Archive of Our Own

“Oh, thank god you’re here,” Neji said, as soon as Lee poked his head through the donut shop door.

Lee had recently made it his habit to stop by his roommates’ workplace a few times per week in the mornings. Donuts were obviously outside the bounds of his strict, Might Guy-approved dietary regimen, but he could at least grab a cup of black coffee on his way to work. And yeah, the coffee did basically taste like old mop water, and he could make a better cup of it at home basically for free, but he got to use Neji’s discount (as long as Tenten wasn’t looking over his shoulder) and he got to support his friends at work! And if he had other, more personal reasons for wanting to hang around the donut shop, well, that was nobody’s business but his.

“Good morning again, Neji!” Lee chirped. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Um, is Gaara in yet?”

Gaara was the shop’s newest part-time employee. Lee had first caught sight of him when he stopped by one afternoon to give Tenten a ride home after her shift. His impromptu coffee trips started shortly thereafter, and only increased in frequency after the first time Gaara smiled at him when handing over his coffee. Despite much agonizing over how adorable Gaara was, Lee had yet to make a move. It just didn’t feel quite right to corner someone at their workplace, where they were obligated to be polite to him, and he hadn’t quite figured out if Gaara was being nice to him, or just customer-service-nice.

Neji rolled his eyes, flicking his long hair over his shoulder. As the recipient of many of Lee’s lovestruck ramblings, he was entitled to the beleaguered sigh he gave before speaking.

“No, he called to say he was running late. But I’m glad you dropped by anyway.” Neji inspected his cuticles with mock casualness. “Lee, you’re pretty flexible, right?”

Lee frowned, considering.

“Sure!” he said, at last, shrugging his shoulders. “Why, though?”

Neji pointed to the glass case that housed all the donuts. This early in the morning, it was freshly stocked and smelled amazing. Lee bit the inside of his cheek so that he didn’t salivate. He normally carefully averted his eyes from the donut case when he walked in so as not to give in to temptation, preferring instead to focus on Gaara’s precious chubby cheeks and the bracing flavor of bitter, overbrewed coffee.

“I dropped a cruller down the back of there about half-an-hour ago and haven’t been able to get it out,” Neji said.

“Can’t you just use the tongs?” Lee asked.

“What do you take me for, an idiot?” Neji rolled his eyes again, hard enough that Lee was briefly concerned they’d get stuck. “Of course I tried the tongs! All it did was break the top part of it into little crumbly pieces of mush. Our corporate inspection is in a week and Tenten’s been having us clean like crazy. She’ll kill me if she finds out I made a mess of the case.”

Lee nodded along, sympathetic to Neji’s dilemma.

“I can try my best!” he said, rolling up his sleeves.

Neji lifted the hinged section of the counter to allow Lee access to the back of the store.

“Thanks, Lee,” Neji said. “You’re a lifesaver.”

“Don’t thank me just yet,” Lee replied, stretching his arms to limber up, and feeling a little ridiculous doing so. It was just a donut, after all, not exactly a daring rescue mission.

Boldly, he thrust his arm down the back of the case. The aperture at the back of the case was narrow, and a bit sticky with donut crumbs and icing. He stretched his arm down, but he couldn’t quite feel anything.

“Where did you say it was again?” he asked, maneuvering by touch alone.

“All the way at the bottom,” Neji guided him, “on the left-hand side.”

“Umm, I don’t think I can quite- “ Lee stretched his arm a bit farther, raising up on his tiptoes to get a better angle. “Oh, hang on…”

“Did you get it?” Neji pressed, leaning forward. “Hurry up if you can, Tenten is going to be here soon.”

“Hold your horses,” Lee scolded him. “I think I’ve almost … ah!” His hand brushed against a doughy surface. “Got it!”

He wrapped his hand firmly around the base of the cruller and went to pull it back. His knuckles collided with solid metal. He twisted his arm and tried a different angle. There was no give at all.

“Um, Neji?” Lee said weakly.

