GAARA

Gaara didn’t know what he was doing in Konoha and he didn’t care. He’d stopped caring a long time ago. The monster under his skin squirmed impatiently and Gaara bit back the growl that tried to vibrate out of his throat. Temari gently nudged his elbow and he turned the direction she’d urged him and kept walking. 

A spike of pain lanced through his head as the monster tried to scratch free of the mental chains Gaara had to constantly make and maintain. He winced and paused in his walking to place a cold hand to his temple. He was always cold. Even in the desert a chill lurked under his skin and around his bones. 

Gritting his teeth, and tightening the mental restraints, he continued walking. Only switching his direction when Temari tapped him to do so. She never touched him for longer than necessary and Gaara almost wished she would. Her hands, unlike his, were warm. But the feel of anyone against him was also unbearable: the constant reminder of how cold he was all the time, the threat that Gaara posed to all, and the awareness that such warm life and contact would never truly be his. He just couldn’t. 

He’d killed many for getting too close. At first, it was the monster, not him. But over the years of constant exhaustion and fear the line between them had blurred until they were what they were today. A mix of power and intention. A tired wariness that warred with manic killing frenzies. 

He didn’t know what was inside him except that it made his father look at him with gleaming eyes that always fell just short of fear. Made his own eyes grow dark and cold and lifeless as the thing inside him sucked it all away and used it to make Gaara’s head ache and pull, his stomach to tighten

causing him to vomit up most of what he ate, and his muscles to hurt with every movement. The only release from his suffering was relinquishing that control. To become the monster as well. 

Until he was the monster always.

 The scent of blood followed him in his sand and he could feel the weight of every drop whenever he bid the sand to attack or restrain. To tear and render and maul. The weight felt like a cloak around his shoulders that both protected him from his own disgust and held him down to the earth so he could never escape. 

He watched impassively as they walked around the edges of Konoha. His father never told him the plan, he’d stopped doing that from nearly the beginning. Gaara couldn’t have remembered them anyway. He only lived in the moment. His memory tended to fade away like water dried from sand. Sometimes he even forgot his siblings’ names. He’d long forgotten his father’s. 

Konoha was a lot like Suna. The people shied away from them and kept their tongues. There was the same itch to tear it all down, everyone to pieces. He couldn’t find Suna in everything though. Instead of dirt and clay buildings that would cake and shift with the sun there was gleaming metal and wood. Instead of circular reinforced windows set at angles to the wind, there were tall buildings made nearly entirely of glass. The roads were less cracked from strain but were also far less organized. The place smelled of electric smoke and very distantly of tree sap. 

He couldn’t find it in himself to take interest. He catalogued the differences and stored them away in the immediately relevant information that he could hold on to for short amounts of time. Kankuro started to recite the different clans present in the city and Gaara tried to listen and remember. The names were lost to him minutes after Kankuro had finished. No matter, Kankuro would recite them every hour or so to keep Gaara aware, and he doubted that he’d need to know anyway. Termari and Kankuro took care of everything besides the wanton destruction. For that, they would point him in the right direction and he’d slip his monster skin on and unleash. 

It was cathartic actually. Letting the beast destroy. All the energy that sapped his strength and vibrated painfully inside was released and the terrible pressure would, for a little while, be abated. He could fall into a trance that wasn’t quite sleep but was restful in its own way. 

He snarled when Temari stepped too close to him and she quickly retreated a pace. Kankuro began reciting the names once again, had it already been an hour? Gaara huffed and crossed his arms and tried to forget that he’d forgotten something. It wasn’t hard. 

“--ara. Gaara.” He shook his head and blinked heavily at the cement they were standing on. They’d stopped moving. When? “Gaara?” 

He turned to Temari and stared. 

“We’re here,” she said. “This is where we start.” 

He glanced at his surroundings and found nothing of interest. “Where?” 

Kankuro pointed, moving forward just enough to get into his peripheral vision. It was a large building, windows all over and security cameras tacked to random spots. There was a high stone wall that surrounded the building. Other smaller but still sparkling metal and glass buildings were scattered around inside the wall. 

His eyes paused on some bright paint that had been sprayed on the outside of the containing wall near the gate. He squinted and tried to remember the letters he’d been taught when he was a child. He rarely needed them. 

It said something about hokage? It was written in black paint and surrounded by swirls and leaves painted in pink, orange, blue, and green. It had clearly been scoured with a brush and probably soap to remove it, but it remained barely tarnished for the effort. 

