Disclaimer - I do not own Naruto. Dang, 'cuz if I did Gaara and Lee would be together already.
Splinter by potnpans

Gaara would always watch. He would leave his "home", a classy hotel he was staying in with his siblings, at the same time each morning. Normally, if it was a usual day, nothing exciting happened on his walk. If anything exciting did happen, it was only a little kid asking him for something. He would try to help the kid, remembering what Lee said about children ("If you don't help a child, he'll make you feel all guilty"). Mostly anything Lee instructed, which wasn't a lot, Gaara would follow.

Every day he would head to the same exact spot, making sure nobody saw him, or felt his presence. He hid up in a tree, said plant growing older by the second, but still had many leaves to hide his form. He would peer down, staring at the boy below him. Those charcoal eyes shining with determination at the tree trunk before him. Gaara found his "training" very amusing, however, he didn't like it when the leaf-nin over-worked himself.

On some occasions, Gaara would jump down from the tree, Lee offering him some food. Most of the time he stayed in the tree though, knowing Lee wasn't sure whether or not he was there. But today was different, Gaara couldn't put his finger on the feeling he was getting right now, although it wasn't exactly a bad feeling. He decided to swallow the strange feeling and continued watching the taijutsu master.

"If I can't punch this trunk 1,000 times, then I'll have to do 2,000 push-ups!" Lee bargained with himself, punching the wood with a loud kiai each time. His eyes shined with a passion and the determined look in his eyes was undoubtedly noticeable.

Gaara looked over the boy. It was one of those days. Lee didn't bother putting on his jumpsuit, or was just lazy, and had come to practice in a baggy T-shirt and some slacks. He did that every few months, no real reason, probably just annoyed of the green spandex. Oddly enough, Lee didn't look halk bad in regular clothes.

"OWIE!" he yelled suddenly, inspecting his right hand's fingers, the other hand clasping them tightly. He noticed the majority of a slip of wood under his skin. He hastily tried to remove the splinter, but he was without nails, which made the task quite hard. He figured he could just let the wood slip into his skin and forget about it. However, he heard somewhere - couldn't remember where - that this one boy has a splinter, never took it out, his hand got infected and the doctors had to chop off his whole forearm! He did notwant that to happen to him.

Gaara, thoroughly confused, watched the leaf-nin panic, apparently trying to remove something from his index finger. He let a small smile tug at his lips, the peculiar situation obviously amusing. He thought maybe he should go down and help the boy, but decided against, far too amused to do anything.

Lee continued to panic about a small piece of wood, doing whatever he could to try and remove tit. Eventually, he pulled the little sucker out and glared at it, throwing it on the ground. He smiled triumphantly, doing a good guy pose to no one in particular. He went back to punching the trunk, but stopped almost immediately, holding tightly onto his hand.

"Ow!" he said, pouting at the pain. Gaara chose then to make an appearance, and junped down from the tree. Lee looked up at the sudden sound of footsteps, and saw Gaara, "Hi, Gaara!"

The redhead nodded, "Hi," he voiced, just barely. He walked up to the boy and pointed at the finger, raising an eyebrow as if to say "What happened?".

"Oh, yeah, I just got a splinter. Then I pulled it out, but it still hurts!" Lee whined. He'd gone through so much worse which made Gaara wonder why he was so worried about a little pain. Nonetheless, he grabbed Lee hand and looked at the injured finger. It wasn't bleeding or anything of the sort, it was only a bit red.

He remembered seeing something on the television, only catching part of the show, or movie. The little boy had scratched himself and ran to his mom, nothing was wrong with him, but she kissed the "boo-boo" as the mother put it, and the boy stopped crying. He wasn't sure if Lee was like that little boy, he seemed like it though. But he was not a mother figure, and never wanted to be looked at as one.

Slowly, and hesitantly, he brought the hand closer to his face, and lightly pecked the red finger. He looked to see the confused look Lee was giving him, smiling kindly at him. "Does it feel better?" the redhead asked, his voice full of many emotions - worry, concern, fear, uncertainty, etcetera.

Lee grinned widely, pushing a stray red hair behind Gaara's ear with his healed finger, "Yes, it does. Thank you." He smiled brightly, watching turquoise eyes, then scooped in a pecked Gaara lightly on the nose. He saw the other let a small smile form on his face and the red carpet crawling onto his cheeks. "How shall I ever repay you?" He asked, laughing slightly.

The End
Yay, my first fanfic! How was it, tell me, pwease! Reviews would be great... Tell me whatcha thought! I'm gnna disappearz now.. :vanishes: