Lee wound up having to buy two separate, sturdy bags to carry the apples. They had so much fun picking them but forgot they walked there and didn't have a wagon to drag them home. Luckily there were bags that could go over both shoulders like a backpack so it wasn't incredibly difficult. Lee thought Gaara looked positively adorable wearing a bag like that. He supposed Gaara could do anything and he would find it adorable though.

"What are we doing now?" Gaara asked, breaking the comfortable silence as they walked down the trail.

"That depends on you, Gaara. Are you hungry? I know we ate a lot of apples but are you hungry for some savory food?" Gaara considered it and nodded. "Then we shall go get some food."

Lee and Gaara wound up getting pizza in town. Gaara insisted on paying since Lee paid for everything else and Lee relented finally and let Gaara pay for it.

Gaara wanted to pay for the pizza, even though he knew he shouldn't. He didn't have much money, truthfully. He knew Temari and Kankuro got paid for working but he didn't. His father owned the building and was in charge of payroll. He'd told Gaara the fact that he was letting him stay in a building he owned was payment enough. Gaara didn't disagree. Fighting with his father his entire life had just worn down his confidence and self-worth. Gaara didn't press matters on payment because he did believe he owed his father more than even that. So he worked all the time and occasionally he got money. He never knew why, just sometimes there would be money in his account, never more than $100 and it was rare enough to be a surprise each time. He suspected Temari had some hand in it.

The pizza was only $12 and he had $15 in his account which means he had $3 until he would mysteriously get money again. He hoped if he worked hard and kept pushing out things for the business to sell, his father would see some sort of worth in his work but it hasn't really happened yet. He also hadn't seen his father in at least 3 weeks, not that he was complaining. Rasa had some complex where he wouldn't let Gaara go a moment without an insult when he was around. Nothing was good enough.

"Are you ok?" Lee asked quietly and Gaara jerked his head up. He didn't notice he zoned out looking at his pizza until the weird looks from Lee.

"Oh. I'm fine." Gaara blinked a few times, trying to get himself out of a daze.

"Would you like something to drink?" Gaara was embarrassed suddenly. He bought the pizza but nothing to drink for Lee. He couldn't afford two drinks, he didn't think.

"Oh I didn't buy you anything to drink, sorry. What would you like?" Lee smiled softly at him.

"No, you paid for the pizza, drinks are on me. Are you thirsty?" Gaara was thirsty but he just felt so bad that he shook his head no. "Are you sure?" A nod. "Okay." Lee got up and went to the cooler to pick his drink. Gaara let his focus move down to his pizza slice. His mouth was so dry. Maybe he could go to the bathroom and drink water from the faucet? He didn't want to ask the counter for a cup of tap water since he told Lee he wasn't thirsty already. He didn't want Lee to think he lied, or know he lied, rather.

Lee approached the table and put two bottles of apple cider down with a smile.

"I know you said you were not thirsty but who is not thirsty for apple cider? I mean hot apple cider is delicious, but cold apple cider is so refreshing. I hope you do not mind." Lee's smile was so warm, how could someone be as sweet as Lee was? Gaara wasn't sure why he felt so emotional all of a sudden but made sure that none of it showed on his face.

"I don't mind. I appreciate the thought. Thank you." Lee grinned and opened his own bottle and drank.

Gaara stared at his drink for a while before opening it. His heart hammered in his chest. He glanced at Lee, who seemed completely oblivious to his attention, and examined him. Lee was such a beacon of pure good energy. Everything about him was just... good. Gaara couldn't think of any other person who would do what Lee did for him today, he wondered if Lee even realized how thankful he was for it all.

"This may be cliché, but I had a really great time with you today, Gaara. I really hope we can do this again." Lee's smile could calm a raging bull, Gaara decided.

"I did too. Thank you for taking time from your day to spend it with me." Lee seemed confused at the wording.

"Gaara, really. It was a pleasure. Thank you for joining me, I know how busy you are. Today meant a lot to me. Thank you." Gaara's cheeks colored a bit and he looked down at his feet, his shoes made him frown. They were coming apart. He hoped he could get new ones before anyone noticed. "Would you like me to drop you off at home instead of here? I have my dad's car today."

Lee noticed Gaara's face blanch and wonder what he said wrong.

"I-I'm sorry, did I say something?" Gaara shook his head.

"No. You're fine. Here is fine. I need to get back to work. Thank you Lee. I'll see you later." Gaara rushed inside, leaving a very confused and upset Lee staring through the glass, watching him disappear into the kitchen.

