Adult-FanFiction.org : Naruto

Variety Pack	By : Vermaxen Category: Naruto AU/AR > General Views: 2853 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 3
- 4
- 5
GaaSaku

Where I whine, skip
down if you want: Oh depressing. . . I write comedic stuff, as you all
hopefully see, and hence the quality of the writing is ehhh. . . you know. . .
So whenever I read dramatic romance and I see the conventions for it,
(i.e. usually using larger words, high points of tension and climax, and the
way it seems to be more professional and better written. . .) I just start
feeling a little down.

There�s nothing wrong with wanting to be funny, but funny
doesn�t seem to earn you any respect.
Ha, then again if I wanted to be respectable I wouldn�t be writing smut,
I�d be writing something of real literary merit. Then again, again, if I had the skill to do
that and all I devoted it to was fanfiction. . . well, let�s say I think I understand why it doesn�t
happen often, eh?

Looks like I�ll write my hack comedic (I�m trying to include
funny bits I promise) romance and fluff and just try to be proud of what it
is. Simplicity of expression, that�s
what I�m going for. . . riiiight.
. .
End of whining.

I don�t think I can ever thank my reviewers enough. All of your comments help me feel like my
work is actually entertaining others and that�s a wonderful feeling for any
writer. Thank you very much; you�ve all
been lovely about this. I thought I was
going to be flamed to next Tuesday for my little project. Het shipping can be
hard.

(Now don�t go spreading this around), after Kakashi, Gaara is my favorite
character.

*cough*
Not to be picky, but where are the other alt lemons, eh? I was hoping people might just get inspired
to write some of their own. (Write me
some plot filled or PWP goodness the author begs! I like to read as well as write. More GaaSaku
anyone?)

Next lemon: it
will be a surprise (i.e. I don�t know yet, I�m choosing out of the last planned
two. But they are planned, don�t you
worry.)

Disclaimer: I don�t own Naruto. (Anyone surprised? I didn�t think so.)

*
*
*
*

Fondly, Sakura remembered when she had been a child and how
she used to run about in the rain naked in the summer. It had been so free then, so clean and
refreshing, but it was an action that seemed to firmly belong in the realm of
childhood. Now, she was for all intents
an adult and running about naked in the rain held complications that she didn�t
want to bother with. What if someone
saw? Odds were against it. Even if she wanted to, it wasn�t
practical. She would just get slapped by
a branch or something.

As she picked her way through the forest, fat raindrops
falling on her head and running down through her hair, she wished that she
could be a kid again. Sakura hated the
way her wet clothing was chafing against her skin, rubbing against the gritty
dirt that had caked her skin from the previous day�s walk. It was summer, so the sudden heavy rain was
warm but it didn�t make her feel any better to know that she wasn�t about to
catch a cold when she was uncomfortable in so many other ways.

It had seemed like a good idea at the time to get away and try
a camping trip, just a short one, to get away from her life in Konoha. It wasn�t as
if she didn�t love her friends and family, but things had become irritating as
a whole recently and she was having a heck of a time containing all the rage
that boiled just below the surface of her mind.
She wanted adventure, maybe even a little danger, and she wasn�t
experiencing either in her day to day work.
Tsunade suggested that Sakura might want to
take a couple days off when she practically started screaming in the hospital
during one of her shifts. It had been a
while since Sakura had done any field work, Tsunade
had said, and she should take some time to get used to roughing it before she
was sent out on a mission with a team.
Translation: get out of here before you upset our patients. Naruto had been
really excited when he heard, since Sakura was almost always assigned to his
team when she was available for missions, and he told her to hurry back from
her vacation.

But could there have been worse weather?

The crack of lightening over head told her that, yes, there
could, and that she shouldn�t ask questions unless she wanted to know the
answers. Sakura swore and picked up her
pace. She didn�t want to be out in the
open or even near a bunch of tall trees and she used to know the lay of the
land well enough to guess where a convenient rock formation might be for some
shelter from the rain and possible electrocution. It had been far too long since she had been
in this portion of the forest, and Sakura spent more time looking around in the
thick sheets of rain then she suspected.
By the time she did find a likely place to stay dry and safe, she was
soaked through and far more on edge than when she had left Konoha
yesterday afternoon.

She thought about starting a fire, but it wouldn�t
accomplish much and just attract a lot of attention from anyone who might be
around in the forest. There were still
enough dangerous things in the forests that Sakura didn�t want to take any
chances if she didn�t have to. It was
warm enough, really, so maybe she could dry off if she just stripped down. She pulled off the jumper that covered her
mesh shirt and then her sandals as well.
A sigh of relief followed as she took off the mesh shirt, leaving her
just in her bra and shorts. It would be
nice to take everything off, but there were lingering feelings of shame for
being naked in a public place, even the woods, and instead she busied herself
with laying out her clothes to let them dry.

Once that was done, Sakura dug into her pack for something
to eat. Dried fruit hit the spot, and
she swallowed it down with a long draw from her canteen. She sighed, knowing it would be a shame to
waste good drinking water cleaning up her skin which was messy from the
shifting clothing and dirt. To waste
time she began to hum songs to herself, but singing in low tones didn�t help
the sudden feeling of isolation. Camping
alone had seemed like a great option, but now she was getting lonely. Unreasonably, this made her angry, and with
no one around she felt perfectly willing to take out her anger on the
surroundings.

