Disclaimer: I don't own anything!
Author's Note: Had pretty much a full day of math. Yes, my brain does hurt. Started to sketch some Assassin's Creed stuff because the artwork for that game is just breathtaking.
This is just a short thing to try and get me working on Naruto again. I needed the practice and I do love Gaara, even though I find him a little difficult to write.
Ah, WARNING: Possible spoilers for the newest manga chapter. Haven't got that far, don't keep reading unless you don't care about knowing what's going to happen.
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Sons are for fathers the twice-told tale.
~Victoria Secunda, Women and Their Fathers, 1992
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Logically, you know that this is your son. You know that this is the boy you'd seen grow up from lonely child to lonely boy. But something about him is subtly different. Perhaps it's the way he carries himself.
Regardless of what it is, you don't recognize him. You don't recognize your youngest son.
"Father…it's been a while." He still speaks the same, quietly respectful and polite, but there is some edge of an undertone that lets you know that Gaara hasn't forgiven you. Not that you can blame him for that.
"Gaara, where did Shukaku go?" Where did all this power come from? Your son—your frail, milk-skinned son—couldn't have this kind of strength within him.
The dark-rimmed eyes—it's like looking in a mirror, sometimes and it bothers you. Of all your children, Gaara is the one who resembles you the most—narrow ever so slightly at you. "Gone forever. I'm no longer the jinchuruuki that you created."
How powerful and proud the boy—no, the person floating above the ground on the small island of sand is most certainly a young man now—has become. And yet, there is no arrogance in him. And there is a new, quiet yet powerful ferocity that you sense from him.
This can't be your son and you can't be his father.
You stare at him. The colors are all the same as they had been—his hair was still the brilliantly bright red that yours had, almost, been once, many years ago. The eyes are still the same sea foam color, something you had always found ironic because Gaara has never been anywhere near the sea. The paleness of the skin that had never been suited to the harsh sun of Suna—but there is a new length in his arms and legs, an almost careless grace that can only be found in the young when they challenge the world.
You remember the boy Gaara had been in glimpses. The boy sitting on the bed at night, the boy standing on the roof and watching the moonlight, the boy nibbling at the tough fruits of the village.
Sadly, you remember the demon more than you remember your own son growing up. You remember the waves of sand—easily forty feet high—towering over your village. You remember glowing golden eyes and a voice as rough as sandpaper. You remember fear and desperation and you remember seeing your villagers dying in the streets.
You remember making a decision. And because of that, your youngest son—not your heir, not traditionally, but your son nonetheless—had been born with a veil of sand.
This young man standing before you isn't that boy and isn't the demon and you don't recognize anything about him.