A/N: not mine

Warnings: spoilers till the Chunin exam arch. Mild shonen ai.

Settled in the ep. in wich Gaara sneaks into Lee's room in the hospital, to kill him. When both of them have to face their nightmares, thingsend slightly different...

The Touch of a Nightmare

Lee feels the sand into his nightmares. It moves like a living thing, dirty yellow tentacles that darts at him from every side, while he is too slow to dodge. It blocks every movements, it fills his mouth, ears and nose. It rips away his limbs.

He wakes up screaming and thrashing, running the risk to hurt himself again, so the nuns ends giving him sedatives. The drugged sleep does not make nightmares go away. It makes harder for him to run away from it.

It is the same routine, every time his body cannot take anymore of the training he forces himself to, and he collapses exhausted. He is not so stupid, he knows stressing his already damaged physique can't be good for him. But giving it up would mean giving up to everything, would mean letting his spirit sink down beyond repair. And he needs to cling to something, even if it was to pain. After all pain, the burning ache of muscles after working, the dull feeling of hands and feet made unsensible by beating trees or rocks… it has been a companion to him for such a long time. It is something he's come to rely on, pain means he has worked.

But no hard work can free him of the dark memories, now.

This time, though, something is different. He can feel his body tense in subconscious panic, even into his sleep. Every cell is screaming for him to shake from that defenseless haze, 'cause there is something wrong, something very wrong, around there.

Lee opens his eyes, getting hurt by the sudden afternoon light. As he blinks he feels it. The sand is still there. It has crept across the sheets, inside his bedclothes, he feels the grains everywhere over his skin, over his face. Lee gasps, and his eyes get to focus enough to see it, a hand just inches over his face, fingers gripping at the air like claws. Just beyond, features transfigured into a feral mask. He recognizes them so well. They are always with him, into his sleep, together with the sand. Ragged breathing resounds into Lee's ears. He's immobilized, totally, the wounds and the sedatives they gave him preventing even from the trained instinct that should have got him on his feet and far from the bed even before waking up, at the entrusion

Sabaku no Gaara is here above him, and he can't move, can't ask for help, breath caught in his throat. He can only watch. Sweat covers his body, quickly absorbed by the sand that is enveloping him like a blanket. It would be enough for Gaara to press it.

Gaara is panting, his all stance is somehow unsure. His left hand is at his head, grasping at it, then at his own face. Eyes fixed on it like in a sort of horrified trance, Lee can see the nails dig into the skin, no, into the sand, the armour that had saved him during their fight. They break it, leaving creeks, one goes from his dark-rounded eye to almost his chin, following the path a tear would leave. But it's less than a moment, the armour immediately reforms, leaving an appearence of porcelein.

"Why are you…" Gaara's voice comes out broken, like speaking is taking some huge effort… but everything in him seems like that, Lee realizes, all his body is under an incredible stress. Like on he verge of shattering.

"Why are you… so loved? Why could you do that to me!"

The pressure increase just a bit, and Lee knows he's going to die. He's going to, and without even putting up some weak excuse for a fight. That's… just too much.

Lee's hand rises up, the sand letting it move, like it is curious to see what he'll gonna do, and grips Gaara's wrist, with no strenght at all. He stares at the eyes over him, white orbs in wich the ice pupils swayed in frenzy. He stares at them, sternly, fear drifting away, as he prepares himself for a desperate try. Even in his state, he's sure he can open at least one gate.

Gaara's eyes shut, tightly, and Lee hears a sound. It takes a moment for Lee to realize that is Gaara emitting it. It is… It's completely crazy, but it's just like a child's cry, taken, knotted and then closed somewhere deep and dark. It is scaring as hell, it makes Lee's body writhe with the renovated urge to run away from there, from it, but he can't, and he won't. He wants to make it stop. Maybe this is only fear of dying that has finally made him going nuts, but the only thing he can think is that he wants to find the crying child, hold him, cradle him like he never has been, he wants to make things ok for him.

"Where are you?" he almost misses his own whispered words. He doesn't even know who is asking to.

Gaara's hand flickers, than starts shaking and suddenly Lee feels it pressed against his cheek, he feels something grasping, and it is sand, drifting away to leave naked cold skin touching his feverish one, and Lee wants to grasp that hand, 'cause sure as hell the one who's touching him, who's anchoring at him and crying like that cannot be the same who he had fought against, there's something horribly wrong he can't understand but his body screams for him to react at it.

But he can't move, and Gaara's eyes are opened now, two points of ice in a lake of blood, and sand is a steel chord around his throat, tightening without mercy.

----

When he comes back there are people, around. His throat aches, and he feels bandages around it.

"Oi, thick-brows!" The loud voice, just near his ear makes him startle, waking him completely. He turns to the blonde smiling boy just near the bed.

"…N…aruto-kun…" Lee croaks, every sound like a limestone rasping inside his throat.

"Man, you almost got killed!" shouts Naruto, uncaring of the outraged looks from the nuns.

"It was that sandfreak… Lucky for you me and Shikamaru were the room near and we, ok, him, heard something. We come here and kicked his ass!"

"Actually, it was him who suddenly decided he wasn't interested no more to fight and left. Maybe he got the sense to realize at least the trouble he and his people would have gotten into…" comes the bored voice of Shikamaru from the other side of the bed.

While Naruto starts bickering about how that guy had obviously been scared by them, Lee tries to recollect the moments before.

"He… was choking me?"

"Mh?" Naruto looks at him. "No. I mean, yes, they said he had almost choked you to death, but when we got here he was just standing near the bed. He had his hand over his face, I swear, for a moment I thought he was crying… but he turned to us and his face, like, he was completely freaked out! And then the sand moved, and we saw it was all around you… "

Naruto keeps on talking, and Lee tunes him off. Gaara hasn't killed him. He is sure it was not because he has been interrupted by his friends. He's got no reason to stop before he was dead. Why he hasn't?

Lee stares at the wall, remembering that sound. He kows that cry will haunt him for the rest of his life.

End

Thanx for reading. So... review?