Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Kindred ❯ Day Six - 6AM ( Chapter 9 )

Disclaimer: Naruto is the brainchild of Kishimoto-sama, and I am not worthy. I merely borrow the manga's characters and situations, and make no money off of them.

Note: the pace is going to change a little; the time accelerates, the rhythm slows. I could have almost cut these chapters (there's sort of three chapters blended into one), and if you feel like skipping them, go ahead. This is just to show a quiet time, as Lee and Gaara's lives slowly return to normal, integrating the kids in. Think of it as the calm before a brief but violent summer storm...

On another note, thanks for the reviews and encouragements ^_^

 

Day Six - 6AM

 

Gaara moved his arm up in a parry that was too ritualized to be effective against an actual kunai. Then he turned, joined his hands together and pushed away in one smooth gesture. The hard part wasn't the movement; it was keeping his arms and body at the exactly correct speed and angle. The purely physical concentration required felt cleansing to Gaara, who would be the first to admit that he usually thought too much.

He and Lee moved through the courtyard, bare feet brushing the sand at the same time, moves perfectly synchronized. It had been two years since Gaara had let Lee cajole, badger and challenge him into joining him in his morning Taijutsu warm-up. As Lee had promised, it had increased his muscle mass and fitness levels, and it was a good way of capping off a night working at his desk. On a deeper level, the way they moved together in the pure silence of the early morning gave Gaara a sense of closeness with his lover not unlike that which they'd shared in bed the day before.

A half-turn, accelerating into a kick, then back into a ritualized block. Lee's arms swept together, parted, melded into a strike with the grace of a bird taking wing. The gesture was capped by a perky thumbs-up and a brilliant smile that seemed to reflect the early-morning sunshine. Gaara gamely made the same gesture at the same time, as he always did. He was almost entirely certain that this was not part of the formal routine established by Taijutsu masters over the centuries, but he didn't call Lee on it, or break the harmony of their matching movements. He didn't try to imitate the smile, though; he didn't think his facial muscles could move that way.

There was a scrape off to the left as the door was pushed open wider. Chiro, dressed in his pyjamas, halted on the doorstep and looked startled.

“Good morning, Chiro,” Lee murmured without breaking the flow of their movements. “Did you sleep well?”

Chiro gave a sleepy mumble. As far as Gaara could tell, the kid had had another nightmare, but not one where he'd screamed the roof off so that probably counted as an average night, if not a good one.

“Be with you in a minute," Lee added, turning and punching the air. "Then I'll make us all a power breakfast! Tofu blended with carrots and ginseng, poured over rice porridge and milk. Sounds good?”

Chiro continued to stare at them in fascination and didn't answer, which meant he was taking the menu better than Kankuro ever had. The puppeteer had stayed with Gaara and Lee last year, after both his hands had been injured by an opponent's bloodline ninjutsu causing a power surge on Kankuro's chakra strings. He'd gotten well again with remarkable alacrity, which Gaara attributed to the great care Lee had shown Gaara's brother while he was under their roof.

"What are you doing?" Chiro finally asked.

“The Lotus Seed kata,” Lee said over his shoulder as he drew himself up for the finishing move. After doing this for half a lifetime, he could still talk while keeping his breathing strong and serene. “An old tradition that Gai-sensei passed down to me. How about you, Chiro, did you have a daily martial art routine in your- before you came here?”

Chiro shook his head after a few seconds of reflection.

“Really? Well, that won't do,” Lee announced, after letting out the last breath from his centre and letting his arms go loose. “Do you want me to teach you a simpler one? In the evenings, perhaps,” he added quickly, as if he could feel Gaara's dark scowl drill him between the shoulder blades. Their morning routine was sacred, and it had been sufficiently disrupted these past few weeks.

"Is it like fighting?" Chiro asked, craning his neck to look up at his cousin until Lee crouched near him.

"A bit. It strengthens your muscles and teaches you how to breathe."

"I know how to breathe," the boy said with a frown.

"Ah, but not this way. This way will give you more power and energy!"

Chiro looked intrigued at the prospect. "Oh. Can you teach me how to fight, too?"

He couldn't have made Lee happier if he'd given him three birthdays bundled together. Lee picked him up and toted him off towards the kitchen, enthusiastically detailing training plans. Chiro's attitude towards Lee had improved, Gaara reflected as he followed them; the boy was getting over Lee's superficial resemblance to his father, and was now responding as Gaara thought he should to Lee's boundless warmth, energy and affection.

