Minato had apparently chosen another half-destroyed building to make work - one of the few who didn't seem to have any sort of cellar on it, and it seemed to be the furthest one from camp he'd managed to find with only the remaining piece of two walls to work with. He'd spent who knows how many hours painstakingly cleaning the sand away until he found the hard packed floor and then, he'd spent who knows how much longer drawing on it with white paint.

It glowed eerily in the moonlight, a perfect circle of something less than two meters with at least three other visible circles accompanying its circumference. They were littered with tiny markings and both symbols and words dusting it. It looked like the work of an autistic person with much too free time or a very conscious effort to win a contest for pain sticking detail.

'You might want to stay over there.' he told the ANBU who had followed him to the site as he pointed one of the nearby building. 'I need sensorial feedback on how the chakra works inside the negative circle.'

Just eight feet away, there was a considerable smaller circle, simple as it could be, and it was there that Minato walked to, dropping the shuriken next to the larger one. Once in there, he gave the baby in his arms one last cuddle before plopping him down on the circle. Then he gave a sign.

'Okay Gaara, you want one more treat?' the blond asked while a large toad somehow materialized from the shadows it had been hiding and carefully took place inside the circle. 'First things first though, you remember? How old is Gaara?'

Rising a single finger was an easy enough sign to teach a child, especially one like Gaara, who could always be trusted to figure out the mechanics if the reward was good enough. That's why Minato produced a package of extra spicy Lamb Pastırma. He still lacked the basic mechanics to make the sign easily, so a lot of the little redhead's attention was diverted to suing one hand to lower all fingers from the other until a single one reminded, which so far had worked perfectly well with Minato's previous two test trials on the matters. One had been done the previous night, and the other earlier in that night so the sand had time to work off the aggression – or more like drink it away. In his searches through the place Minato had found a distillery with most of the raw contents still resting in great metal contraptions, and since the monster had somehow seemed to miss them, it was a matter of going back there and poking a hole in one of the distillers for it to instantly forget upstairs something had ticket it off, especially when it wasn't repeated circumstances.

The toad – a large creature that would have probably been around chest-height with the smallest of the Ants- carefully arranged itself in place, twisting this way and around to find a way to keep all its limbs within the small area. Toad's bodies tended to be wider than taller and such the place remained a bit crammed , but after folding it's legs into what looked like a very uncomfortable position, it looked down to the shuriken and gave Minato a thumbs up.

'Come on, baby, how old are you?' Minato nodded, all his attention in the baby - and figuring how to keep the baby's on his by squeezing the package to make the smell and the paper as attention grabbing as possible 'Show me and you get another one.'

It was hard to get the right momentum, but fortunately enough the green frog had the biceps of a butcher and the distance between both circles wasn't that great to begin with. With a small jump and a 180ª spin Gamahiro sent the shuriken flying straight for the little redhead on the floor.

The weapon stopped a few millimeters before Gaara's head, almost touching it, but not really. The redhead, who had been gazing hungrily at Minato's hands turned his attention away from them finally and looked at the thing stuck in the sand. Slowly, he reached out for it and took it within his mouth. It didn't taste just like the faint smell in the air, but it satisfied his need to chew on something. Quietly, he rolled down on his belly and started chewing on the metal, making loud, damaging sounds, while sand kept protecting the corners of his mouth from the sharp edge.

'Another one.' he repeated loudly, not minding the group of ANBU around him and rolled on his back, staring at Minato. 'I-ita.'

'Sit up, Gaara.' Minato said as if this were the most normal thing in the world, turning the baby back around and giving him a strip of the cured meat as reward. Prying the shuriken from the sand wasn't very easy and he was pretty sure sharpening it again was going to take some time, but he threw it again to his familiar and went back to previous position. 'Once again, baby.'

Gaara immediately started eating the piece of meat, his eyes widening at the taste and his red hair standing out at its end more and more with every bite. At the last chomp the attitude of eating toddler resembled much more of a wild animal than hungry human baby. At the same time, a large paw behind Gaara rose and caught another shuriken thrown by a frog, this time shooting it back with twice as strong force, sending a few of sand balls on its own. The ones that hit the surface, torn the holes size of an adult's fist in it.

'Nyam!' said Gaara almost shouting and looked up at Minato with excited eyes. 'More, this, this!'

The toad dodged by flattening itself on the floor, and the shuriken flew past where it had been and embedded itself onto the at least to two third of the length of the blade. The sandballs tore a good sized chunk of what was left of the ball, but the single one that actually made it into the circle the toad was standing off seemed to lose all sort of momentum and sprayed harmlessly once it went through. Gamahiro quickly went back up and started brushing the sand off himself like if it were dirty.

'This wasn't in my contract!' the toad cried, shaking a fist in its ninja's direction.

'Yes it was.' the blond replied calmly as he ruffled Gaara's hair and gave him another strip of meat. 'You like it spicy, Little Red?' he cooed, before turning to the toad. 'Try fire now.'

The redhead grabbed at the meat with much more aggressively, but once he put it in his mouth, sand immediately started stuffing itself inside too, so very soon the redhead was munching on something that could be only called a 'sand-meat salad'. His eyes glinted weirdly at one point and his cheeks went from pale to puffing red, but he didn't seem to notice the spice otherwise.

'Oh, no baby, don't eat sand! You know I don't like that.' while Minato fussed, the familiar just stared at him, but since Minato seemed done looking at his way, and thus, completely immune to all and every glare he sent its way, it just adjusted itself inside the circle again. After a moment of looking down at the baby and make sure Minato was ready to dodge if needed, it threw a long, thin stream of fire towards the child.

It was blocked by the sand all at once by the headless lion that seemed to sprout out of nowhere suddenly just to block the path of fire. While it melted, two blackened orbs opened above it and frowned in the manner that showed that indeed, the demon wasn't happy. A moment later, the sand started rolling around from all the holes it could find and started filling the place only to lunge at the frog with full force of spikes it generated. Gaara looked at that with indifference, still chewing on the sand without a single thought of stopping.

The spikes, which could probably have gone straight through the wall without a problem (as the ones that indeed went past so clearly illustrated), but the ones that made it into the circle didn't just break off like the sand covering Gaara did when the little redhead was covered in restriction seals.

Inside the circle the sand lost any sort of adhesion it might have, and only was left with the momentum of the throw, which mean that the frog was now getting something like shovelfuls of sand thrown on it. It seemed that the moment the sand entered the circle it the chakra both holding it together and powering it disappeared completely. When the attack finally ceased, there was a great pile of sand where the frog has been before just minutes ago. It reappeared from within the fallen grains a moment later, frantically wiping at its mouth.

'Oh, my gods, itgotintomymouth!' Gamaihro flailed spastically for a moment, webbed hands gingerly touching it's large mouth. 'This doesn't taste like sand, what's on it?'

'Oh, you don't wanna know… Trust me on that. ' Minato said, picking the baby back up and giving him the last piece of meat from the package. The answer made the summon stop dead on its track and give the Konohanin a horrified look. A moment later it had literally puked its guts out and was furiously trying to wipe the grains off the organs.

'Gross!' the summon was immediately dispelled before it decided to do something even more revolting, and after looking at the barely active sand left in the floor, Minato threw a flaks with raw alcohol at it to keep it entertained while he joined the ANBU on the roof.

'What do you think?'

'Pretty awesome.' said Lark, being probably the only one being able to say anything as other ANBUs just stood there without movement, slightly agape. Gaara quietly ravished the given piece in peace 'But how the heck did you do that?'

'Lady Chiyo gave me the idea- the house, too. Obviously if we can amplify bijuu's powers while writing enough in the walls, the opposite should be possible as well, right? ' Minato shrugged, all the while trying to wipe the sand from Gaara's face now that it seemed to have stopped trying to get into his mouth along with the piece of meat.

'I chose a pentacle since they are usually the best sort of protective circles-' he gestured towards the large circle 'But that alone isn't strong enough, I wanted to create a forbidden space, but that doesn't really work, since to be able to forbid One-tail of anything I'd have to hold higher authority over it, and since we don't have the chakra to call onto that authority- not unless you want to run through the Ants's chakra like rechargeable batteries- what I did is pour chakra on the borders themselves. I used the other sigils and seals on the sides to strand the chakra there- so rather than waste chakra inside the whole circle, I just concentrated it around it, less space and stronger where it's applied, I guess it would be just a matter of recharging it? There are problems with it, of course…'

He trailed off, frowning at the circle on the floor lightly while he finally seemed to give up and adjusted Gaara on his usual spot on his hip. The redhead piped up, more in reaction than actual emotional answer, while sand rustled restlessly around the floor. It was obvious that not only humans listened to this conversation closely. Thorny Devil lightly cleared her throat.

