Standard disclaimers apply. I'm just borrowing these characters for a little while.
This fanfic exist ONLY on AO3 (under the username AviumR) and FFnet. Translations are not allowed. Any other versions of this fanfic elsewhere is completely unauthorised and should be reported.
The first time Haruno Sakura manhandled the Fifth Kazekage into the nearest broom closet, she almost caused an international incident.
One moment, Gaara had been walking down the deserted hallways of the Hokage Building, and the next, his left arm was abruptly seized and he was yanked headlong into a nearby room. It was only when the door clicked shut did the too-cramped quarters inform him that he had been unceremoniously shoved into a janitor's closet of sorts.
He barely had time to comprehend the identity of his abductor; the locks of pink hair had flashed in the periphery of his vision just before the darkness of said closet enveloped them.
Sakura Haruno. Naruto's precious person. Also the most formidable medic-nin of her generation, if he remembered the accolades that were heaped upon her after the Fourth Shinobi World War.
He had seen her less than a month ago, when she made her annual pilgrimage to Chiyo's grave to pay her respects. It was her fourth trip to the woman's grave.
The first year she had gone to pay her respects, Suna's ANBU team had lurked behind her, watching her every move. By the end of the day, she had turned towards the Kazekage Building and spoke aloud to no one in particular, "You can just come down and talk, you know."
The next year, he met her at the gate on Chiyo's anniversary and accompanied her as she laid out offerings and whispered her thanks.
And the next.
And just last month.
And now, for some unfathomable reason, she had chosen to drag him into a tiny broom closet and had slapped a hand over his mouth.
"Haruno-san?" He asked against her palm.
"Shush!"
Gaara noticed the way that she was paying attention to the wooden grains of the door behind him, her ears straining towards the outside as she leaned into him. She was clearly hiding from something or someone.
In the distance, he could make out muffled footsteps. The lightness of the steps told him that it was a child, or perhaps a woman. Whoever it was, it could not be so formidable a foe that the famed apprentice of the Fifth Hokage had to resort to hiding from instead of confronting.
The footfalls drew near, and a female voice called out, "Dammit, Forehead-girl! I swear, you better not be trying to weasel your way out of this again!"
Sakura froze, her free hand clenched to her bosom as the palm on Gaara's mouth twitched.
It was only when the footsteps vanished in the opposite direction of the hallway that she finally heaved a loud sigh, and allowed herself to peel away from the young man who was starting to miss the feel of oxygen in his lungs.
"Haruno-san?" He asked once more, rubbing at his jaw to wipe away the sweat from her hand.
In the darkness, he could not make out her facial expression. But she did seem to shrink into herself as she took a step back.
And promptly knocked over a mop, causing the handle to nearly poke him in the ribs.
Fortunately, his Ultimate Defence came to his rescue, and the offending mop was quickly righted and placed back against the wall.
Where were you when she was grabbing me? He silently questioned his sand.
"I'm sorry!" Her voice took on a panicked edge, "I had to get away from Ino, and you were going to tell her where I went!"
Unnaturally luminous jade-green eyes gazed down at her in puzzlement. "Why would you think that?"
"Ino is as tenacious as a nin-dog. If I didn't tell her what she wanted, she is going to use her mind-reading techniques on me," said Sakura, "Her father worked with the Interrogations Team. She knows a thing or two."
Ah. Female troubles.
"Whatever information she is seeking, I assure you, I won't tell her. Simply because I have no idea what you are talking about," reasoned Gaara.
A loud smack in the broom closet echoed as Sakura slapped her hand to her forehead.
"Of course! Geez, there is no way she would ask a Suna-nin that!"
Their conversation was becoming increasingly one-sided, and Gaara decided it would be a good time to exit said conversation. He cast his sand out lightly to probe for the doorknob, and ordered it to twist open.
Except that it would not.
The useless clicking noise from the rusted tumblers inside the doorknob echoed in the closet as he physically gripped the doorknob and twisted it harder. As if that would help.
"Oh, stars."
Gaara thought it odd of her to sound so dejected over something as simple as a jammed door. They were both extremely powerful shinobi who could tear down a wooden door in a fraction of a second. He started shaping his sand into the form of a battering ram and readied it when…
"Don't! We need to be more discreet about this!" Sakura whisper-shouted, "Also, shishou will kill me if I break my third door in the building this month."
Sighing, he allowed the object he was manifesting with his sand to scatter to the floor as useless granules.
"Can I at least pick the lock, then?" He asked.
There was a sound of rummaging inside some fabric, and then Sakura pushed forward, the glint of her lock-picking set catching his eye.
"I can do it. Besides, I need to brush up on my skills."
Gaara tried to shuffle away from her to give her more space to work with. That was practically impossible, given the confines of the closet. The best he could do was to lean into the jugs of cleaning products as she bumped up against his thigh, kneeling down to fiddle with the doorknob.