 

Day Six - 8AM

 

"You didn't have to come with us," Lee said, though Gaara could read him well enough to guess that Lee was actually rather pleased he had.

Gaara didn't answer. He wasn't sure why he'd decided to walk them to Minne's. But it might be prudent to be there when Chiro confronted the other kids. Gaara's presence might influence the outcome. He wanted this to go well, for Lee's sake. The Jounin would be the one on the firing line today if the boy still refused to interact and curled up into withdrawal again. Gaara was running a check on the outer defences with Kankuro and a couple of senior Jounin today, and they'd be going at high speeds if they wanted to finish before this evening; he couldn't carry a child with him. Chiro would just have to tough it out.

Minne welcomed them into her home, immediately scooping Aki from Lee's arms and chatting with him in some semi-human language the kid seemed to grasp. Gaara noted how her eyes darted to Chiro a few times. He must have worried her with yesterday's stunt, even though Lee had assured her numerous times yesterday afternoon that it wasn't her fault and that Chiro would handle himself better from now on.

"These are my boys, Matto and Yuudai," Minne said, as she led them into the kitchen. "Matto, hurry up, you have to go soon; the Academy bell will be ringing in twenty minutes."

Her two children were seated at the table. They'd both frozen over their breakfast and were staring wide-eyed at Gaara. The older boy didn't answer his mother, just swallowed once. Chiro could have been invisible as Minne shepherded him to the table to join them.

Chiro sat down without any overt signs of fear. He had his hand on the small bump beneath his t-shirt. He'd worn the gourd around his neck continuously, even last night when he went to sleep. Lee had, of course, been rather surprised to see it. Gaara had said something curt about it being a present for the boy. It was a lamentable excuse. He still couldn't believe Lee hadn't asked him any more questions. His lover had just looked at him and said 'oh, right' with a smile and an expression Gaara couldn't identify. Gaara still wasn't sure what that reaction meant, but apparently Lee didn't mind and wasn't about to dig, so neither would Gaara.

The older boy finally glanced around and looked Chiro up and down. Chiro faced the look and stared right back. The other boy turned away without a word and stirred his rice, trying to look at Gaara through his bangs. Chiro straightened up, and gave the boy's glasses - broken at one stem and held together with tape - an odd look that might have been triumphant.

It was a world of social interaction that Gaara had seen from a distance a long time ago, but he had never been a part of it and never would be. This bit, Chiro would have to manage on his own.

"I have to go," he said, turning towards the door.

"Have a good day!" Lee said, looking up from something cooking on Minne's stove.

"I'll watch over them well, sir,” Minne stated with a firm nod, and Gaara wondered if Lee was part of that package in her mind.

Gaara nodded back and took his leave without any other form of courtesy, which everybody in Suna was used to by now. He was barely out the kitchen door when two young voices broke into a hushed babble. Gaara ignored them, and Minne's stern order to shut up and finish their breakfast and not embarrass her before their guests. He had his own duties to attend to.

 

Day Six - 6PM

 

"-and did you know that you're not supposed to have house-plants at ground level? Not that we do, of course; just my cacti, and they're on a shelf. But apparently babies at the crawling stage will chew on any leaves they can reach, and it can make them sick. He...Aki wouldn't chew on a cactus, would he?"

“Not more than once,” Gaara said without glancing up from his map.

"They should be out of his reach until he's older and knows better," Lee said, though he didn't sound all that convinced. "I will never be able to thank Minne-san enough for her instructions. She's an excellent mother. A- a- a font of wisdom and a youthful, determined fighter! Chiro likes her too, now that he's gotten to know her. Isn't that right, Chiro?"

"She said I draw well." This apparently meant 'yes'. Lee gave everyone in Gaara's den a proud smile.

Lee had popped into the study five minutes after Gaara's return, and virtually grilled him on his day. His eyes had a fervent, over-bright sheen as he asked for detail after detail about a very routine check of the surroundings. It hadn't been that long since the kids were here, but the Jounin was already going stir-crazy, Gaara concluded. Watching the kids and trying to keep them alive and healthy while knowing nothing of their physiology had been stressful, but hardly provided the adrenaline rushes required to keep Lee happy. If he stayed shackled to that crib any longer, he was going to get cabin fever.

Gaara scribbled a note to Tetsuyo to arrange an occasional day in the schedule where Gaara could watch Chiro; Aki could stay at Minne's. Other sitters could be arranged as well, leaving Lee some time to train to exhaustion and get this out of his system. It was only for the near future; the kids would be back in Konoha soon and Lee would be back on the job.

