Gaara could feel Naruto.
Like, they had some kind of connection that went beyond any explanation he could offer.
He could feel Naruto.
It was something he was actually thankful for, most days, when Naruto's natural bolster countered Gaara's own natural, gentle wither.
Most days—not to-fucking-day, though. In the middle of a meeting with Honored Sibling Lord Ebizo. While Hinata's hushed voice filled his head like syrup.
Gaara clenched his hand into a fist and shut his eyes. "Excuse me," he said.
A rush of shivers flounced down the front of his body before he returned, mentally, to where he sat in his office.
"Lord Kazekage?" Lord Ebizo's tone was flat enough, but Gaara hoped he hadn't offended, all the same.
"I'm sorry," he said in the same flat tone Lord Ebizo had used. "I'm just not feeling not like myself today."
"Yes, of course. Let's all wait for your manner to improve, shall we?" Lord Ebizo took his leave quickly, considering his age, but then again, he was Lady Chiyo's brother and other Honored Sibling of Suna—fully capable of carrying on a battle, if so willed.
The sound of his office door closing shut behind Lord Ebizo cut right through Gaara. He shut his eyes at it, a short recoil.
Kankuro's voice was a familiar and welcome addition. "You all right, Gaara?" he asked with a hand on his shoulder.
"Yes, thank you," Gaara replied automatically. Then he took a steadying breath and sighed. He didn't want to be brusque with Kankuro just because he was feeling off.
His hand closed over Kankuro's on his shoulder. The contact between them grounded Gaara further in this moment, and he found himself grasping tighter than he meant to.
"I am," he said. "My head is just bothering me, for some reason. If you don't mind, I'm going to lie down for a while."
Always one to reassure, Kankuro squeezed Gaara back hard enough to feel the imprint of fingers through his clothes before they released each other.
"Yeah, let your team take up some of the slack for once. You could use the rest," Kankuro said, settling a thumb under the strap of his puppet as he rounded Gaara's desk until they could see each other's faces. "Let me know if you need anything, ja."
At Kankuro's easy smile, Gaara let out a little chuckle and took his cue. No one on his staff ever hesitated to prompt him to take time—any time—to himself, least of all his big brother. Kankuro was probably not even looking forward to co-running affairs while Gaara made himself scarce, but the prospect of him getting to relax a bit almost always changed Kankuro's tune on the whole ordeal.
"I swear it," Gaara said, and stood to leave.
Kankuro didn't take his place at the desk even as the door shut behind him.
He carried on down the hall and out of the building without thinking too much of anything. It helped to clear his head somewhat, actually, and he made it most of the way home before the next commotion rolled over him.
Giggling.
Gaara hit his fist against his front door when he reached it. "Damn it…"
It didn't always happen this way—this connection of theirs. When Gaara thought back, he sort of traced it back to a time so long ago, he almost didn't believe the idea when he first thought about it. But it had to have been when Naruto saved his life—by supplanting his chakra into Gaara's rigor mortis-stiff body until life returned to the dead.
Always a bittersweet memory, that day. That moment. So much had happened, Gaara's own death aside.
And he had never felt the same again.
With the other half of the life force given to him that day gone, it was like all Gaara could feel for a time was Naruto. Like a distant memory that he had no recollection of, he felt and, sometimes, thought things entirely unlike himself—but so very Naruto.
For a while—a year or so, maybe—Gaara carried on by himself and got by just fine, only occasionally and vaguely aware that, despite distance, personhood and everything in between, he shared a thin link with Naruto. Sometimes, the link glowed, bright in his head and warm in his bones, and sometimes it stretched, thinning until Gaara worried it would disintegrate altogether, but it was always deep in the back of his mind like a spider thread only glittering when it caught the light.
And then Madara happened. The war. Tsuki no Me. Naruto's death. And Shukaku sharing his chakra with Naruto to, once again, find a way to circumvent death.
The same chakra that had flowed through Gaara's veins since before birth.
Their connection—that spider thread—only intensified after that.
"What's up, Gaara?" Naruto had asked him one afternoon, after Gaara had pulled him into the office alone.
"You feel it, right?" Gaara had asked, unsure if Naruto would even know what he meant or where he should start but needing an answer nonetheless.
Naruto looked hard into Gaara's eyes for all of but a few seconds before shining that foxlike grin of his. "Course I do," he said, easy as anything. "You're a lot harder on yourself than you should be, ya know. And you keep me up at night, sometimes."
