Friendly Advice

Disclaimer: I do not make any profits from this whatsoever. I do not own Naruto and I highly doubt I ever will. This great Manga series belongs strictly to its creator, Masashi Kishimoto. And also, the Anime belongs to its creator and Studio Pierrot. So don't sue.

It was a universally acknowledged truth that a person had at least one hate in their life.

For Sabaku no Gaara, the hate in his life was when the sun went down in Sunagakure no Sato. Not only did the temperature drop drastically, but there was also one bigger problem that he constantly faced; the matter of sleep.

Because unlike most people, Gaara didn't sleep.

Don't get him wrong; Gaara honestly wanted to sleep, what sane person wouldn't?

It was just that he couldn't go to sleep. Because if he did, that blasted Shukaku in him would give him nightmares horrible beyond comprehension. And gradually, the nightmares would start to eat away at his sanity. And with his state of mind already hovering dangerously between the lines of sanity and insanity, Gaara would like nothing more than to keep his remaining sanity, thank you very much.

Because frankly, having everyone in Suna avoid him like the plague every time he walked down the streets and having them running, screaming, crying and begging for him to spare their miserable little lives if he even so much as look at them was starting to get a little irritating for him.

But I digress... back to the matter at hand; over the years Gaara's body had gotten used to not having hardly any sleep at all.

So that wasn't the problem.

No, the problem for Gaara... was finding something to occupy himself with while he waited the night away because he was terribly bored and sick of doing the same things every single night; and that was fiddling with his sand.

Making shapes out of his sand.

Watching his sand fly from point A to point B.

Manipulating his sand to crush meaningless things like little animals, insects or inanimate objects, but preferably anything that was alive and had vocal chords so that he could hear the screams as he squeezed the life out of them.

Yes, after doing that for almost all of his life, Gaara was getting sick of it.

In the past, he would have gladly gone hunting for people to kill to lessen the Shukaku's blood lust. But he was different now. He was different ever since he had met Uzumaki Naruto, the cheerful, enthusiastic and overall loud blond Genin of Konohagakure no Sato who had apparently no color coordination or fashion sense whatsoever.

Because really, what normal person wore that much orange? In a jumpsuit no less?

But putting those flaws aside, Naruto had enlightened the Suna Nin on a little about love and bonds and such, and Gaara found himself with a first true friend after a very long time. But unfortunately before Gaara had the chance to spend more time with his new friend, Naruto was gone; whisked away from Konoha, training and traveling with Jiraiya, one of the Densetsu no Sannin.

Anyway, I digress again... back to the topic at hand…

In a nutshell, Gaara was just damn bored. What could he possibly do to occupy his time that wouldn't involve bloodshed or fiddling with his sand? Gaara decided with a shrug that he would go and ask Kankuro, his elder brother.

After all, isn't asking older siblings for solutions something that younger siblings did whenever they had troubles they couldn't solve?

Besides, Kankuro may have acted like a blubbering idiot sometimes… or most of the time now that Gaara really thought about it… but anyway... the redhead knew that his elder brother was smarter than he looked. So maybe the puppet master had a good suggestion for him.

With another shrug, Gaara emotionlessly walked to his brother's room and entered without knocking. Why bother?

He stepped into the dark room and his sensitive ears picked up the incoherent mumblings coming from his sleeping brother. "Temari… Where… put… make-up? …Mine … harder…" And there was some perverted chuckling coming from Kankuro as he continued to sleep talk.

Gaara raised a non-existent eyebrow at those words.

He did not want to know what that... that perverted puppet master was dreaming about and he did not plan to or ever want to find out. Instead, he made his way to his brother's side and stood there, glaring at his brother's sleeping form. It was torture for Gaara to be around people who could sleep while he couldn't and could only watch them. And Gaara's eye twitched in an annoyed way as Kankuro continued to mumble in his sleep.

Finally, the redhead grew tired of waiting for his brother to wake up on his own free will because he honestly didn't think it would happen anytime soon. So he inched his head closer to his brother, until he was nose to nose with him.

Then, Gaara said in a chilling tone, "Kankuro…wake up…"

The puppet master frowned at the unfamiliar noise, before slowly opening his eyes. He looked sleepily at Gaara, who stared resolutely back at him and a few seconds passed between them in absolute silence, save for the slight noise of their breathing.

Then Kankuro opened his mouth.

And screamed bloody murder.

Later in the morning when questioned by Temari, Kankuro would deny having heard the loud, high pitched scream that reverberated throughout Suna. He would instead tell her that she had probably only dreamed about it.

But right now, he was screaming and screaming and screaming and sounding so completely like a girl.

