Almost Sucks

Almost Sucks
by Mashiro

Naruto fandom, series, no spoilers
AU, BOYS LOVE: Naruto x Sasuke, Kakashi x Iruka, Lee x Gaara

first version: February 26th 2007, Monday
second version: November 21st 2008, Friday

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The name Easy Slide comes from my dental floss. I use it every day. XD

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DISCLAIMER: I don’t own the rights to the Naruto series or characters or Easy Slide and I make no money writing this. I’m just a fan. This is fan fiction.

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52: Easy slide

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Around eight on Thursday evening the doorbell rang two times with almost no time between the first time and the second one. Gaara looked up from his schoolbooks with a frown and waited. The bell managed to ring a third and almost fourth time before Kankuro made it from the kitchen to the door to open it.

“Is Gaara home?” Gaara heard Naruto say. His voice was slightly muffled by the walls and the closed door to Gaara’s room, but Gaara could still hear what was said.

“Sure,” Kankuro said and it sounded like he was frowning and surprised. “What’s up? You’ve been running?”

“Ah, um... yeah.”

Gaara heard the door close and Naruto shuffle around as he, probably, took his shoes off.

“We don’t have any food for you,” Kankuro said and his voice was muffled even more as he moved back into the kitchen. He was in the middle of making dinner.

“Oh! T-that’s okay,” Naruto said and while he talked he moved toward the door to Gaara’s room. “I’ve already eaten. Smells great though.”

“Needs more garlic,” Kankuro muttered. Gaara almost didn’t hear him at all.

Maybe a second passed before the door to Gaara’s room opened and Naruto stepped inside with a ‘hey’.

“Hey,” Gaara said.

The blond closed the door behind him, wandered over to Gaara’s bed and sat down on the floor with his back against it. Naruto had long since stopped sitting on the actual bed, because he said it was gross. Sometimes Gaara teased him and said ‘but it’s okay to sit on Iruka’s bed?’ Because they sometimes did sit on Iruka’s bed when they were sorting socks and folding clothes when Naruto had to help with the laundry and Gaara was there. Pointing that out always made Naruto throw a fit and start ‘eeww’-ing, slapping his hands over his ears and going for something close to a fetal position. He was so thin-skinned, that guy.

It could have been a normal visit that Thursday. Naruto often visited like that; just came over without having said he would come over. Sometimes he wanted help with something, homework or a game, sometimes he was just lonely (the amount of lonely visits had decreased dramatically since he started dating Uchiha Sasuke however). But it was not a normal visit, Gaara quickly noticed. There was tension in Naruto and the air around him. He was fiddling with his clothes, his socks; with his nails, biting his lips. He was smiling, a silly, nervous smile. He looked at Gaara, then out the window, then at the door, then at his fingers.

“W-what are you working on?” he asked eventually, in a faked cheerful voice.

“Math,” Gaara said.

“Oh! Is... Is it difficult?”

“No. Why are you here?”

Naruto sort of almost flinched and for some reason his cheeks gained more color. Red color. He laughed nervously.

“N-no reason,” he half mumbled, half said and looked at his fiddling hands. “Can’t a guy visit his friends?”

Gaara didn’t say anything for a while. He turned his attention back to the books, solved some more problems and wrote down the answers.

“How’s Sasuke?” Gaara asked eventually.

“Oh, h-he’s good!” Naruto answered quickly. Maybe too quickly. “Just great. He kicked ass today as always. You know, P.E. We played soccer and he was so cool. His team won the whole thing. I mean the tournament, we had a tournament. Awww... You should have been there...”

Gaara hoped he had never talked about Lee like that when they first started going out. Then again, he was pretty sure he hadn’t. He wasn’t the ‘ranting about how cool your boyfriend is’ type. Maybe Lee had done some ranting...? No, he probably hadn’t either. But this wasn’t the usual rant, was it? This was more of a nervous rant, though Naruto probably tried to hide it; from himself even. Something was up. Gaara could bet anything that something was up.

