By the time he'd set the finished files in neat stacks on his table, washed his clothes, cleaned the spoiling food out of his refrigerator, and watered down and devoured every bit of soup in his apartments, there was only one thing left to begin the morning.
All it took was the clank of a pan against the countertop; and with a sharp inhalation and a jerk, Sakura was up. Satisfied, Gaara nodded a greeting and waited for her to get her bearings, telling himself that his observation of the way she stretched was merely casual. The night had given him time to consider issues more pressing than how she'd slept, but the more pleasantly distracting ones weren't what he needed to deal with.
Sakura joined him in a moment, smiling shyly, with the blanket draped around her shoulders and her hip pouch in her hand. It had apparently helped her composure that she'd made it through the night without being accosted. Too bad he was going to break that brief stretch of peace.
He started the second she stepped into the kitchen. "Does the Fifth Hokage hate Naruto?"
She blinked at him like he'd said something ridiculous. "What?"
Narrowing his eyes, he repeated himself. "Does she hate Naruto?"
"No, not at all, nothing like— Why would you think that?"
"Because otherwise she sent a pitifully small team into battle against what could've been all of the Akatsuki. Why would she do that unless she was trying to get rid of him?"
"Why would it be about him? What makes you sure it's him she'd be trying to get rid of?"
Her half-step back told him that she'd gone on the defensive, while the tensing of her jaw said she knew something, hinted that she knew what he'd already guessed at. "What's sealed into him?"
Green eyes lowered, focused on some spot to the left of his feet. "The Kyuubi." Then, quieter: "How did you know?"
"He told me. Years ago." When the two Leaf genin had caught him beside Lee's hospital bed, and he'd thought the claim was worthless bravado until he actually fought the boy later.
"He just told me a few days ago," Sakura frowned.
And she looked hurt by the omission. He hadn't intended to foster any discontent within Naruto's team. "He probably wasn't trying to frighten you with it."
"No," she smiled, faintly. "Not Naruto." Brow furrowed, she stepped around him, picking a glass from his drying rack and pouring another packet of what he assumed was more medication into it. She reached for the sink's faucet and started filling the rest of the glass before she continued. "And Tsunade-sama thinks of him like . . . like a little brother. She wouldn't want something like that to happen to him."
Her halting family comparison soothed his worries some, though he couldn't just let it go that simply. "Are you certain?"
Sakura smiled at his unease as she passed him the glass, and try as he might, he couldn't pick out everything the slight curve of her lips implied. "I'm completely certain."
So the Fifth Hokage just had terrible planning skills. He raised the drink to his mouth to cover his scowl. Sakura's expression darkened, though, and he knew that she'd guessed at his thoughts.
"If he gets caught," Gaara stated, meeting her glare for glare, "you won't want to forgive her the missteps."
"I know." Her gaze lowered. "You're just worried about him, aren't you?"
"Yeah."
"Me too." After a second of silence, she looked back up and gestured in the direction of the bathroom. "Do you mind if I get a shower?"
"Go ahead."
When the door closed behind her, he slouched against the countertop and glowered into the remains of his medicine.
Watching her bothered him. Having her there instead of Kankurou annoyed him. And if his mind treacherously strung together his memories of her, luring him with thoughts of her soft and smiling, with her skin warm against his as her limbs curved around him . . .
No wonder his advisors had been terrified of what would happen when he hit puberty.
He shouldn't have shipped her out; he should've locked her in the room under Sand until her teammates showed up to get rid of her.
That wasn't fair, though. He ignored the little bit of himself that said that he was the Kazekage and could do whatever he damn well wanted, overriding it with an imagined explanation to Naruto of why he'd felt the need to imprison the boy's friend. No reason made him sound any more sane.
He'd just deal with her. It was easier, kept her out of trouble, kept him medicated at the proper intervals without having to hunt her down every few hours . . . And it wasn't like her presence was that annoying. On the other hand, his real problems had become ephemeral, dealing with treason and missing-nins and nothing substantial that he could wrap his hands or his sand around and crush until it didn't threaten anything anymore. The girl might bother him on some primitive, visceral level; but his unwilling powerlessness in the face of Sand's dangers stretched his temper, demanding to know why he didn't just stalk through the city until he'd sought out and buried each potential problem so far underground that they'd never be found.
