Gaara had never really been a fan of the oasis. Sure, it was beautiful, but it was nothing compared to the rolling dunes of the desert. Though the water was a startlingly clear blue, it was unsafe to drink and therefore practically useless. The shade provided by the scattered fan palms wasn't really enough to shield a person from the sun completely. Yes, it was beautiful, but it was only that. There was no practicality.
However, Gaara found himself appreciating that beauty far more today than he ever had before. He watched Sarabi and Sakura exploring near the pond's bank, dipping their toes into the water and fingering the plants they came across. The wonder on both of their faces made them look so far beyond beautiful that the oasis paled in comparison to them.
Hideki, who stood beside him on the crest of the dune above the oasis, glanced at Gaara with a knowing smirk. "See something you like?" he asked with a chuckle.
Gaara snapped from his reverie and sent a glare in Hideki's direction. "You're growing too bold, Hideki," he said tersely. "You may consider it playful banter, but I'm still the Kazekage."
"Oof, okay," Hideki said, putting his hands up in a sign of submission. "I see you've got no sense of humor where Sakura is concerned."
"I'm looking forward to seeing her kick your ass, though," Gaara said with a smirk.
"Are you suggesting that I let her win?"
Gaara sent another glare in his direction, but before it could reach its full impact, Hideki was knocked off his feet by a whirl of pink. A cloud of sand kicked up around them and when it settled, Sakura stood in its midst, extending a hand to the shinobi lying face down in the sand.
"You wouldn't happen to be talking about me, would you?" she asked sweetly. Sarabi, who stood behind her, giggled and came to stand beside Gaara.
Quickly, Hideki got to his feet and squared his shoulders toward her. "Last I check the score was me: two and you: zero," he said, wiping the sand from his brow.
"It won't be that way for long."
Amused by their banter, Gaara grabbed Sarabi's arm and pulled her down toward the oasis where they could watch the spar without being in harm's way. They settled down underneath a fan palm as Sakura and Hideki engaged in a simple taijutsu spar to warm themselves up.
Gaara watched in fascination as they fought so gracefully that it bordered on dancing. Gaara knew Hideki's strengths were in long range wind attacks. In a similar fashion to his sister, he used a fan to launch his long ranged jutsus. It was odd to see him in close quarter combat with Sakura, who really excelled when it came to taijutsu.
However, her lethal fists had been nerfed by her lack of precision chakra. She seemed to want to dance before jumping into a serious spar. There was a faint smirk on her face as she launched her fists and feet at Hideki.
For a few more minutes, the pair circled around each other, getting a feel for the land, for one another. When she had decided enough was enough, Sakura aimed a punch for the ground near Hideki's feet. Hideki seemed to expect this and leapt back to avoid to potential crater. But instead of a crater, there was no hole left in the ground in her fist's wake. Instead, a rumbling sound coupled by the quaking of the sand indicated she had sent a chakra shockwave through the dune. Gaara was surprised that he could feel it even from this distance – her chakra so thickly but precisely laced throughout the sand.
Hideki was knocked off balance by the quaking ground, but he found his footing just as Sakura aimed another strike toward his head. He caught her fist, which Gaara recognized as a mistake even before she used a burst of chakra to send him flying down the side of the dune and rolling along his back to the far side of the pond.
Gaara knew Hideki well enough to know he wasn't the type to like to lose. However, when he stood up and brushed the sand from his tunic, there was a mirthful smile on his face.
"You've improved since the last time we sparred," he said to Sakura, who was ambling her way down the dune with a smile of her own.
"Of course I have," she said. "Now quit going easy on me."
Hideki needed no further convincing. He whipped the small fan from his back and launched a wind attack at her, sending her body flying back toward the dune she had just climbed down. She landed deftly on her feet, using chakra as a buffer between her and the sand. Hideki didn't give her a chance to gather her bearings before he was launching more attacks – shuriken and kunai flung from his pouch, followed immediately by a burst of wind that sent the weapons hurtling toward Sakura at a lethal speed.
Sakura leapt out of the way and then aimed another punch at the ground, this time sending another precisely moving shockwave towards Hideki's feet. The shockwave rumbled the earth beneath them, sloshing the water from the pond up onto the bank where it splashed against Gaara and Sarabi's legs.
