Chapter Text
For as long as he could remember, every morning Gaara had taken a pill.
It had started when he was small, when his uncle would place a small green capsule by his breakfast and encourage him to take it once he’d finished. They never really had a taste, and Gaara was a child who did as he was told because he feared what would happen if he didn’t.
“Yashamaru, I have nightmares… I couldn’t sleep last night. Or- or the night before, either. Sometimes even when I’m tired, I can’t…”
“Take your medicine, Gaara-sama. It should help.”
The first time he asked his father about them, he was eight, and he would have preferred to ask Yashamaru, but he wasn’t there anymore. It was his father now who placed food in front of him, slid him a pill every morning with a glass of water. They didn’t talk very much- after all, Gaara rarely ate meals with his siblings anymore, not after a childish remark from Kankuro had sent sand streaking across the kitchen and around his brother’s neck. Better, Gaara wanted to be better, and perhaps doing everything his father required of him was the answer.
“Father? Why do I take medicine, and Kankuro and Temari don’t?”
“Kankuro and Temari don’t have demons inside of them. Those pills keep Shukaku at bay.”
“Why do they make me feel so funny? My heart feels… fast.”
Fast was a word Gaara got used to, when he was nine years old and his heart would thrum out of his little chest at the dinner table, when the underside of his eye would twitch without him even thinking about it. It was always evenings when Gaara’s eyelids would start to droop, and his father would offer him another tiny dark green pill. After he went to bed, Gaara’s hands would shake until morning while he curled them under his covers, begging his body for sleep that never came.
“There is no medicine you can take that will get rid of me,” Shukaku snarled. Gaara’s head pounded, and pounded, and pounded. Every now and then when he screamed in his bedroom alone, he wondered, is it that nobody can hear me? Or is it just that nobody cares?
When Gaara got older, when his legs got longer and his arms got stronger and he thought he’d start growing tall like Kankuro (he never did,) one green pill in the morning turned to two- except the second was blue. At 11, Gaara was so weary that he didn’t ask any more questions. These curbed the demon, didn’t they? The monster that still clawed at the inside of his mind every time he closed his eyes, the one who whispered for him to wake up, wake up, I’ll kill you, the spirit that made him scrape at his skin but simultaneously wouldn’t let him bleed.
Conversations that happened outside of the closed door to his bedroom at night were something he didn’t pay any mind to. His name frequently came up, but Gaara was often shaking in his sheets, clutching his head and listening to his heart pound in his chest, sweaty hands grasping at red hair that he wanted to pull right out.
“Kazekage-sama. He’s a child, you know. Are you sure the additives are necessary? I thought you were just giving him the green caffeine pills--”
“His body can handle it. We can’t risk him falling asleep, Baki.”
“Can we risk his instability with him staying awake this long?”
“If it gets to be too much we’ve discussed giving him a sedative a few times a month.”
At 11 and a half, Gaara decided he liked blue pills better than green pills. The green ones rarely made a difference. Days when he only took the green one were less entertaining than the blue one. Curiously, Baki never allowed him the blue one.
“Do you take those for yourself and think I won’t notice?”
“Of course not. I just don’t think you need a double dose this morning.”
“What do you know? Idiot. Give them to me--”
“--that’s enough, Gaara.”
When Gaara was 12, training for the Chunin exams had begun. Afternoons that he’d usually spend cooped up in his room had turned into exhaustive training sessions with Kankuro, Temari, and most importantly Baki, who Gaara began to despise more and more.
Baki asked him ridiculous things. Are you sleeping? How does your heart feel? Why are your hands shaking like that? Are you nervous?
“Do not pretend like you care,” Gaara had snarled, while his eyes stared ahead blankly, clouded with another migraine headache that racked his brain.
On one particular afternoon, Gaara nearly destroyed the Kazekage manor. Kankuro and Temari cowered in horror, screaming for Baki to do something, anything while sand thundered through the courtyard, because Gaara’s lack of sleep made him see things and all he wanted to do was make them go away.
Gaara collapsed onto the ground out of sheer exhaustion that day, with the sand crashing down around him and his skinny body still twitching. He wished he would die, truly, because certainly anything could be better than living in a constant state of haze like this. Why did it seem like the hours after he took his medicine made him feel sicker? Gaara didn’t remember, but he was screaming for Baki to please make it stop all while he wished for his vision to go dark.
