Warnings: Slash/yaoi, angst, fluff, dark!fic future, mind-f*ckery
Characters: Gaara/Naruto, unrequited SasuNaru
Chapter Rating: R
Disclaimer: Owned by Kishimoto Masashi, et al.
Summary: It all comes down to the terms of possession.
A/N: Be forewarned—this is a peculiar child of a peculiar brain. Whether the reader may find anything worthy of approbation, the author cannot say—except that zie hopes the reader will show enough human respect and dignity to refrain from sacrificing zir upon the alter of the reader's indignation. Thank you most kindly for your time and for, if you may be so inclined, a memento of your visit in the form of a review. The author is, as always, the humble and pitiable servant of your entertainment.
A/N2: Wrote this years ago under the penname Yxonomei, but forgot to post it here on ff . net. So, here it is, for what it's worth…
::Butterfly Syringe::
~Track One~
Deep, even breaths, drowning a little with each one. The pungent steam folds about him, holds him, clings to him in filmy, damp swathes, slides down into his lungs and embraces him from within.
"He needs me more than you do," Uzumaki Naruto says, drawing the frayed, tatty orange washcloth over the curve of his shoulder and down the toned plane of his chest and leaving behind a trail of licorice scented suds. A few threads pull free and stick to the tip of his nipple. "Mou, maybe I need a new one," he mutters as he picks up the stragglers between uneven fingernails and flicks them to the tile floor between his bare feet.
A new washcloth definitely. Maybe some of that conditioner stuff Sakura-chan always insists a well-groomed person needs. Not that he cares that much about that, clean is clean, but he overheard her say that it makes ones hair soft and touchable—and if there's one thing Naruto wants to be, besides Hokage and the greatest, most amazing ninja ever, it's touchable. He wants people, especially a certain one, to want to touch him.
That special person is not the one glaring sullenly at his back from the other side of the bath's washing area.
Maybe Uchiha Sasuke isn't used to being rejected. Scratch that, he definitely isn't used to that. A small spike of resentment pierces Naruto's heart, brass-pin pang, before he brushes it aside. It's an old hurt born from a childhood much different from anyone else in the village. Children are born to be loved, he has always thought, but he was born to be hated. Pang. Pang. Pang. Twist that pin in deeper. Let the flesh grow and cover it, seal it inside.
They can hate him, all of them can, and he'll just love them and love them and love them until they're exhausted and finally love him back. That was his original plan with Sakura, back when he was filled with adolescent adoration. Maybe it would have panned out if he hadn't found someone else, someone with the same eyes and the same scarred heart full of brass-pins.
A hard plastic stool beneath his naked ass and a hard glare against his back. Maybe going to the bath house with a recently returned Sasuke wasn't such a good idea. Team bonding maybe isn't as efficacious when naked, especially with inopportune confessions cutting across a room empty of anyone else but the both of them. Who knew most of Konoha's shinobi would be gone and the civilians at home?
Thanks a lot, Kakashi-sensei. Let's bond in the harmonious and relaxing atmosphere of the communal bath house, my ass. Forced the two of them to go—Sakura having an odd attack of feminine modesty and maybe she's really telling the truth when she insists she's starting to feel "that way" about Rock Lee—and then abandoned them at the door with a buy-one-get-one-free coupon to that particular establishment. And he hadn't even paid for the one!
Wait a minute… The washcloth comes to a stop on his abdomen as his mind and body freeze on a sudden, and possibly disturbing, epiphany. Did Kakashi and Sakura plan this? Do they know about Sasuke's crush or whatever on Naruto? Little gods, did they encourage Sasuke to think he had a chance? Didn't they know about Gaara? Half the world seems to know about that. The more you want to keep something private, the less private it becomes.
No, they wouldn't get Sasuke's hopes up, at least Sakura wouldn't—she's too mature for those kind of machinations. So maybe it was just Kakashi. Or maybe both of them, but Sakura probably just wanted all that weird tension between her teammates to be cleared up. Yeah, that must be it. Thanks a lot guys…
"How the hell can he need you more? He isn't even here." Words that, years ago, would have been uttered with frustration and anger, now come out cold and laconic. The same tone used to cut the bonds between them as the smoke and dust of the explosion blew grit into their eyes, staring up at mirage, a phantom, no, his best friend now a… stranger in a familiar body. The same tone used to say, "I want to fuck you." The same when Naruto turned him down with his usual good-guy-embarrassed laugh, "Why won't you let me have you?" And, "Why do you care so much for him?"
