This is set between the Asuma arc and the Pein arc. Consider it an alternate filler to the anime's Three-Tails arc.
Sabaku no Gaara was not a heavy sleeper. In fact, until recently he hadn't been a light sleeper either. Sleep was simply not something he did. This was understandable once you understood that Gaara was a jinchuriki, and his tailed beast took over his body whenever he dared to truly rest. Thus, no sleep was to come his way.
But he was a jinchuriki no longer, Shukaku having been extracted from him by the Akatsuki. Under normal circumstances this would have granted him not merely rest, but an eternal slumber. But Chiyo, the one who sealed Shukaku into him as an infant, gave her life so that he may have a second chance at living his own.
Since then, he had attempted to sleep, as his brother and sister did, as Naruto did, as so many normal people he knew did. It was a slow process, but his body was adjusting. Sometimes he would fall asleep at his desk, waking up hours later with his paperwork done and a pillow under his head. Sometimes he would go days without sleep, his body refusing to comply with his wishes. But every now and then he would go to bed at night, sleep for eight to ten hours, and wake up in the morning. He was even developing a morning routine. It was all very normal, and he was perfectly okay with that.
Occasionally, he would dream. Well, that wasn't true, he would always dream, but occasionally he remembered what he dreamt. (That factoid was something he knew from a young age – being unable to sleep left him with hours to spend reading, and a number of the books he read dealt with the matter of sleep.) His first few dreams left him terrified, invariably involving his family and friends being killed in some way, sometimes by him, sometimes by the Akatsuki, sometimes by each other. But his dream world was normalising itself too. Instead of dying at his hands, his family and friends would enjoy his company, and he theirs.
So when he went to his bed on one cool Suna night, he did so hoping that he would have a nice dream about his parents being alive, his siblings being the pride of Suna, and his friends having a good time.
It didn't quite turn out that way.
When Gaara awoke, the first thing he noticed was that he was not in his bed, or indeed in his bedchambers. Or in the Kazekage building. Actually, he didn't seem to be in Suna at all. Rather, he was located in some kind of tropical resort, which he found a bit unusual.
The second things he noticed was that everything seemed a bit fuzzy. Was he losing his eyesight without Shukaku as well?
No, that couldn't be right. There was no logic to what was fuzzy and what wasn't. The palm tree next to him was just as fuzzy as the casino he could vaguely see in the skyline. In fact, other than the area around Kankuro, everything was fuzzy.
...
His brother was here? Well, that seemed as good a lead as any. Gaara steadily moved towards Kankuro, who was seated under the shade of his own tree, looking as though he was dozing off.
"Kankuro? How...are you?" Gaara asked as he approached, unsure of what, exactly, he was meant to say in this situation.
Kankuro slowly opened his eyes. "Eh? Gaara?" He took a moment to process what he had been asked. "Oh, uh, I'm...good? What are you doing here, anyway? You don't look dressed for a place like this. Although, there is plenty of sand here."
Gaara looked down. The ground came into focus, confirming that it was indeed sand. Though it seemed a bit finer compared to home. "Yes, that does seem to be the case. I am not sure why I am here."
"Uh, okay then. Do you know how you got here?"
"No."
"Right, well, do you know where you are?"
"No."
"How can you be here without knowing where we are?"
"...do you know where we are?"
"Of course! We're in...we're in...uh, well, I did know. I've just forgotten for now. Too busy relaxing and all."
"Why aren't we in Suna?"
"Because we...did...something? And are now relaxing?"
"I am not relaxing."
"Well you should be! As your guard, I am hereby ordering you to relax."
"I don't think it works that way. Also, shouldn't you be guarding me?"
"Yeah, well, I'm relaxing. You've got plenty of sand to guard you."
"Where is Temari?"
"Who knows? Why are you asking these questions?"
"Why is everyone and everything else here fuzzy except you?"
"Huh?" At this, Kankuro began looking around, and something unusual happened. Wherever he was looking, that area became clear. People swimming in the ocean. People lying on the beach. Seagulls squawking and searching for scraps. But as soon as his line of vision moved, that area would became fuzzy again. What was going on?
