Lee
Gaara hadn’t been expecting a letter from Lee. In the time after the whole incident at the Chunin exams, he’s been having a lot responsibilities on his plate and as such, hasn’t much time for anyone…well, anyone except for the spy he sent out to keep an eye on any mention of Lee being on an omega auction. So far, there’s been no word of Lee being eligible to be sold at an auction, which is enough to give the alpha all the peace of mind he needs on the issue.
This is why receiving a letter from him has him off guard. Though this being said, he does read it, wondering what all Lee could’ve written him:
Gaara, how have you been doing? I hope you are fine after everything that happened. Before you ask, no, I’m not mad at you. I’ve told you before that I don’t hold grudges and I don’t hold any against you now. You were just as much a victim of Orochimaru’s deceit as anyone else in my eyes at least.
It is so painfully like Lee to not blame him for any of what happened, but he’s somehow relieved to know he’s not mad at him despite everything that’s happened.
We both lost members of families—I lost everyone in my clan except for my mom and you lost your dad, that had to be a lot to take in. Or maybe it wasn’t. I know it wasn’t when I lost my clan.
Yeah, he doesn’t feel bad about that. From what he could figure out about them, they were not good people and if Lee could not be all too bothered by their loss then he supposes they aren’t all that different. (He wasn’t sad about losing his dad; for him, it was more of a ‘whatever’ thing with all his most intense emotions going to being deceived by Orochimaru and those pesky feelings he had when he got home after the attack.)
Either way, I’m writing you this because I don’t know if I will ever see you again in person or not. If I don’t get to see you again, then I want you to know that I’m sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye to you in the way I wanted to and despite everyone being against it, I cheered for you when you fought against Sasuke.
Again, it’s Lee: he would be the type to cheer for him. He has a feeling it’s just what he does whenever someone does the bare minimum in being a decent person to him.
He may not be the best human being around…nor is he the kindest or most considerate…or the safest to be by…but he supposes he was better to him than the one Konoha alpha was, which he assumes was good enough to endear Lee to himself.
He's not complaining, of course. He finds it to be yet another Lee trait he believes to be something that’s simply a core part of his truest, innermost nature somehow.
I know it probably won’t mean much, but I hope it does because no matter what, my memories of you will always be positive. Even though we’ll never see each other again, all I want is to let you know I wish you nothing but the best in life. Find the happiness you deserve, that’s all that matters to me.
To this, something in Gaara freezes as his breath hitches in the subtlest manner possible, his eyes glued the paper in front of him when he reads this.
He can envision Lee saying this exact sentence to him, with all the sincerity in the world that he would actually wish the best for someone like himself—someone who has killed without remorse in the past, someone who is feared and seen as an abomination by far too many…
Lee, wishing him nothing but the best in life, when he should be hating him, cursing his name, and blaming him for everything, is enough to render him frozen as he keeps on reading the letter, his heartbeat increasing in speed with every word read from here on out.
Though you will never be in my life again and you will find someone else to be your mate in due time, I want you to know that if I could ever choose to be mated to someone, it would be to you. I know it won’t ever happen, but it’s nice for me to think of at times when I’m alone and have to deal with the reality of my clan’s traditions. I will miss you and I will always think highly of you, I can only hope you do the same when you do find a good mate for yourself. Have a wonderful life, Gaara. It’s the only thing I could ever ask of you.
…To distract himself from the heavy feeling in his chest, he focuses instead on Lee’s wording.
If he didn’t know any better, this is nothing more than a letter someone writes when they’re about to say goodbye to a person without actually saying goodbye. It’s subtle, though he believes there are deeper implications here.
He keeps talking about never seeing him again without any evidence of such a thing happening—had he been paying closer attention to his village’s politics, he would know Tsunade gets along just fine with himself and his family; so much so to where they’re talking about doing trade in the future—which has him wondering if Lee is about to be auctioned off.
Though if he was, his spy would’ve said something about it. If not told him to his face, there would’ve been a written report on the subject.
If Lee is not on the auction scene, then was he sold off to an alpha or beta without being put up for auction?
Maybe he should have his spy change his modus operandi and focus more on the rumors of a poor omega from a conservative clan being sold to someone without being put on the auction circuit. Such events do elicit much chatter in the auctioning scene because the auctioneers cannot live with the reality of having lost a profit on a potentially valuable omega.
Yes, he’ll have his spy change course then and look into such a possibility.
He may not be courting or mated to such an omega, yet he does feel a strong desire driven by a stronger sense of obligation to keep Lee safe no matter what.
