Knee Deep in Sand

Chapter Four

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

A/N: has fallen into a habit of utterly and completely devouring my words, so if you catch any big mistakes (I.E. chunks of paragraphs missing, etc.), please inform me so I can fix it before I come off as too much of a jackass.

Aside from that, I've decided what to do with this story. I was originally going to make it really long, spanning from pre-time-skip to post-time-skip, but then I figured…what good would that do? It would just give me more migraines to deal with. So I've decided to make this particularly short, probably ending with the next chapter, and create a sequel (if you want to call it that) soon afterwards.

Thank you for your continued support, and by next chapter I'll surely have the title of the new story and such figured out. Although, a fair warning in advance: the other fic will not be updated quite as quickly as this one was.

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Sakura quickly came to the conclusion that talking to the sand would be much more entertaining than talking to Gaara. At least she could pretend the sand was speaking back to her. But for her to try to actual speak to this red-haired, bad-tempered boy was absolutely futile.

They had been traveling for hours, now, and every attempt at conversation anyone initiated with Gaara would crumble and fall to a defeated pile of pathetic words. The boy was too damned egotistical to acknowledge anyone and too damned stubborn to admit that he was just as bored as the rest of them.

"I don't know how he does it," Naruto whispered, putting a hand up to conceal him and Sakura's exchange. "You think maybe he's gone deaf from all the years of living out in this desert heat?"

Sakura scoffed. "I doubt it. I think he just hears us when he wants to."

Naruto squinted at the desert boy walking a few feet in front of them. "Isn't there some sort of technical name for that?"

"Yeah. It's called arrogance." She had meant to be sarcastic and biting, but she heard Naruto scoff beside her.

"Then I think Sasuke's got the same problem," he snickered.

Sakura just chuckled slightly at this, mainly because it was true. Gaara and Sasuke were a lot alike, demon-bearing aside, and given the chance they could probably get along quite well.

Either that or they could rip each other's throats out, Inner Sakura corrected.

Déjà-vu overwhelmed the members of Team Seven when the outcropping of a particularly large rock came into view. Kakashi smiled to himself. "It's too hot to continue as we are, so let's stop here until it gets cooler."

Surprisingly, Gaara complied and sat beneath the shade and away from the rest of them, closing his eyes.

Kakashi took out his canteen and laughed, shoving it towards Sakura. "Do the honors?"

"Oh, no," Sakura said, wagging her finger at him. "I'm not about to fill up your canteens again!"

Her teacher set the canteen down and folded his arms behind his head, leaning against the rock. "Rock-paper-scissor again, Sakura? I never knew you were so determined." He laughed. "You do know that you'll have to play against Gaara this time, too?"

She cringed and snatched the canteen from the ground, hissing "Fine." She continued to collect Naruto and Sasuke's too, before stopping near Gaara.

He was just sitting there, legs folded beneath him, scowl tainting his face, and his eyes closed to create two dark patches of black where vibrant, harsh aquamarine had once been.

She coughed into her one free hand, and Gaara opened his eyes to look up at her. She smiled weakly. "Sleeping?"

His glare hardened and his eyes fixed themselves upon hers sharply. "Are you mocking me?"

She blinked before realizing what she had said, and then shook her head vehemently. "No! I'm sorry, I didn't mean that, and I…I forgot that you…you—"

"What do you want?" he asked.

She swallowed and showed him the canteens she held in her hands. "Did…you want me to fill yours up, too?"

Gaara didn't look away for a second, just kept boring through her with those intense eyes, before he shook his head and stood. "I don't trust you."

A little part of Sakura wanted to whack him upside the head like she did to Naruto, but she restrained herself from doing so. "What, do you think I'll poison your water or something?"

He was standing in front of her now, his newly bought canteen in one hand. He was looking at some point over her shoulder, though this didn't register in Sakura's mind and she instead focused on other aspects of the boy, like his height. Honestly, she had expected the feared Gaara of the Desert to be at least somewhat taller than her. But he barely matched her own height, in fact, and she almost laughed at the thought. Inner Sakura was already rolling on the ground with all the snippy comments that could resurface from his obvious "challenge."

