Gaara was missing.
When Sakura stirred the next morning, the sun was already high up in the sky. A glance at the small alarm clock she kept by her futon told her that it was close to noon, and she found herself spiralling down a string of self-admonition. Not only had she overslept, she forgot to give Gaara his chakra-replenishing tea last night (he must be thrilled), and now, she had lost track of her patient.
Willing herself to calm down, Sakura quickly made herself presentable in the bathroom, and made a quick search both inside and around the shack. The sand-cat was missing, and so was Gaara's gourd; What an odd combination.
"Sakura, what are you doing?" asked Katsuyu as she poked her head out of the window to look at the panicking kunoichi running in the snow.
"Katsuyu-sama! Do you know where the Kazekage went?"
"The Kazekage spoke to Baki-san earlier while you were still sleeping. You will need to ask him where your patient went," there was a mild rebuke in Katsuyu's voice as she made sure to hammer home the fact that Sakura had slipped up in her duty in tending to the Kazekage's well-being.
Not certain if Katsuyu was upset at her growing closeness to the Kazekage, or at whatever agreement Gaara had weedled out of her yesterday, Sakura sent out a chakra pulse in the direction of the mountain where she knew the ANBU team was.
A few seconds later, a familiar grey-eyed ANBU member appeared beside her, bowing low as he asked, "You have summoned, Haruno-san?"
Under normal circumstances, she would have felt awkward for not having learnt the shinobi's name during their last encounter. However, ANBU members were fiercely protective of their secret identities, and she had to be satisfied with acknowledging him by his unique eye colour.
"Gure-san, I'd like to speak to Baki-san, please."
If the ANBU member was put-off by her chosen name for him, he did nothing to indicate so. He placed a hand to his chest as he bowed, then vanished once more.
When Gure returned, it was not with Baki, but with three other ANBU members instead.
The tallest member of their team approached and explained, "Baki-san and the Kazekage left for the beach several hours ago. They have taken some of our team with them as well. Kazekage-sama had left instructions for us to bring you to them once you are awake."
Fighting the urge to mutter a few colourful curses about her charge, Sakura could only nod, "Please give me ten minutes to pack some supplies, and we can leave."
"Of course, Haruno-san."
"You are going to be trouble, Gaara-sama."
"When am I not with anyone, Baki?"
Baki shook his head at Gaara's words, eyes trained on the recovering young man as he went through his katas with his gourd strapped to his back. For someone who had his chest torn open less than a week ago, his movements were surprisingly fluid. Gaara had chosen this nearby beach to train at after learning about it from Baki, the thin layer of snow on the beach doing little to impede his movements.
He could work out with the sand in his gourd, but he had imbued so much chakra into those granules over the years that it was no longer a challenge to summon and command them; The sand on the beach offered him a fresh supply that he could push himself with.
"I meant with Sakura-san."
Gaara allowed a soft chuckle to escape his lips as he swept his right foot behind himself in a graceful arc, sliding smoothly into his next form, "That is to be expected. She would not allow me to train, and I have been threatened more than once with forced bedrest. The latest threat involved chakra-infused ropes if I were to disobey."
Baki fought the urge to slap his hand over his face. He was never comfortable about his former student going through puberty, and watching him court and now seduce a woman was something he would rather not be a witness to. Especially if it seemed like they both had some rather… outlandish ideas about how the process of coitus was to be initiated. Which seemed to involve chakra a lot, for some reason.
"Perhaps her idea has some merit to it, Gaara-sama," at Gaara's raised brow bone, he quickly added, "You have just survived more than one injury that would have killed a normal man. The war is at an impasse right now, and you should take this opportunity to rest as much as you can."
Although Baki had not taken a stern tone with Gaara, the redhead scowled anyway. As the Regimental Commander to a now massively reduced army, he had to be at his peak physical condition as soon as possible. He had to be an asset to his people, not a burden; Sitting on his arse and feeling his muscles shrivel up from disuse (he was probably exaggerating, but he was definitely starting to feel more antsy these past two days) was not something he wanted to do.
When they had first arrived on the beach, dawn had just broken. Baki had ordered the four ANBU accompanying them to spread out and keep anyone else out of the beach. They had also cast a genjutsu over the area to mask their presence, knowing that the only ones out and about in this area were some fishing boats in the distance. Civilians would not be able to tell if anything was amiss.