It was after they returned from Konoha’s Chunin exams, when Rasa was declared dead and Baki realized he had three children left behind that he had to do something. There had been a particular moment where Gaara had spoken with him atop the roof a few nights ago, while his thin shoulders trembled and ached for another dose of stimulants. “I want to be normal,” Gaara said. “Sometimes when I close my eyes, all I see is blood. Sometimes I see other shapes when I’m awake. How do I make that stop?”
Conversations with the elders would boom in the halls of the manor while Kankuro and Temari pressed teenage ears to the doors to try and listen.
“You remember the fourth Kazekage’s decree! The child cannot sleep. It’s imperative for the safety of the village.”
“This child,” Baki said through gritted teeth, “ cannot continue to stay awake for the rest of his life. His mental state is deteriorating. His immune system is already so poor- you can’t possibly think performance enhancers and caffeine help this. He wants to get better.”
“There is no possible way that the Sand’s jinchuuriki will be anything but a weapon. If he’d like to start acting like a real shinobi instead of a spoiled brat, he’ll prove himself on a mission and maybe we can consider it--”
When Baki opened the door that afternoon, Temari and Kankuro tumbled away from it, gawking up at him. “You can’t take Gaara off his pills. He’ll freak. And- and he needs them, because they help Jinchuuriki, right?” Kankuro stammered.
“No,” Baki said coldly, “they don’t. They never did.”
Temari began, “But father said--”
“Those pills are stimulants. They’ve been keeping Gaara awake in case he falls asleep. They are not, by any means, keeping the Tailed Beast in check. Your father experimented on your brother for twelve years,” Baki growled, “and I will not let it happen any more.”
Even when Gaara was little, Baki had never missed how he followed whoever would give him his medicine, with wide, black-rimmed eyes patiently waiting for another dose, eyes that darkened when they were told no . The pills had always been strictly controlled on Rasa’s watch, and Gaara wasn’t allowed to handle them himself. Now when he was older, thirteen and still as small as he ever was, he did the same thing, lurking behind Baki in the mornings before their training and creeping over to him on the manor rooftop when everyone else was fast asleep.
“Why do you think you take these, Gaara?” Baki asked him one evening, when he could sense Gaara’s presence in the corner of his eye.
“Because I always have,” was Gaara’s answer.
“Do you believe they help you?”
Gaara paused. “They keep Shukaku quiet.”
“Because you’re awake.”
“Yes.”
“The blue ones you take are chakra stimulants. Those are what’s keeping you awake, mostly. I don’t want you taking them anymore- I don’t want you taking anything. The council’s suppression methods aren’t good for you.”
“I don’t want to fall asleep.” Even with Gaara’s muddled knowledge of what had been put into his body every since he was a child, he wasn’t stupid. He knew they were imperative to his survival- recognized the itch in his fingers, the pull in his chest, the cold sweat that would pool at the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet. His medicine always made everything go away. “I can’t. You know this.”
“You have to start sleeping, Gaara. Even if it’s for a little bit, guarded--”
Gaara looked at him, his eyes lifeless, and held out his hand. “No.”
In that moment, when Baki made eye contact with him, he stared right into icy green, his hand tightening around the pill bottle in his pocket. “I won’t let you. This stops today. Your chakra networks, Gaara. They’ve already withstood damage. I won’t have anyone forcing you to take these anymore.”
“Is this some kind of joke?” Gaara responded dryly. “Don’t be stupid.”
“It’s for your own good,” Baki said, pursing his lips. “If you ever want to become something other than what you were at the exams, if you ever want to be the man you thought Uzumaki Naruto was, you have to let me help you.”
“I don’t need help,” Gaara said, and suddenly, his voice sounded hoarser than usual. He was afraid. “I need to stay awake.”
Shukaku could always smell fear in the air, and he would whisper to Gaara how silly everyone who challenged him was. While Gaara’s fingers trembled in midair, he could feel the anxiety that floated off of Baki’s skin.
He looked down at Gaara with the authoritative nature and care that he always deserved, arms crossed over his chest tightly. There was no telling what would happen next- things never ended well after someone told Gaara ‘no.’
“Give them to me,” Gaara rasped.
“This is one decision I’m making for you. It starts tonight.”