Finally, Sakura noticed that Gaara was staring at something just beyond her, and she turned to see Naruto watching their short meeting with curious, vibrant blue eyes. "Sakura…? Is everything alright?" He glanced accusingly to Gaara.

Sakura nodded quickly. "Yes, I was just asking Gaara for his canteen, but…" she smiled. "He doesn't trust me." The words came out like they were stuck in her throat, and she heard Gaara scoff somewhere behind her.

Naruto looked from her to Gaara, and then back again before switching into "laid-back Naruto" and taking his canteen from Sakura. "I'll go with you to the oasis. I need to wash my face, anyway."

The three of them walked to the oasis, past a sighing teammate and a napping teacher, and Sakura faked a gasp. "Naruto? Washing his face?"

Naruto laughed and playfully poked her side. "I wouldn't be talking, Miss Sunburn."

Sakura just pouted and softly slapped his head, laughing along with him. She was about to speak, but the only Sand-nin among them spoke. This time, though, his tone was far from flat or agitated. He sounded almost curious.

"Why do you do that?"

Sakura stopped walking at his words that were so like Naruto's from the night before. "Wh…what?" She asked softly, turning to face Gaara.

Gaara's face was twisted into one of pure confusion, and he unintentionally glared a hole through Sakura. "Naruto is your friend, isn't he?"

She nodded. "Of course Naruto is my—"

"Then why do you abuse him?"

Naruto was thrown into a vicious fit of laughter at Gaara's words, and he paid no heed to the flaring of Gaara's temper.

Sakura saw something much different on his face, though. It was almost as if the boy was…embarrassed. His brows were furrowed and he was scowling at the both of them, his arms crossed. "Gaara," she started, smiling and laughing slightly despite her best efforts. "We're joking with each other. That's what friends do."

"You're teasing him and hitting him," Gaara assessed, drawing back from the approaching pink-haired girl.

She shook her head. "But it's only in a friendly way!" She reached over and shoved Naruto a little as an example. Naruto just laughed harder. "See?"

The line on Gaara's forehead deepened and he gave her a sort of sideways look. "So if I hit you, it would be considered…friendly?" He outstretched a clenched fist, watching as Sakura blinked and tensed.

"N…no, Gaara, that's not quite the right concept!" She chuckled nervously and rubbed the back of her head. "For you to hit me and consider it friendly, you would have to…" she struggled with the right words, then finally settled on the most primitive voicing, "…not hurt me."

He still looked utterly confused, so she took a step towards him, feeling satisfied when he didn't pull away from her this time. She timidly raised a spread hand, motioning towards his shoulder. With a cautious look, she said gently, "May I?"

He shifted his gaze from her hand, to her face, to the near-hysterical blond kid behind her before nodding tersely. Even so, he watched her every movement—every flinch her body made—until her fingertips connected firmly yet lightheartedly with the front of his shoulder. She pushed him a little, smiling carefully.

She drew back quickly, though, still wearing that smile. "S…see? That would be a friendly hit."

He stared at the spot on his shoulder where she had touched him, aware now that Naruto had stopped rolling on the floor with side-splitting laughter and was now watching the both of them with an alarmingly calculating pair of azure eyes. When he looked back to Sakura, her body was still as rigid as ever. He made the same movement she had earlier, stretching two fingers towards her. "May I?" he asked, all looks of security disappearing from his otherwise stoic visage.

She nodded, and felt a slight shift in Naruto's chakra behind her. She mentally noted that sometimes Naruto was far, far too protective. Gaara's fingers ghosted her bare shoulder, as if he was testing the waters first, before he figuratively dived in head-first by shoving her back a few steps. The force of his "friendly" attack actually made her stumble a little, and she ended up tripping over the loose sand of the desert to land on her rump, the canteens attached to her waistband clanking together noisily in the process.