“Good for you,” he said in a tone that said he was only half-interested in what Naruto was saying. It was faked of course, but Naruto wouldn’t notice. It would help take the blond’s mind off the fact that Gaara was an intelligent being.

“No,” Naruto whined. “It was bad for me because I was on another team. We always end up on different teams, it’s unfair.”

“Except in bed,” Gaara said. He could almost hear Naruto tense and slightly blush, didn’t need to look.

“T-that’s... That’s... Y-yeah! Because he’s my boyfriend, right? What do I care about P.E. teams...”

Naruto laughed nervously again and Gaara frowned. That was a bit too much stuttering and nervousness. He glanced in Naruto’s direction and found his friend watching his fingers again, fiddling with his nails.

“Is something going on?”

“No,” Naruto said, for a moment keeping his eyes focused on his nails, though his fingers had stopped moving. It looked like the blond was looking at something else entirely. Then Naruto seemed to snap out of it and grinned; it was a forced grin, quite unlike Naruto’s usual ones.

“Nope! Everything’s fine!”

Naruto was such a bad liar. Gaara wanted to groan; but he settled for turning his chair and just watching the blond intently.

“Naruto,” he said seriously. “I know you know I’m not an idiot. I also know that you know I already know everything you want to hide from me. You can just tell me now and spare us both the trouble.”

Because it was only fair to give the guy a chance to give up and spill, right? The blond looked very much caught and very worried for a moment as they looked at each other. It was sort of a silent little war going on. Naruto trying to keep up the façade that everything was normal and that Gaara was overreacting, and Gaara trying to convince Naruto that his mission was hopeless. The end was unexpected.

“I want a sandwich,” Naruto said quickly. As if he had to say something to break the silence and couldn’t think of anything better. Gaara looked him in the eyes and there was pleading there. ‘Please buy it!’ Did Naruto think Gaara was stupid? No, of course not. Naruto was clever enough to know that Gaara wouldn’t buy it. So this was important enough that Naruto had to resolve to hoping for miracles; or that sudden and severe damage to Gaara’s brain had occurred since they last met. That was at lunch.

Very interesting.

“I thought you told Kankuro you had already eaten,” Gaara said and hid his growing curiosity. Unlike the blond, he was good at hiding things.

“Ah... I... I just want a sandwich,” Naruto said. His cheeks were still red and he hesitated for a moment before continuing. “C-could... Could you fix one for me?”

Gaara’s curiosity grew even more. So, Naruto wanted him out of the room, huh? If Naruto had just wanted a sandwich he would have said ‘I’ll go get a sandwich’ and then he would have gone to get one. That’s what he had always done when he wanted sandwiches before. Really... Someone should have a talk with the blond about how to properly deceive your friends. This was embarrassing. Naruto had to really be desperate. Very interesting indeed.

Gaara watched Naruto for a moment and told him with his eyes that he knew exactly what was going on, to make him squirm a little as punishment for being an outrageously bad deceiver. Gaara could almost hear Naruto’s heart beating in his chest. Was that sweat glistening underneath the golden fringe? Good. The fact that this seemed like such an important thing made Gaara even more disappointed that Naruto couldn’t pull off his plan better.

Eventually Gaara smiled. He tried one the smiles he usually very, very, very rarely used. A kind and soft smile. It felt weird on his face.

“Okay,” he said and stood.

Naruto looked like Sasuke wearing a wedding dress had just fallen down through the roof and begged Naruto to marry him. In other words, very surprised; but he also looked quite suspicious; like he didn’t quite believe that the miracle he had wished for had actually happened. Good boy, Gaara thought.

“I need a break from just sitting here anyway,” he lied and stretched his arms above his head. Yawned, for effect. “What would you like on it?”

“Eh? Ah, umm...” Naruto managed to get out once he had stopped blinking. Had his blush gotten worse? “J-just... Cheese will do.”

“Anything green?”

“Err... Yeah, sure.”

“I’ll be right back,” Gaara said. Then he left the room and the nervous blond and closed the door behind him.

He stood for a second or so outside the closed door and waited for any sign of movement from inside. There was nothing. Okay, good. He wouldn’t have to hit the blond when he got back. Slight smile on his lips, because this was really interesting, Gaara walked to the kitchen.