Naruto wonders if it was painful when Sasuke slaughtered his capacity to feel.
"How do you even know if he's being faithful?"
Still too human to understand, though.
Naruto doesn't mean to laugh like that. He really doesn't. It just sort of crawls out of his throat and into the pungent, heavy, damp air. It's harsh and cutting, sharp and sweetly hateful—and not at all like his own laugh, but there it is.
Because Gaara does need him more than Sasuke, so beautifully damaged and vulnerable beneath the graveyard of human emotion he wraps himself in. Gaara cannot live without Naruto—literally. A consequence of the Chiyo-baasama's life transfer jutsu and Naruto's assistance. An uneven bond that constantly seeks to suck the borrowed life from one and return it to its owner. Even now Naruto can feel the strain their separation has put on his lover's body. He'll have to go back soon. Four months apart seems to be their limit now, well, until the bond stabilizes, but that could be decades from now, a lifetime from now.
"Even if he had the capacity to want someone else, I stole his ability to do anything about it." Stole the Kazekage's opportunity to find a nice woman or man in his own village to form an intimate relationship with—and why can't he feel worse about it? Why does that horribly, petty corner of his heart light up at the thought of having Gaara bound to him so?
No, Gaara can never cheat on him, even if he wanted to, even if the chakra-bond would allow him to want to. But Naruto can, as things stand now. Naruto can feel that sweet ache of desire curl up in his groin at the sight of Sakura after a strenuous workout or, yes, dammit, even Sasuke dripping wet and scowling—which is why he refuses to turn around and look at his raven-haired teammate.
"I can be your friend, Sasuke. I can be your brother, but that's it," he says to the water-glisten tile wall and the tarnished brass faucet before him. He'll not hurt Gaara like that, even though he knows the redhead won't hold it against him, will forgive him with cold eyes and hard lips.
Because someday, after Gaara has poured his own self, his own life into Naruto over and over and over again, in sweaty, sex-tangled sheets, over the Kazekage's magnificent desk, or beneath the blind stars atop the Kazekage's compound, Naruto will be as truly bound to him as he is to Naruto—and then his body will only dance on the blade of desire for him.
The blond hopes that day comes sooner than later as he tosses the washcloth aside and reaches down for the basin of rinse water.
~Track Two~
It's cold. It's warm.
The rumpled sheets beneath his cheek have drawn in his heat, their heat, their sex. The night air of the desert is cold as it washes over his naked back.
Strong, elegant fingers card through his unruly hair. Fingernails scratch gently at his scalp. Gently up and gently down, up and down. Then more pressure, more pressure. Sparks of pain flare up and melt across his skin. The fingers catch, tangle and jerk. Pulling him up, pulling him back, away from the warmth of the bed and against the heat of his lover's body.
"Hurts," he mumbles tiredly, or maybe he just moans a bit. Pain into sweet-sharp pleasure. Almost. Almost.
"I cannot be kind to you," that raw silk voices says on a tender whisper. "This time, I cannot let you go."
Hard mouth slanting against his own and drinking deeply from his lips. Hot slick tongue invading, pushing in, pumping wetly, mercilessly past his teeth. The hand not locked in his hair draws fire across his arched throat, cutting down, down, opening the seal of his skin to let his life well up. He lets a liquid gasp loose and pushes up into the hand and then back against the cock digging into the small of his back. His own hands tangled in the sheets, clenching, twisting, tearing.
Reciprocity.
"Gaara."
Desire ripens into exquisite tension between his thighs, trapping his throbbing heart there. The wicked, wicked hand spills down to tightly close about Naruto's cock. So good. So, so, yes! Push. Thrust. Animal smell in his nostrils, dirt and fur and darkness. In the screaming night. In the loam of the forest. Taste the beast upon his tongue, salt and metal and earth.
"Have to keep you."
Sensation expanding, spreading through his abdomen, hot and slick and pulsing. It sends him hunching into the hand brutally dragging the foreskin up and down his cock. So good. Gaara. So good. A flood of saliva in his mouth, harsh gasps caught in his throat.
"Please, keep me. Yes. Please."
~Track Three~
"You don't think I know?"
Why is that hand locked around his wrist? Why is that hand attached to that arm that is attached to that body? Why does that body belong to Sasuke. Oh, yeah, because the guy is being a bastard again.
"I honestly don't know what you think you know," Naruto says, trying to free his wrist, which is already beginning to throb with a bracelet of bruises.
"You're leaving. Leaving Konoha. Or you're thinking about it."