A knock sounded at the door. Half-expecting his brother, he opened it to find a worried-looking ninja who knelt and offered him a scroll. The message inside was pretty much what he'd expected:
Kazekage-sama,
In light of recent events, we your council request that you meet with us this morning at your earliest convenience, so that we may possibly—
He stopped reading in favor of skimming. The wording was standard, though the message didn't mention exactly what the focus of the discussion would be: the dead assassins from the night before, threatening Advisor Nakashima the previous afternoon, practically adopting the Leaf chuunin, frightening the hell out of everyone . . . He scowled. And then there was the written bowing and scraping, evidence of them tip-toeing around his temper. That particular way of handling him got on his nerves more than his argument with Advisor Shun.
"Tell them I'll meet with them before I assign missions today," he told the messenger, who bowed again and disappeared. Free of them, Gaara headed back to the kitchen in search of his glass. Annoyance kept him from doing more than staring into the mixture, though, as if he could see his best course of action in its ripples.
After a little bit, the sound of water running in the next room stopped. In another few minutes Sakura reappeared, her damp hair framing her face. He looked up as she approached, watched curiously as she tilted his glass down to see into it. She didn't speak this time, instead glancing at the remains of his medication, then back up at him with a sigh and a mock-weary smile. Gaara recognized the gesture for what it was: a peace offering, her telling him that there were no hard feelings without lowering herself by spelling it out. Amused, he downed the last of the mix, then let her peer into the empty container as both proof and acceptance.
She didn't back up, giving him time to contemplate the ease of her proximity. But with regards to how he'd helped calm her . . . Gaara's fingers twitched as he remembered the warmth and weight of her hands. The stress and weariness that had saturated her posture and movements the night before seemed to have dissipated. She didn't seem to be holding her right arm as stiffly, either. "Your wound?" he asked.
Some tension seemed to leave the set of her shoulders at the gesture. "A lot better," she smiled. Then, belatedly: "Thanks."
That was good—he wouldn't have to worry about her being at a disadvantage if anything else should happen. Or about her noticing his attentiveness and reaching the wrong conclusions.
Sakura reached out and touched the scroll in his other hand with one finger. "They're starting already?"
"Yeah."
"Is there anything I can . . ." She trailed off.
"No." After a second's consideration, he corrected himself. "Not yet. Sand's medics would be glad to work with you later. Kankurou will be here soon—he'll take you there."
To her credit, she managed to mostly conceal her apprehension before nodding. "Until then?"
"We wait."
Thankfully, Kankurou didn't make them wait for too long. He did barge through the doorway with barely a preemptory knock, though, his expression equal parts concern and anger. "What happened?"
The things they needed to discuss weren't things Sakura needed to be privy to. "I need a moment," he told her. "Pack up—Naruto might arrive at any time."
With her safely out of the kitchen, he was able to speak freely. Kankurou nodded periodically throughout the brief retelling, waiting until Gaara finished before offering any input.
"You know what they're trying to do." His brother's jaw clenched. "They're trying to bait you into getting yourself killed. Whoever sent the assassins would've assumed that you could handle them, but now it's only your word that says they came after you first. If you'd gone on and killed her, it would've been beyond doubt." He paused, as if searching for words that wouldn't offend. "I've seen what you look like when you're going out of control. The person outside of her building probably saw that and took off, and probably only would've taken her out if you hadn't come back."
It was the only thing that made sense. Even making his advisors and his village doubt him was dangerous. The sum of the problems and previous events could become too much at any point. Then he'd be dead, and Shukaku would be in a kettle small enough that someone could feasibly tuck it into a bag and walk away. And Kankurou was right—on his way to find Sakura, he'd probably looked like some sort of lurching, snarling monster. And if he had killed her . . .
No. Not with the way she'd reacted. Not with him fighting Shukaku the entire way.