Kankuro frowned from his place in front of the stove when Gaara arrived, spatula in hand and apron (black with short, thick, red stripes here and there that reminded Gaara of cut-off fingers) protecting his clothes.

“What?”

“Naruto wants a sandwich,” Gaara said. He walked over to Kankuro and looked at the content in the frying pan that the apron-wearing brother was stirring.

“So? He’s got legs, doesn’t he?” Kankuro was still frowning and there was a hint of a wary look in his eyes; not quite fear but almost. Could have been, because things were not quite as they should be at the moment. Old habits die hard and all that. Temari and Kankuro had learned a long time ago to be good at picking up on odd behavior and changes in their brother’s moods. Gaara was quite sure that some part of them was still terrified of him; instinctively if nothing else. He didn’t blame them.

“Yes, well... ” Gaara said and sort of half-sighed. “I think this will be more fun.”

“Whatever,” Kankuro said, half-snorted and turned back to his cooking. He didn’t want know. Gaara left the kitchen again without making a sound.

Naruto was messing around in Gaara’s closet; Gaara was listening outside the door. He seemed quite desperate. Gaara could hear his things being carelessly moved this way and that. Really, there couldn’t be any planning involved here. Did Naruto expect that Gaara wouldn’t notice anything?

The sound of a box being pulled out from the closet and dropped on the floor made all the pieces fall into place. Sure, Gaara had had an idea about what was up but now he was sure. Naruto was after the ‘eeww’-box. Gaara was sure that the smile that took over his face was very frightening. It was such a good day to be alive.

When Gaara opened the door Naruto yelped and tossed the empty box (for some reason its content had ended up on the floor) over his shoulder; as if on reflex. It ended up on Gaara’s desk and knocked over the jar where Gaara kept his pencils. One of the pencils rolled slowly over the desk until it fell off the edge and hit the floor. The blue eyes staring at Gaara looked very frightened and very, very caught. The face those blue eyes belonged to was very pale. The room was silent for a moment and no one moved.

“I know,” Gaara said eventually. Softly and still smiling his scary smile. “They’re always out of lube. And when you ask them to order in it takes months and all you get is like two or three tubes. It’s pathetic. You’d think they would learn.”

Naruto swallowed. He was still pale. He was breathing, wasn’t he?

“That’s why I keep such a big a stash,” Gaara continued; walked into the room and closed the door behind him. “Because you just never know when you need some extra.”

“I was just...!” Naruto started but then he seemed to decide that whatever he had wanted to say was better left unsaid.

“I was thinking about you guys last time I was restocking. ‘I should remember to put some away for Naruto and Sasuke.’ I would have let you have some if you had told me you were in need.”

“I didn’t have a choice!” Naruto howled and slammed a fist against the floor. Gaara couldn’t decide if there was more anger in him or more desperation. The embarrassment seemed to have fled, but his face was still red. He was shaking.

“There’s always a choice,” Gaara said. Because there always was.

“I just...! We...! The store didn’t...!”

Gaara waited as Naruto struggled with the words. The blond looked like he might cry. Like the embarrassment had, his anger was fleeing; or so it seemed.

“I couldn’t ask! You’d know...” Naruto said and he sounded like it meant the end of the world. His voice was not loud anymore, his shoulders sagged and he let his chin fall toward his chest. The golden fringe hid his eyes.

Gaara moved forward without a sound and sat down in front of Naruto, the spilled content of the ‘eeww’-box between them.

“That’s the point, isn’t it?” he said.

Naruto didn’t say anything. At least not for a moment. For a moment they just sat there, facing each other, Naruto looking at the floor and Gaara looking at Naruto’s hair. Eventually the blond cracked, of course.

“It’s our thing,” Naruto said through clenched teeth, the muscles in his face tense. When the blond looked up the blue eyes were angry again; not embarrassed and not desperate. Well, maybe a bit desperate.

“It’s our thing,” he repeated a bit louder and his eyes were gleaming. “It’s none of your business. It’s not your thing! I don’t want you to know.”

