Naruto deals with Sasuke and Sakura becoming a couple after the night Sasuke decides to stay instead of leaving for Orochimaru. Gaara wants to become more human. Sasuke decides to show Sakura what he really wants from a relationship.

WARNING: While this first chapter is just a setup chapter to get everyone on the same page, I'm expecting this to get extremely mature. I always figured Sasuke and Gaara for bondage types… for example... :p

Also- the ages are kind of wonky... just assume they're all older teenagers (the kids, anyway).

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It was a dark and stormy night.

Okay, so the sun was just setting, making it more "darkening" than dark, and the skies were just cloudy, make it "stormy looking" rather than stormy, but Naruto's feelings churned nonetheless, and his angst more than made up for the not-as-bad-as-it-could-be weather.

"Dammit," he muttered. "I try my best and always screw it up."

Unfortunately, he was right. In his chunin exams, he won, but only after being pushed to the brink of disaster. If he had been leading a team, there is no way anyone would have survived (other than himself, of course). While the kyuubi helped him, it wouldn't save his team from his mistakes.

"They're right," Naruto thought miserably. Every person always expected him to fail, and he was told, many times, that people like Sasuke were the heroes, not him. After continually failing, and at best, barely surviving, he was starting to agree.

Even though he endured past what a normal human could endure, and won his fights in the end, Naruto knew that he would never be taken seriously. It would always be like when he first entered the exams, and everyone focused on Sasuke. Sakura followed, stars in her eyes, while Rock Lee, Gaara and the Sound ninjas all focused on the important one, the dangerous one, the strong one… Sasuke. Naruto would get attention only by shouting (which he had no problem doing, he laughed to himself), but even his spectacular wins were only viewed with incredulous stares.

"The only incredulous stares Sasuke gets are when his hair is less than perfect," Naruto sniffed… then sighed. Sasuke… what happened to him? Everything seemed to be getting better, after the hideous happenings of the exam. Naruto was finally getting stronger, Tsunade was back in the village, but after his brother came by, Sasuke had retreated into himself. Culminating in a fight between him and Sasuke, Naruto had been blindsided by Sasuke's hatred. He didn't know what to do, so he went to the only other person he trusted as much as he had Sasuke- Sakura. Last night, Naruto had taken Sakura out to dinner, hoping she would confide in him. She never did, though, telling Naruto that she needed to walk home alone.

"Naruto, I need to go home alone. I'll be fine, don't worry," she said, sadly, obviously still thinking about Sasuke.

"But Sakura, it's dark out, I don't mind…" he stopped talking as she shook her head.

"Please, Naruto, I just want to walk home."

He hadn't felt right, so he followed her as she walked home. Suddenly, he stopped short, seeing her find someone that she seemed to have been looking for all along.

He couldn't hear what Sakura was saying to Sasuke, but it seemed a game, as they each obviously battled with each other verbally, arguing about something that Naruto didn't understand. Finally, just as he thought he should interfere, he saw Sakura crying, appearing to beg Sasuke for something. Sasuke said something that seemed to shatter her, and turned to walk away.

"If you go, I'll scream," she said, loud enough for Naruto to hear, and Naruto started to move when suddenly, Sasuke disappeared, reappearing right behind Sakura.

Naruto was stunned, it looked as if Sasuke was going to hit her using a move like that, and he began to run towards them when he heard a soft, "Thank you," from Sasuke. Instead of hitting her, as Naruto was expecting, they began to kiss.

Naruto stopped abruptly, heart breaking from jealousy, desire, and the fact that, once again, he was alone.

"I thought everything was better," he fumed, stomping through the grass, as the stormy clouds finally started to rain down on him. "I finally opened myself to people, trusted my team, and once again, I was left out of the loop. I thought Sasuke hated Sakura, that he would never like her the way I did. I thought they would confide in me if something was going on, but they never did. Again, I'm the kid on the swing, watching the others talk."

That day, in practice, Sasuke and Sakura didn't show up. Naruto waited until Kakashi showed up at the training grounds, expecting the jounin to explode. Instead, he seemed to think it was funny, saying, "Well, Naruto, if Sasuke is finally healing…" and winking with his one eye.

Naruto couldn't deal with this. He ran off to be alone, and sulked the day away, finally finding himself in the park he had watched Sakura and Sasuke at the night before. There, he saw them holding hands, and when he tried to talk, they brushed him off.

And now, here he was, getting rained on, feeling crappy, and again, feeling completely alone… THUD.

Until he ran into someone… and got thrown to the ground.

"Huh," a deep voice grunted.

"Kind of an overreaction, wasn't it?" fumed Naruto, jumping up from the ground, ready to fight, and coming face to face with a familiar, red-haired pale boy with wide green eyes.

"Habit," Gaara muttered. After Naruto glared at him, he added, "…Sorry."

Naruto's eyes widened. He had been itching for a fight, and had had the suicidal notion to snap at Gaara without even thinking, and now he wasn't even getting asphyxiated by sand.

He rolled his eyes and shrugged. "Figures," Naruto snapped, turning on his heel and walking way.

WHUMP.

Sharp pains shot through Naruto's nose, as he had just been tripped by a rope of sand winding around his feet, causing him to fall flat on his face.

"I don't apologize, often," Gaara's deep voice said blankly, "Don't ignore me."

Naruto flushed, knowing that he was behaving badly, but squirmed up, not caring about the consequences in his angry state. "Fuck you, man," he snapped, pulling up chakra to break the grip of the sand and shoving Gaara away, running to his home.

Gaara watched him go without a word or any motion, as Naruto ran away, almost stumbling. He didn't know where he was going, and he definitely didn't care.