Heal
Gelfling
He woke.
The pain was expected--the lack of blood in the air was not. The weakness in his body was not. The emptiness, a whole new kind of emptiness that didn't stem from his chest, hiding between the slats of his ribcage, but the emptiness roaring in sorrow from inside his skull, was definitely unexpected.
His eyes opened, painfully.
"Thank god you're alive..." Temari sounded hoarse, yet curiously composed. Gaara tried to focus on her, but even her voice was blurry, ragged.
Why wouldn't I be alive?
What does God have to do with anything?
Temari smiled awkwardly, and it was clear from the way her lips moved that she wasn't used to smiling when she wasn't happy--she still tried. She reached awkwardly--because this was unusual for them all--and lightly crossed her fingers over Gaara's lying on the sheet. Not the whole hand of course--she didn't hold his hand, they weren't familiar enough with each other for that, had never been physically affectionate, but she tried anyway.
She inhaled deeply, smiled a little more successfully, and asked if he needed anything. How he felt, if he wanted anything done.
Gaara wanted to know what had happened.
"I had a feeling you'd say that," Temari said with another grim, unaccustomed smile. "It's..."
He'd hated the monster, of course--he hated the monster for haunting his dreams, for killing indiscriminately, for never being under his control, but he'd adapted to it, in the same way people adapt living in a war or with a lethal disease--it was there. Nothing was going to make it go away. He had gotten used to it, and had been learning to grow away from it, to grow apart from it.
Now, he wasn't sure what was supposed to happen. Temari had smiled at him warmly, a genuine smile, and said, "Don't worry about it. You'll keep your title, and I promise you--we're going to make them pay. Don't worry about it--it'll be all right."
Kankuro had said much the same thing, looking a little better than Gaara felt, but not much. He felt...he wasn't used to feeling pain. He wasn't used to feeling anything externally--he'd always been untouchable. Always.
"You're going to keep your title," Temari said. It was the third time he'd heard that phrase.
"But...you're probably going to have to get some extra training in though...it shouldn't be too different from what you've been doing lately anyway, it'll just have to be a bit...harder." Kankuro shrugged apologetically, then grinned. "We'll still do it though."
It was hard. It was hard, and it was made harder by how much he just wanted to sleep. He could sleep now--it was all his body wanted to do, and it was as uncontrollable as the demon had been--worse even. The demon at least could be placated, ignored, or shut off, but this...
His body didn't want to do anything but sleep--not eat, not drink, nothing. It just wanted to lay still and sleep and it was more unmanageable than anything Gaara had ever come across. Training his body to stay awake was harder than training it to get stronger, training it to be more reliant on his own power instead of the free-flowing demon energy.
He was just...tired. All the time. Every time. Any time he tried to do anything harder than opening his eyes and sitting up on whatever he'd fallen asleep on, he was tired.
And there were things he couldn't tell his family--that he couldn't even tell Naruto.
That creature did not make me who I am. He did not define me. He was not what made me Me.
But he was what made me terrifying.
I don't think I can be that terrifying on my own. The villagers will only be grateful to me for so long, lenient, before their desire for a leader who can stay awake longer than five hours overcomes their gratitude.
Gaara had never really felt guilty about killing people. He'd regretted his recklessness, his futile ability to control his own impulses and his demon's urges, but people died; it was a way of life. People always died--it was what made them people. Fighting was about putting one's life on the line to make something happen--death was a natural by-product. He saw no reason to feel guilty, though he did feel responsible. Mercy was something he was learning with effort because it seemed more prudential than bland cruelty. It made a little sense--it just didn't make much.
"Need help?"
"Why?"
Lee had frowned, genuinely puzzled why someone would ask why they needed help when they obviously did need help.
