Break Me

There he was.

There was the boy that I had travelled all the way from the Sand to see again. It was a massive undertaking, to travel all the way from the place where I was most familiar to Kohonagakure, making a false excuse to join the protection detail of the Kazekage, just to see the one person who, during our last encounter, had beaten me black and blue before reducing himself into a sniveling mess in front of my eyes and completely betraying any expectation I had of my own absolute defense and my image of any formidable enemy.

Somehow, I just knew that this boy would going to break me.

But there was just something that drew me back him, something that drew me back to pain. I didn't know what it was, for I had never felt this kind of longing to be in the presence of someone else in a very long time, longer than I can remember.

I was exhausted, and even though I had gotten used to the sand that engulfed my entire being and kept me safe, it felt uncomfortable today, like a second skin that I was desperate to shed and allow my true flesh to breathe. I knew I couldn't shed it, though. I had trained my entire life to keep the sand on as a last resort defense if I encountered an opponent that was faster than the sand in my gourd. Hiding behind the edge of a brick wall and flushing myself to the side to avoid being spotted didn't make the discomfort any easier to bear.

Even though I had traveled so far and so long, I had immediately hesitated upon seeing his sunshine locks, feeling something akin to fear. It was an emotion that even I knew was foreign to myself. I wondered if it was because of the fact that the same person I was looking at had nearly beaten me to a pulp just months ago, but I quickly dismissed the thought. It wasn't that kind of fear. This fear was...different. It brought pain with it. A darker pain than the first blood I had shed, if that was even possible.

My heart started to hurt again.

Perhaps it would be best if I just observed him from afar first.

He was so persistently animated, that boy. The day I had first seen him, he had declared to an entire group of potential Chūnin from all over the world that he was prepared to beat them all. It immediately struck me that the boy was overly enthused and far too loud to be a good ninja. I've had my suspicions completely overturned. He remained the only person who had been able to stop me in my tracks entirely, and as much as I liked to think that that fight created a bond between us, I knew I was wrong. I had made this very mistake when I started training to become a ninja with my so called "friendly rivals", and I wasn't making it again.

So why was I even here?

I couldn't even answer my own question. That was a lie, actually. A lie to myself. But I wasn't ever going to admit that images of the blond boy crawling up to my immobile body with the last of his strength just for the purpose of declaring that he knew and felt my pain had haunted me for the past few months, to the point that those images held as much weight as the voice of Shukaku persistently taunting me in my head. I was here on a mission for myself. To sort things out. To confirm once and for all that Uzumaki Naruto had said all those things to spite me for having never loved or anyone to love. I was here to properly return to my previous mission of fighting and living out life for my own sake.

The reason for my inability to approach him directly was, however, honestly and completely lost on me.

I merely watched quietly from behind the brick wall as the haunting subject of my thoughts pranced around energetically whilst engaging in a verbal battle with a black haired boy, who was leaning against the wall and occasionally huffing out a few quiet words to placate his blond friend. I cringed a little and subconsciously raised my hand to my left upper arm, rubbing circles around the area where he had wounded me with his deadly attack, the only attack that had thus far been able to penetrate my Sand Sphere. Uchiha Sasuke was the first person to ever successfully wound me, and though I respected him as a strong opponent, there was just something about his simultaneous indifference to Naruto's antics and closeness to his person that made me feel a slight twinge of envy.

Shakaku reared his greedy head as thoughts of Uchiha instigated a frightfully familiar feeling of bloodthirstiness, forcing me to take a moment to push down the overwhelming need to see Uchiha bleed.

Naruto and Uchiha seemed completely oblivious to my presence, proceeding with their seemingly comfortable tango of words, Naruto being the more aggressively persistent at getting what he wanted, but Uchiha remaining completely impassive and somehow keeping both Naruto's riotous tongue and his own temper at bay. If I had obtained brighter emotions back when I was a child, I would have smiled at the picture in front of me, but I found myself completely incapable of doing so, merely watching from behind the wall in silent jealousy.

Naruto had caused me unimaginable pain by telling me that he felt empathy towards me.

Perhaps that was what he had wanted. I hardly knew the boy after all. He could have been skilled at manipulating other people's emotions, and with my own weak control over my own mental state, it wasn't a big surprise that his mere words had been able to affect me in such a powerful way. Perhaps he knew that telling me, the emotionally hungry demon, that someone felt similar to me was sufficient for making that very thought stick in my head for eternity, leaving me clutching at the very possibility of compassion on the part of someone else. Emotional manipulation was probably the most effective way to cripple a ninja in the long-term, and based on what I had seen of Naruto's light but strong physical prowess during combat, I wouldn't be surprised if he was capable of manipulation to that degree even beneath his childish exterior.

But why did I feel that he had actually meant everything he said about defending his friends, even if it cost him his life?

I cursed my own weakness to his simple but potent whims. Uzumaki Naruto was good, very good.

And that was the true reason behind why I was here. I wanted him to break the facade that he had thrust upon me. I was not leaving Konohagakure until I had Naruto kick me, or throw a shuriken at me, or do something that could convince me that what I had suspected was indeed true. Even if I needed to suffer physical pain at the very source of the hope that had arisen in my chest since my last visit to the fire country's ninja village, it'd be worth it, if not the sole purpose of escaping the emotional hell that he had trapped me in.

Completely lost in my own self-depreciating objective and thoughts on why I was gluing myself very uncomfortably to the side of a brick wall, I failed to see a pair of blue eyes turn in my direction haphazardly before landing upon my similarly-sized frame. By the time I had refocused my attention on my own little spy mission, his eyes were already the size of dinnerplates, and my admittedly bad cover completely blown.

Shit.

"Oi, Gaara! Is that you?"

My entire body immediately froze as a maniacal, face-splitting grin appeared on his face after he had declared his awareness of my hidden location. I tried my best to do something, to summon the sand from my gourd in a menacing fashion, to turn around, walk away and pretend like I hadn't been staring and him and Uchiha for the past ten minutes, but I couldn't. Naruto's recognition did something strange to me, something that made me lose control of my faculties.

I gritted my teeth when he started running towards me. A quick glance of desperation at Uchiha indicated defensiveness and surprise at the realisation that I was in the vicinity. It was ridiculous for me to think that he would help me hold Naruto off in the first place.

We were all enemies, after all.

Naruto was getting closer and closer, running without restraint towards me, almost like a juvenile version of the demon that inhabited his own body. I didn't have a doubt that he was about to strike me, just like he had after Shukaku and I had tried to kill his best friend months ago. A small part of me wanted for him to do it quickly, just to prove that I was right.

With that in mind, I shut my eyes and pushed my defensive instincts downwards, releasing all my chakra from the sand coating my body, feeling the thin layer of protective sand slide off my skin and leaving me, aside from my clothes, completely naked to his fists. I braced myself for the pain that would undoubtedly follow. I wanted him to hit me, to make me bleed, to affirm my suspicions that what he had said to me months back was just a way to cloud my judgement.

Do it.

What I didn't expect, however, was the feeling of a hand on my bare wrist.

His hand was warm. No, searingly hot, actually. I flinched back at his touch, only to feel his other arm snake its way around my neck. My sudden fear at being strangled was raised twofold when he suddenly rested his head on my shoulder, removing his grip from my wrist and placing his left arm around my torso, before squeezing me as tightly as his tiny body could.

My heart was beating so quickly that I could hear it pounding erratically in my ears.

What is this?

I could feel my throat constricting with an emotion that I couldn't quite place a finger on. My arms hung uselessly at my sides as Naruto continued to try and seemingly squeeze the life out of me. The scariest thing was that it seemed to be working. The first thought that I could summon from my brain was that he had learnt some kind of new life-draining jutsu since our last encounter. This move of his, whatever it was, was rendering me completely immobile. I tried to muster up some strength to speak, to get him to back off, but found myself at a complete loss for words. My mind appeared to have been fogged up, no doubt the effect of some clever simultaneous genjutsu. Whatever this new jutsu was, it was a powerful one. That was, perhaps, the most viable explanation for my sudden incapacity.