Gaara had spent the first two hours meditating in the sand, focusing on getting all his chakra reserves to circulate his body and awaken his muscles. He noted somewhat bitterly that the chakra-replenishing tea had done its work once again, with his chakra levels climbing to seventy percent of his usual stores. A few more nights of that distasteful drink, and he would be back at his full capacity.
This was followed by an hour of using his chakra to manipulate the sand on the beach as he purposefully ignored the ones rattling agitatedly in his gourd, begging to be called to his side instead. It was child's play for him to wield the fresh sand, forming defences and projectiles easily in rapid succession, and in his delight at being in his element, had startled Baki and his ANBU with a literal tsunami of sand thrown seawards. After a moment of secret enjoyment at their alarm, the sand tsunami was rapidly recalled and dropped onto the beach before Baki could panic about him breaking the genjutsu.
His body now warm from his exertions, Gaara then settled into a sand-filled crater and worked on meditating to rebuild his reserves and re-centre his mental state, allowing all thoughts of the war and a certain kunoichi to fade away from his mind. A light snowfall had occurred sometime into his restive state, and he could only ignore the bitter cold for so long before his body craved action once more.
Now, he was going through his katas, blood pumping and pulsing through his relaxed muscles as he tested the smoothness of his taijutsu moves. His dislocated shoulder had healed nicely, and his lungs filled and expanded as if they had not been badly compromised just days ago, allowing him to push himself physically as he slid from one form to the next.
All this time, the sand-cat stayed perched on an outcropping of rocks next to Baki, its bright green eyes watchfully trained on Gaara as he moved up and down the length of the beach. Baki had glanced at it several times throughout the morning, noting that the cat had barely moved the entire time.
So when the sand-cat suddenly lifted its head and started purring, he recoiled in reflex, almost expecting to be attacked by it once again.
Baki heaved a quiet sigh of relief when the sand-cat darted off towards the grassy knolls at the edge of the beach; The approaching chakra signatures belonged to the other ANBU members and the Regimental Commander's personal medic, and soon, a head of pink peaked over the dunes and came into sight.
"Sakura-san," he greeted mildly as the fuming kunoichi approached.
He noted that she was carrying her pouch of medical supplies, and a flask that no doubt held the freshly-brewed bane of his Kazekage's existence.
"Baki-san," she smiled back tightly, "How long has he been working out for?"
"Not too long," Baki turned back to watch Gaara, noting that he was coming to the end of his current sequence of movements, "Kazekage-sama had spent the better part of the morning meditating. I won't let him over-exert himself."
Somewhat chastised by Baki's reminder that he too, cared for Gaara's well-being, Sakura could only nod as she stood next to Baki. Together, they watched Gaara wind down his workout and come to a complete standstill in the sand.
Gaara kept his arms by his side, but he had turned his palms upwards. Slowly, he lifted his arms, fingers spread as his eyes closed. The sand surrounding him began to undulate and swell like small waves, and that made Sakura take a step forward subconsciously as she tried to figure out what he was doing.
"He is connecting to the sand," explained Baki as he caught sight of her movements, "If Kazekage-sama uses sand that he had never touched before, he feeds a bit of his chakra into it, so that he may call it if the need ever arises. It is also his way of thanking it, for obeying his will."
"I have noticed that if there is sand around him, it reacts to his physical state," Sakura added, colouring lightly as she remembered the night when she first witnessed the sand ripple under them both as he climaxed, dunes rolling in sync with his laboured breaths.
With his eyes focused on Gaara, Baki had no idea of the blush that Sakura was sporting, and he nodded in agreement at her observation, "The Kazekage's connection with sand is a profound bond. After Shukaku's extraction, he had to re-learn how to control it, and in the process, had learnt to connect with it on an emotional level as well. The sand feeds off his emotional state as well as his physical state, and now, even sand without his chakra imbued in it will leap to his defence should it feel the need for it. It will never be as fast or strong as his personal sand, of course, but when in a pinch, it works exceedingly well."
It might seem to be too much information to disclose to someone that was not Gaara's immediate family, but somehow, Baki knew that Sakura was someone who could be entrusted with such secrets; She had proven her allegiance to his Kage multiple times in this past half a year alone.
Suddenly, the sand around them stopped moving. A heartbeat later, Sakura found herself lifted into the air on a platform of sand and was being flown towards Gaara. She swallowed a sound of surprise at the gesture, and instead concentrated on steadying herself on the moving platform before she ended up face-planting onto the beach.