Gaara was leaning against the bathroom wall in the Sunakagure main office complex, eyes blackened as if someone had taken a lead hammer and meticulously beat every inch of skin surrounding his eyes--instead of healing, the rapid departure of the demon's energy had caused his body to weaken even further. He'd been running cold water over his hands and face earlier, not caring that it was a waste, only trying to get rid of the constant prickling feeling on his skin the air caused, trying to get rid of the damn heat he'd never noticed before.
He was not having a good day.
He could barely carry his own weight, he couldn't smell blood with the accuracy he once had, couldn't smell people with the same accuracy he once had, couldn't even sense energy with even minimal accuracy.
Gaara had always wondered, distantly, what it was like to be human. So far, he hated it. He would have been furious, if he wasn't so tired all the time.
"Well..." Lee gave him a blank look usually reserved for drooling maniacs and drunks table-dancing topless and without rhythm or talent. "It'd make things easier..."
Gaara tried glaring at him--that usually worked. He tried ignoring him. That didn't work either. Lee grinned.
"You know what you need? You need iron in your blood and then you'll be back to tip-top shape! Vitamins!"
He'd never been manhandled before--then again, he'd never been able to sleep until now. And he'd never wanted to kill anyone so happy and loud, so very gratingly cheerful and not been able to do it. Until now. He couldn't do anything, now.
"--plenty of sleep! A wholesome breakfast vitalizes the body and prepares the mind for a grueling day of--"
Gaara found himself dragged away. He found himself wanting to kill everyone in the general vicinity, everyone staring at him, or perhaps simply just Lee. Definitely Lee, one way or the other. He found himself, for possibly the first time in his life, embarrassed. And getting angry about it. And being quite not so tired. His body was still in no condition to actually do anything remotely resembling revenge, but he wanted to. Wanting to do something was an improvement.
Temari watched blankly as he was dragged inside the house, coffee cup frozen on the way to her mouth.
"Good morning Temari-san! I found the Kazekage-sama a bit tired so I brought him back to get some good well-deserved rest, all right? I'll be back down in a minute so don't worry a bit!"
From down the hall, the remains of Lee's cheerful tirade against malnutrition and lack of proper rest rambled on and on in a happily determined tone that proclaimed gladly that it could go on like this all day without a hitch. It was a voice used to running marathons of the spirit, used to using cheerfulness and determination as an awful kind of martial art.
Slowly, Temari put her coffee cup down. Below the kitchen counter and out of sight, Kankuro was still frozen in the act of rummaging the lower shelves of food, though he'd watch Gaara be shoved/carried down the hall.
"Do think this means war?" Temari asked carefully.
"Dunno. Why is it Konoha always sends us their dorks?"
"Psychological warfare?"
Kankuro considered this, finally selecting a packet of dried fruit that had been hiding in the stuffy shadows and gathering dust. "Damn. Those bastards are clever."
"Do you think we should save him?"
"Do you want to?" Kankuro looked at his older sister sideways, mouth half-occupied with chewing.
By the sound of things, Lee had finished up with putting Gaara to bed. Temari's mind did an automatic rewind on the sound of that sentence, not quite able to impose a comfy quaint setting on anything pertaining to Gaara, then made a more pressing urge to get out of there, because it sounded like Lee was coming back for food. And vitamins. And probably herbal tea with plenty of nourishing milk in it. She glanced at Kankuro.
"...It's not like he'll hurt him or anything, and Gaara won't really listen to us... But we could save him. If it was a good idea..."
"There's no one taking care of the office, with him here," Kankuro pointed out.
Several minutes later outside, sharing the snacks thoughtfully as they strolled through as much shade as could be scraped up at that time of morning, Kankuro said, "Well, at least he'll get better faster this way."
"Kill or cure, huh?"
"The best way," Kankuro grinned.
***
Gaara would have opted for 'kill'.
Cure wasn't worth this--cure wasn't the answer, because while it was true violence didn't solve everything it did solve a lot of things and it would've solved Lee's non-stop gentle/cheerful/aggressive critique on his health care on the spot. It wasn't that Sunagakure didn't have good doctors, but more that when Gaara said "No," it generally wasn't objected to, out of habit. Lee, however, didn't appear to hear or care very much--he had his own personal mission, and everything else became background until it was completed.
