Fic 12. Prompt 051. 'Water.'

Gaara, surprisingly, loved water. He loved the feeling of silk trailing over his hand, the cold, clear taste, the way it fills his belly like nothing else and calms the roaring space where Shukaku once was.

Water is more precious to him then diamonds, more filling then liver. He once read in a biology textbook that water was one of the necessities for life. He then understood that water was life, and sand was death. So Naruto dug him a pond, and filled it with cold water, and gave it to Gaara to do with as he wished.

Water was life, and Gaara had never cared for life. He wanted the chance to do this, this strange thing that so many people found fulfilling, that he did not understand. Naruto got him koi, plants, and frogs to fill the pond.

Gaara took the chance and planted the ferns, tamping the soil down and feeling the crumbling earth trickle over his fingers, then watered the plants under Naruto's tutelage, his lover's warm fingers wrapped around his own on the watering can handle. He set the koi into the water and watched them slide into the pond with a flicker of golden-silver scales, alive and breathing like so few things in the shinobi world. He watched the frogs hop into the water with wet little splashes, alive and breathing.

At the end of a weekend of work, he sat on the rocky edge of 'his' pond. His. The concept was unfamiliar, but he found that he liked it, liked having something to care for.

Particularly if that something involved water.