Engrossed in folding her clothing on the other side of the room, Sakura paused for long enough to pick at a spot on one of her shirts. Her curiosity and alertness somehow seemed remarkably fragile, housed in too frail a frame to be able to stand up to anything either he or the world outside could subject her to.
He wasn't sure what he thought of the girl, but he was certain that he hated that part of her.
"She's one of his important people," he murmured, hoping his brother would understand. "I can't let anything happen to her."
"And I can't afford to have anything happen to you," Kankurou replied. "You keep looking after her, and she'll look after you when I can't. So it's all right."
Looking after each other. Like comrades. He could handle that.
He still had another potential problem to consider, though. "You didn't tell me that Yuura was among the ones killed at the gate."
"It was his idea that got you captured," Kankurou frowned. "He was also one of the ones we could only identify by his possessions. Think there's significance?"
In that Yuura had been the one to propose capturing an Akatsuki member, as well as how he'd been the one to alert them all to a possible attack? "Definitely." But the possibilities there would have to wait. "I have a meeting soon. I'll need you to keep an eye on her while I'm there."
"Can do." The puppeteer looked over to where Sakura seemed to be expressing undue concern over her pillow, his voice pitched to carry. "Have anything to do before he puts you to work?
She paused, frowning, and almost casually flipped the pillow over. "He needs breakfast, still."
"We'll get him breakfast," Kankurou coaxed. "We'll feed him after he's done bickering with the old men." Then, to Gaara: "Let me know if it looks like it'll get fun. I'd like to hit Shun again."
The meeting wouldn't turn out that way—at least not if he was there while calm and rational. But as he opened his door to let the two out, Gaara found himself wondering how bad it could get.
ooo
As it was, under the shadow of his predecessors' statues, he ended up attacking first.
"I don't trust you," Gaara told the assembled group. "You shouldn't have to ask me what's wrong."
The expressions directed at him settled at weary, long-suffering. Looking over their faces, he wondered if he'd ever make it to an age where he'd also be weather-worn, lined and etched by the desert's elements. "You know we're here for the good of Sand as well," one replied.
It wasn't like him to take them all on at once . . . but this time, he felt it was justified. "I know that 'the good of Sand' is the reason why I'm in this condition, why I need to keep a medic on hand. 'The good of Sand' is what keeps bringing the assassins to me, the people that think ridding Sand of a monster will keep them safer at night." He scowled. "I have no faith in the ideal of 'the good of Sand.'"
Shun spoke up. "There's no doubt that with the way things have gone lately, none of us really has a reason to trust the others. We've all been shaken up, we've all lost someone we know. Distrust is to be expected, which is why the best thing for us to do is work together until we find an end to this thing."
There was more coming. Gaara waited.
"We do need to discuss your medic, though." This time Baki did the speaking. "She's not from Sand. Even if Leaf is allied with us, there's that to consider. You don't know what kind of motives she might have."
He'd considered her motives, though, while listening to her breathe from across the room the night before. Every implication was that her motives solely prompted her to act out of duty and out of loyalty to her friend. And she'd proved the night before that she would do whatever was in her power to keep him under control and safe.
"Her motives don't matter if I keep an eye on her. Right now, she's the only person that stands completely outside of what went on that morning. I can trust her to not be the traitor, which is more than I can say for almost everyone else in this city."
"You're keeping her close, though," Baki rebutted. "Maybe too close. No matter what you may be thinking, you haven't been looking at her like she's just another ninja. As your council, we've discussed this already. We understand that to an extent, it's our fault that this has happened. But you understand as well: when you were a child, we were more worried about saving ourselves from you than about someone coming in, showing you some random act of kindness, and stealing you away. We made this weakness in you, and for that we're sorry."
It's not a weakness, he thought; but stifled the words before they reached his lips. He replaced it with a denial, both to himself and to his listeners: "I can put her aside any time I want."
To the older man's side, another advisor nodded slowly, as Baki bowed his head. "We can only hope you're right." Then came the trap's setting: "We will trust you in this if you could just trust us a little."