And for a brief moment, faint amusement appeared on Gaara's neutral features at the high pitched racket his brother was and is still making and the redhead was sure that the whole of Suna had been woken up by that noise.

But, the look was gone as quick as it came. Pity really.

When the puppet master finally ran out of air, he shot up from his bed and moved to the farthest edge of it away from Gaara in record breaking time. The redhead was sure that if he had been just a normal civilian, his eyes wouldn't have been able to keep up with the speed. Kankuro was pale and he was breathing heavily, looking fearfully at Gaara, who merely rolled his eyes in return.

"Relax Kankuro…I'm not here to kill you…" he said softly.

But the puppet master was still sweating profusely and he stuttered out, "G-Gaara... Wh-what are you doing here?" And he instinctively raised his hand in defense for fear that his brother might try to kill him. Gaara resisted the urge to roll his eyes at his brother again; as if that hand could somehow magically stop the redhead from killing him… If Gaara truly wanted him dead, then Kankuro be dead faster than the time taken for him to scream…

"Can't sleep," was the redhead's simple reply, and he looked at Kankuro as if his insomnia was the most obvious thing in the world.

Gaara continued to stare at Kankuro with intent teal colored eyes, patiently waiting for a reply. And surprisingly he did not seem to take any offense to his brother's obvious fear and behaviour towards him; because Gaara knew that he really did behave like an insane bloodthirsty, psychopath back then.

"Oh, and you are in my room at this godforsaken time why…?" Kankuro's fearful voice trailed off, and he waited for Gaara to fill him in.

"I wanted to seek your advice on how am I supposed to spend my time at night, since I can't sleep," Gaara told his brother in a calm voice. Kankuro blinked and dropped his jaw for about ten seconds before he managed to regain his composure. In all the years that he knew Gaara, his brother never came seeking for his advice. Indeed, the redhead would always keep to himself and solve his problems by himself.

Unless… he thought with a frown… Had the battle with Uzumaki Naruto really changed him for the better?

"Hold on a minute, let me get this straight, you want my advice?" Kankuro asked his brother again, just to make sure that he hadn't been hearing things. And he even pinched himself for good measure to make sure he wasn't sleeping or hallucinating. Nope, Gaara was still there.

In reply, Gaara nodded and continued to look intently at him, which made Kankuro nervous.

Now… Kankuro was a Ninja, so it meant that he was used to seeing bloodshed, death and the horrors of life that ordinary people didn't see. And since he was a Ninja from Suna, he saw more of it from the Ninja of other nations. The whole point of all the explaining is… that Kankuro wasn't a wuss or anything. But if you wanted the cold and hard truth, Gaara scared the living shit out of him sometimes.

In fact, Gaara scared the living shit out of anyone.

Especially more so in the dark.

The reason? Well, Gaara's eyes were an interesting shade of teal and in the darkness, his eyes looked like they were glowing. Eerily so. Add his pale complexion, apparent lack of eyebrows and dark circles around his eerily glowing eyes made him the absolute nightmare of every living person.

"Kankuro, get on with it," Gaara told him calmly.

The puppet master snapped out of his reverie and nodded. Then he started to speak, "So let's review the facts... you want suggestions on how to spend your time at night since you can't sleep, but you don't know what to do? Hmmm... How about taking a stroll? A midnight stroll? In the desert. You might enjoy that nice desert air as you explore at night. I doubt that you'll get lost or that you'll get killed in a sandstorm or anything."

Gaara nodded in understanding and he seemed to ponder on his brother's answer.

"You have a point," he muttered softly to himself. Then with nothing more to say, the redhead turned around and began to walk towards the door. Kankuro stared at the departing figure of his brother silently and he smiled slightly.

'Gaara is changing for the better,' he thought.

As Gaara walked through the door, he stopped and paused for a while. Without turning around to face his brother, Gaara muttered softly, "Thank you for the advice, Kankuro." But fortunately, it was loud enough for Kankuro to hear.

The puppet master made a strangled choke of surprise, but he managed to regain his composure quickly and replied nervously, "Err, your welcome, Gaara."

Without another word, the redhead exited through the door, and Kankuro muttered, "Definitely changing for the better, slowly but surely." Shaking his head he settled himself back on his bed for some well-deserved rest.

~Owari~

I had written this one-shot a few years ago and finally got to posting it here. But of course I had to do some final editing before I posted, because let's face it, my writing style from a few years back leaves much to be desired. Even now when I reread my old stories; to me it doesn't seem like I wrote those childish silly little things, but I did wrote them and that realization leaves me cringing in horror.

Oh well, please tell me what you think about this!

Please review!