The WIP's getting a bit heavy, so here's some fluff to balance it out. This one's been kicking around for a bit.
And holycrap, it's been literally nine years since I updated this thing. :o

Bedside Manner
About 1700 words
T?
She thinks he keeps coming back for her medical skills. She's partially right.

—

Sakura figured it was initially a matter of convenience: Gaara knew she was a medic and had heard good things about her skill set, so when he got a chance he singled her out to ask a favor. His hearing in one ear hadn't been quite right since that fight with Deidara, and with how everything'd played out he hadn't gotten much of a chance to get it looked at . . .

She sat him down and stood beside him, her fingertips just barely against the side of his head, and said, "Hold still and tell me when the sound changes." Sakura explained what she was doing as she went, her voice soft, detailing the fragile structures of membranes and hairs and tiny bones, and he watched her out of the corner of his eye, motionless, attentive.

The damage could've been a lot worse, all things considered. Soon enough he blinked, loosed tension she hadn't realized he'd been actively holding from his shoulders and neck, and said, "There."

"Let me check the rest of the way," she murmured, distracted, and he murmured something back that might've been assent. "How's the other one?"

"Not as bad."

"I'll check it too, then," she told him, and switched to his other side.

Afterwards he thanked her, inclining his head and giving her an actual (albeit small) smile, and left her to reflect on how the last few years had made him so much easier to be around.

The next time was a little different: He told her he had a scar from a wound that hadn't quite healed right and sometimes it pulled if he twisted the wrong way, and it wasn't bad but he didn't like that it affected his range of movement. Sakura agreed to take a look and turned her back politely as he undressed, expecting to see the one on his shoulder from their first chuunin exam. She didn't expect a new scar that crept across his lower ribs and partially onto his back, two hands long and visibly fresh.

Proper bedside manner meant remaining collected in front of patients—and despite knowing this, her proper bedside manner went straight out the window. "How did you get this?"

"It's a long story," he said.

"I have time."

It was the most she'd ever heard him talk. Sakura made him a salve as she listened, then sat beside him to gently work the mixture into the tender new skin. She knew he'd been fighting, that his reasons for doing so were justified, and that the enemies who'd choose to face him now would outstrip anything from their youth . . . But despite everything she'd seen from him, it still unsettled her to know he'd been hurt, could've been incapacitated, could've been killed. Far better to see him as invulnerable, untouchable—even with his body heat warming her fingers, even though she remained acutely aware of his mortality in a way most people weren't.

Gaara paused in his story and she realized she'd been sitting beside him, her unmoving hand still against his skin, salve and scar forgotten. Suddenly embarrassed, she pulled back. "Sorry about—"

"I don't mind," he told her—and she gingerly reached out for him again, wondering how many people touched him on a regular basis . . . and how many he actually wanted touching him.

He invited himself out to lunch with her afterwards. Sakura rolled with it, ignoring the little warning bell that'd started going off in the back of her head; he wasn't unpleasant company, just quiet. And it was relaxing, in a way, to spend time with someone who didn't require her to be a hostess or entertainment or on guard—or even just on all the time.

From across their table Gaara met her eyes, blinked, and gave her another crooked little half-smile, and she realized this might be just as relaxing for him as it was for her. Sakura's impression became more certain when he picked up the tab before she could get a chance, pushing her outstretched hand away and hushing her sound of protest with, "You did me a favor."

"It wasn't a favor, it's just . . . what I do."

"Then this can be what I do," he said, so reasonably that her little warning bell became a little harder to ignore. But, she decided, if he was signaling it wasn't any kind of signal she was used to. Guys his age typically looked at her with open consideration or intent, occasionally with something like idealization—and sometimes like she was faceless support, just one more necessary step to their getting back into the field. Gaara watched her with a mix of mild interest and innocuous appreciation—a profoundly unthreatening combination, leaving her feeling less like he wanted her body, more like he valued her company.

And as for her . . . It wasn't a crush, she told herself, just that she appreciated him as well: how his companionship let her unwind, how whatever soap he used smelled like unfamiliar spices, how very warm his skin felt when she found yet another excuse to touch him during their sessions . . . And how she was dead certain outright flirting with him would be the emotional equivalent of beating her face against a brick wall, which took even the consideration of that option completely off the table.

