Title: And The World Loudly Counts To Ten.
Verse: Not in blood, but in deed.
Characters: Sai, Sakura Haruno, Gaara Sabako, Naruto Uzumaki
Pairing: GaaSai, NaruSakuSasu
Rating: T
Prompt: #25. Hero.
Summary: The funny thing about great men, Shikamaru had said, the funny thing is no one knows how great they are until they are gone. The funny thing is, without them, the dreams seemed childish.
Notes: Starting with the ending first. Haha. Except there is not laughter in this. My bad. . There's a general theme of chivalry going through it. Especially this one. To use the words of Kingdom of Heaven. 'even if it leads to your death'. I like this theme. I think I will use this theme and name this verse after it. Trying to stay away from 'Knight' themed anything though. DONTWANTBATMANREFERENCEPLZ.

"'Cause she's a crueler mistress
And the bargain must be made
But oh, my love, don't forget me
But I let the water take me"

Gaara no Sabako was not a hero. That was Naruto Uzumaki's title. The golden boy, the police chief's son who rose against all odds to be the same. Gaara was far on the other end of scale, he was the blackness around his eyes. Dirty justice that the law could never impart, clawing his way up with the vestiges of his Father's gang to create an underground empire.

But together, the both of them worked seamlessly around each other, never overstepping into each others boundaries. Occasionally when necessary, working together. It was so seamless, that no one ever knew about it. Only their closest friends, who rightly never said a thing about it - to do so would be to ruin would ruin what they had built. They, through passionate speeches, cold work and strength of will had changed, totally irrevocably, the way things would always be.

Not that it mattered now. The freshly turned earth was laden with flowers.

… And Sai? Sai just stood over by the grave.

The funny thing about great men, Shikamaru had said, the funny thing is no one knows how great they are until they are gone. The funny thing is, without them, the dreams seemed childish. Without them, it seems impossible. Without them, no one wanted to speak a word of hope, of faith, of believing in the end that justice was something everyman could have. Those words faded out of the vocabulary, seeped into the ground till it seemed to live only in the bed of flowers before Sai now. Without them, it had all seemed for naught. Or so Shikamaru said.

Not that anyone would publish just how much Gaara had helped Naruto, or Naruto had helped Gaara. The media didn't want to associate him with a man who'd worked as a sniper, then a gun for hire, then caused wars so bloody on the streets in his suppressing of those that opposed him no one dared to go out for days. He had not won through charm and a heart so open as Naruto had. He'd won through in the end having a conviction no one had ever seen for someone working the streets, and honestly not doing it for himself. He was needed, and that was all there was it - being needed humbled him enough to never abuse his power. To do so would ruin the place he'd sought for himself.

Not that he told anyone this, and it was something he only whispered to Sai when he asked why. Those moments when he allowed himself to be selfish and curled Sai's body into himself. Those were the moments Sai filitered through now. The quiet moments, where for once the brittle exterior broke. When, in their urgent touches against each other, Gaara had said I love you, like he'd never had a fear of the word, broken in between bites on his skin, gasped out when he pressed himself harder against him. When he watched him like the violence and the blood and the death were someone elses care, and Sai was his only.

Everyone would remember Naruto Uzumaki. It would be up to Sai to remember Gaara. The way he knew how, through paintings, that he coerced feeling into. Everyone knew Naruto's smile. No one but Sai was even sure if Gaara ever did.

"You said wouldn't leave me." he muttered against the wind, just reading and re-reading that name written there on the marker. "You said nothing was written in stone, you lied to me." said firmer, like he wanted a reply, like he always did when Gaara did something he didn't like. "You lied to me. Why is your name still there?"

If this was grief, he wanted none of it. He'd watch Naruto grieve, so deeply and long for Sasuke when he'd been shot that night. He couldn't comprehend how it could have such a pull for such an extended amount of time. He had grieved for Shin, yes. But it had been surpressed and forgotten about under his training with Danzou. Gaara had just sighed and told him it was something you couldn't physically comprehend until it happened.

"You said you'd always be there to talk to my emotions through. That no matter how small or big, you'd help me understand."

… and the wind whistled back. Sai fell silent.

No, Gaara Sabako was not a hero. He was a lot of other things to a lot of people, but never a hero. He had never wanted to be.

He was Naruto's closest friend, after Sasuke. They shared the cruelty of being shunned. They both came from the wrong side of the tracks, but Naruto had been the one to show Gaara that power wasn't always bad. It could be used in a multitude of ways and in return, Gaara had never wavered, never stepped from the path he had been given. It was how such a tight nit front had been formed. For the bloody months while Gaara took control, Naruto had been an ear to talk to, to vent his anger at, and help strategize with. They used each other as sounding boards in a way that left those closest to them baffled. Only perhaps Sai, Sasuke and Sakura ever realising their outward demeanor was their only true difference.

To Temari and Kankuro, he'd been a brother. Then eventually a Uncle, when they had both respectively settled down. Though that process had been a lot longer to make happen. Only did so because of Naruto. None of them had raised to be as such, a family, but eventually they had formed a unmistakable front. Solid as rock together, there was no use dividing them. They had stood by each other, something that Gaara came to appreciate, and re-payed loyalty with it in kind. It was something that came easily enough. Being an Uncle was something else entirely. He had no idea how to deal with children. Small balls of hyperactive energy. But he never lost his patience. Answering every single question they ever asked him in the same even tone, spoiling them in the way he knew how.

To those that came to him, he was the law keeper. Cold, brutal and without bias. Something he always second guessed himself about. Which was part of the reason Temari and Kankuro were so vital to him, he had them to go over every thing he ever decided, making sure he was being impartial. His role was old, archaic even. But the city was in such a state that it became necessary. There was only so much Naruto could do - there was some people the legal rule could never be make pay for, never be dragged down. Not that he called himself a vigilante. He had no fanciful notions about his role. He was a mob boss - who ruled his people without mercy, but equality as he knew it. Everyman was examined personally, and everyman held accountable for his actions and his alone. He killed only when necessary. A dangerous game, that made as many enemies just as frequently as it won friends. But no worse then any man who held power and sought to do good with it.

And to the people that had killed him, he had been the one getting in their way. Along with Naruto.

Not that he gave a care how others had remembered him. Sai was here to remember the Gaara he knew. His true friend, his best friend, his lover, his husband. So many things to remember. They'd been together nearly twenty five years, when he'd met Gaara that day in college -

"Why are you still here, Sai?"

He turned his head, a smile fixing on his face in reflex.

"Sakura, you're looking... fatter."

Sakura harrumphed. Her hand going to her hip, where her stomach had bulged out with her six month of pregnancy. "You still didn't answer my question."

"The book I read, said it was customary for the dead person's loved ones to go to his grave, and contemplate over the grave, and remember." It was a standard reply, a Sai reply. But Sakura who'd known him too long didn't have it.

"Everyone else is at the wake."

"Ah. I know. But... Gaara hated gatherings. I just want to remember Gaara." He turned back frowning. "Is that right?"

Her eyes softened a little and she came up to him, beside him. "Of course it is. Everyone grieves in their own way. Being in there is too irksome for me at the moment. They're judging me with their eyes for bearing Sasuke's child as well as Naruto's."

"Gaara explained that to me once, why they did not like it. But I never understood it."

"I am glad then, I do not feel like being judged when I only want to remember my husbands." She rubs a hand over her stomach. Just quietly slipping into her own thoughts.

The wind blew a petal off one of the arrangements.

"Do you mind... if I talk about him? I just... want to say it all out loud. It feels unreal in my mind. Like I will forget him, like I did to Shin."

That look was back in Sakura's eyes. But it was not one of pity, Sakura had never been the pitying sort in that way. "If it will help you. I never knew Gaara very well, I would be glad to know him briefly as you did."

So Sai began to talk. Even if the words were slowly and stilted, there were so many thing to recount after all. But Sakura had always been a good listener, one of his first friends, first bonds, that she knew when to stay silent, when to prompt him. She was discreet enough, when he felt something trickle down his face to do nothing but pull a hankie from her modest black dress sleeve and press it to his cheek, like it was a well practised motion between the two of them, the exact same one he'd seen her do to her children.

"He said he wouldn't leave me. He lied. He lied to me."

"They always do - it's why we love them so much. Because it's so easy to be sure nothing could happen to them." Sakura sighed, digging into her coat pocket and pulling out a small silver flask. "Here drink this."

"What is it?"

"Incredibly expensive whiskey. One of the bottles Tsunade-sama left me."

"... I do not like to drink."

"It's not for getting drunk, it's for remembrance... and to keep out the cold here." Very gently she put her hand over his heart, then unscrewed the lid.

"... Gaara liked whiskey. Aged whiskey, on ice. When he was having a bad day, sometimes he'd have it in warm milk."

She scrunched her nose up. "... In milk? Who has it- whatever."

"I never understood it either. But he enjoyed it." Very gently he took the flask from her hand and raised it to his lips. Just like the first time he'd had it with Gaara, it burnt going down, leaving a sharp taste that made him flick his head in distaste. "I still do not have a taste for it." But after a second, warmth filtered through his chest.

"No one ever asked you to, but it is something we have to drink sometimes."

He still wasn't very good at metaphors, at deciphering double meanings in sentences, but he had a strange feeling Sakura was talking about something other then the whiskey.

"Are you ready to come inside now? There are some who would like to remember Gaara with you."

And just like the first time Gaara had propositioned him to bed: "I would... like that."

Sakura smiled at him, looping an arm through his and very slowly lead him back to the hall where the wake was being held.