Author's Note: This is a series of presents to various friends of mine, posted up to celebrate the holidays. I'll post them up as I complete them. A series of Naruto short romance/friendship one-shots revolving around a prompt and probably the characters Naruto, Gaara, Matsuri, and Hinata.

So, here is a NarutoxGaara story for MiLuCha. And everyone else who enjoys the two of them. Happy holidays.

Our December

Installment I: Warmth

The room was vague, fathomless. A waxing scrap of moon, white and almost ghostly with the halo of its glow, peeked through the curtains drawn only partway over the window. Its light, faint and weak, was the only one that touched the room; by it, the darkness crept back, yielded shape and substance to the eye.

Gaara's eyes tracked the moonlight, to where it touched his own hand, and the darker skin below it.

"Darker than mine," he whispered aloud, and drew his hand down the bared shoulder, over the rise and fall of flesh revealed by the drift of opened clothing. The curve was soft to his touch, warm and smooth – infinitely more supple than glass, but just as even.

Gaara brought his hand back up, catching the covers between his fingers and drawing them up and over them both. He turned his cheek deeper into the pillow, and shifted gently beneath the blanket, easing slowly into a new position. His other hand, resting atop hair that had been yellow by the daylight and would be yellow once again, gripped the blanket up above Naruto's face, so that it left his mouth and nose bare to the air. His side, exposed along with his boyfriend's airway passages, was cooler than the rest of his body.

A minor discomfort. In the darkness, half-curled on the warm tussle of mattress, blankets, and pillows, with Naruto's head nestled on his chest and his arms about Naruto's shoulders, and with all the warm weight of his boyfriend tucked close against him, Gaara thought he might almost be content. His mouth had that weird, stretched feeling to it again, that strange small curve that only Naruto seemed to really be able to bring to him; had he the desire to touch his mouth and see, he thought he might feel the familiar, faint indentations at the corner of his lips, where the mouth met his cheek. When he breathed in, it was to inhale the smells of their bodies, his and Naruto's, the scent of soap and cloth, of hot stone and dust, of sweet incense long ago burned out on the desk opposite the room.

He drew his fingers through Naruto's hair; felt it, the long thin strands, slightly coarse to his touch. He could not see their color in the darkness, but he knew the shade by heart. Like he knew the landscape of the face below it, the dip and swell of bone and flesh, and the soft brush of lashes on his palm.

Gaara exhaled slowly, relaxing his head back against the blankets. His eyes once more found the slit in the parted curtains, where clouds, paler than the naked sky, were creeping in. The little clock on Naruto's wall, shaped in the likeness of a stylized frog, circled along its chronicle of minutes as he lay there, watching the changing sky and Naruto's sleeping, still face.

Slate grey lightened as he waited, his palms pressed to Naruto, feeling his breath against his own hand and the rise and fall of his chest under his arm, the thrum and beat of his heart below his touch. This was love – this feeling – Naruto's arms wrapped about his own chest, big palms pressed to his own back – this was want. This was warm.

Gaara allowed his eyes to fall close. He let go of the thoughts that filled his weary mind, and focused, instead, on the sensation of skin on skin, the weight of someone trusted and trusting that lay in his arms, in his safekeeping. No one would hurt them here. Here was comfort; hope; and an intangible, yet definitely, absolutely, real sense of . . . peace.

And at this moment, in this room, in these arms, no one could take it away.

"Mmmhh . . ."

Gaara opened his eyes as he felt the body atop his own stir awake. Bleary blue ones, half-opened in the sunlight that had snuck into the room while he had rested, met his own; they widened slightly, and then crinkled into a smile.

"Hey," Naruto whispered.

"It's eight o'clock," Gaara informed him, his voice soft below the music playing in the apartment below them, and the chorus of noises outside the window, scant snatches of laughter and the distant tinkle of bells.

"Yeah, g'mornin' to ya, too," Naruto murmured, rolling over so that the two were chest-to-chest, like two flowers gathered close beneath the blanket. He wiggled a little higher up on Gaara, buried his face against Gaara's neck, wrapped his arms about Gaara's shoulders, and whispered, "You smell good. Yay."

Gaara studied the whorl of hair below his chin, threading his fingers through the mane. "What do I smell like?"

"Eh?" Naruto raised his head, peered at Gaara with drowsy blue eyes. "Sun. Sand." He paused thoughtfully, and then smiled his open, sunny smile, the one that made his entire face light up – like, Gaara thought, a quick and inner dawn. "You."

"I do?"

"Mmm." Naruto lay back down, and rolled onto his side, drawing Gaara sideways with him. "Yeah. You're all stiff, you know that? Hey . . ." he opened his eyes a little wider, and Gaara waited as the blond scanned his form carefully. "You weren't holding me like that the whole night, were you?"

Gaara nodded, seeing no reason to lie. Naruto's face softened into concern, his hand coming up to touch Gaara's shoulder.

"Ouch." He said with a wince, "You're all stiff, no wonder. Wanna stand up and stretch?"

Gaara shrugged. "I'm fine."

"You sure?" Naruto asked softly.