Too fascinated to care that his pants were now wet, Gaara's eyes were glued to Sakura, watching as she leapt and twirled, weaving her way through Hideki's ranged attacks to approach him.
Hideki was quick enough to have escaped from her, but Gaara saw immediately that his pride would be his downfall. Instead attempting to get away from her incoming onslaught, Hideki dug his heels into the ground, prepared to hold strong against her.
If she had been any other kunoichi, he might have been able to. He was counting on her to hold back, Gaara thought. That was a mistake Gaara would never have made. She aimed a punch at his torso, which he caught with his palm. Gaara winced as he heard the sickening crack of the bones in his hand shattering.
He screeched in pain, doubling over as he fought to catch his breath. There was concern in Sakura's eyes as she watched him crumple to his knees, cradling his freshly injured arm, but she held her stance, waiting to see if he had one more trick up his sleeve.
"What the fuck?" he demanded. "You were aiming for my chest! You could have killed me!"
"Oh, please," she said, rolling her eyes and stooped down to inspect his hand. "I know what I'm doing. You were the idiot that tried to catch my fist."
"Forgive me for not worrying that you'd use lethal force against me," he said dryly.
"I didn't kill you, did I?" she asked.
Gaara rolled his eyes as he listened to the two bicker. He glanced over to Sarabi, who was grinning from ear to ear.
"What do you think, Gaara-sama?" she asked. "Point, Sakura?"
Gaara chuckled and extended a hand to help her up off the ground. Together, they walked over to Sakura and Hideki. "I think I have to give this one to Sakura," he said. "Hideki, you disappoint me."
"I demand a rematch," he said viciously.
Sakura shook her head with a rueful laugh. "I'm sorry, Hideki, but you're going to have to give that hand a couple of days to heal. Come on, I'll take you to the infirmary."
Sakura helped Hideki get to his feet and he sagged against her, wincing as he clutched his arm tightly against his chest. "Fine," he bit out, "but I won't let you win so easy next time."
"Of course not," she laughed.
/
While Sakura had taken off with Hideki, Gaara found himself blessed with a rare opportunity to spend some time alone with Sarabi. He wanted to approach the topic of training her to use the powers given to her by the sand beast all those years ago, but he was afraid of what her answer might be. It was always a possibility that those powers would remind her of her more painful memories. He didn't want to bring up such things while she was here for a celebration, while she was still practically a stranger to him.
But at the same time he had seen the way her eyes had lingered on Sakura, a desire almost like jealousy nascent behind those milky orbs. He could sense that she wanted to be stronger, that she had the drive to train hard. After all, she had spent three years training under Sakura already. She must have had the will to keep training.
"What do you think of Suna so far?" Gaara asked her. They stood near the bank of the oasis still, both gazing back toward the village where they could still see the silhouettes of Hideki and Sakura fading against the horizon.
"To tell you the truth, Gaara-sama, I can't believe how much I missed it," she said. "Well, not the village so much, but the sand. The desert. I just feel like my heart is buried in these dunes. I belong here; I can just feel it."
A tiny crease formed between Gaara's brows as he appraised her. At some point during her time in Konoha, Sarabi had cut her hair short like Sakura's. It fell dark and blunt against her bare shoulders in stark contrast her feminine features, her milky grey eyes. There was something about her, something Gaara couldn't quite explain. He sensed something familiar in her, something or someone. He had to agree with her – she belonged here. Something in her ached to be in the desert, Gaara could tell. It made him uneasy to feel that familiarity. The only time he could recall feeling like that was when he'd been a jinchuuriki.
"I mean the village is great, too," Sarabi said, blushing as she looked down at her feet, unnerved by Gaara's staring. "I didn't mean to imply that it wasn't."
"Sarabi, would you like me to train you to be a kunoichi?" he asked rather bluntly.
Sarabi hesitated, her mouth gaping slightly. For a moment Gaara was afraid she might say no.
"You mean you personally?" she asked. "Aren't you too busy for something like that? Sakura suggested that I join the academy. I know I'm a little old, but I figure—"
"I'm the only one who can teach you how to work with sand," he interrupted. "I think it's a great idea for you to start taking lessons at the academy, but I would still like to train you personally as well."
"Well, how can I say no to that?" she asked with a rather disarming smile. "Everyone in Konoha holds you in such high regards. I wouldn't dare waste an opportunity to learn what I can from you."
