"Drink," Gaara ordered. He did not slam the cup down on the desk; he set it down carefully, precisely, not spilling a drop. Guilty blue eyes peered up at him as Naruto contrived to look guilty. Or, possibly- off-chance- he actually knew he'd been an idiot this time.
"Uh. Thanks." He picked up the cup and drank, not quite gulping. Not quite not gulping, either.
"So," said Gaara. His voice didn't change, but Naruto's next swallow sounded particularly hard. The blond Nin set down his cup, eyes sliding away. "You entered Sand territory, without permission. Without notification."
"I'm sor-" Naruto began. Gaara held up a hand.
"Without guidance, proper planning, or proper supplies." He reached for the empty cup, filled it, and set it back on the table between them. Naruto glanced at it, his expression chagrined.
"I should have sent a message," he admitted.
"You should have waited for my reply. You should have waited for-" Me "-a guide."
"But there wasn't time!" Naruto straightened up, windswept hair falling back from a sunburned face. "A traveler told me he'd seen Sasuke in the sand country, I had to-"
"Sasuke." Gaara closed his eyes and massaged his forehead. "He saw Sasuke?"
"Well... someone who looked like him."
"Indeed."
Naruto fell uncharacteristically silent. When Gaara opened his eyes to look, the blond nin wore that expression again, the one he usually kept buried behind a face-breakingly wide grin. Hurt.
"I have to find him," he said, softly. "I'm his friend. He needs me." He finally found the old grin, but Gaara stared straight past it. He saw the pain, and he reached out to it. Twisted it. Because he had to.
"Sasuke doesn't want to be found. He doesn't want you, Naruto. Let him go."
The grin fell away as though Gaara had physically struck it from the other boy's face, and again Gaara saw the hurt.
"I can't." Naruto lowered his eyes, shutting away the truth, then lifted them resolutely and met Gaara's gaze head-on. "Wanting... that's not the same as needing, right? Didn't you tell me something like that?"
Gaara said nothing.
"And if he needs me, if he if he doesn't know, even if he doesn't want to know, then... yeah."
The pressure built behind Gaara's eyes, becoming a dull, throbbing ache.
Why? There were protected people, cherished people, special people. Naruto had shown him that. But why the Uchiha?
He stared at Naruto, who's return stare was beginning to loose it's momentary clarity. The blond fiddled nervously, reached for the cup and almost knocked it over.
Still, Gaara stared. Was Naruto's persistence strength? Stupidity? Both?
The blond cleared his throat, grinned, brought the cup to his lips and set it down again.
"Uh... Gaara? Something wrong?"
Yes. It was all wrong. Naruto being here, Naruto turning down the Hokage title, Naruto still fixated on the traitor's whereabouts. Wrong.
Gaara stood up and moved to the window, staring out towards the city.
"Rest," he said, finally. "Drink. Sleep. I'll call a search for the Uchiha."
"Ah! Thanks!" Naruto bounded upright, instantly cheerful. Transparent as glass. "I really appreciate it, and I'm really sorry about everything, I'll just go and help-"
Gaara reached out and gripped his shoulder. "You will rest," he reiterated. "Sleep. Recover. For now... leave the Uchiha for me. If he is here, I will find him. You have my word."
After Naruto fell asleep (which he eventually did, despite all efforts to the contrary), Gaara made a very different kind of descent.
Below his office, below the undercroft, down a hidden stairwell and further down deep into bedrock, he came at last to the room.
Gaara had never been able to discern the room's original purpose, but now it was simply a sandy pit buried deep below ground. A perfect place to keep something that should never see the light of day again. Something- or someone.
Sasuke had once said that what he sought lay in darkness, and that he'd deliberately closed his eyes. His fate, then, seemed appropriate.
A wonder that he'd ever made it so far in the state he'd been in when Gaara tracked him down, while Naruto still lay unconscious in Sakura's care.
Gaara had thought about killing the Uchiha. Even now the thought was a chill presence in the back of his mind, recalling him to darker days when killing had meant nothing and everything to him. But it was not his own existence he wanted to define, not this time. This time it was Naruto he needed to set free.
The Uchika sat in the corner, arms folded over a bare, scarred torso. His black hair hung long and unkempt, nearly to his shoulders. He straightened as the door opened, arms falling to his sides as he turned his face upwards towards where he thought Gaara must be.
As though that made a difference.
"What do you want?"
Trails of dried blood snaked down his pale cheeks like the tracks of morbid tears, and his dark eyes, opaque as ever, strained in vain after any trace of light.
Gaara stood perfectly still, arms folded across his chest.
Minutes dragged on, and the Uchiha gritted his teeth, his hands clenching. Gaara, feet on the stone ridge, was conscious of the shifting sand as it slid inexorably through the fallen nin's fingers and left his hands empty, left his nails digging only into his own flesh. Compounding his own pain.
"I know you're there. I can here you breathing." Sasuke's voice was cold, cold and hard like ice. Then it cracked. "What do you want from me? Fuck you! Kill me, or let me out of here. What do you want?" It was almost a scream.
