Testing the Walls

A/N: Even though this isn’t really a true sequel, it would still make more sense if you read Teasing the Edges first, otherwise you ruin the plot twist in that one if you read them out of order. And I’m sorry to those of you who were expecting more action with Sasuke, none in this one, but all of you can thank Burn-the-Witch, because I will continue his story much sooner than I originally planned. She suggested I do a piece about Gaara, and when I started planning for that story, it just made such an excellent tie-in, I decided to go ahead and do it now! So this will be a two parter, and then I’ll start Sasuke’s story.

Testing the Walls:
Part One- Gaara

Gaara knew he’d seen something he shouldn’t have. He knew they would send someone for him. The question was simply when. He couldn’t afford to let his guard down, ever. He wasn’t exactly excited about living his life on high alert again, but he couldn’t exactly avoid it now. There was no going back, and even though he didn’t know exactly what was coming for him, he had no doubt that it would be coming. What he’d seen was an assassination, but it was what he’d heard that had assured his fate.

He’d finally pulled himself up out of the poverty he’d been wallowing in and gotten himself off the streets. As a recovering drug addict who had been homeless for most of his life, it had been pretty hard to find a job. His hard life had made him determined, it had made him tough, but it had also made him undesirable for many of the ‘legitimate’ positions he had originally sought after.

But those were perfect qualities for an enforcer. So he’d been brought into the local gang, the Desert Killerz, and given a job protecting their leader and delivering certain very explicit ‘messages’ to some of his enemies. He hadn’t exactly been proud of his new status, but it had beaten living on the streets and doing heroin. The gang had been pretty good to him, it had taken almost a year to fully prove himself to them, but once he had they’d taken good care of him.

He’d had a nice apartment, a nice car, and more clothes at one time than he’d ever owned throughout his entire life. They’d also been great about the fact that he was a recovering addict. Even though drugs were the main source of income for the gang, they never forced him to handle or be around them, as long as he didn’t mind beating the hell out of anyone who was stupid enough to get in the way of their trade.

They were also great about the fact that he was gay. He was the only gay member of the Killerz, and had been afraid that when the rest of them found out about that he’d be beaten, kicked out, killed or some painful combination of the three. But it had been surprisingly anticlimactic. Their leader, Ghost, had simply said that he figured it was only a matter of time before one of their members ended up being into guys, and as long as Gaara kept it private, he didn’t care what he did in his free time.

So yeah, the gang had been good to him, which was one of the reasons he was so upset to leave them after what had happened. But he couldn’t just stick around and let himself be hunted, and the gang would have been useless against the enemy he was currently facing. He was now in a hostile situation, and he would react and plan accordingly.

The night it happened had started just like any other for Gaara. He had insomnia, he’d never slept when he was using, and he’d heard that many recovering addicts still had trouble sleeping, so he wasn’t concerned, it was something he’d gotten used to. So because he never slept anyway, he often looked for someone to entertain himself with in the wee hours of the night.

Which is how he had met Zane. Zane had been dangerous for Gaara in so many ways, he knew better yet he couldn’t tell himself no. Zane was the leader of a rival gang, and deep in the closet. They’d reached an agreement to meet secretly and fuck, and it had benefited them both. Things had been great for a while, Gaara was so happy to have found someone else who just wanted casual sex without a relationship, and no one had ever suspected a thing.

And then Zane had been executed. Gaara had been on his way to meet him at his office, as their arrangement dictated, when he’d heard the unmistakable sound of gunfire. He’d crouched outside of the open window he customarily used for entry and watched as Zane’s lifeless body fell to the floor. Other people might have been struck with grief at seeing their lover murdered, but Gaara merely felt regret.

Things might not have gotten hectic for him if he would have just turned and left like he wanted to. What was that old saying about curiosity killing the cat, well this time curiosity put a price on the gang enforcer’s head. At this point the assassin still hadn’t seen him, and Gaara was already turning to go when the man inside pulled out his phone and began speaking.

