not embarrassed, right, Gaara? Just stubborn, right? Too proud to let someone care for your wounds? I understand that. But you have to let me help you, dammit; or else it could get infected, or worse."
Gaara sighs dejectedly but doesn't argue. He does, however, move towards the tent-like carrier Sakura mentioned. And Naruto frowns in confusion for a second, realizing with slight interest that Gaara can in fact be embarrassed by exposing himself. In retrospect, he does wear a lot of layers…
The kitsune follows his friend into the marquee and slides the curtains shut.
"Be quick about it, Naruto," Gaara grumbles as he kneels down. "I don't want to postpone our arrival."
"This will only take a moment, I promise," Naruto smiles softly. "And I'll be gentle."
Gaara doesn't want to think about how this conversation can be misinterpreted, nor does he want to exaggerate the situation. It is only a friend who is worried about him examining and mending his wound, right? Nothing big, right? Except… except it feels strange, because the young leader's wound is in an odd place, because of how he had tried to leap away.
"Okay, so I, er, found it," Naruto states in a slightly high-pitched voice. He notices as soon as Gaara's torn and bloody pants are pooling on the cushioned floor of the marquee that his wound is on the back of his thigh, at the very top below his cheek and curving inward. It's an awkward place to receive a blade's mark, although not too unlikely. In the ninja world, a wound is possible on any part of the body. Humans aren't like beetles, they don't have exoskeletons to protect them; every body part is vulnerable.
"How… does it look?" Gaara murmurs. He stiffens as Naruto takes a cloth to the wound to dab some of the blood.
"It's deep. And since you refuse to take Sakura-chan's offer for her medical ninjutsu –"
"I do refuse," Gaara adds stubbornly.
"– I'm going to have to stitch you up. Is there any alcohol around? It'll help numb your skin so that it doesn't hurt as much… and some kind of citrus fruit would be good, to clean out all of the bacteria… or hell, just some water would do!"
"We have water in the canteens we brought along. And at least one of the council members should have alcohol. The thread and needle can be obtained from Haruno-san's aid kit, I'm sure." Gaara sighs in response. He despises the situation, but if anything, he trusts Naruto to care for him, if no one else. Because, somehow, this would be much more awkward had one of his siblings been in here, especially Kankurou. Luckily, both were in Suna watching over the village in Gaara's place.
"Okay. I'll be back in a jiff; don't go anywhere, 'ttebayo!"
"I'll refrain from any sudden movements," Gaara utters under his breath with heavy sarcasm. Naruto pretends not to hear him.
Once outside of the marquee, Naruto can't help but to burst into giggles as he goes about his errand of collecting supplies. This is just too funny to him. Gaara, on his knees, with his little butt only hidden by a thin layer of underwear? Gaara, barely leaning over so not to appear too adversely sexual, but failing miserably because of his flawless skin? – It is definitely a rare sight to behold, and it amuses Naruto to no end. And he can't help but flush a little, because he knows he's enjoying it too much for unwise reasons.
The blond boy approaches Sakura and asks for stitching thread and a needle. She digs around in the pouch attached to her side, and while she fishes for the objects, she poses a question. "Is Gaara-sama going to be alright?"
"As soon as I'm done fixing him," Naruto nods. He tried to bite down another round of giggles. He opts to smile instead. "But I have to say, it looks a bit silly. His wound is on his upper hamstring."
Sakura blinks twice. She turns a slight shade of pink as she realizing how, precisely, Naruto is supposed to stitch a wound in such an area. She tries not to smile. "Well, good luck with that."
"Trust me, I'll need it," Naruto chuckles in response. He takes the objects she holds out – a spool of black, spiny thread and a slender silver needle – and waves with one hand in parting as he returns to the marquee where Gaara resides.
Gaara is restless, and reaaaaally not wanting to be here. Naruto can see this as soon as he steps back inside. Gaara also is extremely irritated. Note to self, Naruto thinks, Don't do anything to piss him off, or he'll kill me. – Er, figuratively speaking. I hope.
"Hi, Gaara," Naruto says softly. "I got the stuff. To, you know, mend that slash. I even got gauze. And, I thought, instead of numbing the skin, would you rather drink the alcohol to numb your awareness?" He's trying to be kind about this, because as tempting as Gaara appears in his current position, he is still a fellow comrade with a profound gash about five inches long on his leg. No longer bleeding, luckily, but still a gash.