'So, you mean that you're going to put that inside the new kage mansion?'

'That's neat.' agreed Vulture, his shoulders finally relaxing 'Less stress, more effectiveness.'

'I'm not sure.' the blond said, frowning down at the sand and giving it an absent kick. 'There are lots of flaws on the design yet. I know for sure it could be better, I just don't know the right words for it yet…'

Regardless of the fact he didn't want the monster to hear what he was talking about, he also didn't really want to speak a lot about what he was doing

Actually, there were more problems than that. As it was, he couldn't make the circle any bigger since it was carefully calibrated to be able to protect that specific enclosure (he also wouldn't have been able to make it smaller, not that he could think of any reason why he'd want pin-sized protection circles anywhere). He also couldn't have it placed in any place of the house that wasn't on solid ground, so all floors but the base one were automatically ruled out, and while the basement could be made with several protection spots, the rooms directly above it would be useless.

Ideally what he had hoped for was to create a circle where they could put Gaara and make sure no offensive would be able to come out from, only he had no idea how to accomplish that. Maybe after he majored in Sunnah and figured out all the good ideas he could filter out of the journals of the Second…

'…I guess I'll just send this to Chiyo-sama and see if she can think of anything better since I'd need to know the right words for it…'

'This would take at least above twenty hours of journey back and forth… and this is not counting whether she'd agree or not.' muttered Lark, losing his good mood like a deflated balloon.

'Wouldn't it be better to ask Kazekage-sama?' muttered the only woman in group, looking at the floor at the close, tracing one of the lines with fingers. Maybe she could try to imitate it with chakra lines… but she highly doubted she could take it to such level of details 'I mean, it's not his special ability, seals, but…'

'…but he is Kazekage-sama.' said Vulture as he slowly walked around the circle, leaving thin footmarks on the sand. 'He might at least know whom to ask to waste less time.'

'What? No, that's a terrible idea.' Minato hugged Gaara closer, as if he wanted to put him as a shield before him. 'I don't think any of you have talked to him in days, and personally, I think it was smart of you. Have you seen the mood he's in?'

Gaara let out a squeak, mistaking the protectiveness with affection and flattened against Minato with all his admiration and love. Lark sighed at that, then put his arms behind his head, obviously reignited at this point.

'Had he truly ever been in good mood last few months?...' he let out between whistling, like if he didn't really want his words to be hearable. Thorny Devil looked at him, but he was already stargazing through one of the broken windows. With a slight, good-natured shake of her head she moved her emotionless mask toward Minato.

'The point is that lately he has been in other mood than bitter anger and that's just as good situation as any other.' she added 'You can as well try now before it changes into something worse.'

'He has been eating healthily in hiding I'm sure.' added Vulture, slowly closing the circle of his walk 'So his mood has to be better. We cannot leave his side, but if you are desperate, you can take one camel and try to go back on your own…'

'What, so he send you to kill me for stealing precious weapon of mass destruction, or so he can rub in my face I'm not doing my work well enough or that he's wasting his money on it or- or…'

Only the Kazekage had never actually accused him of being slow, or not putting enough effort on what he was doing or anything like that, had he…? Actually (and unlike some other people who had commissioned him for seals in the past) he had never hurried him or accused him of wasting time or hinted someone else would be able to do better in his place. Sure, the man had screamed to high heavens when he'd told him his fee for the work, but at no point did he so much as hint that he thought he was being overcharged- only viciously grounded that he didn't have that kind of money at his disposal. And he was still paying him exactly what he had asked for regardless of it.

He never stopped to tell him he slept too much (which would be impossible to do, given the circumstances, but he knew people who *would* have complained of it regardless -*cough*DANZO*cough* - ) and the only times he insisted he stay awake was on periods of great stress, like when Gaara had started teething… and even then the man had stayed along them every time things got rough.

And he'd even said he was learning well.

Damn it. The man didn't even let him hate him in peace. As detestable as he was as a human being, it was kind of hard to fault him as an employer, and wasn't that, in the end, the only thing he should care about?

'…fine.' he finally said, giving the baby a hug while he was at it. 'Fine, I'll go talk to him. If nothing else, I'll need his permission to get Wren here to help me with all of this, right?' he stared in the camps direction, as if he could see the building the man was occupying past the ruins of the abandoned town and sighed. 'If I'm not back in ten minutes, get me a rescue party.'

'You can count on us, really.' muttered Lark and sat down on one of the higher plains of the sand. The others only nodded at his set off and came back to what they were doing previously – walking and staring at the grand circle on the ground. Gaara tossed them a glance, but he mostly just stuck to Minato, enjoying another set of caresses he had obtained through the unspoken surprising events. But as it came, the redheaded ruler of Suna couldn't be spotted in his usual hiding place which was one of their houses he used for sleeping, neither he could be seen around the fireplace. By the fact that one of the camels was missing the only unavoidable resolution was that he once again left to the nearby oasis to refill their half-empty gourds with water.

'And now he's too good to share a leftover city with us?' Minato muttered to himself silently as he emptied one of the smallest backpacks he'd been able to find. 'Guess there's just not enough air in the whole wide desert for the whole of us, huh?'

Once sure it was the right height, he put Gaara inside the bag and tightened it just below his armpits so his arms were free. If the sand disapproved of the circumstances, Minato just ignored it and put the backpack on, leaning forwards slightly.

'Comfortable, baby?'

'Eee!' squealed the baby, throwing his hands in the air approvingly. New position and new thing he could get to know with was so far, quite exciting experience. He looked around wildly and then reached out for Minato. The blond smiled and reached behind to take the small arms and place them on his shoulder.

'We are going down for a run, baby.' he said, giving the small hand s light squeeze. The weight seemed to be about right, and as long as he kept the angle he didn't think he'd have to worry about either him falling or his head bouncing too hard. 'We'll start slow and start going faster, so just tell me when you want me to go slow, right?'

'Aight.'

'Brave baby.' with one last look to make sure he had both the compass and map orange-or-brown Ant had given him, he was off at a light trot to test Gaara's reaction to sudden new speed.

The redhead took the varying speed first with astonishment, then with squeals that could only mean that he was happy and finally, with something that could indicate nervousness (which meant that Minato had to finally balance his speed). After gaining the steady pace, the child had quieted down and only looked to the sides, observing how dunes passed them in silence only desert knew.

It wasn't long before they reached the oasis; it wasn't anything a normal outside could expect – it was deep, filled with water that looked mostly brown from sand that enclosed around it and obviously visited often as many traces of animals could be found nearby the shores – both mammals as insects and any beings from between the food chain too. One of the missing camels had been laying nearby, munching at hard leaves of unknown bush that seemed to sprout around the places in a few various locations, along with very high cacti and grasses of unknown origins. The only object that could seem like the human in disguise sat nearby the shore, hunched over in position resembling very much pair of elders from the hermited cave. The sand around him and in few various spots seemed to have sparkling, yellowish tint.

Minato stopped as soon as the thing was visible, dropping back to the light trot. It would serve to wind him down from the run, and hopefully to avoid any traps set. Not that he could see any, and unless the redhead had put that hole crawling with baby scorpions as a security measure – doubtful as he was, he wasn't going to fully discard it just yet– he reached the sparse vegetation surrounding the oasis without much problems. The fact the man didn't so much as turn in his direction ticked him off, though.

'…um… hey.' the blond called, carefully threading his way around what few stiff leaves of camel grass jutted from the sand 'So… are you going to stay here much longer? Because your ANBU and I-'

He was abruptly stopped from advancing with a sharp tug from the object on his back. Craning his neck around he found Gaara had caught in his hand one of the leaves from the three palms growing there, and didn't seem very inclined to releasing his prize just yet.

'…Gaara, you mind?'

A moment later the palm (short of a mouthful of leave) gently sprang back to place, and Minato turned to look back at the man. Who still hadn't moved.

'…Kazekage-sama?'

The redhead slowly moved his head to the side, barely uncovering the side of face that seemed to be a bit too wet for the shining sun he was exposed to and blinked hazily, his eyes barely focused.