“Now?” he asked. The monster keened and very nearly blocked out Temari’s response. 

“Tomorrow.” 

Gaara nodded and let his eyes relax and unfocus. Temari would lead him as always. At that moment she stiffened and Gaara’s senses immediately rushed back to him. Kankuro stepped in front of Gaara as if he needed protection. Gaara followed Temari’s glare to find a boy watching them from around the corner. His fur-lined hood was up and stuffed in the front of the sweat shirt was a small white blob. It shifted and barked. A dog then.

“What is it, Akamaru?” the kid muttered. Gaara figured he was a little older than himself. The dog barked again and small pupiled eyes flicked back over to them. The kid pushed his hood back and stepped out onto the sidewalk leaving his quazi cover behind. “Who are you?” he asked. 

Kankuro scoffed, “Who are you? And do you really have a death wish?” 

“Name’s Kiba, and you’re not from around here, are you?” 

Temari cocked a hip and replied, “What’s it matter? Be a good boy and put your tail between your legs to run home.” 

Kiba smirked and didn’t make a move to retreat. His body was held like a fighter’s though and Gaara’s interest rose, but not as high as the sudden desire to wrap Kiba up in soft sand and slowly squeeze until those eyes popped and his ribs cracked piece by piece. The sound would be soft and sharp at the same time and he could watch as those lips turned blue and blood bubbled over them to drip drip drip into the sand. More blood for the sand, more power to the monster. 

He swallowed over and over again to try and remind himself of his physical body. And he eventually zoned back into a conversation that he’d clearly missed the majority of. 

“Konoha isn’t an easy target,” Kiba said flatly.

“We’re not planning anything, for the last time! Now get, before we make you!” Kankuro shouted. 

Kiba scoffed but took a couple careful steps closer to the building once again. “Not planning anything my ass. I knew the moment you stepped foot inside the borders that you didn’t belong here. I’ve seen you walking through the streets, heard you speaking of the clans here. We don’t get tourists, and by the sound of your accent you’re from the Sand. So don’t kid me and pretend like you’re here for anything but trouble!” 

“You couldn’t possibly know that,” Temari dismissed, but Gaara, though perhaps he’d forgotten something important, thought all the information was correct. “We caught you lurking like some second rate non-chakra security guard.” 

Kiba shrugged and grinned, “You saw me when I was ready for you to see me.” 

Kankuro took a threatening step forward and Kiba skipped two back. “Get lost!” 

Kiba held up his hands in mock surrender and replied, “Alright, alright, kitty cat, I’m gone. We’ll be seeing you around though.” He sidestepped out of view and Kankuro rushed after him. Gaara and Temari followed a little less quickly only to find Kankuro looking at a dead end in bafflement. 

“Did he scale the wall?” Temari asked. 

Kankuro shook his head and it didn’t seem like it was an answer. “Yes. No. I don’t know. He was here, I saw him, but then he just disappeared.” 

Temari hummed and didn’t seem interested. “What do you think he meant by ‘we’?” 

“He had a dog,” Kankuro pointed out. “He talked to it and everything.” 

“Inuzuka, right? They’re non-affiliated from the clans proper, but they have dog contracts.” 

Gaara shifted uncomfortably as the sand gourd on his back rattled and grew heavier. 

“It must have been the dog. Right?” Temari asked. 

Kankuro nodded but Gaara didn’t think either of them were sure. Maybe they were. He didn’t trust his own reading of emotions on other people. 

The sand hissed and stirred behind him, some of it leaking out to curl under his clothes and to tighten in thick strands around his chest. They squeezed until he could barely breathe and Gaara still didn’t react. 

“Let’s get back to where Baki told us to stay,” Temari said. She nudged Gaara and he moved with her. The sand crept closer to his legs and squeezed painfully but he could honestly barely feel it through the haze of his oxygen depleted head. Just like always, just before he would have passed out, the sand retreated. He wasn’t sure if it was because the sand couldn’t make itself physically hurt him or if he was forcing it to stop. Either way he breathed deep with relief and kept walking. 

The next day Temari cautiously came to his room and began reminding him of the plan. She repeated the important parts several times over. Kankuro recited the list and Gaara managed to hold on to bits and pieces. Like the targeted building, the name of the Hyuga clan, and something he almost understood about eyes. 

He lost a lot of time between the room and when they left, but he blinked into awareness when they were all moving as a unit, far from the building they’d left. Or at least he thought it was far. 