She really should have foreseen the wave of sand cresting over them both just as she touched down by his side.
In the darkness of his newly-erected sand dome, Sakura froze, not wanting to risk reaching out blindly and bumping into Gaara. Fortunately, Gaara tapped his hand against her elbow, and once she got over the shock of the warmth in his contact, she allowed him to draw her against his chest.
They stood together silently in an embrace, hearts beating quickly. Gaara, because of his physical exertions, and Sakura, because of her bewilderment.
"Is something wrong?" asked Sakura.
Gaara merely made a small sound of nonchalance against her ear.
He did not want to tell Sakura that his actions were stirred by the presence of a certain ANBU member; When the streak-masked ANBU had arrived soon after she started conversing with Baki, trailing further behind to seem respectful.
The less this lap dog for his council knew about how his sand worked, the better. So he had to bring her to his side and end her exchange with Baki.
Some blame had to be laid on Baki as well. He had voiced to the jonin more than once his mistrust of the streak-masked ANBU assigned to him, and while Baki had shared his uneasiness about the man, he was told in no uncertain terms that removing him from the Kazekage's security detail would only cause his council to find new ways of monitoring him.
As it was once said, it is important to keep one's friends close, and one's enemies closer.
Which was why he found Baki's sudden bout of talkativeness with Sakura dangerous, the secret workings of his sand almost disclosed to the wrong ears. With their focus on Akatsuki and some questionable non-Suna shinobi during this war, it was easy to forget that traitors lurked amongst their own as well.
The soft thump of Sakura's hand against his chest made him pull back to look at her.
"Did you at least have some breakfast before your workout?"
"Baki brought me some bread he had procured from the nearest village," he leaned forward to press his cheek to hers, not the last bit shy about showing her affections in the privacy of his sand dome, "Though, I won't say no to lunch."
He was initially confused when she thrusted the flask that she was holding at him, and when recognition hit, he openly frowned at the stern emerald-green eyes looking back into his.
"You can fill up on this for now. If you had not ran off this morning, you would have gotten some rabbit already," she crossed her arms and huffed, feigning annoyance.
"If I had told you, would you have let me come out here to train?" He replied, knowing exactly why he had to sneak away today like a thief.
To her credit, Sakura at least gave him an honest shake of her head. But she still stubbornly insisted, "I could have been persuaded if you had passed your next assessment."
"Well," he lifted both arms up, holding them parallel to the ground, "You can check now."
Keeping her eyes trained on her hands, Sakura's palms glowed with green chakra as she hovered them over his body starting from his forehead. She ran her scan methodically, going from his head to his torso, down his arms, then finally she drew back with fingers resting against her chin.
His back and side were still bruised and in the process of healing, though he looked perfect from the outside. She shook her head at him, clicking her tongue as she scolded him, "Just because you feel better, doesn't mean that you actually are better, Gaara. You could have strained the new muscles I had to re-grow with your workout today."
Infuriatingly, Gaara shrugged his shoulders, deliberately rolling his right one to show off its flexibility. He watched as fury danced in her eyes, and he had to resist smiling at her obvious anger.
"I won't undo all your hard work, Sakura. I know my own limits," he cocked an invisible eyebrow at her as she looked ready to refute his words, "I needed to test myself, to discern the progress of my recovery."
Knowing a lost battle when she saw one, Sakura could only give him a side-eyed look as she muttered, "Just drink the tea, Gaara."
Sporting his usual grimace, Gaara watched as she poured some of the chakra tea out into the cap-turned-cup of the thermos flask, then he swallowed it down without letting it linger on his tongue for longer than necessary.
"I was wondering," Gaara began, and Sakura paused in her motion of screwing the cap back on, "If it would be possible for me to get a proper bath today?"
If Sakura had been upset with him running off to work out without being cleared by her, she was absolutely livid right now. Her shoulders raised as she shifted forward, she scowled at him and argued, "Absolutely not. You should still be taking it easy for the next day or two. Not risking a fall by getting into a tub, or drowning in it if your muscles seize up!"
"That sounds very dramatic," Gaara intoned dryly, and he tilted his chin defiantly at her, "I am sweaty, and I never feel sufficiently clean from those wipe-downs. My Sand Armour had been off for days, and I feel dirt in places I normally don't."