Gaara kept coming back to her about little things: He'd landed wrong at some point and now sometimes his knee hurt. He'd pinched something in his shoulder. He didn't think his elbow was supposed to make that sound. Every trouble was hardly significant, barely an issue—but they both knew little things could prove deadly if they tripped him up at the wrong time. So Sakura mended tiny tears in his ligaments and muscles, repaired the damage he'd done to cartilage, accelerated the healing in spots where heavy impacts had taken their toll on his skeleton, and did her best to explain to him that some clicks and pops just happened with age and they all had to get used to them.

"I know I can't ask you to go easy on yourself," she told him, "but at least keep winning, okay?"

"Okay," he said, and invited himself to lunch yet again.

She wasn't exactly suspicious when she decided to tease him over it on their way to the restaurant: "Don't you have medics at Sand who can take care of you?"

"I'm here."

"You're not here all the time."

"I like you."

The warning bell that'd never really ceased ringing suddenly became a claxon, and she stopped walking. Gaara stopped in front of her, watching her face with the same mild interest she'd gotten used to . . . only now she saw his expression as what happened when a reserved guy showed interest without being pushy about it, and realized she may have profoundly, wildly misjudged him.

He reached out, pushing a strand of hair out of her eyes with a gesture both casual and far too intimate—and she shied hard, backing up a step without meaning to. "Whoa."

"Too much?" he asked, frowning with concern—which simultaneously made things better and worse.

"I—whoa." Her stress-free lunches had suddenly become a minefield. How many times had she put her hands on him without needing to? How many times had he brought her little problems that weren't really problems, that could've been fixed by anyone else? At what point had she noticed how he looked at her and—

In front of her, Gaara took a deep breath. Exhaled.

Looked her dead in the eye.

Kicked her squarely in the shin.

Sakura yelped, more with surprise than pain, hopped back—and as shock gave way to anger, turned her anger on him. "What the hell?"

And as her voice raised, he . . . Visibly relaxed.

"What the hell," she snapped again.

"You spooked."

"You kicked me!"

"I'd rather have you be angry with me than afraid," he said, infinitely reasonable.

"I'd rather be neither," she huffed.

"Me too," he agreed, and gave her another small smile.

For a solid two seconds she wondered how much of a sandy mess it'd make if she followed her first instinct and tried to shake whatever was wrong with him out.

Gaara waited, unperturbed, watching her until she frowned and said, "What?"

"I hurt my foot."

"You hurt my leg."

He made a contrite noise. "Sorry. I could take a look at it, if you want."

"You've got to be kidding me."

Gaara shook his head—no.

The last thing Sakura needed was to end up demoted for getting into a knock-down, drag-out brawl with the Kazekage—and still probably spend the next three days repairing his every little bump, scuff, and bruise—so in lieu of going for his throat, she tried to give him a chance to explain himself. "Where are you trying to go with this?"

"Nowhere in particular. Lunch again?"

She turned away, a palm to her forehead. Somehow, at some point, she'd forgotten that he was Gaara and Gaara was awful—and this is what she got for it.

Gaara stepped closer and pulled her hand away from her face, then made a show of checking her color, her eyes, her pulse. "You seem stressed."

She sputtered and tried to push his hands away, only to have him hold on, his grip warm and persistent. "You help everyone," he entreated. "You take care of me. Who takes care of you?"

"I do fine," Sakura muttered, and tried half-heartedly to pull her hands from his.

"Maybe you should let me try for a little."

Nurse Gaara. The thought was so patently absurd she laughed in his face. "So you're gonna . . . what? Seduce me with your bedside manner?"

His smile became a little more overt. "Does that work?"

"I don't know. No one's tried it on me yet."

Belatedly, she realized it'd sounded like an invitation; belatedly, she realized he'd read it as one as he slowly reached for her face, pushed her hair back again, and followed the gesture by tracing a knuckle carefully along her jawline. "You should let me look at your leg," he told her.

"You didn't even break the skin."

"We should check."

"You are the worst."

"Much the opposite." Damn him, he was still smiling at her—and she caught herself smiling back, without a shred of good sense or decency. "Let's go figure this out," he said, and offered her his arm.

Sakura looked at it, looked at him—then sighed with good-humored exasperation and linked her elbow with his. "Okay. Let's."