I used to be a self mutilator, years ago. Enough to have left scars. Enough that, on the whole, I cannot stand self mutilation fic, because everyone always talks about the pretty patterns left by the razors and I'm left going "Argh, no! You don't cut for pretty! You cut or burn or bite or scratch yourself with your nails because you don't let yourself feel the mental pain and you try and substitute with physical pain! Plus. adrenaline is addictive."

So why write this one-shot? Because you write what you know, of course. Gaara can't cut himself, but he can feel pain. Also, because I was stupid enough to say I probably could write it and then it wouldn't get out of my head. 3

Naruto doesn't belong to me, or it would be a tale of walking woe and misery and people violently shaking Sasuke for being an idiot. Concrit happily taken.

It's a dark night tonight. Not the new moon, but just past, enough for a tiny sliver of moon to hang in the sky.

In Suna, Gaara sits alone in his room. He supposes it's his room, anyway. He's not attached to it, he just started sleeping in there and, as with so many things, no-one asked why or dared to refuse. There's nothing in it he'd miss, if he left, except for the height. From here he can look at the moon most nights and nothing gets in his way. He quite likes the moon, in his own way. It's pale and inscrutable and powerful enough to affect the tides and it looks quiet up there.

The fact that his room is high up enough that people don't tend to be around to bother him by being around him is an added advantage. Mother is much quieter when there are no people nearby. Less active if she can't hear their breath and their voices and the thousands of noises people make just by living and moving even when they try to be silent and not disturb them but they always fail...

The candle on the windowsill flickers, and Gaara is brought out of his near dream. People seem to think he needs the candles as a nightlight, that he's somehow afraid of the shadows. No-one mentions it out loud, though. Certainly, it is better to be thought of as fearing something you don't; it gives people over-confidence and they come to him at night when people don't hear the screams so much and once again, he's drifting in his head and it's dangerous. Btter by far to wrap those thoughts in heavy chains and sink them to the bottom of his mind.

So he pays attention to the candle and the myriad flickers of the flame. He holds a hand over it, briefly, feels the heat flicker up almost painfully to his palm.

Almost isn't good enough for Gaara, as he lowers his hand some more. This time he can feel the pain, even through the thin sand coating that is his second skin. But a tiny flame is no threat to him, can cause him no real harm, and Mother slumbers on as Gaara puts his hand close enough to the candle that the flame is momentarily starved of oxygen. The heat sears his hand, and in that small moment the flame burns not his hand but his mind, sears out memories and dreams, all the many things he tries to drown over and over again but can't.

And then the candle goes out, and the pain dies down, and he's back with the moon and his windowsill and an elusive trail of smoke and another blister forming under both his skins.

Gaara can't feel pain. He knows this because everyone whispers about it around him, although they think they're being quiet and sneaky. But for a moment, something gleams in the corner of Gaara's eye as he stares at the moon, as the blister throbs and the adrenaline slows down in his veins and maybe it's a trick of the moon or just perhaps, it's the faintest gleam of dampness.

Gaara isn't telling, and neither is the moon.