�What the hell! I
mean, why do I have to take test after test when I can do all the healing jutsus just fine? Tsunade even said that I was as good as she was at my age,
if not a little better. And boy did it
gall her to say it. Ha! I know I�m good at being a medic, why is
everyone still treating me like I�m the weak one? There are different kinds of strength!� Her words were swallowed by the rain,
muffled. That didn�t stop her, as she
stood beneath the edge of the outcropping.
�You hear me world? I�m tired of
being treated like a burden! Why did
this have to happen to me?� She punched
the air and gave a defiant yell.

That felt much better.
Sometimes a person just had to let go.
Sakura placed her hands on her hips and gave a satisfied smile to the
outside world as thunder rolled about at regular intervals.

�You make more noise than the storm.� The voice projected from the dark inner
portion of the outcropping.

With more than a little surprise, and even some fear, Sakura
pulled out a kunai from the pouch at her leg and faced inside. �Who�s there?
Show yourself!�

There was a creaking sound and then some scraping and slowly
into the low light stepped a boy who Sakura never thought she would see again
let alone be stuck in an enclosed space with.
He was taller now, with same red brown hair, but if she had any doubts
about who he could be they were dispelled by the distinctive dark circles
around his eyes and the gourd at his back.
And no one else had the nerve to tattoo such a kanji on their forehead.

�Gaara. . .� Her hand
tightened instinctively over the kunai even as her brain acknowledged that
anything she could try to do to him would be useless.

His eyes were slightly narrowed as they took in her tensed
form. �Do you plan to fight me?� Sakura hadn�t found her words yet so she just
shook her head. �Then put that away and
sit down.� Gaara�s
offhanded order galled her, but Sakura still obeyed.

Gaara placed his gourd on the
ground and then sat, staring off into the distance and saying nothing. For a few minutes Sakura accepted this silent
treatment, but being in his company was stressful beyond imagining for her and
she felt compelled to say something to ease the tension. It didn�t look like he was making trouble or
acting crazy, but Sakura knew all too well what he was capable of and how close
to death she might be just by being here.
Oddly, nervousness won out over silent self preservation as she tried to
make conversation.

�What brings you out this way?�

All Gaara did was turn his head
her way, studying her for a moment and then back to regarding the stormy
weather with whatever interest he possessed once more.

�I�m on a short camping trip myself. I never expected it would rain this
much. Do you like the rain?� She felt like she was babbling, and she
probably was, but it felt more secure to fill the silence.

With a long suffering sigh, Gaara
seemed to give in to these attempts and actually responded this time. �No. I
don�t like the rain.�

�Can you still use your sand when it�s��

�Yes.� He
interrupted.

�Then why don�t you like the��

�I just don�t.� This time there was a sharp tone to his
reply, as if he found her questions trying.
They paused, both of them, with Gaara staring
at her and Sakura now being the one to look away. She itched her arm
absently, then stilled as a feeling of horror overtook her. How could she forget that she was practically
naked right now? Could a person die of
embarrassment? Furtively, she attempted
to cross her arms over her chest as if she wasn�t extremely conscious of her
state of undress. By the time she had
enough nerve to look Gaara in the eyes,
he was obviously trying to hide a smirk.

He thought this was funny?
Maybe it was, but right now Sakura didn�t find it so. What if he was laughing at her body? She knew she was not the most curvaceous of
women, but she also knew she was attractive.
Fear couldn�t survive with stinging pride covering it up. Sakura forced herself to uncross her arms and
try to stifle the blush that turned her face a darker pink than her hair.

�Does the Hokage know that you�re
here?� It was amazing the things she
found herself doing and saying when her anger was awakened.

�I go where I please.�
His eyes had widened, making him look less threatening even if his words
were still aggressively intonated.
Around them the winds picked up and Sakura tried to keep her hair from
flying into her face any more than necessary.
Things hadn�t gone very well today, and she was fed up with sustaining
the energy it took be emotional about it all.

Sakura sighed at his last comment, some of her anger
dissipating as she turned wistful. �That
sounds lovely. I wish I could do that
sometimes. Having no responsibilities,
no authority to answer to all the time. . .�
To a girl who was under as much pressure as she was to serve other
people, Sakura had some very romantic notions of what freedom would be
like. That it might be one miserable
extended camping trip didn�t seem to interrupt her dreams.

The shift in her mood left Gaara
off balance. He drew his eyebrows
together at the girl in front of him and asked a question of his own. �Are you. . .
simple?�

�What?� Sakura was
honestly confused.

�You should be afraid of me, and you were. But I get the sense that you aren�t now. It�s not a very smart deduction. I could kill you at any time.�

She thought about this, about the boy in front of her with
his placid appearance and homicidal tendencies.
�Of course I�m afraid, but it doesn�t do any good to stay afraid. If I�m going to die, then I�m going to
die. You don�t seem like you�re going to
kill me any time soon. You aren�t, are
you?� There was a nervous tremor in her
last sentence that put Gaara back on familiar ground.

�I wasn�t planning on it.�

�That�s reassuring, I suppose.� Sakura cleared her throat and scooted over to
her canteen to have some more water. Her
throat felt dry, as if Gaara�s very presence was
enough to suck the water out of the humid air around them. She got her blanket out of her pack and
spread it on the ground before she leaned against a rock and forced her body to
relax itself. About six feet away, Gaara�s back was turned to her, and she was glad that she
didn�t feel the urge to speak to him like before.

