A Virgin Kiss

A/N: I wrote this before the Shippuuden episode where we see Kankurou's hair.

Chapter 32: The Soak

Kankurou, Gaara, and Neji sat in the hot water of the large tub, which was square with a submerged bench on all four sides. The sake had been cold at one point, but now was room temperature. As if to compensate for the awkwardness of the whole evening, Kankurou had come back with enough sake for six sailors on leave for the first time in months.

The bath was smaller than a public bath or hot spring, but the water felt just as good, and with only three of them it wasn’t crowded—there was no need for anyone’s body to touch. Kankurou and Neji had each taken a corner next to Gaara. Not surprisingly, at the start of the bath, all spent a lot of time looking at the empty corner, avoiding each other’s eyes. Part of Neji’s and Kankurou’s discomfort was getting used to seeing something so different—the face that didn’t get shown to the world.

Neji had been surprised at how normal Kankurou looked without his makeup and with his hair a mass of spikes similar to Naruto’s. It was reddish-blonde, a blend of the colors of Gaara’s and Temari’s hair. He looked amazingly normal. In addition, he wasn’t as heavy as Neji had thought—that odd black suit he wore clearly had a lot of padding and ninja equipment in it.

If Kankurou looked odd to Neji because he didn’t have his usually markings on his face, Neji was looking equally strange to Kankurou who had never seen Neji’s curse seal. But Neji looked a little odd to both Sand siblings. Having already washed his hair, Neji didn’t want it to get wet, so he’d braided it, twisted the braid into a knot of the top of his head, and pinned it with two senbon. Neither of the brothers had ever seen Neji with his hair up—only members of his team, his sensei, and some of his family had. The feminine hairstyle seemed to only accentuate the masculinity of Neji’s jaw, nose, shoulders, and chest. Yet Neji’s neck, cheekbones, and ears seemed delicate, elegant.

Gaara found the sight of Neji’s bare neck erotic, and his eyes kept sliding back to it. Later tonight he’d have to feast on that neck. The only marks he’d left on Neji were those three hickeys on his stomach, all underwater and out of sight. And the way Neji had got in the tub, Gaara doubted his brother had seen them. In contrast, Gaara knew he looked well loved—he at least five bruises left by Neji’s mouth that showed above the water.

The whole soaking-in-hot-water-male-bonding thing seemed doomed to failure until Gaara lazily said, “Big Brother, I need your advice. I’m going to play my virgin game of either go or shogi with Neji. Which one should I start with? I need to beat Neji three times before he’ll let me bet on the games.”

“You—you’ve never played go or shogi,” said Kankurou in shock.

“Kankurou-san, you lost your chance at Gaara’s first game—it’s promised to me, so don’t think you’re going to sneak in before me.”

“Gaara, I’ll teach you to play—Neji’s going to do a crap job, throw three games, and then you’ll lose your shirt to him.”

“After the first game, Kankurou, you can teach me. I want to win, so I can fuck Neji with his hair up like that and in a skirt. You look so pretty with your hair up, Neji-chan.”

“Gaara, I now have to kill your brother,” said Neji.

“Go ahead, Neji-san, kill me. I can’t live with this image in my mind. He’s not joking, you know, he doesn’t know how to joke.”

“Kankurou when you slept with Renji, you--“

“GAARA!”

“Yes, big brother?”

“If you finish that sentence, I will have to kill your lover.”

“What is the problem?” asked Gaara, looking genuinely confused. “No one is killing anyone—that’s an order from the Kazekage,” he added smugly. A smug, naked, wet Gaara was adorable, Neji decided.

“Gaara, drink your sake, and shut the fuck up,” snapped Kankurou.

“If I’m upsetting you, you can leave,” said Gaara. “I’m sure Neji and I will find some way to keep from being bored.” Neji couldn’t help himself from grinning. A flirting, smug, naked, wet Gaara was beyond adorable, and his cock certainly agreed.

“Is that what this is about? You had sex before dinner, and now it’s been too long? Gaara, I think you have a sex addiction. Why did you invite me to join you and your lover if you don’t want me here?”

“I don’t need to have sex now, Kankurou, I got a good hand job after dinner,” said Gaara.

“GAARA!” yelled both Kankurou and Neji together. For all that the Leaf nin was enjoying Gaara’s playful talk, he was still a Hyuuga. He had standards, and discussions of his hand jobs with his lover’s brother was beneath them.

“How come you are dating him, Neji-san? Why do you put up with this?”

Because my cock is throbbing with the need to fuck his sweet, tight ass, thought Neji as he smiled that cool, superior Hyuuga smile that came to his face with ease. There was a bit of silence as the two brothers watched him, waiting for his answer. There was some vulnerability in Gaara’s face that made Neji unable to resist teasing the man that had turned his life upside down. He sighed, gracefully stretching out his arm to put down his sake, and then stretched, showing off both his muscles and elegance. In a soft, husky voice, he said, “God, this water feels good. I was a bit sore from the trip.” The look that Neji gave Gaara made Kankurou blink. He hadn’t really wanted to actually think about whether his brother was seme or uke, but after a comment like that . . .

“Neji!” said Gaara in a slight whine, making his lover smile even more.