It was 2 in the morning and Gaara still couldn't sleep. Instead, he was thinly slicing apples and very intricately placing them in a pie crust. It took 35 minutes to place them all neatly to look like a giant rose in the crust but he had all the time in the world.

Gaara was deep in thought, just thinking about Lee. That's all that occupied his mind lately. It was the only thing interesting enough in his life to be worth thinking about. Lee.

Lee. Lee. Lee.

Gaara's lips were pressed in a straight line, he increasingly got upset. He couldn't handle his emotions today. Normally he could be completely straight faced and stoic and be fine. Yesterday had been an emotional roller coaster for him. Gaara tried really hard not to think about his father too much, but he'd thought of him several times and it just got worse.

Temari warned him that Rasa would be making an appearance here today. There was absolutely no reason for him to show up. Temari had everything under control, Rasa just didn't want to let go. Or maybe he just wanted to show up to make Gaara miserable. Temari loved her father, so did Kankuro. They loved him to death, but even they were confused why Rasa treated Gaara like the scum on his shoe.

In a way they understood. Not to the degree their father treated him, never that. They understood Rasa didn't love Gaara like he loved them because their mother died during childbirth. That still didn't mean he should take it out on Gaara his whole life.

For the first time ever, Gaara placed his knife down and came to the realization.

He was depressed. He was so depressed it ached, it hurt his body, it made him unable to sleep, it gave him these evil thoughts in his mind telling him to do things he didn't want to. Or did he?

Lee helped though. Gaara knew that if someone is depressed, they shouldn't rely too much on a person for their happiness, if at all. He knew that if someone was depressed they needed to fix it themselves and not have someone else do it. However, with Lee, it was almost like the feelings of inadequacy didn't exist. He was just a normal boy that didn't stay up all night working in a bakery because he couldn't sleep. He wasn't so unloved by his father he was forced to sleep in a storage room in said bakery because his father couldn't stand the sight of him. He wasn't trying so hard to cover up all the bad memories his father created so vividly in his mind.

When Lee was around, it was unimportant. When Lee was around, Gaara didn't remember the abuse he faced all his life. Gaara didn't remember how even though he was isolated in a different building than his entire family, it was still better than being in his father's house where he never felt wanted or safe. When Lee was around, Gaara was a person. He wasn't less than one like he felt, he was an actual person that had feelings that mattered.

With his heart thudding painfully in his chest, Gaara realized he missed Lee. He missed Lee so badly it hurt. Why? Why did he feel like this?

Dozens of loud thoughts raced through Gaara's mind so quickly that he couldn't separate them to realize what each individual thought was. Gaara's chest tightened and it was hard to breath. He couldn't focus and with a burst of anger, he grabbed his pie and threw it against the wall. It splattered and apple slices slid over the floor, thick in cinnamon sugar juice, some were still stuck to the wall. Gaara grabbed another pie, and another, and another. He threw all of them. When he was done, he was panting heavily and he fell to his knees with a loud thud. He leaned down, putting his forehead to the floor and slammed his fist down to the floor, trying to release the rest of his anger.

He had a crush on Lee.

When Lee came in that morning, Gaara was still cleaning up the pies he threw. There was only a bit left, so it didn't look to bad when Lee saw it, he had no idea Gaara had been cleaning for two hours.

"Good morning Gaara! How are you today?" Lee said happily and waved. Gaara paused what he was doing and looked over at Lee.

Gaara could see Lee's teeth sparkle with how much his teeth were showing in his grin. His face was covered by the shadow of his hood, Gaara loved how the hoodie looked on him, and more so, loved when Lee wore green, it was such a nice color on him.

"Gaara? Are you ok?" When Gaara blinked himself back to reality, he rubbed his eyes and nodded.

"Yeah. Sorry. Morning." Lee frowned and Gaara didn't like the look on his face.

"Were you unable to sleep?" Gaara nodded curtly and Lee looked sad.

"I am sorry... Hey, you can sleep over at my house if you would like to!" Gaara felt a chill run though his body.

"What? Why?" Lee laughed.

"Well sometimes people are uncomfortable where they are, like for example, I cannot sleep when I am at Naruto's house. I am pretty sure it is haunted or something so I cannot fall asleep. Maybe you just need a change of scenery. It will be fun! I have sleepovers with Naruto and Sasuke all the time. We can watch a movie, eat some popcorn, I also am very good at making smoothies. I will make you one if you would like!" Gaara was full on trembling now.