"Hmm," he said in acknowledgement. "Hopefully I'll be as good a teacher was Sakura was."
"Teaching is an entirely different skill than being a kunoichi or a medic," Sarabi explained. "At least that's what Sakura said. She was a great teacher to me and I'll forever be grateful to her for all that I've learned, but man, teaching sure wasn't her forte. She knows everything there is to know about the human body, but she wasn't all that great at explaining it."
Gaara's eyes widened and he stared at Sarabi in fascination.
"Umm, maybe you don't tell Sakura that I said that to you," Sarabi said, scratching the back of her head nervously.
"Of course not," Gaara said quickly. But that didn't mean he was over that topic. "So you discussed her teaching methods with her?"
"Well, sort of. We discussed what techniques I needed to learn from her, and what things I could learn from books or other source material easier," Sarabi said. "There was a lot that Shizune and Tsunade-sama taught me when Sakura was too busy or not quite sure how to explain something."
"It takes a village," Gaara said wisely.
"Seriously, though, you aren't going to tell Sakura I said any of this to you, are you?" she asked. "She's been so wonderful to me and I could tell she was genuinely trying her best."
"I won't say a word."
/
"So, Sarabi says you're a shit teacher."
A flash of emerald fire sent a shiver down his spine. He had sought her out after his conversation with Sarabi, using his sand to locate her. She'd been perched on top of the guard tower, leaning against the railing as she gazed at the bustling activities below.
She had looked rather peaceful up here alone. There was a faint smile on her lips and a glow to her skin. Something about her contentedness was very appealing to Gaara, and he was almost remiss to take it away from her.
Truthfully, though, he found just as much pleasure in the heat of her anger. He felt himself rather amused by the clench of her jaw, the way she gripped the guardrail with white knuckles. Maybe if he provoked her a little more he could bear witness to an explosion. He instantly felt guilty for the thought, wondering where that desire had come from.
"She said that to you?" Sakura demanded, leaning over the rail to peer down at the crowd below. Gaara had the feeling she was searching for a set of familiar, milky eyes.
"Hey, don't worry," Gaara said, tugging her sleeve to pull her away from the rail. "I was only teasing you. She didn't say that. We did have a conversation about her kunoichi training, though."
"Teasing me?" she asked, peering at him suspiciously. "That's beneath you, Gaara-sama."
"As if I wouldn't pay you back for the little peach incident," he said dryly.
"Oh, was that an incident?"
Gaara gave her a wry look and moved to stand beside her. He perched her arms against the railing beside hers and leaned out to look at the crowd below. "It was intentional, wasn't it?" he asked. "You wanted to see how I would react."
"Well, perhaps," she said, blushing enough that she felt the need to hide her face behind a curtain of pink hair. Gaara watched her for a moment, feeling the compulsion to tuck that hair back behind her ear. "I don't want to step on any toes."
"Whose?" Gaara demanded. "You mean Temari's? I don't think you need to be concerned about her anymore."
"I meant your girlfriend," Sakura snapped.
"I don't have a girlfriend, Sakura."
She drew her gaze away from the streets and up to his face. Her eyes were unyielding and he almost felt the need to look away from her. She seemed angry and confused. "What about that Matsuri girl?"
"We broke up over a year ago," he explained, beyond elated that she seemed jealous. In all the time she had been in Konoha, Gaara had come to accept his teenage hormones had been the cause of their brief but excited encounters all those years ago. He'd hardly dealt with them since she left – even when it came to Matsuri. His affection for her had always been genuine, but it hadn't felt anything like this tense thing he had with Sakura, this thing that rose his hackles and stirred something nascent inside him.
"Oh," she said lamely, the anger fading rapidly from her eyes.
"How did you know about her?"
"Taiyo mentioned it in one of the letters he sent to Sarabi," she explained, "and Sarabi told me."
"I see," Gaara said. He hadn't been expecting that, but now that he knew, he was very curious about what Sakura had felt upon learning that information. Had she been jealous then? "Did it bother you?" he couldn't help but ask.
"I'm not bothered by who you're with, Gaara-sama," she said, her tone soft and for a brief moment Gaara wondered whether this was the same, brash Sakura. "As long as you're happy, that's all that matters."