What she had told him was true enough. It seemed as if most of Sakura�s experiences
early on had been dominated by her fear: the fear of bodily harm, the fear of
losing teammates and friends, and the fear of being an unwanted burden to
others. She had been paralyzed by these
fears, unable to act effectively to save her companions in battle or to gain
any real lasting self respect. The day
she had sliced off her hair in the Forest
of Death was the day she began to
mark a change in herself. Still she had
been bound by her strong love for her friends, but it was her first time in the
field as a medic nin that
she realized the best way to express her love was not to worry about them but
to take action. No one else should be
expected to save them when she could do it.

Caring for her comrades and conquering her fear made her a
great medic, even if she was only a passable ninja in other ways. She had been unconsciously tracing past scars
on her arms, remembering how many times she had been covered in other people�s blood
when she looked up to find Gaara staring at her with
an unwavering green gaze. Had he been
thinking of the same thing, of the blood of others splattering him in
battle? It was different when it was the
blood of your enemies, Sakura thought.
Their eyes held as he continued to stare at her unapologetically. It was she who looked away, and he snorted
out a laugh when she did.

�The rain has stopped.�

With some surprise, Sakura found that he was correct. How long had she been reliving battles in her
mind�s eye? Time had escaped her. If he was calling it to her attention, she
supposes that he wanted her to get going.
The sun had appeared in the early afternoon sky, peeking out from dark
clouds, and the warm day was fast becoming hot.
She hoped it would help the humidity, since as it was she was sweltering
even in her skimpy outfit. Sakura packed
her things efficiently and then said a polite farewell to Gaara
who barely seemed to notice her.

Oh well, on with her trip.
Now she had a most interesting story to tell her friends when she got
back. She could even dramatize it. . .
Dangerous Sabaku no Gaara
had been lying in wait for unsuspecting travelers, and when he had beheld her
beauty he could not help but spare her life. . . she
chuckled to herself. No, even she could
not see herself telling that to anyone.
He had barely given her a second glance let alone a leer.

Out of his immediate presence, Sakura reflected on how Gaara seemed different somehow than when they had been
younger. His eyes were still just the
same, and those loosely wrapped robes, but he had aged very nicely and the
brooding look had always appealed to her.
At this point Sakura laughed outright.
It was no good to think about how attractive he was. As if anyone could get close enough to him to
act on their impulses. Then again. . .

Her mind began to wander over logistics mostly
dispassionately. How would a girl get close to Gaara? His sand
might protect him, but that depended on how much control he had over it. From what she understood, the sand shield was
an automatic response to danger. If it
was connected to his brain�s reactions, then it could be directly linked to his
fight or flight reflexes. Included in
that set were the ones for the other two f�s, fright
and. . . sexual reproduction.

Then again, if the sand shield was willfully controlled then
that meant if he lost control a bad a situation could occur. As soon as he experienced a moment of fright
or pain in sex then the girl could find herself in the middle of a forced sand
funeral and that would be scarring enough for Gaara
let along the girl if she survived.

Sakura shook her head as if to clear from it any thoughts of
Gaara and sex and all of the possible ways it could
go wrong. Her reality did not include
having to deal with any of that, it had to do with getting somewhere that would
allow her and her clothes to get clean and dry.
Each puddle along the forest floor taunted her with their crystalline
surfaces. The heat of the day was
reasserting itself in conjunction with the humidity and Sakura dug in her pack
to find her canteen with no success in finding it. If she had left it behind, then she might be
in trouble of slight dehydration, but that was better than encountering Gaara again.

With great luck she did come across a small stream. All it took to find was a quick climb up a
tall tree and she was in business. The
sap that coated her hands would take some time to scrub off, but this was all
part of the discomfort of being a ninja and she had been away from missions far
too long if something this transitory caused her tangible discomfort.

The stream reached up to mid thigh at the deepest point and
Sakura gleefully waded into its fast moving waters. It looked a little muddy from the hard rains that
had flooded it, but whatever grime was getting on her was particulate and
easily forgotten compared to the dirt that practically caked her body and
literally caked her sandals. This time
she looked around the perimeter carefully to make sure no one was around. Specifically she chose a bend in the stream
so that the water was slightly calmer and the area more enclosed by brush and
trees which settled closer to these areas rich in deposited sediment.

Only then, when she finally felt safe, did she finish
stripping and scrub her clothes followed by her body. The water was cold and she tried to move
quickly to save herself from experiencing any more of this frigid bath. There was also the possibility of
sunburn. It seemed unfair to her that Ino, with her fair skin so much like Sakura�s, would tan
evenly while Sakura herself would burn the color of cooked lobster. Yet another one of those facts of life that
she had to accept, but matters of physical appearance were still touchy for
her. Maybe this is part of why Gaara�s ignoring of her had been so galling. Sakura rubbed soap in her hair and ducked
into the water with her whole body before surfacing with a yelp and shaking her
hair about to rid it of the excess liquid.

�Was that really necessary?�
The voice, flat and low, was right behind her. Sakura turned around, eyes wide, to find Gaara standing not but a few feet away and dripping from
her vigorous expulsion of water from her hair.