Gaara heard the conversation plainly, and it was obvious after only a few statements that this was bigger than a simple bid for power from within as Gaara had initially suspected. Gaara listened as the man asked where to pick up his payment and other such details that led Gaara to believe that this had been a hired hit. Then the shit really hit the fan, as Gaara was still listening and trying to pick out as many details as he could about this assassin, the man turned around and saw him squatting outside the window.

The redhead had been gone in a flash. Being homeless and junkie for more than half of your life gave you quite a bit of practice at losing someone who was following you. Running from the cops had been a specialty of Gaara’s, and he put all of that knowledge to use. When he was sure that he was no longer being tailed, he returned home. The next morning, he’d sold his car and given up the lease on his apartment. Using the money from his car and returned security deposit, he split town.

Which is how he ended up here, in some nameless town, wandering the streets and wondering what to do about the guy following him. He’d known he was being followed for about a half an hour. He’d tried to lose him once or twice without being obvious about it, and had not been successful, and now he was running out of options.

There were now two: he could either attempt to lose him the old fashioned way, but there was no guarantee he’d be successful, and when the inevitable confrontation took place Gaara definitely wanted to feel like he had the upper hand. So, that only left him with the option of leading the man somewhere for them to hash out their differences. The question was where. Where could he take the man that would make the man approach him openly instead of putting a bullet in the back of his head?

Gaara continued to walk, even as the idea was forming. He quickly changed directions again, and headed uptown. It only took a few minutes to each his destination, and despite the fact that he hadn’t been in town all that long, the bouncer at the club already knew his face and let him in without having to wait in line. He supposed there was an upside to sleeping with the man on his first night here, even if the sex had been less than fantastic. Now…let’s see what his tail did about this plot twist.

*****

“Can we buy you a drink?” Well that was unexpected. Two of them, guess that meant Gaara was a top priority, but then again anyone who was on the outside of what they did knowing their secrets must be. He looked them over. Tall, and well built, they both were cute in that all American boy way, not exactly Gaara’s type but then they were trying to kill him so it didn’t matter anyway. If they did get around to fucking before they fought it would just be for a bit of fun anyway.

“Yes,” Gaara answered the one who spoke, the blonde. “I’m Steve and this is Mark,” the blonde spoke again gesturing to the brunette when he said Mark. Gaara had no doubt that those were not their real names. It didn’t matter however, where he was going to put the bodies there wouldn’t be tombstones anyway. “Gaara.” He answered, seeing no real reason to lie to these men, and that sparked off a whole new stream of thinking.

Why did they lie to him about their names? If the plan all along was to kill him what was the point of hiding their identities. The rules of being an assassin must be very constricting. Gaara had no doubt that the instinct to shield their true identities was second nature to these men now, but it still didn’t make any sense in the long run.

Gaara was simultaneously fighting the urge to either roll his eyes or puke when the two guys started trying to make small talk with him. They were dreadfully boring, he was pretty sure they figured they were going to have to seduce him to get him alone, and they were giving it a good shot he’d admit, but they’d obviously never tried to pick up a guy like Gaara.

Although, there was a new thought, maybe they’d never tried to pick up a guy before. It was quite possible that neither of them had ever slept with a man. They had only followed him in this bar because they were tailing him, and they probably meant to kill him as soon as they got him alone, no sex attached. Oh now this could be fun.

As they continued to prattle on about trivial things a plan began to form in Gaara’s mind. He let them continue to flirt with him for another fifteen or twenty minutes, and by that time he was definitely convinced that they had at least never flirted with another guy. Only a woman would be impressed enough by their muscles and cute, clean-cut faces to overlook the fact that they were both two of the most uninteresting humans he’d ever encountered.

But then again their life story probably lost something in translation when you cut out all the stuff about being an assassin. Finally after the twelfth comment about how horribly the Yankees were playing this season Gaara couldn’t stand it anymore. “Do you want to go somewhere more private?” he asked without preamble.

The two men looked at each other as if they were surprised at how easy the redhead had just made their lives. “Sure Red,” the blonde, obviously the talker answered. Gaara reined in the urge to punch him. He hated when people called him ‘Red’. It suggested a level of intimacy he had never achieved with anyone. To assume that you were familiar enough with Gaara to give him a nickname was a dangerous endeavor.