“Give them to me,” Gaara said again, and the sand started to rise, forming a snake-like grip around Baki’s wrist. He wouldn’t kill Baki- couldn’t. He wasn’t like that anymore.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t hurt him, laughed Shukaku.
“I’ll ask again,” said Gaara, adrenaline pounding in his ears, his knees shaking where he stood because he was already out of energy and relying purely on chakra to keep him upright. All he wanted was to feel normal again. Baki was preventing him from that, yes? The sooner Gaara could take his next pill, the sooner he would feel like he was in control again.
Gaara’s fist clenched mechanically, without him even registering. The next sound Gaara heard was Baki’s scream and the splintering of bone, as the sand pulsed around his forearm and slithered away so fast it was like it had never been there at all.
Baki fell to his knees, clutching his bloodied wrist, his face contorted in pain as the skin swelled rapidly around his shattered bone, breathing raggedly. “Gaara,” he whispered hoarsely, “you can’t do this every time you don’t get something you want. You have to--”
“Shut up!” Gaara yelled, and the sand rose again, while uncontrollable tears pooled in his eyes, which had been red and dry all day. How could he do this? How could he swear that he wanted to be better and then tear the limbs off of those who reached for him? “You don’t know anything! Shut up!”
From the inner corridors of the house, this match had already attracted attention. The ANBU that previously guarded the Kazekage and his family still remained, and were running to the scene, coming from all angles. They kept their distance, however, with two rushing to Baki’s side.
“There is no way he can be trusted!” One of them yelled as he began to treat Baki’s fracture.
At that, the sand began to whirl around Gaara, wind roaring across the rooftop that made everyone brace themselves. But whatever was screaming inside of him wasn’t Gaara- no, Gaara had been losing touch all evening- and could no longer differentiate what was him and what was Shukaku’s puppet. “Trust me,” Gaara begged brokenly, the rasp in his voice cracking, salty tears slipping into his mouth as they poured down his cheeks and left tracks in his sand armor.
“Lower your weapons! Do not engage!” Baki barked at the ANBU, who were already getting in some sort of formation.
“Trust me, please--” Gaara sobbed, and he was suddenly flown back when arms came from behind him, under his armpits and then around his shoulders to hold him back while Sand chased after whoever his culprit was. A burst of wind chased it away.
“We trust you, Gaara, this isn’t you,” panted Kankuro, his arms locked tightly around Gaara’s while his little brother kicked and screamed and sobbed so much that his chest would ache in the morning.
Around them, the ANBU gaped in horror at Kankuro, who actually had the nerve to not only go up to Gaara, but to touch him without fearing for his life.
Gaara possessed chakra by the metaphorical gallon, but his overwhelming lack of physical strength often caught up to him in times like these, when he struggled against Kankuro’s grip only to feel even more helpless in it.
Temari’s voice was in his ear next. “Baki is trying to help you. You have to listen to him. Those pills never helped you. They hurt you,” she said, and if Gaara could see more than clouded shapes at the moment, he would’ve seen Temari crying, too.
Gaara cut Temari off with an anguished scream that hurt the back of his throat, like a child that had no idea what else to do as he kicked his legs again, moving back and forth in Kankuro’s hold. While he was restrained, so was the sand. He needed movement of his arms, after all.
Kankuro held fast. Physical strength was where he championed Gaara. He had always been bigger and stronger. Perhaps it was for this reason.
The sand dove helplessly, pooling around Gaara’s feet and jerking at both of his siblings, but never being precise enough to grab. Gaara could barely hear anything but the bickering of the ANBU and the constant reassurance of Temari and Baki, and the occasional grunt from Kankuro when Gaara’s elbows would jab him in the stomach.
It was over when the shapes Gaara had been seeing for months finally clouded his vision so much that he stumbled where he stood, falling into the steady weight of Kankuro behind him. Without the chakra stimulants Gaara had promised his body all these years, he didn’t have the strength to stay up.
Kankuro caught him, in a silent promise to always be the one that would. With a glance at Temari, they both knew that they would stay up until Gaara woke up as well to make sure that nothing went wrong while he slept (if one could even call this any form of rest.)
Nearby, with his arm in a sling and blood covering his uniform, Baki’s shoulders sagged with relief. He was doing right, wasn’t he? Because for the first time since Gaara had been five, he hadn’t taken a pill that tore away at his body from the inside.
They had even farther to go.