'Why'd you come here for…' he muttered, almost biting the words through the tightly shut teeth.

Minato's shoulders relaxed at that- he'd been trying to decide if this was some sort of trap and figuring if it would be best to run off back to camp and come back with ANBU or play into it and figure out where the Kazekage was. He no longer though this was an impostor… but he still didn't like the situation.

'There are some things I needed your opinion on.' he said calmly, taking his time in covering the maybe thirteen steps separating them. He didn't know what was the sparkly yellow thing in the floor, and he also didn't really care, what he did notice was that the redhead seemed to be somehow sweating rivers despite the fact it was the middle of the night and that meant Sunanin holed with as many blankets as they could in the dark night air. '…you haven't been to the camp for the whole day. Is something wrong?'

'Everything's fine.' muttered the man with the same tone and seemed to hunch forward even more 'I just enjoy the silence. It's not like I can…'

For a moment the figure stilled in silence, but after two seconds it resumed the speech.

'…it's not like I can go to such places everyday. What do you need my opinion on?'

'Everything's fine' my ass , Minato thought angrily, hurrying the last few steps and quickly taking the bag off his back and setting it on the floor with a quiet order for Gaara to behave. Then he turned to the redhead and plucked the veil off without asking for permission, since he was sure he wouldn't get it either way.

Under the natural tan of the locals, the redhead's skin had sickly yellowish tint that hardly spoke of good health. All of the sudden the man's constantly worsening humor, the way he slept like if he'd never indulged on such an activity, how he glared at his food and just about everything that they had offhandedly observed in the past weeks make a lot more than sense. At least more than his personal opinion the man had gotten an early start on menopause.

'You shouldn't be alone without ANBU, what if you were attacked like this?' he removed headdress of the rider's suit the man was wearing. His hair was just as sweaty as his face and when he reached to push the dark wet strands sticking to his forehead, he nearly pulled away at the heat the skin was giving off. 'You are sick.'

The man had looked back at him with glassy glare like if he didn't even get that Minato was even talking to him. He didn't pull away or even act like if he felt that Minato touched him. He just… stared in very still position; only faint movement around his chest showed that he still exchanged air within his lungs. And then, like if something hit too hard surface, his face started falling into something that couldn't be called otherwise as hysteric mimic nearing verge of tears just by hair.

'…what do you all people want from me…' he muttered, then turned around slowly to look at his clothes laying in the sand, and as if it sand in material was horrendous crime the redhead started shaking with very badly hidden sobs and sniffs '…why did you take that off? I'm not sick, I don't need your help! Do you think I can't even answer your question you break away from the topic like that?'

'Oh, hey… it's… it's not that bad…' Minato said lamely, looking desperately around for some source of instruction on how to proceed, but since the only company he currently had was reduced to calmly grazing camel and Gaara, who was trying to touch a prickly cacti fruit while the sand formed a ball around the object, his options were rather limited. '…please, stop?'

Minato had never liked to be around people who cried, they kind of got into his nerves since he never did it often, and when he did he had this horrible tendency to get blotchy and he'd been mercilessly teased for it by his cousins most of his childhood. Naruto had gotten him much more used to that, but still was hardly something he'd do willingly if given any option.

If this was someone he got along better with, he'd probably would have hugged them, or gone the soldier way and slapped while demanding for them to get a grip on themselves. Since the man was provably delirious with fever rather than hysteric, there was no saying how would that go and he wasn't going to give it a try just now. The man was obviously sick, so the best course of action was to think as field medic. All shinobi came with the most basic of training on dealing with wounds, but Minato hadn't seen him get hurt at any point and the man was supposed to be vastly more able than he in dealing with anything related to poisons, shouldn't he?

Not knowing what else to do, he tilted his head lightly up so he could have a look at his pupils. Unfortunately, he didn't see any immediate difference between the iris and them.

'Are your eyes always this dark, or are you really, really high?' he asked with slight humor in his voice.

In the answer, the redhead threw a handful of sand at his face, like if he was particularly offended by this statement while he shouted the meaningless sounds (something between 'argh' and 'wah') and got up, only to sit down in the same position a few steps later, finally laying down in embryonic position in the end.

'…stop looking down on me… I am not a disgrace… I did it all for you all… stop it…' clattered through his teeth in litany of murmurs.

Minato sneezed twice in response and quickly brushed as much sand as he could off his hair and face, which mostly seemed to consist on him ruffling at it like a dog to shake fleas off.

'Oh, you ungrateful, melodramatic ass!'

The camel chose that moment to snort and nod it's head as if it agreed wholeheartedly with such an opinion, and Minato almost lost it and burst into laughing because- what the hell , this situation was as horrible as it was funny. Unfortunately just thinking about laughing at sick man who couldn't even get back up on his own seemed a little too mean, so instead he picked the few things scattered around and put them back in the camel's pack.

Normally he wouldn't even bother thinking about it, but as the Kazekage had rightfully said, camels were good, faithful animals and didn't really deserve to be stuck in some place where they were likely to get eaten by a pack of hungry jackals or hyenas or hell, even ants. Now that he thought about it, he felt a little glad he'd decide to come on his own. Kazekage eaten by wildlife because he was too stupid to get medical attention? Suna would never live it down.

'Oh, hello there, hi cutie.' he cooed, patting the beasts neck like he would have a horse, then giving the bridal a slight tug to coax the large animal up 'How did this go er… Up! On we go… Sim-Sim-Salabim?…Yip-yip?'

The camel snorted him and he could have sworn rolled its eyes at him.

Not really feeling very appreciative of the criticism and since asking nicely hadn't been all too well received, Minato decided to deal with it like his very own bloody Habanero would have.

'Get the hell up, you lazy beast of burden!' he cried indignantly, taking a step back and giving the thing a sonorous smack in the rump. The large, humped creature immediately sprang to it's feet with a startled grunt and looked at the human as If he had lost all it's marbles.

'Back to camp. You understand?' he pointed at the trail left by his feet 'Follow that and go back to *camp*, and if you are not well on your way when I get going, we are eating you roasted, understood?'

Again, the camel nodded and took several hesitant steps backwards, when Minato glared and took a step forward as if he intended to get a fire going right there and then, the thing let out a panicked cry and turned tail into a fats trot. Minato just hoped it had understood the instructions.

'All right baby, next….' He gave a look first at the toddler, and then at his father, whose gibberish had lowered in volume but not really stopped.

'…right, fever.'

He briefly considered giving the man water, but since they were going to be in movement chances he would get sick were very high, and the distance wasn't so great. If they could make better time than in coming, twenty minutes at the most- but it would probably help if he started it by lowering his temperature.

Four hand seals later, a perfect copy of Minato was picking up both baby and back and adjusting it, to his chest this time.

'Be soft, Gaara.' The real Minato told him seriously 'It's only a few minutes and it's either like this or your zoo to do it for you, I can't carry you both.'

Turning towards the man, he carefully pulled him so he was lying on his back rather than on his side, and reaching for his left hand, bared it all the way to the inside of his elbow.

'Oft.' said Gaara obediently and then put mouth over the shoulder of the clone, wetting it and smoldering with saliva, but not using his teeth on the single strand of material. He liked that kind of carefulness, it was something he could do to be praised, especially as he mastered it quite well so far. Daichi on the other hand groaned at the change of position and turned back to laying on the side, not really trying to take his hand away from the blond.

'What are you doing, you blond, do you think that because you're pretty you can do everything you want, stop disrespecting me, why nobody listens to when I make an order, I'm a leader here, how am I supposed to make it if nobody even wants to listen, agh!'

He shuddered at the seal that lowered his temperature a few degrees and jerked a bit to get up above the sand level. His gaze focused a bit more, but none of the pain induced lines went away.

'What are you doing?' he yelled hysterically, breathing like if he was about to faint from shock 'I don't want your mercy, I don't want your help, let me go!'

'Kazekage-sama.' Minato said calmly as he lowered the sleeves on the left hand and moved to the right one to draw another. 'You have been sick for days and instead of having it quickly treated like an intelligent mednin would have thought of doing, you hid it and came to lick your wounds all alone in the middle of nowhere, barely able to move and with no one to protect you, so, if you were to get killed, kidnapped, or anything like that, all of your village would go in a panic and your guards kill themselves over the shame of not doing their job right.'

He lowered the sleeves on that arm as well and helped the man up first into a sitting position, then tugged him upwards so he would move up.

