[Log 5] Gaara & Lee: The Aftermath
Summary: Gaara loses his first argument with Rock Lee. Unfortunately for him, it's the most important one.
Characters:
Rock Lee: Gaara Sabaku:
SETTING: After a few tense days of trying to live together, Lee finds Gaara on the couch typing away. He brings out his laptop and joins Gaara in an attempt to be social, but Gaara ignores all attempts at conversation. The two end up having a conflict online shortly after Naruko and Gaara fight. Gaara tells Lee to not defend him, and Lee protests that Gaara is his friend, so of course he’ll defend him. Gaara makes it abundantly clear that they are not friends, and that Lee being an idiot means they never will be.
Lee glanced at Gaara from the corner of his eye, and his fingers hesitated over the keyboard, feeling numb. He typed in his reply and the following post quietly, then slid the lid of his laptop shut. Lee pulled his knees up against his chest in a defensive posture, heels resting against the edge of the couch, laptop pressed between his legs and chest, and loosely laced his arms around his knees. His right hand encircled his left wrist, and the overall appearance was of someone who had curled completely in on themselves, from the arch of his spine to his half-hidden face.
"Gaara-san?" Lee asked, and the question would've been quiet for a normal person, making it nearly a whisper for Lee.
Gaara read Lee's reply almost passively.
He felt, rather than saw, Lee close his laptop and curl into himself. Gaara continued to stare at the screen, unmoving. When Lee called his name, so softly that it was no louder than a slight whisper, he glanced sideways from the corner of his eyes.
"Yes?"
Lee took a deep breath that shook slightly on the exhale, and repeated the same words he'd just typed. "Would it really be that terrible of a thing, Gaara-san?" He couldn’t keep the wistfulness out of his voice.
Gaara didn't turn around. He didn't shut his laptop closed. He didn't look away from the dark screen.
He didn't answer Lee's question, either.
Lee stared at his room-mate's profile for a moment, then his legs slid down until his feet were resting on the floor. Fingers found and depressed the off switch hidden on the side of Lee's laptop, and he quietly wound the cords up, gathering everything together in his lap. He hesitated for a moment, looking away from Gaara.
"I am sorry."
Mechanically, Gaara finally snapped the computer shut, not bothering to turn if off beforehand. He turned around, fully, and looked up at Lee. He kept quiet, even when Lee glanced at him, then looked away again.
Lee closed his eyes, the movement seeming heavy, and sighed deeply, quietly. Finally, he shifted his position and made to walk away.
Gaara's lips moved before his brain could register what he was doing.
"I don't like that woman," he said, suddenly.
Lee paused at the words, then looked at Gaara. He hesitated before sitting back down on the edge of the couch, and nervously fiddled with the cord to his laptop, unwinding and rewinding the last few inches.
"Naruko-san can be... very enthusiastic," he said diplomatically. "You two did not seem to get along very well."
As soon as Lee returned to his spot on the couch, Gaara eased back into his, slightly. He let his body turn a fraction, so that it faced Lee's more comfortably, rather than straight forward and with his head craned as it had been before.
Gaara narrowed his eyes. "I think that would be considered an understatement."
Lee stopped fiddling with the cord, and at Gaara's words, his expression lost some of its unnatural tension. If Gaara was at least talking to him, it meant that something was going right.
"I was trying to phrase it politely, Gaara-san."
Gaara didn't break his intense concentration on Lee's face for even a moment.
"Hn," he grunted.
Lee met Gaara's gaze, then his eyes slid away to studiously inspect the frayed cuff of his jeans. He tried to force his fingers to be still, but without his permission they started tugging at his sleeves, playing with the green fabric.
"I still view you as a friend. Even if you will never see me as such."
Gaara glanced away slowly, then returned his gaze to Lee, who still has his eyes averted, focusing on something below him.
Lee... confused him. Gaara could not understand why his continuous rejection of friendship had such an impact on the other man. He couldn't understand why Lee would bring the matter up so often, knowing that Gaara would never reciprocate the desire. He didn't have friends. He didn't -need- friends. Friends... such bonds were unnecessary. Attaching yourself to a person who held no obligation to you, or you to them, was foolish.
Gaara stared at Lee harder.
People got hurt that way. They got betrayed, lied to, deceived... by such baseless bonds. "Friend" was an empty word that he had no wish whatsoever to be associated with.
He told Lee just as much.
"I don't need friends," Gaara said flatly.
"Everyone needs friends, Gaara-san," Lee said quietly, but his dark eyes burned with fervor, and his posture became a little less defensive and a bit more open as he leaned forward slightly. The power of friendship and of love was one of the things that had been ingrained in Lee from childhood, and having a friend was something that he desperately missed, here alone in the city. For months now he'd felt adrift, without purpose or point, completely alone. He could only imagine what it'd be like to go years or a lifetime like that, with no one to lean on, no one to talk to, no smiles to brighten your day.
"Do you ever wish that you just had someone to talk to? Someone who would listen, and not judge you no matter what you said? Someone who would be there in the night, and hug you when you were sad, and stick up for you even if you did not need it?"
Gaara quirked a brow, so slightly that it would have been missed if Lee hadn't been peering into his face at such a close angle.
"You're delusional," he said, and his tone held slight traces of condescension, "for believing that such people exist in this world."