The monster, having been strangely calm for the remainder of yesterday, suddenly pushed on his skull harder than ever and Gaara cried out and hunched over. His hands shook as they desperately tried to press the chill of their fingers into his skin to sooth. He couldn’t feel them over the pain. 

He growled low in his throat so he could hopefully feel it in his chest but the sand was tightening around his rib cage again. The chains rattled and Gaara had never felt this. Not like this. Not this… 

The monster was scared. He was feeling fear from the hole inside him that had previously only spat out hatred. 

The pain dissipated only to be taken over by a distant numb feeling. Gaara raised a hand and looked at it and could not for the life of him feel it. Was that his hand? Was he seeing things again or was this real? The sand pressed itself to his skin and flowed outward, soft and thin, as his armor activated around him. 

Gaara’s eyelids drooped as exhaustion began to weigh his shoulders down. Without the hatred being poured into him the exhaustion was suddenly worse. The fear was making him anxious and jittery, but each shiver of his body made him feel weaker and weaker. 

His mental chains slackened dangerously as his eyes started to film over with what he recognized as his own twisted form of sleep. 

“Gaara!” 

A different voice as well, “Gaara, please!” 

Fear. Fear in those voices that paled in comparison to the presence of it in his own mind. 

“--ara! Gaara, snap--” 

Inconsequential. The voices disappeared, covered by the hum of power that made his ears ache. And something else… laughter? No. It was an unhinged gasping mockery of laughter that Gaara had not heard for a long time. Not since his last crystal clear memory of his uncle and the way he’d-- 

Better not think of that. 

“Gaara’s his name, huh?” 

Gaara’s eyes snapped open, alert as the monster recoiled suddenly behind the chains instead of pulling at them. The rapid change made his knees weak but he steadied himself as adrenaline pumped and his heart rate rocketed. What just happened? 

It felt like just a moment, mere seconds to gather his wits together. When he looked up however, both his siblings were deep in combat. Their clothes ripped in places and bleeding from superficial and deep wounds alike. They were moving slowly. They were tired. 

“You with me now?” 

Gaara blinked and looked at the kid that was just a few feet in front of him. Blond and blue eyes. Eyes that held… concern? 

“Who are you?” Gaara grated out. His throat hurt and he was even hoarser than normal. Had he been screaming again? 

“Naruto Uzumaki, and I think we’ve got some things in common.” 

Gaara shivered at the poisonous surge of loathing that washed over his insides. And that terror that only grew with every breath he drew.

“Why do I fear you?” 

Naruto’s face split into a grin that was so genuine and wide that Gaara almost didn’t recognize the expression at all. “Kurama says his little bro is in your head.” 

Temari hit the ground at Gaara’s feet but flashed back up and away again. Gaara forgot about her after she was out of his sight. Unfortunately, he’d also forgotten what Naruto had said. “What?” 

Naruto stepped closer and his eyebrows crumpled together as he looked very closely at Gaara. He wasn’t used to being looked at like that. Well, maybe his father, but no. Naruto didn’t have that plotting look. Or the disappointment. 

“Are you okay?” Naruto asked, then shook his head. “That was a dumb question, of course you’re not. I can help you though.” 

“Gaara!” 

Gaara turned to his sister and his brother. They were beaten and furious. Beside them stood four people. A brunet with strange eyes, and eyes were important for some reason right now, weren’t they? 

A kid with a white dog that seemed familiar. A girl with buns and another girl with pink hair. None of them tried to attack him. Strange. 

“Why are you here?” Naruto asked, pulling the attention back to him. 

For some reason Gaara wanted to answer. “I… don’t remember. Eyes. Eyes are important.” 

The chains rattled and his own eyes widened at the feeling of rage that was welling up. Rage that’s source was not hatred or even fear, but something far deeper. But what was it? An emotion he’d no experience of. It burned hot and only grew hotter. He gasped and his hands came to his temples and then pressed the palms to his eyes. It didn’t help. 

His eyes squeezed shut and he panted and...oh, he was screaming, wasn’t he? He felt blood drip down his throat and he wanted to clamp his teeth together to stem the sound coming out of him. He almost did it too, but then in the fraction of a second of inattention the monster’s chains snapped. All of them at once. And Gaara was forced backwards into his own head where chains wrapped themselves around him instead. He studied them and was reasonably sure this had never happened before. He probably would have remembered at least some of it. 