"-Chiro and Yuudai, Minne's youngest, played a bit. Then Yuudai went to play with the neighbour's two girls, but Chiro stayed with us. He really likes to draw, don't you, Chiro."

Chiro didn't answer or pay attention. He was sitting on one of the cushions beneath the window seat. Lee had put Aki in front of him, and Chiro was dangling a small coloured ball on a string just out of his brother's reach. Aki was trying to grab it, and making ominous whining noises. Chiro finally gave his brother the toy and looked up. "Can you teach me how to fight?"

"Oh, right! That's a long, arduous road, Chiro, but one where your full courage and determination can burst forth! Why don't we go outside and take the first step."

Evening fell as Lee showed his young cousin some very simple forms out in the courtyard. Gaara was working at his desk, but he could hear the lesson's progress through the open window. Chiro interrupted at one point to ask when they were going to start fighting, but he seemed to otherwise take to the lessons with solemn interest. Aki watched them for awhile from the pen, which Lee had put in the yard; then the baby started playing with something he'd reached for between the bars of his crib and picked up from the ground, and would hopefully not turn out to be too dirty or venomous.

Gaara fetched some tea, and on the way back eyed the notepad abandoned beneath the window seat. Even up close, he couldn't really tell what Chiro had been drawing. Something with a lot of spikes. Gaara idly bent over and flipped the pages back; the drawing Chiro had done at Minne's was still full of geometrical figures. Well, if this was a habit that calmed the child down, there was nothing to do about it. When Gaara was young, his soothing habits had consisted of muttering to the Sand and occasionally killing people, so if all Chiro required for comfort was to draw squares on paper, they'd gotten off lightly.

Outside the open window, Chiro finished the first three forms by himself. Lee praised him loudly - very loudly, Gaara was sure the ANBU discreetly stationed around the house were aware of just what a stellar performance the kid had given. Chiro's frown of concentration faded, he looked pleased and he almost smiled.

“Hey guys, whatcha up to?”

“Hello! Gaara, Kankuro's here! We were learning the first steps of the Taijutsu teaching forms. Chiro, show Kankuro what you learned.”

Gaara glanced back out the window. His brother had just the one puppet scroll on his back, and he'd changed out of his uniform and washed off the paint, so it was a casual visit. Chiro had dived behind Lee at the appearance of a stranger; he did not seem to recognize Kankuro's voice or name, but there was something he recognized when he spotted it in Kankuro's hand.

“Karasu!”

“Here you go, kid. Present for ya; I built a new model, this one was out of date.”

While Lee tried to get Chiro to tear himself away from the puppet and thank the Sand Jounin properly and formally, Kankuro looked around and spotted Gaara through the open window.

“Hey, bro. Comms gave me a message for you.”

“Urgent?”

“Nah, it's from Temari. She's heard the news by now, 'course, and she wrote to say that you guys are nuts and she wants to know Everything. With pictures.” Kankuro lifted one page off a small sheaf of papers and scanned the next. “Then she gives you some pointers on how not to screw up, as well as the names of some girlfriends of hers who can help out and give you tips. She also says she'll be home earlier than expected. Ouch. She seems to think you guys can defend a village and run S-rank missions, and not know how to change a diaper or keep a four-year-old out of trouble. Chicks, I tell you. I know we're guys, but how hard can it be, right?”

Lee laughed weakly. Gaara thought it wiser not to comment. He was counting on using his brother to watch the boys at least once in the coming week, and the Kazekage was too good a strategist to risk scaring off a potential resource.

"Want to stay and have dinner with us?" Lee asked Kankuro, apparently keen to change the subject

Kankuro looked at Lee out of the corner of his eye. "Who's cooking?"

"The admin cafeteria is delivering soba and tempura."

"Oh, okay, I'll stay if you guys want," Kankuro said, already swinging his puppet scroll down to the ground. Chiro was showing his new toy to his brother who was squealing and trying to get at it through the bars of the crib. The courtyard had never been this noisy.

"We can eat outside. Hey, you guys want to practice forms until the food gets here? I'm teaching Chiro.”

“Practice first-year forms?” Kankuro gave Lee an odd look. Like Gaara, he appeared to conclude that Lee needed some exercise, badly. “I'll pass, but you guys go ahead and I'll sit back and admire.”

“Gaara?”

