Title: Us
Series: Naruto
Rating: K+
Warnings: spoilers for up to manga chapter 299 and Shippuuden episode 45 (not much after ch 281 and ep 32, but just to be safe), may cause damage to your teeth
Pairings: Gaara and Naruto friendship
Setting: canonverse, first arc of Shippuuden (you know the one)

From that distance, in the dark and over the flickering flames, his expression was difficult to name. He sat in the ring around the fire with his back straighter than the situation would have warranted, surrounded by smiles and chatter, and careful hands patting him on the shoulders.

He gave nods, a word here or there, and each was accepted and treasured.

Accepted, treasured –included. No longer feared by his own. Naruto couldn't have been happier for him.

As his fellow Konohans wandered around the campsite recounting their recent experiences to each other and their allies, he felt content to observe Gaara being welcomed back (or perhaps simply welcomed) among his people. The sight of the other boy alive and well was soothing, and, as he had discovered during the first hours of the trip, necessary, to keep him from worrying his friend was anything but alive and well.

Arms folded to pillow his head against the itchy bark, Naruto continued to watch the pale face regain the little color it normally had, occasionally wondering about the increasingly less glazed blue-green eyes glancing around the crowd in search. He wondered no longer, when they found their target.

Naruto smiled to aknowledge the eye contact. Gaara's only response was to wring himself to his feet as the nearest Suna shinobi rushed to help him, tell them something that looked like politely declining, and force his legs to carry him in his direction. Naruto jumped up and caught him less than half-way there.

"Should you be walking?" he huffed as they sat down by the tree he had been leaning against.

"Should you be quiet and alone?"

Naruto let his hand slide from that slightly shaky arm a second time that day, with more reluctance than the first. "Didn't want to be a third wheel," he said with a feeble chuckle. "You looked so happy surrounded by your people I'd be just getting in the way."

Gaara shook his head, and neither of them felt the need to specify which question or statement that answered. There was a moment's silence, their gazes wandering to the small movement of Gaara's hands as he flexed his fingers.

Some faces from around the fire peeked their way, but soon turned back, assured their Kazekage was safe enough that they could concentrate on celebrating him in his absence.

"So," Naruto reopened the conversation through a soft smile, "you got there."

"I had a head start; there was an opening," Gaara explained.

The abrupt laughter made Naruto sputter a bit. "A head... the hell you did!" He quickly quieted down when his friend's face was completely serious. "I mean, come on. You beat the odds, Gaara. It's… you're amazing! I could be the Fifth, too, if that was all it took, but am I? You… you always had it even worse than me, didn't you…" His voice trailed off into a whisper, and he had to look away from the eyes that were staring at him about as wide as they had when they had first opened that day. He sighed, and forced himself to continue.

"Anyway, I didn't mean just getting the Hat before I did –and believe me, I will get one– "

He wasn't sure if he saw the red head nod slightly from the corner of his eye, but he was clinging to the thought that he had.

"It's…" He pursed his lips together, in search of words to put it into.

"It's what the Hat is for," Gaara finished, and Naruto knew they meant the same thing. Two and a half years, and he still got him.

He would have been lying if he said Gaara had been constantly on his mind since the last time they met, but now that he had him near again, Naruto understood he had been deprived. He didn't know what he would have done if this really had been taken away from him permanently.

A pale hand reached towards him, but quickly withdrew. Just like that, Gaara suddenly felt to be further away.

"Naruto."

It was a whisper, with a tint of distress. Naruto eagerly leaned closer to hear, and to take back the distance he had been too quick to imagine between them. He should have remembered they also shared the insecurities.

Gaara curled up a little more than he probably was aware of doing. "Do you think I'm rotten?"

Did he… WHAT?

Naruto's instant reply came in the loudest whisper possible.

"NO!! Gaara, listen to me, don't you ever believe that! If anyone, I should– " He saw his friend lift his hand again and smell it. "Oh! Um…"

"I still can't feel some of my fingers," Gaara continued, and looked up. "How long was I dead?"

A chill ran down Naruto's spine. "Not that long, give it time," he assured, hoping with every fiber of his being that he was telling the truth. "And if any… damage was done already," he grimaced out, "I'm sure the old lady fixed it, right?"

Gaara breathed out what could be a sigh of relief. Naruto would be eternally grateful to Chiyo for that he was breathing at all –for being there to cover for his unforgivable mistake.

Speaking of fixing damage, their entourage to Suna was full of medics, Sakura-chan included. It struck him that instead of consulting them, the Kazekage was whispering his concerns to his unqualified ear.

"Hey, it's okay not to be okay after what you went through, Gaara," he said, still in a low voice. "You know, Kakashi-sensei usually needs days of bed rest after using his Sharingan a lot." He nodded in the direction of the tree his teacher was slumped against, looking like he wished he could walk on his own enough to escape from whatever conversation Gai-sensei was keeping from ending. "But…" He thought about the smiles he masked hurt with. Not the ones that came naturally; the ones he had rehearsed in front of a mirror as an eleven-year-old, so he could force them on to convince both other people and himself that sticks and stones… "I think I understand."

