Behind the Sun

Chapter 8: Infirmity

"What a BEAUTIFUL display of YOUTHFUL PASSION!"

Startled, Gaara pulled away at the sound of the loud voice that boomed through the street that suddenly seemed much narrower.

Naruto's arms tightened around his waist, so Gaara didn't have the room to turn around, but he recognized most of the shinobi with an askance look over his shoulder.

"Though we must apologize for our QUEST requires us to intervene!"

Gaara twitched. Were the green head cases crying?

"So BEAUTIFUL!"

One of the many snide and random voices in Gaara's head screeched, "MANHUG!" Gaara winced. He wished Shukaku didn't feel that he had to keep up an intermittent and slightly irrelevant commentary on the 'soap opera of his life.' At least, that was how he put it.

Gaara secretly believed that Shukaku was a closet romantic.

Gaara snapped back to the present. Right. Crazy-Naruto had just been massacring random civilians. The other side of the street was completely consumed by flames now. Shinobi had just arrived to kill them— probably. It would be a very bad idea to start one of his endless and pointless mental rambles now. Must focus.

Gaara wondered if he should blame Shukaku and his own various psychosises for his spaciness, or the fact that Naruto had just kissed him and was still holding him.

Gaara had to stop himself from following that train of thought. Focus. Of course.

Shukaku was laughing at him from somewhere within his subconscious.

Looking over his shoulder, Gaara saw that the shinobi had gotten into offensive marital stances. He also noticed that there were four of them now. The two in green tended to eclipse the others.

Despite this scene of aggression, Gaara didn't feel the need to get on the alert, though his shinobi instincts told him he should. The grip Naruto had on him made him feel safe... and maybe a little sleepy. But he was always sleepy.

That was perhaps on of the few— "MANY!" Shukaku chuckled derisively— perks of being smaller than his mate. Whenever Naruto hugged him he could feel blissfully engulfed in the warm strength of his embrace— "YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT THE BIG AND TALL..." — and he could always relax with Naruto like no other, because Gaara knew his blonde would use all his power to protect him. — "... AND MUSCULAR..." — Gaara wondered suddenly if he would feel safer around Temari and Kankuro if they were more powerful. — "...AND HELL, HE'S GOT NINE OF 'EM..." —Considering at this point Gaara would likely lose to Naruto if they ever got into an all-out battle, if Temari and Kankuro were on the same power level (which they were no where near, since they couldn't even beat Gaara together, he though)— "... POWERFUL..." —would Gaara feel as comfortable with them as with Naruto? There was also the difference of intimate interactions in lovers' and siblings' relationships to consider.— "BABIES!" —Obviously, Gaara would never get into bed with one of his siblings; he shuddered at the thought. He decided he'd have to ask Naruto when he was more sane how close sibling relationships were supposed to get. "LOTS OF BABIES!"

Gaara paused.

...What?

"BABIES." Gaara could feel the half-crazed grin of his resident demon.

Gaara thought about it. He realized he had no idea what the tanuki was talking about.

"BABIES." The demon clarified unhelpfully. "LOTS OF THEM."

Gaara didn't understand.

"I'M GONNA BE A MOMMY!"

The redhead had a brief flashback to the years when Shukaku had convinced him he was the spirit of his deceased mother, willing him to fulfill her dying wish. At the time, it was the only purpose he could hold onto. Though his mother may have hated and cursed him, at least she had given him a reason to keep living: Kill everyone. It had been a perfectly good life purpose until— "BRAT!"

"What?" he snapped irritably. It may have been out loud. Oh well, no one would look at him oddly if they already thought he was crazy.

"PAY ATTENTION!"

Right. Babies.

"NO!" The demon lapsed into a string of unintelligible but harsh-sounding curses in the hostile demonic tongue. It was an ancient tongue. It was lyrical. It sounded mostly like the sound a dog makes when it's hucking up grass. "IF YOU'RE NOT GOING TO PAY ATTENTION THEN AT LEAST LET ME TAKE OVER!"

Gaara's mind came up with many surprised responses when his world was suddenly turned on its edge. Since he could not decide which one to use in less than a tenth of a second, he didn't express any of them. But he did start paying attention.