Gaara could feel his fingers begin to move in firm, smooth circles on his back.

"Keep doing that," he whispered. "I'm fine."

Naruto snorted. "If you can boss me around, Tanuki-san, you're fine."

Gaara watched Naruto stretch, rocking his head back and pushing out his toes, easing some of his own discomfort without jostling the redhead.

"Naruto . . ."

"Yeah?" Naruto drew back in, and Gaara waited until his blue eyes had met his own dark-rimmed ones before summoning the words he wanted to say, the sense he had had the night before, that he wanted now to express..

"I'm sorry," He began simply.

"Huh? S'kay, don't be–"

"But I liked laying there with you."

Naruto's tongue tied itself in a series of mumbled syllable that ended in a grin. "Wha – really?"

Gaara nodded. He watched Naruto's eyes move over his face, slip down to the neck of his opened shirt; watched him blush, and quickly move his gaze away. The smile on his face was partly shamefaced, but pleased nonetheless.

Gaara felt his hands slow on his back, and the kneading motions ceased altogether when Naruto's face turned back to his, the smile fading into something serious, and a little sad.

"Gaara," he said softly, "That really means a lot to me."

Gaara studied him carefully, and then nodded. "It means a lot to me, too. I felt . . . safe . . . with you. Lying there." He searched his mind, carefully considering and discarding words. "I felt . . . warm."

Naruto brought his face closer, so that they were very near to each other, noses almost touching. "You're getting better," he said, and Gaara saw the same soft, almost smiling, expression, the same pride, that Temari and Kankuro sometimes looked at him with, on his face. "That's good. That's really good . . . I'm so glad, Gaara."

Gaara silently drew his fingers through Naruto's hair, let the strands fall from his hands. He didn't know how to reply, so he didn't.

After a long moment, Naruto's smile slowly reappeared. He moved his hand from Gaara's back, brought it up, and brushed the red hair from his face. Gaara felt his touch linger on his cheek, fingers tracing down to the corner of his jaw. It reminded him of the night that had just passed, his hands on Naruto.

"You're soft," he informed the boy lying next to him, both of them covered by the frog-print blanket.

"Heh," Naruto chuckled, his eyes wrinkling shut. "Only you . . ."

Gaara didn't resist as arms wrapped back around him, pulling him close to the warm plane of Naruto's chest. Fingers came up, spread through his hair, dipped to trace the kanji gouged into his skin.

"You know," Naruto murmured happily into his ear, "you really do smell good . . ."

"I need a shower." Gaara reminded him.

Naruto coughed out a laugh, curling forward into the redhead. "And you're so cute when you're being blunt and deadpan . . ."

"Do you think so?"

The last word was muffled as Naruto pressed in and kissed him, firmly, easing their bodies close together, legs entwined. Gaara let the pressure smooth away the doubts, the uncertainties, the dark shadows that flitted through his mind. He closed his eyes, now red with sunlight, and pushed back. Against him, Naruto smiled through the kiss, wide enough so that Gaara could feel the hard ridges of his teeth.

A low rumble interrupted their exchange, and Naruto drew back in surprise, blushing slightly.

"You're hungry," Gaara deduced.

Naruto shrugged sheepishly. "Yeah, I guess so. You?"

"I can cook something." Gaara assured him. "It's late enough anyway."

"Aw–"

"But," Gaara continued over his friend, unperturbed, "before breakfast, we need to shower."

Naruto met Gaara's unwavering blue eyes, turned scarlet, laughed aloud, and seized his hand. Gaara didn't protest as the covers were thrown back from him, allowing Naruto to pull him from the bed, practically pick him up, and drag him out the door.

There were no fresh blueberries in the kitchen ("You think I can plan that far ahead? Nice one, Gaara."), but there were some frozen ones crammed at the very back of the fridge. Gaara, who was used to thawed fruit, set out the packet to defrost with a feeling comparable to one of discovering a needle in a haystack.

"I need," he remarked aloud, "to reorganize this place."

He had done so three times in the months where he had been in Konoha, and the place certainly looked better than it had done before he, to put it in Naruto's words, "went OCD on its ass." Gaara couldn't figure out why items mysteriously migrated about the place. Kankuro had told him that it was because he was in an unfamiliar place and adjusting to it still; however, it was Gaara's personal theory that Naruto's socks could crawl on their own, and no data hitherto gathered had disproved the idea.

He set out the butter, flour, sugar, and eggs on the table, and cleaned off a mixing bowl in the sink. Naruto's kitchen was tiny, but Gaara was more than used to tiny kitchens, and it was second nature to move about in one, elbows held close to his sides.

Naruto came in as he was washing his hands, still toweling off his wet hair. Gaara was in grey pants and a long-sleeved, dark blue shirt Temari had gotten him; Naruto was in a yellow shirt and brown pants, the former of which was damp from the water still clinging to his hair. They were the only colorful objects in the plain, white room, standard housing for Konoha's shinobi, save for the collection of vividly green frogs that Hinata insisted on adding to every several months. With the white sky outside, Gaara rather felt that the scene was similar to a child's coloring book, where the biggest objects, and random spots on the page, had been colored on, and the rest was left as pale as it had come.

