Happy valentine's day folks! Have… something not even remotely valentinesy.

so, yeah, i had planned to finish chap 6 of SITS but this idea suddenly grabbed hold of my mental reigns and.. well here we are now, i've been wanting to do something with this idea for a long while now and I'll probably be going into it in more depth in the future if I ever get around to that sand sib fic I'm planning, but i stumbled across a tedtalk vid about this very subject during my regular procrastinating session today and my brain just ran with it, ended up being pretty experimental but i kinda like it.

(full disclosure: I do not and have never had any form of psychosis, so this is based primarily off of what we saw in canon, several tumblr posts and some personal accounts I've been able to find online, if anyone feels I've portrayed this in an insensitive way then please let me know, I'll alter/take down as necessary!)

Four

He didn't remember the first time he heard the voice.

Perhaps he had simply been too young for the memory to hold, or perhaps it had always been there and so it had never seemed noteworthy enough to hold on to.

Either way, the voice had always been a part of his life, the constant susurration, somewhere in the depths of his mind; soft, quiet, comforting, but unclear, as though he was hearing a conversation muffled by thick walls, like when he sometimes overheard his father and uncle talking in the kitchen at night, when he was supposed to be in his room, waiting alone for the morning to come.

Occasionally, though, a few words would come though clear.

"…hurts…" The voice was very distant – if the night hadn't been so silent, he probably never would have noticed it – but gravelly and rough, like it was spoken by someone with a very dry throat. He wished he knew where they were, maybe then he could give them some water to make their throat less sore.

At least, Gaara assumed that was what was hurting, even when he did get to hear the voice properly, he never got a full sentence, only broken scraps of sentences, usually something to do with sand, or hurt, or emptiness.

The voice always seemed to be hurting.

Five

"-looking at you, they fear you, hate you, look at them all looking at you, don't you want to hurt-"

Gaara whined as he curled further in on himself.

He didn't like the new voice, it was loud and harsh and mean and never shut up. He couldn't hear the other voice any more, could barely hear his own thoughts sometimes. Just gleeful cackling and the nasty voice reminding him how much everybody hated him, telling him to hurt himself, hurt them all.

It made his head feel tight and sharp and prickly, he wished he knew what to call the feeling, then he could ask Yashamaru how to make it go away.

For now, he just settled for digging both his hands into his hair and tugging, hard; it didn't make the voice go away, not really, but it seemed to release the tight feeling and brought him back to the present moment. When he looked up and realised that his father was shouting at him for not listening again, he began to regret quieting the voice.

Seven

Mother's voice was definitely his favourite.

He hardly registered the oldest voice anymore; it was still there, still quiet, still distant and unclear, little more than white noise that he'd long since learned to filter out.

The other voice – which he'd long ago realised must be the demon inside him, ranting and raving and trying to influence him – was simply annoying in the way it grated on his ears, clawed at his psyche, screamed during long, moon-lit nights and howled with laughter every time another assassin died by his hand.

But Mother, she was soft and sweet and gentle, she didn't whisper of pain and loneliness with a rough, pitiful whimper, she didn't shriek and cackle and demand, no, her voice was firm yet warm when she told him how she loved him, what a good child he was, how sweet he was to her, would he please give her just a little more blood, such a good son.

He idly watched the sand soak up the sticky redness flowing from a corpse that could no longer be identified as human and listened to Mother humming her joy.

Ten

She had been getting angrier lately, her gentle requests had shifted into violent commands so gradually that he hadn't even noticed until her voice pierced his mind like a dagger, stabbing into his brain with each agonising second she went unfulfilled.

Of course he couldn't disobey her, she was his Mother and she was always so sweet to him once she'd drank her fill, so what did it matter if she got a little angry when he wasn't fast enough to feed her?

Eleven

"-why haven't you killed them all already – sweet child, Mother is hungry – looking at you again – be a good boy, give your Mother –…hurts…– why don't you show them true fear – give me blood child –…unnecessary…– all of them staring, don't you hate them – Gaara, do as I say!"

