Sleepless
Summary: On insomnia. Gaara knows each rung of the cycle, and more. drabble
Disclaimer: ... Umn. I own my own occasional insomnia, and no more.
o.O.o.0.o.O.o.0.o.O.o
Insomnia is a funny sort of thing. It can waver between being totally awake and ready to drop. It can be a heady sort of energy that simply keeps you up all night long. It can be a focused drive, a reason for staying up. And sometimes it's just that feeling when you lie there and your mind or your eyes are tired but your body simply won't shut down.
Gaara has experienced all of these in his lifetime, and so much more. Sometimes it's more of a trance, like when he watches Temari or Kankurou sleep, and this is the most dangerous form of not-sleeping, because it lets him drift, sometimes nearly into real sleep. He can always catch it, though, because he can feel it when he begins the unfamiliar process of dreaming.
The focus is when he has a scroll to read or practice to do or paperwork to complete. It is often accompanied by the shifting consciousness, the energy slowing until his eyes become heavy, but then he talks himself out of it and the perfunctory energy is there again.
The rush comes when they are on a mission an continuing through the night. The others with him will persevere through the dark, but it is only to keep up with Gaara, because for him, it is exciting, it is something worth doing with his time rather than something keeping him from sleep.
It is a similar, but less potent, less lengthy sort of rush that comes with a returned mission or patrol in the middle of the night. That is when he knows they actually, unfathomably, appreciate his insomnia, because it means they don't have to seek him out or worry about rousing him, because he will be willing if not eager (the enthusiasm is there; it's just masked like most other things) to deal with it immediately, and it makes it easier for all parties involved.
And the last, that basic inability, comes at those desperate intervals when his chakra is low, or gone, or nearly gone, when his body hovers on unconsciousness but by the base instinct he's grown with, refuses to slip away. No matter how tempting it is. These are the times that are at once the most frustrating and the ones he is most grateful for.
Because insomnia is a funny sort of thing, in its variations and vicious cycles. And Gaara is trapped in it.