Hello, hello! This was written for a challenge for a GaaSaku community that I'm in, but I don't think I'm going to submit it. Anyways, enjoy it, you fiends. The goal was to use the phrase, "Gaara knew he was in deep shit when he saw Naruto wearing a shirt which had "Kiss your Kage" ."
The Tragic Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto in any way, shape, or form.
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The Dare
Like any normal, rational person, he had no problem with what another individual decided to do with their apparel. He cared about himself too much for that. If they wished to flaunt, so be it. If they wished to shield themselves in oppressive layers, what ever. In short, he simply did not care. What it boiled down to was the fact that Gaara had better things to do than complain or even care about what anyone else was wearing. Or doing. Or thinking.
If they irritated him, he'd just playfully smack them across the room with his sand.
And maybe he'd take an additional, very playful swat to really emphasize his sentiments.
Perhaps that was why he was starting to worry. To care.
Something was up, but it was sneaky, cleverly intended to not infuriate him until it was too late.
Gaara glanced at Naruto. He was whistling as they walked along the colorful, cobbled streets of Konoha in a disturbingly nonchalant manner.
A falsely nonchalant manner. Being Naruto's friend, Gaara could tell.
There was something strange in the air, heavy with foreshadow and danger. Not the kind of danger one associated with fighting the Akatsuki single-handedly with a cheap plastic spork. This was something intangible. Bizarre. He could not for the life of him interpret the significance of the danger that lurked, but he knew very surely that it was dangerous. Perhaps even to a lethal degree.
Gaara quickened his steps a little and was startled when Naruto sped up a little, keeping ahead of Gaara and a foot or two to his right.
"Naruto." Something was definitely up. What had the little punk done?
"What?" Naruto spoke without turning around to look at him. His voice was about an octave too high and very guilty sounding. Was there an undercurrent of…hilarity?
Naruto snickered, then.
"What have you done?" People were beginning to congregate to the sides of the streets. Occasionally someone whistled in a rather suggestive manner.
Gaara's charcoal lined eyes darted back and forth. "Naruto."
Naruto didn't respond, but kept on walking, still whistling tunefully. His arms were crossed over his head, his hands resting against the back of his head. It would have looked like a relaxed, but confident posture to an outsider, but to Gaara it looked like…
…Well, with the way his spine was set and his chest puffed out, it looked like he was displaying something on his shirt.
The nexus of the mystery: that blasted shirt. The jacket that Naruto had been wearing had been removed once he pulled ahead of Gaara. Now Gaara suspected why.
In a flash he was in front of Naruto, his hands fisted in Naruto's shirt. Naruto stopped whistling, and his grin began to spread almost to his ears as Gaara gaped at his shirt.
Vaguely, Gaara decided that he may actually care very much about what people wore, where they wore it, and when.
It was awful. It was politically incorrect. It was ghastly.
Gaara knew he was in deep shit when he saw Naruto wearing a shirt which had "Kiss your Kage" written in hot pink with a large, equally pink arrow pointing to Naruto's left, where Gaara had been walking.
They weren't even in the right country for such a shirt. Gaara was a Kage, but not Konoha's Kage.
The women lining the streets didn't seem to care.
He suddenly realized that they were all whispering and giggling. And slowly closing in. It was very, very hush-hush, but it was happening.
He. Had. To. Run.
A ring of women had now formed around Gaara and Naruto. Gaara had grown over the years. He was tall, taller than Naruto, but that and his menacing glare didn't seem to be working.
His mouth hung open, "Nuh…"
The giggles turned into rapacious fan girl screams as they lunged forward, claws grasping.
Living up to his vengeful reputation, Gaara conveyed his sentiments to Naruto by promptly abandoning him to the grasping crowds, launching himself high into the air using his sand and landing on a rooftop.
Naruto's screaming was almost drowned out but the shrieks of the women all over him. Almost.