The rather deafening roar of rage in his ear kind of helped with the whole snap-back to reality thing.

Gaara blinked slowly as he took in the scene around him. It wasn't much different from before. Those lazy Konoha-nin were still standing around, looking somewhat disapproving. He noticed the particularly condescending scowl of one of them.

Gaara instantly decided he didn't like the Hyuuga.

"Naruto! Please! You must listen to us!"

Sifting through the memory of sensations Gaara had been ignoring for the past minute or so, he discovered why he had been so rudely shaken.

The smaller green-clad one, with some sort of misconception about 'calming the beast,' had attempted to approach them. Thusly, he had earned a slash to the face with Naruto's claws as the boy retreated.

The redhead was somewhat disappointed when he saw there was no blood on the hyper-nin's face.

Gaara sighed inaudibly as a clawed hand tightened in his side.

Damn Konoha-nins. He was comfortable!

He only met a little resistance as Gaara slid his arms from around Naruto's neck and stepped away, but he got the impression that if he tried to get more than an arm's length away thy blonde would pull him back. Gaara was half-tempted to take another step just for the sake of getting pulled back into those arms again.

Though he would never admit it out loud, Gaara got a sort of perverted pleasure from his lover's possessive streak. —"WHAT ABOUT YOU ISN'T PERVERTED?" —

Damn. These Konoha-nin wouldn't stop talking. What happened to the ambush-and-capture maneuvers a proper ninja would use? If there was one thing Konoha-nin in general were good at, it was dragging on moral speeches before, after, and even during battles.

"Mine!" Naruto cried suddenly, appearing in front of Gaara abruptly.

Gaara decided it was time to pay attention again.

He quickly saw that the squad had split up. Lee— he remembered his name now, funny how his memory worked like that— and the Hyuuga were already circling around behind him. The older green ninja and the girl with the buns had their eyes intent on Naruto.

Well, finally, they were getting to the interesting part. —"WOO! POUND THOSE SONS'A'BITCHES!"—

Naruto howled angrily; he was trying to keep his eyes on the enemies both before and behind them. Gaara knew it was futile, he couldn't handle all of them at once, for as soon as he turned to attack one pair, the other would attack from behind, hitting either Naruto or himself. Gaara felt warm inside at the idea that Naruto was likely worrying more about the latter. Crazy or not, the boy didn't like letting strangers touch his mate, especially with hostile intent.

However, reveling in Naruto's slightly over-protective from of love would have to be left for another day.

Gaara turned on his heel and crouched slightly, testing his weight on his ankles. At least physically, his body appeared to be back in working order.

He smirked, more for intimidation purposes than to express that he thought he was superior to his opponents. Even though he did.

He felt the change in Naruto's demeanor behind him; the boy had understood his gesture and was getting into a more battle-ready stance himself.

He almost snarled when the Hyuuga only smirked back.

Lee was currently spouting something about YOUTH and PLEDGES, but Gaara was ignoring him.

That Hyuuga was going down first.

The first wave did not catch the Hyuuga by surprise, but Gaara had seen him fight before, so he had been expecting this. Neither did the second wave achieve a hit. However, Gaara's intent was soon revealed, as hidden in the third wave was his trap.

The redhead grinned crazily as the Hyuuga tripped ungracefully onto his ass. Just as he had expected, the tunic-clad ninja had been relying upon his byakugan to track Gaara's attacks. What the Hyuuga hadn't realized was that not all of Gaara's attacks consisted of blatant waves of sand that were full of mounds of chakra. His control was such that he could manipulate the sand down to the smallest grain, and since the amount of chakra needed to move an object decreased relatively with mass and vice versa, it would take someone with great observational skills to notice just a few of the smallest pinpricks of chakra; maybe just a handful attaching themselves to the Hyuuga's clothing as he dodged each attack...

And as predicted, the Hyuuga hadn't been looking out for such subtlety. The white-eyed nin twisted as he fell, but the kaiten was compromised as Gaara already had his sand grasping an ankle.

