It's been a year since Gaara lost his connection to the one-tailed beast, but the circles around his eyes do not fade.
Three hundred and sixty-five burials of the sun, three hundred and sixty-five births of the moon.
It's been roughly eighty thousand, seven hundred and sixty-five hours, forty-nine minutes and twenty some odd seconds since Shukaku was ripped from his flesh and bones, stripping his soul in the process.
Less time since that soul was yanked back.
He's seen every bruised-eyelid evening. Glimpsed every blackening of the sky and tangerine cloud of morning. Every rising, falling, fading, waking. Except for the nights the low hanging darkness swallowed the sky whole, he's witnessed an endless cycle of moons.
It's been so many nights since the moment Gaara stopped existing as a jinchuuriki and started as a person.
And the dark marks remain, because still, Gaara does not sleep.
Not because of fear. Or rather not because of the fear that keeps most shinobi children up at night or even the fear from before which also was not this fear. Not because of the monster under the bed. Because when Gaara was a child, the monster slept in his bed.
The monster had a teddy bear.
Gaara does not sleep. And it's not because of the threat of Shukaku's possession or because he's never known a sleep without nightmares or even because people have tried countless times to murder him in his sleep, but because he's afraid if the lines fade away—terrified that if they disappear completely, he'll lose his connection to the only known remaining jinchuuriki.
Naruto's scars will never fade away. They run deeper than cheek and muscle, mar him down to the bone. His markings are permanent, for better or worse. Unlike Gaara's.
The blonde visits not often but often enough. As much as he can, which is more than Gaara can ever afford now. He's tied to the village no matter what, for better or worse, till second death, because the villagers need him, and Naruto doesn't need him at all.
It's the first anniversary of his death (or rather of his subsequent sand-cocoon rebirth). For a moment he's stupid enough to think that's why Naruto is there.
It's ironic, he thinks, that his boy that he once threatened to kill is the only one who was able to bring him back to life. Both physically and metaphorically for which he is eternally grateful. For which he can never seem to express through words and so offered a simple hand at their last parting.
The desert can bleach your bones with its hot blasts of sand.
If he is the endless desert sand then Naruto is the wind. Even more so infinite, ever changing. It moves the desert, shapes it at a whim. Is powerful enough to create devastating storms.
"I'd let you hurt me." Or maybe it's more accurate to say he does already. At one time Gaara wasn't even capable of hurting himself. Now he aches on a daily basis.
"Eh?"
He hates her. He hates her because he doesn't really hate her at all but sometimes catches himself wishing he could be her. Because he can't stop himself from wondering what it would be like if he could ever take her pink-haired place. But Gaara's never been the nurturing sort, and it's obvious to anyone how easily she keeps Naruto in line, so it would probably be a disastrous idea.
It doesn't stop him from slipping a little sand in her coffee from time to time though.
"One lump or two?"
It only takes two cups before she answers, "No, thank you" with a smile sweet enough to shame most artificial sugars.
There's no stars out tonight, but his eyes are wide, lustrous as the moon.
A monster hugs a teddy bear under the bed. A monster cries alone. A monster sits in a meeting.
"It's not fair," Naruto complains, rising from a squat and dusting off the knees to his pants. "Girls throw themselves at you."
"I'm not interested in them." Gaara blushes behind his sand-armor, thankful that it hides the coloring of his cheeks. He'd hoped the statement would cheer the boy up, but he only huffs and kicks at a mound of sand.
"Someday, I'll have what you do." The blonde tilts his face toward the sky long after the words have left his lips. His stance is wide-legged, determined.
Gaara nods, silent, eyes scanning the red-streaked horizon. But I'll never have you.