"I don't want to be drunk, thank you," the redhead growls lowly as the exposure of air on his wound is making it itchy, which is never a good sign. "My people would not appreciate a drunken leader, and I hate the feeling of being fuzzy-headed." Not that he doesn't already sometimes feel mentally unclear when Naruto is around, but that is something he doesn't want to deal with, ever, so he'll gladly ignore it.
"Suit yourself," Naruto shrugs, thinking idly that if the roles were reversed, he would rather be drunk off his ass than feel a needle weaving in and out of his gaping flesh. Ouch.
Naruto sterilizes the needle with some water and cleans the wound – not minding Gaara's occasional winces. He rubs a tip of alcohol-dipped gauze around the bloody cut repeatedly to numb it. Meanwhile, Gaara is biting down hard on his inner lip to stop himself from reacting from Naruto's hands. They feel callous but their strength is gentle as one firmly holds his leg and the other works on the oddly placed wound. What Gaara dislikes most about this, he finds, is that where the slash curves around towards his inner thigh has ticklish skin; and Naruto's brushing knuckles and nails are enough to nearly cause Gaara to jump. So he bites harder, blood lacing the muddy taste in his mouth, familiar and comforting in a bizarre way.
"How are you holding up, Gaara?" Naruto asks after needling half of the stitches around the gash.
The redhead breathes out slowly, silently. "Well enough," he improvises as an answer. And while it is not all that painful (his mind is mulishly focused on other sensations around the tending area), he can't think of another answer.
"Okay, good," Naruto nods once to himself. "I'm almost done, and then this can all be over."
Gaara shakes his head, keeping all emotion from his face. This feels like an eternity; there is no possible way that this can be over so soon. He wants it to be over, truly Gaara does, but he can't help but wonder if maybe he should let a complaint leak from his lips, and permit some hesitation to make the eternity last longer. But why he wishes this, he has no clue.
Naruto fumbles with the knot at the end of his stitched line, a knot tied just below the roundness of Gaara's ass. But Naruto frowns, because while he somewhat planned from the beginning for him to have to end the knot there (it's entertaining to mess with his friends, but particularly Gaara, since the redhead is normally so deadpan), he can't help but feel a tad wrong for doing so. Because, as it just so happens: "I forgot scissors."
"Hn?" Gaara grunts questioningly.
"I forgot scissors," Naruto repeats. "So I'll have to bite off the excess thread."
It takes Gaara a moment to comprehend precisely what this means. But before he can half-turn around to protest, or reach out a hand to stop Naruto, the blond is already leaning down and taking the black thread between his sharp teeth and gritting his jaw to rub away the thread piece by piece.
Gaara covers his mouth with the hand that he had been about to stop Naruto with. And why? Because Naruto's nose is rubbing against his skin, and he can feel Naruto breathing, and the warmth of his spit-slicked lips and breath. He doesn't want to admit it to himself, but he simply can't deny the small voice in the back of his mind – the very, very back of his mind where normal teenaged hormones are not deprived from him – that tells him that he wouldn't mind Naruto's nose and lips and tongue on his skin, so low like that.
The redhead drops his hand just as Naruto pulls away, thread with dangling needle between his teeth. "There," he says as he takes them out and wraps them up in some extra gauze, "That wasn't so bad, now, was it? And I have to say, your stitches don't look that bad. I'm not the best at sewing, but they aren't nearly as messy as I thought they'd be. Now all I gotta do is clean them up with water and put on the antibiotic cream Sakura-chan gave me, and the gauze bandage, and you're all finished!"
The young Kazekage has never felt more mortified in his life, but it must not be showing on his face, because even as Naruto peers over Gaara's shoulders to tell him all of this, Naruto doesn't show any recognition in his eyes, nor does he say anything on the matter.
And as the kitsune completes his task (Gaara being more than relieved to drag his pants back up to their proper place around his slim hips), he smiles brightly at Gaara and announces seemingly casually, "And don't worry, I won't tell anyone about this. Especially not about that mysterious little freckle you have on your inner thigh."