"Hypothetically, then. Would you want someone like that?" Lee asked. His voice was nearly as intent as his eyes, and his hair swung forward and down, the edges brushing his cheeks.
Gaara's emerald eyes narrowed, and his mouth formed into a frown. "No. Even if such people did exist..." his frown deepened, and he continued, "they would still be unnecessary. I... I have always been alone. I prefer it that way."
Lee leaned in closer, focusing on jade-colored eyes to the exclusion of all else, watching them as if some shift in the color or twitch of black-ringed lids would allow him a glimpse inside Gaara.
"Are you certain, Gaara-san? Have you never woken up screaming and wished someone were there to hold you?"
It was reckless, but Lee was accustomed to that trait in himself, and he didn't let any uncertainty show in his voice, rather using the same low, certain tone that he used when teaching.
Gaara looked at Lee as if he had gone mad. "Only an idiot would come into my room and attempt to hold me over something as trivial as a nightmare."
Lee shook his head, still not breaking the stare.
"I did not ask if the person would be an idiot for doing it, Gaara-san, only if you have ever wanted it."
Gaara's eye twitched. Without thinking he lifted his arm and brushed his hand over the tattoo on his forehead, then dropped it just as absently.
"No," he repeated, sternly, and leaned back into the sofa until his lower back was touching the arm in an awkward angle. "I have not."
It was a lie. Lee saw the way Gaara's eyes flickered to the side, how his posture changed, and the way he reached up to the kanji, something he'd only seen the redhead do when he was confused or in pain. The question was what to do about it. If he pushed further now, he could probably start looking for another apartment three days after moving in, but pushing was in his nature. Lee leaned back and took a deep breath, then remembered Hinata's advice. Slow and calm.
"Well, we have already established that I am an idiot, Gaara-san. Perhaps instead of that excluding me from being your friend, it should qualify me?"
Gaara shot Lee a puzzled look. He ceased moving back, but the look Lee was giving him-- so intense and determined-- made something grip in his abdomen. He felt... unsettled.
Gaara shook his head curtly, then glanced back up. "Qualify...you," he reiterated.
Lee nodded vigorously, and the beginnings of a broad grin tugged at the edges of his lips.
"Everyone needs a friend, Gaara-san. And perhaps I am just enough of an idiot to be yours."
His puzzled expression intensified. "You wish to be my friend," he said uncertainly, staring at Lee as if the other man had grown an extra eye, "because you are an idiot."
Well, when put that way, it sounded like nonsense, but in Lee's head it all made a strange kind of sense. After all, Gaara had said that it'd take an idiot to be foolish enough to try being his friend, and he called Lee an idiot more often than he called him by name, so-
"Yes," Lee replied, his voice firm. Gaara looked at him disbelievingly as Lee's arm shot out, thumb extended, and Lee's smile became blinding. "It is a promise, Gaara-san!"
Gaara's eyes shot between Lee's face and his outstretched hand several times before he sighed tiredly, sunk further into the couch, and closed his eyes. He rubbed his temple with his fingers, his head feeling heavy from Lee's abrupt decision.
He'd just declared himself as Gaara's friend, completely disregarding Gaara's feelings on friendship. Lee was almost ridiculously pushy and annoying. Gaara had hoped, at first, that spending some time with other man-- living in such close quarters-- would give him the time and means required to study him, to pin him down.
Gaara was finding that, much to his aggravation, the more time he spent with the Lee, the more confused he got.
"I don't understand you," he said, frustrated. "You make no sense to me. I can't figure you out, no matter how hard I try."
Gaara peered one eye open and watched Lee, distantly.
Lee's smile didn't waver.
"That is okay, Gaara-san. I do not particularly understand you either, so we are even. It is good to begin a friendship on an equal footing!"
Gaara winced at the loud octave, then exhaled again.
"If that is what you wish," he said, finally, and stood up. Gaara collected his laptop and tucked it under his arm, then grabbed the wire and bunched it up in his opposite hand. He didn't spare Lee even a single glance as he headed out of living room. Before he reached the open wall Gaara paused and said just loudly enough to be overheard, "I'm going to sleep. You'd be smart not to disturb me," then proceeded to disappear into the hall.
Moments later, the sound of a door shutting sharply drifted into the living room
Lee stared after Gaara, a goofy grin on his face that wasn't interrupted even by the sound of Gaara's door nearly slamming closed. He scooped up his laptop and ambled into his bedroom, dropping it on top of the green comforter covering his bed. A cardboard box was dragged out next, and Lee started rummaging through it, pulling out the DVDs he'd mentioned to Naruto for their planned Disney marathon.
Gaara hadn't said no. He hadn't called Lee an idiot or foolish or stupid or any of those things, and he hadn't rejected his offer of friendship. Sure, he'd looked at Lee like he was crazy, but Lee was self-aware enough to acknowledge that he probably was crazy. Trying to make friends with Gaara was proof enough of that.
Not only had he not said no, he'd nearly consented. It was as close to a yes as he would probably ever get out of the red-haired man. Lee pulled his phone out of his pocket and checked the text messages before heading out of his room, DVD cases tucked in the crook of his arm. There were three from Naruto, and Lee knew that he was probably late for their meeting at the arcade, but he couldn't bring himself to care.
Gaara hadn't said no. The goofy smile stayed firmly in place as Lee locked the apartment door behind him, and remained on his face throughout the rest of the night. Gaara hadn't said no.