Gaara looked back at his desk, maps scattered about it. But with all the noise and activity outside, he wasn't going to get any work done this evening anyway. He could make up for it later, when everybody had gone to bed. And...there was a place for him, outside that open window. Lee, Kankuro, Temari's long letter full of sisterly advice, even the two noise-making machines to a lesser extent...like ropes tangling around him, pulling him out of inertia. Because sometimes it seemed to be easier to live for those bonds and fight for them, kill for them, exist for them, than sit back and let himself enjoy them, dare to let them truly touch him...

But with Lee giving him that hopeful grin, and his brother that smirk with 'come on already, brat' plastered all over it, it looked like he really didn't have a choice. He nodded and turned away from the desk, heading towards the courtyard door.

 

 

 

Day Twenty-Five - 7AM

 

Lee was visibly ticking off a list in his head. His index finger pointed successively at what Gaara, who'd never had to use such equipment in his life, had mentally termed the Small Weights, the Big Weights and the Really Big Weights. Added to that were two jerricans of water in the backpack with a couple of towels, a desert survival kit and an enthusiastic letter from Gai-sensei describing a complicated Taijutsu move he'd recently mastered.

"Right! I'm ready! Are you sure you two will be fine?" Lee asked, as he'd asked the previous times as well, even though it was obvious he was three seconds away from bolting out the door on a wave of eager enthusiasm.

"We'll be fine," Gaara answered, a slight stress on the 'we' as he looked askance at Lee's overburdened backpack and the host of weights.

"Excellent! Chiro, be good!”

Chiro yawned. He was sitting on the camp bed that Lee had insisted they set up in the study, since the Jounin could name at least three muscle groups that were not going to be happy with Gaara and his habit of sleeping on a cushion in a corner. It looked like the boy was two minutes away from falling asleep again, which meant he wasn't going to be much of a bother for the next hour or so. Aki was shouting upstairs in his crib; Lee was going to pick him up along with all the rest of his burden and drop him off at Minne's on his way to the training grounds.

"Can I use those?" Chiro said, pointing sleepily at the biggest dumb bells just as Lee took one bold step forward, the pack swaying.

It took a couple of minutes to explain to the kid that a single one of those weights would nail him to the ground. After a promise to provide some appropriate to Chiro's age and growing stamina, Lee detoured by the bedroom and was then out the door, Aki in his arms and laughing at all the jangling noises coming from his cousin's back.

Gaara scanned his schedule- and felt Chiro's gaze settle on the back of his neck. He didn't glance around. Eventually the kid hopped down from the camp bed, walked up to the desk and gave Gaara that drill-like stare that always preceded the first questions.

"Could Lee kill anybody in the world?"

"No," Gaara answered. "There are a few who could beat him. Not many, though."

"You can?"

"Yes. I defeated him once already, a few years ago."

Chiro's eyes widened.

"We've both improved since then. I would win eventually; I have more chakra. But it would be difficult and dangerous, even for me. He's one of the best Taijutsu masters of his generation."

Chiro absorbed this information like a sponge.

"If I train hard, could I beat anybody in the world?" he finally asked. Chiro was taking his training as seriously as a four-and-a-half-year-old could be expected to, to Lee's pride and delight. The boy wasn't all that good at it, but Lee assured him that it was a matter of determination and spirit and hard work, and Chiro seemed about as easy to discourage as his cousin when it came to that.

"No. There is always someone stronger, or an alliance that can bring you down."

"Can I..."

There was a rare hesitation, and Chiro's gaze darted around the study, suddenly intent on avoiding Gaara's.

"...If I train really hard, can I beat you?"

"By yourself? No."

Strangely enough, that seemed to reassure the boy. He trotted back to the camp bed without a word. Five minutes later, when Gaara glanced back, the kid was fast asleep. But he'd have other questions later. It had become something of a pattern. He never asked them where others could hear, particularly Lee, which was good because some of those questions would surely upset the Jounin. Chiro's questions were occasionally gruesome, or bizarre, or repetitious, or things Gaara saw no point to or had to struggle to answer. Gaara answered them nonetheless; he didn't see why he shouldn't, if he could and had the time. That too had become part of the pattern. Besides, a few answers would keep Chiro quiet and content for hours at a stretch.

 

Day Twenty-Five - Noon

 

Lee had made some onigiri for his packed lunch; he would be eating them right about now, out in the nearby desert where he was training. Gaara hadn't been surprised to find that his lover had made enough extra for the two of them as well. He'd probably made even more and taken them to Minne's house, as thanks for watching Aki. Lee's nature was to go overboard with everything.

