Archive of Our Own

— Mother: everything —

He was made in his mother’s body, and it should have been the first and last time he knew comfort, as the saying went. But with Shukaku sealed into him not long after his brain was formed, it had been a crowded, painful corridor to life from the start.

After he was born, the sand defended him so very few people would touch his skin again. And beneath that skin barrier? The interface between his life and death?

Even he didn’t know himself that well yet.

— Yashamaru: blood —

The first time he distinctly remembered having someone else inside his body, it had tasted of copper. Yashamaru showed him his own cut finger to dissuade Gaara from slicing his wrists open—or attempting it, an endeavor that was as futile as it was worrying.

As a child, he had already known misery, but had no way of escaping it—comfort, relief, pain, sleep, death. All robbed from him because of the beast.

Yashamaru’s finger was lukewarm in his mouth, but his blood was hot and salty. It tasted nice, but his uncle’s conflicted face made Gaara think he must be doing something freakish and wrong again.

It made Gaara suddenly remember something, from when he was even smaller. A similar taste of blood. He had bitten someone before—Temari? Kankuro? One of them, or perhaps both, in his toddler days. Or was it father? That rang a bell too. A thicker, bigger arm.

It must have been a false memory, because neither of them seemed to hate him—father, perhaps only a bit—but if Gaara had hurt them even inadvertently—had bit them like an animal—they would of course be cursing him a beast like everyone else did.

He must have imagined it, even though his mind insisted that he remembered the lingering pain of his growing teeth, and the cheery relief he felt when gnawing at his family’s skin, as if he owned them.

Yashamaru smiled then, and petted Gaara on the cheek.

— Father: scars —

The second time someone touched him on the inside, he had quivered in a mix of rage and terror, seeing the man approach him.

The gold had subdued the beast. The gold had subdued Gaara.

His father’s steps grew nearer, as he lay, exhausted and done, in the middle of the street, his sand nipping at the Kazekage’s heels uselessly. His father was coming to finish him off after all.

He should have done it himself from the start, and maybe Yashamaru would be alive.

The thought sent another wave of agony rippling through Gaara’s chest.

His father towered over him now, and Gaara’s newfound mission to love only himself and fight only for himself stuttered, not yet consolidated, not yet tested, a hatchling of a philosophy as it was.

His father looked down at him, disappointment and disgust marring his face. He knelt beside Gaara’s head, and reached down.

Gaara kicked and scratched with all his remaining strength, which was not a lot—a sad bug on its back, soft belly up to its natural predator.

His father pressed down on the corner of his forehead, and Gaara felt tears well up in his eyes at the pain and shock of the touch.

“What is this,” said the Kazekage, in a way that wasn’t a question. He rubbed at the caked up blood for a second, and Gaara froze at what happened next.

His father mindlessly brought his bloody thumb up to his mouth and licked it—at first Gaara wondered if his father was going to eat him, one drop of blood at the time, like the demon bade Gaara do to others—but then the Kazekage pulled the digit out of his mouth. It was covered in a thick glob of saliva, and he proceeded to rub it into Gaara’s forehead as he had with too many scraped knees (not Gaara’s), smearing away the drying blood so that he could see the carnage below. When the Kazekage saw what his son had carved into his own forehead, he froze too.

The touch hurt and felt weird and cold. But still, it was everything to such a hungry child.

He let his eyes flutter shut, wondering if this was how his father was going to kill him. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. He was so tired.

“You got past your own defence,” said the man, sounding a bit less disappointed. To a trained ear, the Kazekage would sound as desperate as he felt, which was a trait that pervaded this family. They all needed to be shown a miracle—though none would receive one for many years yet.

Gaara’s eyes fluttered open to look up at his father, the source of all his madness. His hair was greying in the front, the lines around his mouth and eyes particularly sunken tonight. It was terrible how there was still a pathetic spark of something that simmered in Gaara’s chest, only a speck of dust amongst the storm of hatred and terror. But still, it was there—it would be there for the rest of Gaara’s life, even though he built on top of it, layering hatred and antagonism to cover the bedrock, and later, much later, some understanding.

His father picked him up and tucked him into bed for the first time, hands shaking, fingers still covered in his son’s blood, movements perfunctory but practiced on his two normal children. He did not meet Gaara’s animal eyes.

