Dream a Dream
Sandman cometh. He would rather him dead.
46. dust
Outside that door, the hall is silent and nearly empty. Would anyone even hear if the sand crept too far over that plain white bedsheet and slithered maliciously up the man's neck and wrenched open his smiling mouth and slammed down his throat and nasal passage until it disappeared into his body and filled his lungs until he could no longer scream, no longer breathe, no longer be that man in green he once was?
Would they know it was him, Gaara of the Desert, the killer, even if the sand, then with the same slithering, squirming movement, slipped out of the limp body and returned, battered and bloody, back into the gourd?
No.
But Gaara does not have his gourd, and he has grown beyond that murderous intent he once would have gladly given into for the sake of his own pleasure...just to see that shining smile crack and crumble and that green jumpsuit stained with red...oh, once, to kill that loud, loud, youthful being.
A scream of pure anguish and the sound of bones becoming dust.
The Kazekage does not kill now unless he must.
And he must not kill the man in the hospital bed today...though he does consider it.
But now, now it would not be for the pleasure of a room drenched in blood and gore, not for the sheer delight of wearing the scent of the man's last screams and tears and prayers on his skin...
Now it would be out of pity.
Because the man in green--the once cheerful, boastful, proud, terribly loud and obnoxious and caring and daring...--the man is no more. He died, or is dying, or is dead only he does not know it yet. He sleeps peacefully under the veil of limitless ansthetics and dreams of things Gaara does not dare touch. Happy dreams, perhaps. Beautiful youthful sunsets that exist only in the imagination or in the afterlife, if there is one, but certainly not of this world. Or perhaps it is nightmares of a few last moments. Maybe he knows, maybe he does not. Regardless, Gaara does not want to wake him.
Gaara would almost rather him dead.
Dead because the young Kazekage no longer cares to see broken people. Dead because death means unfeeling and this man, whose skin-tight clothes leave no room, somehow he manages to wear his heart upon his sleeve.
Gaara does not like this man, but...for some reason, he pities him.
Tomorrow this once-green-clothed man, now in his pale hospital gown and under his pale sheets, will wake to the pale light of morning--mourning--and find a bright vibrant world has faded to ashen gray whilst he sleeps so peacefully now.
Death whitewashes everything.
Gaara pities Gai-sensei. For tomorrow the man will wake to discover his world has ended in tragedy and he has been left to the ruin...A dead student, a dead rival, a dying village...He would be better off dead.
But for now, Gaara lets him sleep.
x x x
AN: I've seen stories with Gai observing a hurt Kazekage!Gaara and remembering when Lee was hurt, I've seen various takes on Gaara's visit to Lee's hospital bed in that one episode, but I'm not sure I've ever seen Gaara as sympathetic to Gai in any way, shape, or form...I could be wrong. I usually am. I have a terrible recall for what fics I've read long ago. But I like the idea, and I didn't kill off Gai, unlike a lot of my scrapped drabbles, so Gai and Gaara get their moment.