LOVE BLOSSOMED

@medicblossom

❛    that’s the spirit ! not, ah, that you want things to go badly ! but if you do, it is better to face the outcome with a smile ! was all well in the end then ?   ❜

              give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred, then another thousand, then a second hundred, then a thousand, then a hundred more.

SCAR TOUCHING |  accepting | @uzubayo​

jumpsuit so habitually worn is rolled up past the marred ( and once, mangled ) flesh of forearms, pushed upwards with the care that lee always exerts when handling it. he forgoes the salves that the medics have suggested he use to ease the body-aches he experiences; without them he always is left with the distinct feeling that his training is somehow incomplete. the pain is an indicator of progress and success. to be without it is so ludicrous a notion that the does away with it altogether. 

he will stick to his rituals, familiar. the slow unwinding of sullied bandages. both blood and sweat soaks the fabric, indicating that it is time to replace them. these motions are practiced enough that he could complete them posthaste and with little effort, but he finds there to be a soothing quality in this ritual. the path the cloth cuts between finger and knuckle and around wrist is easy enough to follow, habitual. for all of that there still tends to be a part of it that acquires all of his attention, hypnotic. he wears the bandages so often that it is almost like peeling back another layer of skin. 

it is then surprise when he feels the brush of fingers against a sizable divot in his arm. a crater of flesh, white and old and quite shallow but noticeable. he’d almost forgotten naruto’s presence until the touch and the question following.

❛    ah, how did i get it ? well, you see that is a thrilling tale ! truly, it was an incredibly youthful and manly endeavor, one that i fondly recall to this day ! at the end i even procured a kiss from a rather charming woman !   ❜

It’s a subconscious reaction that stills the urgent pace he’d set, his physical senses picking up on the sudden resistance quicker than the other aspects of his perception that lay adrift within their own tempest. Eyes the color of molten gold sneer in ugly delight amid the chaos that stirs just beneath skin and bone, familiar and cruel. The Tail was never merciful in his weakest moments, always present, always seeking the slightest sign of breakage in his control. Years ago Shukaku could have succeeded in this instance; years ago, Gaara might have allowed it.

Yet his senses return to the surface before claw and fang can sink low enough, guided away from the precipice by a sliver of mercy and a voice so thoroughly ingrained in his mind. With some delay on his part he realizes he’s being scrutinized; the plea that follows leaves him returning a pinched glare.

“That’s not an option.”

Thinned eyes dare him to disobey. The winds die in a moment of grave silence, broken only by the distant sound of some desert mammal squealing as it falls prey to an eagle-owl.

“You say you don’t want me to do this alone… yet you risked your life to protect me, you acted alone for my sake–” Nothing adds up and everything sounds loud in his ears because of it: the pulse he can feel beneath the torn bandages of Lee’s arm against his neck, the weighing exhaustion, the word precious and how Lee directs it.

“If you had died–  ” Words that burn his tongue like acid, slow and heavy as they fall flat on stale air. They have crept into his consciousness like a parasite with every limped step and heaved breath he can feel Lee take— had strangled his mind until it bruised and bled when Lee had fallen. When he hadn’t gotten up.

    If you had died,           If you die,

“Lee, do you have any idea what that would do to me?!”

danger prickles on his scalp, the tender place between shoulder blades, the limp knuckles of his hands. a wrist, broken, feels the ache. there are ancient and wounded things too numerous to name warring within gaara. a HAUNTING that does not truly belong to him, or rather should not. his young features age with suffering, with grief that lee does not fully grasp the magnitude of. it aches, that he cannot shoulder this burden as he wishes. 

he would take all hardship from gaara if he could. that he is one of them in this moment is nearly unbearable. regret for worrying him so exists, but he does not regret his actions. not for one instant. 

❛    what else was i to do ?   ❜ wonders that gaara would suggest anything else. he leans closer, wilting in heat and grime. sand sticks to him as second skin; is it the wind kicking such up, or the beast that rambles in gaara’s mind, eager for lost control ? as usual, his grasp of chakra and understanding it are both abysmal and elementary. he can no more sense whether the grains be preternatural or otherwise then a carpenter can tell the difference between one type of fish and the next. 

delirious thoughts and exhaustion lead him to press a heavy head against gaara’s temple. they both stick with dried sweat and blood but they LIVE. a powerful heart beats against his side. gaara’s breaths, even if quick and panicked and disconcerting, are those of a living thing. lee cannot fathom it otherwise, will not allow himself to. there are realities too horrible to imagine living within, and that one particularly comes very close to the top of the list. 

though every thought spins within his head, vision kaleidoscoping painfully, he pulls back just far enough to stare wide-eyed at the outburst. rare these days that his friend’s voice is raised so; even in the depths of despair it is still a low and rumbling thing. 

❛    if ... if it is anything like what it would do to me, to my heart, then the pain would be unbearable,    ❜ he hedges, painfully obvious. as he always is with his affections. 

❛    why of course, my dear friend ! i do not know if i am as good of a mentor as gai-sensei, but i will try my very best ! ❜