This was too much.
She felt a vein in her forehead twitch and she tried not to blow up, but
her anger hit critical mass before she could get a handle on it. �WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM? ARE YOU SOME SORT OF PERVERT?� It was the second time today, after all, and
this incident was much more extreme than the first.

Gaara seemed to be unaltered by
her nudity or by her anger. All he did
was offer up the canteen that she had left behind by way of explanation.

If there had been justice in the world, Sakura would have
had a flurry of freezing winds cycling behind her, but as it was she just
dripped and looked furious, goosebumps standing up on
her flesh in the wind. �Couldn�t you
have waited until I was done?�

For a flash, she thought she saw a spark in his eyes, but it
might have been a trick of the light. �I
could have.�

�Just put it by the rest of my belongings and leave me
alone.� His statement troubled her and
she turned from his gaze, wrapping her arms around her shivering body. The cheerily lit up woods didn�t reflect her
troubled inner consciousness. When she
got up the nerve to peek over her shoulder Gaara was
gone and she let out the breath she didn�t know she had been holding.

Weirdo.

A weirdo who had seen her naked. Damn it all.

Sakura set to work on setting up camp for the evening since
she was so near to running water and upstream she found a nice clearing. The clouds had not cleared from the sky or
from her thoughts, and she tried not to let the menacing feeling get the better
of her. It wasn�t as if Gaara had been stalking her. The first incident had been chance, and the
second incident had been accident.
Sakura had assumed it was accident, but Gaara�s
last comment troubled her.

Had he done that because he wanted to see
her naked? No, if that�s all he
wanted then he could have just watched her and then given her the canteen
later. What seemed to be the only
logical option was that he wanted to see her naked and he also wanted her to
know that he had. What a twisted bastard. Her teeth gnashed their way through a loaf of
bread while she worked out her resentment.

Perhaps the most upsetting thing of all about this mess was
that he had seen her nearly naked and then completely naked and had been
entirely unaffected. Weren�t her
�womanly virtues� enough? Sure, when the
female ninjas had been instructed in special classes on the art of seduction
she had been the butt of a few jokes, but flirting was about confidence and
mind games and Sakura had gotten better at it over the years. No more of that blatantly asking men out on dates business.
Sakura could control her own sexual destiny!

Fiery bust of temper aside, she suddenly noted how mild
depression set it. An option was that she
was so unattractive that even being naked wasn�t enough to. . . Gaara must not like women.
The stubborn streak in her wouldn�t admit defeat. That thought brought comfort and some humor
to her. The humor outweighed the comfort
and she chuckled evilly to herself, eventually laughing so hard she was on her
back on the ground and wiping tears from the corner of her eyes. The unnatural quiet that gripped the
surroundings went unnoticed in light of her loud merrymaking, and too late she
realized she was not alone.

�What is it? Are you
stalking me now?� If his presence had
first inspired her with terror, now he had become an object of ridicule and
more than a little curiosity. That she
had landed on her mental feet despite another surprise appearance seemed to
please him. His mouth
quirked as if it was trying to smile, but failed.

�Look, I think the least you could do is��

�Not going to strip this time?� His mouth quirked harder this time, and Sakura wondered if his muscle was spasming.

Her refuge was sarcasm.
�The next show isn�t until ten, I hope you�re feeling patient.�

Gaara looked unruffled by her cold
reception. �You�re very weak. You didn�t see me until it would have been
too late each time.� He took off his
gourd, and she noted it as an indication that he wasn�t leaving any time soon. �Why would your village let someone like you
go into the woods alone?�

�You don�t know how to make very polite small talk, do
you?� He didn�t respond to her question
so she gave in to her temper and answered him in the most saccharine tones she
could manage. �I am one of the finest
medic nins in the
village. I can take care of myself for a
mere three days when I�m hardly fifteen miles away from the village if
something does happen.�

�Your confidence seems to be unwarranted. This forest is dangerous too.�

It felt like she was being lectured and it had been a long
time since she found the sensation novel.
�The way to navigate dangers is to understand them. This forest isn�t threatening to me.� There seemed to be an unspoken part of their
conversation that she didn�t dare vocalize.
It gave her chills despite the heat.

Lazily, Gaara shifted the ground
beneath him, flattening it and the surrounding area of all its bumps. Sakura felt the ground move under her feet
and tried not to let alarm show through.
This localized earthquake was another scare tactic. He just wanted to get a rise out of her. �But I was in the forest, too. What about the threat I impose?�

�I don�t know why you feel the need to bully me, but I�m not
playing your game.� The ground stilled
again and she silently said a word of thanks to whatever deity had let her pull
off that show of confidence. �Are you
staying, or going?�

�Do you want me here?�

�No. Not really.� Unflinchingly honest, born
of desperation and a hope that he would just walk away if she made her dislike
clear.

�Then I�m staying.�

Sakura wished she could scream at him like she would if Naruto had been sitting there being stubborn and
persistently annoying. At some point she
had become a sort of diversion for the sand psycho. Even if she wanted him to go, she could not make him do anything.

�Then could you make yourself useful and get some dinner for
us, and I�ll cook it. With you here I
suppose I don�t need to worry about a cooking fire. No one would dare approach where you were.�

�Except you. . .� Gaara said
softly.

