Set After shippuden episode 32 or after chapter 281 in the manga. Gaara POV.
It's strange how even in the time before I met Naruto I never wanted to lose control and become a demon. It's hard to believe, yes? I mean without realising he took control anyway even though I didn't sleep. You see the more I sleep, the more Shukaku could take control of my body and destroy the part of me that was me. But even so I became a monster that loved to kill.
I realised when I met Naruto that I really had become a monster I was quite disgusted with myself. I couldn't even count the number of people I had killed and all for what? I hadn't even done it to protect people. Anyway I'm digressing.
What I really wanted to talk about was sleep. I haven't slept since I was quite young. At the time the vivid dreams and nightmares I had terrified me and were what made me force myself to stop sleeping more than anything. It's funny, I wonder if while I was the monster and didn't sleep, would I have minded the nightmares? Or would I have even liked them? For I can still remember the dreams completely that I had when I was a child. They were painted a vivid black and red. Blood dripped away down blank walls and bodies strewn in heaps. There were no definite faces, no people I knew just people as if they were animals for the slaughter. The metallic stench sharp and disgusting filled the air. There was occasionally a flash of white as the monster inside me bit into another victim. Their dying screams would force me to wake shivering and shaking.
But now the demon's gone. I am no longer a host to a monster. You'd think it would be hard for me to forget everything I had taught myself to do, to stop the demon from taking control wouldn't you? But after we came back from where I had died...another strange thing to say but anyway once we were back I felt exhausted. I'd never felt so tired even after all this time without any sleep.
I slept without any trouble.
I had no dreams good or bad. I'd never known sleep was so peaceful. The complete darkness of ignorance as you close your mind to everything that happens to you during the day. No worries, fears, cares or thoughts enter that abyss.
I felt refreshed.
I felt human.