“Did you get it?” Neji asked insistently.

“I did, but there seems to be a slight problem.”

“Don’t tell me it broke apart again!” Neji groaned. “Tenten is going to skin me and wear my flesh as a coat.”

“No, no, it’s all in one piece, but uh…” Lee tugged fruitlessly at his arm again. “I seem to be... “ He rolled his shoulder, yanking again to no avail. “... stuck.”

“You’re stuck,” Neji said, deadpan.

“It would seem so.”

“Tenten’s going to execute us both and mount our heads over the fireplace.”

“We don’t have a fireplace-” Lee was just starting to say, when the bell over the shop’s door rang.

Neji moved to stand in front of Lee, an awkward maneuver that, given Neji’s height, did little to block Lee’s view of the door - or block the person at the door’s view of Lee.

Lee craned his head and peeked under his own arm to see who it might be, praying that it wasn’t a customer.

Walking through the doorway, his visor halfway onto his head, was Gaara.

“Good morning, Neji,” he said, grabbing an apron off the hooks near the counter. “I’m sorry again that I was late, my brother- “

Gaara froze, staring at the tableau before him. Lee gave a weak thumbs-up in greeting.

“Hello, Lee,” Gaara said cautiously. “What are you doing back here?”

Lee attempted his best reassuring grin.

“I was assisting Neji with an important cruller retrieval mission, but I seem to have gotten stuck in the case by accident. Not to worry, though, I’ll be out of your way in short order, I’m sure!” Lee said brightly.

Gaara turned to look at Neji, light eyes widening in his pale face.

“This is great news, actually!” Neji said, voice heavy with false cheer. “Perfect timing. Gaara, you have small hands, don’t you?”

Lee found himself nodding along before he realized that it was probably a little bit weird to be hyper-aware of the size of his roommates’ coworker’s hands. (They were really small, though, and perfect in every way, right down to the pink crescent moons of his fingernails. Not that Lee had been paying attention, or anything.)

“Ye-es?” Gaara said cautiously. “Why?”

“Well, you could probably get your skinny arm in there and help wedge Lee out, couldn’t you?”

Lee gave Neji his most severe warning look. Neji looked away purposefully, pretending to be fascinated by his reflection on the back of the oven.

“Don’t let Neji boss you around like that!“ Lee protested. “Please don’t trouble yourself. I will just-”

Neji cleared his throat.

“Since Tenten is at her doctor’s appointment, as the Assistant Shift Manager, technically I am the senior staff member in the store. You - “ Neji gestured at Lee pointedly. “- don’t even work here and shouldn’t be encouraging my employee to engage in insubordination.”

Lee opened his mouth to argue further, but Gaara spoke up.

“I can … try,” he said, in a small, hesitant voice.

“Wonderful. Thank you, Gaara, for being a team player!” Neji said, clapping his hands.

“He’s not even your boss,” Lee said desperately, trying not to think about the enforced physical contact he was about to endure.

“I know,” said Gaara, placing a hand square in the middle of Lee’s back and leaning forward, “but you look uncomfortable, and I want to help if I can.”

In moments, Gaara’s chest was splayed fully across the length of Lee’s back, his narrow fingers digging into Lee’s shoulder blade.

“I can’t- “ he grunted, flailing his arm somewhere out to Lee’s side. After a torturously long moment, he pulled back, panting. “You’re too tall and your- “ He coughed. “- your biceps are too big. I’m going to have to go under.”

“Under?” Lee gulped, just as Gaara ducked beneath him and jammed his hand into the back of the case.

Lee strained backwards as hard as physically possible, making every effort not to press himself against Gaara’s back. He could see the jut of his vertebrae at the base of his neck and he did his best not to think about how nicely the hollow between them would fit his fingers, dutifully looking away and trying his best not to so much as breathe on Gaara.

Gaara’s thin arm slinked against Lee’s larger one. He adjusted his posture, bringing his shoulders fully into contact with Lee’s pecs. His hand crawled down Lee’s wrist. Lee sweltered.