�What�s that?� He
didn�t repeat it; he just looked at her with that twitch surfacing on his
face. �Fine. Just go catch some food.
. . and please try not to crush it beyond recognition. I�m not eating rabbit puree for dinner.� It seemed like he was going to resist her
casual orders, but eventually he faded back into the forest, gourd in tow, and
Sakura sighed her relief. Gaara didn�t seem
to be completely unreasonable, simply contrary, and she could deal with that
kind of personality.

*
*
*

Gaara walked away from the girl as
she wished, but he didn�t go far.
Catching food would be easy and he preferred to stalk other prey. Her body lost its tension once he left,
slumping forward as she collected herself together. A part of him wished he had asked her for her
name, but he only cared for the names of his enemies and he had no slot to fit
into his mind for this girl in any established classification. She looked familiar, her pink hair
distinctive, and he tried to place her within the context of Konoha. Nothing came
to mind and he shrugged it off.

The girl was talking to herself again, arguing about
something, her lips sometimes moving.
There was nothing she did that was interesting or useful to him, but he
found himself wanting to memorize her movements and burn her image into his
brain. Already several images of her
were irreversibly etched into his brain: the girl stretching out her limber
body as she dried off in the shelter of the rock formation, the girl smiling as
she spoke to him, the girl�s naked body as she shook her hair about like some
water nymph. The last one was the most
cloying of all the images and he couldn�t strike it from his mind. He had tried excessively hard to do so, but
with no luck. Gaara
felt his blood heat in a similar way that it did for battle, and made efforts
to ignore it. The intentions he had to
continue on his travels had halted and he had doubled back just to talk to her.

She was gathering wood now, getting a fire ready for when he
came back with game. Even if he was
critical of her, he was willing to admit that her movements were lithe and her
reactions unusual. Normally, in his
presence, if someone managed to say anything it was either a plea to spare
their life, or it was tentative requests for him to carry out missions. This girl possessed superior qualities than
many grown men, powerful ninjas, who he encountered on a daily basis. She could never know how honored she was that
he had spoken to her at all. Even Gaara didn�t understand entirely why he did it.

The girl needs
protection. His thoughts were
concentrated all on her and how aware he was of their comparative
strengths. Tonight he would make camp
with her, eschewing his normal solitude and waste time taking watch while she
slept. The idea alone of doing that for
her gave him a tweak in his chest, a strange mild pain unlike when the rare
punch landed on him, and he wondered if she felt pain when he was near her as
well. Close on the heels of that thought
was the musing about what she felt like.
That pastel hair seemed too glossy, and her skin looked so pale and
translucent unlike the skin of the women who lived in the desert who were
subjected to harsh sun most of their lives.

The concept of lust was foreign to him. He had heard Kankuro�s
off color jokes about sex and had not found them funny. Temari had tried to
explain it once, when they were young when he wanted to know how he had come to
be as if it would give him more purpose for living. With blushing cheeks Temari
spoke but he had stopped her when he started to get some confusing information
about storks and cabbage leaves. They
had been very young. Books enlightened him to mechanics when he
got a little older, but the elusive part of the equation seemed to be why
someone would want to touch another human being. People around him did it all the time, more
often then not a protective gesture of defense, but every now and then he saw
an unguarded moment when people touched one another willfully. Previously he had not seen the draw, now he
felt a pull in his hands and in his gut to get as near as possible to the pink
haired kunoichi.

He could get what he wanted; he just needed to look for an
opportunity.

*
*
*

The sand covered rabbits that Gaara
had dropped at the fireside were just as unmarked as she had asked for. She didn�t ask how he had caught them, and
just hoped that their little rabbit lives had been good ones until they became
dinner for the two of them. Even if she
had to fight against the strong winds to cook them, she managed in the end to
get them charred into a mostly edible state.
Gaara had no complaints when he bit into the
food, even if both of them grimaced at the taste. Neither person spoke, but once they had
finished eating and darkness had set in Gaara seemed
to grow restless. Sakura�s whole persona
perked up, hoping that her silent treatment was enough to prove she was boring
enough to be left alone.

�What�s your name?�
When the question came, suddenly, almost ripped from him, Sakura
couldn�t think of any reason to deny him the information.

�Sakura Haruno.� There was no need for her to ask him his
name, since Sabaku no Gaara
was infamous throughout all the villages hidden or not. She had gasped it when they had first
met. For a fleeting second her thought about how he�d like to hear her gasp it again.

In the darkness, embers of the fire gave off a thin stream
of smoke and provided the only light in addition to the flashlight that Sakura
had finished putting batteries into. She
managed not to scream when the beam of light hit upon Gaara
just a few feet away and standing with his arms crossed directly in front of
her.

�I will keep watch.� Again with the orders.
Sakura wished she could protest, but he seemed to be determined to do
what he wanted to, and honestly she did feel more secure with him there. It was a bit of a shock to realize that she
trusted him enough to keep watch, but when she retreated into her small tent to
change and go to sleep she also knew that she didn�t have much choice but to
let him do as he pleased. This way she
knew where he was, at least.

Well, if he was going to do something nice for her, then she
should just be grateful and try to at least pretend to sleep to show good
faith. �Thank you, Gaara. Good night.�
Then she disappeared into the tent.

It could have ended there easily enough. Gaara had neither
experience nor real inclination to create the opportunity he had wanted. Sakura, for her part, was uneasy with his
presence but accepting of it and she was creating a mental block against her
fear by narrating the whole episode into the past tense even as she lived
it. The consolation of making it an
interesting story later was providing her a powerful defense. They were two people close together but
separated by vast mental straits. . .