Chiro bit off a corner, a mouthful that was almost too big for him. His appetite had really picked up in the last two weeks, though he was eating nowhere near as much as Lee could knock down.

"Finish what you have in your mouth," Gaara said without glancing up, unable to make out the question through the rice and the mumble.

Chiro swallowed noisily and pointed at his glass.

“Can I have some more?” Then, as if Lee's spectre had suddenly materialized behind him, impressive eyebrows drawn into disapproving lines- “Please?”

Gaara poured the orange juice without a word, and silence once more fell in the kitchen. Chiro finished his first rice ball and picked up a second. It turned out on inspection to contain pickled daikon, so that ended up on Gaara's plate and Chiro went fishing again, all with a minimum of words.

Chiro wasn't as loud as the kids who played around Suna and whose habits Gaara was finally starting to notice. He was getting a bit more boisterous around Lee. He'd tell the Jounin things that happened during the day, ask questions on fighting, or request a story about Gai-sensei. But with Gaara, Chiro was mostly silent. Gaara didn't know why; it didn't feel like fear anymore.

The kitchen clock ticked. Gaara's mind was on the afternoon's schedule and a list of tasks for his aide. But he noticed how Chiro's chewing had slowed to a halt. The kid was staring at his glass of juice as if it contained a poison he had to drink. When Chiro opened his mouth, Gaara knew what was coming. Chiro's questions went from the perfectly innocuous to others that dug deep into the pain, questions that seemed to physically hurt him. Yet when he was with Gaara, the kid asked the questions anyway. Gaara still hadn't decided if this was brave, stupid or the sign of incipient insanity. He was probably not one to judge.

"Is mommy really watching over me, like Lee says?" Chiro finally whispered into his plate.

Gaara resignedly took a bite of onigiri to go with his slice of tormented metaphysical question.

"I don't know," he said, after he swallowed.

Chiro looked at him with that white, pinched expression. Sometimes 'I don't know' was acceptable: Gaara really didn't know why deserts were there, or if dogs thought like people did, or if there existed a boy somewhere who `was stronger than anybody in the world'. But when it was one of the darker questions, Chiro took `I don't know' as an evasion, and in his mind evasions seemed to be the slippery slope to untruth.

Gaara found his gaze dwelling on the gourd propped up against the kitchen counter. Though he understood the mechanics of the automatic defence by now, the question of whether it could have been sparked by his own mother's spirit remained deep at the back of his mind like a childhood scar. Gaara truly didn't know the answer to that question, though he'd concluded some time ago that if the dead did watch over the living, it was better if they did not interfere, especially with their own agenda.

"Maybe she is. But I think Lee was just trying to make you feel better.”

Chiro stared at his plate until Gaara threw the leftovers away and dropped the dishes in the sink. Chiro might only be four and a half, but he had to know, he had to have realized, that if he'd asked Lee that question he'd have gotten a whole better answer. A nicer one, anyway. He always asked Gaara instead. All questions and any questions, the weird questions and the worst questions, the only exception being any questions about his father, though Gaara expected those to crop up again sooner or later. Reflecting one night on the darkness of his own past, the thought had come to Gaara that perhaps Chiro needed the truth to affirm his existence; something solid and stable he could rely on, and the more feared and painful the answer was, the more it could be counted on as being the full truth. Maybe that's why he only trusted Gaara with those questions; trusted the monster who wouldn't try to spare him with kind lies.

Then again, Gaara could be completely wrong about all of it, and the kid just had a surfeit of bizarre curiosity.

Gaara was somewhat concerned that this attitude of the boy's wasn't healthy, but Chiro's entire situation wasn't healthy and there was nothing Gaara could do about that. And he certainly wasn't about to lie about it. There was nothing else to do. Lee loved Chiro, and Gaara told him the truth, and they both protected him and gave him a shelter; if that wasn't enough, then the kid was screwed.

But Gaara didn't think so. Half an hour later, Chiro was outside in the courtyard bouncing a ball against a wall and then running after it with utter dedication, and he seemed to have forgotten all about the latest answer. Gaara had come to two further conclusions when it came to his observation of small human children. They were amazingly resilient. And they had the attention span of mayflies. Despite the questions and odd habits, Chiro seemed to be doing as well as could be expected, and Aki was disgustingly healthy and cheerful these days. All in all, Gaara thought that he and Lee could be doing worse.