"I... I'll think about it." In no way shape or form was Gaara comfortable sleeping at Lee's house. After discovering he had romantic feelings for Lee, he couldn't be alone in a bedroom with him. Gaara wasn't even sure what they would do. He'd never really learned about couples. His father always told him no one would want to be with him and he'd be alone for the rest of his life so he gave up on seeking out any type of companionship. It didn't help that he still closed his eyes during sex scenes on T.V and anything remotely sexual made him incredibly uncomfortable.

All that is to say that Lee even reciprocated the feelings Gaara had. What if he didn't? Where would Gaara stand after that?

"Are you sure it is just being tired?" Lee asked with his voice brimming with concern.

"I have a lot on my mind is all. I'll be ok." Gaara went back to scrubbing the floor and Lee walked into the bathroom to put his things down. Gaara took a long deep breath and held it for a minute before letting it out slowly. His nerves were all frazzled. Where did this crush come from? He just met the guy a few weeks ago.

Maybe he was just so starved for attention he would fall for anyone who gave it to him.

Gaara shook his head. It couldn't be that way. He went back to scrubbing and before he knew it, Lee was on his knees by his side scrubbing the floor too. Gaara gave him a surprised look and Lee just smiled sweetly and didn't say anything and helped Gaara clean the floor. Gaara looked at his hands and put more effort into cleaning trying to ignore the warm feeling he had in his cheeks.

"Hello! Welcome to Just Desserts-" Lee was cut off by the man's hand in the air doing a simple "stop" movement.

"Yes I know. I'm the owner." He said gruffly and Lee's cheeks pinkened and he bowed his head.

"I apologize, sir. It is great to meet you. I am Rock Lee." Lee introduced and held out his hand politely. Rasa took it and gave it a shake and that's when Temari came out from the kitchen.

"Hey dad. Are you ready to go over numbers?" He nodded and she opened a drawer and pulled out a clipboard and grabbed a plate. "Anything you want?" Rasa gazed over at all of the pastries and Lee couldn't help but notice the slight scowl.

"Do you have anything the demon didn't make?" He asked and Lee's eyes widened a fraction and he felt that in his heart as if it were a personal attack on himself.

"Um..." Temari looked through the pastries without batting an eye and picked up one of the croissants. "Our other baker makes these." She handed him the plate and he grunted and walked to one of the tables.

"Temari...?" Lee gave Temari a look of concern. Temari frowned at him, shook her head and walked to the table. Lee had no idea what that meant so he looked to Kankuro. Kankuro sighed.

"Dad and Gaara don't get along." He responded quietly. Lee's frown deepened and he looked over at Rasa whom was immersed in the discussion with Temari.

"What happened? Was it recent?" Lee couldn't help but ask, he knew it was nosy and he shouldn't ask, especially to someone other than Gaara, but the thought that Gaara didn't have a good home life hurt his heart.

"No. It's always been that way." Kankuro pursed his lips as if in thought. He was trying to weigh the pros and cons of discussing Gaara's personal life with Lee. He knew Gaara would be furious so he probably shouldn't tell him, but he wasn't sure that Gaara would say anything on his own. Before Kankuro could make up his mind, Rasa rose up from his seat and Temari hopped up from hers, seemingly trying to stop him but he marched into the kitchen with a scowl on his face. "Oh not again..." Kankuro rubbed his temples and Temari ran into the kitchen behind Rasa.

"What is going on?" Lee started walking towards the kitchen door and Kankuro grabbed his arm and shook his head.

"I promise you, you don't want to do that." Lee looked at the door, slightly desperately and stopped trying to move towards it. Kankuro looked around and saw that they didn't have any customers so quickly locked the door and put up a temporary closed sign "Back in 15 minutes" which he didn't want to do, but he knew it wasn't going to be good for business if customers heard a fight in the kitchen.

There was a loud clattering noise, Temari shouted "Dad!" and Lee couldn't stop himself from running into the kitchen. When he saw blood on Gaara's face, he couldn't control the gasp that came out.

Gaara glanced at the remaining things on his list for the day.