But Gaara supposed he could overlook the transgression for the time being. He was going to kill them both anyway, he supposed that was a clear enough message not to do it again, and if not it still wouldn’t be a problem. He stood up to go, and both men fell into step behind him. As they exited the bar he had the feeling he was being watched by a third set of eyes from somewhere farther away, but he passed it off as being paranoid.

“A hotel?” Gaara asked when they were outside and the blaring music no longer impeded conversation. “Sure.” The blonde answered and stepped aside to indicate that Gaara should lead the way. He began walking and bypassed one of the nicer hotels in town in order to stop at one of the seedier ones where they didn’t ask questions, or ID. It didn’t take long to rent a room, and it was only about twenty minutes, tops, from the time they left the bar to the time hey were inside the room.

Gaara knew he had to act fast to distract them. It was obvious that the plan was simply to kill him now that they were alone, but Gaara needed to get them focused on sex again. He sauntered into the room and pulled off his shirt. The action had a double effect, while the blonde was busy staring at his exposed chest, the brunette was checking out the outline of the knife in his pocket he had now exposed.

The brunette whispered to the blonde then and Gaara watched his eyes flick down to his pocket. Perfect, now they were convinced they had to at least get him naked. So Gaara decided to turn on the charm, well charm for him at least. “Strip boys. I’m ready to get fucked, and I don’t want to waste time with clothes.” The blonde’s eyes went glassy and he leaned over to whisper something to the brunette. Gotcha! Gaara would bet money that the blonde was trying to convince his partner that they could still kill him after they fucked.

“No secrets boys. If we’re going to have a threesome, the two of you need to learn how to share.” Gaara purred, and then he had the brunette. Gaara had been told that he was a master at dirty talk, the way he was completely unembarrassed to say anything, and was utterly direct was supposedly beyond sexy. He really didn’t think it was all that sexy, but he’d used the skill to serve his own ends quite a few times.

So they both began stripping, and Gaara turned to his own clothes. Gaara was pushed backwards on the bed as soon as he was naked. He was worried that he hadn’t distracted the two enough from their goal, and they intended to kill him right now, which sucked because now his knife was on the floor, and he wasn’t. He needn’t have worried though, the blonde went straight for his cock, squeezing it in a tight fist and stroking.

Good, they were into it, and didn’t seem to be shaking off the lust anytime soon, so Gaara decided it was ok to let himself fall into that place in his head where only sex mattered. He moaned loudly as the blonde increased his pace and the brunette walked towards where his head lay on the bed.

Gaara immediately reached for the brunette’s cock, hoping he would bring it close enough for the redhead to suck, but he was denied. He was only allowed to stroke it as the brunette reached down and wrapped a hand around his throat. Gaara was mildly concerned at first, but he calmed immediately when he realized it was just a little kink being thrown in, there wasn’t nearly enough pressure being applied to really cause him harm.

He figured the guy got off on these kinds of games, knowing that he was planning to kill Gaara eventually, and toying with the redhead until then, even if Gaara didn’t know about it was probably highly arousing to the man. Gaara wouldn’t deny that it felt good, so he’d let the man play his little games as long as he liked.

He moaned again and arched his back, throwing himself wholeheartedly into the role of wanton whore. Which wasn’t too far off the mark anyway, the redhead strongly suspected that he was a sex addict. He was honest enough with himself to admit that he used anonymous, meaningless sex as an excuse not to form real relationships and further wall himself away from humanity.

The brunette apparently wasn’t satisfied with Gaara’s hand when his oh so tempting mouth was nearby. He moved closer and placed a knee on the bed so that Gaara could turn his head and suck the tempting cock into his mouth. He knew he was good at giving head, he’d received compliments on his abilities enough times to give him a bit of an ego if he were so inclined, but this angle was hampering his ability to use his full array of skills.

But Gaara couldn’t find it in himself to complain, because while he’d been focused on the brunette, his friend the blonde had been busy as well. He now abandoned Gaara’s cock and before he had time to moan in protest, he was letting out a moan of pleasure as his nipple was harshly pinched and twisted. The pleasurable pain rippled outward from the abused nub and made Gaara ache for the man to assault it again.