Sand loops around an arm, a leg, a chest, a neck and he squeezes and all he can hear is a scream from the voices – united only in the death he brings – and in the few seconds of quiet that follow, he breathes in the momentary peace, letting the silence seep into his skin, his bones… until Shukaku's laughter starts once again and Mother is singing her love and the whispering drowns out the silence.

Twelve

Suddenly, he is aware, of everything.

Much of his life had been spent living in his own head, listening to conversations that were inaudible to anyone else, speaking only to the two beings who had been his only friends for so long, only returning to the world of the physical when he needed to fulfil another craving, to show another purposeless insect that his existence deserved to linger in that world he had all but abandoned.

But, now he seems to have left both the world and his own body; he was separate from both, noticing for the first time just how distant he was from reality.

He'd always noticed how Temari would flinch, whenever he looked in her direction, how Kankuro constantly glowered at his turned back, how Baki's hand drifted to his kunai whenever his eyes glazed over as he spoke to Mother, how complete strangers would give him pitying, fearful looks as he pulled at his hair to quiet his demon… but he'd never really known what it all meant.

Even now, now that his eyes had been opened to a light so blinding that it made him wish he remembered how to cry, he still wasn't sure he understood any of it.

But… maybe he wanted to try, maybe he wanted that normal life he'd always been denied.

Fourteen

He'd been doing so well.

Years of observation, years of learning the intricacies of human interaction and putting his findings into practice with his siblings, his teacher and his student, years of highlighting every little thing that made him Different and burying them as deep inside himself as he could manage, all to reach his new goal of connecting to others, of becoming the kind of person worthy of love and being needed.

He could almost pass for human some days – a cold, aloof, abnormal human, but human nonetheless.

But the voices were still there; whispering, shouting, laughing, screaming, demanding, pleading, berating him for leaving them alone, slashing at the spider-silk threads keeping him tethered to the new life he was building for himself, trying to drag him back into himself.

He'd been ignoring them as best he could, he hadn't spoken aloud to them in almost a year now, clinging to the veneer of normality he'd put up, but last night, it had slipped away.

If Temari hadn't been there he might've been able to brush it off.

But, she had been there and she'd heard everything, from his whispered begs for silence, to his eventual desperate shriek for Mother to stop asking for any more blood.

When he'd finally calmed down and the voices had been quieted enough for him to hear her speak, she led him to the kitchen and anxiously set about making a pot of tea, constantly shooting him sideways glances and performing her actions with the kind of exaggerated care that he'd come to recognise as her usual reaction to stress.

They'd sat in not-quite-silence as they both stared deeply into their cups – Shukaku muttering prophecies in his ear, making him twitch with the urge to crush something.

Eventually she found words again, asked if he was alright, asked if he still heard the voices often, asked if there was anything she could do for him. He answered honestly, no, always, he didn't know, could she? She reassured him that these things took time, she and Kankuro would always be there for him to confide in, he didn't need to hide from them, no one expected him to get better right away.

He wondered if she even really knew what was wrong with him in the first place.

Temari's voice sounded an awful lot like Mother's. He found some comfort in that.

Fifteen

Things were supposed to be different now, he'd been fixed, hadn't he?

He was no longer a jinchuriki, there was no longer a demon residing in his soul, feeding off his psyche and orchestrating his thoughts.

He was human now, so why could he still hear them?

The voices were all figments of Shukaku – he'd accepted that not long after his turn towards the light – they were just the demon's attempts to manipulate him, torment him and now that it was gone, the voices should be gone too, but they'd survived even his death.

Perhaps they were tied to his body itself, when his soul had been torn from it, had the voices stayed with the stiffening corpse, muttering and screaming at an empty husk to exact their will?

At the very least, the voice he'd most readily identified as Shukaku's should have disappeared, could it be that there was still some part of the demon, lingering within him? Naruto had tried to reassure him that it wasn't so, but he dearly hoped it was, because the alternative was that the voices had never been Shukaku's to begin with and that there was no hope for him becoming the human he so revered.

Sixteen

He watched the stars as the world carried on around him.

The war was over and, despite all logic, they had won. But that was Naruto for you, his preternatural skill for achieving the impossible was hardly even a surprise at this point.