Naruto began laughing behind her again, this time cackling like a madman, and she felt two hands grab both her shoulders this time and haul her up quickly to her feet. The owner of said hands looked desperately at her eyes, his dull jade ones meeting her own vivid green ones.

He opened his mouth to say something, but she just laughed along with Naruto and brushed herself off. She waved Gaara's imperceptibly apologetic expression off, though. "I think that may have been a little bit…too hard for friends, Gaara."

He huffed and folded his arms.

Naruto appeared then, clapping his hand on Sakura's already bruised shoulder. "I guess he just doesn't know his own strength!" He shot a goofy, closed-eyes grin at Gaara and laughed between his teeth.

Sakura shook the boy off and began to head once more towards the little oasis. "We should hurry up. Kakashi is going to be mad if we take too long."

Naruto agreed and fell in step with her, and Gaara ambled his way in front of the two, though not quite as far ahead as he had been.

- - -

The oasis proved to be not quite as blissful as it had once been as Sakura splashed some of the disgustingly warm water on her face. She shook the rogue droplets from herself and growled gently. "The last time I was here the water was much cooler."

"The last time you were here, it was closer to dusk," Gaara corrected her absently, refilling his canteen and setting it aside before sitting cross-legged before the pool of water.

Naruto was filling all the canteens for Sakura, and when he was finished with the job he, too, splashed himself with water. Growing agitated with the minimal relief from the heat it provided, he dunked his whole head into the water, uncaring that it would probably just give the sun ample reason to make his face turn redder than Sakura's. When he came up, sputtering for breath, he grinned contentedly. "That really hits the spot!"

Sakura laughed, being in a slightly better mood by Naruto's presence and the absence of Gaara's homicidal tendencies for the time being, and she glanced at the red-haired boy. He was looking at nothing, just staring blankly. He probably noticed her crawling over to him—in fact, she knew he noticed—but the only indication he gave of this was when the sand around them shifted slightly. She outstretched two fingers and shoved his shoulder slightly, making him go stiff and snap his gaze to her.

She smiled bashfully and rocked back on her heels. "Ah…sorry about that. But I couldn't resist."

He scowled at her. "That had better have been a 'friendly' hit." His icy tone belied the humor behind his words.

Sakura caught it, though, and she smiled. She heard Naruto rise from his spot seated in the sand, and she turned to him. "Ready?"

He nodded. "Yeah." He looked over to Gaara, who was once again staring at nothing. "Are you finished, Gaara?"

"I was finished a long time ago," Gaara replied, moving to stand. "Let's go." He bent down to pick up his canteen, took a drink, and then gave Sakura a hard glare for staring at him open-mouthed.

She tried to sputter some words, but none came.

"What?" he asked, bending down to refill the canteen once more. When she didn't answer, he glanced to the item in his hands, and instantly dropped it like it had burned him.

"G…Gaara? That…" she fished the canteen out of the water. "That was my canteen."

Gaara sneered and spit into the sand. The look he threw at her was as venomous as he seemed to think her lips on the canteen had been. "What was in it?"

She shook her head and scooped up her canteen along with Sasuke and Kakashi's. "Nothing but water." As if to prove it to him, she brought the water-filled item to her lips, but paused. Inner Sakura screamed in protest. Gaara's lips were on that! If you drink after him, that would be like kissing him!

She blinked to dispel her inner self's wails of agony before taking a drink, herself. It didn't matter, anyway. After he had drunk out of it he had dropped it in the water, so it was cleansed.

Gaara still watched her incredulously, though. "If I feel anything…anything," he hissed, "I will kill you."

She stood up, suddenly feeling awfully vulnerable, and stood near Naruto, who was already ready for a battle, as always. He put a hand on Sakura's wrist and led her off, glaring for a moment at Gaara over his shoulder before he turned his line of vision to straight ahead of him. Sakura copied Naruto's actions, although she didn't glare at the red-haired boy, before pulling her arm away from Naruto.

If only slightly, she thought she had seen a sort of distant look on Gaara's face as he had attached the canteen to his belt.