He could see outside his body but like it was a distant vision, like a photo that had been left out in the sand so the top few layers had been rubbed raw. There was a vague feeling of blood on his hands even though his hands were wrapped in chains. He pulled against them weakly and felt no give whatsoever. How did the monster pull so hard on them all day? 

There was a growl that didn’t come from him. He squinted at the images of a fight but the more he concentrated the blurrier it got. That was fine. He let his eyes go unfocused and he could make out the bigger picture. He was fighting Naruto. Or rather the monster was fighting Naruto. 

Because it was the monster this time, independent of him entirely. He was missing out on the carnage. Gaara was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to feel like he was missing out. Temari probably wouldn’t have. Kankuro didn’t even like blood, complained often enough about it getting on his puppets that even Gaara remembered it. 

More blood joined the rest on his hands and splashed up nearly to his elbows. The hands he saw weren’t his own though, they were bigger and stronger and made of sand. Not like the armor was made of sand, but like the images of the monster he glimpsed in his occasional sleep. 

That was probably bad. 

The fight turned to blurs. There was a lot of green that moved too fast to keep up with. And two small blurs of blue that must have been Naruto’s eyes. Then the blue turned red and suddenly everything changed. The emotion he couldn’t identify earlier crushed him to the ground, the chains making loud abrasive clanking noises as he fell. They loosened around his body and Gaara laid for a moment wondering if it was worth taking advantage of that. Here, wherever he was, was almost peaceful. Except for the echoey noises of the fight there was just nothing. Just him and chains. 

And the hot hot burn of anger and… 

Self righteousness? 

Was that it? Was the monster mad because it thought it was in the right? Could a monster even be in the right? Maybe some could, but not this one and not now. This monster had done nothing good ever. At least not to him. 

Gaara rolled clumsily to the side and left the chains behind. The links themselves were starting to crumble and fade. He suspected that the monster had forgotten about him. He’d never forgotten the monster, the one thing he wished he could forget. 

Gaara closed his eyes and reached mentally for a foothold to climb back up to where he should be. In his body. The sounds of the fight were distracting and getting increasingly loud. 

“--damn it! Ino!” 

“It’s not working, his mind isn’t anywhere I can get a hold of it!” 

He heard the buzz of small wings and were those beetles? They didn’t have many flying insects in the desert. Just scorpions and tarantulas and other crawling things that pinched and stung and bit. Not that Gaara had ever felt that. The sand had always crushed anything that came too close. 

“Shikamaru!” 

“It’s too strong! We need to keep it pinned down.”

“Lee can keep it inside the perimeter.” 

“Sakura’s down!” 

“Tenten get me the right ink!” 

“Akamaru!” 

Smugness was starting to lessen the righteousness and it made it easier to pull harder at those voices. He could hear them and he knew they were there. If he could just get to them. 

“Shukaku! Listen to me! You great big--” 

Shukaku? The name settled into Gaara’s chest like a jutsu. It hummed with his chakra and crackled along his spine. 

“Kiba, get me closer.” 

“Tenten get over here!” 

“Neji, back up and let Lee take point.” 

“Kiba, Ino, get over here so I can heal your dumb asses!” 

Gaara opened his eyes and the fight wasn’t blurry anymore. Naruto was standing right in front of him and staring. His face was covered in blood as well as his chest. His clothes were in tatters and there was steam rolling off his skin like a mirage. 

There was blood on Gaara’s hands, just like he knew there would be. Figures moved around him too fast for his still settling mind to bother with. “Shukaku,” Gaara growled out. The smugness dampened in response. 

“Shukaku is the thing inside you, Gaara. You are separate!” Naruto exclaimed. Gaara belatedly realized there was a brush in Naruto’s hands and spilled ink mixed with the blood. The resulting color was ugly. 

Gaara reached for chains and Shukaku growled and lashed out at Naruto with Gaara’s body. Naruto ducked under the swipe and didn’t retreat. 

“Gaara! They say they can force the monster out!” Temari’s voice. 

“Not out,” Naruto disagreed. 

“But separated,” the girl with buns said as she ran passed. 

Gaara stumbled as the familiar hatred mixed with the anger and fear and formed a hole deeper than ever. It sucked at Gaara, pulling him back to that place with the chains and the blurry visions. No. Gaara didn’t want to go back there. Didn’t want to feel blood on his skin all the time and not know what was happening. He’d rather be the one killing things. How could he appreciate the blood if he wasn’t the one drawing it? He looked at the blood on his hands, those were his hands, he was quite sure of it. 