“Any luck?” Neji called from somewhere distantly behind them, breaking through the heated fog of Lee’s racing thoughts.

“Not yet,” Gaara muttered. His breathing was growing a bit heavy. Lee tried not to notice the expansion and contraction of Gaara’s ribs along his upper abdominals. “Give me just one- “ Gaara slotted his hand down until it was parallel with Lee’s, pressing against his fingers.

“Okay,” Gaara breathed. “Now pull.”

Lee heaved with all his might. The metal groaned. The case shuddered in its moorings. Gaara’s fingers pushed and fiddled and manipulated their way all around Lee’s with unerring and utterly distracting dexterity.

But nothing happened.

“Shit,” Gaara cursed under his breath. Lee was not a fan of swearing, but he figured he could get used to it if he got to listen to it in that voice. In fact, he would listen to Gaara say ‘shit’ for the rest of his life, and he wouldn’t even complain about it.

Gaara wiggled his fingers. There was a scraping sound inside the case.

“Neji?” Gaara said tentatively.

“What is it now?” Neji said. “You can drop the cruller already, I don’t even care at this point, just get out of there.”

“Oh, I dropped that a while ago,” Lee said.

“You what?”

“Cruller aside,” Gaara interrupted what was sure to be the start of another of Neji’s graphic murder fantasies involving their extraordinarily skilled roommate, “I think I’m also stuck.”

“What?!”

Lee glanced away from his fixated stare on the back of Gaara’s neck in time to see Neji throw his hands up in despair.

“That’s it! That’s really it!” Neji ranted. “Tenten’s gonna be here any minute, and she’s going to see you two buffoons trapped in the fucking donut case in an incredibly compromising position and she’s going to fire me, and fire Gaara, and - I don’t know what she’s going to do with you, Lee, but it’s going to be bad, probably break all your dumbbells or something - and then she’ll probably call corporate and burn this whole store to the ground on her way out! Is that what you wanted?”

Lee had not given any thought to the frankly intimate nature of the position he and Gaara were in, but now he could not stop his face from reddening.

“Hey,” Lee objected, in a half-hearted effort at self-distraction. “Gaara isn’t a buffoon.”

“Thank you, Lee,” Gaara said. Incredible, really, the camaraderie that came from being trapped inside a donut case with another person. “Also, I will point out this was your idea.”

“Wha- I- You- “ Neji sputtered. “Fine! I’m not dealing with this anymore! I’m going in the back to see if the manual says anything about how to take this stupid contraption apart. Yell for me if a customer comes in.”

Lee glanced frantically at the door, which was blessedly empty. He hoped against hope that it would be a slow morning.

When Neji had slammed the door to the office, Gaara adjusted his weight slightly. The knot of his apron dug into Lee’s belly button.

“Um, Lee,” Gaara said. “I’m really sorry to ask you this, but could you grab my phone for me?”

“What?” Lee hissed.

“It’s in my back pocket. I have a bad shoulder, and I don’t think I can reach it from here. I need to call my sister.”

“Oh,” Lee said lamely. “Um.” He fought off a number of utterly inappropriate thoughts regarding the contents of Gaara’s back pockets. “Sure, which pocket?”

“Left side,” Gaara said. “Thank you.”

Lee leaned back as far as he could from Gaara’s back, delicately maneuvering his fingers into the narrow space between denim. He focused on not touching anything but the cellphone and the surrounding fabric, to avoid any implication of impropriety. He couldn’t help but notice that Gaara had a great butt, small and pert and just as perfect as the rest of him. He waged a brief mental war over whether or not the person who invented skinny jeans for men deserved an award, or a prison sentence.

Phone finally retrieved, he reached his left arm over Gaara’s shoulder to deposit the phone in his hand and waited quietly while he dialed.

There was a faint ringing on the other end of the line, then a woman’s voice saying, “Hello?”