If it wasn't for compromise, he wouldn't be in his position. If it wasn't for compromise, nothing would get done. Gaara nodded. "I can do that."
"Good." Baki nodded. "As for the next order of business . . ."
Gaara's stomach chose that moment to voice its desire for the breakfast he'd been promised. He nodded at the next question directed at him, torn between duty and hoping that things would proceed quickly. But as always, duty came first.
ooo
They must have been waiting. Gaara had just gotten to the room for mission assignments and handed off the paperwork for the first teams to Baki when Kankurou and Sakura walked in. As his brother pulled up a pair of chairs, Sakura set the bulky package in her arms on the table in front of him. "Here. We figured you'd need something extra to boost your spirits after the meeting."
Curious, Gaara tugged the paper wrapping aside. She'd brought him an entire box of food. His stomach growled as he reached in, examining the containers. Soup, more soup, rice, and . . . praise the girl, she'd had the sense to bring him meat.
And most importantly, Kankurou sat and watched the proceedings without any hint of trepidation. There was no way his brother would have let his food or even his medication pass through her hands if he thought she posed the slightest danger.
And if he couldn't trust his brother's judgment—hell, both of his siblings' judgment—then he'd be back in the same lonely, paranoid place he'd been years before. Gaara's eyes flickered over the puppeteer, then back to the girl at his side. He didn't want that. And if his brother was that certain the girl was safe . . . Well, Gaara didn't like his council's opinion anyway.
"It's not really well-spiced," Sakura explained, "but he said that it's stuff you like. So it should be ok, right?"
Engrossed with searching for chopsticks, he only nodded.
She paused, then turned to his brother. "Is this what counts as 'lighting up' for him?"
"Not quite," Kankurou answered. "He usually blinks more."
Gaara looked over to find her watching him, her chin tilted upwards in a way he recognized as a prelude to her being cheeky. "What kind of food would it take to see you actually light up?"
He jabbed at the box, deciding to humor her. "This. Only more."
She laughed, and he focused on one of the soups as to not dwell on the ease of it.
"And there." She pointed a slim finger at his nose. "You're doing it again."
Doing what? he wondered—then realized it. Smiling.
Playing off his reactions and how she'd predicted he'd react in order to tease him . . . The girl was shameless. No, not quite shameless—if he looked, he could see the faintest hint of a blush on her cheeks.
Interesting.
In the face of his undivided attention, she blushed darker, then turned to where Kankurou pretended to muffle his chuckles. "What? A happy patient heals faster."
"You're assuming that flirting with this patient is welcome," Kankurou rebutted.
"I . . . well . . . I was just . . . He keeps smiling, so . . ." Sakura glanced back to him, her hand anxiously rising to cover her mouth. "If it wasn't ok, you'd tell me, right?"
He all but heard her swallow the "Kazekage-sama" at the end of the question. Here was a chance to quiet her by slipping back into that formality, to end her prodding and stop her from trying to rattle him so much. But . . . Dealing with her gave him the same feeling as the first time he'd sat in on academy classes, when a student had turned to him for approval after the successful completion of a technique. He'd been new to his position, and the child's wide-eyed expression had been a bright spot in his day, had made him feel like he'd done something right. There was a difference, though: the student had looked to him as the Kazekage. The girl beside him accepted and trampled all over him as Gaara.
Damn her, she had to ask that question when he wasn't even sure what he thought of her attempts.
He didn't exactly want to encourage her—but on the other hand, he wasn't sure he wanted to discourage her. There was still one option that would let him avoid a yes or no answer; so he focused his attention on his breakfast again and ignored both of the troublemakers. Sakura only watched him until Kankurou started chuckling again. And he didn't even want to know what his brother thought of the entire situation.
"We should get going," Kankurou grinned. "It's time to let the Kazekage do his job."
"Ok." Sakura stood, smiling uncertainly. "See you in a few hours?"
He didn't like her uncertainty; so he wrenched his attention from his meal for long enough to make eye contact, letting his expression relax a little as he replied. "Yeah."
