A Virgin Kiss

Chapter 21: The Promises

It was really amazing, Gaara thought, how different it was to be held in someone’s arms while doing nothing compared to just being alone on a bed doing nothing. Should it really be that different? The redhead didn’t spend a lot of time prone on a bed—it was frustrating since if he fell asleep, Shukaku would try to take over him. And it was boring. It was ok to be on a bed for sex, but otherwise why bother? At least if you sat or lay where you could watch the stars, they moved—slowly, but they moved. There was nothing interesting about hotel ceilings.

But in Neji’s arms it wasn’t boring or frustrating to just be on a bed doing nothing—and they weren’t talking, moving, kissing, or anything even more intimate—but somehow this was more intimate that anything else they had done on this bed. How Gaara was feeling was a confusing paradox, but confusing in a good way, an intriguing way, that made him eager for tomorrow and another chance to figure it out.

It had to be love making this so different, and it seemed there was more to love the longer he felt it. Naruto had been right--love did make you stronger. Tonight Gaara felt like he could stay away easily not worrying about Shukaku because looking at Neji was currently his favorite thing to do—even if he was only able to look out of one eye because the other was currently pressed against his lover's chest.

When the sleeping teen stirred, trying to shift the body on his chest, Gaara asked, “Neji, am I hurting you?”

“No, Red," he replied, stroking Gaara's hair, "but my bladder is, and I’m feeling in need of a shower. Wanna to share one?”

“Yeah,” said Gaara nuzzling into Neji's hand and chest.

“Wanna wash my hair for me?”

“Yeah.”

“Wanna comb out and dry my hair for me?”

“Yeah.”

“Wanna hang from the ceiling using our chakra and fuck?”

“Yeah.”

“Could I ask you anything now and you’d just say `yeah’?”

“Maybe.”

“Aaahh, just checking, Red, just checking," said Neji chuckling.

“So, Hyuuga, you’re just teasing me about sex on the ceiling?” said Gaara sitting up so he could look at Neji's laughing face with both eyes.

“For tonight, yeah," said the Leaf nin getting up from the bed, "but some night when you aren’t going to be vulnerable to an attack on the road the next day, sure.”

“Why would sex make me more vulnerable to attack?” asked Gaara holding on to Neji's hand.

“Because, Red, I want you full of chakra and ready for an all out fight when you aren’t surrounded by lots of friendlies,” said Neji, caressing Gaara's face.

“Am I a precious person to you, Neji?” asked Gaara, wanting to hear Neji's feelings one more time.

“I love you, of course you are, baka! Come on, Red," he demanded pulling Gaara by the hand, "I’m going to piss on the floor if you don’t get up and follow me into the bathroom in ten seconds.”

Grinning, the Sand nin let himself be pulled up from the bed, so they could walk the few feet to the bathroom together holding hands. This was almost as silly as being carried to the bathroom, another strange love thing, Gaara thought happily.

When Neji was finished his business and washing his hands, Gaara asked, “Shower or bath?”

“Bath? Where’s the bath? You know I had a weird dream the other night you were giving me a bath.”

“I did—have sand, have waterproof shower curtain, have bath—the benefits of sharing a room with me, Hyuuga."

“Impressive, baby, impressive—but let’s just shower and save your chakra,” said Neji, grinning, as he started the shower.

“I’m not a little genin, Neji,” said Gaara unable to keep a note of whining out of his voice. It was ok to be the Hyuuga's baby in bed, but really, he was the Kazekage!

“The only thing little about you tonight, Red, is the number of functioning brain cells you have—I’m worried damn it—I thought I might be seeing you for the last time tonight, and I guess I’m still feeling this is too good to last, too good to be true, that it’s some sort of cruel joke, or—fuck, just get in the damn shower, Red!”

Oh! Gaara threw himself into the shower and kissed Neji passionately. His White Eyes was feeling being with him was "too good"!

Later, after they'd finally broken apart and begun to wash each other's bodies, Gaara said, “Did I tell you Temari thinks we make a good couple?”

“No, you didn’t. That’s cool—so, I have the family blessing?”

“Kankurou doesn’t know yet. I don’t know what he will think. But that’s it for my family, so you have half of the clan’s approval. Are your family ok with you and me?”

“They don’t know, so I don’t know.”

“Hinata? She was at dinner and saw us kiss.”