It was the wrong thing to say, as Sakura suddenly clapped her hands to his jawline and scrubbed at his cheeks with her thumbs, a noise of displeasure emitting from her throat as she felt the fine grains of his sand layered over his skin.
"You are going to burn through all your chakra reserves, using your Sand Armour again soon after awakening!" she chided, "And it is your own fault for working out so hard that you need a bath! Where are we even going to find you a tub?"
"Baki said they would be able to procure one quite easily from the village, and two of my ANBU are Fire Release technique users who will be able to heat up water quickly." It was obvious that he had given his idea some serious thought long before Sakura arrived.
Sakura openly gaped at him.
"State your terms," he said suddenly, sliding his hands over hers to keep them pressed to his jaw, "What is acceptable to you before you will go along with my request?"
Her anger did not make her a good barterer, as Sakura found out in her next words:
"You will not bathe unassisted. I will bathe you instead."
By the time Sakura's brain caught up with her mouth, they were both staring wide-eyed at each other. Sakura found her cheeks starting to warm, and Gaara's knowing smirk did them absolutely no favours. It was no secret that while she had been professional about his wipe-downs since day one, she had only been too glad to toss him the towel to clean his more… personal areas by the second day he was awake. And now, she had somehow bargained herself back into the position of doing so once more.
"Very well. Your terms are agreeable."
Sakura turned her head to the side, suddenly not knowing how to meet his gaze. She was saved from further humiliation when they both noticed the sand at the bottom portion of his dome ripple and shift. Soon after, the sand-cat stood half-inside the sand dome, appearing as if to have melted through the barrier.
That was new.
"I wonder why did Mr. Fluffy-kinds follow you today. I thought he didn't like you very much," Sakura mused as she looked into the sand-cat's glowing green eyes. The sand-cat pressed a raised paw to her foot, then proceeded to wind itself around both their legs as a cat was wont to do.
"Perhaps he decided to watch over me in your stead, to ensure that I didn't strain myself," Gaara offered as an explanation as he watched the movements of the cat.
That the sand-cat could now easily slip through his Ultimate Defence was not a matter of concern, seeing how it was loyal only to the two of them. It was simply unexpected.
Not very dissimilar to the way in which a certain kunoichi had slipped under his guard completely.
Sakura bent down to gather the cat into her arms, and it shifted to stand on her shoulders as soon as she stood up. Gaara soon dropped his sand dome, and looked back in the direction where Baki was standing. The jonin nodded at him in understanding, and signalled to the ANBU that they were heading back.
"I suppose we can have lunch first, since Baki-san will need time to gather what you need."
Gaara smiled softly at her statement; It was her way of conceding to his request in order to not leave either party feeling slighted - a mannerism that was very much hers.
They walked side-by-side back towards the shack, the back of their hands occasionally brushing against each other's. Every time they did so, Sakura bit the inside of her cheek.
Why doesn't he hold my hand?
It was a childish thought, and Sakura was surprised by how it had suddenly manifested. Shikamaru had been reluctant to take her hand in public as well, though it probably had more to do with the fact that they both decided to keep their relationship on the down-low.
However, with his former teacher and a team of ANBU surrounding them, perhaps he was simply not willing to telegraph the extent of their closeness too much. That, and it would not be seemly for a Kage to be caught in public bestowing affections so freely. He had to maintain his demeanour as the most powerful and respected of his people, and that meant no open favouritism.
So she was quite startled when she suddenly felt his pinky pressed against hers resolutely, following the swinging motions of her hand to maintain the contact. After about half a minute of contact, he silently looped his pinky into hers to link their hands together discreetly, the contact half-hidden by the sleeve of his robe.
The gentle upwards curve of his lips reminded her to breathe once more.
Neither of them paid enough attention to notice the ghost of a smile that lingered on Baki's face as he followed a good length behind, too wrapped as they were with their first public show of affection.
Naturally, neither of them saw the scowl behind the facial covering of the streak-masked ANBU member, either.
It was going to take some time to acquire a bathtub; no one on his ANBU team had gone ahead with the task until they made it back to the shack, as Baki and Gaara had agreed that not getting Sakura's sign-off on the entire affair was imprudent at best, and suicidal at its worst.
Once again refusing to let Gaara do much more than to wash some rice, Sakura took on the bulk of their lunch preparations. A fire was quickly lit and water brought to boil, and soon the lightly seasoned rabbit was cooking over a mesh grill.