'Since I can see you are really sick now, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt right now and convince myself this sounded like a good idea because of the high fever. Now you can let me take you back to the camp, where I'm sure your ANBU will be delighted to have the privilege of cowering in your presence since I'm sure they are going to be a whole lot more obedient than I-… or I can knock you out, let Gaara draw on your face with permanent marker, take incriminatory photos, and then deliver you to your ANBU. One of those options is going to be faster. The other will please me immensely, and since the result will be more or less the same to me, this is your call.'

In response, the redhead's gaze wavered dangerously with something that could only be called tears. Without the slightest warning they also started rolling down his cheeks like if suddenly both eyes of the kazekage got infected with something very itchy and allergic. Their owner hiccupped through that no worse than his own child during the not so rare (but rarer lately) tantrums and sat down on the sand just as he was standing.

'So you hate me after all, this is so cruel of you…' he rasped and then hid his face within his hands, crying in a manner nobody in Suna would probably think of him in their wildest dreams 'How can you treat me like thaaat, I took you under my caaareee!'

Minato really didn't want to do this. Not because he didn't really want to- more because he really, really didn't want to. He didn't care for doing it, but this man just seemed like someone who would stab him just for trying, but what the hell. If he was lucky the camel was indeed in its way to the camp and would hopefully alert ANBU so they would come before Gaara decided to eat them both.

'Come on, get up. I don't hate you…' he said in the coaxing, reasonable adult voice he used with Gaara as he once again forced the older man back on his feet. 'Only a Sunanin would think not leaving you to rot here alone and die a sad and lonely death because you refused medical treatment is not caring.' And since it worked with Gaara (and since if this didn't work he really would be out of ideas) he pulled him close into a loose hug.

'There, there.' he reached to ruffle the short, saffron-stem colored strands so they didn't really look much different from his son's recent haircut 'Let' go back to where everyone else is, and you'll feel better once Red Ant treats you.'

'You don't hate me?...' asked the man in shaking, miserable voice that sounded more like if it was coming from a kid than actually an adult. He slowly uncovered his face and looked up, not really leaning into the hug or reacting to the fact there was a hand through his hair. 'You don't care if I rot or not. You would be happy if I would. Everyone would be happy if I died…'

'If I didn't care I would just have left and pretended I never saw anything of that, don't you think?' he said in the same soft, reasonable voice from before. The hair-petting didn't seem to have any effect on the man, unlike Gaara, but he kept doing it all the same. It was a pleasant occupation while he tried to figure out what to do next. 'And your family would be very sad if anything happened to you, so if nothing else, you need to get better for them.'

'My family is a bunch of JERKS!' suddenly the redhead yelled and pushed at the blond, thwacking them both into the sand 'Are you here to mock me? Are you internally laughing at me because you know I've took a liking in you? Why are you so- so-…'

The rest of the speech was suddenly cut off as the man paled and scrambled a few steps away just to start uttering painfully realistic sounds of heavy drying where nothing really came out of his mouth, maybe a few specks of sparkling dust, making him cough. Immediately after that another set of retching hit him, this time making him vomit with something that looked like mud and smelled of rotting wound. He looked at it for a moment and then simply rolled back into embryonic position again.

'If you don't hate me…' he muttered weakly '…what would you do if I kissed you?'

'I am so not going to kiss you after that thing came out of your mouth!' Minato said as he quickly scrambled to his feet and helped the man before he decided to fall on whatever he had just vomited. Oh, this wasn't good. There was something- some organ, some- something rotting inside the Kazekage and they weren't going to spend any more time…

'We are getting back to camp now. You!' the cloned stood to attention 'Get back right now and tell Red Ant to prepare, we are likely going to need to operate immediately, ANBU will know what's protocol in this situation. Gaara, be soft until I get there and you'll get a treat.'

'Treat!' Gaara said and closed his eyes as the clone spun into the run. He didn't like it at first but a few meters further he was fully enjoying the ride, without even trying to gnaw at anything.

Minato turned to the redhead and assessed the situation for a moment- something in stomach, so that immediately ruled slinging him over his shoulder and calling it a day. Carrying him princess style might be vaguely funny if it wouldn't have been so inconvenient when he needed speed, and that only left the obvious.

'Come on now.' he said, turning halfway around and pulling at one the redhead's arms and crouched so the man wouldn't have to move too much to climb easily. 'We need to hurry.'

The redhead for another long moment just stared at the blond's back until he finally climbed up, his movements painfully careful over everytime where he had to move his abdomen. When he finally got to the right position, he just limped on the blond limplessly, letting him carry all the new kilos without any sort of backup.

'Your hair…' he muttered almost unhearably '…they don't smell like woods anymore.'

Minato almost staggered for a moment – the man wasn't small, but he was shorter than him, yet easily outweighed him, how did that even happen? – then grunted and behaved his weight up a bit, holding his legs in place and getting back up.

'Pervert. Let me take a real shower.' he said with a slight smile as he walked down to the path he's started, since it was the flattest route to go 'I'll fix it up right away.'

After taking another moment to make sure the man wasn't going to fall off on him, he broke into a run. Fortunately for everyone involved, the Kazekage wasn't nowhere near as picky with the speeds as Gaara was. As it came, the clone was already in the place once they arrived and eagerly pleased the youngest son of the kage with piece of meat which made Gaara happy to no extent (and just as excited too). Daichi looked at it dully and without a comment, only occasionally groaning once Ants surrounded Minato, taking the man off his back.

'This time he really did it, didn't he.' muttered Vulture as he simply passed by, carrying another set of wood near the fireplace. 'This is going to be a long night.'

'Did the camel make it?' Minato asked as he waited for Gaara to be done with chewing on his treat before giving him a big hug while his replacement dispelled himself. 'I sent it before the clone.'

'I know nothing about camels.' announced the nin looking at the side from where the blond came 'I can go looking for it.'

'I'd be really thankful if you did, Vulture.' the blond said with a slight smile 'I don't want to be in the blame of yet another poor camel lost.'

Both ninja and ANBU left in different directions, Vulture following whatever sense allowed him to track things so easily in the desert, and Minato venturing deeper into what was left of the cities to keep Gaara as far away from his weakened father as possible… Just in case they did need to cut him open on him. Lark and Devil were nowhere to be seen, likely having been dispatched to patrol, a sick Kage generally meant tighter security.

In the end it was lucky the clone arrived the few minutes earlier than he did. The limited rainbow of Ants had enough time to create a sterile field and get all tools ready for said surgery, which involved a lot less of cutting than Minato would have imagined.

When they ended, the kazekage was no less drugged than before, limplessly laying in hands of the Ants as women moved the body from the operating field to the sterilized bed in the standing houses. He didn't seem to mind the fact now he has additional tube attached to his abdomen but finally his face loses traces of pain that seemed to be attached to him permanently for last few days. Gaara also noticed it, curious about the add on as he tries to sneak closer to look at it a few times, but as everytime one of ANBU simply stood on his path, he just kept pretending it wasn't in his interests at all. Daichi didn't notice this also.

'There was no need to perform surgery.' the Red Ant said in tone cautiously balanced between amusement and mocking. Minato knew it well enough from his time working with Tsunade, the 'oh, your poor little alarmist, were you scared?' sort of tone. 'The infection should be treated easily enough once we are done with the draining. He will have to remain down and be fed through an IV for a few days, but other than that, his life isn't at any risk unless he develops some complication.'

'Really…?' the blond asked with slight disappointment, When he could *feel* the glare the woman sent him, he quickly corrected himself. 'No, I mean that's great, of course… I just wondered because he really looked like crap and who knows how long was he hiding it-'

'Our Kazekage wasn't hiding his illness, Hokage-sama. He was treating it.'

'Treating it, of course.' the blond said agreeably. 'Was it working…?'

There was a long pause from the stiff figure.

'I'm sure the procedure would have been significantly more dangerous if he hadn't.' she finally said neutrally. And Minato was versed enough in politic answers to know that this meant it would also have been a lot better if he had just told them he was sick when the thing started, not that any of the fanatical underlings of this man would ever think of saying anything so openly critical towards their master.

Minato wondered what it would be like to have such perfect obedience from his soldiers… He couldn't remember ever taking an important decision that hadn't been challenged by someone. Probably rather boring, not to mention all the chances to correct faulty plans that sprung from discussions.