Gaara smiled, touched by the sincerity of her words. "If only that were so," he mused.
She looked up at him. He could feel her leaning slightly in toward his body. He caught a whiff of her vanilla scented shampoo and felt her arm pressed into his where it rested against the rails. "What do you mean?" she asked, her eyes wide, her lashes fluttering. That was a trick he recognized from Matsuri. It was always in the eyes – girls always knew how to bend a man over with just a look.
Though he was annoyed by it, he also couldn't help but want to kiss her. It took immense willpower to keep his eyes locked onto hers, even when hers dipped down to his mouth for just one second. He was amazed by how quickly all those feelings came rushing back to him.
"I have more than my own happiness to think about," he explained. "I have to worry about what's best for Suna. Matsuri wasn't what was best for Suna. Or for me."
"Oh," she said again.
Silence settled around them, but it was comfortable. The breeze was warm and pleasant and Gaara found a different sort of solace than he was used to in Sakura's company. Before when she had been in Suna his feelings for her had been fiery and explosive, but now… Now it was just a smolder, a heat that was still deliciously tempting, but tempered by both of their gained maturity.
"Did you have sex with her?"
"Did I what?"
"Did you have sex with Matsuri?" Sakura asked again. She didn't seem mad, or even jealous as she asked it. Somehow Gaara knew the question was anything but innocent, but again he couldn't help but feel pleased that she was probably jealous.
"That's hardly an appropriate question, Sakura."
"It's just you and me up here," she argued. "We're friends, remember? You can tell me that sort of thing."
"Is that so?" he asked. "Do you talk to Naruto about 'this sort of thing?'"
Sakura laughed, to his surprise. "Of course I do," she said. "That's how I know he's a virgin."
Gaara blinked and Sakura giggled again. He watched her profile as she looked out toward the dunes. Her eyes were unfairly bright in the sunlight and if she looked at him just so, if she caught his gaze again and fluttered those stupid pink lashes, he might have given her the answer she must have wanted.
"I did have sex with her," he offered, wincing as he said the words aloud. He didn't want that information to hurt her feelings, and though he might have denied it to himself, he didn't want to hurt his chances of rekindling anything with her either.
She took a step back from the railing and surveyed him with intense scrutiny. He watched her eyes trail from his face down the entire length of his body before coming back up to meet his eyes again. The appraisal sent sharp heat through his gut. Even in the heat of the noon sun, Gaara could feel goosebumps erupt on his arms.
"Why do you want to know?" he asked, suddenly unnerved by her attention.
Her appraisal didn't stop there, though. She walked around him in a circle, her eyes drinking him in in his entirety. He felt annoyed, but also a little turned on at the same time.
"Do I look different now that I'm not a virgin?" he asked.
Her eyebrow flew up in surprise and he was pleased to have caught her off guard with the question. God knows she caught him off guard enough.
"Do I look different?" she asked.
"Are you not a virgin anymore?" he asked. He couldn't stop himself from wondering who she might have slept with. It was even harder to stop himself from imagining what she must be like during sex. Not even a second after he felt his cheeks start to warm up, Sakura giggled again.
"That's not an appropriate question, Gaara-sama."
"Sasuke is still at large," Gaara continued. "So it couldn't have been him. And you said Naruto is still a virgin, so it's not him, either."
The smile on her face dropped immediately. The entire atmosphere darkened with her expression and Gaara suddenly regretted discussing this topic with her.
"I think I'm going to go find Sarabi," she said softly, keeping her gaze far from his eyes. She walked toward the ladder, but Gaara's arm shot out to block her path.
"Wait," he said. "I'm sorry. I know he's a sore subject. I won't bring him up again."
Sakura froze in place, watching him with hesitancy and what Gaara thought might have been fear. The expression looked out of place on her now. There were cheers and shouts down below them – the festivities still in full swing. She was as well protected as Gaara could have her, surrounded by his shinobi, her own teammates, and even he himself. Whatever it was that brought fear to her eyes frightened him, too.
"Please," he said patiently. "Please stay."
"Fine," she said, her eyes blazing as she shifted out of his reach and returned to her spot on the railing, "but don't bring up Sasuke again – especially around Naruto."
"Noted," he said dryly, absolutely burning with curiosity now.