They were almost done eating lunch by the time the jonin returned from his trip to the village. Baki had outdone himself, having procured a round wooden bathtub that was at least half as tall as himself and even wider across. It barely fitted through the doorway of the shack, and when it was finally set down next to the sunken hearth, it made everything else in the room look comically small in contrast.
Sakura could feel her eyelid twitch in annoyance at the intrusion of that object into their already-tight space (at one point she was certain they would need to tear down the doorway to squeeze it into the shack), as she focused instead on gathering the toiletries Gaara would need. Her charge, meanwhile, merely stood in a corner of the living area and observed the bustle of activity.
Katsuyu waved her tentacles about in an amused manner, then excused herself from the shack together with the sand-cat.
"I'm not fond of soap," was the slug's cryptic reply, as she rode on the sand-cat's back towards the front door.
Katsuyu's very blatant retreat along with the sand-cat's was a concession of sorts from the slug, if he had read her correctly. She was allowing Gaara unsupervised privacy with Sakura for once, and he was not going to waste this chance. He cocked a naked brow at the slug as she rode past him, and received a knowing twitch of her tentacle in return.
Next came a string of ANBU, each carrying pails of water from the well and dumping it into the tub as they formed a bucket brigade to make short work of it. Sakura bit her tongue to avoid commenting on the menial nature of the task being thrusted upon these highly-skilled shinobi, but knew better than to question Gaara's authority in front of others.
Finally, Gure came towards the bathtub, formed several hand seals, then placed his hand into the water. Moments later, steam emitted from the water's surface, and he gave a quick nod before leaving.
"Kazekage-sama, please do not strain yourself unnecessarily," stated Baki suddenly, noting that they were the only three left in the shack.
Gaara scowled at his former teacher, "I am just taking a bath, Baki. That act will not exert me beyond repair."
Baki's eyes darted briefly towards the bedroom, where they could both make out Sakura's silhouette as she moved about gathering… whatever she was gathering. All his toiletries were already neatly arranged in a wooden wash bowl that was floating in the heated water, and a few readied towels were thrown down next to the tub.
It was painfully obvious to both men that she was buying Gaara time to strip himself down and settle into the tub before she made her approach.
Coughing into his fist and suddenly looking away, Baki repeated himself, "Please do not strain yourself, Kazekage-sama."
Oh.
Gaara's only response was to sigh, and stand as he began removing his robe. Having nothing else to add without causing further awkwardness, Baki turned around and left, a quiet farewell uttered to Sakura as he did so. The kunoichi gave him a small wave of her hand, a tight smile on her lips as she watched him leave her to her fate.
"Gaara," Her voice came out a little softer than she would like, "Let me know if you need help getting into the tub."
That was her indirect way of telling him that she trusted he was well enough to undress himself completely, and Gaara had no idea why she was suddenly so flustered, having changed his clothes for him while he was unconscious.
Unless… she had some rather sinful thoughts in mind.
Gaara decided not to get ahead of himself, and focused on the task at hand instead.
Meanwhile, Sakura was looking resolutely out the window in the bedroom, rocking on her heels as she listened to the rustle of fabric coming from the living area. It was strange listening to him disrobe, almost like a blindfolded strip tease…
Oh stars, Sakura! Get a hold of yourself! He's just getting undressed for a bath. You've had to personally undress patients before to give them sponge baths. At least he's doing that part instead. And bathing the Kazekage is no different from bathing anyone else!
Well, perhaps it was very different, seeing how the man before her was someone that she had been intimate with, and not just a stranger she could treat with detached courtesy.
Sakura stayed rooted to the spot until her ears registered the sound of water parting and crashing against the sides of the tub. She gave herself a few extra seconds as a precaution, then turned around to walk back into the living area.
She was not expecting to see the serious expression on Gaara's face.
"Sakura, if you're not comfortable, I completely understand. I am perfectly able to bathe myself without your supervision."
He was giving her an out, and while Sakura was grateful for his considerate nature, she was inwardly frustrated at the man's insistence that he was physically fine.
"You were not given a fixed deadline to recover for a reason, Gaara. I won't have you undoing all my healing efforts if you slip and get hurt. I'm a professional, I can handle this."