"You're almost out of soap," Gaara told him, evaluating the level still in the frog-shaped dispenser. "I can get you more, later."

Naruto blinked. "Oh, yeah? Um . . . sure! Thanks."

Gaara raised his head, and turned to look at Naruto in slight surprise and concern.

"You sound distracted." He remarked, tonelessly.

Naruto smirked. "Well, I'm kinda adjusting my mind to getting used to seeing you in fuzzy orange slippers."

Gaara shrugged. "I cannot find my own."

"Heh . . . yeah . . ." Naruto yawned widely, stretched, and plunked the towel down on the table. "SO! Whatta ya making?"

Gaara surveyed the ingredients lined up neatly on the table. "Pancakes."

"With blueberries?"

Gaara followed Naruto's hopeful gaze to the thawing berries. "Yes."

"Sweet!" Naruto grinned happily. "You need anyth – oh, here, let me get that."

Gaara drew back, allowing Naruto to scoot past him to get to the apron he had been reaching for.

"What had you wanted to do today?" He asked Naruto's back, dropping his arms back to his sides.

"Me?" Naruto scooped the apron off of its hook and craned his head around, to look at Gaara. "Well . . ."

He shrugged a little, and then turned and walked up to Gaara, so that the two were very close. Gaara reached for the apron, but Naruto pulled away from his touch and drew the apron down over Gaara's head himself, reaching around his waist to tie the strings together. The apron was a size too big for Naruto himself, which meant that it was certainly bigger than Gaara, the waistline just a bit below Gaara's hips. Naruto plopped his chin over Gaara's shoulder, his ear pressed into Gaara's neck, to get a good look at the back of Gaara's waist – purely to make sure that he was tying the bow correctly, of course.

The warmth of him was welcome, even if it made the already cool kitchen feel even colder by comparison. Gaara stayed still, absorbing the physical contact, the arms about his own.

Naruto, perhaps sensing this, held the embrace long after the apron was secured. Gaara had almost closed his eyes when the blond ninja drew back slowly, straightening so that they were once again eye-to-eye, and bringing up both his hands to frame Gaara's face.

"Guess what?"

Gaara gazed into the mix of mischief and affection on Naruto's whiskered face, mildly curious. "What?"

Naruto winked. "It's a surprise. I got you something for the holidays."

"What?"

"PLUSHIE TACKLE-GLOMP OF DOOM!"

Gaara didn't see where Naruto pulled the blur of fur and cloth from. Considering that he was suddenly bouncing down onto the sofa next to the counter, where the kitchen area opened into the living room, he rather thought that the slip was forgivable.

Naruto, straddling Gaara's sides with his knees on the cushions, sat back and grinned down at the redhead, holding out the object. "Happy holidays! I got you this present! Do you like it?"

Gaara, flat on his back blinked up at the offered item. It was indeed a plushie – one larger than his head and Naruto's combined, and fashioned in the likeness of what appeared to be a fuzzy baby tanuki with huge, black eyes. A stuffed red heart, sewn between its paws so that the stuffed animal appeared to be holding it close, read "Hug Me."

The jinchuuriki couldn't help it. The corner of his mouth tugged up.

Naruto threw the plushie at him in elation and punched a fist into the air, grinning from ear to ear. "HA! A smile! SCORE!"

"Uzumaki Naruto . . ." Gaara caught the baby tanuki plushie and just shook his head. The strange sensation remained on his mouth, however, as Naruto leaned back in, still laughing and balancing above Gaara with one hand on the arm of the couch, above the prone redhead's hair.

"Do you like it?" Naruto asked again, when he could speak.

Gaara considered. "It . . . is most certainly interesting."

Naruto smirked. "Squeeze it."

Gaara complied. The plushie, its sides clenched between his hands, emitted three notes of "I love you!" recorded in Naruto's voice.

"It's for . . ." Naruto shifted back again, and peered down at Gaara, suddenly serious, "you know, when things get rough. When you need something and . . . well . . ." he coughed a little, and shrugged, but kept his eyes intent on Gaara, "I . . . wanted to give it to you, you know? Because I really do . . ."

Gaara stared at him, and swallowed back the pain that came with those words, those memories, and the deep feeling of gratitude and emotion that went beyond his power to describe. "Thank you," he managed to say. "This . . . means a great deal to me."

Naruto smiled warmly, his own sadness gone back to the quiet place in the depths of his eyes, where the blue was almost black. He leaned back forward, so that the plushie and its sweet upturned face was sandwiched between the two of them, lying together on the couch. "I . . . thanks, Gaara."

Close, those kind blue eyes, determined and strong. Gaara felt the tightness in his throat ease, felt some of the chill inside warm and fall away. It was like walking by the waterfall with Naruto, reading the same novel over one another's shoulder in the bookstore, sitting on the rooftop of this very apartment, and talking as the sun went down. Resting together, in the silence broken only by the current of their breath, embracing. Comforting. Safe . . .

Naruto kissed the tip of Gaara's nose, and he couldn't help but smile.