Gaara waited a moment before he answered, so it wouldn’t seem like he wasn’t listening. He was listening.

“Sure you do,” he said.

“I don’t!” the anger in Naruto’s eyes flared up even more and his forehead got wrinkles. “I’m telling you I don’t, so I don’t!”

“Sasuke doesn’t want me to know,” Gaara said, quite unfazed.

Naruto opened his mouth, but the anger in his eyes had been replaced by surprise. Then the surprise got company in form of realization, and sadness. He looked away from Gaara’s eyes.

“You want me to know, don’t you?” Gaara continued. “You’re just that kind of person. You share your happiness.”

At that Naruto’s eyes were drawn back to Gaara’s and for a short moment it looked like he might cry again. Then he got determined. But not angry determined, cool determined. Calm determined.

“You’re wrong,” Naruto said. His voice was calm and cool determined as well. He gave a half-smile that contained no cheerfulness and a half-sigh. “And you’re right. I do want to... talk to you. But I want to keep it between Sasuke and me even more because that’s what he wants. I don’t want to do something that would make him sad.”

It was quiet for a moment again. Naruto went back to watching the floor, fiddling with his nails. Gaara could hear Kankuro set the table in the kitchen. It would just be them today, just Gaara and Kankuro. Temari was out and would stay out until tomorrow.

“I suppose you failed,” Gaara said after a while.

Naruto’s eyes flicked back to him.

“What?”

“I know,” Gaara said. “You failed.”

The blond made a face and grumbled. He blushed, a little.

“But I suppose you only sort of failed,” Gaara continued and Naruto frowned. “You didn’t actually tell me anything, the only reason I know is because I’m smart and you suck at stealing.”

“I don’t...!” Naruto began, but then he seemed to think and interrupted himself with a short half-laugh, half-giggle. “Okay, maybe I do... But I was nervous and I was desperate! I didn’t have time for any... err... real plan.”

“No shit,” Gaara said. Then he realized something. “Oh... You’re doing it tomorrow?”

Naruto blushed again; a lot this time.

“T-that’s...! It doesn’t have to...! I mean...!” then he sighed in defeat. “Yeah, well... that’s what we said...”

“Fridays are good days for sex,” Gaara said thoughtfully, recalling some good Friday times.

“Don’t say anything I don’t want to know!” Naruto shouted. “And that’s everything. I don’t want to know! What if I start thinking about that tomorrow? It’d be totally awkward...”

Gaara snorted.

“You’ll be fine as long as you don’t tell the princess,” he said.

“Yeah...” Naruto groaned. “He’d kill me. And could you stop calling him a princess already? I swear, one day you’re gonna do it when he’s around and he’s gonna be so pissed off.”

“And somehow he will blame you and won’t let you touch him for months.”

Naruto squeezed his eyes shut and sort of whimpered at the thought of that. Then he seemed to gather himself.

“So stop calling him a princess!”

“I assume you bought condoms,” Gaara changed the subject. “They may not have any lube but they do have condoms.”

“Err... Yeah,” Naruto’s blush returned. “I noticed. That’s... not a problem. Probably.”

“Good,” Gaara said. “Now, as for the whole lube-thing. I’m going to be a good friend and let you have some, as I said before. Let’s call it a ‘bye bye, virginity’ gift.”

Naruto made a ‘can you be more embarrassing?’ face. Gaara was quite sure that he could.

“There are some complications however,” he said and faked a troubled sigh.

“There are?”

“Yes.”

Gaara got off the floor and went over to his desk, opened a drawer and took out a transparent, blue tube. Then he turned to Naruto.

“You tried to steal from me,” he said in a serious voice. The blond looked a mix between suspicious and worried. “I probably wouldn’t have minded if you had actually pulled it off, but you didn’t. It was embarrassing. I wanted to cry several times.”

Naruto swallowed and laughed nervously.

“So I’m bad at stealing stuff from my friends,” he said. “I can work on it?”

“You need to be punished.”

“I do?”

“Yes.”