But instead of pinching it again as Gaara longed for, the man simply slapped it, causing less intense waves of pain to follow in the wake of the first sensations. But the blonde’s hands didn’t stay idle long, while he’d been distracting Gaara with pain, he’d been reaching down to his discarded pants and retrieving the lube from his front pocket.

Oh, so it was like that huh? No wonder these guys didn’t know how to pick up a man, but didn’t seem to be bothered by the thought of fucking him, they were fucking each other. Not exactly gay enough to go to a bar and browse for men, but bisexual enough to want to relieve tension with each other on long missions away from home.

Gaara watched out of the corner of his eye, the most he could manage while keeping the cock in his mouth, fascinated as lube was liberally dribbled on the blonde’s fingers. Those fingers were then lowered to Gaara’s hole and two were pushed in. When Gaara gasped and mewled around the thick length pushing between his lips, he figured the blonde took it as a sign he was no blushing virgin, because another finger was roughly pushed into him then and all Gaara could do was writhe in absolute pleasure.

The blonde found his prostate then and Gaara practically shrieked in pleasure. It came out a bit muffled though since it traveled through the brunette’s cock before being bounced around the room. He felt a tugging on his hips then and understood that he was being asked to turn over, so he released the throbbing cock from his hot, wet mouth but moaned in protest at the loss.

His mouth didn’t stay empty for long because as soon as he had his knees under him, the brunette shifted to lie beneath him on the bed and Gaara dipped his head to begin to pleasure the man in earnest. He was so focused on his task of making the brunette lose his composure that he didn’t notice that the blonde was rolling on a condom to fuck him until he was entered harshly.

The cock in his mouth made a popping noise as it was freed when Gaara threw his head back and screamed out his pleasure at being filled. A low dark chuckle floated to his ears from somewhere behind him. Gaara noted this with pleasure, already his mind was beginning to separate from his body, perfect. This was why Gaara loved sex, because it was like testing the walls he built between his brain and his heart. If he could feel nothing in his heart while his mind and body spun out of control, then his shields were safely in tact.

The rough thrusts continued and Gaara bent his head back to the task, groaning encouragement the entire time. He had just thought that this was perfect until the brunette reached up and fisted a handful of his hair and began to force Gaara’s head in a rhythm he preferred; now it was perfect. Just the right amount of pleasure mixed with pain and humiliation to keep it impersonal.

No lover would treat Gaara the way these two were and many others had before them, and that’s the way Gaara liked it, he didn’t want a lover. He just wanted a good fuck, and he was definitely getting it. God this had been a good idea.

The blonde behind him pulled out suddenly and Gaara had the fleeting, horror-filled thought that he might be coming already, until he remembered the condom and that there was no need to pull out when he came. So he was expecting to be moved around a bit with some shift of position. Instead, a hot wet tongue swept over his asshole.

The brunette echoed the long moan Gaara let out when the vibrations it caused increased his own pleasure. Gaara couldn’t remember the last time he’d been rimmed. But whoever that faceless, nameless lover was, his skill couldn’t hold a candle to the man currently using his tongue to drive the redhead mad. Oh fuck that felt good! Gaara hoped they were using flavored lube, because plain KY tasted like crap.

It stopped just as abruptly as it had begun and the blonde pushed back inside the much smaller man. Gaara’s hair was pulled hard then, and the brunette used the grip to lift Gaara completely off his cock. “Lick my fuckin’ balls.” The man commanded and Gaara bent his head to obey without thought or question. He was beyond the point of lying to himself and thinking of this only as a way to distract the two assassins, he knew that he wanted this. Only a few heartbeats passed before the blonde behind him ordered “Lick his ass too.”

The petite redhead felt like it was a contest for his attention, they both kept trying to distract him from what the other was doing, and as he bent his head to obey the latest order, he decided that he was loving every minute of it. Apparently, so were his companions if the moans and grunts were anything to judge it by.

