#gaacho

“C’mon, it’s not thatbad,” he said, blindly flapping his hand against the mattress until he hit hardwood. Pulling the ukulele closer, he casually strummed a chord, practised fingersalready knowing exactly where to press as he moved into the next.

Gaara lightly tugged a strand of hair. “No.”

He grinned, pushing his luck, he played the next chord,already gearing up to start singing the most country country song he knew, when a hand slapped down on his mouth.

“If you even think about it, I will break up with you rightnow.”

The glare was deadly, even if it was aimed more at the bedthan at him.

He pressed a quick peck on Gaara’s palm before he pulled itaway. “OK, I promise, no country,” he said, though he was still grinning at thethought of it. Contented, he went back to neatly braiding Chouji’s hair,fingers moving quickly and precisely through the wavy locks, the light tuggingwas surprisingly pleasant, as were the fingertips that occasionally massagedhis scalp.

If he didn’t start doing something, he was going to end upfalling asleep like this; not a bad thing most of the time, but he’d promisedhimself that he would stay up until his boyfriend managed to find sleep of hisown tonight, thus the playing of his ukulele to keep him focused.

The strings shuddered against his thumb as he slowly draggedit across them, humming softly, he twisted his neck to look up at Gaara andask, “So, what sort of music relaxes then?”

Short fingers paused in their fidgeting for a moment as hethought about his answer, before quickly starting up again.

“…Black metal.”

He couldn’t help snorting at that – sometimes he forgot thatthe pierced, punky image Gaara worked so hard on wasn’t just an act to cover up the sweet, anxious, deeply sincere dork hewas in his soul. “I dunno that I can play that genre on a ukulele.”

“Have you ever tried?”

That gave him pause. “…Ok, you know what? That’s a goodpoint, hold on while I search for some songs-” he was already sitting up and dartingfor the phone on his desk “-what’s that one band you really like again?”

By the time he’d managed to track down the chords he waslooking for, and after a few rough practise runs, all tiredness had fled fromhis system, replaced instead by bubbling excitement.

“Ok, ok, here we go…”

He was pretty sure it sounded awful – he knew he’d fumbled afew times and, no matter how hard he played, it didn’t sound particularly metal, maybe with some drums backing itup it’d be more impressive, but it was a recognisable cover, if nothing else.

And Gaara seemed to be enjoying it, which was the only thingthat mattered to him really.

Once he started getting into the rhythm of it, his boyfriendeven started mumbling along, softly at first, barely more than hushed mouthing,but as the song got closer and closer to the chorus, he got louder and louder,gradually shifting from talk-singing to actual singing and wow, he’d never realised that Gaara could sing, his voice was alittle coarse, but in a raw, husky kind of way. He wished he knew the words, hedesperately wanted to know what they’d sound like in a duet, maybe next hecould convince the punk to give some more familiar genres a tr-

A loud, horrific scream practically shattered his left eardrum,leaving him dazed and wondering if he’d just died and that was the last thinghe’d ever hear.

His playing came to an abrupt halt as he turned to faceGaara, whose dark skin was turning a little bit pink across his nose. “What…was that?” he asked, not quite sure he believed that his short, skinnyboyfriend should even be capable ofmaking such a monstrous din.

“A death scream.” As usual, Gaara had taken his question a bittoo literally, but his bluntness was one of Chouji’s favourite traits.

Laughing, he leaned closer to him. “I never knew you coulddo that, it’s so cool!” He started playing the song from the beginning again. “Canyou show me some more?”

Expression somewhere between confusion and wonder, Gaara nodded,clearing his throat as Chouji rushed through to the part of the song withscreaming. It was a… bizarre thing to hear, he was so small and quiet andpolite, that Gaara could hold this much noise and power and emotion inside ofhim, could let it out all at once like this, he still couldn’t quite match thetwo images of his boyfriend in his head, even seeing his face twisting and scrunchingas each violent howl ripped out of him, he wondered if this was something he’dpractised a lot, or if it just came naturally to him, or-

BANG

At the sudden, horrible crash, Chouji half wanted to leapinto the doorway for protection from what had to be an earthquake, except itwas already occupied, by a very pissedIno.

“Why the fuck can’tyou two just have annoying loud sex like most couples, huh? Now I’ve gotta tryand explain to my girlfriend that you’re not actually murdering someone in here,you’re just being total dorks! Also, Gaara you have a lovely death scream, but I’ve made you some lemon-honey tea and bygod you are gonna drink it, because my throat’s hurting just listening to you,now both of you hurry up and go. To. Sleep!”