Gaara took off as fast as he could across the rooftops of Konoha, angry yet terrified. He despised the idea of them touching him despite the fact that he was a reformed psychopath.
Gaara was better, but the definition of 'better' was pretty subjective.
One could be better about tying one's shoes so that they didn't come undone so often.
One could be better about restraining themselves from eating the chocolates stashed away in the cabinet.
One could be better about walking the dog everyday, instead of twice a week.
One could even be better about restraining themselves from sporking a random passerby.
Being better about mechanically slaughtering groups ranging from three to twenty was a little different.
But he really did try.
A flash of pink on a distant roof top made him speed up. Perhaps he could hide out with Sakura for a little bit.
Gaara landed lightly on Sakura's roof, despite the heavy gourd of sand on his back. He announced his presence by clearing his throat discretely.
Startled, she stood up suddenly and cracked her head on the swinging window hatch that opened into her apartment. He glanced pointedly at the door on the roof before looking at the opened hatch that she'd been slipping into.
She was crouched over, hissing and rubbing at her skull where the hatch had come down on her head.
He waited patiently until she was through with her hissing.
"Thanks a lot Gaara. I really needed that cherry on the cake." Gaara and Sakura were semi-friends, courtesy of Naruto. In their own caustic, acrimonious, sarcasm-filled way they got along, but they were initially acquainted through Naruto.
He shrugged. It wasn't his fault that her reflexes were so poor.
He eyed the door on the roof again. "Why were you sneaking through…that?" Gaara pointed at the sunroof hatch.
"I wasn't sneaking."
"Nefariously lurking?"
"No." She sniffed irritably.
He stared at her impassively.
A blush crawled at her face the longer he stared and finally she burst. "Fine! Fine! I lost my house keys. All of them."
Gaara started. Was it really possible to lose all of one's house keys, even the spares?
Presuming that he was invited, Gaara followed her as she once more opened the hatch, this time dropping inside her apartment.
He followed her as she sighed and wandered into the kitchen. He was no stranger to her apartment. He'd been many times with Naruto for parties and when Naruto just wanted to visit his 'favorite ninja'. He comfortably found a seat at the table in her kitchen while she got a glass of water out of the tap and guzzled at it greedily. It was hot outside and even Gaara felt better being in the air conditioning. Sakura must have been miserable.
Finished with her water she sat on her counter Indian-style. "You really want to know, don't you?"
He waited patiently.
"I lost a bet." Pink once more spread across her cheeks.
"What?" Had she really said that she had lost a bet? She was almost as good as Tsunade when it came to betting.
"I'm so humiliated. I was so sure I would win. So sure." She scrubbed at her face with her hands.
"What was the bet?"
"Nothing." Her eyes skittered nervously over his head, not focusing on him, to paste themselves on a wall.
He did it again. His silent goading. It was a magic charm.
She wiggled uncomfortably for five minutes before she gave up.
"Pants …Guh." She put her face in her hands. "Pants Neji."
Gaara's mouth unwillingly fell open and he lurched out of his chair, a little furious with her for her foolishness, the bet itself, and the stakes of the bet. She was his friend after all. "So you no longer have keys to your own home because you didn't pants someone."
"Well, it was either that or-" She snapped her mouth shut with a loud click.
He was already resolved to go get her house keys for her once he prodded her into telling him who she'd made the bet with, him being the chivalrous person that he was, but this information pulled him up short.
"Or?"
She shook her head violently, her hair swirling about her head, green eyes wide.
Gaara came toward her until his face was a foot from her own.
"Or?" He bent forwards so that their faces were level.
"I'm not telling you. Never." She was adamant. Set in stone.
What sort of bet was so awful, so humiliating that she wouldn't tell him? He felt his ire rise. Gaara was definitely going to hunt down whoever she bet with.
"Or?"
"No, Gaara, I'm not telling you. I respect the individual too much to humiliate them with a bet like that." The pink on her cheeks was beginning to spread.