Gaara’s mouth was pulled back to the thick cock, and he gleefully went back to sucking it as he pleased. True to his suspicions, the blonde must have seen his enthusiasm for sucking the brunette’s cock, so he tried to recapture Gaara’s attention. He used the hands that had been holding the redhead’s hips steady to spread the white, creamy cheeks and inserted his thumb into Gaara beside his thrusting dick.

Gaara almost bit down on the cock in his mouth at the intensity of the pleasure, but he stopped himself in time, but the brunette didn’t seem to mind, in fact he moaned loudly at the little press of teeth. The redhead scraped the length with his teeth again as he simultaneously rocked backwards to show the blonde his enjoyment of this newest development.

It ended too quickly for Gaara, but he didn’t complain as he was obviously being repositioned for more sex. The brunette stayed in his position lying on the bed, and he pulled Gaara up to straddle his hips facing away from him. Gaara wasted no time impaling himself on the tasty erection that had just been occupying his mouth.

As soon as his ass met the brunette’s hips he was tugged on so that he was leaning back, increasing the intensity of the penetration. His prostate was being hit with every thrust as he rode the bulky man hard. He reached down to fist his own erection, and soon the pleasure was overwhelming and he couldn’t keep a steady rhythm going. The brunette noticed his distress and began thrusting upward into Gaara so that the redhead didn’t have to dictate anything.

The blonde was very patient in Gaara’s opinion, much more patient than Gaara himself would have been if he had been left unattended while the other two fucked. But even what little restraint the man had was eventually worn thin, and he reached out and hauled Gaara off the brunette mid thrust. The brunette grunted in complaint and the blonde just smirked at his partner in answer.

The blonde pulled Gaara back to his hands and knees and then forced his cock into Gaara’s waiting mouth. Mmmm…strawberry, it was flavored lube, thank god. There was a quick slap to his ass, and then the brunette pushed in again, and rode the redhead hard. Gaara was simply a mindless, moaning mass of pleasure at this point, nothing could be better.

Or at least that’s what he thought; the two men fucking him must have had other ideas though, because they stopped together. They must have communicated some idea for something even more pleasurable over Gaara’s bent and busy head. The blonde crawled on the bed and lay down. He smiled up at Gaara and then said, “Come over here and be a good boy and give daddy a good ride Red.”

Gaara growled at the use of the hated nickname again, and the ridiculous line that sounded like it came straight from a porn, but he moved to straddle the man nonetheless. He crawled over him and sank down onto the cock slowly, letting out a long, drawn out moan as he did so. He only bounced up and down a few times before there was a hand on his shoulder and the brunette whispered, “Hold on baby.”

Gaara felt the tip of another cock brush against his eager hole, and his stomach fluttered at the implications of that. Oh god, please, please let him be doing what I think he is. If he was wrong, the letdown after getting his hopes up would kill Gaara. But he needn’t have worried, As soon as he stopped moving, the brunette began to push himself inside Gaara as well.

Gaara howled in pleasure, he couldn’t help it. He knew he was being rather vocal tonight, but he didn’t care. He’d had threesomes before, yes. But he’d never been fucked by two cocks. It stretched, and it burned, and it even hurt a little, but god was it incredible. And then it got even better.

They sensed that his need for a few moments to adjust was over and began moving together again. The push and the pull and the fullness were almost torture in their intensity, but Gaara loved it. He moaned and arched and dug his nails into the skin of the blonde’s shoulders, and still he felt like he needed to do more. His body felt like it was receiving pure electricity and it wanted to release the flow of energy, instead of bottling it up. It was pure self-preservation, if he didn’t burn some of it off, it would surely destroy him.

So he leaned down and pulled the blonde into a deep, probing kiss, and it was exactly what he needed. Just like an electrical current, the intense energy flowed through him, instead of into him, and all he had to do was lay there and let the pleasure wash through him and radiate outward. It was absolutely blissful, and when his orgasm burned through him it didn’t seem as if he had hit some peak or tumbled over some edge. It was simply another point of releasing the energy that never stopped in his body for long, always wanting to travel outward, back to his partners.