After a few seconds, Sakura asked, "What brings you to Konoha today?"
The least he could do was to make polite conversation. Unlike his fangirls who tried to wheedle him into small talk of no consequence, whenever he spoke to Sakura, she displayed a sharpness of mind he found refreshingly different.
"The next Chunin Examinations will be held in Sunagakure four months from now. We have not held them in our village for almost a decade. I was seeking advice from your Hokage on the test perimeters."
Sakura made a humming noise as she prodded her picks harder into the keyhole, then turned to face him. "Shouldn't that be Temari-san's job to liaise between the two villages on such matters?"
"Temari has been busy with other matters. I wanted to speak with Hatake-san on something else, anyway."
She nodded, understanding that if Gaara did not volunteer more information, it was clearly a private matter that did not merit her poking her nose into.
"Ha!"
The doorknob clicked loudly as it finally unlatched from the jamb, and she threw up her hands in victory.
Clocking Gaara in his cheek and just missing the corner of his eye.
Why did his sand not come to his aid again?
"Sorry! Let me look at that real quick," Sakura gasped in horror at her faux pas, the light from the hallway leaking into the closet and allowing her to see what damage she had done.
Gaara, in the meantime, was trying to blink away the instinctive tear threatening to fall from his eye which she had narrowly missed poking out.
"I'm fine, Haruno-san," he muttered, trying to lean away from her advancing hands.
"Don't be ridiculous, Kazekage-sama. I don't need an international incident on my hands because I accidentally blinded you," Sakura's soft fingertips touched his jawline, and she began to tilt his head towards the light to assess the damage.
The sight of that lone teardrop rolling down his cheek made both shinobi freeze completely. Sakura's gaze had gone wide with surprise, while Gaara's had narrowed in confusion.
Thus, they were both not paying attention to the returning footsteps thudding down towards them.
"Found you! Oh my g-"
Both shinobi whipped their heads simultaneously towards the doorway, just in time to catch Ino covering her mouth in shock.
"I gotta go! I am so sorry!" Sakura squeaked out as she drew her hands back to herself and took off in the opposite direction as fast as her feet could carry her.
Which left one gawking Yamanaka female with the Kazekage, who had now raised his arm to wipe his face against his sleeve even if there was no hiding that unruly teardrop.
"Kazekage-sama," Ino greeted diplomatically with a polite bow.
The Cheshire grin on her lips was a complete contrast to her mannerism.
Gaara was gone in a swirl of sand, not wanting to entertain his present circumstances a second longer.
Later that night, whilst at a dinner with the Konoha council, the smiling Sixth Hokage kindly pointed out the bleached-out spots on his robe to him.
Gaara had his tailor send the bill to the Hokage's office afterwards.
The next time Gaara found himself hauled into a broom closet, it was in the Sunagakure General Hospital.
The Chunin Examinations were in full swing, and as part of his duties, he paid a visit to the injured visiting shinobi at the hospital daily. Baki had explained that though it was tedious, his presence would at least show that he cared for the well-being of foreign shinobi, and by that extension, that he cared for their villages.
Konoha, as a show of the strength of their alliance, had sent a team of medic-nin. While some on his council had perceived it as a slight on the abilities of their own medic-nin, Gaara had offered his thanks to the Hokage, understanding that he was parting with some of his best shinobi in the process. If just for a short while.
It was one such medic-nin who had wrestled him into the closet that he was now in, and had he not once again recognised the pink-haired kunoichi as her hands made contact with his arm, he would have struck out physically.
His sand, once again, had failed him.
"Haruno-san?" He asked the shadowed figure.
The light bulb clicking on overhead blinded him for a moment, and when he could finally see again, his eyes registered the straightened form of Sakura.
He noted, with a small measure of pride, that Suna's closets were more spacious than those in the Hokage Building.
"Sorry, sorry," she murmured, running her hand through her shiny pink locks as she glared at the door, "But I thought you'd appreciate this."
He cocked an invisible eyebrow at her, "Why would I appreciate being manhandled into a hospital broom closet?"
Sakura placed a finger over her own lip, and walked over to flip the light switch off.
In the darkness, their other senses sharpened, and both shinobi picked up what sounded like a stampeding herd of cattle coming down the corridors.
The squeals. The shierks.
It was his fanclub.
Gaara held his breath, not daring to exhale the entire time while the group scrambled past them.
Have they no respect for the ailing and the injured?
The inordinately long corridor (Gaara was going to speak to the building's designer on that decision when they do a much-needed remodelling) finally spat out the group in a different direction, and both shinobi started breathing once more.
Sakura, inexplicably, began to giggle.
Gaara's sand flicked the light bulb on again, and he was more prepared this time for the blinding brightness.