Gaara did not meet his father’s gaze either, and all night he trembled, wondering why his father didn’t just slit his throat with a golden knife and be done with it.

Did his father like this? Is this what he wanted? To see Gaara’s insides drip out of him?

No wonder he was so disappointed. Gaara would not be able to do this again, especially if this is what his father demanded: Gaara now aimed to disappoint the man as much as he could, for the pain he had inflicted.

Perhaps tomorrow.

Tomorrow he would become truly invincible, and no one would ever see him bleed again.

Tonight, a traitorous hope crawled back into his heart at his father’s gentle touch, because even after Yashamaru… especially after Yashamaru, Gaara needed.

“If you can control it, I can train you,” said the man, before leaving.

At the next assassination attempt, every glimmer of hope was quashed, leaving only a bloody corpse splattered on the walls with a well-timed sand coffin.

— Kankuro: teeth —

“Does it hurt? Show me, Gaara,” said Kankuro.

The boy was afraid of his younger brother, but he knew what was going on and, as all older brothers did, needed to advise loudly.

Gaara twisted away, hand over his mouth, wanting to continue his current strategy of growling and prowling around the Kazekage tower, snarling like a stray cat in his own house.

“Gaara, look,” said Kankuro, pulling up the corner of his own lip to show Gaara the gap in his top teeth. He stuck a tongue through the gap for good measure. His words came out slurred. “See? It’s supposed to happen. If you leave it, it will hurt more.”

Gaara paused his terrible mood for a second, staring at the healed over, smooth wound in his brother’s mouth in interest. The new tooth was already poking through.

Kankuro approached, eyes darting to the scar on his brother’s forehead. He wasn’t the best at reading kanji yet, but now he knew this one.

Kankuro’s hand started to shake, suddenly realising what he was doing, and who he was doing it to. But it was too late to fall back now. Only a year or so ago, Gaara was eating at the table with all of them, but Yashamaru was gone. It was hard to erase tenuous affection, though Gaara would manage to supplant those fond memories over the next six years of his life, or try to, anyway, crushing them to dust—a speck of them would always remain in Kankuro’s mind, and that speck was enough to tether Kankuro’s body to Gaara’s forever, always itching to put himself between Gaara and danger, long after he learned not to do that for it was simply unpragmatic.

Kankuro pulled Gaara’s bottom lip down with his thumb, feeling the underside of it on his skin. It was warm and wet and uncomfortable for both of them.

Gaara’s teeth and mouth were normal and human, of course. Kankuro didn’t know why he expected different.

“It’s always the front teeth that go first,” said Kankuro. “This one is ready to fall. Does it hurt?”

“A bit,” said Gaara sulkily around his brother’s thumb.

Kankuro tentatively stuck his other hand’s thumb into his brother's mouth, wiggling the tooth gently. It wobbled, untethered except by a final desperate sinew of tissue.

Kankuro remembered what Temari had done to him, and that it had not caused him suffering.

“Look up at the sky and think of a bird,” said Kankuro. Gaara glared at him.

“What?”

Kankuro yoinked the loose tooth out of Gaara’s mouth, making a noise of victory when he felt it come away without much resistance. Even the sand did not budge.

Gaara let out a cry of panic and shock, which sounded like pain. Kankuro wondered for a second if he might be killed by the beast, but Gaara’s eyes were wide, flitting between Kankuro’s smirking face and the small tooth in his brother’s grasp, his face twisted somewhere between betrayal and horror.

Gaara poked his tongue through the newly acquired gap, making a face of disgust at the unusual taste of his own blood, diluted in much more spit.

Kankuro realised he was still pinching Gaara’s bottom lip with his thumb.

“Any other loose ones?”

Gaara gave him a pensive look and prodded at his other teeth with his tongue. Kankuro scratched his nail along the front ones, which wobbled, but only slightly.

“Those aren’t ready yet. I can help, when they are.”

He finally pulled his fingers out of Gaara’s mouth. Gaara looked up at him, his face impassive, but his eyes conflicted, full of questions. He asked only one of them.

“What do we do with my tooth?”

“You can make a wish if you want,” said Kankuro, then threw Gaara’s tooth up at the ceiling. It bounced and landed back on the floor with a soft skitter. “And if it’s a top tooth you throw it down.”