Gaara still wasn't certain what his reaction had been—maybe he just stood there and gawked, for all he knew—but whatever it was, Naruto had relaxed his shoulders and stepped away from the office door at his back, grabbed both of Gaara's shoulders in his hands.
"I like it. Keeps me close to you even when you're far away. Like you're right here with me, always."
Naruto had said that with an air of indifference even as his eyes stayed trained on Gaara's, and Gaara had just fallen into him—right there in the office, their lips meeting for the first time in months, against a bright backdrop of stars in his head he finally knew—for certain—they both felt.
He thought it would end there.
Not their relationship—Gaara and Hinata saw each other, too, after all, so the marriage was just one big happy affair for the three of them—but maybe the presence of their connection, at least. Since both he and Naruto were aware of it, they would both be more conscious of what got through. That kind of thing.
As Gaara stumbled into his house—empty this early in the afternoon—he cursed the day he ever thought such a thing. This was Naruto—and Hinata, never blameless, always complicit—he was dealing with. Truly, he should have known better.
He wearily put some water on to boil for tea and leaned against a kitchen counter to wait. He didn't even want to sit down. His mind kept filling with all the softest, sweetest sounds that he simply wanted to reach out and grab onto. A hand slid into his hair, but all he could hold was his own head until the water reached boiling point.
"Go easy on me, please…" Gaara finally whispered, preparing some tea.
Their connection wasn't that kind—as though they heard each other's daily conversations and such, not even after Shukaku's chakra had expanded it so much—but in a matter of minutes, all the fuzziness and flirtatious haze that clouded Gaara's mind so much began to settle. By the time he had finished his tea, he almost felt like himself again, if a little flush.
He sighed, long and loud into his empty house, then made himself comfortable on the couch, facing away from the room as he drifted to sleep.
***
"Father?" Shinki's voice floated into Gaara's mind from out of nowhere.
He woke instantly, turning over to see Shinki and Yodo standing above him next to the couch. It looked about early evening or so—light still fading outside and lights turned on inside. Yodo had her head tilted a bit at him.
"Are you feeling okay?" she asked.
Gaara rubbed at his head. "Yes, of course," he said gently. "Why do you ask?"
Shinki answered. "Uncle Kankuro told Araya you were here sleeping, so we thought something may be wrong."
Gaara softened at his children's concern but really wished they wouldn't worry so much about him—especially when it wasn't warranted.
"Well, I'm here, and I'm fine." He patted the top of both Shinki and Yodo's heads, then asked, "And where is Araya right now? Still with Uncle Kankuro?"
"He's with the Hokage."
Gaara froze for a second, his expression wide open. "He's what?"
"With the Hokage. Outside," Yodo said again. "We came over because he said he wanted to see you, but you were like this so…"
Gaara took a deep breath to collect himself and deal with the situation like an adult. "Thanks, you two. I'll take care of it. Araya's with him right now?"
"Yes, Father," Shinki said.
Gaara flashed him a smile. "You guys hanging out at the house tonight?"
"No way," Yodo said. "We just came to get you for the Hokage. We were in the middle of training!"
"We're all getting stronger," Shinki said. Always earnest.
"You already are." Gaara tapped him on the shoulder. "Don't be out too late tonight, you two."
"You won't be busy with Lord Hokage?"
"No, we won't be long. I'm sure he's busy, seeing as I wasn't expecting him. Let's go get the Hokage off of Araya's hands now, shall we?" Gaara said.
Yodo and Shinki led the way to the front door as though they were his escorts, and met with Araya—and, somehow, impossibly, Naruto—on the other side.
Araya turned toward Gaara. He could be hard to read, behind the mask, but Gaara had years of experience from Kankuro's penchant for face paint. He warmed at Gaara's finally joining them.
Naruto, naturally, didn't waste a moment. "There you are! Thought you'd never come up for air," he said, and laughed.
Gaara really didn't feel like putting up with any teasing in front of his kids, so he reached past Araya right for Naruto's hand, grabbing it tight to shut him up.
Then he faced the children. "Thank you all for your hard work. Make sure you take time to rest, too."
"We will!" Yodo and Shinki said in sort-of unison. Araya took off after them out of the yard and up the street.
Only after they were out of eyeshot did Gaara confront Naruto. He pulled him by their joined hands into the house—and against the door.