He could still hear the celebrations from here, but it was quiet enough that he could focus on something far more important to him right now.

"Mother."

"Sweet child, you have not spoken to me in so long, I hope you have a gift for me."

He didn't believe that the voice in his head, always provoking, always begging for blood, was actually his mother's spirit, even so...

"Mother, thank you. For everything you did for me, for loving me, despite all the pain I caused you."

"Of course I love you Gaara, you were always such a good boy, you always fed me when I asked and oh, am I hungry, won't you feed me someone darling?"

He gently shook his head, Mother was nothing if not predictable, but perhaps that didn't have to remain the case. His father had revealed to him a truth and he wanted to act on it. The voice might not be his real mother, but that didn't mean he couldn't treat her like one. "Mother, will you tell me about yourself?"

"Myself?"

"Yes, your past, your dreams, what your hobbies are, what your favourite colours are; I want to know everything, please… talk to me."

For once, there was silence, even the Whisperer trailed off as Mother thought over her response.

"… Did you know I used to dance?"

If he couldn't get rid of the voices, if there was no hope of ever being left truly alone in himself – and maybe he didn't want that, maybe he didn't know what to do with that kind of solitude, that kind of silence – then perhaps the best he could do, was get to know them.

Nineteen

Ino was not what he had expected.

What little he'd gathered from the few instances they'd been in the same place at the same time, was that she was a loud, friendly and exuberant person, someone who demanded the attention of everyone wherever she went.

Not unlike another blond he knew.

It was Temari who first introduced them properly – they had apparently become quite good friends through Shikamaru – and that meeting had done little to change his opinions of her, they'd spent most of their time discussing their mutual friends and horticulture, she'd been particularly keen to get some pointers on growing cacti from him, but it hadn't taken long for her true nature to be revealed.

She was intelligent, witty, cool, calm and very, very perceptive.

"So, I understand you hear voices?"

Admittedly not enough that she'd picked up on all of his various intricacies from just a few short conversations – she'd eventually revealed that it was Temari who'd informed her of that fact, when divulging her own anxieties to her new friend one particularly stressful day – but she was upfront about her psychological training and her desire to evaluate him herself, if only to put his sister's worries to rest.

"Don't worry, you don't have to tell me all your secrets, I was just wondering how your relationship with them is? Antagonistic? Friendly? Indifferent?"

He'd thought on it for a long time; the truth was that they'd been all three at various stages in his life, he didn't want to reveal his entire mentality to a relative stranger, but he'd been trying to come to terms with his abnormality lately and there wasn't much of a relationship to lose if the truth wasn't accepted. "Things weren't always easy between us, but… we've been making progress lately."

Whatever reaction he'd been expecting from her, a wide, bright, genuine smile wasn't it.

"That's great! The voices we might hear are usually parts of ourselves that we are unable to express, fears, desires, emotions that you have buried deep inside yourself, a voice telling you to hurt others might actually be an expression of your own fear of being hurt, for example. Likely caused by repressed trauma in your case, however, they aren't necessarily a bad thing; once you learn to accept them, the voices can actually be quite helpful in realising your own thoughts and emotions! It's good that you've taken steps to reconcile with them, I know it might be difficult sometimes, but you should keep at it, even voices that are hostile are usually the result of past hurts, treat them with kindness and it will help all of you to heal."

He was probably staring, but he'd never met someone who had seen the darker, disturbed parts of him and not either turned away in fear, or attempted to smother them with love – even Naruto, who he identified with more than anyone else, had only shown concern for his wellbeing the few times he'd let them slip out.

Was this what it felt like to be a normal human accepted by others of your kind?

"I won't suggest therapy – it sounds like your progressing quite well on your own and that's a decision you should make for yourself – but… maybe sit your siblings down and explain to them what's going on in your mind? They both worry about you so much; it'll take time for them to accept that this isn't a cause for concern, but the more open you are about it, the more normal it will become."

It wasn't an idea he'd ever considered before, weren't these the things you were supposed to hide, lock away deep inside and never let the outside world know just how deep the madness ran?

"Take your time to think on it, I'll talk to them too, if you like and if you ever need a pen pal or something, Temari knows my address!" Her hair bounced behind her as she jumped off the roof and bounded down the street.