Then the storm set in.
The winds had settled, but the boiling clouds that had been passing
overhead all day again opened up and poured down their liquid upon the baked
earth. In addition they hit the
increasingly disgruntled form of Gaara. The nearest shelter was miles away, and he
couldn�t leave Sakura at any rate. The
most practical solution was the one that caused his stomach to clench in an
anticipatory fashion, but he didn�t hesitate as he followed through on it. The battle began in the way he expected it
to, but he was not at any real disadvantage.

�Get out of my tent!�
Sakura, who had not been able to fall asleep in the hour since she and Gaara had parted ways for the night was plenty aware enough
when her tent flap opened and she shined the flashlight on clear green eyes.

�It�s raining.� He
said as he ignored her order and came in, closing the tent flap behind
him. �I told you, Sakura, I don�t like
the rain.�

He used her name so easily, so intimately, and she wished
she hadn�t told him after all. �Can�t
you just bury yourself in the earth or something?�

The flashlight caught his haunted, almost devastated look,
and she felt a wave of guilt. Who would
want to experience being buried alive? Gaara didn�t say anything but he did shrug off his outer
layer of robes which seemed to be soggy.
He lay down next to her, and their shoulders touched due to the tight
nature of the small tent. �Family� tents
fit three people comfortably if they were small people, a two person tent could
hold one person and their gear without a problem. Sakura had a single person tent and her
entire side was pressed next to Gaara even as her
other side was distorting the material of the tent off to one side.

�This is really inappropriate.� She wanted to find an excuse to get him out,
but even she realized how weak that particular one was.

�Why? Explain it to
me.�

Sakura tried to muster up a good way to start that
explanation, but it turned and distorted in her brain. The only reasons she could state were somewhat
silly. No one was around for miles, so
other people finding them and mistaking the situation was out of the realm of
possibility. Needing one of them out
there to keep watch wasn�t valid because anything that wasn�t frightened away
by the aura of Gaara�s chakra
would soon be sensed by the sleepless boy anyway. And citing the possibility of inappropriate
actions being taken by either party in the tent was something she didn�t even
want crossing his mind. Now that it had
crossed hers, sadly, it was starting to sound intriguing. But Gaara didn�t
like girls like that, she reassured herself.
It was easy to forget how she had made that up to sooth her ego earlier
in the day.

�Never mind. Just don�t shift around too much and wake me
up, ok?� The flashlight clicked off and
they were enveloped in velvety darkness.
The rain hit the tent, covering up the sound of her breathing. If it were not for the pressure and warmth
against her side, she could have forgotten her was there. It was for situations like these she had
trained for, she reminded herself, and she concentrated on controlling her
breathing and showing a convincing outward appearance of sleep. Meditation was part of some the relaxation
techniques she sometimes showed to recovering patients, and tonight she was
glad for the control she could exert over her rapidly beating heart and pumping
lungs.

Once he thought she had fallen asleep, Gaara
let out a deep breath he had been holding in.
He didn�t want to shift around, but his arm was uncomfortably placed and
it was starting to go numb. Carefully,
with the finesse that ninjas were notable for, he worked his arm under the back
crook of Sakura�s neck and turned himself to the side. Now he need not touch the side of the tent
that felt cold and slick like the water he wished to avoid. In this situation, with the rain enclosing
them, he cherished the human closeness that he had wanted from the beginning
when he had laid eyes on Sakura.

Bodies were warmer than he had suspected, if she was
typical, and already the inside of his elbow was sweating from the contact with
her skin. Feather light, he touched her
hair and her face. Stopping as she
grimaced, but then beginning again once she seemed to compose her features.

His own body was heating abnormally at this exploration and
he could have sworn her breathing had sped up.
When she spoke, he didn�t stop his explorations mainly because he was
curious as to how she would react. Smothered
by darkness, Sakura found that the voice she tried to make strong was just a
whisper.

�What are you doing, Gaara?�

There was a moment when he thought he should just get up now
and leave, rain be damned. Yet another
possible scenario involved killing her then
walking away, but the constriction in his chest became unbearably tight at the
thought of her death. Killing her was
not an option. Maybe words would
help. He didn�t enjoy the way she
sounded so far away.

�I like the way you feel.�

�Do you know what this means?� Her voice caught as his fingers dipped into
the hollow of her throat and skimmed back out.
�Do you know that what you�re doing isn�t right?�

�It feels good, so why should I stop?� he wanted to be
closer to her, so he rolled his body onto hers, resting himself in between her
legs. �Does it hurt you, what I�m
doing?�

Sakura didn�t know if he was innocent, truly unschooled in
what it meant to touch another person particularly a girl, or if this was just
another part of his manipulations. �No,
it doesn�t.�

�Then I don�t think I�ll stop.� She felt so nice, silken and pliant, that he
began to wonder how she would taste. Gaara felt his mouth draw down to her neck and he ran his
tongue over her collarbone.

�What if I ask you stop?
What if I ask you to leave?� The
gasps that punctuated her questions were driving his blood to a boil.