Kankuro picked the tooth up and held it out in his palm, letting Gaara take it and inspect it—a bit of bone that was usually deep in his gums, now outside of him completely. A tiny bit of flesh was still stuck to it. Gaara looked vaguely queasy.

“Say, Gaara, can I have it?”

Gaara gave his brother an incredulous, revolted look.

“It’s for a puppet I’m upgrading. Using real teeth makes it much scarier. Temari gives me her’s too.”

Gaara, still not at the age where he was very good at refusing his siblings’ heartfelt, enthusiastic requests (the age would never come), despite vowing to have no human connection to this world, handed Kankuro his tooth.

“Sweet. I still have a scar on my arm from when you bit me as a baby, you know? This is a bit like a trophy.”

This ritual would continue for the next few teeth, with Kankuro coaxing them out of Gaara’s mouth when the boy couldn’t handle the irritation of them anymore. Once, when Kankuro wasn’t present, Gaara went to Temari, whose hands were less gentle than Kankuro’s, but her voice was more soothing. The tooth came out regardless.

She made the same remark that Kankuro had, about him being a real biter as a baby. So it had been all of them, then, that Gaara had been hurting. It explained a lot.

Gaara’s canines and first molars were quietly dropped onto Kankuro’s desk without any intervention, not wanting further interaction, not wanting Kankuro’s or Temari’s hands on him for the foreseeable future. Kankuro accepted the offerings, feeling both saddened and relieved. Gaara had become increasingly terrifying over the years.

Gaara’s final molar fell out late, however, and the root of it was so sharp that Gaara let Kankuro wiggle it out with a combination of chakra strings and fingers—mid-training, which could have been timed better, but Gaara had been in an acidic mood which was rare for him again, after his encounter with Naruto, and it needed out. Temari and Baki watched on in a mix of horror and fascination when Kankuro erupted into victorious laughter.

Gaara spat a mouthful of pink tinged blood onto the ground.

Kankuro held out the tooth.

“Make a wish,” he said, and Gaara did, inside his own head. Kankuro threw the tooth down, then immediately picked it up again. “Well, brother, it's an honour to have the full set.”

Temari perked up in morbid joy.

“How many teeth will this puppet have?”

“Three full baby sets, minus that one canine you flushed down the toilet cause you were angry at me.”

Temari grinned sheepishly, and Baki watched on.

— Baki: bile —

The final assassination attempt, a year before the fateful chuunin exams, had been the smartest, Gaara mused. It would take work for him to find and kill the culprit. He could appreciate the challenge.

He slumped down in a dark corner of the village, curling away from the moonlight, hand clenched over his abdomen.

Shukaku was already working to save him from the poison, but still, the pain was intense. Gaara had not expected it to be laced into his food. Was he not to eat for the rest of his life now? It was one of the few pleasures left to him.

His usual nighttime tail had finally caught up to him, and Gaara readied himself to squash them, regardless of whether or not they were responsible.

“Why are you hiding here?” growled Baki, eyeing Gaara up and down. Gaara’s jittery sand dropped back to the ground, not knowing if he had it in him to do this again right now. Baki’s demeanor changed.

“Are you sick?” he asked, incredulous. Probably not him, then. His father had learned his lesson with Yashamaru. He did not mix assassination with emotion again. Not that there was any emotion here.

Gaara glared at him in return, face twisted into a defensive, angry sneer.

He did not expect what came next.

Baki’s large hand landed on the scruff of his neck and yanked him to his knees. The sand didn’t shift.

When Gaara tried to protest, Baki stuck two fingers into his angry mouth, pressing until they hit the back of his throat.

The reaction was instantaneous, and the content of Gaara’s stomach filled his mouth with acid bile before splattering on the sand below.

Once started, it went on for a short while, until Gaara’s heaving went dry. The shock had kept him compliant, tears and snot running down his face. The large hand petting him between the shoulder blades kept him tethered.

Baki tried to pull his hand out of Gaara’s mouth then, and yelped when sharp teeth dug into the flesh of it.

“You brat,” he hissed. The previous look of panic on his face was gone, replaced by its usual professional cold distaste.

Gaara snarled at him, but let his hand go largely unscathed, mostly a feral warning. The boy spat a few times, making a soft noise of disgust at the state of himself.

He felt better.

“The Kazekage won’t be happy with you,” Gaara said slowly.