To his credit in a completely human body, Gaara wasn't blushing. His expression hadn't changed beyond stony and distant, though his eyes were sharper than normal. He'd been tucked in to bed and was struggling out of the sheets that felt heavy as lead because even though he was human now, that did not make not-him. He wasn't weak--not yet. He was still him.
He'd almost gotten his feet on the floor (even his sandals had been stolen) when Lee strode into the room armed with a couple of bottles in the crook of his arm and a bowl of something steaming.
He'd never relied on weapons before--Gaara looked for one now.
Lee put the items on the bedside table, and stood back to look at him, hands on his hips. Gaara glared, body stiff and skinny, looking ready to spring at any second. His skin looked ashen, hair messy and eyes for once too big with his face, made all the worse for the bruise marks around them.
The first time he'd seen Gaara, the first time he'd fought Gaara, it'd been like fighting a monster. There was an intelligence behind the eyes; malice and ruthlessness, but there hadn't been compassion or even something approaching empathy. Even Gaara had seen himself as a monster, as a separate species from humanity, and as much as he'd hated himself for being that way he'd never tried to change it until Naruto came and did something to him.
Even now, after years of domestication, the single-minded intensity and ruthlessness was still there in his eyes--would probably always be there. There would always be something in Gaara that was monstrous, that was vaguely inhuman and uncivilized. But it was something he'd learn to control--to control the demon--and now he didn't have the benefits that work had gained. Now Lee started to notice the things he'd noticed before but hadn't believed--that Gaara was still shorter than him, had lost some of his musculature though there were still traces here and there, and that he was young; still a kid. Without the power, Gaara was just a kid who'd lived for years as a monster. And now he looked a little…well, afraid. Nervous, at least. On guard, definitely. He'd never been defenseless before…
He held back the impulse to hug him--Lee had always been open to his emotions and physically open and affection, but…now wasn't the time. It wouldn't be appreciated; would do more harm than good.
Lee's arms fell into a slightly less authoritive stance, his shoulders sloping down, and he lowered his voice.
"To get your old strength back, you have to let yourself heal. It's a gamble, but it's the only one that works. You just have to trust your body and fate--it's not easy, but it's the only way. I'm sorry. I know how you feel."
"How would you know?"
Lee smiled awkwardly, "Because you put me through it. When you broke me. And now I'm stronger than I was for it."
Gaara didn't have anything to say. He hadn't forgotten about it--about nearly killing Lee, about nearly destroying his body beyond repair--but he thought Lee had. Or had forgiven him and forgotten it, or something. Lee not only looked like an idiot, he acted like one most of the time too.
Like the other murders, he didn't feel guilty about hurting Lee--it had been a fight. It had been only a fight.
"You'll be stronger too, when you come out of this."
Gaara blinked.
"Eat up," Lee continued. "I'll be down the hall if you need me. I think your siblings went to take care of things." Lee hesitated, once, then moved forward and gently squeezed his upper arm with another lopsided smile. "You've gotta take care of yourself, before you can take care of others."
The door shut gently, and Gaara eyed the soup suspiciously. He stayed still for several seconds, than scratched and rubbed irritably at the shoulder Lee had touched. The warm sensation wouldn't leave--the feathery/queasy feeling. It was hard to ignore; Lee was hard to ignore, even when he wasn't even in the room.
Gaara poked the food. He eyed the bottles. He lay back down and closed his eyes.
Being human was hard. It was confusing. It wasn't all bad, which made the experience even worse. And he had no idea how to beat it or even how to start. And he didn't want to ask for something so inane...
You'll be stronger too.
Gaara frowned, and then opened his eyes again. He got through half the food and managed to down one of the iron pills, before admitting temporary defeat and going back to sleep.
You'll be stronger too.
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