'If he's going to need rest to recuperate, shouldn't you take him to that summer house they were planning to go to?' he asked, pulling his necklace away from Gaara's prying hand. Piranha teeth meant the toddler had lost all and every necklace-munching privileges. 'It would probably be more comfortable for him.'

'We can't light lamp until Kazekage-sama orders it.'

'Of course…' and he had a pretty good idea of what the man would say. How dare you try to imply I'm so weak I need to lie in embroiled cushions? I am the Kazekage of Suna, I do not abandon missions over a little infection, I've lead wars with worse than this! Will you never stop insulting me?

He wondered if at the end of that he'd call him pretty and try to sniff his hair again.

'Are you having some sort of amusing thought, Hokage-sama?' Red Ant's clipped, suspicious tone just made Minato's smile widen.

'Why yes. Yes I am.'

Gaara looked up at the expression in curiosity, then simply put his, still smelling with meaty stench fingers into his mouth and started licking them while sand tried to cooperate with holding the fingers at the right distance from teeth.

The Kazekage spent the night in half-dreaming state through which he had been muttering vast sentences and words almost without a stop. At some point Gaara even tried to repeat them, but as it gave no meaning to anything, he simply gave up at 'retribution'. One of the ANBU had been going back and forth between inside and outside the room, checking on the state the man was put in. At the dawn, finally the redhead woke up ad greeted with a packet of new drugs he quietly fell into sweet prayarese as he kept on moving his hands through his fingers and repeating ancient sunnah words. At the question of Thorny Devil of moving out he simply uttered with softly, sweetish tone 'summer house? I love summer house.' and agreed to whatever his soldiers had been asking him, which gave them completely new range of movement. As it seemed, during the night, the Kazekage turned either senile or stupid and nobody minded.

Minato was under the suspicion they kept him that way because if they lowered the dosage he'd be up and trying to get himself into an early ditch again (turn out the man had pancreatitis an apparently hadn't felt this was something that might have concerned his underlings), but at least it made the man a lot more bearable, especially since in his weakened state it was easier to bring Gaara around him. The blond wasn't one to let opportunities go, so the sooner he broke Gaara of his fear of the man the better. Since whatever of that icky brown substance Red Ant had collected from the man's pancreas didn't' seem to smell anywhere like blood if the baby's disgusted reaction the moment it caught a whiff of it was anything to go, it seemed safe enough.

Minato, who had hit a ditch on regards of the sealing on the circle, decided to just send the message to Suna explaining in detail what were the effects and the problems with it and dedicated himself exclusively to try and coax Gaara into crawling. Since he no longer lay on his back just staring at things and rolled, instead choosing to sit himself up, Minato saw no reason why he shouldn't be able to. The only problem was that Gaara insisted in being a very cute and very lazy and very frustrating baby. Before, every time he put him on his stomach to try to coax him to push himself up, he'd roll on his back and ask to be picked.

Now he had evolved. Now he pushed himself up with the developing muscles on his arms, put one leg under himself, repeated the action with the other… And sat comfortable up and asked to be picked.

'You know what, I don't believe for a moment you are incapable of crawling, Gaara.' he told the toddler seriously 'I think you just want to have me at your back and call for the rest of your days.'

'Mii!' answered Gaara affectingly and rose his hands up toward him, obviously loving him before he ever had chance to pick him up.

'No. No Gaara, you have to work for this, this is a matter of teamwork, and since I've invested a lot of patience in this, it's your turn to put some effort. This is an order, and since I outrank you, you have to obey. This is final.'

He didn't move an inch from the maybe six feet that separated them and instead sat don and extended his arms.

'Now come here, on your own.'

'Mii, ome ere.' said Gaara instead and fell forward on his hands, extending one of it toward Minato 'Mii…'

Slowly, he changed his hands, making one almost invisible step forward, but he didn't want to move much further. The older redhead let out a small merry laugh from affair, but he didn't seem to be even watching the scene.

'Good to see you find this amusing.' Minato groaned and buried his head on his face. He thought of telling him how much he sounded like his grandmother when he did that, but quickly decided against it, focusing his attention back on the child.

'No, 'Mii', no 'come here' nothing!' the blond said as he pointed at the baby ''Gaara' come here, and he come here now.'

'Gaara come here?' repeated the child in confused tone, then patted the place in front of him… and moved right there. 'Gaara here.' he announced simply.

'This is ridiculous…' muttered the other redhead and finally looked down at the pair, obviously shaking from laughter. The only thing that seemed to be out of the picture was how his pupils seemed to be heavily glazed over and unfocused. 'Gaara, Gaara, go there, don't be such a pain…'

Baby looked back at the man, a bit surprised he was called from that side, but he reverted back to looking at Minato. Minato also turned to look at the man, surprised by the fact he was calling his son by name, which he had only witnessed… Well, he was sure he had called him by name on some other occasion than besides when he was introduced, but for the life of him he couldn't think of any.

'How did you convince your other kids to learn to crawl?' he asked cautiously, as if he doubted the man's intentions 'Because I tried with seasoned meat, and he only snatches it with sand and gobbles it up.'

The man uttered yet another set of laughter and turned around to look at his fingers. Somehow, his own rings that never changed since the day one seemed to be fascinating him.

'How, how did I do it?...' he said and laughed again 'I don't know, I think I wasn't there…'

And he laughed once again, like if missing out on vital points of his own children growing up was something sweet and funny.

'You know, I have the feeling whatever you are on is a lot better quality that the drugs I was put under last time I was in the hospital…' Minato raised an eyebrow at this, but he also smiled a little. 'Maybe I should get appendicitis next time.'

The redhead only looked back at him and flashed him a full set smile like if he was both sharing and hiding secret from him and then he looked down with the same expression toward the smaller redhead. Gaara didn't look back, having his eyes settled only on Minato, but that seemed to make Daichi even more happy. Quickly, like if out of curiosity, the man moved one of his fingers, making the plush toy that lied a few meters away twitch with the right paw. Gaara looked at it and then looked back to Minato, which made the Kazekage let out another batch of giggles as he put two hands into motions this time. Quietly, teddy 'Ady' turned toward Gaara and started waving to him, only to start moving away at minimal speed. That finally caught Gaara's attention as he looked back at it, more and more surprised. The child let out a squeal without a real meaning and moved his hand toward it, of course, not catching the plush at all. This time the plush simply repeated the gesture and that finally put Gaara into motion, made him slowly but hastily crawl toward the toy in wonder. In answer, Daichi laughed again and pushed the toys slightly to the side, making the distance a bit further. He seemed to be having fun with it like a five years old and wasn't behaving much differently from it too.

Minato stared while the man, for lack of better term, 'fished' his son out of his sitting paralysis and made him crawl after slowly moving piece of plush. It took him several moments to figure out the dryness on his mouth came from the unusual gaping he was doing, and he quickly closed his mouth with a quiet snap and turned towards the older man.

'That was… that's…' he gestured towards still moving plush toy, without looking away from the older man. 'I… Thank you.'

The redhead slowly looked back from the toy that he still kept moving with his fingers and looked at Minato with quite a cheery expression. Oh, Minato thanked him. That was so funny.

'Kiss me.' he said simply.

And just like that, the blond's awed expression changed to the more usual (at least to anyone but the Kazekage) friendly amusement.

'I think *I'd* need to be very high for that.'

That only got another set of giggles out of the drugged man as he went back to playing with plush and making Gaara follow it until he caught it, like if nothing's happened.

'…I wonder…' he muttered once Gaara finally caught one of the back paws of the plush '…I often wonder how your lips taste.'

'I'm sure you also wonder how my liver tastes like.' the blond countered offhandedly, picking both impressed baby and dispossessed Teddy and tossing him a few inches on the air before hugging both close. 'You look like if you'd like to eat them every time I do something you don't agree with. Which more or less always.'

'Your liver?' another set of giggles, this time more or less hysterical, showing that the man didn't really have control over what he did 'No, I just want to have sex with you…'

'And sniff my hair and squeeze my wounds until I want to cry.' the blond added in good humor, reaching with a hand to pat the man's head slightly- he did promise Lark he would take care of the man while he went to take a rest, he didn't want him to get agitated.

'There are lots of pretty blonds in Suna, have sex with them.'

The redhead didn't miss a beat and caught the given hand in a grasp. It wasn't hard or demanding – more, it was gentle and endearing, so unlike the usual posture of the Kazekage. Slowly, he let go of the hand even like that, brushing his fingers up the forearm to the moment he could reach without really changing position.