 

Day Twenty-Five - 2 PM

 

"-Sand Clone, Desert Rain, Desert Avalanche, Flowing Desert Dragon, Desert Requiem-"

“Dragon?! Like a real dragon?!” Chiro asked, interrupting the list of attacks he'd requested for reasons best known to him. He looked impressed. “What does that do?”

“Forms large waves of sand in a circular pattern and brings them crashing down on the target. I use it for large, slow military forces or siege equipment.”

Chiro ran, jumped and scrambled up far enough to poke his head and upper body over the rampart. He wedged his feet into a crack between the mortared stones and pointed out at the wasteland around Suna.

“Can you hit that cactus?”

Gaara walked over and inspected the innocent plant near the foot of the wall. “Anybody could do that, even with a kunai.”

Chiro squinted and shoved up the hood and veil that Lee made him wear out of doors.

“Can you hit that rock over there?” A grubby finger jabbed towards a tempting piece of sandstone on a rocky outcropping two hundred feet away.

“With what, a Dragon? Yes. If I stretch. For something that size and distance, a Sand Wing would be better.”

Chiro looked up at him. “What's that?”

Gaara held up his hands two feet apart. “A wedge of sand about this wide. Lee says it looks like a swallow.” He could send it slicing through the air faster than a kunai, and the edge could break bones or decapitate if not parried. It was a trick he'd coined from that Akatsuki bastard Deidara, though more for the idea of aerodynamics than 'aestheticism'.

Chiro bounced up and down as he clung to the rampart. “I want to see!"

“No.”

The boy looked up at him with a pleading expression, though he didn't whine or fuss like he might with Lee.

“Shinobi do not show off, or expose their range or limitations carelessly,” Gaara said. “Lee and I tell you about some of our abilities, and you witness others, but you must never reveal to anyone what we show or tell you.”

Chiro blinked twice in blank incomprehension.

“Don't tell anybody what distance I can hit something,” Gaara translated. “Otherwise an enemy might stand further away than that rock and try to strike at me from there, and that will force me to run around and I don't like that.”

“I won't,” Chiro said solemnly, eyes wide.

He jumped down and followed Gaara, subdued, his hand on the pendant around his neck. He played with Minne's youngest now, and a few of the boy's friends, but he still had that gesture. He also tended to get alarmed if he saw Gaara and Lee whispering together - a bit of a style-cramper - and there were still moments when he would creep back under the window sill in the study and draw geometrical figures with a worrisome absorption. The other kids let him play with them - maybe they assumed they didn't have a choice - but Lee had reported that one of the little girls had said that Chiro was `weird'. He shouldn't be close enough to those children to blurt out any classified information he might have overheard in the Kazekage's residence, but hopefully Gaara had impressed Chiro with the necessity to be discreet anyway.

Chiro was silent and solemn at his side for all of five minutes, then he spotted a lizard and dashed off along the rampart. Gaara had found that the trick to a quiet afternoon was to slate inspections and other activities in the village on the days he watched Chiro, so the kid was totally worn out and Gaara could get some work done when he was back at his desk. Watching the boy on a weekly basis wasn't too inconvenient as long as he had no meetings and his workload was normal. But Lee was still taking on the brunt of the job, now that Minne had finished his 'education'. And while she did do them the favour of watching the boys on occasion, that would not be enough when Lee started working again soon. Gaara could watch one child for a few hours, but he was in no way qualified to watch a baby for any length of time longer than five minutes, and he had his own work and missions to attend to.

He made a mental note to ask Tetsuyo how other Shinobi juggled work and children. The unfortunate answer was probably 'they ask their parents to watch them'. Clan structures were tight in the Hidden Villages. But surely there were alternatives for people like Lee and himself with drastically reduced families. Alternatives that did not involve the orphanage, since Lee would never be able to accept that.

Though there was no need for long-term plans, Gaara reminded himself; they should be able to manage with Kankuro, Minne, Tetsuyo in a pinch…and Temari was back next week. That would do for the near future, until the kids left. Between all those resources, Gaara might even be able to garner a bit more peace and quiet, and more importantly, time alone with Lee.

 

 

 

Day Thirty-Five - Midnight

 

"Man, that was good."

Lee fell back into the sand, panting hard. Sweat ran down his flushed face and bare chest, the tracks turning silvery-blue in the moonlight. He was staring up at the stars with a satisfied look on his face.

"You look like you've just had sex," Gaara observed from where he was sitting a couple of feet away.

That got him a scandalized stare. "Gaara!"