Sakura would later argue to herself that the flush on her face as she approached the tub was due to the steam from the water, and not due to her proximity to a certain nude male shinobi.
She reached for the bar of soap in the floating wash bowl and lathered it up against a small hand towel, keeping her eyes on her hands as she did so. Gaara watched her actions with unbidden interest, and turned so that he could present his back to her.
It was certainly easier to start washing him from his back, as it allowed Sakura to escape his scrutiny. What she did not count on was the heat coming off his skin even through the thickness of the scrubbing towel; For one moment, she was convinced that Gaara was actually running a fever.
"Are you feeling alright?" she asked.
"Yes."
Then she noticed that the tips of his ears had turned red, and oh, he must be feeling flustered about his state of undress and her closeness as well. Thank goodness for the steadily increasing amount of foam floating on the water surface from the soap bar that was obscuring… certain things.
Be professional.
Chanting that phrase like a mantra, Sakura steadied her breathing and proceeded with scrubbing him down the same way as she would any other patient. The towel left his skin only to be dipped in water, or to be lathered up against the soap. As she moved from one body part to the next, she lifted and bent his limbs to contort around him, very much aware of how compliant he was being with her.
Maybe it won't be too difficult, after all.
In the meantime, blissfully unaware of the kunoichi's previously inappropriate thoughts towards their current predicament, Gaara was very much enjoying the sensation of having a week's worth (and a death-defying battle's worth, too) of sweat and dirt properly being rinsed off his skin. He was very tempted to close his eyes and let the water wash over him to relax his tired muscles, except that Sakura's hands on him had the completely opposite effect of easing him.
On her part, Sakura noted the definitions of his muscles and the way they flexed as she touched him, and she reminded herself that it would not be professional to ogle, even if the subject of her appreciative eyes was hers to claim.
"Hand me the towel," Gaara interrupted her thoughts with his command.
Sakura irrationally clutched the towel towards herself, dripping water down the outside of the tub.
"What for?" she asked suspiciously.
Gaara lifted a non-existent eyebrow at her, and said, "You can't reach my legs from outside the tub. I'll do it myself."
"And risk you slipping when you stand or bend over? I can handle this, Kazekage-sama."
"Haruno-san," his voice became terse, "Just hand it over."
He made an attempt to snatch the towel out of her hands; Sakura jerked the towel high above her own head to put it out of his reach, flinging stray droplets everywhere and over herself. In an attempt to salvage her dignity, she swept her drenched fringe backwards, propped both hands on her hips and levelled as stern a gaze as she could muster as she returned his glare.
"Once again - Kazekage-sama, as your personal medic, I cannot risk you getting injured before you recover from your previous wounds," she blinked as a drop of water fell from her fringe and into her eye, "If I have to get into the tub, I will gladly do so."
Gaara's eyes widened in surprise at her words, and he asked, "Is that something you do with all your patients?"
Feeling her cheeks grow heated at the insinuation, Sakura quickly made a dismissive, waving gesture with her free hand, "Of course not! For one, we don't actually let our patients take a bath in water - they can fall and get hurt. They get a wipe-down with either a sponge or hygiene wipes instead like I've been doing with you. You practically demanded this!"
"Ah, I'm getting the VIP treatment, then," Gaara concluded as he touched a finger to his chin.
Sakura scoffed at his remark, and began rolling her sleeves up; Gaara watched her fumble about as she dove as far forward as she could into the tub while trying to avoid looking at the lower half of his body: she barely even cleared half the water level with her extended reach.
This was getting nowhere, fast.
"I really don't…"
"Just let me think of something," Sakura cut him off snappily.
The kunoichi racked her brains to come up with a reasonable solution. Should she strip down to her undergarments and climb into the tub? Was that too forward? Would her doing so be hinting to him that she wanted to engage in acts that he was in no physical state to perform? Was the teenage male's brain that amorous? Or should she just dive right in with all her clothes on, propriety be damned? She was definitely not going to climb into the tub butt-naked, because that would lead to all sorts of activities that Gaara should not be engaged in for the sake of his injuries and why was her brain so hung up on sex anyway?
Attractive, wet, naked Kazekage. Right.
Her increasingly inappropriate thoughts were interrupted when Gaara's hand touched her bare forearm, causing her to jump at the contact. He tilted his head in apology, then told her, "Look in the bottom of my wardrobe. There is a drawer there."
