Chapter Seven
"I love you, not only for what you are, But for what I am when I am with you."
--Roy Croft
"Will you stop it, Uzamaki!" He's been trying to get him to release him ever since Naruto had begun to drag him through the crowd and towards the training area. Tonight it was dead because of the festival. "Let me go." He pulled back on his arm, finally managing to rip it from his grasp.
"Oh, no. You wanted to talk. So we're going to talk. We're going to get it all out in the open and be done with it. Like hell I'm going weeks on end with you treating me like you hate me." Naruto practically spat this at him, voice elevated and stern.
Gaara glared at him, he wasn't exactly ready for this conversation. "Fair enough, so answer me."
"You mean about Sasuke?"
"Yes, Sasuke. Who else? Are you in love with him?"
"Why are you worried about that? I don't understand."
"Why are you being so evasive?" His voice now too started to rise.
Naruto yelled finally. "I don't know! Hell." He ran a hand through his spiked strands. "I love him like a brother, Gaara. For Kami's sake, I never thought about him like that. But dammit if you haven't made me start questioning myself. Christ!" He was furious. His emotions were a jumble; a torrent. He didn't know what was wrong with himself.
"You know where this started?" He found himself asking, perhaps stating, to Gaara. "It started when he left. And then it only got worse." He was laughing, bitterly. "Do you know what it feels like to loose a friend, Gaara? Someone so close to your heart you feel like your more than friends but less than lovers?"
He wanted to answer yes, but Naruto was talking again, pacing in his anger and sadness.
"And then, then! It gets even better." He turned his blazing cold blues on him. Gaara thought he could be frighteningly passionate when he was angry. He always had been, he just hadn't noticed it until now. "Those bastards come in to Sand take you. They fuckin' take you. Gaara of the Sand. One of my best friends. Just because you were the host for Shukaku. Do you have any idea what that did to me?"
This time he waited for answer, but Gaara didn't reply.
He took this as his cue to continue. He was laughing bitterly again and wiping his face with one hand as it to try and quell all the feelings finally surging to the surface. "I saw you, lifeless... dead. You were dead. I thought to myself, not again. Not another one." He felt his voice waver, but continued, pulling strength from somewhere he didn't even recognize. "I wanted to kill that bastard like no other. I wanted to see his blood coat my hands. I wanted to see his face, filled with fear as I took away his life for doing that to you." His body shook, anger and fear he'd been pushing down for weeks finally breaking free.
Just when Gaara thought he was done, he said more. "If it weren't for Chiyo-sama you wouldn't even be here. You wouldn't be here and I'd have yet another failure on my hands. Another lost friend, only this time he wouldn't be coming back. How can I possibly hope to become Hokage when I can't even save one life, one friend, on my own?"
Gaara still said nothing. He knew Naruto had hurt deeply when he'd died. He'd known this because of what the Sand ninja had told him later that day. He'd cried, wept tears for him. But, he'd had no idea how deeply it had affected Naruto until he said it himself. Until it came from his own mouth.
"I don't expect you to say anything and I don't want your sympathy. But, I do want to know why you've acting the way you have." His cold blues were still watching him, still filled with that passion he'd let out only moments ago.
"I don't know what you want me to say, Uzamaki."
"Bullshit! You've been edging around me like I'm glass and bringing up Sasuke like your in need of some kind of confirmation! Like your angry with me because I'm so close to him. You wanted me to talk and I have. You're my friend Ga--"
It was Gaara's turn to get upset it seemed, because at the first mention of the word friend he said. "I don't want to be your friend!"
Naruto took a step back then, as it Gaara had just cut him. It felt like he just poured acid onto an already forming wound. His face filled with anger and betrayal. "What? What the hell is that suppose to mean? I thought we we're close. Just because I'm close with Sasuke doesn't mean I like you any less." It had somehow turned into a shouting match. Naruto had never seen him like this. Fury in his eyes. Passion and anger reminding him nothing of the Gaara he'd first fought. There was pain there in those teal depths.
Gaara choked out a bitter laugh, coming closer to Naruto, waving his hands wide in front of him as if to plow his point home. "Are you really so ignorant? Do you have to ask? Do I have to spit it out for you, you idiot?" His chest welled with an ache more severe and more painful than anything he'd felt in the past weeks. The man before him really couldn't be that dense.