"What?"

"Don't-..." Lee made an irritated gesture that Gaara couldn't interpret. Then the Leaf Jounin brandished a fist at the sky. "Exercise! Sparring! Explosions of energy, glorious rivalry, the testing of our young bodies. That's just as good as sex!"

The desert night sent a cool breeze to ruffle Lee's hair. Lee shifted in the sand. "Almost as good," he amended, as if honesty had overcome enthusiasm.

Gaara thought that pleasing Lee and putting that flush on his cheeks and that bright, proud look in his eye was definitely as good as sex, though he wouldn't mind having sex, too, if they could find somewhere to stash the kids. He wouldn't mind having sex right here and now, what with Lee sprawled half-naked next to him and panting like that, but Lee had a thing about making love out of doors, and Temari was watching the boys back home, so that was out too.

Gaara wiped his forehead absently, freeing the hair that sweat had plastered to his skin. They were over half an hour away from Sunagakure in a flat stretch of sandy basins, where they wouldn't be disturbed by a bunch of worried guards investigating any disturbances. Gaara had been able to cut loose as a result, and the desert was still shaking. It had felt good...Gaara's feelings towards his powers were ambivalent; they'd caused him to be shunned and feared all his life, but a part of him had always been attracted to the sheer magnitude of destruction he could unleash, the pure concentration required, the crash of growing chakra surging through his body until it released like a climax. It felt even better to have Lee there with him, watching him, fascinated and unafraid, even proud of his lover's abilities. When Lee looked at him like that, then for a time, the monster and the Kazekage stopped pulling Gaara in two separate directions; Shukaku became nothing more than a weapon to use; the past a scar that might one day heal; and the various parts of him a whole...

"Ah! The challenge of youth! I feel rejuvenated!" Lee announced, slipping back into the top part of his green uniform after a hearty application of towel to his sweat-soaked skin. "That was excellent. What was that move you did right at the end there? I didn't recognize that."

"Something I've been working on."

That was guaranteed to capture Lee's attention. The discussion turned extremely technical while the sweat dried on their bodies and the night breeze cooled them.

Lee was sitting jack-knifed over his legs, perfectly flat against them, stretching out his muscles. Gaara's mind was wandering from Sand jutsus to something a bit more earthy.

"I guess we'd better get back," Lee said, without the slightest trace of strain in his voice despite his position. "It was nice of Temari to watch the boys, but I don't think she'd be able to, you know, deal."

Deal with Aki's recurrent diarrhoea, he meant, or Chiro's nightmares or occasional 'accidents' (Lee's way of saying the kid had wet the bed). Gaara agreed that they'd better get back before Temari ran the full gauntlet, if they wanted her to baby-sit again. Temari wasn't as good with children as Kankuro was; she didn't seem to know what to say to them. On the other hand, when she said 'go to bed', Chiro obeyed instantly. She also seemed convinced that without her bossing the small household around, it would degenerate into chaos. Gaara counted on using that for all it was worth while it lasted.

"I hope she'll watch the kids again next week." Lee must have been thinking the same thing about Temari's child-watching abilities, because he sounded doubtful. "Kankuro will be too tired when he gets back from Water Country. Naruto can take one night, but he'll be gone in a couple of weeks. And I'll have that mission near the border in a few days- but I can be there and back in fifteen hours if I leave early and push myself. Maybe we can find another baby-sitter, we'll need one eventually...Say, Gaara-..."

Gaara watched a sand mouse hop up a nearby dune. The thing was walking in drunken circles. It must have been hiding deep underground, but the percussive force of Gaara's attacks had stunned it.

After a few seconds, he turned to see if Lee was going to finish that sentence. His lover's face was set in odd lines, half thoughtful, half sad. But when he caught Gaara looking at him, he smiled and said "Nothing. I love you."

"I know," Gaara said, trying to decipher the meaning behind that look on his lover's features.

Lee rolled his eyes. Gaara knew by now that the proper answer to Lee's statement was 'I love you too', not 'I know'. But Gaara did know. Lee's love was one of the pillars of his current existence. If he didn't know that, the doubt would drive him insane, which would be bad for all concerned.

Lee looked away from Gaara's piercing unblinking gaze. "So...hey, I was wondering, you said Taidaka was getting status reports from Konoha, right? Do we have any news on Katsuro's whereabouts? If you're allowed to tell me, of course."

"You know the folder is on my desk-"

"Gaara, I've told you before: even if you say so, I am not comfortable looking through your papers. That's just not done," Lee stated, shaking his head widely.