"Hey, you," Naruto said, another laugh following close behind.
Gaara moved toward him, an ask and an acceptance in the same breath, and grabbed him down until their mouths met.
It felt better than good. Words didn't exist to describe how much every part of Gaara leaned into the kiss. His head swirled with a simmering, glittering snow that dampened everything except this—Naruto's arms capturing and cradling him as they fell into one another. He almost couldn't stand it but also could never get enough of it.
Contradictions—his life was full to bursting with them.
It took a long little while for Gaara to take a breath that didn't come from Naruto first.
"Wow!" Naruto sounded breathless and looked thoroughly welcomed, his skin hot even from between their clothes. "Somehow, I wasn't expecting that."
He was still holding Gaara crushingly close, with his eyes fixed on Gaara's answering glare.
"I've been wanting to do that all day." The words came out hard—accusatory.
"I mean, I know that," Naruto said. "I just—I guess I thought you'd be a little more irritated than… well, this, ya know." He flushed warm brown all across his cheeks.
"I am irritated. What did you two think was going on with me while you were carrying on like honeymooners?"
"Uh… oh, so… bad timing?"
"Worst timing, Naruto. My head was killing me, and I had to get home and knock unconscious just to get you out of my mind!"
"Oh, Gaara. I'm sorry, I—" Naruto brought his hand up to Gaara's face, but Gaara caught and pressed his cheek against it with such a gossamer touch that it silenced them both.
"Don't be sorry," he said after a moment. "I'm not upset at you."
"You're not? I mean—are you sure?"
Gaara cut a glare. "What do you mean?"
"You yelled at me. I just wanna make sure."
He shut his eyes. "Naruto…"
"If I had known it was going to be anything like this, I would have asked Hinata to come."
"I'll make it up to her later. Can you just—fucking hold me, please? I can't stop thinking about you today. It's torture."
"All you had to do was say so, Gaara," Naruto said. About halfway through, it turned into a purr that made Gaara feel hot and cold all over.
He didn't really stand much of a chance after that, under the weight of Naruto's body and holding the love of so many hearts. He never did. He always came undone.
Naruto, curled as far as he could be around Gaara, touched his lips to the love scar. "Thank you, dear," he whispered.
Gaara laughed at the oh so married tone of that. "Isn't it time for you to go?"
"So soon?" Naruto said, even as they both already knew: they really should be getting back to the daily grind before reality snapped back around them like a rubber band.
With a lingering press of lips, Gaara separated from Naruto for the first time in what felt like all night.
They held hands on the way to the train station.
His head was an empty sink, drained of all the static of the day. Like a plate washed clean.
"Give Hina my love. And get home safely," he said.
"I can really only guarantee one of those," Naruto said, then added, before Gaara could interject, "but I'll do my best."
Even if Gaara really wanted to protest, how could he? Naruto only ever promised to give his love—because he insisted a part of his home would always be…
Gaara.
What argument was there to even use against that?
He wasn't even ever concerned about his safety—just loving Gaara. What—the hell could he say to that?
"Have a good night, Gaara." Naruto faced him on the platform as the train approached from the distance.
"You, too, Naruto," Gaara said. "I would say don't work too hard, but I just had my mouth around your—"
"Holy shit, would you hush about that?! Your mouth!"
"Well, now who needs to hush?"
"Goddammit." Naruto hung his head in his hand.
"Come on," Gaara said, tugging on his arm to get a look at his flush face. "The train is almost here. You can't let it leave without giving me a kiss goodbye, right?"
That piqued Naruto's interest. "You really all right?"
It was nice—and interesting—of him to ask. True, Gaara didn't often flirt too much with public affection, so Naruto probably worried that everything hadn't even out as much as he thought—but there was no need to worry.
Gaara said, "Yeah. Feel pretty good, actually. I think, tonight, I'd just be better if you kissed me. That's all."
He stepped into Naruto at the same time that Naruto reached out to embrace him. After being together for so long, they had a certain, familiar rhythm that they'd sometimes fall into, and tonight looked like another for the books.
"If I kiss you, huh? Not the other way around?"
"Not for tonight."
"Then for tonight, let me just…" Without bothering to finish, Naruto sealed his lips against Gaara's.
It was a task, not getting lost in each other, the way they so easily could with so many links chaining them together. The train's arrival served as a heady reminder to them both, and they finally parted ways with the spark of the locomotive.