Then Gaara tossed the tube to Naruto and the blond caught it. He frowned for a moment. He turned the tube in his hands and studied it; threw a glance at the tubes on the floor, half of them of the same brand as the one Gaara had thrown him. He studied it some more.

“What?” he said eventually with a silly half-grin. “You filled it with superglue or something?”

Gaara chuckled. Naruto’s half-grin melted away and his frown returned. Then his body tensed and his eyes grew wide. He yelped in horror and tossed the tube away in a random direction. It hit the window with a bang but fortunately not hard enough to break the glass. Naruto looked at Gaara like Gaara had suddenly turned from being a very innocent and goodhearted schoolgirl to the most evil person on the planet.

“It’s...!”

“Yes,” Gaara said.

“You’ve...!”

“Oh, yes...”

Naruto gave a shout of disgust and horror and got off the floor. He disappeared out of the room and soon after Gaara could hear the bathroom-door being ripped open and water start running wildly. He heard random whines from Naruto. Gaara grinned and went over to the place where the blue tube had fallen. He picked it up and turned it in his hand. The label said EASY SLIDE. The tube was half-full.

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Forty minutes, one very loud and angry rant from Naruto, one dinner and the making of a sandwich with cheese and green stuff later, Gaara once again sat at his desk with his math homework while Naruto sat on the floor. The blond was eating the sandwich that had been made for him with a knife and a fork. He had said that his hands were contaminated. ‘They will never be clean again!’

“Guys like you should come with a warning,” Naruto muttered.

“I came with plenty of warnings,” Gaara said, glancing at the guy on the floor. “You just ignored them.”

Naruto snorted. Gaara thought Naruto was too sensitive. Way too sensitive. It wasn’t as if Gaara hadn’t wiped the tube off before letting it mix with his school papers and notebooks. How did the blond ever think he would make it through tomorrow without running away screaming?

Even if it had annoyed Gaara somewhat, Naruto’s weak nerves had sort of made sense when the guy had been supposedly straight. He had always been supportive of Gaara’s relationship with Lee, a bit surprised maybe, but supportive. When it came to the physical parts of the relationship though, Naruto wanted to know as little details as possible. He had been sort of curious at times, about the general thing, but as soon as Gaara tried to give him any details he freaked out.

Gaara had sort of assumed though, that Naruto would grow out of the silliness when he got together with Sasuke. Especially when the two had started getting more intimate themselves, but no. Really... To be hours away from your first gay sex experience and being unable to touch a used tube of lube? It wasn’t even funny. Gaara hoped he didn’t have to worry about their health; but at least Naruto knew they would need lube.

“Do you want any pointers, by the way?” Gaara asked, small evil smile on his lips. Though more to tease than because he thought Naruto would say ‘yes’. “Advice from the not so inexperienced?”

“No,” Naruto snorted, as expected. Didn’t even look up from his sandwich.

“Because there are things to think about.”

“I know that! Che, I’m not stupid.”

“You do tend to get overexcited with things you really want to do.”

“I- I do not! Not... Not with things like this.”

The last was said with a huff and accompanied by a small blush.

“I’m not gonna mess it up,” Naruto said, probably more to convince himself than to convince Gaara. “It’s gonna be nice.”

Before Gaara could say anything, Naruto looked up with determined eyes.

“And I don’t need any advice!” the blond crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not gonna let you mess around with this any more than you have.”

“If you say so,” Gaara said.

“I say so,” Naruto said with a sniff.

“You do still want the lube though, right?”

“Why... Why can’t I just have an undefiled tube?” Naruto whined, the slight look of nausea returning to his face.

“Because you failed,” Gaara said simply. “And because you need to get over your fear of places and things involved with other people’s sex lives.”

Naruto whimpered.

“But I don’t want to!”

“Sure you do,” Gaara said. “Because it’s that or no lube at all.”

“I swear, you’re evil...”

Naruto tried five more times to convince Gaara to switch tubes before he finally left the apartment, half-full lube-tube wrapped in three plastic bags. He tried bribes and begging and reasoning and being angry, among other ways. He even made another attempt at thievery when Gaara faked going to the bathroom. There really was no hope for him.

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