007: Natsu and Gaara Get Drunk.

Their friendship didn't make sense to a lot of people.

Natsu Dragneel was a mage from Fairy Tail, a guild based in Magnolia.

Meanwhile, Gaara – no last name - was the Kazekage from Suna.

Hikigaya once commented it's because one of them was a demon while the other was a jinchuriki. But nah, it couldn't be that. Hikigaya then said it could be possible that Natsu reminded Gaara of his friend Naruto a lot and for some reason Gaara stayed a little too quiet. Thankfully, Natsu didn't take offense. But he did point out that he was nothing like the blonde haired, loud mouthed, stupid shinobi from the leaf village. Neither Hikigaya nor Gaara had anything to say about that. And by then Natsu was too busy devouring his chicken, so they ended their discussion there and moved on.

But the point was, the two of them were friends.

And friends liked to catch up with each other during their down time.

But what do two guys like them talk about over beer.

"Beat anyone new recently?" Natsu asked Gaara.

Gaara sipped his beer and observed the night sky from the Kazekage tower. "As part of the new treaty, I was asked to fight a menace in New York."

"A menace? Cool, did you fight Spiderman? " Natsu was excited.

"No. Though, I was asked to fight one of his minor adversaries." It was difficult to tell whether Gaara was amused or annoyed. Natsu couldn't get a read on the guy. "He called himself Sandman."

Now Natsu really wanted to know what happened. "So, did you win?"

Gaara gave him a look and didn't dignify it with a response.

"What do you think?" Gaara finally said. But as he sipped his beer, he frowned a little bit. "Though I was later told, I was supposed to fight a different Sandman. Or rather I was supposed to talk with him."

"I bet it was Hikigaya's doing. Only he would send a fighter to talk with someone." Natsu pointed out.

"You are forgetting I'm the Kazekage, Natsu. It is my job to talk to people and negotiate terms for the betterment of my people."

"Yeah, but guys like us, we fight to solve our problems." Natsu chugged his beer. "And there's nothing wrong with that."

Gaara thought back to a woman. Haruno Yukinoshita. The politician from Japan and one of Hikigaya's close associates had left a rather nice impression on him. But he decided not to let his friend know about it. Natsu wouldn't understand. He steered clear of the topic. "As it turned out, I was supposed to meet an entity who called himself Morpheus, Lord of the Dreaming."

"I don't like lords. Pompous douchebags." Natsu said as he finished his drink. "What were you gonna talk about?"

Gaara shrugged his shoulders. "Haruno came up with the idea and Hikigaya agreed with her, that perhaps Morpheus could help me with my sleeping problem. After all, he is the Lord of Dreams. But unfortunately things didn't work out, because I missed my appointment and fought Flint Marko, who also went by the name of Sandman in New York."

Natsu didn't know what to tell him. "Well, at least you get through your paperwork at night."

Gaara nodded. "As Haruno pointed out I'm the best Kage from the shinobi world."

Natsu finished his beer and set it down quietly. For a moment, he said nothing. But he couldn't really help it. This was really bugging him. "You have been talking a lot about Haruno lately. Is there something going on between you two?"

Gaara finished his drink. And he looked at his friend with flushed cheeks and slurred slightly. "No."

Natsu wasn't buying it. But, what the hell, he would support his friend no matter what. "It's okay if you have feelings for her man. Sure, she's not as good looking as Lucy, but it's what inside that counts." Natsu belched and fire came out of his mouth. He didn't even apologize and continued. "And if you ever get in a fight with Naruto for trying to date Haruno, let me know in advance. I will drop everything and come fight right beside you. I always wanted to kick that orange loudmouth's ass. "

Gaara was confused. "Naruto likes Haruno?"

Natsu shook his head. "Dude, you have the word 'love' written on your forehead, but you know next to nothing about love. Of course Naruto is in love with Haruno. I'm not even from this world and I know that."

Gaara went quiet. Real quiet. He was also completely drunk. Haruno. His Haruno. Haruno Yukinoshita. And Naruto. No, absolutely not.

