A/N: I'm not gonna lie, I giggled like an idiot the entire time I wrote this. I looked at the chapters I've done so far and realized that like 3/4ths of them are ultra serious and I needed to do something to wind down. And funny I should say that…

This is for TwistedInABottle again, who requested GaaSaku a while back, and since there was no prompt at the time I went out on a limb. Boy, did I go out on a limb. MAN, guys. Hold onto your sanities for a while, here. Due to a late addition, however, I will also be including a quote: "Quiet is sometimes disquieting."

And I just realized that it might help to place the time period for these fics, since it's not like they're in chronological order. This one takes place in After the Mess, which to me means after all the major plot points in the manga have been taken care of so I don't have to worry about explaining why who's where and all that. You know the drill. There's a category like this for every fandom, you know?


Bananas

Sakura and Gaara


Ino told Sakura once that after she and Shikamaru have sex, Shikamaru reaches into his pillowcase, pulls out a single cigarette, and lights up as a way to wind down. 'Not too terribly original,' the blonde sighed, 'but having a pattern is comforting. I know he won't do anything weird like ask me to brush his hair or something.'

Sakura never told Ino that after she and Gaara have sex, Gaara reaches into his pillowcase, pulls out a container of banana cream pie…and eats the banana cream pie. Something told her that that particular revelation would be awkward no matter what kind of conversation was going on. Indeed, Sakura played out many scenarios in which such conversation might arise in which to reveal this bizarre trivia, but each of them ended with the conversation buddy leaning back and staring at her with wide, disbelieving eyes.

There's a reason for it, though, which makes the whole thing minutely less odd. Every time she watches him pull the banana out from between the pillow and the case, like now, for instance—and how does he get those things under there without her noticing?—the same scene will play out every time. He will pull the lid back and take his first, worshipfully delicate bite with the fork he keeps in the night stand, politely ask her if she would also like a bite—she will gently refuse—and then she will roll onto her side while she thinks back to the day where it all began.


Sakura may not have been a baker, but you couldn't say she wasn't determined to make herself into one. This week: pies. Cream, fruit, meat, and everything in between, they would be mastered by the weekend, she promised herself as she laced up her mother's apron. Sasuke may have decided to fly the coop, but when he came back and married her—which he would, she was sure—he would expect his wife to be able to take care of him in the dinner department. As a result, Sakura latched onto her dream of becoming the greatest thirteen-year-old chef in the world, second to her dream of being able to open up a can of whoop-ass on anyone who looked at her funny, no more of this cower in the shadows bullshit.

"No deluding myself that I can just start at the top, though. Begin with the easy stuff, Haruno, and work your way up," she muttered to herself as she began browsing through her mother's cookbooks.

"Ah, banana cream pie. Easy. I'll have this done in no time."

And true to her word, Sakura had assembled the entire contraption in less than twenty minutes. Okay, so she had used pre-made crust and whipped cream from a can, but oh, well. Baby steps. She set the pie on the kitchen counter and ambled to the living room to watch her afternoon soaps. To hell and damnation with training. Today was an off day, dammit.


Gaara of the Sand rather liked these diplomatic trips with his siblings. They meant that while others sweated and debated within the confines of a building, he had precious hours to himself to stroll the sidewalks virtually anonymously. The only people who even remembered him were the shinobi, and they knew better to stare openly at him. Just this morning, he bought a sandwich from a vendor without a single glimmer of terror shining through the woman's eyes. What a treat.

Finishing off the last bite, Gaara glanced about him for a trashcan. Spotting one against a wall in a residential alleyway, he calmly walked toward it with the wrapper crumpled in his hand.

He lifted up the lid and abruptly came to a halt. A circular shadow on the pavement directly ahead of him grabbed his attention for all of one second before a perfect banana cream pie landed directly on top of his head.


Whatever Sakura expected to see on the other side of the door when she answered the ring, it was not Gaara of the Sand. She really didn't expect to see him covered head to toe with flecks of banana budding and cream, the remains of her pie tin clutched in his hands in front of his body like a purse. For five seconds, she stared at him with her mouth open, dead silent.

"Is this your house?" His face remained calm, his eyes betraying no sign of anger. If he hadn't been, well, Gaara, she probably would have been doubled over laughing by now at the sight.

"Y—yes?"

"This pie fell out of the window when I was walking by."

"I am so sorry. I don't know what could have happened—I put it on the counter, I'm sure of it…my—my mom must have put it on the sill to make some room for dinner, and—oh, God, I am so sorry. I had no idea, I swear I..." Well aware she was all but begging for mercy at this point and babbling it out to boot, she completely missed the tightening of his lips signaling a hidden smile underneath.

"I like banana pie," he interrupted her tirade. She squeaked and fell silent, unsure what to do next. He certainly didn't make any allowances for awkward social moments. In fact, he seemed deadly skilled at creating them in the first place.

"I, uh, that's good! I…liked making it."

He handed the pie tin to her and walked away without another word.


After that incident, which she would refer to as the Banana Cream Pie Seduction Mission within the confines of her imagination, she seemed to see more of Gaara in the next few months than she had seen in the past couple years put together. He always seemed to find some excuse to see her, whether it was tagging along with Temari and Kankuro on yet another diplomatic excursion or deciding that coming to visit her house was more important then reporting immediately to his village after a mission. And every time, he would take her to a pastry shop and insist on sharing a piece of banana cream pie, in memory of the very entity that had first brought them together.

People talked, as she knew they would, but by then Sakura expected it. Had people not talked, she would have felt decidedly more anxious. In the world of shinobi, quiet is sometimes disquieting, and the attachment of a Sannin's apprentice to a soon-to-be-Kazekage in an absence of uproar would have driven her to paranoid thoughts.

As it were, being in such close contact to his intense personality made her more daring and reckless than she had ever been in her social life. Having two weeks off while Tsunade paid a visit to the Village Hidden in the Mist, she impulsively tagged along on a border patrol group in order to visit him, which all but caused a riot when this news traveled the Suna grapevine.

He made her reckless. After that, she didn't even use an excuse anymore. When he was to be named official Kazekage and she asked Tsunade's permission to attend the ceremony as his personal guest, the Hokage graciously accepted. Those kinds of political alliances would turn out favorable, of course. And if she could help it along any way she could, so be it.


So now Sakura needs to reason at all to see him. She sees him every day when they get up in the morning and every evening when they go to bed, and several times in between if Gaara decides to abandon an appointment to see her in the hospital. If she wants to visit his office she no longer relies on wit to get herself there; she climbs in the window, feeling pleased tingle at Gaara's warm reception (and offer of pie). No one really seems to quite understand their relationship, and Sakura can't say she understands it herself.

But the entire village will agree that the addition of a massive banana farm in the newly-built greenhouses is a huge boost to the local economy.


A/N: So basically this is the weirdest GaaSaku get-together you have ever read. Between you and me, though, this needed to happen.

I…don't know where these things come from.