A tan equally bloody hand grasped his and squeezed hard enough to make the sand armor crack “Gaara.” 

He looked up at… what was his name? Naruto, it was Naruto. The monster, Shukaku, growled at the name. Gaara found it easier to tighten the chains, strengthen the links, and slam them firmly down when looking at Naruto. He couldn’t feel the warmth of Naruto’s skin through the armor but he could imagine it. He looked like a warm person. Everything about him was open and earnest. 

“That’s it, Gaara!” Naruto smiled and Gaara’s mouth almost mimicked him before giving up. Shukaku roared and thrashed and Gaara frowned. The sand pulled at him, the armor compressed and pushed and squeezed and Naruto’s hand was no longer a welcoming pressure, but a sensation lost to everything else. 

Naruto broke eye contact and started writing something with the ink and brush and Gaara felt so suddenly unmoored, his thoughts were scattered as the hole pulled and the sand pushed. He’d lost something important and already it was slipping away. Eyes. Eyes were important, right? 

“We’re almost there, Gaara!” But Gaara was already falling back to the empty white space. He couldn’t breathe and instead of his vision fading to black it lightened to impossible blank white. “Tenten, close that array and--”

“His chakra is--” 

“Lee, get everyone out!” 

Gaara stood in the white space and stared at the thing that sat there with him. It was either large and far away or relatively small. It shifted with the sound of grating sand. Was that Shukaku? 

Agony raced up his spine and he was pulled from the white and back to his body. He was screaming. Sand encased his body, thickened with sharp edges that smelled of blood and victory. It was beautiful. The perfect killing machine and it would look so much better with a little more blood. 

Gaara struck forward at the closest chakra signature, the one that made the monster cringe and growl. Ribs cracked and flesh parted on either side of the sand as his arm went through a torso to come out the other side. The stench of blood was incredibly strong and it soaked into the sand so greedily. Gaara smiled and laughed and it felt so much better than screaming. 

He pulled his arm back out of the hole and looked at his prey. Blue eyes met his and Gaara froze. Eyes were important, right? 

Fingers grasped at Gaara’s chest and blood was coughed onto his chest where the sand ate it up. Blue eyes never left his. There were other voices around him, but they were as distant as they always seemed to be. They were tinged with emotions that he was familiar with hearing. Despair, grief, rage. He would have smiled if blue eyes… Naruto, if Naruto wasn’t desperately holding onto him. 

In between gasps for breath Naruto said, “I just need one more thing, Gaara, then it’ll be done. I need a good anchor. Somewhere to pull it all together, you know?” Naruto slipped further down and Gaara automatically reached to catch him and pull him back to his feet. Naruto grimaced and Gaara looked away from his eyes for only a moment to admire the red of the blood on his teeth. 

“Where should I put it, Gaara?” Naruto asked. Blue eyes didn’t look so blue anymore. They were changing, sort of like the sun rising over the desert. His pupils elongated and became slits. Gaara found himself staring at red eyes instead. 

“Put what?” Gaara asked. 

“The tether between you and Shukaku. It’ll hold you together and apart. The seals we’ve put on you, in your sand, it’ll help. I promise.” 

Gaara hummed and ignored the howls of Shukaku. He slowly lifted a hand, carefully supporting Naruto with the other still, and tapped the kanji on his forehead. “Here.” 

Naruto smiled but it was small. The blond’s arm shook as he raised a brush and Gaara helped steady it. He could feel the ink as it sunk into the sand and then hit his skin. It tingled. Then it burned through him. 

His muscles spasmed and he choked on blood and saliva and pain. The arm in his hand, the one he was helping steady, was crushed instantaneously as his fingers came together in a fist. Shukaku slammed around and the chains were little more than inconveniences. 

He smelled fresh blood and heard screaming that wasn’t his own. 

Then it went blissfully black and Gaara didn’t fight it. 

Waking up was largely a foreign concept to him. It had happened before, but never so wholly. He blinked his eyes open and felt like his head was in a cloud. Everything was buzzing with wakefulness. He felt rested.

“Gaara?” 

He looked over to find Temari sitting at his bedside. “What happened?” he asked. 

She gestured to his other side and he turned his head slowly to look. In another bed, a beaten up piece of furniture that looked like it would fall apart at any moment, was a blond kid. Scar marks on his cheeks. 

“That’s Naruto,” Temari said. 

There was blood caking the sheets Naruto was lying on. There was blood leading away from the bed in wide drag marks. One arm was bandaged haphazardly but heavily and his shirt and jacket were cut off and trapped underneath him. 