Naruto exhaled slowly, eyes filled with confusion as he thought about it. He considered everything that had passed between him and the Sand shinobi over the past day. The questions about Sasuke, the odd looks, the pain coiling in his eyes, the desperation and then the look he'd been given from Kankuro before the festival. Everything came crashing at in full force like a dam finally breaking at the cracks and flooding his thoughts.
Oh.
Oh hell.
It finally registered and his eyes went wide as the information assailed him. His voice was a confused bare whisper in the cold silent night. No one could be so concerned about how someone felt about another human being unless they were jealous. It felt like a knife was cutting through thick air.
"You're in love with me."
"Yes. Finally. Yes."
"You're in love with me." He repeated himself as if he couldn't believe it was true. He felt flattered and confused all at once. All those emotions were hitting him like a ton of bricks. All the things he'd felt around Gaara the last few hours. "Oh hell." He muttered, worried. He didn't want to hurt him, but he just didn't feel that way about Gaara.
"But... you're... I'm... we're both guys." He said stupidly.
"Really? Thank you for the observation captain obvious." He spat sarcastically, long past trying to hide his flaring emotions and temper.
"This is just crazy."
"Yes, I agree. Insane. How do you think I feel?"
"Gaara.. I don't want to hurt you but I don't--"
"Save it. I don't need a talk down. I already knew what was coming. I don't expect anything from you, Naruto. I never have. I didn't even plan on telling you. I was going to endure watching the exams and then leave, praying, praying we never had this conversation." It was his turn to laugh bitterly and look away from the Konoha shinobi. "But, you had to drag it out of me. You're so damned stubborn." He turned then, moving to leave while attempting to salvage what was left of his battered heart.
Naruto was torn. He didn't want to hurt Gaara, but at the same time he didn't know how to fix any of this. Desperately, he reached out for him, pulling his arm and dragging him back. He had both arms in his hands, breathing erratically as he realized just what kind of position he was in now. Kami he was close and it was all his doing. He could smell him he was so close. He'd never taken the time to notice the scent of another man. "Gaara... I..."
"You couldn't leave well enough along, could you, Uzamaki?" His eyes narrowed and before Naruto knew what he was doing the Sand ninja was leaning forward, pressing his soft lips against his own.
Naruto inhaled sharply through his mouth, surprised. Gaara took the moment to open his mouth to the taller man before him, passionately demanding something in return. Anything to quell the ache he felt flaring in his core.
For a moment Naruto stood there, doing nothing with his mouth open. He's never been kissed before and the shock of Gaara's 'attack' held him motionless. He stood there like a wide eyed idiot with his mouth opened and slanted across Gaara's. But he couldn't do it for long, especially not after he began to nibble on his lower lip. No, he returned the kiss at full force, wrapping his arm about Gaara's shoulders. One hand tangled in his red strands as the other slowly trailed to his lower back.
He inhaled sharply when Gaara moaned into his mouth, showing what enjoyment he got from his touch. By Kami, he felt good. How could it feel this good with another man? He gasped though his mouth, seeking air before deepening the kiss and pulling him close enough to feel his hips pressing against his own.
He felt Gaara's hands reach tightly around him, pulling his waist flush against his form just as he was pushing his back so he could be closer. It was intoxicating. His taste and his smell. They assailed his senses and drove him to a place he'd never dreamed of being. His touch was like fire, liquid heat running through his veins. He felt his fingers, his nails, despite the clothing, digging into his back. He hissed in pleasure and growled softly when he felt evidence of the other man's desire pressing into his leg. Where gad that come from?
It was enough to jar Gaara back to reality. He gasped, pulling back, breathing erratic and his face flushed from the kiss they'd just shared. His heart felt like it was crashing against his chest, threatening to break out. When he spoke, it wasn't controlled, it wasn't monotone and it wasn't the least bit unattractive.
"You enjoyed that." He stated, trying to catch his breath. "You enjoyed that and so did I."
Naruto just stared at him, eyes wide and filled with so many churning emotions. His lips burned and he licked them, the taste of the man before him still on his mouth. The smell of him still stained his clothes. It took everything he had not to reach out and demand more physically if the stiffness in his pants was any indication.
"I want to do it again."
Naruto though he was talking to himself for a moment. His own breathing drummed in his ears. His nerves were on fire. He didn't know what to do even as he watched Gaara walk off into the night. What he did know, was the man had left him with an incredibly rock hard pain between his thighs and a lot of things to think about.