"I fail to find the humour in this situation, Haruno-san," he replied as he crossed his arms.
"Oh, stuff it, Kazekage-sama," she smiled up at him, and when did he grow taller? "You are absolutely scared of those tiny, squealing kunoichi's of yours."
Was he scared? No.
Was he horrified? Yes.
The female vocal cord should in no way be able to reach such an octave. It was beyond his comprehension and that of the natural order of things.
"I appreciate the save, Haruno-san. Perhaps dinner will be in order?" He offered.
"First of all, it's Sakura, Kazekage-sama," she lightly corrected him, then tilted her head in a questioning manner, "And are you sure you want to extend an invitation to just me? It can be misconstrued as favouritism."
Gaara clicked his tongue, annoyed at her logic. In that moment of silence between them, he allowed himself to fully take her in, noting her preference for short-sleeves despite the intensity of the sunlight in his village. She was going to get sunburnt if she did not cover up her smooth, firm arms better. And her barely black-clad legs, exposed halfway up her thighs, were going to get scorched as well.
If Sakura noticed him scrutinising her choice of attire, she made no mention of it.
"The entire medic team, then? As thanks for your hard work." He countered, finally drawing his gaze back up to meet hers.
"Sure, that works. I think most of us should be free after the last genin team checks in at five, Kazekage-sama," said Sakura
"Gaara."
"Pardon?" Bright emerald-greens blinked at him.
"My name. You will address me by it if you wish me to address you by yours."
"You drive a hard bargain, Gaa-ra," she dragged his name out on her tongue, rolling her eyes, "I'll see you later."
With a bow, she opened the closet door and checked quickly for any passers-by. Content that the coast is clear, she strode out into the corridor and vanished out of sight.
Gaara, meanwhile, was holding onto the doorknob in one hand and silently admiring the workmanship of his people that ensured no repeat incident of being accidentally locked in.
That's a shame, his mind thought traitorously.
The third time Gaara felt his world tipped off its axis before he was rudely spun into yet another broom closet, it was several months later at a banquet hall in Kirigakure.
The Mizukage had finally trapped… no, gained herself a husband; A respectable minor lord had caught her eye when they met at the Chunin Examinations, and after a whirlwind courtship that Mei had deemed far too long, nuptials were quickly arranged and invitations sent out to each Kage and their highest-ranking shinobi.
"We have to stop meeting like this," Gaara grimaced as the doorknob dug into his back.
Sakura was pressed firmly to his front, and she was not stepping back. Neither was she letting go of the lapels of this ridiculous monkey suit his sister had forced him into. Perfectly manicured hands rested on his chest, pale against the deep maroon of his attire.
This was problematic for a teenage male.
"Shhhh," she admonished, "I need to get away from him."
"Who?" Gaara's answer was breathed against the crown of pink hair, his hands scrabbling against the door behind him as he tried to find somewhere decent to rest them.
"Ao," she whispered, "Tsunade-shishou told me to… actually, I can't tell you, sorry."
Her answering words were puffed hotly against his neck, the extremely tight confines that they had found themselves in not allowing her to stop leaning against the young Kazekage.
Who was quickly losing his composure after those few non-dates they had gone on during the Chunin Examinations as he took her around his village to show off his pride and joy. He had wined and dined her under the pretext of improving village relations, while delighting in the way that she had playfully responded to his awkward non-romantic advances with platonic, tender touches.
At least, that's what he told himself.
He glanced downwards as discreetly as a man in his position could, his right hand taking a corner of her shimmery red dress, feeling the cool satin slide between his fingertips.
The dress he could care less for.
It was the quietly heaving bosom, and the sly peek of the white lace bra underneath that made his Adam's apple bob in a suddenly wet swallow. If he slid down those miserable excuses for the straps that held her gown up, she would be completely exposed to his gaze.
Sakura suddenly went completely still against him, and he inwardly panicked, thinking he had been caught staring at inappropriate parts of her body. But she said nothing, the once-rhythmic press of her chest against his coming to a complete halt as her eyes widened.
"Oh, stars. He's outside, he's going to find me!"
Gaara still did not know why he had been literally dragged into his current predicament. What he did know was that he had to help the kunoichi that he had come to care for, to protect her from the politickings that her mentor had sent her out to do.
A thin sheet of sand slid upwards from the ground, coating and covering every gap in the doorway as it did so to envelope them in a sound barrier. Once the sand sheet had crept to the top of the closet, it solidified enough for Gaara to rest his full weight against.
They waited with bated breaths as Sakura sent her chakra out, scanning for the tall shinobi that had been trailing her. Ao was milling around, annoyed that he had lost track of his pink-haired target, and it seemed like forever before he was content to go searching elsewhere for her.
It was when Gaara's hands slipped to her hips, to encircle them within his warmth, that Sakura finally realised what was happening between them.