Gaara was only half listening to
the actual words, lost in the wonder of her body and his own overwhelming
response. �Do you know how much you�ve
taken over my mind? I didn�t think I�d
ever want to get near another human being, but I can�t keep myself away from
you.�

The evidence of his desire was resting between her legs,
outlined by their clothing and the blanket but still firm and
unforgettable. Sakura felt how her body
was responding to him, wishing she could say that she rejected him at that
basic level, but he was being so attentive and her body clamored for more. Before she could moan aloud she bit her lip
and tasted blood.

He had been in the process of pushing down the top of her
shirt to lick skin closer to the breasts that he had become so interested in
seeing, but the distinctive smell of blood caught him and held him. The instincts that had been driving him in
this need became even blinder and he clenched the flesh of her sides painfully
as he took her lip into his mouth and ran his tongue over the small cut.

�Gaara,� Sakura gasped as he
pulled away from her and came back to himself at the sound of his name on her
lips. �Please. . .� They were just inches away from one another and
he felt the gust of her panting breaths against his sweating flesh.

If she asked him to stop, he didn�t know if he could. He�d hate himself, he�d hate her, if this
happened and she rejected him. The demon
inside of him, anticipating the negative response, collected power around him
and he tried not to give in to the instant rage.

�. . .please be a little more gentle. My ribs feel like they�re going to
crack.� Sakura took his lower lip into
her mouth mimicking what he had done to her and ran her soft tongue over
it. Gaara forced
his hands to release the vise around her middle. The urge to kill had been completely erased
and in its place blossomed something more compelling, more pleasurable, and he
gave in to it. She didn�t hate him. She didn�t fear him. To Gaara, Sakura
was perfect and he would show her how devoted he could be.

If Sakura had had doubts about her decision, they were
dispelled when Gaara�s lost the frantic edge that had
her alarmed before and he removed his weight from her long enough to extract
the blanket and his shirt. If he had
enough presence of mind for deliberate action then she felt better about the
pace of this. He words had moved her a
little in her heart, knowing that she was the first person he had voluntarily
touched like this, and all it took was knowing someone
took note of you like that to respond to them more favorably. After all, she had been admiring his form
before, and there was nothing wrong with something as natural as what they were
doing.

A voice in her head tried to scream at her. It was the reasonable one she had sent
packing this morning when she had stripped under the rock outcropping and
screamed her frustrations to the world.
The voice told her that this was a decision that she could regret, that it
was tying her intimately to a monster who might do
anything to her just as easily as he brought her pleasure. She hadn�t realized that during this inner
argument she had gone still under Gaara and he had
paused in his removal of her shirt.

�You think too much.�
He said, his wisdom in this situation surprising her back into action as
she lifted her arms to allow the shirt to slip past. �You need to train your instincts more.�

�And you�re all instinct and no thought.� She started out saying it with a snap but
ended in a purr when his hand covered one breast and his mouth the other. If her nails had not been cut down so far for
the practicality of working in a hospital and being a ninja then she might have
trailed score marks down his back but instead her fingertips ran over skin, trailing
rivets behind them. Sakura whimpered
when he bit down on her nipple a bit too hard, but he adjusted the pressure and
laved the pain away with his tongue.

By now he was breathing heavily as well, and his chest
scraped over hers as he sought her mouth again.
The planes of muscle, the small hard nipples�she could feel it all
against her oversensitive flesh. He was
taking over, fending off her hands when they wandered near or below his waist
and pushing her tongue back into her mouth with his own when she attempted to
invade. It was as if Gaara
were trying to make up for a lifetime of not touching another person in just
one night. Where his hands trailed his
mouth would follow, and her sweat mixed with his saliva in trails over her
body.

Soon enough he grew impatient and tugged at her pants. Sakura lifted up her hips to push them down
and pressed into his erection suddenly. Gaara made a strangled noise in response and as she wiggled
her pants off he proceeded to growl and moan in turns. Even if he stopped her from touching him as
she wanted to, she could still exert power over him and Sakura tried not to
crow out her smug happiness.

Naked beneath him, Gaara pictured
once again how she had looked in the stream as he could only make out her vague
outline in the inky murk of the tent. He
saw everything clearly in his mind and followed the outline with his index
finger as he traced a bumpy path over her lips, her breast, hitting the small
dip of her belly button, until he finally got to explore the spot protected by
small curly hairs which was damp to his touch.
Sakura writhed under him as he felt a small bump and rubbed it
experimentally before he moved on to her inner heat that welcomed his finger
into their damps slickly.

Gaara took his finger away and
touched the glistening tip of it to his tongue.
Not unsettled by her taste he kissed down where his finger had traveled
before delving his tongue in past her curls.
The bump which seemed to draw the biggest reaction from the beautiful woman
beneath him was what he concentrated on until her thrashing about forced him to
hold her legs down and apart if he was going to continue. There was a moment when he wondered if he was
hurting her, but shortly after his tongue stopped she cried out to him.

�Don�t stop.� His
member twitched at her tone. �Please Gaara. . .� And that was all it took as with a smirk he
went back to what he was doing. Under
his hands her powerful thigh muscles shifted and attempted to clamp onto him
but he just held her more strongly and moved his tongue over her faster. When she shook and called out his name he
could only assume she had reached whatever end it was that she desired. His needy body demanded the same opportunity.

Sakura couldn�t believe what was happening to her, and as
she drifted down from the cloudy place her mind had reached at her climax she
felt more confident to seek out Gaara than
before. When she took the initiative to
pull him back up and tug at his pants, he did not resist and climbed out of the
last of his clothing with admirable speed.
He sucked at her neck as she positioned him at her entrance and drove
her hips up to enclose him in her warmth.
The pleasing sensation of fullness only lasted a moment as she moved her
hips and he took up the pattern of motion she had started.