“Hi, Temari?” Gaara said.

“Gaara?” Her voice came through softly, mechanically. “I thought you were at work.”

“I am, but I need you to bring me my pain meds when you have a chance,” Gaara said.

Lee tried his best not to eavesdrop, but it was difficult when his face was practically becoming one with the back of Gaara’s visor strap.

“Of course,” she said. “Do you need them now?”

“No, but Lee and I are stuck in the donut case and I can already feel my shoulder starting to act up- “

“You’re stuck in the what now?!” Temari’s voice rang through as clearly as if she had suddenly been put on speakerphone. “Who’s Lee?”

“He’s the, uh,” Gaara’s voice dropped low. Lee forcibly maintained his commitment to not listening in, even if he did happen to be the topic of conversation. “My boss’s roommate. The one that comes in all the time. You know. Lee.” Gaara said his name with such meaning that Lee was befuddled. Prior to today, he hadn’t even been sure that Gaara knew his name, outside the context of writing it on his drink order, much less that he would have shared it with anyone else.

“Ohhh,” Temari said. Her voice made it sound like something had suddenly become quite clear, which made Lee all the more confused. “Ohh, well. I’ll let you get back to that. I’ll come by on my lunch break, if that’s okay?”

“That’s fine,” Gaara replied. “Thank you.”

“Good luck!” she chirped, before Gaara deadened the line.

Lee noticed the back of Gaara’s neck growing pink. As Gaara shifted to tuck his phone into the front pocket of his apron, some of the hair at the nape of his neck fell aside, exposing a small tattoo. It was the same red of his hair, beautifully arced brushstrokes forming a character Lee couldn’t read.

“You have a tattoo,” Lee breathed. “I never noticed.”

Gaara’s skin darkened until the tattoo was almost invisible.

“Yeah,” he said. “It says ‘love’.”

“That’s beautiful!” Lee said. “So artistic! It’s very well done.”

“Thank you,” Gaara said quietly. “My brother did it for me. He’s a tattoo artist.”

“That’s so amazing!” Lee said. “He’s very talented!”

Gaara shifted from side to side, moving his weight to his other foot. He flexed and relaxed his shoulder and Lee felt the ripple of bone and muscle against him, which he staunchly did not think about or even consider in the slightest.

“Do you have any?” Gaara asked. “Tattoos, I mean.”

“Oh,” Lee stuck out his lower lip. “No, I don’t. I’d love to get something huge and elaborate, like a giant back piece of a tiger, but I’ve never found an artist I liked enough, and it’s so much money.”

“I could introduce you to my brother,” Gaara offered. “His linework is really clean, and he gives a discount for friends.”

“Friends?” Lee said softly.

Gaara laughed. It was the first time Lee had ever heard him laugh. It was soft and dark and lovely. Lee felt it rumble through his chest and into his ribcage where it disturbed the beating of his heart.

“Sure, I see you almost every morning. And we’d better be friends after all this,” Gaara said in that low rasp of his. “This is probably the most physical contact I’ve had with anyone since high school.”

Lee laughed at that, choking on his own breath and disturbing the hair at Gaara’s nape until it covered his tattoo again.

“Sorry,” Lee said, when he had regained his breath. “I don’t mean to laugh at you. I just … me, too.”

Gaara chuckled, just a small intake and exhale of breath.

“Did you at least manage to get your coffee first this morning, before all this happened?” he asked.

Lee clicked his tongue.

“No,” he said, “but it’s no big loss.”

“Our coffee is terrible,” Gaara admitted. “You could probably make better at home.”

“I could,” Lee confessed. “But it’s a good excuse to come see my friends.”

“But you live with them,” Gaara pointed out.

“That’s true.”

“There’s a better coffee place right up the street from here,” Gaara said. “I could show you sometime.”

“Yeah?” Lee said, feeling his face growing warm. Surely Gaara didn’t mean to suggest that they go get coffee together.