"Excuse me, Gaara, but what are you doing?" Her voice was pitched a little higher in mild panic.
"Copping a feel," he answered truthfully, as he pushed himself back against the sand wall, "It seems a little unfair if only one of us gets to do this."
That was when Sakura noticed where her own hands were, and they should not under any circumstances be cupped around the Kazekage's derrière. And definitely not squeezing them like her life depended on it.
In the darkness, he could almost make out the blush that was forming on her cheeks.
It was a very fetching look on her.
"Hey," he whispered a hair's breadth away from her lips, "Is this ok?"
He felt her nod more than he saw it, and that was all it took for his lips to press against hers in the first of many more to come in the next ten minutes.
By the time he felt he had tasted enough of the sweetness from her mouth, they were both panting and grinding against each other in the too-small space, and the hardness that Sakura could feel pushed up against her thigh made her whine with want. She groped him firmly, relishing in the heat that was radiating off the suddenly not-so-silent male in front of her.
It was too bad that the closet door decided to give way behind them, there and then.
Gaara's thin sand wall kept them upright enough to not fall tail-over-head, but they both slid down into a heap of tangled limbs anyway.
Shame-faced, Sakura quickly re-adjusted her fallen dress straps and forced herself to look upwards to see who had interrupted their wholly-inappropriate and extremely satisfying make-out session.
A beaming Tsunade, slightly tipsy from the excellent sake that their host had provided, was standing over them while taking a generous swig from a tokkuri.
"Excellent work, Sakura," she smirked, "That business with Ao I don't care much for, but Gaara here… he matches your colours, at least."
Gaara's eyes hardened at the former Hokage's words, and he hissed through clenched teeth as he glared towards the pink-haired kunoichi, "A seduction mission?"
Sakura would have laughed out loud at the insanity of the situation, except that Gaara was still keeping her firmly against him by pinning his hands against the small of her back as he glared at her.
She shook her head, sighing, "I don't do seduction missions. I'm not cut out for those."
Then more quietly as she leaned down to rest her forehead against his, she added, "I can't separate sex from…"
The rest of the sentence went unsaid, and Gaara's eyes softened as he pulled her upwards into a sitting posture, resolutely ignoring the hard-drinking blonde walking away from them.
"Seduce me," he ordered, watching those emerald-green eyes that he love widen in surprise, "I don't separate those, either."
He leaned forward to press a chaste kiss to her forehead, and when he pulled back, Sakura felt him drop something into her hands.
A magnetic keycard.
"I'll be at the VIP complex. Room twelve," he planted a softer kiss against her cheek, "Come to me later."
The shy nod of her head made his heart stutter in a burst of joy.
A soft bed with even softer sheets was much better than a closet, Gaara concluded, as the whimpering, squirming kunoichi under his drew him close, milking his cock with the firm, sinful pulses of her own orgasm, whispering words of love as he promised her all of forever.
It was getting to be an unfortunate fetish of theirs, Sakura concluded morosely, as she was bodily hauled around the waist and tossed into a pile of clothing in their small laundry room.
"Really, Gaara?" She tried to look miffed at his roughness, her hands on her hips as she glared at him from the floor, "You can't even let me do the laundry first?"
"I told you before," he growled as he advanced towards her to pin her in place with his bracketing arms, and that should not make heat gather in her loins at recognising the lust in his gaze, "If the Kazehime insists on doing the laundry instead of letting the servants handle it, we might as well make sure that they are really filthy enough to merit your personal attention."
He bumped his nose against her, a silent plea for her lips to answer his call. She leaned forward and pecked him softly and sweetly on his mouth, just as…
"Daddy? Mummy!"
A wall of sand slamming against their much-abused laundry door should not make her laugh as hard as she did.
The doorknob rattled mutely from behind the sand, as two sets of tiny hands fought to twist it open while banging futilely.
"No fair! You don't get to play hide-and-seek behind Daddy's sand! That's cheating!" Whined a young girl.
"It's closet time," barked Gaara back towards the door, "Go back to your rooms."
"Come on," an exasperated-sounding boy coaxed from the outside, "You won't get anywhere with Dad until he's done with his closet time."
When he turned back to look at his wife, she was trying her best to stifle a series of giggles behind her hand. The children outside had stopped trying to break down the door and were now toddling away.
Gaara loathed the day that their children would come into their mother's monstrous strength. Privacy would be a relic of the past once that happened.
Sakura patted his tensed shoulders in understanding, her heart skipping at the sight of the jade-green eyes now fully focused on her.
"Ten minutes?" She whispered coyly.
He considered his wife's proposal, licking his lip unconsciously as he did so. A Kazekage would never take the first offer on the table, so he countered firmly:
"Make it twenty."
Sakura's indulgent kiss sealed the deal.