A/N: Weeeell no time like the present for a first-ever Naruto fanfiction! Hope you like it. BE WARNED: OC and weirdsmut ahead.
Gaara massaged his temples and bit back an irritated sigh. "Lee," he growled, voice low and steady, "Do not be ridiculous. Come out."
A whine emanated from behind the screen where the other ninja was changing clothes. "B-but... I look stupid!"
"You're a diplomat. It's not your job to look good, it's your job to shake hands and know how to say he didn't mean that' in as many different languages as there are grains of sand on a beach."
Lee's face appeared around the edge of the screen, eyes wide. "But I only know it in twenty!"
"I meant that metaphorically. Not literally. Now come out before I come back there after you."
Blushing furiously and muttering under his breath, Rock Lee shuffled out into view. He now wore a simple pair of black breeches and matching tunic, all beneath a sleeveless, forest green high-collared coat edged and patterned with gold. His headband was polished near to gleaming, and his normally well-kempt hair was now immaculately arranged.
"You look fine."
"I look stupid."
"You look fine."
"I look stupid."
"Okay. You look stupid. Deal with it. Come on, we have a dance to attend."
Lee gaped.
This time Gaara could not conceal his long-suffering sigh. "What is it now?"
"It's... a dance?"
Now the Kazekage's face took on a look of mild concern. "Yes, Lee. Are you ill?"
"It's a... dance.
"Yes."
"A dance."
"Indeed."
"Like... with dancing?"
"That would seem to be the case."
Lee sat down rather hard on the floor. "Gaara..."
A twitch started up in Gaara's left eye. "It's a dance, Lee. A formal dance which both of us must attend, wherein we shall socialize with foreign emissaries and diplomats from the other villages and pretend to be having a marvelous time. They will serve punch with too much sugar, salad with too much dressing, and biscuits with too much flour. There will likely be several women in attendance who may try to seduce either you or me, possibly both of us. Perhaps at the same time. We will stagger home at some obscenely late hour smelling of other people's cologne and I, personally, will not be able to abide the sight of another human being for a month. Temari will have to slip me my paperwork under the door. Do you have any further questions?"
Lee looked hesitant.
"But... will there be dancing?"
"For the last time, Lee, yes. It is a dance, ergo there will be dancing."
"Gaara... I can't dance."
Silence.
"That is unfortunate." Gaara turned to leave, but he felt something tug on the back of his coat. He turned and looked down at the Leaf ninja, raising an imaginary eyebrow imperiously. "If you would be so kind as to remove your hand from my person."
"Teach me how to dance, Gaara!"
Well. That was unexpected.
"No." He moved toward the door again, but was stopped once more by Lee's grip on his clothing.
"Please! I'll embarrass myself!"
Gaara rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. "And that will be a change how, exactly?" But when he turned to look down at Lee once more, he felt himself beginning to crumble. The look in the boy's eyes was too helpless, too hopeful...
Oh, mittens.
"Fine."
Lee pumped a fist in the air and whooped for joy. Gaara bore this calmly, waiting out the wave of enthusiasm, and by and by his companion calmed down and looked at him expectantly. It was then that Gaara realized something he had not noticed before. If Lee was to learn to dance as a man, Gaara would have to teach him...
As a woman. Deserts and dust, he was going to have to waltz like a woman. Heaving a sigh, he placed one hand on Lee's forearm and held the other out expectantly. When the other boy failed to respond, he cleared his throat. "Place your right hand on my waist and your left hand in my hand."
Blushing, Lee did as he was instructed. The redhead nodded. "Now, step forward with your left foot. Always lead with your left foot."
"But I'll step on you!"
"Don't worry, I'll move when you do."
Nervously, Lee took a step forward. Gaara took one back to compensate. "There. Now, take a step to the side with your right foot."
Lee obeyed, and again Gaara followed. "Feet together. Back with your right..."
This went on for some time until Lee had picked up the rhythm and was leading his teacher in the basic box-step.
"Now," Gaara said levelly, uncertain that he could take much more of this humiliation, "We travel. Step out, like this--" But Lee stepped with the wrong foot, and quite suddenly their legs were tangled together. The pair of surprised ninja tumbled to the floor in a heap.
Blushing even more furiously than before, Lee pushed himself onto his elbows above his friend. "I'm sorry, Gaara, I didn't mean to trip you it was an accident and are you hurt I hope not and I'm so, so sorry!"
Gaara was not listening. For some obscure reason he was staring at Lee's lips. This in itself was strange. Even stranger was the fact that his fingers almost... needed to touch him. One hand twitched of its own accord, coming to rest on the other boy's arm. The Kazekage tore his gaze away from Lee's yammering mouth just long enough to glare at said hand. Traitor,' he thought, Your actions will be punished severely. Just as soon as I regain control of my tactile senses.'
Lee, for his part, had stopped his steady stream of apologies at Gaara's touch. He was staring down at the Kazekage with wide, confused eyes.
The redhead below him was preoccupied. Half of him was wondering if he had ever, ever, in his admittedly few years of experience, been in a situation this awkward. So far he wasn't coming up with anything remotely comparable. The other half of him had been distracted once again by Lee's lips and had much better things to think about than the potential humiliation of this position.
Example: kissing Lee.