He reached out his hand in turn, and hesitated, leaving it hovering over the other's that was resting on the ground again. "Which fingers?"

The hand recoiled a little, but then relaxed. "The three most ulnar ones," Gaara muttered.

"The what?"

The Kazekage gave a small smirk. "Pinky, ring and middle finger," he said, and turned his right hand palm up in surrender. Naruto picked it up, and started rubbing the fingers gently.

He hoped the limited lighting was hiding what he could feel as heat on his face, when it started to sink in that this was the first time they had touched skin-to-skin, if you didn't count the headbutt and two punches after Gaara's sand armor had sloughed off. It shouldn't have mattered, because he touched people all the time. He never missed an opportunity, in fact, because he could never know how many chances he would get to have other people welcome it, and he had learned not to expect many.

But Gaara –his existence in the first place, and that he was still with him now, was a miracle. And the loudest, brashest and crudest ninja to have lived or not, you treat such things with due humility. Touching him was unreal, and yet proof that he was real.

He couldn't be sure if the stiffness of those fingers was now more from the rigor mortis or because Gaara had to be even more unused to being touched.

"Why should you think yourself rotten, too?" the miracle suddenly spoke.

The rubbing ceased. Naruto looked up to see the scarred brow furrowed and thin lips pressed into a confused frown. He wished Gaara hadn't caught that.

"I… I couldn't save you," he confessed the obvious, just holding the hand in his and glad to feel one of the previously numb fingers move a little. "I let you die."

The blue-green eyes narrowed more. "I'm sure you gave your best effort."

"I did…" The knowledge of that hurt, too, because it hadn't been enough, but it wasn't what he had meant. "Now, anyway."

Gaara waited. Naruto knew there was no escape of admitting it, and he wouldn't accept one anyway.

"We practically lived together for three months, and it never occurred to me to warn you. You and your village could have been better prepared," he said, his gaze at his feet. "Of course I already knew Akatsuki is after me for Kyuubi, but I didn't bring that up, I didn't realize I should have."

"You couldn't have been sure they wanted more than one demon," Gaara spoke in an unidentifiable tone.

"No, I should have been," Naruto insisted, his voice rising a little in determination to get his point across. "Because you know what –we're the same, remember?" He turned to look Gaara in the eye again. "When they target me, they target you. When they attack you they attack me. When they… when they hurt one of us– " He leaned back a little, realizing he was staring at his friend with an expression that had to have gotten pretty threatening, and that their faces were an inch apart. He took a deep breath to calm himself. "–they hurt us."

The steady sound he had been subconsciously lending half an ear to throughout the conversation broke its rhythm with a shallow inhale and a pause.

"The jinchuuriki?"

"Us," he corrected. "So I should have known."

Naruto leaned back against the tree and released his friend's hand –it was much warmer now anyway, and all five fingers were moving fine. He couldn't help the ridiculous feeling that they had just had a quarrel, and were both waiting for the other to apologize. He heard his name said again (he wondered if he had noticed when exactly Gaara had stopped calling him 'you there' and started using it).

His miracle was looking at him like they really had had a quarrel. "I have been constantly alert for attempts on my life since I was six years old," Gaara reminded him. "My village is built to defend itself from outside threats; when there isn't a human enemy it's still at never-ending war with the surrounding terrain. I never sleep, and neither does Suna. We were prepared."

"I'm sorry," Naruto tried, "I didn't mean it like– " But Gaara interrupted him. He was not the only one determined to be heard when he had something to say, after all.

"That we fell is not your fault. But for that we will get up again, consider yourself responsible."

Now it was Naruto who was staring wide-eyed at his friend. Gaara's gaze was unrelenting, but not hostile. He was willing him to stop pitying himself.

To stop pitying them.

"Okay," Naruto sighed with a faint smile. How could he argue with that? Gaara relaxed, and they settled to sit quietly side by side again. Many of the others had gotten into their sleeping bags already, and an exchange of people around the fire told him of a change of guards. "So, you never sleep, huh? What about now?" he asked, on a whim for something to talk about.

"I should be able to," Gaara considered. "It will take some adjusting, though, and I'm not tired right now."

"Really?" The latter half of the word turned into a yawn, apparently summoned by his wish not to seem tired either. He didn't want to sleep when his friend was sitting there awake, and could be having a conversation with him instead of watching him snore yet again. "Then maybe I just need to bore you to de– " He almost clamped a hand on his mouth. Of all the idioms...

But Gaara nodded, hint of a warm smile forming on his lips.

"If you would. Tell me of your travels."

A wide grin stretched whiskered cheeks. There would be no end in sight once he got started on that.