Gaara waved his hand, commanding the sand to engulf his prissy prey. His sand barrier was already coming up to block—

Gaara wasn't the only one who was surprised when Lee's fist connected with his face.

For a moment he stilled, stunned by the sudden change in his perception as his head snapped back at the angle of the punch.

Had Lee gotten faster? No, Gaara suddenly realized that his sand barrier had not even budged.

He felt the cause of this malfunction more than knew it, as a throb of pain rippled from deep in his abdomen outwards across his body.

That was all he had time to realize before Lee's foot connected.

He felt the pain distantly, as he collided with the ground a second later. Gaara twisted against the earth; his muscles were refusing his commands.

What was wrong? What was going on? Shukaku was panicking, but Gaara perceived his voice only vaguely through the onslaught of undulating torture.

He shouldn't be experiencing such a violent backlash at this point. Of course, he had known his coils weren't completely healed, but after twenty-four hours—

Kakashi.

If Gaara's throat hadn't locked up like the rest of his body, he would have growled.

Of course. He should have known. The chakra usage from that battle with the ANBU, though he had been careful, had set back his healing process. Set it back quite severely by the looks of it.

"Gaara!"

He tried calming himself, breathing slowly and deeply. But it only worried him more as his breath hitched every few moments and his heart pounded erratically against his ribcage. If those failed he could have a serious problem.

"Konoha senpuu!"

"RrrrrraaaaAAAAAAHHHH!"

It was trying to do two things at once that had done it, Gaara decided. Forcing too much chakra through his damaged coils had been the last straw. So now, all Gaara could do was wait and agonize as his body spasmed, signals jumbling and tangling along his broken synapses.

"Naruto! Stop!"

"Kagemane no jutsu!"

"The clones! Behind you—"

"Gaara-chan..." He wondered if that was his imagination, supplying him with the soothing voice of his love whispering in his ear.

"Naruto! It's me! Please, just calm—"

Something wet and hot splattered his face, and someone— something— cackled with delight from above him.

His body still shaking with the aftershock, Gaara managed to open his eyes. The world was a blur of color and light, as his vision refused to focus.

A shadow fell over him. "Naruto...?" The call came out more like a sickly croak than anything coherent.

"Shh... it's okay... just take deep breaths..."

Gaara froze. Not Naruto.

"I think you're having a seizure, so just stay calm..."

"AAARGH! Don't touch him!"

"Hold him down!"

"Now, I'm going to give you a sedative to relax your muscles... you might feel a little pinch..."

Gaara had always been skeptical of drugs, to say that his previous experiences involving a therapist and various psycho-depressants had been traumatic, for both himself and those around him, would be an understatement. However, though he hated the fact that he was now incapable of movement, he couldn't say he didn't welcome the nearly painless tranquility the haze of drugs brought.

"Gaara? Gaara?! What are you doing to him?"

Naruto. He sound panicked, but Gaara didn't have the strength to call out to calm him.

"He'll be fine, Naruto, stop struggling or you'll only hurt yourself more."

Kakashi's voice. Stupid convenient Kawarimi technique.

"Argh! No!"

"Somebody hold him before he rips his own limbs off!"

"RRAAAH! Get away from me!"

There was a brief tumult and a pause that followed.

"Do you think that'll hold him?"

"We can..." Gaara's hearing was becoming steadily fuzzier, like a radio station whose frequency was gradually fading into static. "... at least..."

Without even realizing it, Gaara fell asleep.

A/N: Don't worry, it will all start to make sense later. And no, this will not become an m-preg story. XD I didn't even realize I had made it sound like that until I started typing it up. That's just Shukaku being a crazy bastard.

Wouldn't you be slightly insane if you had a crazy tanuki demon in your head with a penchant for likening your life to crappy tv shows? No wonder Gaara can't keep his thoughts straight.

I hope my reviewers like this chapter, because I'm not crazy about it. However, I love the next chapter. Yes, it is almost done. Yay for the debut of Temari and Kankurou!

Btw, does anyone understand the multiple meanings of the chapter title? Since the chapter itself is so confusing, I was hoping that the title could perhaps give the perspective with which this piece could be viewed. Eh, who am I kidding... all y'all think I'm crazy anyway.