❛ Do not what, Gaara? ❜ Dreamlike, treacle-slow, Lee lets syllables run together in a waterfall of consonant, vowel, vowel, consonant…he repeats the name simply because he likes the trip of it over his tongue. Something precious, something sacred. He holds it safe in his mouth, shuts the drawling slack of his lips to keep it hidden. Gaara, he thinks. He will protect Gaara. Friend, companion, Kazekage, hero…
Despite injury, despite reason, Lee ignores the screaming muscles that ripple with the abrupt movement of his neck. His nose brushes against red hair (as red as his blood? deeper, darker, richer?) before his gaze is dragged around behind and in front of them in great sweeps. Truthfully, he can discern little of their surroundings. Color swims in great vibrant swathes, bleeds into one palette of sunlight and sand and red and blue and sky. Up and down means little, right and left mere words. A slow drag of a blink becomes resting his eyes, becomes almost slipping into the welcoming black of unconsciousness.
His only saving grace is Gaara’s voice, anchor. Feral, ragged; Lee’s heart beats a wild tune in turn. Pushing aside the signs of his own rebelling body is easy enough when he can focus on the pained tones that reach his ears. ❛ Who, Gaara? ❜ Body readies for battle once more, limits be damned. ❛ Have they sent more? Let them. ❜ Not quite bravado, all parts fool. There is no hesitance in putting his life on the line, for there is no nobler cause. It does not matter than he cannot take a step on his own or that his tongue swims in blood and bile and sand; the scale has never been tipped in his favor.
Defying the odds is a specialty of his, after all.
Drawing to his full height takes mountainous effort, so much that he almost collapses and allows himself to be bowled by the agony. So sudden, so sharp is the reaction that he is sure the pain has hollowed him. His head carries with it the distinct and queer feeling that it has been stuffed with nothing more than cotton. Sinking back into the arms that somehow, miraculously carry his weight is tempting, but he cannot rest when Gaara — precious, even if he does not know it — may be in danger once more.
Lee would gladly rip open every gate to keep Gaara safe. Without heed to reason or mortal fear.
“You’re not going to fight.”
Next to Lee’s languid speech, his own voice casts a stark chill upon the desert, prickly and grim and without compromise. Irises quiver in an abrupt moment of lucidity, transfixed on the ground they needed to cover. A vulture shadows them from miles above with the hopes that at least one of the creatures below drops dead.
“We’re going to find shelter somewhere and you’re going to rest. I’m still capable of defending against others that might have survived. Lee, you’re not fighting.”
And he knows—arm rigidly holds Lee’s in place, safe so long as it’s within his grasp, so long as he’s close—Gaara knows that Lee would continue to fight despite the pain, despite rationale. It was a scene his subconscious could play out in vivid detail: Lee would stand his ground, wouldn’t turn his back to the enemy even as breath and blood left him in sweeps and stained the sand with scarlet and bone. A wild burst of chakra, too fast to be anything but beast-like, and a chorus of screams.
That tenacity, that foolishness–
Gaara isn’t sure the exact point in time when Lee’s pain had also become his own. Or when the jounin’s dangerous mission assignments had become monstrous Things that emanated uncertainty and provoked dread. That seeing the collapsed body of one whom had fought by his side, dared to forgive him, dared to come close, had felt so much like a dying breath.
If there is any certainty looming beyond that barrier of doubt, tucked away at the farthest reaches of his perception, it’s this: Lee has become to him something to protect –in some ways not unlike the bond he strives to forge with Suna. Something precious to guard and to keep safe, and to never lose—
“Why-”
Barely a mutter; an unintentional slip of the tongue followed by cold silence, despite the suffocating heat. Unseen was the frenzy of thought strangling the last safe spaces in his mind. Questions with no answers; paths twisting and crumbling, leading him on without cause,
“-does this hurt so much?”
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