Kinda small character study by Shikamaru about Gaara. It's short, drabbly, but cute. Written in all of 5 minutes, enjoy.
Love. He hates the word. It torments him night and day, every time he hears his name or looks in the mirror, it follows him. The meaning is lost; the feeling is gone, absent from him, leaving him cold and dry like a night dessert. He's a puzzle I just can't solve, an enigma that time and time again forces me into a stalemate. Sometimes, a void, carefully taking in what I say, but unable to create an output from my words. Troublesome. His troubles trouble me.
Gaara: demon that only loves himself. Yet even that's untrue. He can't love himself, he doesn't know how. Loathing is trapped in him, bleeding and boiling below the alabaster skin. All he knows is how evil he is, but he cries, and I know he can feel the emptiness in the night, because he can feel the void. How troubling and lonesome. Maybe that's what makes him human. People forget how important love is until they see what someone becomes without it.
Each time I try to explain it, he gets frustrated. His glare isn't intentional; it's inward and cold, strained. "It's when someone wants to be around you forever and will do anything for you." But no one has ever wanted to be around him; it's too far beyond his reaching, groping thoughts. It's a star out in the sky that he can just barely see twinkle between the clouds, too far away to feel the immense warmth or light.
He expects new explanations at the drop of a hat. To define the ineffable, to graph out the vague hum and heartbeats one receives. It's impossible, but still I try. I reach, I plan, I examine, I read, I analyze, but I can't spell it out for him.
It's hard to be with him. Everyday, I have to stop myself before I tell him I love him. Simply, it's because he wouldn't understand. Is that my fault? Gaara can't comprehend how awkward it is when we play chess, how I watch his eyes drift like green clouds, how I study how his hand twitches when reaching for a piece. The temptation is staring right at me, and I can't take it, out of guilt, pity, or other numerous faults in conscience.
But I don't mind holding him at night while I sleep and he stays awake. Relaxation loosens his limbs and glare. Some day it'll make sense to him, and he'll feel just as deeply as I do. The sand will blow away from the desert to uncover a suspended garden that I've already found in him. Some day, however long and troublesome it is until then, he will see himself the way I see him. He'll cease to be a monster to his own soul.
For now, he lies in my arms, staring at the wall beside the bed. He shivers when I breathe over his neck and kiss his temple. Our bodies are clammy with evaporating sweat under the blankets from moments before. Tears over his clammy cheeks with a hoarse throat from his groaning, and I wonder if he really doesn't understand. Somehow he has to know what love is, just because he's here in my arms, holding onto my shoulders with his delicate sandy fingers. Behind those darkly outlined eyes was a flicker of comfort in the situation. I love him, he knows it without knowing what it really means, but at least he knows it. I love him… I love him…