Baki’s face fell at the realization—what, had he assumed Gaara did this to himself? He looked Gaara up and down again, wiping his hand on his pants.

“I wasn’t ordered to do anything,” the man explained, though he didn’t have to.

“If you had, you would be dead,” said Gaara.

Baki looked down at his hand, and Gaara noticed the red marks his teeth had left behind as well, strong adult teeth now, and wondered if Baki’s heart had enough space in it to have more hatred for him than it already surely did.

— Rock Lee & Sasuke Uchiha & Naruto Uzumaki: meat —

Rock Lee’s knuckles cut across Gaara’s teeth, filling his mouth with blood, but in the heat of the moment, Gaara hadn’t been sure of whose. When the unfamiliar tang hit his tongue, he smiled, his blood lust teased once again. The other boy tasted good.

When Sasuke Uchiha cut through his arm with a screamingly loud blade of chakra, it was a lot more blood than any time before, and it dripped out of him in hot red ribbons. The feeling was so overwhelming, he almost forgot to be embarrassed that his father would watch him bleed once more.

Almost, but not quite. The feel of Sasuke’s fingers in his arm, stuck into the meat of him, felt like another violation.

Gaara’s mind shattered a bit further, but still, the sickest part of him relished in it, happy that the madness of the beast allowed him to do it openly, for once. His body was a lonely place, and he had never had any intention of making it a temple, but so few could make it through its gates.

“This makes me feel alive,” he screamed at Sasuke, then later at Naruto. Because it was what he always needed to say, but never did. It was the truth.

When Naruto cracked his head open with the force of his own, and both of their blood trickled down Gaara’s face, co-mingled, into Gaara’s shocked mouth, Gaara felt like he had understood something.

— Temari: sweat —

But before then, the pain burst hot and acute every time Temari rearranged his arm across her shoulders, as she ran for his life, away from Konohagakure. She took pause for a moment, and Gaara hardly noticed, in the half-turned, half-comatose state he was in after Sasuke had cut into him.

He jolted at the unfamiliar burn of Temari pressing gentle but firm fingers onto his wound to stem the bleeding.

“I have medecine, Gaara,” she said, pulling a small box out of her satchel. Her eyes were fixed on his shoulder, and her fingers tried to push past the strap of the sand gourd to touch the raw flesh below again.

She didn’t even know what she was saying. She couldn’t know.

Why did she always do this? Growing up, she had always put soft hands on him, and had once wiped at his tears—after Yashamaru, even. It had all been fake, a movie playing in front of Gaara’s eyes, not meaning anything, but still tugging at the motions of his stagnating, frozen heart, seeing someone else in his space for no apparent reason. He would kill her if he had to, he told himself every time. If she was in his way.

But only if he had to, he reasoned.

Whenever that soothing voice came out of her, she tended to get whatever she wanted, a weakness she exploited readily and it wormed its way irritatingly under Gaara’s skin.

Gaara shuddered with his whole body, feeling the demon react with glee to the pain Temari caused him.

“You’re in my way,” he said, and sent her hurtling into a tree, trying to ignore her scared scream.

Later on, when she offered a second time, he did hesitate, mostly out of a growing shame. But after short deliberation, he pulled off his gourd and let Temari peel back the collar of his shirt and undershirt to reveal the bloody, sweaty skin beneath.

It was strange even to see his own skin like this, out in the open. He only ever took off his shirt in the bathroom. He was now in the forest, on the edge of the border, but Temari had insisted he be bandaged before they reached the sand-swirling desert, for the sake of his first real wound, so as to not irritate its healing any further. It was reasonable.

Temari’s hands rubbed the salve into his cut. Her hands were warm and pleasant, but it stung, even if it would do him good. There was a lesson in that, that Gaara was getting himself ready to learn.

Many years later, when he watched Temari’s own sweaty face, her eyes half-watching, her face half-smiling, proud, from her place in the hospital bed, her flesh and blood—Gaara’s flesh and blood—was carefully placed into his arms by a grinning Shikamaru, and Gaara looked down at his nephew, then back up at his sister’s temporarily damaged, already healing body, and he felt tears burn down his face.

He had not understood anything at all.

— Shukaku, Chiyo, Naruto, everyone: life —

When Shukaku was finally pulled out of him, everything went quiet. Gaara assumed he had died immediately, but he had not.