"How peculiar."
"I don't know what you're talking about, Gaara, and I'm not sure I want to. I'm going to have a nap now. Go and find somewhere to relax. Take your mind off being Kazekage."
"But I enjoy being Kazekage."
"Yeah, but you don't know how to chill."
"I do not believe lowering my body temperature would make me a better Kazekage."
"Okay, I know that was a joke, so I'm just going to nap. Right now. Bye."
If Gaara had eyebrows, they would've moved to a frown at this point. "But Kankuro, don't you think this is-"
Suddenly, Kankuro disappeared, and his tropical island paradise along with it.
Only black remained.
"-important?"
Kankuro opened his eyes. It was still dark outside, but that dream was apparently so odd that his brain wanted him to wake up. Only, he really wanted to go back to sleep. Being the brother and guard of the Kazekage was a tiring job. Only one of those things was actually a job, but being a sibling meant he was the easy path to Gaara. He had thought the puppets and warpaint would scare people away from pestering him, but apparently Temari was scarier than both he and his puppets. He would have to work on that.
No, wait, no more work! Only sleep.
Still, that dream was really odd. Why was Gaara asking all those questions? Gaara was normally only inquisitive when he thought something was important, but why would Kankuro be dreaming of his dream being important?
Perhaps he should check on Gaara? But then he would have to get out of bed, and then it would take ages for him to get back to sleep. Gaara was a Sand sibling! He was the Kazekage! He was tough, and would be fine, and there was no reason to get up.
But Gaara wasn't really that tough at the moment. Strong, but not tough. He was still adjusting to his new life. But if he was harmed, Kankuro surely would've known about it by now. Checking on him would probably just wake him up, and Gaara needed all the sleep he could get.
Still, he was his younger brother...
As Kankuro deliberated between rising and staying where he was, his sister slept.
Gaara wasn't sure how long he had been in the darkness.
In fact, he wasn't sure how long he had been with his brother either. Perhaps half an hour, perhaps half a day. It was as though he had completely lost all sense of time. The darkness was quite a lonely place, too. He preferred being in that strange resort.
But he had, at least, enough time to think about what was going on, and something seemed very, very wrong.
Then, just as suddenly as the darkness had appeared, it disappeared. This time, he was greeted by a wooden wall. It appeared to be a room of some sort, with a window in front of him, what was probably a door to his left (but it was, like the resort, fuzzy), and to his right...was his sister.
His sister and her not-boyfriend, on a bed, clearly letting their hormones get the better of them. At least they were still clothed. For now.
Gaara, realising discretion was probably the better part of valour, turned to his left and attempted to open the door, but he could not find the doorknob. Everything was out of focus, except for the other two people in the room, and the surface upon which they lay.
Well, it seemed he wasn't getting out of this any time soon. Should he wait for them to notice him, or should he interrupt before it became more uncomfortable?
"EEAAARGH! Gaara, what are you doing here?!"
Never mind.
"Hello, Temari. I do not know why I am here." Gaara said simply.
"Get out, get out, get out!" Temari commanded, scrambling to distance herself from her expressionless partner.
"I can't."
"It's not what it looks like!"
"I suspect it is."
"This is
"Temari, I do not know or particularly care if this is what you and the Nara normally do in your spare time, although if it is I do wish you would wait at least until he is a bit older. Even better, until the two of you are married and have secured the future of our alliance for a generation." Temari had, by now, turned the colour of Gaara's hair in a mixture of embarrassment and anger. "But I need to ask you a question."
"What?"
"Is this real?"
Temari blinked. "Is this...real?" She repeated, dazed. She looked at her partner, who had not said a word since Gaara had entered the room. Actually, now that she thought about it...
She disappeared, and darkness enveloped Gaara once again.
"That's a 'no', then."
