Chapter Text
Lee was dreaming about flowers under the desert moon. Huge flowers, some as big as he was. Pale petals glowed ethereally in the night, swaying in the wind that whispered across the sand.
“Gaara,” he called into the labyrinth of flowers. “Are you here?”
In this dream he was always sure that Gaara was close by, but he had yet to actually find him.
“Lee!” There was a palpable urgency in the voice that called back to him.
“Gaara!” He ran, pushing his way between the flowers.
“Lee, please wake up!”
A hand shook his shoulder. Lee snapped awake with a punch and his fist slammed into a wall of sand. He sat up, blinking slowly at the granules that clung to his bandaged knuckles.
“Gaara?” he murmured.
“Lee, are you awake now?” the voice asked again. The wall of sand next to his bed crumbled to reveal a shadowy figure, one green eye illuminated by the sliver of light that filtered through the gap in the curtains.
“I am. . . not sure?” Lee replied sleepily, reaching for Gaara without thinking. “If you are here then I am still dreaming.”
“No,” said Gaara, stepping just out of Lee’s reach. “I’m actually here.”
“Why?” Lee asked, rubbing his eyes.
The shadowy figure moved further away and a light clicked on. Lee squinted and shaded his eyes, blinking and struggling to make sense of what was happening. It was the middle of the night and Gaara was standing in Lee's tiny apartment, arms folded over his chest, just staring at him. With a jolt, Lee realized that Gaara looked ragged and worn out. His jacket was torn, his hair windswept and dusty, eyes bloodshot, smudged and sunken. He shot out of bed and grabbed Gaara by the shoulders, peering into his haggard face.
“What has happened to you?”
“Do you remember,” Gaara said slowly. “That mission a year or two ago, we had to camp in that old shack in the mountains during a blizzard.”
“Yes, of course,” Lee said. He had told Gaara his entire life story in order to pass the time, and had been surprised when Gaara had told him his own. Looking back, it had been the fragile beginning of this closeness between them, the moment their friendship had begun to grow into . . . whatever this was.
“Do you remember what I told you about my uncle? About Yashamaru?” Gaara asked. His voice sounded small and broken.
Lee nodded.
“Baki gave me this,” Gaara showed Lee an old battered envelope with an inscription in faded ink. “He has held onto it for years. Yashamaru gave it to him before he died.”
“What is it?” Lee asked. “It has your name on it.”
“It’s a letter,” Gaara rasped. “Baki said it was entrusted to him to keep secret and give to me only once he decided I was ready.”
“Well, what does it say?” Lee whispered.
Gaara looked up at him with wide, haunted eyes. “I don’t know.”
“You have not read it yet?”
“I - I couldn’t.” Gaara hung his head. “I was. . . scared. You remember what he said to me, as he was dying? What could this letter possibly say?”
“Wait,” Lee said, finally beginning to think clearly. “You are here, but no one told me you were coming.”
“No one knows,” Gaara admitted. “I didn’t tell them I was leaving.”
“You. . . what?” Lee faltered.
“Baki gave me the letter, and I. . .” Gaara turned his back on Lee, hunched his shoulders and tightened his arms around himself. “I guess I panicked. I just ran. I didn’t stop running until I got here.”
“Oh, Gaara,” Lee said softly, as understanding started to sink in.
“Please,” Gaara said hoarsely. “I can’t do this alone. I need . . . I need you to help me.”
“Of course.” Lee carefully put his hands on Gaara’s shoulders and steered him towards the threadbare old sofa. “Sit down, we’ll read it together. I have got you.”
Gaara’s hands trembled as he opened the envelope and unfolded the letter.
“ Beloved Gaara, ” he read aloud, and made a small, strangled noise of distress before continuing. “ If you are reading this, then one of two things has happened. Either you have taken this letter from Baki by force, or you have grown into someone whom Baki thinks would understand what I am about to say. I hold out hope that it is the latter.”
Gaara’s hand shook so badly that Lee was afraid he would tear the paper. He turned his face and Lee was horrified to see that there were tears streaming from his eyes. He had never seen Gaara cry; frankly he had imagined that Gaara was not able to cry.
“I can’t do this,” Gaara whispered. He offered the letter to Lee. “Read it for me.”
Lee took the paper hesitantly and scanned it to find the place Gaara had left off. With his heart in his throat he read, “ I have just received an order from the Kazekage, your father, that I am not permitted to refuse. If I try to refuse, I will be executed. If I carry out the order, I will almost surely die in the attempt. To accept the order and successfully complete the mission would be the worst possible outcome. By the time you read this letter, you will know what the order was. This is what I am going to do, Gaara. I am going to trust that your mother’s love will protect you from me and that I will not survive. As I die, I intend to tell you that I have hated you, and that you must trust no one, love no one. This is a lie, but one I believe will save your life, and your life is precious to me above all things.”
Next to Lee, Gaara let out a ragged sob, and dropped his face into his hands. “Keep reading. Please,” he whispered when Lee paused.
“ I will not be the only one, Gaara. When I fail, your father will send other assassins. If he would order your own uncle to kill you, then even your siblings and your tutor cannot be trusted. This is why I must do this, so that you will be on your guard, so that you will learn to trust no one but yourself. Between the tailed-beast locked within your soul, and the strength of your mother’s will, I am sure that your life will be well protected, but I despair that there will be no one to protect you from yourself, or from the pain of loneliness and fear. I am afraid of the type of man you might become, but I can see no other way out.”
