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The Kazekage manor was blessedly quiet when the siblings finally stepped through the door, Kankuro and Temari on either side of Gaara to support him as he walked. The sun had dipped below Suna’s walls, casting the interior in cool tones as evening set in at the end of a very long, draining day.
Gaara’s return to Suna after his capture by the Akatsuki had been triumphant, the entire village turning out to celebrate, although only a small group knew the full extent of the Kazekage’s ordeal. Shukaku’s extraction, Gaara’s death, and Chiyo’s sacrifice to resurrect him weighed heavy beneath the celebrations, and Gaara insisted on having Chiyo’s body interred before he would allow the medical team to examine him. Although there did not appear to be anything physically wrong with him, Gaara was still weak, and his siblings had remained at his side all day, unwilling to let him out of their sight after coming so close to losing him.
“How do you feel?” Temari asked as they helped Gaara up the stairs, worry etched across her features. The image of Gaara’s lifeless body lying in the grass would be forever burned into her memory, even now with her youngest brother’s arm warm over her shoulder.
“Tired,” Gaara said quietly. He was used to a perpetual level of fatigue, the dark circles under his eyes a symbol of the need to remain vigilant at all hours, lest the demon inside him take over. But this exhaustion was deeper. He felt hollow, depleted, as if his body could no longer support itself, his limbs heavy and unsteady. With Shukaku gone, there was both a relief and an emptiness, his very core ripped out and all that remained was a fragile shell.
Gaara’s room was at the back of the house, overlooking the rear courtyard with its gardens of cacti and heat-loving succulents. The room sat mostly unused, the bed purely ornamental as Gaara tended to spend the nights in his office on the main floor, subsisting on shallow cat naps that he would jerk out of before he sank too deep. It felt strange now for Temari to toss the decorative cushions aside as she pulled back the covers, Kankurou easing Gaara down onto the mattress. His brother helped him out of his coat and sandals while Tamari set about closing the curtains, turning only the bedside lamps on low.
Gaara sank heavily against the pillows, letting out a shaky breath as he closed his eyes, head tipped towards the ceiling. He’d felt eyes on him the whole day, from the moment he awoke to find half of Suna’s forces and two squadrons of Konoha shinobi see him return from the dead. He’d needed to appear steady for his village, even if he’d felt anything but, his emotions swinging wildly from one extreme to the next; disbelief and guilt at having been given a second chance, happiness and grateful to be welcomed back with such joy, and the grief of putting Chiyo to rest. The events of the last few days had wrung out every last bit of physical and mental strength he had, and the exhaustion he felt now was immense, more than anything he’d ever felt before. He could feel the pull of unconsciousness, but he resisted out of habit, forcing his eyes back open and blinking back the burn.
“You should rest,” Temari said, sitting on the edge of the bed.
“I don’t know if I can.”
The priority of staying awake and in control had been instilled in Gaara from an early age, and the weight of his eyelids as he fought to keep them up sent a stab of fear through him. The extra chakra he’d gained from Shukaku had made it easier to resist the temptation, but the emptiness he felt now made dread pool in his stomach.
“It’s alright,” Temari said softly, brushing a hand over the scar on Gaara’s forehead and smoothing the hair back from his face. “Nothing bad will happen now. Close your eyes.”
Gaara didn’t need to ask his siblings to stay. Temari simply curled her legs up underneath her, settling against the headboard, while Kankurou dragged a chair over to slump in, kicking his feet up on the edge of the bed and stretching his arms behind his head.
“Ugh, I feel like I could sleep for a week.”
“You both probably need it,” Temari agreed. Having almost lost both her brothers in the span of a few days, she wanted nothing more than to keep them both close, watch the rise and fall of their chests to make sure they were still breathing, that it wasn’t just a trick of the light. Gaara’s eyes were closed, but she could still tell that he hadn’t given in yet, his eyelids fluttering and twitching.
“What was it like?” Kankurou asked the quiet of the room after a few moments, his eyes closed.
“What?” Gaara responded, his voice low and raspy with fatigue. “Dying?”
“Yeah.”
Gaara paused before answering.
“A bit like falling asleep, not that I have a lot of experience. One moment I was there, and the next, nothing.”
Kankurou was silent for a moment before he responded, as if he might already be out cold, but then his voice rumbled quietly. “That’s good at least.”
Temari squeezed her eyes shut against the pricking of tears, trying to focus on the reassuring sound of her brothers’ breathing, Kankurou’s beginning to even out and deepen, while Gaara’s was still purposeful and guarded.
“Heh,” Kankuro muttered. “Remember that song Mom used to sing, Tem? When we didn’t want to fall asleep?”
There was a smile in Temari’s voice. “Yeah, I remember.”
Quietly, Temari began to hum a slow tune, the melody simple and low.
“Yeah,” Kankuro mumbled, already mostly asleep. “That one.”
Temari carded her fingers through Gaara’s hair again as she hummed, and he leaned into the touch just barely, focusing on Temari’s voice to keep him tethered to consciousness. There was something about the tune that was strangely familiar, although there was no way Gaara had ever heard it before, as their mother had left the world only moments after he’d entered it. Nonetheless, its cadence was soothing, as was Temari’s gentle touch.
There was no fighting it anymore, the pull of sleep was too powerful, and Gaara could only give in. The last thought he had before falling under made the corner of his lip twitch up minutely, before falling slack.
He had emerged from the dark once before, he would do it again.