She waggled her fingers at him as they left and the first of the teams started to enter. The approaching ninjas didn't afford enough opportunity to ignore how Baki watched him, though. And unlike the possibilities of Sakura's quest to help his emotional well-being, the older man's concern was something that merited worrying about.
"Any time I want, Baki," he stated. But though the older man nodded and looked away, his expression didn't change.
It wasn't until after the missions were assigned and the room had emptied that Baki returned to the subject. "It's not that we're attacking you. It's that we worry. What happens to Sand if you get led astray while our backs are turned?"
He knew exactly what could happen. "I refuse to be the Kazekage to preside over Sand's downfall."
"And if you slip up?"
The threat of failure created doubt, created weakness. There could be no doubt. And if the people close to him implied that he had reason to . . . "They have you speak for them because they're sure I won't kill you." Gaara considered the jounin, the man he'd known almost his entire life. "Do you ever worry that they're wrong?"
Baki looked away before answering—but that was all the answer he needed. Tucking a folder of paperwork under his arm and a few scrolls into his pockets, Gaara set out to find his self-appointed charge.
ooo
The medics in Sand's hospital directed him to one of the long, rectangular libraries. From the group of medics chattering over various opened books on one side of the room, it seemed that Sakura had set up camp—and from the array of puppet parts around his brother in the far corner, it seemed that Kankurou had done the same. To not interrupt the discussion, Gaara went to him first.
Kankurou glanced up as Gaara seated himself. "Anything new?"
"No."
His brother scowled, then sighed, rolling a dismembered piece of puppetry between his forefinger and thumb. Gaara didn't recognize the segments in front of him as any of Kankurou's usual puppets. "This is a new one?"
"Yeah," Kankurou grinned. "Having puppets built by someone else was what got me into trouble with Sasori. If he comes back, I want to have something new to show him." He jerked his chin towards the group of medics, who appeared to have abandoned working for laughing. "I think they're almost done. You've got her from here?"
"Yeah. Go get some rest."
Sakura looked over and waved as Kankurou gathered his things and got up to leave. In return, the puppeteer pointed at her and winked, then nodded cheerfully over his shoulder to Gaara. Gaara sighed to himself, shaking his head. Maybe he'd been wrong about which of them was the shameless one.
Sakura glanced back to him, then smiled. And though he knew it was a stupid thing to do, he let himself bask in it for a second before turning back to his papers.
It doesn't mean anything, he told himself. She's just doing it because that's how she thinks things work. So the flirting—at least she'd said it was supposed to be flirting—the familiarity, and how she treated him the way he imagined normal people treated each other . . .
It didn't matter if it was supposed to mean anything, anyway. It was stupid for him to take her in like his siblings had. He had responsibilities. Things to worry about that weren't silly and female. And soft, he reminded himself—then shoved that thought away. The girl was nothing but trouble. She'd messed up his still-recuperating brother's sleep schedule because he couldn't leave her alone, because he couldn't count on her being strong enough to defend herself if something should happen. And then she made him doubt his own ability to protect her. And then, to top it off, she couldn't be taken seriously. She flirted too much and smiled too much and took too long in the shower, she was stupidly modest at stupid times, and she'd drooled on his couch. And she was too . . . too . . . Pink. Of all colors, her hair had to be pink. That was a terrible color for a ninja's hair. She'd stand out like . . . Like . . .
He almost smiled; then reached up to tug a strand of his own hair down so he could see it. She'd stand out about as badly as he did.
All right, so he might be acting just a little ridiculous.
Someone at the table clapped and cheerily announced that it was lunchtime. He let go of his hair to better pay attention to the group's interaction. Catching her watching him was almost expected, as was her smile.
He might just be getting used to it all. But he could still give her up any time he wanted.
"Do you need me to come back later?" she asked, directing her question to the general group.
"If you can," one of the medics grinned.
Gaara nodded to himself and tucked the papers in his hand back into their folder. He'd known that the girl wouldn't willingly give up any of Leaf's medical secrets—allies or no, there were some things that the Hokage definitely wouldn't approve of—but he still wondered how hard the group had been working her for snippets of unknown information. And how successful they'd been.