The tightening of his muscles as he emptied himself onto the blonde’s stomach was enough to pull release from both of his lovers. There was a low growl behind him, and a soft grunt below him as both men filled their condoms. The sex had been wonderful, but those soft sounds had signaled to Gaara that it was over, and had pulled him back into focus.

Gaara knew enough about most adult males to know that they were normally sluggish and mellow after an orgasm. It was a proven fact that during the afterglow of sex, their reaction time was slowed and that they had trouble switching their brain from the subject of sex to anything else. It was the perfect time to strike, seeing as how Gaara never felt any of these unpleasant side effects of coming.

He slid off the bed with all of his usual grace and moved toward his clothes. True enough to his suspicions, the two idiots on the bed had almost forgotten about monitoring him and were grinning stupidly at each other. What a dumb mistake, he’d show them the folly of forgetting about Gaara of the Desert Killerz.

The knife was out of his pants pocket faster than they could see it. He launched himself at the blonde before they could react. He grabbed him by the hair and hauled him against his chest and the stunned assassin only had time to get out “What th-“ before Gaara slit his throat. He let the body go and rounded on a now much more alert brunette, ready for a good fight.

“You knew we were after you the whole time didn’t you?” the brunette asked as he circled away from Gaara into the larger portion of the room, apparently wanting more room for the coming confrontation. “I picked up that you were following me on Kings Street.” Gaara said in his perfected manner of offering explanation and insult at the same time.

The man smirked at Gaara and said “Very clever, you never let on that you knew, and you led us right into a trap. Very clever indeed.” Gaara sighed, if he was hoping to distract him by talking, then he obviously didn’t know much about his target. However Gaara was distracted by the fact that he wasn’t ready to kill the man yet. He needed a few answers, and the brunette was his only source for them, but that left him with the difficult question of how to attack a trained assassin without immediately going for the kill?

The problem was solved for him when the man launched himself at Gaara, and the redhead found himself on the defensive. The fist aimed at his face was easily blocked, as was the kick to his midsection, it was the subsequent elbow to the temple that finally got past Gaara’s normally impenetrable defenses. He stumbled with the force of impact and decided to change tactics.

He launched himself at the brunette’s feet and turned the contest from a boxing match to an alley brawl. It was just the kind of dirty fighting that Gaara was accustomed to. Arms and legs flailed about furiously as each tried to maintain the upper hand in the scuffle. Gaara then took full advantage of the fact that they were both naked, and reached out and grabbed the man’s balls and yanked hard.

The howl of pain was quite satisfactory to Gaara, and he enjoyed it as he rolled over and pressed the brunette’s shoulders against the carpet. Gaara knelt over the body he had pinned to the floor and pressed the blade of his knife harshly against the struggling man’s throat. As soon as he felt the cold steel against his sensitive skin, he stopped struggling. Gaara smiled sadistically when the man’s movements stopped. “Who sent you?” he asked the man. The brunette beneath him laughed and then spit in his face in answer.

Gaara supposed he should have been angry about that, and in a way he was; now he regretted killing the other one for calling him Red all night. But he wasn’t angry enough about it to show any signs outwardly, and he was glad for that. He could tell that the way he just continued to smile serenely with spit dripping down his face was really pissing the other man off.

The man hadn’t answered his question, but then again he really hadn’t expected him to, and it really didn’t matter in the long run. “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter who sent you, because all I want from you is for you to deliver a message to them anyway. Tell them to stop sending people after me. I have no interest in exposing your organization; I just want to go back to living my life in peace. Anyone else who comes for me will end up in a body bag like your friend.”

The man smirked, and Gaara had to give him a few points on the bad ass scale for it, he looked positively evil with that expression on his face. “I can’t deliver your message for you. I was sent here to kill you. I will either accomplish that mission or die trying.” Matt or Mark or whatever the fuck his fake ass name was, said haughtily.

Gaara would have laughed at the man’s nerve even while lying on his back with a knife pressed to his throat, but he was too bust slicing said throat open to do so. Blood leaked out of the gaping wound and some of it sprayed out of the emptying arteries and hit Gaara’s face. The redhead took a moment to enjoy his moment of victory before he let a new plan begin to formulate in his mind.

He slid off of the body gracefully and then bent over to check the dead man’s pockets. Wallet, no. Keys, no. Cell phone, bingo. He pulled the device out and began to scroll through the saved numbers. There weren’t many, so it was mere seconds before he found what he was looking for. He hit the call button and waited for whoever had been labeled ‘bossman’ to answer.

The wait was short. After only two rings an authoritative, clipped voice answered.
“Zach?”

“Zach’s dead.” Gaara answered.

“Who are you?”

“The guy he was trying to kill.”

“How can I help you Gaara?”

“By getting off the fire escape and coming inside so that we can talk face to face.”

There was a short bark of laughter and then, “I’m impressed that you noticed me.”

“I’ll give you a lot more to be impressed about if you come inside.”

“Hey kid, you want a job?”

Gaara was actually taken aback by that last question. So much so that when the man entered he abandoned his original plan of attacking immediately and just stared. Of course he had quite a bit to stare at as well. The man standing in front of him was severely scarred, his head looked like it had been put through a meat grinder, and his face hadn’t fared much better with jagged lines running down its length.

“Do I want a what?” Gaara asked with not a small amount of suspicion. “A job.” The man answered as if he were discussing the weather. “I know that you left your old one as an enforcer when all of this mess started, have you had time to find a new one yet? You’d make a great assassin.”

Gaara could do nothing but cock an eyebrow at the man. Was he crazy? Here he was standing in a room with two dead bodies, two of his dead employees, and he was calm as could be offering the man who killed them a job. Gaara also strongly suspected that this was a trick. Just a ploy to get him to come along, and then kill him when he least expected it.

“I can see that you obviously don’t trust me, and I don’t know how to get you to do that, but whatever you want from me I’ll do. We really could use your skills, I watched this entire thing, and you were incredible.”

Gaara refused to think of that statement in a sexual manner, he chose to assume that the man was talking only about his ability to take out two obviously well-trained assassins. He was already feeling a little unguarded that the man had even seen the three of them having sex, thinking about the man enjoying what he saw was even worse.

“Leave.” Gaara said after an extended silence. “If you really want me to trust you, then leave. Don’t send anyone for me, don’t follow me. If you really are serious about offering me a job, then leave me completely alone for three weeks. I have to believe that you’re no longer after my life before I agree to do anything or go anywhere with you.”

“Believe me kid,” the scarred man answered, “if I wanted you dead, you’d be dead already,” he continued flashing a gun at Gaara just to make sure the redhead fully understood his meaning. “But I don’t want you dead. I definitely want you alive and well. Alive and well, and in my employ. But I’ll leave. I’m going to leave this on the bed. In three weeks, when you haven’t seen or heard from us, call me.”

The man turned and left then stopping only to place a small business card at the foot of the rumpled bed. Gaara waited to make sure that he was really gone before walking over to the bed and picking up the card. ‘Ibiki Morino. Head of the Hidden Village Assassins. 555-327-3421.’ Gaara went pale. Hidden Village!

He’d heard of these men when he was in the Desert Killerz. He thought it was just a myth, an urban legend of sorts that the members told among themselves for fun. He tried to remember everything he’d ever heard about them. The only thing his exhausted mind could process was that they sometimes worked with the FBI, so going to the police was fruitless.

He’d just be killed and then the whole thing covered up, including eliminating any law enforcement that believed him and decided to help. Gaara knew he was running out of options. Regardless of his choice he knew he only had three weeks, and at the end of that time his life was over. So he made his decision, in three weeks he’d trust this Morino guy and accept his offer, and then he’d either die and be reborn an assassin, or he’d just plain die.


A/N: Yay! Another one down. Part two (Ibiki’s story) will be up soon, and then I’ll start working on the continuation of Sasuke’s story. As always, any suggestions for future pairings or plot twists are welcomed with open arms. This series has already become way more complicated in my mind than I ever envisioned, but that’s ok, you guys are coming along for the ride right? Anyway, hope you enjoyed. ~Vanity