Hey, I'm listening to Shostakovich 24 Preludes & Fugues, and I got the urge to write smut (really though it's non-graphic because I'm a wimp and I just want an excuse to slap an M rating on something that isn't bloody or violent, like the other things lying around on my Microsoft Word).

This fic is technically a stand alone, but you can view it as a sort of tribute to time between events of "Fluid" if you wish.

They'd met seldom before they were legal adults. A passing view at Chuunin exams, and a few occasions when she'd visited Suna with other shinobi to study the desert plant life.

They'd spoken seldom before before they were consciously interested. A polite nod, a shy bow, and a few exchanged pleasantries when he'd been accompanied by guard and she by fellow co-workers on her flora-based mission.

They had never seen each other before then, it had seemed. She'd never known Gaara before he'd changed, before Shukaku had been forcefully removed from him. He'd never known Hinata before her hair had grown out, before she could speak without the vibrato of uncertainty plaguing her every syllable and consonant.

They slid in and out of each other's lives easily. She'd sleep easy at night, he just didn't sleep, and no troublesome fancies of forever entered either mind.

She began appearing more often in his life after they turned twenty-five. Often in the dead of a bleak Suna night she would be in a mask and swathed in shadows, conveying information from her Hokage to him, delivering scrolls not in her handwriting, waiting for the affirmative nod from his form that let her know she was free to make the two-day journey back to Konoha.

He began to linger in her mind more often in the months before she turned twenty-six. On narrow paths through desert sands in the apex of night, she would remember the way light played over his hair when it came in through the window behind his study desk. She mused over the way it shadowed his face and hair and make him appear not all there, but oppressing and lurking in the same moment. He intrigued her.

The more they came in contact with each other, the easier it became to communicate through looks alone. She knew, almost instinctively, what he was telling her in his harsh stares. He knew she was not waiting, nor was she rushing anything. There seemed, to them, to be an air or what-ifs and half-questions and answers surrounding them at all times. And the eternal opportunity of Find Out.

The first time they discovered, it was a mutual initiation. She stood, like so many times before, swathed in the light of the moon as it seeped in through the window panes behind his form. He always sat in a chair that looked uncomfortable at a desk that was plain and well-worn.

He rose and came around the right (to her) side of his desk and stood facing her. She turned to face him too. He was at least a head taller than she, and now the right side of his face was illuminated with an ethereal blue glow, the left being plunged into the depths of obscurity. She imagined it was an exact mirror of her own face.

It was a respectful distance from her he had chosen to stand. Not that anyone was there to judge or measure or witness. He surveyed her with slightly narrowed eyes, she stared back neutrally.

Do you always take an alternate route to the obvious,

Do you,

I want you,

I want you,

Who's thinking,

I don't know,

Move,

They stepped with their right feet, one of them noted, as they came halfway and his head bent while hers craned upward. Their lips connected silently, her hands still held loosely at the wrists behind her, his still crossed in front of his chest.

He woke up the next morning, an out-of-place observation in itself. He turned his head to the left to find a spray of inky hair on his pristine pillow. Her face remained poised in sleep, facing towards him and supported by one hand. The sheets twisted around their waists, baring their chests to the air of an approaching dawn. The curtains were drawn at the window behind her sleeping back, but he intrinsically knew that it must be close to four in the morning.

He noted how their limbs had ended up. She lay on her right side, left leg bent slightly up and her right arm bent in the space between them. He was on his back, one arm bent behind his head and one on his chest. The space between them was less than a foot.

Her eyelids slid open slowly, but he could see the awareness in the lavender irises, and knew she would not be one to awake groggily. Like himself. She raised her head slightly and gave him a small upturning of one corner of her mouth before raising up to sit.

He propped himself up on his elbows to observe her as she swiftly stretched her arms and rolled her shoulders and neck. He noted the red patches dispersed on her torso, looked at himself, and noted yet more.

They rose and dressed, looked each other over to make sure all was in order, and entered his study again.

I'll be going,

Yes,

I'll be back

Of course

The second time they came together she was vacationing in Suna eight months later, studying alternative healing therapies as an added bonus. She was sitting propped up upon her hands on the roof of a foreign building at nine in the night, watching the full moon pass in and out of view through clouds that maybe hinted at summer rains. The feeling of a foreign entity snaking its way towards her permeated her senses, and when she turned her head, she was met with the form of Gaara mimicking her position, sand retreating back into his gourd.

They sat in silence a few moments before Hinata posed her legs as if she were sitting side saddle as she turned to face him and pull his head down to mesh their slightly-chapped lips together. Her world shifted and she felt her weight sink into what was unmistakably a futon before her instincts took over and the rest of the night was nothing but a collection of muted sounds and pronounced textures to her memory.

She woke up, and this time the added weight of someone's arm on her waist made her smile. Her nose was pressed against his chest and her legs curled around one of his. The sheet was almost entirely discarded this time, resting somewhere around her knees, it felt. The hand she had pressed to his chest began a slow exploration of somewhat familiar territory. The window behind his back let in moonlight through curtains that were partially open, and she used the contrast of shadows as a sort of map; covering first what she could see, then venturing into darker territory.