"Distracted?" Sakura approached him, smiling, as the people behind her began milling about in preparation to leave.
"Yeah."
She slowed, then came to a halt, glancing up at him through her eyelashes. Her voice was soft, pitched for privacy. "The records said . . . that your earliest medics had problems getting you to let them cut your hair. That you didn't like the scissors, or something." Her lips curved slightly. "The person writing it all down complained about how they couldn't just wait for you to go to sleep and do it then."
The person writing the records at that time . . . would've been Yashamaru. He didn't want to think of that. "I don't remember."
"You were really young. It's understandable." She shrugged and glanced over to where the last medics had started filing out of the room, then back to him. "Feeling hungry again yet?"
"Yeah."
She nodded, but her attention remained focused on his hair. As if shaken from her reverie by how he observed her examination with equal curiosity, she smiled. "What is it with you guys, anyway? I leave you all alone for a little while, and you both turn up shaggy."
And he hadn't the faintest idea what she was talking about.
"You and Naruto," Sakura elaborated. "He came back with . . . Well, his hair's like yours. All over the place." She giggled. "I doubt either of you even owns a brush."
He had no idea why it mattered, either. Engrossed in watching her laugh, he didn't think to move when she reached out towards him. Her fingertips bumped against his forehead, ran up into his hairline . . . and promptly got caught. "Point proven," she laughed, tugging gently against the knot.
And like it was the most normal thing in the world, she stepped forward to work the tangle out.
For a few seconds, he was too stunned to respond. A hundred different protests ran through his mind, collided, and were reduced to nonsensical syllables. A hundred different sharp, cutting things to say crashed into the distracted smile on her face and were blunted. And he couldn't figure out why she'd be concerned with his appearance, why she'd want to keep playing with him, why she wouldn't just step back and laugh and let it all be once the knot was gone. His hands gripped onto his knees as the steady, easy caresses continued. All he'd done was hold still, let his guard down the slightest bit, and she . . .
Her fingers ran through his hair, fingertips against his scalp, searching for tangles—or was she? There weren't tangles at the back of his head, but she skimmed over that a few more times anyway, gently encouraging him to look down instead of stare dumbly at her stomach. And there wasn't anything to tangle at the base of his neck, where her thumbs pressed against his skin and rubbed smooth, careful circles. It took a singular act of willpower to jolt him out of placid acceptance. This wasn't a favor. This wasn't playing. This was completely inappropriate and he shouldn't be letting her and he had to stop her and—
"Gaara . . ." Her hands settled gently against his shoulders, squeezed. "Is this ok?"
It was terrible. And at that moment, reality sank in: that she'd been entirely too sympathetic, had gotten entirely too close, had fallen in step with him and his siblings with an ease he couldn't even begin to comprehend. And . . . His lips pulled back from his teeth with an emotion lost between pain and anger, his eyes widening hopelessly. And he'd let her.
"Yeah," he replied, because he couldn't shove her away this time, he couldn't tell her to stop, and above all else, he couldn't, couldn't, couldn't let her see the expression on his face.
He felt himself shake as her fingers slipped inside the collar of his shirt for easier access to his shoulders, felt the clenched muscles of his stomach shudder hard enough that she had to notice. She made a slight, whispery noise that may have been compassionate and may have been his name in response, her right hand shifting to cup the back of his neck. He hadn't noticed her leaning in, but could tell by how his hair brushed against her body, by how the warmth of her became that much more . . . oppressive? Comforting?
He wanted to lean in to her, though, wanted that warmth against his face, wanted the comfort and the terror of it all. He wanted to wrap himself around her, wanted to hide the two of them somewhere that these touches wouldn't matter, where he'd have time to reacquaint himself with the softness of her and the way her skin had felt against his. But if he couldn't do that . . .