Gaara’s whole body was trembling so violently that Lee could feel it through the cushions of the couch, but he dared not stop reading. “ If the time has come for you to read this, then it is time for you to know the truth. Gaara, I have loved you and been absolutely devoted to you since the moment of your birth. Not only because you are my nephew and a wonderful child with a kind heart, but also because every time I look at you, I see my sister and feel the warmth of her love again. I want you to know that she loved you too, for the brief moments that you were together, and has continued to love you, even in death. I can feel it. As for myself, I will love you even as you kill me, and I have faith that my love for you will not die with me. Gaara, I do not pretend to know what awaits me on the other side of death, but please know that if I can find a way to watch over you from the other side, I will.
Yours eternally,
Yashamaru”
Lee set the letter down on the coffee table and turned towards Gaara. His forehead rested against his knees, his hands hid his face, and sobs wracked his body. Lee placed a tentative hand on Gaara’s back. Gaara sat up immediately and turned to bury his face in Lee’s shoulder. Lee gathered him close, murmuring meaningless words of comfort and rocking them both slowly back and forth. Tears began welling in his own eyes as well as his heart broke for Gaara all over again. He pressed his face into Gaara’s hair and let himself weep for the pain of someone precious to him.
“Do you know what the worst part is?” Gaara whispered when his sobs had finally subsided. His voice came out so hoarse and spent that Lee barely heard him. “He’ll never know. I’m the Kazekage, I have friends, everything I ever wanted really, and he’ll never know. He died believing that I would have to become a monster to survive.”
Lee didn’t know what to say, so he gave Gaara a small sympathetic squeeze.
“And I did,” Gaara went on. “I did become a monster, for so long, until Naruto. . . Lee, if Yashamaru were watching over me, at what point do you think he turned away?”
“He would not turn away,” Lee said emphatically. “How could someone who loves you turn away and leave you to suffer?”
“He died and left me alone. He purposely made me kill him. I didn’t want to. I never wanted to,” Gaara began crying all over again. Lee was beginning to worry he would become dehydrated.
“I think you are still angry,” Lee said softly. “I mean, you know because of the letter that he loved you but you are still angry about what he did and what he said.”
“It wasn’t his fault,” Gaara sobbed. “You never met my father, you don’t know, but. . . Telling myself that it was for the best or that it was the only thing he could do doesn’t help. It still hurts.”
“And you have not forgiven yourself for killing him either, have you?” Lee whispered.
“How could I ever forgive myself for that? He was my uncle, but he was also my only real parent, the only person who cared about me. He was the only person who would even look me in the eyes.”
He raised his head to look up at Lee and Lee bit down on a cry of alarm at the sight of his face. The black lines around Gaara’s eyes had run and mingled with his tears, leaving dark tracks down his cheeks and staining the front of Lee’s shirt. His nose and eyes were red and his lip still trembled.
“I just wish I could tell him,” Gaara whispered. “That I’m sorry. That I’m okay now. I hate that he died thinking I was destined for a life full of hatred and bloodshed. He would be so happy to see how my life is now, but he never can, and it’s not fair.”
“No, it is not,” Lee agreed.
“I hate it,” Gaara said, suddenly vicious. “And I hate my father for doing this to me, but that’s useless because he’s dead too. All the pain he caused us, and he died like a coward and left us all to deal with the aftermath.”
“Stay here a moment,” Lee whispered. He disentangled himself from Gaara's arms and went to the kitchenette to pour a glass of water. He left it on the coffee table and then stepped into the bathroom to prepare a warm washcloth. He knelt on the sofa, gently laid Gaara’s head back against the cushions and began washing away the streaks of kohl and salt.
“If you could say anything to Yashamaru, what would you want to tell him?” Lee asked.
“I just want him to know that I’m alright,” Gaara said miserably. “Imagine dying thinking someone you care about will live a horrible, painful existence, that they will become something unrecognizably hideous and there’s nothing more you can do to prevent it. How could you have peace?”
“Hmm,” Lee murmured, running the cloth across Gaara’s closed eyelids.
“It’s just not fair. He tried so hard for me. He wanted me to be a normal child instead of a weapon. He wanted me to have friends, to know I was loved.” Gaara went on. “But he chose to have me constantly fight and hate in order to survive. I know he couldn’t because of the sand, but what if he could have just killed me in my sleep and rid the village of me. Would things have been better?”
Lee dropped the blackened towel into his lap and cupped Gaara’s face in both hands.
“Gaara, look at me,” he said desperately. Bloodshot green eyes opened and focused hazily on his face. “I wish you would not even think things like that. It would not have been better, and you know that. You went through a big rough patch, but you were there when your village needed you. More than once. You have saved your village many times. You have saved your friends many times.”
Gaara nodded slightly and Lee lifted the glass off the coffee table and held it to Gaara’s lips so he could drink.
“Is Yashamaru buried somewhere?” Lee asked.
“Yes.”
“Have you ever seen his grave?”
“No,” Gaara shook his head. “I never wanted to see it.”
“Do you think it would help at all to go visit his grave? Maybe there you could tell him all the things you want him to know,” Lee suggested, as he resumed cleaning Gaara’s face.
“Do you really think it would help?” Gaara wondered, slumped bonelessly against the back of the sofa.
“Maybe,” Lee said. “I do not know a lot about this, but I know that there are shinobi who go to our village’s memorial stone to talk to their friends. Gai-sensei explained that it makes them feel closer to the ones they have lost. Shikamaru lights cigarettes on Asuma-sensei’s grave and Kurenai-sensei took their daughter there to meet him, as though he would be able to see her.”
“Would you. . . would you come with me?” Gaara asked.
Lee sat back on his heels to consider Gaara’s face. He had never seen Gaara without the black makeup before and felt almost uncomfortable looking at him without it, like he was intruding on his privacy. As he gazed up at Lee, he also looked more vulnerable than Lee had ever seen him. He looked young, exhausted and fragile and Lee felt an almost overwhelming urge to protect him, to do anything he could to fix this.
“Of course I will,” he decided.