“Hinata couldn’t tell anyone about that kiss without passing out,” said Neji.

“They’re going to hate me, aren’t they? I’m a guy, a foreigner, a known killer, and a freak with a demon in him . . . “

“I love you, Gaara. I don’t care. Besides, you’re an ally, and the kills you did here in Konoha during the chuunin exam were legal.”

Despite Neji's words of love, Gaara felt a horrid sense of unease. The Hyuuga clan was not one to be taken lightly. “Here, let me shampoo your hair,” he said picking up the bottle in the shower, changing the subject. Neji knelt down in the shower with his face to the wall opposite the showerhead, making it easy for Gaara to lather up his long hair.

After carefully working the shampoo into Neji's scalp and through the length of his hair, Gaara finally spoke again, “Let’s not lie, Neji. I didn’t need to kill most of the people I’ve killed—some promised no harm, some begged, and some could have been left for the law. I killed them to make myself feel better because otherwise there seemed no need for me in the world. There was nothing for me except killing. I did it slow and bloody. I made them scream. I liked it because it made me feel alive; it made me feel like I had a purpose in life. It was the only thing that made me feel like I could bear life.”

“You’re not like that any more, Gaara. You’re the Kazekage.”

“Yeah, I am," and after a pause he added, “It’s time to rinse your hair.”

Neji stood up and moved around Gaara to be close to the water and started rinsing. When he was finished, he handed Gaara the conditioner and knelt again. As Gaara worked the creamy liquid into Neji’s hair, the Leaf nin finally tried to answer the question about his family, “I’m part of the branch family of the Hyuugas—I’m bound by the seal on my head to never harm them and to always serve them. It will call me back to the family if they need me. I’m not important to the family unless it is a crisis. When they need me, they get me or I die.”

After a pause in which Neji made some noises of pleasure at the feel of Gaara’s hands massaging his scalp, he continued, “The Hyuuga elders will want me to have children, children born to be put under a curse. I don’t want to do that—maybe that’s why I’ve always been interested in guys. I don’t think they care about my personal life for now, Gaara. But in seven or eight years, they’ll probably start caring. In the mid-twenties is when a lot of the clan gets pressured into marriage. But who knows what tomorrow will bring?”

Neji stood up and leaned against the tiled wall facing Gaara. The curse seal on his forehead seemed startlingly green. He wasn’t smiling as he said, “Gaara, any mission, any day can bring death or new friends, new sources of happiness—I’ve learned to not think about destiny, the future, fate—I focus on now, today, what I can do right now for myself. Right now, I can love you, protect you, and try to make sure our villages forge a peace that will last for our lifetimes. The only Hyuuga you need to care about now, Red, is me.”

“I do care, Neji. I just don’t want to do something that will make your family decide they need to call you back to Konoha. But I don’t want to hide how I feel about you. If anyone asks, I want to tell them who’s leaving love bites on my body, who’s my lover. I don’t want to hide that I love you. I want you with me as much as possible, to live with me, to share my life.”

“You want me to move in with you?”

“Yes, I do.”

“In Suna for this month I’m there?”

“For this month, for next month, for as long as you can or want,” said Gaara immediately.

“I want that, Gaara, I want to, but is Suna going to be ok with that?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if moving in with me will make you enemies, will hurt your reputation, your friendships, your family. It’s up to you—Neji, I tried to get Tsunade to make this mission optional for you. I love you, I want you, but I don’t want you regretting it. I don’t want any lies, any faking. You’ve taught me that. You’ve taught me to kiss. You’ve taught me that I can love and be loved. But I know what I am, what was sealed into me at birth. I was made to be the terror of Suna, their killer. I will always kill for them, and there will always be those that fear and hate me.”

Neji just pulled Gaara into his arms for a kiss. But when a glop of conditioner started dripping down onto both of their faces, he pulled away with a grin and moved Gaara back to rinse the mess off his face. Neji then moved around Gaara to rinse his hair. It involved tossing that head and hair back and forth, lots of shaking of that head, arms reaching up and grasping hanks of hair and then hands slowly sliding down to the ends. It was all done gracefully, like some erotic dance, yet without any awareness or consciousness of Gaara watching. But watch he did, hungrily, growing aroused at the sight.

Then Neji was turning around and talking again, “You told me it was better to have sex than to kill before we even kissed, Red. You don’t want to kill for pleasure any more, do you?”