When Lee did come home to his mother, he had expected anger, punishments, to walk on eggshells the entire time he’s with her. What he never expected was for his mother to not look in his eyes and to neglect him entirely during his time with her.
She doesn’t cook for him, she doesn’t clean anything of his, she doesn’t look him in the eyes, nor does she ever speak to him. Whenever he enters the home, she leaves it and is gone for all hours of the night until he has to leave to work on a mission with Guy sensei and his team.
It's a much smoother experience with her than he had thought—all in a much nicer home than he grew up in on top of it all—and he finds himself wishing she had been like this to him instead of what she was when he was growing up.
Being neglected by her is nowhere near as bad as what he had gone through growing up with her. There’s no physical violence, no constant criticisms or verbal abuse thrown his way, and certainly no sexist rules being enforced on him. No, it’s as though she’s acting like he doesn’t exist and he can live with this far easier than what he can anything else.
His teammates, sensei, and friends are pleased to hear things are going so well, though his sensei is a bit suspicious about it.
“Are you positive there’s nothing fishy going on there?”
“No, sensei! I promise there isn’t—if there was, I would have known right away. Besides, I’m not home enough to deal with her now that we’re doing missions again. If there was something fishy going on, I probably missed it by now anyway.”
Guy sensei tells him to be vigilant and he is, though Neji does have to ask when he’s alone with him, “Lee, are you arranged to be mated to someone else?”
“No, not that I know of.”
“Are you sure about that? Because when I asked your mom to court you, she rejected my offer—something we know she wouldn’t do unless if she found someone better for you by her standards.”
“If she did, I would’ve been mated off two days after I got sent back to her. There’s no way she did; she probably said that because she’s looking for someone else and failing at finding someone.”
“Then why reject me after all her praises?”
“Probably because you rejected me after your fight with Naruto. I did tell her about that and she wasn’t happy about it. She had to have turned you down as a way to get back at me for not mating you when she wanted me to—at least, that’s why I think she did it anyway.”
Which would not have been uncharacteristic for her to do since she had done things in the past to spite him whenever she felt he wronged her or the clan somehow.
“Okay, fine, I get it, but…” Neji sighed and placed a hand on his shoulder, “promise me you’ll be careful around her and tell me right away if anything strange is going on.”
“Ah, Neji, there’s no need to worry that much,” he stopped then and said rather carefully, “but if it helps you feel better about all this, then I promise you I will be careful around her and tell you right away if anything strange is going on.”
It was enough to calm Neji down then, though he would ask him this every time they spoke about his life at home and honestly, he had nothing of note to really say.
No, it wasn’t until he went back home to his empty house after a particularly long and hard mission that he felt something was off.
He ventured further into his home, turning on the lights all the way, and eventually found his mother’s corpse on the floor, blood flowing from where she had been stabbed right through the heart.
He was about to go get help when he was instead met with the strong scents of four alphas surrounding him in his home. He was about to put up a fight when he was shot in the neck with a dart that had his vision going black within mere minutes of it hitting him, his last thoughts being of his teammates, his friends, his sensei...Gaara, the one he'd definitely never see again at this rate...
Sasuke was in a state of shock and blood thirsty rage that Kakashi sensei and Sakura couldn’t calm him down from.
“Sasuke, breathe and do your best to calm your nerves. Approaching this from a position of blind rage won’t help anyone, let alone Naruto.” Kakashi had said.
“He’s right; you have to be calm and rational right now for Naruto’s sake. If you want to find him, you can’t just go rushing after them without a plan.” Sakura chided him, though it did nothing to make him take pause.
It was Iruka sensei (naturally, he had come with Kakashi sensei when he heard this involved Naruto) who got him to calm down with his no-nonsense yet devastated, “You have to be strong for Naruto, Sasuke, and that doesn’t always mean playing the hero right away. Take your time to be calm and strategize a way to save him; then you can be the hero he will forever admire.” he said to him with all the resolve in his person, “We will find Naruto and bring him home, I promise you we will—but you have to approach this with a calm, level head. Can you do this for Naruto?”
He agreed with a nod, not trusting his voice to not sound terrifying.
Their village had been invaded once more, but this time, it was from four of Orochimaru’s goons—the Sound Four they called themselves—who had come with the intention of trying to force Sasuke to leave with them back to their village. When Sasuke refused, they had revealed they had kidnapped Naruto, with Sakon and Udon taunting him by trying to lay their dirty hands on his Naruto.