Between his best friend standing a short distance away, glaring at me so hard that his armed Sharingan appeared to be glowing from where he stood, and the blond ball of energy that was very successfully weakening me with his touch alone, I realised that releasing my armor of sand might not have been one of my best ideas. I had essentially left myself completely vulnerable to their attacks. Then, just as quickly as his attack had come, Naruto abruptly released me from his hold and stepped back, leaving behind a mysterious chill on the areas where his skin had touched mine. His toothy grin was almost as disarming as the brutal hug-like attack that I had just been subjected to.

"Gaara! You left so quickly last time that we didn't get to talk!"

I was completely taken aback by the ridiculous notion. He wanted to talk to me? After I had nearly killed the Uchiha standing next to him and whom he had just been chattering animatedly with a minute ago? Coughing a little to clear my head of fog, I quietly spoke to the boy that I had been so fascinated with for the past few months.

"We didn't exactly part on very amicable terms."

Naruto stared back at me, his smile giving way to abject confusion, his head tilted quizzically as he stared back at me wordlessly. My eyes narrowed a little at his dumbfounded expression as I quickly pondered the reason for his confusion over my single sentence. I then watched as Uchiha momentarily broke his glare at me to look at his friend, sighing before he spoke.

"Amicable means friendly, dobe. He means that you weren't too friendly with him the last time you met."

A red blush immediately covered the scars on Naruto's face as he growled angrily at Uchiha, his fists clenched in indignance.

"I-I know what ami-table means, you teme! And don't call me dobe!"

His blatant mispronunciation of the simple word made me realise that Naruto was just as dimwitted as my first impression of him. I briefly wondered to myself why I had been so obsessed with a boy who obviously wasn't very bright.

My thoughts were then interrupted when Uchiha turned back to me and caught my eye. As I saw the comma-like patterns in his eyes start to spin, I immediately felt a sharp pain as my back collided violently with the brick wall which I had been hiding behind, Uchiha having moved so quickly that I didn't even see him take a step from where he had been standing. His left hand was gripping my throat with plain forcefulness, and his right hand was already engulfed in the visible sparks of raw chakra that I had seen during the Chūnin exams, obviously in preparation for the attack that had managed to pierce my absolute defense and draw my blood for the first time. I immediately tried to manifest chakra into the sand in my gourd, but realised that my gourd, which had just seconds ago been strapped safely to my back, was nowhere in sight. I then realised that I couldn't even detect the presence of sand anywhere.

I could only watch helplessly as Uchiha drew his lightning-adorned hand backwards, his eyes glowing with bloodlust, his glance and aim directed right over my beating heart. For the first time since the same boy had wounded me, I felt genuine fear for my life.

He was going to kill me.

"SASUKE!"

The world suddenly shifted, and I found myself sprawled on the ground back where I had been before Uchiha's quick manhandling of me. A quick assessment of my physical faculties made me realise that I was otherwise unharmed, aside from a cold layer of sweat covering my entire body and sand scattered haphazardly around me. Biting my lip, I took in deep breaths before looking up to realise that Uchiha was standing back where he had been before, his Sharingan now absent from his onyx eyes as he glared down at me. Next to him, Naruto was shouting furiously at his best friend and shoving him angrily. For some reason, I could barely hear him despite his obvious shouting, and my vision was so blurry that I could only perceive shapes and light colours. As my senses gradually came back to me, I remembered lessons in combat training that I had received back in the Sand, and realised what Uchiha had just done to me.

Genjutsu.

Shaking a little at the clear advantage that his Sharingan had over me in the absence of my usual defenses, I looked back at Uchiha. He didn't say a word to me, but his gaze spoke with remarkable clarity.

Try anything, and I'll kill you.

In any other situation, I would have retaliated against the unjustified attack. I had, however, most decidedly not come for a fight, and pushed Shukaku's violent hollering for bloodshed down as deep as I could within myself. I could barely feel anything when Naruto rushed up to me and pulled me up from the ground, setting me back onto my feet. I merely watched he had patted my clothes down whilst checking me nervously for any physical injuries, before realising that my clothes were permanently sandy anyway and settling with looking back at Uchiha heatedly. His concern was still exceptionally unfamiliar to my very being.

"Sasuke! Apologise to Gaara!"