"Let's visit Konoha. I think I want to have a little chat with my old friend." Gaara said, and the smile on his face was killer.

But Natsu Dragneel, who was also drunk, didn't like the idea. "Dude, I'm drunk. I can't do trains right now."

"We have no trains in the shinobi world, Natsu." Gaara pointed out helpfully.

And Natsu Dragneel smiled like a happy little child. "I love the shinobi world. Gaara, if you are my friend, promise me you will never invent trains in your village. They are the absolute worst." Natsu stated, remembering how awful he felt whenever he rode a train or a ship. But even while drunk, he remembered something rather important. "Wait a second, Naruto is in Konoha. We are in Suna. How long does it take to get to Konaha?"

"Four days if we run." Gaara stated.

"You are joking." Natsu declared. "What happened to the GATEs?"

A beat.

"Oh. I forgot about it." Gaara said. "I think, I'm really drunk Natsu."

Now what are GATEs? Well, there is a long, scientific and technical term for what is clearly a supernatural event, but basically, as the name suggests these are gateways to different areas and worlds. It was caused due to the convergence which brought all the worlds together and the most number of gates are in the city of Tokyo, Japan, Universe 616, but let's not get into all of that nonsense. For the time being, let's concentrate on what's important. A journey which could have taken more than four days and couldn't be undertaken while drunk was now possible in less than an hour. Of course it helped that Gaara was the Kazekage and Natsu was his friend, so no one questioned either of them about their inebriated state. And before long, the two, drunk friends found themselves in Konoha.

"Okay, we made it. Give me a minute." Natsu wasn't feeling so good.

"You are horrible with all forms of transportation, Natsu." Gaara stated.

"Hey, we don't know what happens to the body when you step through the GATE. As far as I'm concerned, I'm having a normal reaction. Now give me a minute and then we can go kick Naruto's ass!"

Gaara gave Natsu a minute to adjust. He spent the time looking around. The heavy security at the GATE to Konoha had let him in when he said he was here to meet Naruto. They hadn't questioned his intentions. It was a well known fact that Gaara was Naruto's friend. A few people raised an eyebrow on the presence of Natsu, but Gaara reassured them it was okay. He too was Naruto's friend, he said. Which was a lie. But the people in the Leaf village didn't question him. A leaf shinobi even joked that since Naruto was friends with Hikigaya from Japan, he could be expected to have all kinds of weird friends from different worlds. While Gaara was thinking about how easy it was to infiltrate the leaf village through the use of the GATEs, and he was thinking about beefing up the security back at his village, Natsu grabbed his arm and started pointing to someone.

"Look there. I see someone wearing orange. It has to be Naruto." Natsu stated confidently.

They were a few feet away and it was dark and it was hard to see and the two of them were really, really drunk, but Gaara had to agree, there was definitely someone walking the streets of Konoha in the middle of the night and he was dressed in a garish shade of orange.

"It seems to be him." Gaara slurred.

Natsu grew bold. He was drunk and he couldn't even walk straight, but he walked up and got really close, within shouting distance and then he started to yell. "Hey you orange hillbilly! Me and my pal Gaara are here to kick your ass! Hey Gaara, quick, say something cool."

Gaara found himself in a spot. Drunk and not thinking straight, the best he could come up with was. "You better believe it."

And then 'Naruto' started to talk. "Oooh! A fight. I'm always up for a good fight. And you two look super strong. Let's see what you can do."

"You asked for it, big guy." Natsu Dragneel said.

Huh, Gaara thought.

Natsu called him big guy.

Well, Naruto was looking a bit taller than usual.

And his spiky hair – oh wait, no – It was blonde now.

Thank god, for a second, Gaara thought it was someone else.

Later– At The Konoha Hospital

"How the hell was I supposed to know you meant some other Haruno!" Natsu screamed.

"Why did you think I was talking about Sakura?" Gaara asked calmly.

"It's because her last name is Haruno!"

"Oh." A beat. "I forgot Sakura's last name was Haruno."

