Disclaimer: I don't own it. I'm not making money off of it. There are too many people in the world for you to sue for it. Just read it. This disclaimer will apply to this and all chapters, thanks.

He needs something. She has it. When he gets it, will he leave her to the rest of the world or take her for himself?

Sound Sleep

…

Chapter One: Sleep?

The sand had become more than annoying for Sakura Haruno. It had been a nuisance when she was training with Kakashi, it'd seemed a little odd when she found it in her shoes, and then it had crossed the line once she found it tracked through her apartment. Naruto is probably to blame, she told herself. More times than not, he'd tracked something in when he came over before their training sessions.

But Sakura couldn't help but dwell on the fact that the sand was most prominent in her bedroom. Naruto never went in there on his visits. Pondering its presence brought nothing more than goose bumps all over her arms and that hair-on-end feeling at the nape of her neck, but the kunoichi refused to let the little fact scare her.

No, Naruto was to blame. That could be the only explanation.

She pivoted in the bedroom door frame, stalking out to the street with intent to find the obnoxious boy in orange, who was in all likeliness still at the shop getting food—right where she'd left him when practice had let out.

Bet you wish you'd taken him up on that offer to join him, don't you? the voice at the front of her mind called out. Sakura stopped in the middle of the street. Was she really running off to a guy for help? Could she not face this simple, seemingly insipid problem by herself?

And how exactly are you supposed to sleep at night when you can't explain sand in your home? She sighed against the slight breeze and dropped her head and shoulders. A few passing townsfolk donated a thought to her well-being. Dejected wasn't an emotion the medic nin often employed.

Soon enough, though, she puffed out her chest and jerked her head up. "Right!" she yelled into the thick summer air. "I won't let it get the best of me!"

And traffic continued as usual while Sakura huffed down the lane, eyes scanning the hot spots for an unmistakable orange friend.

"Sakura!"

The young woman nodded toward Naruto in reaction to her name...or what she assumed was her name. The mouthful of noodles made his enunciation difficult, but he was looking right at her and winking. With a last audible slurp, he cleared the bowl and slammed it to the bar with a new, well-fed verocity. "I knew you couldn't resist. Miso?" He turned to signal for another before Sakura grabbed his arm.

"Naruto."

He dropped his hand at her serious tone. "Er, Sakura, are you alright?"

"Are you tracking sand into my house? Because if you are, I'll beat to a pulp and then make you clean up every last granule."

Naruto looked bemused underneath the dark emerald pits staring into his soul.

"I keep finding sand and dirt in my shoes and my clothes and in my bedroom. And I know you've never been in there..." She paused, waiting for a reaction on his part, a tell that he was, in fact, a dirty peeping tom and all her worries over tiny particles were for naught.

Naruto followed along with a twitching eye. "Ever considered it was you tracking stuff into your home? After all, no one ever goes back to your bedroom." He snickered before taking another glance at his best friend, whom rivaled a pissed-off cat.

She let out some sound akin to a growl. Naruto's hair stood on end. "How dare you! I clean my feet before entering a building, unlike some people!" She stalked away from the ramen stand. "I an not some animal" she yelled over her shoulder.

Naruto ordered and finished his last bowl of noodles with a proud look on his face. Any day he was able to get a good rise out of Sakura was a good one. "Maybe I'll find one of the guys and pick a real fight," he said while slurping down the rest of the broth.

…

Sakura was loathe to admit she'd stayed out longer than intended. Her path away from the ramen stand ended up circling around until she hit the training grounds, and by then she'd showed up in time to witness Naturo and Shino going at a spar with intensity despite the astonishing amount of noodles the former had consumed.

The breeze in the air was comforting in the sun, but once she'd settled in the shade to half-watch the battle before her, something about the coolness of the wind made her arms prickle with goosebumps not unlike the moments at home, in the dark, when she'd been sure someone was with her there.

A scared ninja.

How pathetic.

The anxious tremble in her breath stayed until she walked through her front door. Sakura breathed a sigh of relief as the living area was filled with afternoon light streaming through the windows and giving the room a comforting glow. She shut her door tightly against the jam and all the while wondered how such a calm and inviting environment like her home could send such a tingle up the back of her neck as if to signal something wasn't right.

