She was the cloak and he was the dagger.
They were the best at what they did. She was the one bred of analyze and present. She read people like playing cards and played them to her favor, casting a winner's smile to those below her.
He was an outsider. A sewer rat that fought for his place at the top, unafraid to use any means necessary. He'd left his conscience down at the bottom of the totem pole.
They were purposefully late.
Her heels crunched delicately against the sandy, grainy ground, slender figure clad in a long, black coat that contrasted sharply against the startling ivory of her skin, with her hair tucked neatly under a hat that hid half her face, revealing only a dainty chin.
His scuffed boots padded silently, and slowly after her, dressed in a similar coat that hid the lean muscles that stretched and coiled beneath, with his shock of dark red hair falling into his cold, but handsome face.
Sakura loved making people wait. She liked the way anger rolled of them and condensed into nothingness. There was nothing better than seeing pigs sweat.
The sound of heels stopped abruptly, "Sorry, Sir and Madam, I'll need you to take off your coats before you can proceed further." She raises an elegant eyebrow, and glances at the massive, wooden double doors that remain tightly shut behind the burly man.
"It's hot out here," her lilting voice travels through the space between them, "Let us in."
The bodyguard does not give in and simply repeats himself, "Sir, Madam. Remove the coats."
Neither of them make a move. Gaara shifts casually from one foot to another and for the first time that evening, his lips curl upwards. It was a show of teeth, cruel and dangerous, rather than a smile. But Sakura catches it.
She returns it with an amused, beguiled smile and shakes her head gently, which lifts his lips even more, turning the baring of teeth into a smirk. The headshaking increases in vigor.
"If you do not remove your coats now, I will be forced to take action."
Gaara looks away from Sakura, "Fine." The coat slides off his shoulders easily, revealing the standard ninja pants and a form fitting black shirt.
His sea blue-green eyes flash, and he's got sand swirling beneath his feet.
He hears her let out an exasperated sigh in unison with the sound of the man's choked grunt as the sand wraps itself around him and tightens. Gaara kicks the door wide open and despite her seeming reluctance, she steps in.
The guards begin pouring in like flies. But his gloved hands are warmed, palms tingling with chakra and the slide of sand against his skin spikes in time with his heart. Adrenaline races through his veins as wood splinter and blood splatters. They were shouting in frenzied panic now. It was deafening, and he loved it, loved soaking in the feeling of being completely alive amongst the dead.
The room soon grew dark with most of the lights shattered and the sounds begin to get muffled. But a crack of metal against bone has him spinning to the right, chest tightening and the sand at the tips of his fingers faltering, only to find Sakura shoving a limp body to the right.
She could take care of herself, but Gaara couldn't seem to remember that as he scans his partner's fragile-looking frame. The glow of the remains of a fire jutsu smoldering on the side illuminates a cut, high on her cheekbone. Blood was seeping out, but it was nothing serious. He turns away and his hands are steady this time.
The room was cleared save for one cowering pig in a drenched suit. The fight seemed to have set off sprinklers and there was an alarm screeching, screaming in their ears. Gaara runs a hand through his wet hair. They have to make this quick.
Sakura raises the hood of the cloak over her head so she can stop blinking water out of her eyes, as she steps over the fallen bodies in order to stand over their target. She absentmindedly wonders where her hat might have fallen.
"Ryohei Seijuro. Do you understand why this is happening?" She wasn't smiling, but her voice held honey-coated charm.
"Don't kill me."
It was a hoarse whisper – a prayer to the reaper that hovered over him.
Then, she smiles, friendly and oddly kind, "I'm not going to kill you." The pig chokes out a wretched sob of relief. "He is."
The man looks up only to catch a flash of red and then his cry is cut off with a wet, crunching noise that is his body being crushed under the weight of Gaara's sand.
Gaara kicks aside a stray piece of human anatomy that was covered in too much blood to identify, "It wasn't much fun. They were pathetic."
She shakes her head, "Not everyone is as good as you." Sakura turns towards the exit, careful to avoid puddles of blood and body parts.
Once they are far away enough, and hidden safely in a cave, he allows himself to toss aside his blood-slicked gloves. She notices and removes her coat, the action letting a tumble of pale pink hair slip out, making the cut on her cheek even more obvious.
"Does it hurt?" He doesn't look away from the fire that he is setting up.
She laughs, breathily, "It's nothing."
There is silence, before he murmurs, "You're thinking about your mother again – how she deals with her enemies."
And he was right. Sakura's mind turns to Tsunade, her mother and the Hokage of the village and also the one to order the two of them to do what they do. Her thoughts wander back to the bloody massacre they left in their wake, before shrugging.
"They weren't enemies. They were just petty criminals, hardly worth killing."
Gaara taps a long, tapering finger against the piece of firewood in his hand, "Yet you ended five lives."
She sighs, tired, "You were there, they would have died anyway."
There is a loud clatter, as he violently throws the piece of firewood onto the ground, and when he speaks, his attractive face is shadowed with anger.
"How many time have I told you that I would be the weapon? All you have to do is tell me when and who to kill. I'll soak in all the blood. Your hands are meant to be clean."
"My mother isn't sending me out on all these extermination missions to keep my hands clean. You can't protect me from what I was born into." She looks up and catches his gaze from under dark, sweeping lashes, expression solemn but soft, " I appreciate it. But I'm stuck with this life, so I might as well get used to it."
She stretches her bare, long legs out, and drapes a hand over her eyes, "How do you do it?"
"Do what?" The fire sparks and starts to burn with a crackle.
"Keep sane."
He stares at the fire, unsure of how to answer. He didn't dislike what he did. There was a certain level of satisfaction to piercing through a life and ripping it out. Still, he knew the difference between carrying out a mission in cold blood and eliminating someone who deserved death.
He also knew that there was something wrong with the way they were handling opposition and defiance, but it was effective and he couldn't argue with the results.
Still, the blood rained down too thick sometimes, even for him. He guessed it happened to everyone at some point, where coagulated blood smears the recesses of your mind and familiarly mutilated faces burned into your eyelids.
It was impossible not to be haunted by some of the things he's done. But he was born into a world like this. A world where you couldn't shine without rubbing yourself raw, and even then, gems were just polished dirt.
So there was no sense in getting hung up on dirty deeds.
"I don't know."
"You suck."
There was nothing after that and it gets too quiet. His ears were still ringing from the fight and it was annoying. He hated when it didn't stop.
"How are your ears?"
She shifts, and her shirt slips up, exposing a strip of pale skin, "They're fine. Why?"
"Nothing." He continues to stare at the fire. Maybe he didn't have it as together as he thought. It was starting to give him a headache. This was happening more and more often, this loud whine that wouldn't stop after a job. The ringing drowned out the sound of her feet against gravel.
Gaara didn't even realize it until her cool breathe was slow and even against his neck. He doesn't move away, "What's this?"
Her eyes glow in the dim cave, as she murmurs, "A distraction."
Her hand sinks between his legs, finding home in cupping a thigh and dragging up. He inhales sharply, lungs filling with her scent.
Gaara immediately turns his lips to hover over waiting ones. This wouldn't be the first time they've fucked, but they'd never done it like this. His blood boiled beneath his skin and his heartbeat peaked. Tongues brushed for a breath, before running deep.
He couldn't call what they had real, not when it was built on layers of misplaced emotions and a craving for contact that didn't end in broken bodies