Gaara nodded. He knew. So did the Council, who had finally come to admit that there probably wasn't a more honest and trustworthy person than Lee on the planet, for all he was a Shinobi from another village, and they no longer looked askance at Gaara for taking sensitive documents home.

"There isn't much new in there anyway," Gaara said. "Just a few more dead ends. He's disappeared."

Lee frowned. There was nothing new, but that in itself was information, and Lee knew what it meant. Such a vanishing act was more than a band of yakusa or missing-nin could arrange. Either Katsuro was dead, had died shortly after his escape in such a way that the body would not be found...or he was somewhere even Konoha and Suna would have a hard time finding him: another hidden village.

Lee was silent for a while, and Gaara wished he knew what to say, what to do, who to attack to remove that look from his lover's eyes. Then Lee stood up and walked away with a firm step. He stopped near the mouse, which had crouched down into a tiny furry heap of confusion. Lee picked it up and carried it over to a rock outcropping. He checked the stones for snakes, and then dropped the mouse under an overhang where it would be a bit less vulnerable to night predators while it recovered.

"Come on, let's go home!" he said, turning back towards Gaara.

Gaara got to his feet, but he'd hardly straightened before he found himself caught in a bear hug from behind.

"Thanks," Lee said.

Gaara turned his head, but couldn't see more than a close-up of Lee's cheek. "For what?"

"Everything," his lover whispered. Then he added, much more loudly: "For tonight!" He spun Gaara around, gave him a vigorous kiss and then broke away to strike a pose dramatically highlighted by the moonlight. "That was an excellent bout! We have to do this again some time!"

Gaara rubbed his shoulder where a small, dull ache informed him he'd pulled some muscles. His chakra paths felt a bit raw too. "Yes, we should. Things have been quiet so far this year. I'm getting out of shape."

"Well we can't have that! We will need to practice together more often- and you know you can borrow my wrist and ankle-weights when you go out on patrol. Also, I recommend-"

Gaara listened to the enthusiastic training plan taking shape with some resignation.

They walked briskly across the dunes, heading towards home. Gaara hoped they'd get there before Chiro had his inevitable nightmare. They'd warned Temari, and she'd practically sneered at the notion that a child's bad dream could alarm her. But she'd not heard Chiro scream yet, a startling, ugly contrast to the shy, somewhat normal boy she'd met during the day. It made watching Chiro at night a difficult task for the non-initiated, but during the day, Aki required a lot of care and entertaining; they both did.

Despite the difficulties, the lovers had enough sitters lined up for a few more weeks. Minne watched the kids regularly, Kankuro and Temari took turns. And Naruto had stepped up and volunteered to watch the boys several times already, entire afternoons at his office or his apartment or running around town with them as if there was nothing he'd rather be doing. Naruto had turned out to be a much better babysitter than he was a diplomat. He and Chiro were much closer to the same mental age, as Gaara had put it, before being sharply reminded by Lee that it was thanks to Naruto watching the kids that the two lovers were still having sex regularly and Gaara should be more grateful.

All in all, it worked, though Gaara's inner control freak wasn't fond of the haphazard organisation involved. But it wasn't as if they needed any long-term plan; the kids had already been here over a month. Soon...

"Lee-..."

Lee glanced at him when Gaara fell silent.

Gaara realized he wasn't entirely sure what he wanted to say, a rare event for him. He didn't really need to say anything, he decided. They could afford to take it one day at a time for another month or two. Maybe three. Perhaps they should wait until Konoha caught Katsuro, and the trial was out of the way; people would forget him and the children would no longer live with the sins of the father on their shoulders.

"Yes?" Lee asked.

"Nothing." Gaara reached over and let his fingers touch Lee's hair briefly, feeling the need for some form of contact.

Lee gave him a surprised look, but grabbed Gaara's fingers as the latter withdrew them and squeezed them gently. His eyes dwelled over Gaara's sweat-soaked shirt, the long coat thrown over his shoulder...then the Jounin shook his head sharply.

"We shouldn't delay," he said with a sigh. "If Temari has to tackle one of the kids' bad nights, we'll never get her to baby-sit again."

Good point. Gaara tried to imagine his sister dealing with some of the extremes he and Lee had been put through. Of a common accord, they both broke into a run. Plans for the future could wait. There was no hurry after all, as long as life continued to obey the odd and crooked routine they'd adopted for a little while longer.

 

TBC...