'Oh no, I want you…' he muttered in sweetish tone 'You're so pretty, boy, I want to take care of you…'

Minato laughed, blushing a little more of how funny the situation was rather than actual embarrassment, though it made the freckles on his face stand out all the same.

'So you can adopt me?' he said, obviously not having forgotten the conversation they had had over Roadrunner what seemed like so many weeks ago 'I'm sorry, seal master pays well enough I don't need to consider career change to 'personal bitch''

'No, no, just sex…' muttered the redhead, staring at him like at some sort of prettified beauty image, then let out another giggle 'Personal bitch, that's so vulgar!'

And then he laughs and laughs and laughs, until he finally runs out of breath, even if it seems he cannot do that anymore.

'…give me a kiss.' he said again, looking at the blond like at high prized candy.

Yes, he'd had people who promised him the world, who'd offered him their metaphorical heart in a silver tray, who had suggested to him the most scandalous propositions… and people who said nothing at all, neither yes nor no.

He wondered when was that going to stop hurting.

'Not interested.' Minato smiled (a little more fake this time) and held Gaara up to illustrate his point 'Feel free to kiss this baby instead, he'll appreciate it a lot more than I.'

Daichi looked back at Gaara who seemed to get a bit unhappy on the fact that he did and… surprise, he laughed again.

'What? No way.' he said between giggles 'I don't want to kiss Gaara, I want to kiss you.'

Minato put the baby back in his lap and gave the older man a thoughtful look.

'And here I thought Sunians liked them young…? Well, that's somewhat reassuring, as far as you tastes go.' He rested one arm on his knee, cupping his chin as he looked at the older man thoughtfully. It seemed whatever they were giving him had him in an incredibly good mood. And by that he meant 'so high he might as well not remember half of what he's saying now', which in any shinobi's book meant prime time to extract as many truth as one had enough to wrestle out of the victim.

'Why not?' he asked in a soft tone 'Not just kissing. Why are you so against it when I tell you to hold him? You know you need Gaara to trust you, but you never want to touch him, and it's obvious it's not out of fear, because when you have to, you always pick him up.'

'Why would I want to force myself on someone who doesn't want to do anything with me?' said Daichi happily, once again getting back to watching sparkles on his rings 'Gaara is such a wild child, so socially awkward, so aggressive, so… he is such a devil.'

'Does he look aggressive when he's with me?' the blond asked calmly 'Give me that hand.'

'It's a mischief! A joke!' exclaimed the man with a wide smile and looked back at the blond. 'Oh, he will kill you when you will expect it the least… you never have enough eyes to watch your back.'

Only then, after looking back at his hands again he slowly lowered one of them and gave it to Minato, not even looking away from his other palm. Minato shook his head and reached for it, holding it on his own for a moment. He looked at it like if he were measuring a kunai, taking on the roughened tips of every shinobi who handled weapons (somehow twice as rough in this man), the brutally short yet well kept nails, the multitude of tiny scars of getting cut on one's own kunai, of calling on summons with teeth and blades and anything that could draw blood. There were two pale marks around his fingers, but he had no way of knowing they were from where they had been reattached months ago, just noted them with a soft, careful brush of fingers.

Gold rings shone on the man's hand, most thick to the point he wondered how the man expected to use them on a fight, since they were bound to cut him as much as whoever he decided to attack. Some had some sort of weird beige stone that looked to be made of pressed sand, but he saw no wedding band. Not that it mean much… in the end, wedding bands usually were used by civilians, Minato's mother herself, who had abandoned life as a shinobi had lost twice before solving the matter by using it in a necklace rather than her fingers.

'Don't do anything stupid.' he said, pulling at the hand slowly closer and keeping it at baby hand's reach of the toddler, golden rings in display and the hand relaxed, like one would when approaching an unfamiliar dog.

'Be soft, Gaara.' he muttered softly, leaning a bit and dropping a small kiss on the crown of the baby's head. The redhead looked up at Minato's face, obviously wanting to see every kiss the blond gave him, including the source, process and consequences… or maybe just wanting to get more as staring in silence usually gave better effects than squealing (so far maybe the redhead's brain wasn't top evolutionized when it came to intelligence, but by far he noticed that when he didn't try very hard usually made blond try harder, so when he sat quietly there was bigger probability of blond trying to kiss him to find out what was that he wanted instead of doing something completely different because 'kiss' sounded exactly like 'this' and 'whiz'). He quickly got back his attention to the being in front of him even if he didn't really get another kiss, as the hand he knew he could recognize and as much as Daichi did absolutely nothing to show his usual hostile behavior, Gaara knew it better – and disliked it all the same.

'Off.' he muttered obediently, but his face slowly showed something bordering tension and frown as he reached the hand out (very slowly) and before he had even touched the tip of bigger finger he put it back into the previous position. The man had only glanced toward the side and flashed his teeth at the kid and rose his hand higher.

'This one is a gold stone.' he explained, very on topic. Reality seemed to be a thing of a choice to him lately. 'I have blue and green one too, they look like candies.'

'It looks like pressed sand.' Minato commented, reaching up to take the hand and briefly brushing the other one against the smooth, sparkly piece of… rock, he supposed. Since Gaara was hesitant about it, he thought maybe showing it was okay to touch would serve as positive reinforcement or something. He continued to play 'inspection' with the different ones the man had in his hand in hopes that, if nothing else, it would spike the baby's interest.

'…you really like rings, don't you?' he commented with a light smile as the man added owning more than the ones he carried right now. It reminded him of his own tastes for necklaces - or more like, obsession. He loved necklaces and he loved buying pendants and chains for them - as a general rule, he changed them daily depending on his mood, but he couldn't remember when was the last time he had changed the one he wore now.

It had been the first one Setsuna had left out for him with the change of clothing he got when he left the hospital back in Konoha and he just… hadn't bothered either taking it off or even looking through the hopeless mass of knot and tangles that usually was his jewelry box for anything new one. Which sucked, because all of the sudden he had the horrible compulsion to wear something bright and flashy- preferably that overly-bright turquoise jasper he had bought back in Mist… He just noticed now how very much it suited the shade of Naruto's eyes.

'What did you think of my son?'

'It's sand, everything that is a glass, is sand.' said the man and took the hand back with a light chuckle, looking back at what was left on it. Slowly, he lowered the other palm and licked through the jewelery like if they were made of sugar, leaving a faint yellow color upon his lips. Strangely, the rings looked like if they were smudged by the act alone and smooth surface got a little more scratched. Gaara looked at that with half of interest and half of annoyance, not knowing why Minato decided to pay so much attention to the hand he had bad memories attached with. He bounced inside the hold to express both, ignorant of the ever posed question.

'Ah, Naruto…' said the kazekage and set into the fit of drunken giggles 'Such an active, fresh blood. Charming personality.'

'Oh, wow. I really wish you hadn't said those words while you did that…' The blond reached for the hand and brought it back, inspecting the flesh 'So, you not only retch gold all the time, your saliva also melts it?' he asked, remembering the patches of golden yellow back at the oasis. 'Look, Gaara.' he stroked the smudged gold, not terribly surprised when it stayed solid for him. '…Naru's an Uzumaki, they are the definition for 'active'. What did he do to make you like him so much, won a fight with one of your ninja scorpions?'

Gaara looked back at the hand and observed as Minato played with it, slowly getting more and more interested with glinting reflexes the surface of rings posed, no matter what kind of state they were in. The older redhead a bit slowed down with his constant movement and also his giggles slowly relaxed and quieted down.

'Oh yeah, such a pretty… merry baby…' he muttered and chuckled under his nose, smiling to his own memory of Naruto. The baby was not only definition of active, it was also definition of what was lacking in his life. A good healthy and curious newborn that could change expressions just as wildly as the way of talking. It was something different from his ever obedient and quiet children that either growled or sat in the corners doing everything to stay invisible. 'Pretty smile… he is so fat…'

Gaara finally, very hesitantly, reached out toward one of the rings and patted it, waiting for it to explode in his face. When nothing of such happened, he slowly lied down in the hold and started making bubbles from saliva, watching the reflexes of the rings without hiding his interest.

