naruto: why do i have to work with HIM

Gaara: hmph, and you think i want to work with you?

Ixea and Rishkaana: -_-' well deal with it

Naruto: why cant i work with Kiba?

Ixea: cause Rishkaana and i DONT own this anime...

Rishkaana: ... we CAN make YOU do what every WE want! muahaha

Gaara: Great

Ixea, Rishkaana: now onwards to chapter 2

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"Hey, Gaara!"

Gaara turned around to face Naruto, the short, spiky-haired kid he'd been forced to pair up with in social studies. He was surprised to have Naruto come up to him; he seemed to be the type that was afraid of his own shadow.

"Well, I was thinking, umm, you have any ideas for, umm, what we should, ahh, do for this project..." Naruto ended his fragmented sentence with a short cough. His shoulders were slouched, and he was doing his best to look everywhere but at Gaara.

Oh great, now I'm going to get sick, Gaara thought in irritation. "No," he said evenly, "I don't," and continued walking away from the school grounds.

Naruto, slightly vexed and quite put off, turned on his heels and started walking the other way, towards home, thinking, What a creep.

One Week Later

"Ok, class," Iruka Sensei said, "I've posted your current marks by the door. And just a reminder," he continued as most of the class started to make their way to the door to see their grade, "your projects are due on Friday."

Gaara was the last one to the door. "Oh, wonderful," he commented sarcastically, seeing his mark. He glanced down the list to see his partner's mark. Naruto wasn't doing much better than he was. Gaara looked back at the blonde boy, one of the few who hadn't come up to see their marks. His head was down on the desk; Gaara would have thought he was sleeping aside from the coughing.

Sighing inwardly, Gaara approached Naruto, cursing once again the uneasiness he felt when talking to others. "Hey," he said passively, and Naruto lifted his head off the desk to look at him. "We should probably start on this project soon," Gaara continued, trying his hardest to not seem awkward.

Naruto coughed a few times before nodding his head in agreement. "Maybe we should go to your place after school or something?"

A sliver of panic rose in Gaara. "Why can't we go to your place?"

"My dad's renovating; the drywall dust is making my cough even worse." As if to emphasize the point, Naruto let out another couple of rasping coughs.

Gaara hardly noticed. He shouldn't be home till late, he thought. Just have to get him out of the house by dark. "Alright then. My house after school," Gaara said in resignation, and Naruto put his head back down on the desk.

**********

Naruto couldn't help but notice Gaara's anxiety as they walked farther and farther from the school, and closer to his house. The redhead's hands were shoved into pockets and absently fiddling with his chains, eyes following the pavement, shoulders stiff as a board, and the shadows of his face hiding his pale green eyes. Wow, thought Naruto. That's really...

Cute.

No, it is not cute.

Adorable.

Naruto's eyes widened as his mind started running away from him. Charming, dreamy, attractive...

Ok that's enough! Naruto turned around, starting to walk backwards so as to not have to look at the other boy.

"What are you doing?" Naruto turns back around at the question from Gaara.

"Nothing," he replied a little too quickly, like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

"Whatever," Gaara muttered, and continued to walk, leaving Naruto rushing to catch up.

The rest of the walk was silent. Naruto cursed himself for thinking of Gaara in 'that' way, watching the ground as he walked, and almost running into Gaara as he stopped in front of him. Naruto's eyes followed the gates up...and up...and up...

It was huge! It wasn't a house, it was a mansion! Complete with circular driveway with a large fountain in the centre. Naruto had passed by the house a few times before, but had never given a second thought as to who might have lived in it. "You actually live here," Naruto asked in awe. Gaara just rolled his eyes, having seen pushing open the wrought iron gates and hurried inside. Naruto followed, not so hurriedly, his eyes never once leaving the magnificent house that Gaara called home.

The outside may have been amazing, but Naruto found himself picking his jaw up off the floor at seeing the inside of the house. Pale cream walls seemed to go on forever, towards the back of the estate and up to the mile-high ceiling. There were two dark wood spiral staircases right next to each other that led up to the balcony. An amazing, old, Victorian-Style place, untouched by anything modernized, like something out of a fairytale. "My god, I wish I was you," Naruto muttered, more to himself than to Gaara. He didn't notice Gaara's face cloud over, his eyes darken. He whispered something, too soft for Naruto to make out, and headed up the magnificent, spiral staircase.