The quiet was the feel of the beast that had been born with him being sucked out of him, leaving him alone in his mind for the first time—which was how everyone else felt, for the most part. He did not have time to decide if he enjoyed or reviled the experience.

His body was bruised and bleeding, lots of his insides on the outside, but when Deidara would prod at him with the tongue on his hand, relishing in defeating Suna’s ultimate defence, he was no longer alive to know.

Chiyo’s soul and Naruto’s chakra flowing into him was enlivening, and he only wished he had the memory of it, but he did not, only waking after his life had been restored to him, back inside his body. When he opened his eyes, around him were his friends and family and village, happy to see him returned to them.

— Everyone: death —

During the war, his body became a battlefield.

Gaara’s first wound came early. His father watched him weep after unmaking him once again, and through the hazy emotion, Gaara thought his father cried too, which would make him feel a lot better, but the space between them was too great for him to be sure.

Later, Tsunade pulled claws out of him, after they had nearly severed him in half. Her movements were trained and perfunctory, and Gaara had not been awake to ponder on the experience of being so open for everyone to see.

There was no one left to see.

Later, when he held Naruto’s dying body in his arms, he squeezed and squeezed and cried, but it did not bring him back. Sakura stuck her hand into Naruto’s chest and grabbed him by the heart, and Gaara watched on, revolted and fascinated and terrified, and crushing down the sear of envy that shot through his chest, to examine another time.

— Naruto: guts —

It was a mission after the war, when Naruto had volunteered to join Gaara to clear out the battlefield of the leftover traps and explosives they had laid, when it happened.

It had been accidental of course, but it was shocking that it had happened to Gaara instead of Naruto, who was stumbling around with one arm and far less caution.

Gaara had an ultimate defence, so he, too, was not being as vigilant as he should have been, too caught up in cheerful conversation. The sand curved around Naruto in the blast, though the boy had been far enough to be unbothered.

His sand took almost all of the bomb’s shrapnel when it went off. Almost. One burst had been too close. He had not been upkeeping his sand armour.

He felt a stab of heat in his side, and fell to the ground, more at the shock than the pain.

“Gaara! Shit.”

Naruto was at his side.

“Give me your hand, Gaara.”

Gaara raised the hand he had been using to staunch his wound, feeling faint when it came up slicked with blood.

“Looks worse than it is! It’s a small wound.”

“Naruto…” muttered Gaara, in a daze. “Don’t tell my family. Wait. Get Kankuro, he can… pull it out…”

Naruto directed Gaara’s fingers into a few hand signs alongside his own, before his palm turned green with healing jutsu. Gaara let his hand fall back to his side, feeling floaty and pleased at the touch.

Naruto tried to heal him, then frowned.

“Fuck, there is a piece still inside you,” Naruto gave him a pleading look. “Can you stop your sand from ripping my fingers off?”

“Probably?”

It was a question because Gaara did not expect what was going to happen next, which was Naruto plunging a finger into his wound. It disappeared past that barrier of skin, dipping into the red flesh with a squelch, one knuckle deep.

Gaara cried out in pain, stomach roiling nauseous at it, at the image of that finger disappearing into his abdomen. His clothes and skin felt tight, and he wanted to do something, everything, at the feel of Naruto inside his body.

He did not, aspiring sane person he was, and lay there, focused on keeping his sand off his friend.

The finger moved around, and Gaara clenched every muscle in his body. Unclenched. Clenched again. It was painful, and his mind stuttered in the processing of it.

“Hah, found it. Sorry, but I need two—” Naruto slipped a second finger into the wound and Gaara groaned, fingers digging into the sand beside his hips, wishing it were a more severe wound so he could have the dignity of fainting first.

During the war, many medics prodded him while he was conscious, and he had clenched his teeth through it, numb to the world at times.

He was not numb now. In fact, with Naruto’s apologetic, concerned face staring down at him, he felt every single thing in his life all at once.

The two fingers slipped out of Gaara’s body with a wet sound, holding a piece of metal pinched between them.

Naruto proceeded to cover the slow gushing blood with his palm, and healed Gaara in a matter of minutes, using the half jutsu Gaara had helped him cast. Gaara felt a shiver pass along his skin at the feel of Naruto’s chakra entering him, and his eyes fluttered shut.