Still clutching the towel, Sakura moved to the Regimental Commander's extravagantly large wardrobe, and knelt down to locate said drawer. It pulled out with a resounding squeak, as if unused to being opened often.
The stifling silence that hung in the air between them stayed for longer than Gaara was comfortable with.
"Sa-"
"Why, in the name of all the Hokage's, do you still have this!?"
Sakura turned around, fire in her eyes as she held up a very familiar white swimsuit to his face - the very same one she had startled a number of shinobi with several weeks ago as she made a mad dash for their tent to retrieve Gaara's birthday present. It brought to mind the very positive response her boyfriend had to it, if his physical reactions afterwards were any indication.
Gaara's nonchalant shrug and explanation made her face impossibly redder. "It seemed like a waste to throw it out before you had a chance to wear it properly."
Sakura opened her mouth, fumbled with words to say, then finally clamped her jaw shut. She gazed down at the swimsuit, her fingers poking through the lewdly-placed cutouts on the one-piece attire, and bit her lip in mild frustration.
"Unless you have a better idea, or, you can just let me finish up by myself."
Dammit.
Torn between duty and her dignity, the latter of which Sakura was certain she had all but lost since offering to bathe him, Sakura went into the bathroom to change.
The mild cursing that emitted from her as she carefully pulled on the swimsuit, making sure to avoid accidentally flashing Gaara when she was done, made the atmosphere in the shack more tense by the minute.
By the time she walked back out of the bathroom to face Gaara, their gazes locking caused both parties to release their held breaths and they exhaled long and loud.
The way a certain pair of jade-green eyes were hungrily taking every bit of her in, from head to toe, was making her feel more self-conscious than ever; Sakura held the hand towel up to her chest like a tiny (and completely useless) shield, held her head high, and moved towards the tub. She braced a hand against the rim of it and began to climb over, and was surprised when Gaara's hands came to grip her hips, steadying her as she stepped fully into the water. The heat from his skin passed readily through the thin material of the swimsuit, and the contact made her spine tingle.
They were then left sitting face-to-face in the suddenly too-small tub, and the intensity of Gaara's gaze made her shrink into herself.
"You are very beautiful," he confessed breathlessly, and Sakura could make out his hands clenching and unclenching underwater, as if he was fending off the urge to touch her.
"Thank you," she surprised herself by the meekness of her own voice; Sakura was not used to being complimented. Being picked on for the size of her forehead or the colour of her hair, yes. But being told that she was beautiful? Definitely a first.
Mustering her professionalism up like a buffer, Sakura generously lathered up the towel once more, then dipped it back underwater. The first brush of the fabric against his left calf made Gaara jump a little, but when she looked up, he had schooled his features into complete passivity.
He was avoiding her gaze, though, and that suited her just fine.
Sakura continued to carefully scrub him, moving from one calf to the next, then to his knees.
When she finally reached his thigh, she must have noticeably hesitated, because Gaara reached for her hand that was holding the towel and told her in a no-nonsense manner, "I'll handle it from here."
Making her feel that her competence as a medic is once again being called into question, even though a part of her understood that this was not his intention. Sighing at her ridiculous shyness, Sakura let go of the towel and let it sink to the bottom of the tub. She was now the one avoiding looking at Gaara's face, training her eyes to focus on his hands instead, which was how she ended up seeing his right hand retrieve the towel, fold it into halves, and reach down between his…
"It's not going to fit," she blurted out.
Gaara's eyes grew impossibly wide as she slapped her hands over her mouth in mortification, and his skin decided then to turn a deeper shade of pink from not just the heat of the water. His hands have thankfully stilled in the meantime, and the only part of him that moved was his Adam's apple as he swallowed around his tongue.
"Pardon?"
Sakura gaped at him. Was he feigning ignorance of what she just said?
"It…" she made an abortive gesture in his general direction, eyes looking everywhere but at him, "It's going to be impossible. That. Impossible. Guh."
Wow, her vocabulary was shot.
She did not expect Gaara to start chuckling at her, at the expense of her innocence towards the ever-expanding boundaries of their physical relationship.
"Sakura, it's not even hard."
Her subconscious decided to drop dead of embarrassment at the extremely obvious innuendo that Gaara just tossed at her, and Sakura decided later that it would serve as a very good excuse for what she proceeded to do next.
(The rest of this chapter is rated E, and can be found on AO3 under the author name KamuiK.)