His hands unclenched slowly, one circling around behind her. Sakura shifted as his fingertips brushed the back of her knee, but she didn't step away. Relieved, encouraged, he settled his palm against the skin her shin wraps didn't cover and her shorts didn't reach, cupping the back of her thigh. And the warmth, the texture, the way she felt against his hand . . . Soft. But then again, she was soft, terribly soft to have forgiven and accepted him so easily, based on a few hours' worth of readings and a couple talks with his siblings and the desperately clung-to belief that he really had changed—
Her left arm moved, coming to rest across his shoulders as the hand on the back of his neck started a slow, careful kneading. It was almost an embrace, almost enough, almost . . . What the hell was wrong with him?
And she was probably laughing to herself, having brought the Kazekage that low in that short an amount of time. Sudden distrust shocked him away from his enjoyment, his craving. If she was laughing at him, it'd be a betrayal, one he'd fully deserve for having allowed this farce to continue . . . and rather than suffer it again, he'd kill her on the spot and deal with the consequences later.
Jaw clenching, he braced himself and looked up.
There wasn't the slightest trace of humor on her features, in the wide green eyes that met his. He couldn't place the emotions that were there . . . but her gestures gave them away well enough. It was shyness that made her hand hitch as she tucked a stray lock of hair behind his ear, tenderness in the way her fingers lingered against the back of his neck, acceptance in the way she didn't flinch from his unblinking stare. The combination shook his defenses, but left him with the bone-deep certainty that if he pulled her to him for the embrace his pounding heart and clenching chest demanded, she wouldn't pull away.
And someone walked in the door and ruined it all.
At the sound of the approaching footstep, both he and Sakura jolted like academy children caught misbehaving. "I forgot my—" the errant medic started—then froze like a startled animal. "Kazekage-sama . . ."
Gaara straightened, trying to appear nonchalant. It was nothing. The ninja had just walked in on the girl standing in front of him. He hadn't really gotten a chance to see anything remotely incriminating . . .
Except for the way Sakura turned a shade of red to almost match her top.
Shit.
"We were just leaving." The words came out sounding like he'd bitten the syllables off and spit them back out. "Ruined it all" didn't cut it. The damned medic looked entirely too pleased with his new knowledge, Sakura had backed away and was poorly feigning indifference, and he . . . He wanted. In ways he didn't fully understand and to degrees that frightened him, he wanted.
He jerked to his feet, collecting his paperwork with one swipe of his hand. When it didn't immediately look like Sakura would follow, he reached for her as well, his palm pressing against the small of her back—and at the warmth of her body, immediately regretted it.
He didn't quite shove her out the door. Not quite. But with full knowledge of how easy it would be to spin her back to him, to force the issue at hand, his actions were barely ranking as civil. Once outside of the room, he immediately started walking, unsurprised when she kept up his brisk pace from beside him.
Like companions. Like normal. Like he'd just probably put her in more danger by intimating that there was something between them that needed hidden, by keeping her close enough that someone might chose to hurt her in an attempt to hurt him. Growling under his breath, he chose hallways almost at random; part of himself trying to find the time necessary to calm down, part of himself eyeing doorways and corners as places to pull her for only a few seconds of sweet, flawless privacy.
He stopped walking. Even if the medic's conclusions were erroneous—they definitely were, there was nothing of any sort going on between him and the girl—the danger would be the same . . . Unless he turned around, found the man, and silenced him before anyone else heard so much as a whisper of rumor. And her . . . The amorphous craving in him sharpened to a focus, suggesting a different, seductive sort of violence; one meant for secluded places, with her soft and warm and curving even if her hands tried to batter him away, even if the memory sifting out from Shukaku's thoughts told him that face-down, she wouldn't be able to bite him back.
Gaara shook his head to clear the images away. No. The Kazekage would not murder and rape the people he was supposed to protect. And there was no outlet for his anger over how the thought had even gained any purchase in his mind, because he was its only focus.
"Gaara . . ." She stepped into his line of sight, the tenseness of her expression telling him that she'd noted his distress and was unsure if he'd turn on her. "Where are we going?"
He wouldn't turn on her. He couldn't. Naruto would hate him and . . . And she would, too. And then she wouldn't smile at him the same way, wouldn't be so open around him, and would certainly never want to share any quiet moments again, caring and understanding and soft against him.
"I don't know."