Notes: Fairly sure this is a one-shot, but if more comes up I suppose it'll make its way to FFnet eventually
"You can't defeat your own loneliness."
Rock Lee looked at Gaara's solemn face, and decided something needed to be done about it. Struggling up from his sitting position, he moved to kneel beside the other ninja. "Gaara-kun, I have a request to make!"
The Sand shinobi just looked at him warily.
"I'd like to give you a hug!" Lee might have a bit too much enthusiasm for his own good, but he knew better than to touch Gaara of the Sand Waterfall out of the blue.
Black-rimmed eyes widened. Lee wasn't sure if this was a good or bad sign. "A…hug?"
"Yes!"
Nobody had hugged him, touched him since Yashamaru. He remembered hugs were warm and made the pain go away for a little while, until they turned out to be lies. He failed to understand why the young man he'd almost crippled for life wanted to give him one. "Why?"
"Hugs offer reassurance, symbolize camaraderie and give support! They're a natural occurrence in the Springtime of one's Youth and are Very Nice Things! I'd like to give you one! Please?" Lee's face softened into something more serious with a melancholy smile. "After saying something so sad…how could I not?"
The redhead was still looking at him as if he was the insane one.
Lee decided to throw caution to the wind and hugged Gaara anyway, possibly proving him right. The fuzzy-browed boy at least had the sense not to make it a rib-cruncher like his hugs with Guy-sensei.
The sand shield didn't react as two battered arms wrapped around him, and he didn't even have the sand armor on. It felt invasive and dangerous but part of him had missed casual contact. He could still remember how warm Yashamaru had been.
Cautiously he put his arms around the strange Leaf ninja. It was warm, warm and awkward and weak but somehow right. It was wrong for somebody to be touching him after so long, it was too much too fast but he'd craved this. It didn't matter that there were over a dozen ways they could kill each other in this position, he needed more.
Lee found himself pulled forward awkwardly half-on Gaara's lap as his grip turned to something desperate. This wasn't a hug, but a lifeline.
Gaara remembered the way that pink-haired kunoichi had protected Sasuke despite being hopelessly overpowered by the semi-awakened Shukaku. It was related, somehow. This…this was a bond like Naruto talked about, like the one he was learning he shared with his siblings and village. Was this friendship? Was this love? Whatever it was, he'd protect it. Naruto had showed him that protecting others was true strength, and he'd embraced that ideal…he had to protect all the things he'd almost destroyed, and Lee was obviously one of them.
They remained together for several minutes, and Gaara found himself relaxing despite the discomfort and danger. The thick-browed boy wondered why this hug seemed so different than the ones he had with Guy-sensei, but the twinge in his left side drew his attention. He couldn't go forward any more. Pulling back, he settled against the tree beside the redhead. It wasn't as comfortable, but there was no helping that.
"I'm going to close my eyes for just a minute, then we can go after Naruto, alright?" Lee's voice was strained. He was still convalescing and shouldn't have been fighting so soon, plus he'd lost blood and drunk alcohol. His body was Not Happy and very insistent on some rest, with the shooting pains every time he moved and all. Fifteen minutes would do.
Gaara nodded, and Lee promptly passed out. Exhaustion had finally claimed him and the Sand ninja knew it'd be some time before he regained consciousness.
It was the first time someone had willingly fallen asleep in his presence without somebody else on watch. His siblings would take turns, as they were afraid of Gaara listening to Shukaku some moonlit night and attacking them. That seemed to be changing, as they'd recently drifted off a few times, but it was never willingly. They still woke up afraid.
Sleep was a necessity and vulnerability he didn't have, but for whatever reason he liked watching people sleep. Faces changed, words vanished, and there was a strange openness he'd always thought was weakness before Naruto made him re-think the world.
Falling asleep in front of a shinobi from a village you'd recently been at war with was stupid, even if he'd just saved your life. But Gaara wouldn't hurt Lee, he had no desire to anymore. He did want something, something he didn't have a name for.
He stared. In the forest of bone, Kimimaro's corpse swayed in the wind as flies gathered. Lee smiled in his sleep, head falling to an angle that couldn't be comfortable. He felt compelled forward, wanting. It grew stronger, a need until Gaara was kneeling near the Leaf ninja and his sand formed into a shield. The cocoon of sand was safe. Now they were sheltered from harm. He wanted to take the bonds he saw forming, the ones everyone fought to defend, and surround them with sand. He wanted to be there with Lee, and it was stranger now that he'd identified it.
Slowly, too slow to be an attack, he reached out to touch the black-haired boy. There was a whisper in his mind of how easy it would be to kill him, but he ignored the tanuki. Every day of his life, he'd been hearing those whispers, but Naruto showed him he didn't have to listen.
He tried to shift Lee's head so it rested in a more natural position, but it wouldn't stay put. His neck was warm; Gaara could feel his pulse. A memory stirred of Yashamaru, the last person who'd touched him (before Lee, before Sasuke, before Naruto.) That had been comfortable, and warm. Safe. The mechanics would work even for somebody much larger than a five-year-old.
Touching another person made his skin itch and prickle, but he persisted until he was sitting cross-legged and Lee's head was resting on his thigh. Now Lee was safe and could rest well, encircled by the sand that'd once tried to kill him. Gaara would watch over him.
When Lee woke, he was very confused. Was it nighttime already? Where had the pillow come from? Where was Gaara?
"You're awake," came from somewhere above his head. In the dim light, everything seemed to be a red blur. He wiped away the sleep from his eyes and looked up as his brain broke down.
He was sleeping in Gaara's lap.
Jolted awake he pulled back as if burned, collapsing onto the sandy walls. Sand?
The cocoon began siphoning back into the gourd, letting in the daylight. Judging by the shadows, Lee had slept through a decent chunk of the afternoon.
Then all the questions came tumbling back about waking up to find himself in such an intimate position. "Gaara-kun, why did you…were you…" it was too mortifying to give words. He was supposed to do that maybe one day with Sakura-san, not Gaara, and his face was about to combust.
The redhead seemed to chew his answer over for a while. "You looked uncomfortable. It kept you safe."
Lee was massively confused, deeply touched, and horribly embarrassed. A dozen reactions flickered through his mind before he settled on something neutral and polite. "Thank you for watching over me." Since he had no idea what else to say, he figured he should ignore what had just happened. "Let's head out!" If I can't get there in an hour, I'll do 500 high kicks! He tried to stand, but found himself falling. Instead of hitting the ground, sand supported him.
"You're still weak. I'll carry you back."
There was much sputtering and protesting that ultimately did nothing—both of them floated on a little island of sand back to Konoha to find out if Naruto had stopped Sasuke. Lee decided to do the high kicks on principal once he was alone.
After hearing the bad news, Gaara walked with Lee back to the hospital. Tsunade showed up to berate Lee but before she got started, the jinchuuriki spoke up.
"I have to go; my siblings are waiting for me." Gaara's eyes flicked to the Hokage. "Take care of him for me," and he vanished in a swirl of sand.
After forcing her face into something neutral and quelling the overwhelming desire to punch something, she turned a critical eye on Lee. "What happened out there?"
Lee had no idea why his face felt hot all of a sudden. Something warm expanded in his chest. "He…protected me."
Her eyes were skeptical at such a brief description but she said nothing more.