Gaara knelt down slowly and stared into the pit, elbows resting on his knees. He watched Sasuke pick up a handful of sand and fling it uselessly at the wall.
It must be horrible. Blind, trapped, helpless.
And alone.
Sasuke had sought solitude, but had he ever actually gained it before? The silence, the moments and hours and days alone with only himself for company. And what sort of company was that?
The Uchiha fell still, panting, face contorted in fury and pain. The silence stretched on, and Gaara waited. Waited, and thought. Finally he spoke.
"He's here."
The effect was gratifyingly immediate. Every line of the thin, pale form tightened in an instant. His neck snapped back, horrified face questing blindly from side to side in useless desperation. "Here?" it was a whisper, hoarse and panicked. "Nar...uto?"
"Here. In the city." Gaara extended his hand idly, and a thin spiral of sand rose up from the pit. He turned his hand palm-up, watching the restless sand shift around his skin, never quite touching him. "Looking for you."
Sasuke relaxed perceptibly, the horror falling from his face to be replaced by a stiff sneer. "Fool," he said.
Gaara's hand snapped into a fist. The sand shook, shifted, pulling the Uchiha down and squeezing the air from his lungs in an explosive gasp.
For a second, Gaara hesitated. Then he forced his hand to relax.
Sasuke lay in the sand, coughing up blood and... grinning. Because he was alive? No. Because he'd almost died.
He'd almost won.
"Fool," Gaara agreed civilly, and watched the expression fade from Sasuke's face. All this time, that was the first genuine smile the Uchiha had shown him.
Sasuke wanted death.
Gaara leapt, and landed on his feet a pace away from Sasuke. He moved forward, reached down and gripped the Uchiha's face with unforgiving fingers. Sasuke tried to jerk away from the touch, the only human touch he'd felt in days, but Gaara held fast.
"I don't want you near him," he said. "I don't want him to see you. Touch you. Think about you. I don't even want him to remember you." His voice was calm, even-toned, and utterly devoid of malice.
The Uchiha said nothing, simply stared back in stony defiance.
"But," said Gaara, and dark-haired nin's expression froze. "He remembers. He seeks."
Again, Sasuke tried to twist away. This time the motion was frantic. "No," Sasuke said, spitting out the word. "Kill me. Leave me here. Bury me alive. But don't-"
"You... are all he thinks about."
"Don't let him see me like this!"
"And he never gives up."
"Please-" There it was. Please. The proud Uchiha was begging him at last.
"Thank you, Sasuke."
The nin stopped, confusion warring with fear. "What?"
"Thank you. For making this bearable." Gaara's fingers tightened, and he kneeled so that his face was on a level with Sasuke's, so that Sasuke could feel his breath when he spoke. "Thank you for showing me that this... this is what you will hate the most."
Gaara wondered right up until he stood in the doorway, and stood staring at the sleeping blond. Wondered if it was too late to change his mind, to kill the Uchiha and bury him in the subterranean room where he'd stay a secret forever.
Sasuke had fought tooth and claw on the way here. He'd even tried to bite. Now he hung sick and exhausted from Gaara's unrelenting grip, trying to control his breathing.
Gaara watched Naruto's sleeping face. The blond stirred, rolled over, arms and legs all sticking out in odd directions.
Last chance to turn back.
But even when you knew he was wrong, even when you knew it was impossible...
Gaara gritted his teeth, tossed his burden forward onto the carpeted floor.
"Naruto." he said, loudly.
Gaara was aware of Sasuke's flinch, of the way the fallen nin scrambled back towards the wall like an injured animal seeking to escape from the trap, but Gaara kept his eyes fixed on Naruto.
Naruto sat up, yawned, rubbed his eyes and looked at Gaara. He began to grin, but stopped as he became aware of the room's third presence.
Blue eyes rounded as he stared, joy and dismay crashing into his face and leaving it a conflicted mess. But then he moved, a rush which had him off of the bed and kneeling by the Uchiha's side in the space of a breath.
"Sa... Sasuke?"
"Get away from me!"
Naruto reached out, tanned fingers lightly touching his friends bruised face.
"But you're—"
Sasuke let out a cry, striking the hand away with a wild swing. Naruto caught his wrist. Held on easily when he tried to wrench away.
Gaara stood by, arms folded. Invisible in that place and time, made irrelevant to both of them.
The Uchiha fought, but Naruto simply held on and insisted while Sasuke writhed and screamed. Screamed, because kindness stung his wounds like salt, because forgiveness hurt like broken bones, because love...
...Because love was agony. Gaara drew back from the door, and walked away with the memory of Naruto's shining eyes burned into his mind.
Love was agony, but you persisted anyway. And if you persisted long enough, then the pain made you strong.
Perhaps, one day, strong enough.
Behind him, he heard Sasuke's voice finally break. "D-dobe." he choked. Gaara kept walking, but he could still see the scene unfolding. The images persisted in his mind for long after the two were out of earshot.
Naruto would certainly draw the Uchiha into his arms, holding him, completing the fallen nin's defeat with resounding finality. Sasuke might fight against it, in the months and years to come, but he'd already lost.
He'd already broken.