“My treat,” Gaara said. “Since I put you through all this trouble and probably made you late for- shit,” he hissed. “Are you gonna be late for work?”

Lee glanced at the clock on the far wall.

“Oh, no, I’ve still got a couple hours before my shift starts,” he said.

“I thought you normally came here on your way to work?” Gaara said bemusedly.

"Most days I do, but when I have a late shift I normally stop by here early and then go to the park, so I don’t miss- “

Gaara turned his head back to look at Lee out of the corner of his eye. One pale eyebrow was raised.

“Miss…?”

The bell over the door chimed.

Lee and Gaara turned as one to face it.

Tenten came storming through, shouldering off her jacket and shrugging into her uniform shirt.

“Man, Neji, you would not believe this nurse I had this morning, what an absolute bitch. You know they say they’re gonna take your blood, and then- “

She paused, open-mouthed, staring at Lee atop Gaara, both of them gaping at her wide-eyed with their arms wedged down the back of the donut case.

“Neji!” she howled.

Neji came skidding into the front of the store with his apron askew.

“Tenten!” he cried. “I’m so glad you’re here! We had a bit of a mishap this morning. See, I dropped a cruller in the back of the case, and- “

Tenten had already hurdled the counter and was hammering on the metal enclosure with her fist.

“Are you two stuck?” she said ferociously over the clanging of the metal.

Lee gulped.

“Yes, but- “

“For chrissakes, I can’t leave you idiots alone for one minute. And Gaara! You were supposed to be my most sensible employee.” Tenten had already ripped of a receipt pad and was rapidly scribbling on it with pen. “I expected better of you.”

She tore a page off with a flourish and handed it to Neji. He took it between shaking fingers.

“Go to the hardware store and come back with the things on that list,” she declared.

Neji looked at the paper, looked up at her face, looked back at the paper again, and frowned.

“I don’t know what half of these things are,” he said slowly.

“Ask one of the lesbians in the gardening section!” Tenten shrieked. “Now get out of here before I have to drag you out by your hair!”

As the door slammed shut behind Neji, Tenten hauled herself up to sit on the counter. All Lee could see of her was her kicking feet. There were several long minutes of silence, punctuated only by Gaara rolling his shoulder back and forth.

“So,” Tenten said at length. “Pretty awkward first date for you two, huh?”

“First date?” Lee yelled, just as Gaara said:

“Not yet.”

“Ah,” she said, hopping down and walking towards the office. “Not quite there yet? I’ll give you two some privacy.”

The door slammed behind her and they were left alone with the tinny background music and the smell of donuts rapidly growing cold and stale.

Lee coughed.

“So, uh, about that coffee shop... “ Lee trailed off.

“I get off at two,” Gaara replied.

When Neji came hauling ass through the door with an armful of shopping bags, Lee was grinning so hard he was sure Gaara could feel it radiating on the back of his neck.

It was the work of moments for Tenten to remove the back of the case entirely, free them both, and retrieve the cruller, which by now was mostly crumbs.

Lee stretched out with a sigh, reaching down and touching his toes and then stretching his arms up towards the ceiling. Next to him, Gaara grabbed his shoulder and rolled it, a discomfited look on his face.

“Are you okay?” Lee asked him.

“Fine, just a little stiff.”

Tenten looked back and forth between them both.

“Gaara, take the rest of the day off, why don’t you?” she offered.

Behind her, Neji opened his mouth to object.

“I’m sure Neji will be more than happy to cover for you this afternoon,” she interrupted him before he could even start. “After all the trouble he put you both through.” She turned to look at Neji with a smile that could cut glass.

Neji coughed into his fist.

“Of course,” he said. “More than happy, even. Delighted.”

Gaara turned to look at Lee, the smallest hint of a grin on his face.

“How about that coffee?” he offered.

“Coffee sounds wonderful,” Lee replied.

The next week, when Lee came to pick Gaara up for their second date, he noticed the glass case now displayed a bold-print sign on bright yellow paper.