“You want to know why I’m dating Gaara-sama?” said Neji, tilting his head and looking over at Gaara. “Well, he may be blunt and tactless, but he’s completely honest, never boring, amazingly sexy, incredibly powerful with great stamina, easy to please, understanding, beautiful, passionate, and make these adorable little sounds—“

Neji’s voice was getting more and more erotic with every word out of his mouth. “Ok, ok, that’s enough,” interrupted Kankurou. “I don’t need to hear you tell me any more.” Both he and Neji had been watching Gaara’s face as Neji had recited that list, and both fell quiet at the sight of Gaara. The Kazekage’s face had gone from smiling to ecstatic, his eyes had shut, he’d thrown his head back, and he’d crossed his arms in front of himself, hands gripping each shoulder in a hug. Gaara’s hands then slowly slide down each arm, his head tilted forward, and his eyes opened, looking down at the water in front of him. His left hand rose to his face, the thumb gently rubbing back and forth against Gaara’s lower lip as if he was remembering something else touching that lip. `Oh dear god,’ Kankurou thought, `he’s really in love.’ Shock, happiness, and fear warred inside the puppet master as he watched his little brother.

When Gaara finally noticed the quiet, he glared Kankurou, demanding, “What?”

“You looked really different there for a while, Gaara. Now, you look like your normal self, except for the hickeys of course,” replied Kankurou, evading the real issue of Gaara’s feelings.

“Well, get used to them,” said Gaara.

“Uhh, maybe you two should think about places that don’t normally show,” suggested Kankurou diplomatically.

“Or, maybe we should start wearing make-up and cat suits like yours?” said Gaara. “Hmmm, makeup, hmmm . . .” Eying his boyfriend, Gaara suddenly felt worried. Neji was staring at him coldly, his face blank and emotionless. That heaviness that Gaara hadn’t seen in Neji’s face was back. Suddenly, Neji looked very much like a jounin shinobi.

Kankurou could sense Neji’s chakra spiking, his anger. Usually it was Gaara that got this way around people. Long used to intervening to prevent Gaara from getting upset, Kankurou found himself trying to calm the situation—what he normally did whenever he spent a lot of time with Gaara. “Gaara, Neji is going to think you want to break up with him because you want a woman, not him, if you don’t stop with all these cross-dressing fantasies. Neji-san, I won’t give him any lessons in playing go or shogi; you win a few bets with him and put him in make-up and skirts, and I think this will all go away. Fuck! I can’t believe I just said that.”

“I don’t want a woman! I love Neji! I just want to humiliate him because he needs it.”

“Gaara! No one needs to be humiliated. If you love him, you shouldn’t humiliate him.”

“He’s my friend, and friends humiliate each other,” retorted Gaara.

Neji suddenly started laughing, and the Sand nins joined in, equally relieved that the tension of a moment before was gone.

“Well, I’m going to call it a night,” said Neji, standing up and climbing out of the tub.

“Me, too, me too,” said Kankurou after seeing the way his brother was staring at Neji’s ass as he got out of the water. It was something to stare at indeed, but he wasn’t suicidal, so he contented himself with the millisecond glimpse he’d gotten before turning to focus on his brother’s face. “Remember 9 o’clock, Gaara. And Neji-san, there will be an official welcoming lunch tomorrow around noon. You’ll get to meet the council then and can set up any appointments you need to.”

Gaara just stayed put in the tub, letting Neji walk his brother to the door of the suite in a towel. He used his sand to move all the sake bottles away from the tub. Neji was probably good and mad now. Gaara grinned—an angry Neji would likely stay up and spend some time humiliating his lover. When the three of them had started soaking, Gaara could tell Neji was getting so relaxed that he’d likely fall right asleep. And as much fun as it had been that night he’d played with Neji as he slept, Gaara was selfish—he preferred Neji awake. So what if the new liaison looked like shit in the morning from lack of sleep? He always had black circles around his eyes, so what was the big deal? Neji, Neji would look good even with circles under his eyes. They’d only make his white eyes more fascinating.

The sound of the door to the room slamming made Gaara’s head jerk toward the door. Neji was leaning against the door staring at Gaara. Despite being only in a towel and with his hair pinned up, the look he was giving Gaara made him shiver.

“Do you have something to say before I gag you?” asked Neji.

“I’d prefer you to gag me with your cock in my throat, Neji-sama,” said Gaara.

“You insatiable cock-slut! I don’t give a shit about your fucking preferences right now,” said Neji as he moved towards the tub, but his lips were twitching as if he was trying not to laugh and his towel did little to cover the erection he was now sporting. His hand smacked down on the edge of the tub. “Put that little whore of an ass right here.”

“Yes, Neji-sama,” said Gaara, moving quickly so that he was standing outside the tub in front of Neji, bent over the side, supporting the front of himself by putting his palms down on the submerged shelf. He was fully erect and the way he was balanced over of the edge of the tub meant his cock was pushed down along the outside wall of the tub, pointing down. Gaara moved his legs apart, so Neji would be able to see his arousal and waited to feel his lover’s touch.

“Have you ever been spanked before, fuckhole?” asked Neji.

“No, Neji-sama.”

“You can take the spanking you deserve, my little fucktoy, and I’ll let you come again tonight, or you can go to bed without a spanking, but no coming either. If you shoot off a load without my permission before sunrise, I’ll make you regret it.”

Grinning, Gaara said, “Please spank me, Neji-sama, please.” And as Neji’s hand came down hard, all Gaara’s fears about spending the night in these hated rooms vanished. All he could focus on was the hand, the sound of the slaps, and the warmth and tingling on his ass. He had to focus on holding back his sand, holding back his body from wriggling away from each burst of pain, and holding back his lips from crying out. Gaara wasn’t trying not to cry out with pain from his first spanking—the little bit of burning and soreness he was feeling was a blessing that kept away the darkness that tended to swamp him in Suna. He was struggling not to cry out his thanks, his love, and his happiness. Saying things like that might ruin the mood for Neji-sama and make him feel he needed to be more creative. As his love smacked him again and again, Gaara was inwardly smiling, thinking smugly that Kankurou wasn’t the only puppet master in the family.