It sounded like a viable option. It hadn't a moment ago, but it did now. A very viable option. In fact, Gaara might go so far as to call it a favorable option. Even a desirable one. And on the subject of desire, well, that was an entirely different potted cactus and Gaara was just going to stop that train of thought before it went careening over the precipice of less-than-prudent intentions.
So distracted was his brain by the effort of not thinking about kissing Lee that his body had become fed up with waiting. Lee found himself abruptly tugged down by the front of his expensive dress coat and assaulted by Gaara's lips. A quick analysis of the situation confirmed that:
a.) it was not entirely without appeal, and
b.) Gaara smelled really, really good.
Neither party had ever participated in much kissing--one because potential partners lacked interest in him, the other because he lacked interest in potential partners--but after a brief and confusing moment of fumbling they sorted themselves out effectively enough. It seemed, Lee noted, that all one really had to do was turn his head just so and where in the name of humanity did Gaara learn to do that?
That happened to involve Gaara's tongue, and he had not learned it so much as he had gathered through lectures from Kankuro that it was a part of the process. Whatever the catalyst, said tongue was now being used to the fullest effect. When he realized that Lee was having trouble breathing, he broke the kiss.
Gaara stared up at his... what did this make Lee, exactly? Not lover, certainly. Boyfriend? No, far too inelegant. Was there a title for a person you had kissed once? The Kazekage wouldn't be caught dead using a phrase like friends with benefits', to be sure. So Lee was his... his...
Oh dear, he observed vaguely, there goes my ability to think rationally.
This is a sight we must catalogue for later perusal.
Item one: two lips, swollen, damp.
Item two: two cheeks, flushed.
Item three: unspecified number of hairs, tousled.
Item four: two eyes (color: black), wide, confused, slightly glazed.
While Gaara was enjoying this image, Lee was panicking.
Gaara... kissed? Lips, and... me. Tongue. What? Wait. Gaara. Me. Gaara and me? Tongue. Kissed Gaara. Tongue. Red... hair? Kissed. With tongue. Me. Why? Gaara, wait, what? How, when, tongue...?
And then they were kissing again. Gaara's hand (at the prompting of a brain which had been sexually repressed since long before sexuality had entered the picture) found its way under Lee's tunic. The Leaf diplomat gave a little gasp against Gaara's lips, and the Kazekage found the sound to his liking. His other hand went to the back of Lee's head, securing it, and with an acrobatic twist he had flipped them both over until he was looming above the (most pleasantly) shell-shocked Lee. He pulled away slightly.
"This," he murmured, the corners of his mouth turning downward slightly, "Is most unprecedented."
Awkward silence.
Becoming aware that some manner of response was expected of him, Lee gulped. "Um... yes?"
Gaara attacked Lee's mouth, dragging his tongue over the other man's teeth before trailing light kisses down his throat. When he reached a particularly sensitive spot just at the top of Lee's collarbone, the Leaf representative seemed to come out of his stupor with a vengeance. One hand slid beneath Gaara's tunic to run small, rough fingers over his ribs--the Kazekage shuddered in delight--while the other moved to paw ineffectively at the redhead's black slacks. Just as Gaara was about to assist him in this endeavor, someone coughed.
The two froze, staring at each other, before letting their gazes wander up, up, up... to blink confusedly at the unpainted face of Kankuro. Lee squeaked.
"Well," the puppeteer said, then, seeming uncertain as to how to proceed, he shuffled his feet and cleared his throat again.
Gaara frowned. "We are busy."
Kankuro coughed a third time. "I can, uh, see that."
Very, very awkward silence.
Gaara's frown intensified. "We are attending to very important matters, Kankuro. They demand our immediate attention."
Kankuro tried to look at anything but the tangled mass of limbs that was his little brother and the Leaf diplomat. "They're asking for you out there. Everybody's getting impatient, Temari can't hold em off much longer."
Gaara blinked. "You will tell them this: The Kazekage regrets to inform you that a pressing matter of utmost urgency requires his attention at this time. He offers his sincerest apologies and hopes you will not think less of him for this atrocious lapse in manners. Please carry on regardless of his absence."
Kankuro couldn't help but stare askance at his brother. "You serious?"
Gaara stared back. "When am I not?"
Shrugging, Kankuro turned to swagger out of the room. "Enjoy, then, I guess--but expect a shitload of paperwork after this." The door swung shut behind him.
Lee, who had been silent all this time, spoke up. "But... you taught me how to dance and everything..."
The Kazekage waved a hand impatiently. "You are a terrible dancer, and so am I. It's hardly a loss."
For a moment Lee seemed he might take offense, then he grinned. "You're absolutely right. Now, I believe we were... what was it? Seeing to a 'pressing matter'?"
"Yes," Gaara nodded, "Of 'utmost importance'."
"Well, we'd better get to it!"
The words had hardly left his mouth before Gaara occupied it once again.
Outside, Kankuro sauntered up to Temari. "Gaara's busy."
His sister sighed. "Well, is Rock Lee ready yet, at least?"
The puppeteer grimaced. "He's, uh, busy too."
Temari looked confused, then rolled her eyes. "Well, it's about time. I was worried that boy didn't have a hormone in his entire body! He didn't happen to mention what I should tell the guests?"
"Yeah, actually."
With a shrug, the Wind Ninja began to make her way back to the ballroom. "Well, we'd better get going, then. They're getting pretty antsy down there."
A loud moan rang out behind them. They quickened their pace.