“You really do have a good defence, Gaara,” said Naruto softly, his face splitting into a teasing grin. “Because you’re a huge baby about this.”

Gaara wanted to disagree, explicitly in fact. But he was suddenly aware of how cold his face was, how wet. He had been crying the entire time.

“Naruto…”

Gaara stopped. He didn’t know what to say. That this wasn’t only because of the pain? His cheeks reddened a tinge, and shockingly, Naruto’s did the same—a hot crimson that startled the sense back into Gaara. It reminded Gaara of that handshake he had offered, and how bashful Naruto had been to accept it. Maybe they were too similar for their own good.

“I hope you forgive the… uh, intrusion.”

Gaara tried to keep himself silent and dignified for the rest of this mission. He couldn’t tell Naruto the truth, that things felt different when you were a shinobi, a tool of war after a war, with layers of sand and clothing over your skin to keep others away from your most vital organs, your inner viscera.

Only Naruto could get this close and live to tell the tale. Perhaps the other boy understood.

— Naruto: body —

After the battlefield incident, for the second time that day, Gaara let Naruto into his body. He willed the sand with all his might—his mother’s ultimate defence, which he sheepishly begged to not harm Naruto as he thrust fingers into Gaara, as gently as he could, but they were both desperate, only pushing clothes out of the way to get enough access for what they needed to do.

Gaara stuck his tongue into Naruto’s mouth, relishing in the warmth and taste of it, disbelieving that Naruto had both allowed it and understood the question, clueless as the man usually was.

Gaara had been staring from Naruto’s shaky smile, to his fingers, back to his mouth in quick succession all day, at the upper limit of his sanity for a lifetime. His body had been uncharacteristically choleric. His hands kept reaching for Naruto, doling out confident friendly pats and squeezes he usually gave in greater moderation.

He had once again turned into a lonely beast that craved, and it had been a humiliating experience he hoped Naruto would have the kindness to ignore or chalk up to his earlier injury.

Naruto had jittered and shuffled all day, clenching and unclenching his fingers. He had thankfully craved too, and Gaara had put a hand on his back for a bit too long at dinner, and Naruto had understood. Now, Gaara had him pressed up against the tatami of their hotel room, two hands around Naruto’s throat, holding his friend’s life gently in his grip as if it were fleeting and crystalline.

Because it was, as Gaara knew, and hoped to never know again. He should learn some medical ninjutsu too, perhaps.

Naruto thrust two fingers into Gaara, then three, all the way in, before Gaara pressed kisses down his body and took Naruto’s manhood into his mouth.

The warm flesh filled him, the clean shower musk taste and scent pleasing. He groaned and sucked, even louder still when Naruto positioned himself to do the same to him.

It was a heady, intoxicating feeling, to have someone’s mouth and teeth on him in such a dangerous place, with Gaara’s lips clenching around Naruto, doing the same. Only their difference in rhythm kept them unfused from each other, which they remedied, moving synced in time, enjoying how their groans filled the air.

Naruto came in Gaara’s mouth first, and Gaara swallowed quickly, pulling back enough to marvel at the string of spit still connecting him to his friend. His cum had tasted salty and a good mix of disgusting and enticing, like Naruto’s blood and saliva did too.

It was inside Gaara’s body now, and Gaara came with a shudder, spilling into Naruto’s sucking mouth.

Naruto made a noise of surprise at the taste as well, but swallowed, after a bit more deliberation than Gaara.

How permanent was this sort of body cross-contamination? Gaara needed to keep finding out.

The night drew on, with Gaara at Naruto’s mouth and throat, kissing and biting gently wherever he could, not wanting to hurt or scar him. Naruto licked at the spot where Gaara's shoulders met his neck, not taken by the same concern, thrilling himself at the marking of the pristine skin Gaara had hoarded his entire life. Naruto pressed his fingers back into Gaara at some point, rubbing oil onto himself so he could penetrate.

“I’ve never…” admitted Naruto. “Not this far, at least.”

“Neither have I,” said Gaara into Naruto’s mouth. “None of this. Not like this.”

Naruto ran his hand all over his body when Gaara eased himself onto him.

“Gaara. Get rid of it,” he said, laughing into Gaara’s mouth. “The sand.”