It took Baki three weeks to wean Gaara off of the blue pills. It was for three weeks that he forbade Gaara to go on a single mission, because Baki couldn’t risk Gaara’s mental state affecting the potential outcome.
One week for Gaara to stay curled up in his bed, drenching his sheets with sweat and digging his fingers into his skin to try and feel anything else but the dull ache of his body, blaming Baki for every pinch of pain that he felt.
Another for Gaara to snarl at anyone who would listen that this wasn’t working, until he would simply burst into desperate tears that Kankuro couldn’t bear to watch- but that Temari stayed for, stroking his hair and offering him the soothing sound of her voice for the evening.
A week for Baki to watch Gaara while he writhed on the floor of the manor, agonizing over the way he wondered what Baki’s blood tasted like. No matter how hard he wanted to change, he would always revert to the monster that crept behind his skull and festered under his skin.
“You’re a disgusting thief, you’re nothing, you can’t control me because I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you if you don’t give them to me!”
Baki would have no choice but to leave him there surrounded by ANBU that would drench his sand in water each time it rose, while Gaara trembled so violently that his teeth chattered, his hair matted to his forehead in a cold sweat. Instead of contentedly staying up through the night like he used to with his perfect blue pills, Gaara would keel over and vomit, clawing at the bathroom cabinets for something, anything that would make him feel the same way his old medicine did.
For Gaara’s body, learning to function without a daily dose of caffeine was something it could get used to. But naturally, Gaara’s collapsed and burned chakra networks felt the fatigue after no longer receiving their daily- sometimes twice daily- stimulant boosts. It was only in the beginning of the third week that Gaara had the energy and resolve to start moving past his bed, to skulk down and have dinner with his siblings that he would later throw up, or to get a breath of fresh air from the rooftop.
His head felt clearer, somehow. As the weeks passed by, Gaara finally learned what it was to be able to hear himself think. Of course, Shukaku hadn’t disappeared, but Gaara sometimes had the clarity to tell him to shut the hell up. Even though it pounded early in the morning and late at night, he could no longer feel the buzzing of his skull or the rattle of his eyes during the day. There were a rare few evenings when Baki would guide him through a meditation, something that he urged Gaara to start practicing. He was able to at the very least begin meditating to grasp at any form of rest, especially with his body in its weakened, dependent state.
In addition, their current political climate didn’t help the work that Baki wanted to do. How was he expected to care of this child- of any child- when the Council wanted to send them on missions? Feared by the surrounding villages and a newfound ally of the Leaf, the sand siblings were a commodity for their home.
There was barely any time to rest. On the end of the third week, the Sand received a desperate call for help from the Leaf. They needed aid, and they needed it now, something in regards to Might Guy’s team and the requirement for another joint mission.
The first time Team Guy requested help from the Sand- almost immediately after the ordeal with the exams- Baki had originally said no. Not only were the kids exhausted, but it wasn’t wise. They were allies now, but just barely, because even though Gaara had saved Rock Lee’s life a few weeks ago, he’d tried to kill him prior to that. And everyone pretended like they forgot, but Baki didn’t. Couldn’t.
The second time Team Guy requested help from the Sand, it was nearly impossible to refuse. The sandstorms where they were were far too difficult to control, and aid from someone like Gaara was imperative for the success of their mission.
Baki had then declined on sending Gaara until they came to the agreement that Baki would accompany the siblings to the rendezvous point where they would meet Team Guy. Their journey was slow, because without the extra boost of chakra stimulants Gaara was too exhausted to move at night and they had to stop frequently. Now and then he would snap at Baki, frequently citing that their inefficiency was his fault. But the sandstorms continued to rage, and even Gaara’s diminished presence was required for any mission’s remote success in the desert.
Often, there were small shinobi towns in the middle of the desert, usually for teams to stop and rest or receive medical attention and supplies. Sometimes teams would camp there as well, but it was genuinely considered Sand territory even if it was open to allies, and no other villages typically stayed.
Given the circumstances of the storms and the availability of shelters in the towns, it came as no surprise that Team Guy had made themselves right at home. However, upon seeing Guy’s enthusiasm for “tourism” and “sightseeing,” Baki thought they might have done it regardless of the sandstorm.
“You all made it safely!” Guy clapped Baki on the back as a greeting, holding out a thumbs up to the siblings, who merely blinked at him. “We were just eating! You should join us.”