The two them were in the hospital, pretty banged up, suffering from multiple broken bones and a number of bruises which will definitely leave a mark. They didn't know what the hell happened, but a little into their short lived fight and it was made abundantly clear that Gaara and Natsu weren't fighting Naruto Uzumaki. But the two of them were too drunk to make sense of the situation and they took a beating of a life time.

Thankfully, the person they attacked in the middle of the night turned out to be a decent guy and after beating the shit out of them, he dropped them off at the Konoha Hospital. And maybe it was not their drunk addled mind, but Gaara was pretty certain he flew them there.

Huh.

Well, weirder things happen all the time.

Like Haruno Yukinoshita showing up to the hospital.

And she was laughing.

"I can't believe you two fought Goku." Haruno stated.

"Well, we thought it was Naruto." Natsu stated with a blush.

Haruno laughed harder.

"Hey, it was an easy mistake to make. It was dark. And both of them wore that stupid orange outfit. He even had spiky blonde hair when the fight got serious!" Natsu said.

"You left out the part where you two were completely intoxicated." Sakura Haruno said as she entered to check in on her patients. "I can't believe you two were capable of fighting in your state."

"Well, you have never been to Fairy Tail, Sakura." Natsu replied.

But as you would expect, Haruno Yukinoshita asked the most important question. "But why did you want to fight Naruto in the first place."

"That's simple. You see Gaara over here -" And the look he got from Gaara told Natsu Dragneel everything he needed to know, about what will happen in the future, how he will be buried in sand and die a horrible gruesome death for speaking the real truth. So Natsu decided to lie. But because of the pain meds, being pumped into his system, his mind was feeling rather cloudy and he couldn't come up with something clever. Instead, he went with something he had heard from Hiratsuka-sensei, about some excuse Hikigaya made back in the day.

"Yes?" Haruno Yukinoshita pressed.

And Natsu relented. "You see, Gaara over here has herpes."

A beat.

Blink.

"Gaara, do you want me to -" It was Sakura Haruno.

Gaara gave her a look and she fell quiet.

Next he addressed his so called friend. "Natsu Dragneel, you are dead."

Haruno Yukinoshita just laughed.

Gaara tried to control his emotions. Right now, he wanted to bury the entire world in sand. He also wanted to tell everyone he did not have herpes. But he was on pain meds too and as a result he forgot about his priorities and instead focused on the only beautiful woman in the room.

"Why are you hear Haruno?"

Gaara also forgot that from where she was people didn't usually address each other by their first names unless they were really close. Again, he blamed it on the pain meds. And he watched Haruno Yukinoshita place a small pouch on the small table next to his bed, where they kept all his medicine and other medical stuff which he couldn't really name at this particular moment, but which he definitely knew, because he was smart and the Kazekage.

"These are called Senzu Beans." Haruno said. "They will help you get better. As it turns out, Goku really enjoyed fighting you guys. But he was worried you might be stuck in the hospital for a long while after what he did to you. I helpfully pointed out that as the leader of an entire village, you couldn't afford to stay in a hospital for a long time. So, Goku gave me these."

"And you didn't do anything else?" Gaara asked.

Haruno Yukinoshita gave a fake, coy smile. "I might have threatened to talk to his wife about him getting into a fight with leaders of the world. Goku is really afraid of his wife." She helpfully added.

And Gaara smiled. Again, he blamed it on the pain medication.

Now this was a lovely moment and Gaara should have done something nice, like say, 'thank you'

But instead he went. "I don't have herpes."

And as you would expect, Haruno Yukinoshita laughed.

A/N: I was going to write about Gaara and Natsu discussing about the opponents they fought in their lives as a guest reviewer suggested. But instead, I wrote this chapter, which actually, in my humble opinion is quite a nice and beautiful chapter. But it's still funny. Not like the previous chapters, but yeah, definitely better. Tell me what you think in the reviews. And please send me more ideas and I will turn them into decent chapters.

Also who should be in the next chapter – L or Kakashi.

As always please suggest more characters and ideas and I will definitely write about them in the future.

Hope you had fun with the chapter.

Take care.