A/N: gift for sunny! Thanks to randomsomeone for beating the draft into submission. Bless.

open (dry) bar

She could see Gaara through the door of the exam room, a pitiful figure hunched over in a chair with his head in his hands. This doctor's office was like many others in rural Wind: understaffed and a bit outdated, with flickering lights, plastic chairs, and dingy hallways worthy of any horror flick.

Sakura supposed the comparison was appropriate, given Gaara's current state of mind. Horror was certainly one way to describe the look on his face when she'd woken up that morning moaning in pain and curled around her pelvis. Kankuro sat next to his brother with an appropriate look of sympathy on his face, and he patted Gaara on the back every so often.

Sakura knew the two must have felt the weight of her stare, but it was only Kankuro who looked up: a mistake, as the second she made eye contact she had to slap a hand over her own mouth to stop the giggles. Kankuro only rolled his eyes, smiled, and went back to comforting his forlorn sibling.

Is he hung over? Sakura mouthed, pointing at Gaara. She imagined most of the poor man's withered state owed to the shame and embarrassment, but last night had been Gaara's first point of contact with alcohol and, well, Sakura had always been a bit of an enabler.

"Go on, just one." They'd broke off from the group to huddle near a table full of terrible mixed drinks. All this money for a summit afterparty, and they hadn't even sprung for a real bartender. Sakura could see the store-bought mixers sitting empty underneath the tablecloth.

"I really don't think–" Gaara hesitated. It had been one of the worst summits they'd ever been to. The Wind daimyo hadn't even shown up. One of the daimyo's assistants, and not even the top-ranked one, had come in his stead. Gaara had been livid, in his quiet, simmering way. That he even let Sakura drag him to the drink table in the first place spoke to his upset.

"Come on, Gaara. I'll take care of you if anything happens. Medic, remember?" Sakura did try to be a good person on most days . . . but there were times that her nature got the best of her. She saw a vulnerability, she dissected it. It made her a good medic when she dissected in good faith; other times, it got her in trouble.

"Well–I suppose just the one wouldn't hurt." He looked at the rows of technicolor liquids warily and selected one from the table's edge.

It had hurt, though. It had hurt a lot.

Kankuro squinted down at his brother and shrugged back up at her.

The attending nurse breezed into the room immediately after, closing the door and ending any further cross-room dialogue. The grizzled older woman jabbed a painted nail toward the exam table and Sakura considered methods of sitting without putting too much pressure on...areas. Perching on the edge won out by a slight margin as it allowed her to push her body weight up slightly and get a core workout out of the experience.

"Name?" The nurse asked.

"Sakura Haruno."

"Hmmph. I know you. The foreign girl that apprenticed to that Slug Princess, once. Playing fast and loose with our Kazekage. Well, someone has to, I suppose." The nurse sniffed and applied the blood pressure cuff a bit more firmly than was necessary. "I don't pay much mind what happens out there in the big cities, but I hears things."

Sakura shrugged, not really giving enough of a shit to feel offense. This was a small-town clinic off of any main roads, and she hadn't spent a lot of time in rural Wind Country. Maybe people were just more blunt here. And she'd long become numb to the jabs at her novelty.

"So I see you're here for vaginal pain, is that correct?" The nurse consulted Sakura's intake survey lying on the desk.

"That's right." Sakura knew the drill from here. Pants off, feet on the edge of the table, scoot up, the whole bit. She flinched a little when the woman inserted a probing finger, but the nurse was medically professional, if not socially.

She paused, glancing up at Sakura questioningly. "Back wall, right there?" She poked again, aggravating the stinging feeling. Sakura nodded.

"I'm going to take a look. Speculum going in," the nurse continued. She hummed as she peered in. "Bit of a nasty tear, there. Sexual, I presume. Being a bit rough, I presume."

Sakura rolled her eyes. She had a feeling where this was going. She ignored the anxiousness building in her stomach that there was more to the nurse's foul mood than general curmudgeonliness.

"I feel funny," Gaara said. He'd abandoned his outer jacket in the dining room after claiming the room was far too hot. "There are too many things moving. I don't like it." He sat down on the floor of the solar, cross-legged like a child.

The rest of the delegation had long stumbled to bed, and even the host had grown tired of boot-licking (more due to lack of boots than lack of will) and retired.

Six drinks. She'd watched him have six drinks. And she'd had seven.

"This isn't better." Gaara pressed himself spread-eagle to the floor. "Sakura, it isn't better lying down. I don't like this. When does the moving stop?"

"Yes," Sakura said. She struggled to keep her tone from becoming to clipped. This woman's prejudice wasn't a hill Sakura felt like dying on. "Alcohol was...involved."

When the nurse's eyes narrowed, Sakura clarified. "For both of us. I, uh, encouraged him a bit too much, and things sort of went from there."

"I'll just bend over the table. It's fine." It was easier that way. The floor was too unstable at this point, changing its axis every time she blinked. The table, on the other hand, was trustworthy. Reliable. Lots of knots and edges to the ancient wood that she could grip on to.

"People eat on this table," Gaara muttered to himself, but he stuck his head up her dress anyway. She could barely feel anything, but she nonetheless moaned theatrically in appreciation of his efforts. It was important to let him know he was doing a good job, after all.

Sakura didn't think it was impossible for the nurse to look any more disapproving. She felt a pang of irritation, but shoved it back down for later. It would be over soon, and then they could leave, and then she could deal with comforting her guilt-stricken lover.

"Right, then" the nurse sighed. "Would you like a chakra procedure? You could also let it heal naturally and I'll give you some antibiotics. Chakra treatment is faster, as you know, but the burn'll be worse and there's a higher chance of scarring."

"Go ahead with the chakra."