“You know, you could make this easy for yourself and the pretty omega you’re dating.” Sakon sneered while holding him too close, “If you come with us, then we promise Lord Orochimaru will go easy on him…though I wouldn’t say he’d be too easy on someone as pretty this thing.”
Naturally, this made something primal in him snap and before he knew it, he was drawing too much attention to them all, leading the group to retreat while taking Naruto with them.
Now the news had spread on how the group had killed other shinobi on their way in and out of the village, with their massacre ultimately ending when they reached the home of Rock Lee and his mother, her body on the floor and the scent of shock in the air leading the ANBU and ROOT ninjas to assume this had been a deliberate attack to steal the village’s omegas.
For what reason, they were not certain yet, but Sasuke didn’t care about reasoning, nor did he care to wait around and find out.
What he cared most about now was getting Naruto back no matter what, questions and oppositions be damned!
Like hell will he allow the snake creep to steal his Naruto from him! No one—absolutely no one—will ever mate Naruto but Sasuke Uchiha himself!
Gaara hadn’t heard of the attack on the village when it happened, but he had learned something from his spy regarding the rumors being spread by the auctioneers in Konoha.
Apparently, there’s a rumor circulating of Lee’s mother having sold him off to someone from Orochimaru’s village only to want to get Lee on the auction circuit before the time to turn him over to the man was up. The rumor states that she wanted to get him on the auction circuit because the man hadn’t paid her on the time they agreed upon and as such, she was willing to resort to dirty measures to get her money while getting rid of the son she despised so.
However, no auctioneer wants an angry Orochimaru breathing down their necks, neither does any potential buyer for that matter, so her attempts were all in vain.
Learning she was going to give Lee away to someone so horrendous only made Gaara see red.
Lee never deserved someone so horrible to be his mother. The omega was too kind, too good for someone like her to be in his life!
He wrote up a letter and had it sent to Lady Tsunade, hoping she’d intervene.
A few days later, he had learned that she had gotten to his letter a day too late.
The village had been invaded by Orochimaru’s men; they had stolen both Naruto and Lee, killing his mother in the process.
She asks him for his help since she has a feeling whoever Lee was meant to be given to was not anyone to take lightly.
Naturally, he quickly responded with his consent to carry out the mission to save Lee and Naruto…mainly to get even with Orochimaru for the deceit he pulled on him…definitely nothing to do with saving the omega who’s been on his mind ever since he left Konoha.
Guy sensei is still reeling from the loss.
Lee—his sweet student who had been like a son to him—had been taken away from his home, most certainly alive if the new information Lady Tsunade obtained from Gaara meant anything.
The idea of poor, sweet Lee being forced to mate someone he’s never met or seen before has him horrified, heartbroken, and enraged to the point where he believes it is for the best he is not going along on this one. He knew he would snap and kill them in a manner unbecoming of a Jounin from his village, something he’d rather not live with if he doesn’t have to.
Normally, protocol would demand that only Jounins take on such a mission, but many of the Jounin were busy with other missions—Kakashi couldn’t get out of his, neither could Guy, Asuma, or Kurenai thanks to how much work had gotten backed up during the reconstruction of the village. As she had said, “your missions are just as important and cannot be put off for a day longer”. He could tell it killed Kakashi to not be able to save Naruto, but he knew it had to be done: kami knows how blood thirsty he has to be…
Due to this rather unique situation, Shikamaru was instead chosen to lead this rescue mission thanks to his genius intellect and strategic prowess. His team consisted of Sasuke, Neji, Chouji, and Kiba; people he had deemed to be the best for the job.
Of course, Tenten and Ino had wanted to join as well, but thanks to Sakura reminding her girlfriend, “you’re an omega; whatever they did to knock out Naruto and Lee is serious stuff you shouldn’t be getting involved in—it’d be better for your friends if you stayed here for now where it’s safe” Ino backed down from the idea, which made all the Jounin release a sigh of relief to the news.
Though what made this easier for Guy to not get too worked up about was the fact Gaara and his siblings are going to be involved in this mission as well. From what he had seen and heard of their abilities, they were formidable foes to not mess with which could only mean they’d be able to save the omegas without any real issues on their end.
It also helps to know Gaara had agreed right away and shared information that helped shed some light on a possible motive as to why Lee had been taken away all while confirming the location they were heading to with the omegas. This made him really see the young alpha in a much better light than he ever did, allowing him to understand why Lee had been drawn to him.
He may not ever get the chance to thank him in person, but should he ever manage to do so, he will be certain to make his gratitude loud and clear to him; if there’s anyone who deserves his respect, it’s the redhead alpha who cared enough about Lee to want to do anything to save him.