When his movements sped up and began to lose control Sakura
locked her arms around him and met him with all the force her muscles had
energy left for. Gaara
hardened then released inside her and she pulsed around him a little in
response even if it wasn�t as intense as her first orgasm had been. Sweaty and fulfilled, he dropped down on her
and wrapped his arms around her tightly.
Their chests pushed against one another until their ragged breathing
subsided. Still, he refused to let go or
even loosen his hold.

�I�m not going to disappear.� She smiled, knowing he couldn�t see it but
doing such a gesture automatically.
Sakura�s words seemed to help and Gaara let
his arms relax around her but not withdraw.

She felt exhausted.
The wind and the rain still pounded the outside of the tent and shadows
from the trees created strange moving murals above her past the silhouette of Gaara�s hair and neck.
It would be nice to sleep, but that would be impossible like this with his
weight robbing her of deep breath. He
seemed to anticipate her need and Gaara drew his body
away from hers and rolled them to the side, still his arms stuck to her as if
glued.

�Good night Gaara.� She knew she could get to sleep now, even
like this, and only the brief tightening of his arms let her know that he had
heard her.

*
*
*

It was a strange sensation, Sakura reflected, to wake up
with a blanket half way over one leg and a naked man halfway over the
other. His arms were still around her,
even though by now at least one of them had to have lost circulation. Gaara, noticing
that she was awake, smiled at her.

With a catch in her breath Sakura saw that it wasn�t the
smirk he had offered to her the day before but a full smile that showed the upper
row of his teeth. It filled her with
warmth and she leaned forward to catch his smiling mouth in a kiss.

�Good morning.� What
else should she say? Thank you? Is your arm ok? Can we do it again?

The longing in her eyes was not lost on Gaara
but neither was the way her stomach loudly growled. If she had had a free hand, Sakura would have
slapped herself. Even if she couldn�t
help the needs of her body, it was still embarrassing. Gaara pulled on his
clothes in the small space afforded to him and climbed out of the tent.

�Breakfast.� Was all he said in parting. Once he was outside, Sakura scrambled around
the tent with wide eyes and tried to pull all her clothes on all at once. She stuck a leg through the wrong side before
correcting it with a curse. Stumbling
out of the front of the tent to splash into the water just outside, she noted
that the entire stream had flooded last night and her tent was occupying a
raised dais above the inundation. She
had tripped down about a foot into the awaiting water. Thanks to Gaara, no
doubt, and she thought cheerfully how useful he was even if she didn�t
appreciate this kind of wake up call.

Then she realized she still had to wade through water to get
anywhere and felt even less cheerful. Sakura
sighed and sloshed her way over to the next mostly dry area she could
find. Her body felt a little sore in
areas she never thought she�d be sore in, and with a wide smile she jumped
around inside of her own mind in post-coital glee. She relived the night in flashes and squealed
and blushed in turns to herself while she looked for likely pieces of wood to
start a fire with. Everything was too
damp still.

It didn�t take long before Gaara
returned. By then she had finished
packing up the tent and he watched from the side of the large puddle as she
walked back. He assumed she had had
enough time to think. Looking for
breakfast had been pointless, just an excuse to leave for a while. There was no game for miles around. Animals learned faster than people to avoid his
presence. When she smiled and waved at
him, he was immeasurably relieved.

�So, I think I�m going to go back home today. I�m expected for a mission.� It was mostly the truth. Really, she was tired of sleeping in a tent
and being dirty and hungry. More shyly,
she added. �Where are you headed to?�

�Nowhere.� His mouth tightened and he was again the
stoic and unreachable Gaara she had accidentally
shared an outcropping with. The morning
sun beat down on them and Sakura shielded her eyes against it as she judged the
time of day to be maybe 10 or 11 a.m.
�But maybe I�ll stop in Konoha today.� Gaara added the
last part and then turned on his heel to head in that direction. Sakura�s running footsteps caught up to him.

The little voice in her head tried to tell her that he was
going back to Konoha because that�s where she was
going, but Sakura shushed it as bunk.
Last night had been great, but it was not life changing, and she should
not assume she was truly special to him.
If anything, he seemed to be trying to walk faster than she could keep
up with. What if he was the one who regretted last night? Some stray she was bringing back. What had she gotten herself into?

Sakura played with her doubts and mixed feelings, but up ahead Gaara�s mind was filled with
calculations.

This kunoichi, his Sakura, was not
well trained enough to keep herself out of trouble. Gaara thought that
if she was placed on a mission then surely she would just get herself
hurt. He could go along and protect her. . . but just because he felt like doing something more
pointed than wandering. It wasn�t as if
there was any deeper purpose. He
shouldn�t tell her what he was planning, because she was perverse enough to
protest it. She would
misunderstand. Gaara
felt how Sakura was lagging behind and he stopped entirely until she caught
up. Her hand brushed his in passing as
they both started out again, and he didn�t pull away from the sensation.

The Hokage would offer him a place
to stay, but Gaara wondered to himself if Sakura
would invite him as well. The smirk
returned to his face. Maybe he�d just
invite himself over anyway.
- 3
- 4
- 5
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Variety Pack