“Naruto,” Gaara repeated. He remembered Naruto. “What happened to him?” 

“You did.” 

“What?” Gaara found it strange how easy it was to hear her. He’d never realized how constant the background noise had been. Had been? Where was it now? 

“They put some seals on you, they said it would separate the two of you. Once they got that done, Tenten came and added some more, temporary this time. Said it’ll suppress Shukaku’s presence for a while so you can get your bearings.” Ah, okay. It was… nice? It was sort of lonely, really. So quiet. 

“And Naruto?” 

He looked back at her to find her biting her lip and looking uncertain. It was a strange look on her. He was tired of strange. “Tell me.” 

“You killed him. I swear you killed him, like twice. But he’s still here, and it has something to do with the fact that he has something inside him just like you.” She paused and looked over at Naruto’s bed. “There was so much blood though, and the others… they kind of lost it. That Sakura girl almost crushed my head, and the Hyuga kid… he did something real unpleasant to Kankuro, shut down his whole chakra system, and Shino is apparently made of bugs or something and he like exploded--” 

Gaara lost interest, he didn’t care about the others. Not right now. “Should he be alone now then? Is he okay?” 

Temari shrugged. “They all ran off, something about proximity alarms and doing damage control.” She tapped the edge of his bed and he looked over at her again. “I do know one thing though, those kids would not be leaving this room if they thought Naruto was still in danger. So it might look bad…” It looked beyond bad, and they both knew it, “but he’s fine.” 

They sat in silence for a while, Gaara couldn’t say how long, until the others returned. Not all at once, but they all filtered in within half an hour of each other. Each and every one of them immediately made their way over to Naruto’s bed. But it wasn’t until the pink girl got there that anything was done. 

She instantly started barking orders to them. They got the blood cleaned up, got Naruto cleaned up, checked his arm, checked his chakra, did a lot of things Gaara didn’t understand, but at the end she stood up and sighed. Then she smiled and said, “Just as you’d expect, he’s just fine. Or he will be in a few days.” 

The collective release of tension in the room was staggering enough that even he picked up on it. And he shared it. Naruto had helped him, perhaps the first person to help him like that. Helped him despite Shukaku, or perhaps becauseof Shukaku. 

“Thank you,” he said to the room. 

He received a lot of glares but the girl with the buns gave him a nod and a terse, “Naruto would never walk away from someone he could help. Especially not a fellow jinchuriki. That means we couldn’t either.” 

“And you impaled him! Twice!” dog boy shouted. 

White eyed boy added coolly, “All this work for an outsider come to attack my clan.” 

“We had orders, what else’d you expect?” Kankuro asked as he entered the room via one of the high windows. 

“And will you be following through with those orders?” sunglasses kid asked. 

Kankuro shrugged, “Don’t know. Not up to me. Talk to the boss.” Then he turned to Temari, who looked sad and lost.

“Oh for goodness sake!” a blond girl shrieked. “This has been a traumatic experience for everyone involved! Let her process!” She pointed a threatening finger at her ponytail companion and added, “And no, I will not ‘help her along’. If she wants a phone, she has to earn a phone!” 

“They don’t get a phone, they killed Nar!” dog boy shouted. 

Gaara sighed and closed his eyes. Sleep sounded good. He figured he should take advantage of the ability to do it for however long it lasted. 

“I would have to agree with that assessment.” 

“Thank you!”
“It is not their fault that their teammate is the host of a powerful chakric entity, my friends.” 

“Lee’s right, and besides, it’s not like this is really something we get to decide.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Naruto’s the one with the phones. And he’s never picked wrong so far, has he?” 

Gaara almost managed to nod off in the resulting silence. 

“Okay, but they should at least get a probationary period, or something. He impaled Naruto. Twice!” 

More bickering followed and Gaara was almost thankful for it. His mind was a little too empty now. Maybe Naruto would know how to fix that. He felt like Naruto could make miracles happen. 

Maybe he’d also know how to stop the images of Naruto’s bloody chest from popping up behind his eyes every other second. He could still hear the sound of those ribs breaking. 

He should probably take it as progress that it was nauseating instead of thrilling… it was hard to though, when he knew his savior was in a bed next to him because he’d impaled him… twice. 

“We’re not stealing all of his phones!” 

“We don’t even know where they are! You know how he is with his scrolls, you idiot!” 

Turns out Konoha is a lot different than Suna.