As she raised herself slightly, she heard a slight chuckle. Her eyes fell upon his, open and amused.

"You're awake," his voice was reminiscent of sex but still alert. She smiled and continued tracing the muscle of his back.

"Yes. Feel free to occupy yourself for a while." He chuckled again and the hand now resting on her hip began a lazy path upwards along her side, following the ridges of her ribs outlined by the moonlight. Soon she found his mouth once again attached to her, her fingers wound into his hair as her head tilted back and she sighed softly. He smiled into her chest and outright grinned as she flipped them over so she could return the favor.

The third time he came to her in Konoha after a diplomatic meeting with Tsunade. He had found her in her apartment over her shop at eleven at night. She opened the door and ushered him in swiftly before he turned, shut it again sharply, and proceeded to keep her up until three in the morning.

When they had finally begun to breathe normally again, Hinata rolled onto her stomach and laid a cheek on her hands, surveying him quizzically. He propped himself up on one elbow and his free hand wandered to her back.

"Why here?" She whispered.

"I have been informed that a political marriage between Suna and Konoha would be beneficial to both cities." He said in a monotone. She noted the deliberate way his hand tried to flatten to completely come in contact with her skin.

"I can only marry someone who is head or to succeed the head of a prominent clan," he said as his gaze slid to rest upon her. She nodded.

A silence followed and she sighed as his palm molded itself to her shoulder blade and the tips of his fingers applied pressure to the sore intercostal muscles below it.

"You no longer live in the Hyuuga compound," he said, almost noted, to the air.

"No. My father was murdered and he had already chosen Hanabi to succeed him. I left," she said, looking directly at him. He nodded in understanding and his hand slid around to rest on the mattress on her other side as he lowered himself down and lay his head next to hers, one ankle crossing with hers.

"I would have too," he said softly to her. She closed her eyes, savoring the double meaning he knew she knew were in those words. She felt a long-absent burn behind her eyelids and was frustrated at the fact that her leaving the clan would not have changed the fact that this opportunity was barred to her. It hurt both more and less knowing.

She felt his eyes on her and cracked one eyelid open, a tear escaping as she waited for him to do something. He pulled her more securely against himself.

"I'll see how long I can hold it off," she nodded.

The fourth and the fifth and the sixth and the seventh all swirled together until he'd lost track by the time they'd both turned thirty-eight. By then neither Suna nor Konoha were war-racked and on good terms, therefore supplying Tsunade with more sake. She decided with the Suna council that Gaara should be wed before he was forty, to ensure both an heir for him, and to get Inuzuka Hana to comply with the demands of her clan.

Gaara was informed after the decision was made, and the next day he was whisked off to Konoha to meet his equally-unexcited future bride. The formalities were performed; he set a date with the Inuzuka clan matriarch, and finally spoke in private to Hana.

She was agreeable enough. "If you wish to see someone, you may continue to do so, granted that you don't wind up with their child or get caught." He said as soon as he was sure the last pair of ears had left the wall on the other side of the door. Hana had the intelligence to act surprised. Then she smirked and thanked him, granting him the same permission.

He sought out Hinata later that night, speaking with her over tea at her flat.

"Hana? I never thought she'd wed," Hinata said with a small smile from the other side of her table. Gaara nodded.

"She and I agreed that the other may continue whatever we may or may not have started before now as long as it's discrete," he said as he stirred the liquid in his cup. She nodded and set her tea down.

"But you don't want to," "Nor do you,"

They surveyed each other for a moment. "It's safer this way," she said. He nodded and drained what was left in his cup.

"You should know that I'm not expecting you to hold on to this forever," he said. She smiled sadly at him. "You should know that I will, but I'm not going to mourn it," She replied. He smiled back at her and leaned over the tabletop, placing a kiss to her forehead, "Me too,"

The wedding came a year later in Konoha and most everyone from both cities involved was present. Gaara had little time to mingle before the vows were exchanged, but afterwards he remembered trying to convince himself he was not craning his neck every time someone with dark hair caught his vision. Hana dutifully stood by his side, but they both parted ways an hour later. He found Hinata speaking with Ino about different varieties of tulip under a small tent for mutual acquaintances.

He greeted them both and tried not to flinch at Ino's sheer volume, and Hinata managed to save the situation by pointing out Shikamaru and Choji a few tents over, and Ino promptly excused herself to catch up with her old team.

"How are you?" she asked after Ino was gone and they had sat down across the table from each other. He shrugged.

"I've been less bored," she laughed and the corner of his mouth turned up before he became serious again. "And yourself?" she looked at him again and shrugged as well.

"I've been less well-rested," he did smile then, and she beamed back at him.

"How is the shop?" "Still doing well, though I swear I can feel the plants seeping into my bones these days." She looked him directly in the eye as she said this, and he felt himself nodding in acceptance.

"You should get going. We'll look strange," she said finally. He nodded again before he got up and they shook hands, heading in opposite directions.

Hinata smiled as she opened her palm after she was alone in the bathroom and discovered the seeds of a lavender plant that had been pressed into her palm.

Blah, not the best thing I've ever written, but I wanted to try.