“No, no, I don’t,” Gaara said with conviction, and then added in a softer, huskier voice, “Sex makes me feel more alive than killing. And I’ve found something better than sex now—it makes killing and sex seem like a dull memory in comparison.”

“What’s that, Red, protecting Suna?”

“Loving you.”

“God, Gaara, the things you say just slay me,” said Neji, picking Gaara up and pinning him against the shower wall, with his legs pulled apart and around Neji’s body. The Hyuuga leaned in and passionately kissed the Sand nin, grinding his own arousal into Gaara's.

From the moment he’d learned that Gaara had never been kissed, Neji had felt this craving to be the one that would initiate Gaara into love—not sex, but love. He’d wanted to hear Gaara make noise for him, to let him inside that barrier of sand, to hear Gaara telling him words of love. For some reason that first night when he’d heard Gaara saying he didn’t want a relationship, he didn’t need kissing, the Sand nin’s position had irritated him, challenged him. He had just wanted to prove to Gaara, that with someone worthy, he would need it, he would want kisses, want to make noises, want to whisper words of love. And now that he had proven it, he was addicted to it—and the thought of anyone else kissing Gaara, hearing Gaara’s cries and words of love was unbearable.

Just thinking about someone else with Gaara made Neji want to mark him, to make clear he’d been there first. Neji released Gaara’s mouth and began biting and sucking on Gaara’s shoulder.

“Neji, god, Neji, tell me you’re going to move in with me, please!"

Neji put Gaara down and moved back from him a bit. He put his arms on either side of Gaara against the tiles, but his body was not touching him. When the redhead tried to close the gap, the jounin's hands pressed him back against the tiles. He needed to make things clear before sex clouded both of their minds.

“I won’t share you with prostitutes, Gaara, I don’t share," he said, his voice full of the Hyuuga pride. "If I move in, we are exclusive, we do no serious kissing with anyone else, we mark no one else, we only have sex with each other. I sleep at night, Gaara; I need time to sleep. I can't live with someone that’s out fucking someone else when I’m sleeping.”

“Neji, I love you! I don’t want to fuck anyone else! I don’t want to share you either! You’re going to be the one getting offers. You could be fucking TenTen right now or Kiba or—“

“You could be fucking Kiba; it’s you he wants, Gaara,” he pointed out irritated at the mention of Kiba. Why did Gaara immediately think of him?

“Well, he’s going to have to feel that want because it’s not going to happen.”

Ah, good, good! But he needed more: “Promise me you be only mine for the next month. If you do, I’ll be only yours, and I’ll move in with you. Deal?”

“Deal. I promise, Neji, I won’t cheat on you.”

And a heady feeling of triumph mixed with desire filled Neji. His voice came out more shaky than he would have liked as he made his own vow, “I won’t cheat on you either, Red, I promise you. And yes, I promise to move in with you.”

“You’re going to want to stay with me for longer than a month, White Eyes,” said Gaara, reaching out with one hand and gripping Neji’s hard cock. He then started to stroke it, not breaking the eye contact between them. “I’m going to spend this month making sure of it,” he added with a wicked smile, adding a bit of a twist to his stroking.

“Bring on Red, bring it on,” said Neji, his own hand finding Gaara’s dick and imitating each move of the Sand nin’s. “You’re going to be begging me to stay, Kazekage, begging on your knees.” Ah, now that was an image he liked!

The two stood there refusing to show their pleasure, defying each other, but those hands kept moving in unison—each challenging the other to be the first to shake, to buck, to make a noise showing their pleasure. The sound of the water seemed loud now that they weren’t talking.

Gaara opened his mouth, beginning, “You’re going . . .”

“Ah, Red, you can’t keep quiet, can you?”

“You’re the one asking questions, Screamer,” said Gaara in a voice that was more breathy than he wanted.

“Come on, Red, you like this don’t you? You want to tell me how much don’t you?”

“You’re the one that can’t shut up, Hyuugaaah!”

Neji just smirked as he said, “Go ahead, you can say my name like that as much as you want, Gaaraaaah!”

But the mocking was more an excuse, and the exchange of names soon was more cries of pleasure than teasing.

“Hyuugaaaahhh!”

“Gaaraaaahhh!”

The only thing they would agree on later as Gaara carefully combed out Neji’s hair was that the hotel clearly didn’t have enough hot water.