"Are you ready?" Gaara ran his hands restlessly up her back, stopping where her dress cinched under her breasts. She hadn't even taken anything off, and her underwear had been shoved down to her knees.

"Yeah, sure." This table was so soft. How had she never noticed how soft this table was? "Gaara, this is a nice table," she called over her shoulder.

"Oh. Yes, it's very nice. I'm putting it in now."

She was dry. Very, very dry. The saliva had not helped. Even through the haze of several aviators, she could feel the friction as he pushed in and she wiggled her hips in an attempt to alleviate the discomfort. If she was in this much pain after so many drinks...nah, it was whatever. They'd never had a problem before. Why would one start now?

"Oh, damn. I think it's like, lemongrass mahogany. Isn't that endangered in Wind Country?" She stroked the table, relishing its smooth texture rubbing against her cheek with every thrust.

"Yeah," Gaara panted. "It's endangered in Wind Country."

"Heh. Ow. Oh, god." There was a sensation like a papercut somewhere inside her: a sting, and then a burn. Gaara paused, and Sakura looked back over her shoulder.

"Are you okay?" He was swaying a little, and had one hand in a white-knuckle grip on the table.

Sakura burst out laughing. "You're so drunk off your ass right now."

Gaara scowled at her. "Are you hurt? I don't want to do it if I'm hurting you."

"No," Sakura said. She slapped her hands against expensive, illegal-to-export wood. "Keep going. Do it faster. Put the-put it in harder. I want to go to bed."

"Oh." She felt something soft slide out of her. Too soft.

"What? Did you pull out? God damn it, I can't feel anything."

"Yes, eh...it's not–" There was some rustling and the sound of skin on skin, and then she felt Gaara's forehead rest between her shoulder blades. "I can't. Anymore. This has...not happened before."

"Please don't be embarrassed, Gaara." She felt a warm huff of air as he sighed.

"Too late."

They'd been found by several early-rising maids a few hours later. Sakura could not recall going from bent over the table to using bags of rice as pillows in the pantry, but she'd had worse sleeping arrangements.

Gaara was far less amused by the entire thing, and spent the morning rushing about making apologies for his behavior to all the appropriate parties. No one seemed to recall much about the previous evening, which by that point was for the best.

"And," Sakura finished, "when we were on the road back, the pain kept getting worse. And then we came here. I was always taught never to heal your own junk." Stony silence greeted the end of her story, which Sakura thought had been pretty funny. The other woman only frowned deeper, and Sakura accepted that some people just didn't have a sense of humor.

The nurse finished her work, and as promised a mild burning sensation flared up on the site of injury.

"And that's that." The nurse turned away and washed her hands while Sakura dressed and hopped off of the table.

"So," Sakura said. "Guess I should have known better than to convince Gaara to drink."

"You should have known better than to lie in bed with a demon."

Smack. Sakura's palm collided with the nurse's cheek. Only her emotions had been behind the blow, so the woman looked startled but not injured. Odd, that some people never expected their words to catch up to them.

"You have-" Sakura's voice trembled, and her anger made her hesitate, grow quiet. Between the door and the frame she could see the light change as figures moved away from the exam room and down the hallway.

"You have no idea who I am," Sakura finished. " Or what's good for me."

Sakura didn't stay in the clinic any longer than necessary to collect her things. Huddling in the corner, the nurse didn't speak or move. Sakura wondered if Gaara would receive yet another angry letter from a council member about her "most shameful conduct."

The first time Gaara dragged her to one of these stupid political things, she'd gotten drunk and referred to a particularly hated delegate as "the mustiest bitch." It got a laugh out of the daimyo's wife, but nevertheless Sakura had been banished to the guest room for the evening. She thought for sure Gaara would be angry with her, but the only thing he did later was hide smiles from her and shove his head between her thighs. It felt more like a thank you than an admonition.

In the hallway, Sakura's heart sank to see the chairs empty. She went outside to see Kankuro waiting at the entrance. He was alone, and pointed to an outcropping of rocks a short distance away in response to Sakura's questioning look.

She found Gaara sitting on the cool earth out of the sun, his legs outstretched and his hands in his lap. She thought of the way he'd held her hand under the dinner table last night while the host droned on and on, and an unexpected stab of guilt shot through her belly.

She crouched down next to him. "Hey, I'm sorry about last night. I shouldn't have let you drink so much. All those lectures about peer pressure are coming back to haunt me now," she added in a desperate attempt to lighten the mood. She slipped a hand into his lap. "I really am sorry, though. I didn't mean to embarrass you publicly. Again." He didn't look at her, but he threaded his fingers with hers and she let herself be bolstered by the contact.

"I'm not angry with you," he said a few minutes later. He looked sideways at her. "But thank you."

They sat in silence for a few minutes and watched the nothing go by.

"Are you…?" He glanced down at her lap.

"Oh, yeah," Sakura said. "We're all good in the downstairs. That was uh, my bad. I should've known better. The alcohol makes you really dry and, well, you were there for the rest."

"I'm sorry I hurt you. I never want to do that." His shoulders and back were stiff, and he'd gone back to staring at the horizon again. She could hear the tightness in his voice.

"I know you don't." Sakura kissed him on the cheek. "It was just bad decisions and bad luck."

He shrugged, and she knew that they'd be talking about this again sometime later. Gaara liked to stew on things, and this wasn't one of those one-and-done conversations. But for now, all she really wanted to do was get the hell out of this godforsaken salt flat.

"Let's go?" she asked. He accepted her hand, as well as the hug she offered once he'd stood up.

"Let's go," he agreed.

She peered at him from the corner of her eye. "Stop for a drink on the way back?"

"No."

A/N: GIMME REVIEWS, BABY.