Naruto followed Gaara into a room that could only have been Gaara's room. The room lacked the elegance that flowed through the rest of the house; rather, it looked like a regular teenage boy's room, though quite a bit larger than normal; clothes thrown all over the floor, posters covering the walls, dark curtains covering the window behind his bed. Gaara had managed to sufficiently turn his room into something unimpressive, which was impressive in and of itself. "Wait here," he said to Naruto. "I'll be back in a minute," dropping his things at the door and heading back out of the room again. And suddenly Naruto was left alone in the beautiful yet intimidating house.

The blonde found his attention drawn to an old, dusty picture sitting on the desk beside the bed, of two young boys and a girl. They youngest boy, the one in the middle, was obviously Gaara. It made Naruto smile, to see how little Gaara had changed since he was young. The other boy, on the left, who was a little bit older, sporting short, brown hair and a lot of muscle for someone so young. That one must be Konkuro, Naruto figured, Gaara's older brother. He'd seen him in the halls a few times.

But no one had said anything about Gaara having a sister. At least, she looked like she could be his sister. Her hair was blonde, but she kind of looked like Gaara. They all had smiles on their faces. Gaara smiling, Naruto thought wryly. That's one I'd have a hard time imagining.

Just as Naruto was about to pick up the picture frame to take a better look, he heard Gaara just outside the door. He quickly moved away from the desk, feeling that he had done something he shouldn't have. When Gaara walked in the door he looked angry. Naruto gave him a questioning look. "Never mind," Gaara said, storming over to the desk with his laptop.

Naruto started to walk over to Gaara, still looking at the desk with the photo. He was so busy staring at it that he forgot to watch where he was going, and suddenly felt a sharp pain in the side of his head as he tripped across the carpet, hitting his head on the bedpost. He slid to the floor, stars sprinkling his vision.

Lying on the floor, he could see Gaara, sitting on the desk, green eyes unexpectedly sparkling, a big grin on his face. Naruto was shocked to see such a smile on such a sullen boy, especially after just thinking how unlikely a sight that would be. The surprise of seeing him smiling sent Naruto into hysterical laughter, his cough magically disappearing for a few wonderful moments. Not long after, Gaara had joined Naruto in the laughter, which just added fuel to Naruto's fire.

Then Naruto noticed the other laughter had stopped. He looked up at Gaara again; he was looking out the window at the main gate. Panic was written all over his face. The healthy colour that had been in his face from the laughter was all gone, replaced with a sickly pallor. There was fear in his eyes. "Stay here," he ordered Naruto, crossing the room in a few easy strides. "Don't make a sound."

Naruto started to get up. "What...why?"

"Just..." Gaara paused at the doorway. "Stay in here. No matter what." And with that he slammed his door shut, once again leaving Naruto alone.

Naruto sat in silence, listening to the voices downstairs. He wanted to listen to Gaara's words of wisdom, but his curiosity won out. He slowly opened the door, almost expecting the hinges to creak and give away his actions. The door, however, worked smooth and silently, easing Naruto's apprehensions slightly as he began to tiptoe out onto the balcony. He hadn't taken more than a step outside the door when the screaming started. He ran back inside the room, closing the door behind him, and sinking to the floor. Every one of Gaara's cries of pain seared into his soul. Oh my God, shit, shit, shit, kept running through Naruto's head. He couldn't think, he couldn't see, he couldn't breathe.

A moment later, Naruto realized that he actually couldn't breathe. Coughs tore through his chest, giving him no respite to catch his breath. He was starting to become dizzy; black spots were clouding his vision. He tried to call out for help, but couldn't speak, the only sounds coming forth were choking gasps, his lungs fighting for air and losing the battle. He was vaguely aware of his body crying out in pain, his skin turning red, then white, then blue.

Looking down at the carpet, Naruto's blank stare fell upon a pool of blood, the last thing he saw before he slipped into unconsciousness.

**********

Gaara rushed back down the stairs, meeting his father at the door, who was wearing a fine, black suit, hair combed back to perfection; not a particle was out of place. "Hello son," Gaara's father, Kaz, said in a deceivingly warm tone, an affectionate smile painted on his face, arms outstretched as if to embrace his youngest child. Gaara, knowing better, braced himself for the impact that was about to come.