"I'm not apologising for anything, dobe. He could still be our enemy for all you know."

"Teme! Don't hurt my friend!"

It felt like the world had frozen as his last word entered my ears. It was a word that I had longed to be addressed with for so long, but it came as such a shock to me that I found myself incapable of properly processing it. Swallowing diffidently, I looked down at my arm to see his hands still firmly clutched around it in a protective grip, and felt my stomach turn over. The thought that this hyperactive annoying little runt considered me a friend was nearly unbearable to my usual stoic, angry self. If I had been alone, I might have allowed myself to dab at my eyes to clear away the unwarranted overproduction of moisture from within them, but with Naruto standing right next to me and Uchiha watching us like a hawk from a short distance away, I couldn't afford to allow myself to lose composure. Instead, I settled for whispering to Naruto.

"Friend?"

Naruto looked at me in confusion before beaming, like he didn't have a demon resting inside of him.

"Hell yeah! You're my friend, Gaara, and I wanna know more about you! I had no idea you're a jinchūriki like me, it's so nice to find someone like yourself, y'know? Plus, I know you tried to kill us and all, but I can just feel that you're really a good person! And that sand of yours is so. Damn. Cool! Like seriously, how do you even move it around like that without even touching it? It seems way cooler than my Shadow Clones! Plus, besides being jinchūriki, we have something else in common…us shorter people have got to stick together, if you know what I mean!"

I was utterly flabbergasted by what seemed to be the verbal outpouring of every single one of Naruto's random thoughts about the two of us in what seemed like a mere ten seconds. Uchiha didn't even look shaken by Naruto had just said, having probably gotten used to Naruto's no-holds-barred personality. My thoughts were then interrupted for the umpteenth time that day when Naruto simpered at me before wrapping an arm around my waist and pulling me emphatically in one direction. I tried to restrain my discomfort at the unfamiliar affection, but couldn't hide it completely. Naruto either didn't notice my uneasiness, or simply didn't care. I could see Uchiha's eyes narrowing from the corner of my eye at what he probably perceived as Naruto's over-friendliness, and I was surprised when he decided not to say anything.

"We were just about to go to Ichiraku Rāmen! You're not busy, right? You should join us, it sells the best ramen in the world! Sasuke's paying!"

"Oi, dobe, I'm not paying."

"You bullied Gaara for no reason just now, teme! You're paying!"

I didn't even have an opening to protest that the Kazekage probably needed me back in a short while. As I listened to the two bicker whilst we made our way to the eatery that Naruto had just mentioned, I couldn't help but realise that I still had so many unanswered questions that I wanted to ask the boy that had taken up seemingly permanent residence in my head. How was being a jinchūriki a valid reason to be friends with somebody, especially somebody who had done nothing but try to attack him and his friends whenever they encountered one another? How was it possible to be the host of a demon and still be so happy about everything? How was he able to make friends even amidst the discrimination and hatred that would undoubtedly spawn from being a jinchūriki? Most importantly, how was it possible to be friends with me, somebody who for nearly the entirety of his life had learnt to find joy in shedding the blood of other people?

However, as I looked down and saw the arm that was still wrapped unyieldingly around my waist, steering me in his direction, I decided to let the questions go for the moment. There was time for questions later. Right now, for the first time in my life, there appeared to be somebody who was actually inviting me to eat with him and his best friend on completely amicable terms, and not under a curtain of fear or hostility.

As much as I couldn't believe it, I really, really wanted to try.

I was probably right. This boy really was going to break me. My expectations now, however, were somewhat different.

He was going to break me in the best way possible.

Author's Note - My first Naruto oneshot! I'm actually really happy with how this one turned out. Obviously it was set really early in the series, a few months after Naruto had summoned his giant toad friend and beaten Gaara and Shukaku. I've always liked Gaara as a character. For pete's sake, the kid just wanted a friend! Is that really too much to ask?!

I would really appreciate some reviews. I might have made Gaara a little too intelligent for a twelve-year-old, but I thought hey, his battle instincts are so good that's he's probably really intelligent in the first place, no matter what his age is.

Thanks for reading.

~SUITELIFEFAN