Gaara stood, quietly observing the sleeping shinobi's house. His eyes wandered over the stone of the wall that he knew hid Lee's slumbering form. It had been three days since his intrusion into the young man's home.
He took it as a good sign that he hadn't been kicked out.
He also took it as a good sign that Lee had paused to say hello to him while on the street the previous day. Gaara still didn't quite comprehend why this was such a comfort to him, and furthermore he didn't care to explore the idea.
He also didn't care to explore the concept behind why he found himself moving across the street to Lee's house, past the unguarded door and into the bedroom. He had thoroughly explored the house in the hour or so before the youth had returned home that day he had broken in.
It had been easy to memorize where the rooms were in such a small house. It was mere moments before the floor under his sandal-clad feet changed to the woven mats the covered the floor in Lee's room. The sparse decorations amused him; he rewarded the quiet room with a small smile, moving to stand over the sleeping boy.
Lee was a rough sleeper. He had tossed and turned in his sleep, covers thrown off to reveal a bare torso, muscles defined in the shadow made by moonlight, filtering in from a high-set window. Boxers were low on his hips, showing the hard lines of his abdomen, trailing down into a slim waist, and muscles that disappeared past the dark green waistband.
Gaara reached out to touch him.
It was strange; the sand-nin looked at his hand as if it were a foreign thing that moved of its own free will, a look of almost-shock clouding his expression when he trailed his fingertip over Lee's hip, to the band of his boxers.
Lee mumbled something incoherent in his sleep and shifted, tossing his head to his shoulder, baring a pale throat. This caught Gaara's attention immediately, and he moved his hand to linger above the young man's exposed throat, fingertips lightly feeling his pulse, strong and vital.
It woke Lee when Gaara shifted his weight to kneel on the bed, half over the shinobi. When Lee's eyes fluttered open, Gaara's clamped a hand over his mouth.
"Don't make a sound." His voice held something in it, something that hid behind the dangerous monotone that he spoke in. Lee nodded.
He was terrified and filled with curiosity all in the same moment.
This was not something that Gaara chose to miss. His free hand found its way onto Lee's chest, pressed over where his heartbeat was the strongest and then wandering down, over firm muscle. Lee squirmed away from his touch, and then in a flash of insight that Gaara could, and would, kill him, held still.
Or tried to.
"You'll be silent." Was the only warning that Gaara offered when he slowly took his hand from Lee's mouth.
Lee ignored him, "What are you doing?"
Gaara gave him a contemplative look, before shifting to sit with one knee on either side of Lee, his knees pinning the other's arms down, seated on his lower stomach. Lee frowned at him.
"This isn't something that my sensei would condone."
"your sensei is a busybody." Gaara said absently. He felt Lee's muscles flex underneath him before the older man hissed out a reply from between gritted teeth.
"don't you call him that." He was glaring at Gaara now, but didn't make a move to free himself.
"I don't think you're in any position to be making those faces at me." Gaara frowned, folding his arms onto Lee's chest, leaning forward to wind up nose to nose with his captive.
"Get off." Lee's tone was strained; it was obvious that he was still trying to be polite. Gaara smirked.
"If you wanted me off, you'd have done something already. I'm not exactly heavy."
Silence greeted him.
"that's what I thought." A small smile tugged at the corners of Gaara's mouth, almost visible.
"Why are you here, Gaara?" Lee couldn't seem to ask anything else. Underneath him, Gaara could feel Lee's chest rising and falling, his strong steady heartbeat keeping a rhythm.
The sand-nin paused before his answer, long enough to make Lee open his mouth to begin to ask again, before answering.
"I don't know." He sat upright, palms flat against Lee's chest; he had stopped wondering if the shinobi was going to struggle many minutes ago. His eyes shifted away from Lee's, settling on his own hands.
"I had hoped that I would be wanted here." His voice was soft, his shoulders slumped slightly. Lee frowned, looking at Gaara—he reminded the older man of a small child. Vulnerable.
"Gaara…this isn't the way for you to get a person's attention." Lee murmured, managing to slip an arm free while Gaara's eyes were averted, "Breaking and entering and…this. It's not right."
"It's the only way to get someone to notice." He dug his fingertips into Lee's chest, a motion that showed the pain behind his words. A heartbeat later, a tear splashed down onto Lee's bare skin, followed by several more. Lee lifted a hand to Gaara's cheek, and wiped away a tear.
"I noticed you without this." He smiled, gently touching Gaara's cheek with calloused fingertips.
Within moments, Gaara's shoulders were shaking, years of repressed sadness spilling out, he leaned forward on Lee's chest, arms flung around the black-haired man's shoulders. Lee gently hugged him, smoothing a hand over his hair, soothingly.
After all, someone who never had a chance at childhood was forever to be a child, until shown love.
And that was something that Lee was more than willing to give.