· Vanilla Cake batter

· Italian Buttercream

· Pumpkin muffin batter

· Order cake prep

· Process bananas

· S'mores Bars

He sighed at the list. He hated doing special order cakes. He walked over to the order book to look over any other specifications. "Happy Birthday Orochimaru! (in green) snake on cake?" Gaara sighed. He hated the little question marks the front of house put on the order sheets. Did "snake on cake?" mean "can you make a snake and put it on the cake?" or did it mean "maybe he wants a snake on the cake and I don't know?" Just put the damn order down the way the customer wants it. Even so, Gaara rubbed his temples, that meant the cake needed fondant. He was sure he could get away with piping a snake but he wasn't sure if it would stay how he wanted it on the cake. Plus, it was hard to pipe details. Fondant it was.

"What the fuck." Gaara looked up from the order book in confusion and saw his father. Gaara's heart sank at the sight of him. He wondered what Rasa was angry about now. "Have you seen the waste from the pastries you make? Do you know how much money we lost this passed month?" Gaara frowned, they barely had any waste, unless he meant the cake someone ordered and never picked up so had to be thrown away. "This is precisely the reason I didn't want you working here. You can't bake for shit and now we're losing profit because you don't know how to do your damn job."

Gaara accepted his words on the outside but inside he was steaming. If there was one thing Gaara was proud of, it was his skills in the kitchen. He worked hard for them. He's put nothing but blood and sweat into this position for literally no income and his father wants to say they lost money? That was impossible. They're doing nothing but gaining profit for each pastry sold considering they didn't pay anyone to make them. There was the other baker that was there once a week but she only did a few things that Gaara didn't like to do, like croissants. His always came out weird. Everything else was stuff he did for free. Gaara bit his cheek, trying his best to hold his tongue. He didn't notice Temari come in the room and when he looked up at Rasa he noticed how angry he looked. Why was he so angry?

"Don't ignore me, you monster!" He hissed and grabbed Gaara by the collar of his chef jacket and threw him against the shelving that held all of the bowls and cambros and everything collapsed over and fell on him. The stainless steel bowl hit him in such a way that it cut open the top of his head and blood ran down his face. It probably wasn't even a bad cut, but cuts on the head hurt the worst.

"Dad!" He heard Temari rush to his side and push the bowls off him and helped him up. Gaara was breathing heavily, his head was throbbing in pain and when he tried opening his left eye he got blood in it and it started to sting. When he heard a gasp he looked up and saw Lee. His wonderful Lee was there.

Gaara's vision got very tunneled and he saw stars if he opened his eyes for too long. He looked at his father, prepared to say something, anything, and fainted.

"Gaara!" Lee shoved Rasa out of the way to get to Gaara and he picked him up and glared at Rasa. He had so many things he wanted to say and his cheeks puffed up and flushed but all he managed was "I recant my pleasantries!" and stormed out of the kitchen with Gaara in his arms.

"What the fuck, dad?" Temari cried before Rasa could say anything to Lee for rudeness of his boss.

"I want that kid fired."

"No." Temari said sternly. "I want you out of here. I do all of the hard work for this business. You aren't making me fire my best employee because he cares about someone you don't like." Temari scoffed at him and stormed out of the kitchen. "You can clean that up too, dad!" She yelled from the other room.

Lee had placed Gaara on the couch in the lounge area and was dressing his head wound when Temari came over.

"I do not know what made him hurt Gaara, but I do not like him." Lee said that as if it were the biggest insult he could throw and Temari gave a dry laugh. She supposed that was a big insult coming from the sweetest person she'd ever meet. "I think we should take Gaara to see a doctor. He could have a concussion." Lee sounded like he was talking more to himself than to Temari.

"Lee?" Temari said softly and touched his shoulder and he jerked it away from her. She saw how upset he looked. "Are you crying?"

"Yes!" Lee looked at her, his face red and a few tears running down his face. "I am very upset someone would hurt someone as sweet and kind as Gaara." Lee sniffled and turned back to Gaara and lightly dabbed the blood off his face. Every once in a while she would hear a tiny sniffle but other than that she couldn't tell he was crying if she wasn't looking at his face.

"Let's get him in my car, ok?" Lee nodded and squeezed his eyes closed and bit his lip. "He's going to be fine, ok Lee?" Lee nodded again and Temari could tell he was trying to bite back a sob and she hugged him. Lee hugged her back and hiccupped as he tried to steady his breathing.

"He's such a good person." Lee whimpered and Temari rubbed soothing circles on his back mumbling "I know"s to placate Lee.

If there was any shadow of a doubt that Lee loved her baby brother, it was completely nulled now.