Temari woke with a start, fully alert and cursing Shikamaru, herself and Gaara, in that order. It was a bit unfair on Shikamaru given she was hardly complaining about what dream-him was doing, but it was still annoying that the crybaby was invading her thoughts so often, which she also saw as weakness on her half. She was the definition of an independent female!
And Gaara...what was going on there? Sure, her brother had been on her mind more often over the past few years, as he grew into what being a part of a family actually meant. But even then, his dream interruption was just weird. Sure, he was his usual self, but how had he known it was a dream?
She had heard of people having self-aware dreams, but never of other people in the dream being aware that it was a dream, while the dreamer remained blissfully unaware. That was just...odd.
And Gaara, of all people?
While the blonde was pondering in her bed, the day's first rays of light began peeking into her room.
Not much point going back to sleep now. Maybe it's worth just checking on Gaara.
Hopping out of bed, Temari didn't bother getting battle-ready – Gaara was just down the hall – and padded into the hallway.
After exiting her room, she noticed Kankuro walking towards her, looking exhausted.
"Hey." She greeted him as they converged outside Gaara's room. "You look like you spent the night fighting Sasori."
"Wow, okay, good morning to you too." He replied. "Come to check on Gaara?"
"Yeah. I had a, uh, weird dream, so I just thought it might be worth making sure he's okay."
"Huh."
"What?"
"Was Gaara in your dream?"
Temari narrowed her eyes. "Yeah. Why?"
Kankuro shrugged. "He was in mine. Kept asking questions when I just wanted to relax. It was a good dream too!"
"Yeah, mine too." Temari replied, before realising what she had said. "I mean, uh, the questions. He kept asking questions. Not that the dream wasn't good, uh..." Then, realising that adding more words actually made it more suspicious, she promptly clammed up, but couldn't stop her face from colouring.
Kankuro looked at her blankly.
Then understanding dawned on him.
"Oh ho, Gaara interrupted a dream of shadows and deers, hmm?"
"Kankuro..." Temari growled.
Her brother carried on unperturbed. "Planning to make a more permanent alliance with the Leaf? I'm not sure that lazybones is going to be able to keep up with you. He'd probably just get sick of it and start watching clouds."
"Kankuro."
"Trust me, people never match up to what they are in your dreams. Bet he was really good a-hurk!."
Temari opened the door and went into Gaara's room, Kankuro following with a rapidly blackening eye and clutching his throat.
Knowing her youngest brother reacted badly – even for a shinobi – to being touched when asleep, Temari called to him softly.
"Hey, Gaara, you awake?"
No response.
"Gaara?"
Nothing. Temari frowned. He was normally quite alert...
"Gaara, wake up." She said, louder this time.
Kankuro sighed and wandered out of the room.
Temari paid him no attention. "Gaara! Get up!"
Kankuro wandered back in with a broom. "Use this." He said, jabbing it warily at his older sister. He didn't want to get on her bad side again this morning.
Temari pushed it back at him. "You do it. I'm not using cleaning materials on the Kazekage!"
Kankuro rolled his eyes. "Whatever." He moved up nearer to the bed and started poking the leader of the Sand with the implement. "Hey, Gaara, you there?"
Nothing.
The siblings turned to each other and frowned. What was going on?
Some hours later, in the Land of Fire, a hawk began circling in the air.
On the hawk was a message from Suna for the Hokage. On the message were ten heavily encrypted words.
The message was taken from the hawk by Konoha's falconers and given to the Decryption Corps.
As it happened, Shikamaru was working for the Corps that day and, having heard it was from Suna, volunteered to decrypt the message. Temari had let him in (partly deliberately, partly by accident) on some of the tricks to quickly decrypting Suna's encryptions during her visits to Konoha over the years, so he might as well make use of them
When he saw the last word of the message, he recognised it straight away, regardless of the encryption. This was either something trivial for his eyes only, or something so important that the writer had gambled on him reading it and decrypting it straight away.
Within half an hour he had decrypted the ten words, and his heart nearly froze.
Kazekage fell unconscious during night, please send medical help.
Temari