"Isn't she a nice girl?" Mother whispered from behind him.

Gaara nodded.

Twenty-one

He watched the last of the council filter out of the hall, some breaking off into smaller groups to discuss the issues brought up in the meeting and others striding to their offices to take action on the proposals made.

A familiar cackle bounced off the walls in his head.

"Did you see? Ikanago was watching you, I bet he's up to something."

Gaara hummed as he gathered his files and habitually skimmed over the minutes taken. "Yes, I thought so too, thank you for warning me."

"He wants to hurt you; don't you want to hurt him first?"

He frowned as he crossed out a mistake in the notes and neatly rewrote the correction underneath. "No, we know he's up to something, that's enough for now."

A cough echoed around the empty room, before Shukaku started it's expected ranting, "You just don't want to get your hands dirty, why shouldn't we kill him? Rip his limbs off one by one, you know he'd do the same to you, why do you put so much trust in others, when it'd be so much easier to just kill them all-"

"That would be drastic and wouldn't solve the root problem."

It took him a few moments to realise that the cough wasn't from one of his inhabitants, but rather from his brother, standing awkwardly in the doorway, not quite sure where to look.

They stared blankly at each other for a few moments.

"So, uh… is that… Mother you're talking to?" He was trying to casual about the whole situation, but Kankuro still seemed rather distressed by the voices – though whether it was because of their nature itself or just because his feelings towards their mother had always been difficult, was unclear.

"No. Shukaku thinks that Ikanago is acting suspiciously; it seems to be on to something, I'd like you to look into it."

He straightened up immediately, he didn't know what to do with the voices in his brother's head, but he knew exactly what to do with threats to his family.

"I'm on it."

Twenty-eight

Gaara was up late – as he always was – basking in the dawn and listening to the sounds of his village.

The market had closed hours ago, but there were still a few stray people rushing through the near-deserted streets, hoping to make it home and out of the frigid air as quickly as possible, or early risers heading begrudgingly to set up for the day's work, the distant calls of alley cats and fennecs and hyenas and birds all made a surprisingly peaceful melody, the winds were never calm here, but, sheltered by Suna's great walls, the gale was little more than a distant murmur.

His voices were all quiet for once; Shukaku seemed to be sleeping, it had become much less active lately, though it would still inform him in paranoid ranting of potential threats and it would wake up at night when the moon was out and he would let it scream until it's rage and pain abated and it could once again rest easy.

Mother wasn't talking right now, but he could feel her sitting with him, her warm presence a comfort he'd never imagined he'd ever experience. She had become much easier to talk to over the years, she often asked about his day, about his siblings, about the state of the world at large.

Even Temari and Kankuro had become more at ease with her presence and when he asked one of them a question on her behalf, they didn't hesitate to give an answer. It had actually become something of a tradition for them all to have at least one night a week where they – all four of them – could sit and talk and laugh and be the family that had been taken away from them so cruelly, even if Gaara's version of their mother was built only from half-remembered stories and faded photographs.

The sky was turning pink and red and orange and yellow as the sun crept higher, soon it would breach the city's walls and the sky would turn Mother's favourite shade of blue – his too.

But, in the quiet of the dawn, he heard something he'd not noticed in a long time.

A constant susurration, somewhere in the depths of his mind; soft, quiet, comforting, but unclear, as though he was hearing a conversation muffled by thick walls, like when he sometimes overheard his adoptive children gossiping in their bedroom at night, when he was supposed to be in his office, taking care of important matters of state.

Occasionally though, a few words would come through clear.

"…warm…"

The voice was close – not separated by distance so much as dimension – but gentle and husky, like it was spoken by someone not used to talking for long stretches. He knew where they were and reached out a welcoming hand towards them.

At least, Gaara assumed that was what they wanted, even when he did get to hear the voice properly, he never got a full sentence, only broken scraps of sentences, usually something to do with sand, or hurt, or emptiness.

The voice wasn't always happy, but he was glad when it was.

"Hello, Whisperer, would you like to join me?"

"…Hello, Gaara…"