Outside the sandstorm rages, lashing the protective walls of Sunagakure with winds that can strip flesh from bone in minutes. This place, full of sand and quiet death, hushed laughter and careful compassion.
"You don't understand anything, Sasuke."
An aide rushes by, sheaf of papers threatening to fly from her shaking arms. She barely spares the two Leaf-nin a glance. The sirens outside wail. It's not safe. Not safe. Stay inside. Danger.
"What about your dreams? What about being Hokage?"
Sasuke's scent is so different from Gaara's or Naruto's own: human.
Gaara. The thought of him draws Naruto's gaze westward, as if his eyes could penetrate the thick sandstone walls and distance that separates the two of them. His skin crawls and shivers with the need to pull itself away and forever remain trapped inside the Kazekage's arms. The chakra-bond aches, unsatisfied. More. More. More.
They haven't done it in Gaara's office in quite some time… He's rather fond of the cool stone desktop against his heated cheek—or ass, depending on the position. Maybe—
An angry hand fists in his hair, forcing his gaze back to the flat black eyes of his companion.
"What about being Hokage, Naruto? Or was that all a childish fantasy?" Sour-sweet breath in his face, furious mouth threatening a kiss. No.
"Let go. Let go or I'll kick your ass." Sasuke really doesn't understand. Doesn't have the slightest clue. Because Naruto isn't giving up on being Hokage—hell no!—but he's not giving up Gaara either. The two aren't mutually exclusive.
"Have to keep you."
He shudders beneath the brief flash of that memory. He's going to have to make Gaara understand that as well.
"I'm not letting you go."
"You've never had me, Sasuke."
~Track Four~
The arms about him are so hard, bands of steel. Flesh as vulnerable as metal. Beyond the glass of the window the storm still pounds its fury against defenses of Suna. Soft breaths stir the fine hairs at his nape.
"She wants you to stay," Gaara says softly, watching the storm-scattered twilight that has enveloped his village. "Suna wants to keep you here."
"Demanding, isn't she?" Naruto quips, hands restless against the cool glass, the sill, his lover's arms.
"I want to keep you here."
"Kidnapping is frowned upon, oh great Kazekage-sama."
"Let me be selfish." A mouth against his ear, chapped lips and a wet tongue. "For a little while longer."
~Track Five~
Something… Something's off…
His head. Every motion a lance of pain, a furious ache rooted deep in his tissues, in muscle and tendon and bone. Flesh burning and screaming, writhing against the constraints anchoring it in place.
Scream. Scream in a voice not his own. Strange, high, grating. Human? No, not human?
Am I human?
"Hush." Gentle, gentle words. Tender constructions of language almost understood.
Hands. Yes, those are hands that lift up his head. But so big. How did they…?
"It is almost finished."
~Track Six~
"Where is he?"
The harsh demand cuts Temari off mid-report. The wet, rasping groans of the guards outside tell the story of how Uchiha got inside the Kazekage's office without appointment or permission. It seems he doesn't believe their explanation of why Naruto would not be joining him in returning to Konohagakure. How troublesome—wait, argh, did she just sound like her maybe-sorta-boyfriend? How depressing.
"You are interrupting, Uchiha-san," the Kazekage says in a voice as cool and neutral as his expression.
"Where is Naruto?"
And perhaps it is petty, conniving fate that directs the next sequence of events, when a bundle of energetic limbs and wild hair tumbles into the room, out of breath and bright-eyed.
"Gaara-nii. Guess what Matsuri showed me! Guess! Guess!" Small hands closed around some mysterious object, blue-blue eyes flashing, wide grin stretching chakra-scarred cheeks, the child rushes past Uchiha and awkwardly comes to a halt before the Kazekage's desk. "It's a bug caparous… carapack… carmapace… It's a bug skeleton-thing! And it's hu-uge!"
Bouncing excitedly on the balls of his feet, clothing in coltish disarray, the blond thrusts his precious discovery across the desk to give Gaara a better view—and he is oblivious to the dark chakra seeping from the black-haired man behind him, oblivious to the mounting horror that has not yet scrawled itself across the man's pale face. Temari reaches behind and fingers the leather strap holding her tessen in place.
What's done is done, and she will support her Kazekage, her little brother, even in his most idiotic and politically suicidal decisions—because Gaara deserves some selfishness after all he's been through.
~End~
A/N3: This started out as a vision of Naruto being pulled back by his hair into a kiss. Also, the author figures with all the wacky jutsus out there, turning someone into a kid shouldn't be too much of a stretch. After all, Tsunade certainly doesn't look her age most of the time. /shrugs/