Gaara frowned, looking down at his body. He was half undressed, and was not employing his armour—not deliberately, but it seemed like his body had formed it on its own, thinking itself in need of defending.

“Oh,” he said, and let the sand fall from him. It clung to itself in chunks of static, and broke off like shards of glass, and Gaara brushed it all away. Naruto paused his upwards thrusting and slid his hand into Gaara’s sleeve, forcing him fully out of the tunic. Naruto balled it up and threw it into a corner of the room. His hand landed on the bare skin of Gaara’s chest, and Gaara shuddered at the feeling. He had not noticed that the sand was dimming the sensation, so caught up in the stretch of his ass. He felt it all now. He used the sand to yank off the rest of Naruto’s clothing as well, enjoying the gasp of surprise the blond let out at the feel of the sand trickling over his skin, gentle but with Gaara’s full ravaging intent. This might have been a nightmare, once.

Not anymore, naturally.

It was a simple pleasure, but no less riveting, to be fully nude in front of someone like this for the first time in his life.

When Naruto finished, imperfect and quick and a bit too rough, Gaara pressed their foreheads together, wondering if there was anything better in the world than having your mind to yourself, but sharing your body as you wished.

They didn’t stop, and kept kissing, tongues drinking each other in, two demons after the end of the world. And they promised to build the world they wanted now, a better world, because they got to choose. They were strong, they had earned it, had fought for it. And they would be good for it. Fair to it.

Gaara’s hand shook when he slid his fingers into Naruto, shocked at how hot he was on the inside. So that’s how it felt.

This feeling was even rarer than feeling his own body intruded upon, if he did not count the way he killed. He liked it as much as the alternative, but perhaps present company was the main influencing factor either way.

He slid into Naruto and thrust, marvelling at how he could have been so fully invited into another’s body like this, and at how satisfyingly red and dishevelled Naruto was, clenching onto the meat of Gaara’s hip with his one hand, then at his back, his thigh, yanking at his hair.

Gaara let Naruto pant and call Gaara’s name into his open mouth, and it felt like taking bites of Naruto’s flesh, so fully he felt that Naruto belonged to him, like he already belonged to Naruto since the first time he had seen Naruto cry for him, so many years ago.

— Baki: tears —

When Naruto announced his marriage, Gaara was happy for him. Truly.

He sat silently in his office, processing the invite. Baki entered with another stack of paperwork. The war had aged him, as it had all of them, but he had survived with an injury he had since recovered from.

Baki paused at Gaara’s desk, saying nothing. He plopped the papers down, and brought his thumbs up to swipe under Gaara’s eyes. Gaara startled at the touch, and Baki kept his fingers in place, showing his Kazekage the shiny tears stuck to them. Gaara cursed himself for it. He had been trying so hard to hold it back.

“You don’t have to go.”

“But I should. As the Kazekage.”

“It would be better.”

Baki shuffled the paperwork around on Gaara’s desk, frowning.

“You can probably keep having him. He just wants his own family too. You will just have to be ok with sharing. Especially when the other one comes back.”

Gaara felt a bit scandalised at the pragmatic words coming from his former sensei’s mouth. He couldn’t come up with a response in the moment. And he only had a few more minutes, before he had to go back to work.

“How did you know?”

“Gaara…” Baki sighed. “We know you inside and out by now.”

— Shikadai & Shinki: everything —

When Gaara met Shikadai for the twentieth time, his nephew gnawed on the skin of his arm, absentmindedly in a toddler teething daze. He graduated to running hugs that were half-headbutt, unaware of his speed and force, squeezing the wind out of Gaara whenever he saw him.

When Gaara met Shinki, the boy tore into his flesh with his iron sand, but quickly dissipated it when Gaara pulled him close. The boy looked up at Gaara in amazement, then down at the spots of blood all over his protector’s body, and bawled.

Gaara held him closer.

Shinki never hurt him again, but he hungered the same way they all did, and skulked around Gaara when he wanted something, too grateful and prideful to ask. Gaara opened his arms and pulled the boy close, pressing kisses to his forehead whenever Shinki needed, because, after all, the boy called him father.

Gaara now had two littler creatures tear at and hang off his body as if he belonged to them completely, so greedy and entitled to his flesh—and Gaara felt his heart swell, and realised that Temari and Kankuro and Baki and uncle and even father could never have hated him for it at all.