'Fat!' for some reason this adjective seemed to be of some sort of importance because the blond emitted the closest thing anyone above the age of eight could make by crossing hysterical giggling with a choked off squeal. There was a completely unusual gleam of pure happiness when Minato leaned closer 'Let me guess… his face is round like a tomato?'

'Like a tomato.' said Daichi, agreeing to it with bit of surprise. Somehow it didn't come to him when he watched the kid, but not it made the perfect sense. 'It's chubby on the sides… and covered in blush.'

This obviously was the right answer because Minato grinned at the man, for once not with contempt or sarcasm or even amusement. He gave his hand a squeeze, as if the Kazekage had done something to be thanked over, then looked down at the baby in his arms and squeezed him close.

It had been weeks since he'd seen Naruto last, but just hearing he had started looking more like his mother made Minato wish he could just get up, run all the way back to the city and hug the living daylights out of his son. He'd noticed (also known as 'told himself') that Naruto had Kushina's eyes, which provably would have been true, if nothing else because of their shape. Then again, he was just a baby, who knew what he'd look like growing up?

Minato secretly hoped it would be a lot more like Kushina. Since he'd also hoped Naruto would turn out to be a girl, he wasn't very sure if that didn't actually make his chances lower.

'Oh, hey, there's Sunnah in this one…' focusing again on the rings, he brought one closer to inspect the minuscule etchings all over the metal. Unlike the other's, this one hadn't brushed off when the man had licked it.

'Sa Ba… Your family's name? What's with the inverted 'E's? I saw them before in some of the things Wren showed me.'

'Oh no, don't touch it…' said the man and slowly twiddled his fingers out Minato's hands 'It's my master's… wax approval…'

Which probably meant that if anything, it suited for smashing the thing into the safety wax just as a minuscule stamp. He himself used it occasionally, but not very much so, usually just sealing the paper with a simple stun jutsu, that would put anyone down if they weren't meant to read the thing. It was more of a sentimental bling than a real value. He looked at it under the faint light and smiled toward it, like if it was pretty or unusual. Then he simply took it off his fingers.

'You want it?' he said, dropping it on Minato's hands. He didn't really wait for the answer.

'Even if I wasn't sure you'd accuse me of stealing it later….' Minato turned the surprisingly heavy piece of gold around, showing it to Gaara but not really letting it go- this just looked small enough to be swallowable- 'I don't really wear rings. But thank you.'

He smiled.

'You are surprisingly pleasant when you are drugged like this, can't you be this nice more often?'

Gaara looked at it with interest and indeed, tried to take it into his mouth, but his moves were rather lazy in comparison to how he usually did with such things. He didn't like the smell. Daichi just chuckled under his nose, still playing with his fingers, but then something changed and he slowly laid his fingers down. He kept on watching the ceiling with that sweet, unphantomable smile, but his pupils slowly widened, spreading through his eyes like a stain from broken ink.

'I'm drugged?...' he asked, then turned toward Minato, his voice dancing on the edge of laugh and panic 'I'm drugged?...'

Minato's smile dimmed hesitantly at that.

'Um… a little? You do have a tube coming out of your side, that would kinda hurt without some anesthetic…?'

How could the man not know it? Hadn't he mentioned it just moment ago? The redhead slowly turned his head down to look at the thick tube he had been completely ignoring until now and to travel up with the way it went until he saw the drip bag. He seemed to be more absent than present with the way his thoughts went. The small, dreamy smile still danced upon his lips. Slowly, he traced the thing with one finger, until he touched the bag and then he went back to his hand, obviously tracing from where one thing started and the other ended. He started laughing again.

'I know…' he said through the giggles 'I know, you just think I don't know…'

Then, slowly, he started undoing the tube , taking it out from his vein with slow, delicate precision.

'Hey- hey, no! Nonono- bad Kage, put that down, you are not supposed to touch it!'

Augh, what had he done now? He didn't think anyone could blame him for having assumed the man would notice a drip bag of liquid happy sticking right on his vein, but he wouldn't put it pass the ANBU accompanying them to try to do it anyway. Quickly pulling Gaara next to him so he could lean closer, he reached for the man's hands and tried to stop him from what he was doing without jolting around too much, not wanting the man to accidentally break the needle.

'Would you stop that?'

Daichi, indeed, stopped with what he was doing, only to brush his fingers affectionally across the fingers of the blond. If he had a bit quicker way of thinking he'd probably try to grab the hand, but he didn't. He just smiled again at it.

'Are you with them…?' he asked and looked up, completely shamelessly looking at Minato with the look that was surely not appropriate 'Are you with them too, pretty boy?...'

'Minato.'

That name seemed to shake the man off a bit from the state he was in. He looked at the blond again, his gaze more focused and unfriendly, but it quickly melted within the previous mood. Without another word, he bended down and started removing the needle again.

'Would you please stop that?' the blond asked, once again trying to swap at the man's hands ineffectively 'You are only going to have it until tomorrow anyway, can't you just sit back and enjoy for a little while?'

Or just wait and do it when whoever came next to baby-sit him could deal with it, either was fine with man once again stopped, looking down at hands that effectively brushed his hand off and looked back at the blond, his gaze lost.

'Enjoy…' he muttered, slowly getting back into the relaxed and happy expression 'Enjoy what?...'

Then, as if he had gave up, he simply laid down again, smiling at the ceiling. But he didn't try playing with his fingers again. Minato stayed where he was for a moment, not really trusting the man not to be trying to play him off or anything similar, but as he really did seem to have momentarily forgotten.

'The fact you can sit back and relax a bit? You provably need it.' Now that he looked at it, it was amazing what a single day of the man dropping his usual expression- which seemed to come in limited arrays of frowning, yelling angrily, sulking or plain stressing- had done for smoothing out the hard lines in his brow and corners of mouth. Minato found himself once again remembering the fact the Kazekage was only a few years older than he himself was, regardless of how he acted.

'Think of it as an unscheduled vacation. You can go back to ruling with iron fist as soon as you are done.'

'Vacation.' said the man slowly, with a bit widened smile 'I like having vacation. It's so calm.'

Slowly, the man breathed the air deeper, something that could be understandable on the shore of the sea, but not really in the middle of the dry desert.

'Do you like vacation? Do you think we could spend them together?...'

Minato sighed at the change in topic and leaned back on his arm, rolling the Kazekage's ring idly back and forth between his hands, the dim sunlight catching on the inverted E's.

'If I had vacations… I probably wouldn't know what to do with them. ' he muttered absently.

He hadn't have vacations since he had become Hokage, and even if he, by chance, managed to get a day off, he had to spend it sneaking around behind everyone's back just to spend some time with Kushina. He didn't like that at all, but she hadn't minded (or so she'd said) , but Minato had never liked being anyone's dirty little secret and he would never have asked it from someone he loved… Unfortunately, it had been for her own safety and there hadn't been a way around it.

'…I guess I'd spend them training my student, or with my friends-' neither of which was an option any longer '…or traveling with sensei…' not something he a) could any longer do, either, b) not something he'd want to partake in any moment soon from now since he didn't even want to think if Jiraiya right now, much less spend long amount of times with no one but him for company.

'… I guess I could just call it a day and say that since I'm not being directly or indirectly responsible for bankruptcy, new wars, massive genocide or sending child soldiers to their early graves, these are my vacations. And look, we are already spending them together. Hurrah.'

Everything he wanted he got in the end - things like becoming Hokage, starting a family, knowing Naruto was safe and hell, he even got that cute little red-haired baby he'd been hoping for so much. Life had indeed delivered for Namikaze Minato. It wasn't anyone's fault its sense of humor leaned heavily for 'understated sadism'.

'…do you know what it's like to be constantly trying to do the right thing and just… never having it come out right, no matter how hard you try or what you need to sacrifice to get it?'

Of course, the path to hell was paved with good intentions. They just felt like if they were shards of broken glass.

Daichi didn't look like if he heard half of what was said to him, as he simply just laid there, staring at the shaded brown ceiling and smiled to himself – something that looked even goofy at the given situation, but then, all the more freaky at the same time. Gaara sounded his presence with simple 'oh' as he looked down and up, searching for something more interesting than motionless man whom he still didn't like but whom he could brush off as harmless at the given moment. The corner of lips of Daichi twitched, looking like if something nipped at his skin, but he didn't even blink. His pupils still looked like if they were twice as big their usual size, almost covering the whole, not very big space of the whites. Slowly, they moved toward the blond, looking at him and looking like if he looked through him at the same time.