He moved to stand beside her again, this time giving her a few more inches of space. Together they watched the winds pull sands from dune to dune, listening to the villagers celebrating down below.
"I'm still a virgin," Sakura said so softly Gaara had to strain to her hear.
He didn't quite know what to say to that. He was happy to hear that, though he would never tell her that. There was a primal instinct to keep her that way, but he knew that was ridiculous.
"Ugh, why are you grinning like that, you pervert?"
Gaara cleared his throat and straightened his tunic, feeling only a little self-conscious. He opened his mouth speak but didn't really have any words.
"So what's sex like?"
Gaara closed his mouth and furrowed his brow. "Well, it's…" He closed his mouth again, watching her watch him. Her eyes were wide and curious, not judgmental or jealous at all. There was a façade of innocence in the gentle flutter of her lashes, but he knew the question was anything but.
"It's what?"
Gaara suddenly felt trapped, regretting not letting her go when she wanted to leave before. Of all the conversations he imagined having with Sakura over the years, he never though he'd be discussing with her what sex felt like – certainly not sex with Matsuri, who was really his only frame of reference.
But nothing about Sakura's demeanor was accusatory. He hadn't done anything wrong – he was well within his rights to have had a girlfriend. He wished he didn't feel guilty about it because it wasn't something he should feel guilty for.
"I've heard it's painful for some women," Sakura explained. She was looking out toward the desert, twisting her fingers together almost nervously. The wind blew strands of her hair across her face, tangling in her lashes and eyebrows.
Hesitantly, Gaara reached out and tucked the loosened strands back behind her ear, grazing her cheekbone with his thumb. Her skin was incredibly soft, just as he remembered it. She gasped as their skin connected and turned to give him a curious look.
"I would never hurt you," he said.
He was dangerously close to kissing her. He could so easily lean in and press his lips to hers. After three years of training himself not to think of her, of moving on from what he thought of as nothing more than a hormonal teenage fling, Gaara found himself not caring about the reasons for trying to forget about her. She was here now and this feeling – he couldn't describe it and he wasn't all that interested in doing so. All he knew was that he wanted to chase it, to feel it for as long as he could before she was gone again.
His eyelids felt very heavy and he leaned forward, feeling pulled towards her by some magnetic force.
But then she laughed and it was such a cold, demeaning sound that it sent a shiver down Gaara's spine. He leaned away from her, feeling a little hurt.
"Just what are you implying, Gaara-sama?" she asked, pressing a delicate hand to his chest to push him away even further. He hadn't even realized how close to her he had moved.
He should have felt embarrassed having been caught implying that he wouldn't hurt her if they had sex while obviously attempting to kiss her. It would be far too hard to explain that he hadn't meant to imply that, and well, he kind of did mean to imply it.
"Is it unnerving to you that things feel exactly the same between us as they did three years ago?" Gaara asked her, redirecting the conversation. As close as he had just been to kissing her, he didn't want to have sex on the brain.
"They don't feel the same to me, Gaara-sama."
"They don't?" he asked, now feeling rather vulnerable.
"I thought you had a girlfriend, you know," she said pointedly. "So I moved on."
Gaara felt a painful constriction in his chest. The sting of rejection was sharp and unprecedented in him. He'd had low expectations regarding her visit to Suna, but now that he was faced with the prospect of having her in his palace walls and not being able to kiss her, even just once, left him feeling crushed.
Realizing that her hand was still pressed against his chest, he moved his own hand to cover it, to push it away, but she moved her palm up to his shoulder and then the side of his neck, and finally his face. She was smiling at him in such a strangely arrogant way that he kind of wanted to smack her, but her touch felt deliciously soft, and if this could be the last time he'd ever touch her, he wanted to soak it all in.
"But to tell you the truth, Gaara-sama, I'm kind of enjoying how badly you want to kiss me right now."
He narrowed his eyes at her, torn between wanting to admonish her for her cruelty or kiss her. "But now you know that I don't have a girlfriend," he said.
"Yep!" she said with insane brightness. "I'm tucking that bit of information away for later. It looks like the festival is starting now, so maybe we should head to the marketplace."
Gaara bit his lip, not feeling so great about the way this conversation had gone.
Sakura's gaze softened and she let out a sigh. "Come on," she said, pushing him gently toward the ladder.