"What was the bet, Sakura?" He moved even closer.
"Fuck you. No way."
He reached out, hesitantly putting a hand on her shoulder. His eyes searching hers. "Who'd you bet with, then?"
Startled and caught unawares by the hand on her shoulder she spluttered and slipped up, "Naru-…No one." She grit her teeth. It was too bad she'd slipped up. Now he was off to kill an old friend. In a flurry of sand he disappeared to go hunt to down Naruto.
Naruto was where he left him. He was sprawled in the street, semi-unconscious and twitching. His face was covered in lipstick and it looked like the women had cut off pieces of his clothing to keep as souvenirs. The phrase, "Everyone wants a piece of me" was disturbingly accurate.
Gaara walked over to Naruto and nudged him with his foot.
"Naruto."
"Nguuhh."
"Naruto."
"Huuuuuuuggghhhh." Naruto wheezed.
"Naruto." Gaara nudged him in the ribs with his foot.
Blearily Naruto opened his eyes. "What?"
"You made a bet with Sakura." Naruto sighed, a pained expression on his face.
Slowly Naruto sat up. "You talked with Sakura."
"Yeah." Gaara recalled the way Sakura had looked perched on her kitchen counter, humiliated and exhausted, her cheeks flushed pink. Her green eyes glassy, and her pink hair sweaty and wind blown. She really was quite pretty.
Gaara shook his head. "You made a bet with her. You took her keys."
Naruto grinned, rubbing the back of his head, "Chyea! Pants Neji! It was sweet, watching his face. I didn't even care that she didn't succeed. The look on his face, the shock, oh, so priceless." The absolute glee on his face was disconcerting.
How old was Naruto mentally? Twelve? Pantsing was not something that a twenty year-old did.
"There was another bet. The alternative?"
"Oh." Naruto gulped, his eyes wide and his smile melting like ice cream in the sun. "Um. What bet?" His eyes shifted from Gaara's face to his right shoulder.
"Sakura told me about it. What kind of-"
"She told you?? Oh, man. Oh man, oh man. You're here to kill me aren't you?"
Gaara's eyes narrowed. Apparently the bet had to do with him. According to a great scholar, there was a certain interrelatedness to everything. Gaara was starting to connect the dots.
"She refused though! She didn't know how you felt so she said no! It was only a joke! A little physical contact wouldn't hurt you!" Gaara eyed Naruto's bruises. Physical contact? A fight? Spar against Sakura? It sounded…like it could be interesting. He didn't explore his thoughts further. The way Naruto was cringing, though, suggested that Gaara should be pummeling Naruto for some reason yet unknown. Why was it so bad if he sparred with her?
Gaara hated being the chastising adult. "Give me the keys." He held out his hand. He'd return them to Sakura. He was getting hungry for some lunch, and wondered if Sakura was, too.
Naruto sighed and fumbled around in his pockets. "If I'd known that she'd be so anal about giving you a kiss I would never have asked." He dropped the keys into Gaara's frozen hand. "So I had to come up with the whole scheme for this morning. It was pretty sweet though. Artistic. Perfection. That, my friend, was a master prank. Gaara? Gaara?"
For a second Gaara was very confused. Sparring was not the same as kissing. But what did that mean?
The dots connected one by one. She'd said that she'd respected him too much to do that to him?
Thoughts started to run rampant, the clamp on their lid of their container destroyed with Naruto's words.
Would he mind?
Would he really mind?
She was quite pretty.
No, she was gorgeous. She was nice. She was his friend. She was-
The level that they connected on mentally was disconcertingly interesting. She had always interested him.
He'd never been interested in the screaming fan girls, and it now occurred to him that there was a very obvious reason why.
Gaara disappeared in a flurry of sand.
Naruto was left staring at empty air.
"Gaara?"
Naruto sat in the middle of the street, all alone once more.
Gaara reappeared on top of Sakura's roof and literally dropped in.
