Categories > Anime/Manga > Naruto > If Only

Nightmares

by IWCT 0 reviews

It's the sound of Lee's nightmares. It doesn't matter that it saved him once.

Category: Naruto - Rating: PG - Genres: Horror - Characters: Rock Lee - Warnings: [!!] - Published: 2008-01-01 - Updated: 2008-01-01 - 469 words

0Unrated
Author's notes: Been reading too much Lee/Gaara. Most Lee/Gaara stories are cute and funny, but I can't see them happening in cannon. This drabble is an actual drabble! One quick scene that will NEVER be anything more. I had the image in my head. It is no longer there. Bam. Not my best work. But I'm fond of the first sentence.

Disclaimer: Grabbed Lee, and I'm not giving Fuzzy-Brows back! Take that. Should have grabbed Kimimaro at the same time. Sadly, I did not have the presence of mind. Eh. They all belong to Kishimoto anyway. Dun sue me.

...

It’s the sound of nightmares. A subtle swish of grit and wind.

Lee liked to think that he was a happy-go-lucky guy without any fears. But even years later, even forever, even knowing what he knows now, even seeing the person behind the demon, none of that will stop his nightmares. Pain, blood, and crunching bones. The slide and crush of something so innocent as sand. Crush and death. The tiny granules working hard to smother him. He’d admire it, except it was his body that was being tortured by these hard working grains.

It’s the sound that echoes from his nightmares. It covers him, sliding, drowning him in pain. It signals death of dreams, of the future. Of joy, of hope. And not even Gai can save him in his dreams. In fact, he often gets to watch as the sand crushes Gai until the pulpy organs ooze from the cage of shattered bones. And the dark eyes that are so incredibly clear just gaze at him blankly, and they don’t care.

And the sand slithers and covers him. And it hurts. Hurts more than rejection. More than Neji’s taunts and genius. More than Tenten when she’s angry and using that really spiky thing she’s so fond of. More than Gai’s fists during practice (and it’s definitely not a good kind of hurt like practice is).

These are Lee’s nightmares. It’s the sound of his nightmares. So when he hears it again, he nearly screams, and thinks that Kimimaro must have hit him rather than gut him as he thought was going to happen. Except, except, there’s no pain this time. And the sand covers him, and drags him away to safety, and he looks up and sees Gaara. And he’s proud that he keeps himself from freaking out.

The next time he has a nightmare, the soft sound of sand moving fills his head, and the pain is there. Only this time the sand is taking him to Hell. When he wakes up he sighs. No amount of knowledge is ever, ever going to make the horror of that little sound go away.
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