'…this is not funny.' he muttered, his voice calm but somewhat not joyful at the very least. 'What are you playing at? I'm not your priest… and this is no vacations.'

'Wrong.' Minato smiled. And unlike the one he'd given him before, this *was* the usual, sarcastic and venom-filled smile the Kazekage would find much more familiar. 'It is funny. You just can't appreciate the irony of it.'

'I probably can't…' said the redhead like if he were thinking about something hard, but his gaze was empty enough to signalize that even if he tried, it didn't give much results '…you have blue eyes.'

'…yes, I do. And this is the second most stimulating conversation I've had with a Sabaku.'

One would think that talking with a drugged Kazekage would be more entertaining. So far, letting the man lead the conversation hadn't done wonders for his mood.

'Why do you think your family are jerks? You have cute and obedient kids, one would think you'd be happy about that.'

'Uh…' said the redhead, for once seeming to want to frown, but letting go of this as he slowly got up on his elbows, then almost fell off the bed when he reached for one of his shoes. When he finally brought it up, he seemed to be unable to remember what he wanted to do with it, so he just stared at it with confused expression. Only when Gaara piped up at the fact the object was in the range of his sight he seemed to remember that he wanted to actually throw it at Minato, but after a second of sitting with it in the air, he simply let his hand fall down. Slowly, his gaze focused on Gaara, who observed everything with – maybe not the most pinpointed – but still, interest.

'Third Kazekage is the most awesome of the masters…' he muttered, letting go of the shoe and smiling reluctantly again, this time with a smile that would put a teenage dreaming girl to shame. Slowly, he reached out his hand toward Gaara, making the kid widening his eyes and backing away toward Minato as much as he could. After a second thought, the hand moved toward Minato's head, touching his face with fingertips. At this point the man seemed to be confused about what to do next '…yeah. He is not a… not a… jerk. My kids are not… jerks.'

Minato noted with approval that Gaara was crawling instead of moving with sand and that he also sought him for protection instead of pushing at his father away, so he jut picked him back up and put him in his lap again, wrapping arms lightly around the tiny shoulders. Aw, the man had had a crush on his sensei. Not precisely unusual (Minato sometimes felt like he was the freak since practically everyone he knew had gone through that phase at one moment or other), but still, something rather unexpected if one took in consideration who it came from.

He jerked a bit when the fingers touched him, but they were far away from his eyes and didn't really feel aggressive, so he hesitantly let them in place. If nothing else, he wanted to show Gaara this sort of touch was 'safe'.

'Who are the jerks, then?'

The man smiled a bit wider, then let his fingers travel down the face, until they hit the chin and slowly lost the touch as he tried to move toward the neck. Minato was asking him pretty hard questions right now. He knew he had answers for them, but for now everything felt a bit mushy and a bit wooly, so he couldn't really tell what kind of answer he would really want to give.

'I don't know. Should there be any jerks?' he asked, like if he was asking for the rule of a gameplay, then he looked down at the kid again. Gaara looked back, his face full of frown. The kid was confused about what was going on, but he knew that nothing good usually came from the man's touch, so he didn't even try to act friendly now. 'Why is it glaring at me like that?...'

'Must be your friendly and charming personality.' The blond said quickly, pulling away while rubbing at some weird spot the man had just accidentally touched in his neck. It made a shiver go down his spine in the most uncomfortable of ways. 'Have you ever given him a reason to smile at you?'

Sure, Gaara didn't really smile yet, but Minato insisted he had seen the corners of his mouth lift a bit. Sometimes. Very sporadically. 'Maybe if you ever thought of having interactions with him not reduced to yelling and grabbing him like a rabbit you plan to skin...'

'But he is my kid, isn't he?...' mused Daichi, like if he was for once thinking over if the thing in front of him really shared blood with him 'I do the best for my kids…'

The sentence broke over as the man looked at Gaara with uncertainty, something not matching swimming through his eyes, but not really hitting the surface.

'He looks so hostile.' he assumed in the end with resignation and lied down on elbow, watching the child like fish in aquarium. For once he rose his hand and tried to get it close to Gaara but the child almost glued his back to Minato in distress. The man lowered his hand down slowly 'Oh, I hate your hate, who do you think is on your side if not me, huh…'

Finally he looked up at Minato. He seemed to slowly lose his happy mood along with how empty the drip bag seemed to be.

'Such a deaf kid.' he stated finally like if it was answer to every posed question.

Such a deaf adult, the blond thought, but didn't say out loud, shaking his head lightly. Gaara trusted Minato and seemed to magnanimously tolerate the usual ANBU but what reasons did he have to trust his father. The ANBU at least only acted hostile when they had good reason for it, otherwise left Gaara alone. The Kazekage, on the other hand, seemed to barely lose an opportunity to sneer at the baby.

'He is your kid.' Minato agreed, and without asking reached again for the hand not being used to prop the man up. This time he brought it up palm up. 'Kazekage-sama.' he announced loudly and somewhat theatrically as he edged closer to the man. 'Be soft to Gaara.'

He didn't let go of the man's hand this time, just left it a few inches away from where the baby was, well within comfortable reach and used his own thumb to brush the palm in a light caress.

Daichi looked at Minato a bit surprised, his smile rising up once again, but this time more reluctantly, showing that if anything, the redhead was pretty unsure of the method. Given how harsh his hands were, it was possible he barely remembered how to be 'soft'. Gaara seemed to know this the best.

He seemed to recognize good intentions of Minato as he didn't really back off further (not that he had room to do so) but he very clearly and openly glared at it, giving it no vote of trust even if it was surrounded by something he trusted almost without logic. Sure, it was the hand he could recognize as 'the best from the worst' as when it came to the most dangerous and helpless situations in his life, it showed up to save the day, unlike the rough hands of bland masks, but that still didn't make it any more good. He couldn't forget the tortures that it put him through, some of them containing bright light, some filled with atrocious smells or sharp tugging and thus, couldn't forgive it for being here, in the place where he finally felt at peace – free and safe at last. That's why he just sat there and kept glaring at the fingers, not making any effort to get closer to it, while the kazekage slowly felt how the hand in the air got heavier and heavier.

'Hello…' he said to the kid quietly, but it was more a parody of what a parent would say to kid, because it was already filled with resignation and too quiet for the kid to even get what he said. He smiled, but if anything, the smile seemed to be plastic and unnatural. Minato observed the exchange the same way an interrogator looked at its prey for any sign of weakness. He couldn't say he was surprised, but he did want Gaara to give his father a chance, so it was great that the man was trying at all. It was only too bad it was probably because of the drugs and he'd never be able to convince him to do it again once he regained his senses.

'Gaara?' he said, using his free hand to brush the silky red spikes 'Be polite. When someone greets you, you say 'hello' back.'

Gaara looked up at Minato, but his frown merely lessened only to get back to the previous look as he looked back at the man. Quietly, he shifted a bit to the side, straying away from the touch and giving Daichi again an open glare.

'He is so angry-' started Daichi, only to be interrupted with loud 'ada-da-da!' from Gaara that seemed to be only filled with annoyance. Slowly, the tension grew.

'He just needs a bit of positive reinforcement.' Minato said, picking the baby up and holding him to his chest. 'Gaara, if you have something to say, say it. You know we understand you better when you speak.'

Not that the couple dozen words the baby used managed much of a dictionary, but Minato still kept pushing him to both try and make sentences and encourage him to speak as much as possible. The redhead only squeaked up in the response and looked at Minato with the gentler version of frown, only to grow more hostile as he looked at Daichi. Then, simply he moved his head to the other side and relaxed – obviously, the things he couldn't see stopped existing for him. Daichi quietly laid down, losing interest in the kid in pretty similar way, but without a smile this time.

'I regret…' he said, but he left the thought unfinished, as he looked to be torn between the ideas.

'Don't. We'll try again later, it's no big deal.' Minato said, giving the lax hand a light pat and a smile. 'He didn't attack you with sand, that's good enough for now. Why don't you try to rest? I need to talk a few things over ANBU.'

The redhead looked at the blond with another surprise, but obediently turned to the side, pushing the hand under the healing wound. It seemed that it slowly started getting back to life. The other redhead once again turned his head to observe the man at the safe distance now, this time just taking note of the fact the danger seemed to be pushed away. Blank mask of Lark looked inside the house unasked and vanished just as it showed up. The way the shadow moved implied that the man wasn't completely calm.