Gaara let out a breath of pain as his head was slammed into the wall behind him. "Why, you never come down to greet me," Kaz continued in the same warm tone, as if he was actually touched. Then his voice turned ice cold, accusing. "What are you hiding?"

Gaara gave his father a mocking grin. "You complain when I don't come down to see you, and now you complain when I do," he said in a tone to match his grin. "I just can't get it right."

A small cry of pain escaped Gaara's lips as his head crashed into the wall again. He sunk to the floor as his father let go of the grip he had on his hair. Kaz calmly walked over to the large fireplace in the middle of the room, grabbing hold of a fire poker that had been sitting in the middle of the roaring fire. Gaara had to fight to suppress the panic rising within him as his father neared him again, the end of the metal poker glowing orange with heat.

"Don't talk back to me, boy," Kaz commanded, grabbing a fistful of Gaara's hair. He pressed the metal fire poker into the flesh on Gaara's chest. The hole in Gaara's shirt appeared instantaneously, though you wouldn't have been able to tell it was there, for when Kaz lifted the wrought iron from his son's chest, the skin had become as black as the shirt Gaara was wearing. Not allowing his son any respite, Kaz pressed the metal to Gaara's skin again, his grin growing wider with every one of his son's screams.

Gaara gritted his teeth against the pain, though he didn't really want to hold the screams back. The louder he screamed, the more likely he was to forget his suspicions that Gaara had something to hide. Naruto, Gaara found himself thinking in between the waves of pain, I'm so sorry. The shy blonde boy who, up until a few minutes ago, had been just another face in the crowd, who was the first person he had shared a sincere laugh with in years: And Gaara repaid him by exposing him to the evils that plagued his family.

An unbidden thought rose to the surface. Why him?

Kaz pressed the metal against Gaara's abdomen, letting it pierce the skin and dig deep into the flesh. Gaara could hear the sizzling, even over his cries of pain, and all thoughts of the boy upstairs were destroyed. The smell of burning flesh filled his mind, bringing to the surface the memories of a thousand days like this one. Even as the metal tore through his body, his own screams tore through his soul.

"Stop!"

Gaara opened his eyes to see his brother Kankuro, standing over him protectively, fending off a blow from their father. Kaz swung the fire poker, hitting Kankuro in the side of the head, sending him reeling.

As his brother leaned against the wall, his eyes met Gaara's. Go, he mouthed. Gaara nodded, scrambling to his feet, ignoring the pain in his chest and abdomen. Kaz didn't even give Gaara a second look; all his attention was now reserved for Kankuro, who had dared interrupt his fun. Shame ran through him as he turned to run up the stairs. He wished he could look back, for fear that it would be the last time, but he dared not. If he looked back, he'd never be able to leave his brother to the fate he'd chosen.

There was another in the house that needed his help.

Gaara opened the door to his room and his heart stopped. Naruto was lying unconscious at his feet, a pool of blood spreading from his lips. His breaths were short and ragged, and loud. He sounded like he was drowning.

His own pain forgotten, Gaara knelt down and picked up the small, blonde boy in his arms, calling on strength he hadn`t known he possessed. Naruto's eyes rolled forward, a small sliver of pupil showing through his half-closed eyelids, only semi-conscious. He made a sound, like he was trying to groan, but it came out as a near soundless breath. Listening closely, Gaara could hear the blood that filled his lungs as he fought for every small breath.

Ignoring the screams of his brother that so perfectly mirrored his own, Gaara walked out his room, towards the back entrance, away from his father, who would surely kill Naruto if he saw him. Gaara's own breathing got shorter and more ragged as it became harder and harder to hear the breaths of the boy in his arms. His lips and fingertips were already blue from the asphyxia. Please Naruto, he prayed, as the boy`s kept getting weaker and weaker, just hang on.

Ixea: wow, intense

Rishkaana: Yep ^-^

Gaara: Rish, it ALMOST sounds like you enjoyed that

Rishkaana: *Looks around*

Ixea: well I was on the edge of my seat… I knew what was ganna happen

Gaara: how so……

Ixea: *Hides* I umm, helped create the plot

Gaara: oh…

Rishkaana: Well I guess it's off to chapter 3…

Ixea: yeah… byee for now