He felt very calm. She had been worried about him. She'd refused the dare because she cared about his reaction.
"Sakura?"
"Yeah?" She called from the kitchen. He walked into the kitchen and sat where he had been sitting earlier. She smiled. "I just made some tea. Want some?"
Her demeanor was friendly, he gleaned, but cautious, like she was hiding something. He couldn't believe that he'd never noticed before. And it wasn't just the bet that she was still trying to hide. There was respect, kindness, and an expression of same-level-ness in her gaze that he had, he realized, carefully not noticed before. They were equals; she didn't fear him and she didn't look down on him either.
She cared. She didn't want to harm him or scare him.
"Sure, I'll have some."
She poured him a cup and carried her teacup and his own over to the table and sat down across from him.
The interesting thing was the fact that she had no idea what was going on in his head.
He felt very predator-like.
She reached across the table to hand him his teacup and he accepted it, his fingers brushing against hers.
Now he could see it. That small, minute blush. She covered it up with a sarcastic remark. "Nice sunburn you're cultivating there."
"Same goes for you," he smirked. If one could call a blush a sunburn.
She scowled at him. "Well, fortunately some of us can pull off a sunburn with dignity."
"I agree completely. I'm quite skilled at it." He loved fanning her fire-hot anger.
Her lip curled. "Twit. I was talking about me."
Gaara smirked. "Oh, my mistake." He shifted their conversation, "You know the bet you made with Naruto?"
Her face darkened and her eyes flashed. She looked cagey.
"I know a way you can win your keys back."
Her face brightened though she maintained her sarcastic façade. "Let me guess, kill small children with razor sharp sporks?"
He pretended to look surprised, "How did you guess? No, there's another way."
"Really?" she pretended to look bored though her eyes flashed with interest. He could see it in her eyes. The way she anticipated his plan for Neji's…garments.
He took a sip of his tea. Yes, he had a plan.
"Well, are you going to tell me or not, oh clever one?"
"Finish your tea first."
Snarling in an unladylike manner that he decided he kind of liked, she tossed back her tea and finished it off in a few large gulps.
"Tell me."
Gaara sighed and stood up. She remained seated, staring up at him. "Are you leaving? What's the plan?"
She had no idea how ridiculous she looked, asking what the plan was for pantsing a twenty-one year old ANBU black ops team leader.
Only Naruto could cause something like this.
He leaned against the counter.
Annoyed, she stood up. "Gaara."
He liked that way it sounded when she said his name, even.
"Gaara."
She was directly in front of him. It was now or never.
Gaara was a strong advocate of the Now Policy.
Suddenly he caught her in his arms, pressing his lips against hers, her body pressed tightly against him.
He felt like he'd suddenly caught on fire. She smelled so good. She tasted so good.
Finally, lingeringly, he withdrew. His hand finding his pocket, searching for her keys.
Her verdant green eyes were locked on his, her breath short and her cheeks a beautiful shade of pink.
"Gaara?" She was surprised, but she pretended to be nonchalant, untouched, though the way her voice shook betrayed her.
His hand found her keys.
"What was…Gaara?"
It was too much. The way she said his name was too much.
His lips found hers again, one hand fisted in her hair, the other wrapped low around her waist. She felt small and very his when she was in his arms.
Slowly her hands traveled up his chest and wound themselves in his hair.
He slipped her keys into her pocket.
Finally he pulled back, the hand that was in her hair joining its brother at her waist. "You've won your keys back, now." It was probably the only excuse he'd ever get to kiss her. He made a mental note to talk to Naruto later about these sorts of dares and how…frequent they should be.
Sakura gaped at him. "You found out? But…But I thought you'd hate…You don't like…"
She floundered.
Gaara sighed and began to pull her towards him again.
It would be better if he proved that he didn't mind at all and it seemed that he would need to do lots of persuading.
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R and R! It makes me happy. It is also very motivating!