She fingered the kunai at her hip, ready to strike at any moment if something... If what? Someone jumped out at her? If she discovered someone walking about her apartment tossing the occasional handful of sand wherever they fancied?

She scoffed with intensity. Pathetic didn't even begin to describe it. She was a Leaf nin. She'd seen horrors out in the field before, so what made this imaginary scenario of sand so unsettling?

Too close to home, I guess, she finally offered her mind, Inner Sakura seemed to nod at the thought but didn't add her two cents in for which Sakura was grateful. She tossed the kunai onto her bedside table and leaned an arm onto the soft bed sheets while crouching down and glancing beneath her bed.

Nothing. She sat upright and scanned the room, especially the window, as if she might have been caught in the act, and wouldn't that just be a hilarious story going around town? "Yeah, I'm laughing at myself too, world."

And despite the relaxation she'd fallen into as Sakura made herself an early dinner and afterwards curled up in bed with some reading material, the pang of danger, of something that lurked in her room at night, still crept into her stomach and wrapped itself into a tight ball that wouldn't uncurl.

…

Gaara.

He had the power to control sand. A monster lurked within his very being. He was a vessel of danger, of madness, of horrors and death. For his whole life, a presence had pounded at the borders of his mind threatening him and those around him. Gaara had learned to live without sleep when he'd be at his weakest and risk succumbing to the demon. Not many people knew his story. They could be too afraid to listen, not that he ever made much effort to talk when it wasn't necessary, not that most of them would be alive to tell the tale anyway.

He was a killing machine. The sand spared no mercy as it could crush skin and bones in an instant without Gaara even blinking an eye, but this killing machine was doing something extremely out of character. He was sitting in the bedroom of possibly the most oblivious nin in the history of Konoha. He was waiting.

He felt awkward, and Gaara was never awkward. It had come, understandably, as a huge surprise when he found that in the presence of one well-known and liked kunoichi he could actually sleep. Something about her made the monster calm, though Gaara couldn't see why. No one had ever had such power over Shukaku, not even himself. Sleep had never been an option lest the demon escaped, rampaged, murdered.

It happened a few evenings earlier when he'd broken in through a cracked window in an attempt to hide from three suspecting nins on patrol. Had it been any other mission, Gaara wouldn't have thought twice about attacking to disarm and making his way through, but this was stealth meaning he was never in Konoha at all. And through that cracked window he'd found her sleeping and not on alert to an intruder in her own bedroom of all things.

Gaara allowed himself to rock back and lean on the wall beneath the window while still crouching. His head leaned back, and his eyes closed for a moment's rest while listening for the whereabouts of the nins outside as well as any changes in breathing of the woman not five feet away. If she woke up he'd reach her before another breath passed her lips. Without his noticing, his concentration slipped, and he got sloppy. Shukaku wasn't struggling in his prison. Gaara's breathing became even and deep, and he slept.

It had only been an hour as far as he could tell, but as his eyes jerked open and the Kazegage became aware of what had just happened, he leaped from his still crouching hiding spot back into the cool Konoha air, patrol nins be damned.

He sat for a moment outside of her window in the tree that overlooked her bedroom as if it'd been placed there just for this night. Under the cover of dark leaves where even the half-moon couldn't reach his still form, Gaara wondered at the very slim possibility of what just happened. Konoha was still standing. There hadn't been tragic consequences to his falling asleep, and the man couldn't understand whether the deal with his demon had suddenly changed or if it were something about the environment that tempted both of them into a sweet sleep.

His eyes fell on her sleeping form. He sneered at the slow rise of her chest as she slept without a care. Why hadn't she woken up? She was a poor ninja, he decided, and if she'd just done her job and been aware of him in her room, he wouldn't have put them all in danger by... by what?

The stupid girl lying in her bed had done nothing to him, yet he was blaming her for him sleeping?

Without word Gaara carried on and out of the territory. He put it out of his mind until he reached his homeland once more, but once he was idle and sitting in his office during the still of the night when no one bothered him, the outline of the girl in that bed and the silence of the room came back to his mind.

Sweet sleep. Sound sleep.

For days, he tried to put the thought to rest, but by the third night since the incident, Gaara had retraced all scenarios until he couldn't find any other explanation as to why he'd slept. What other option was there, he wondered, than to go back and see what happened another night?

It wasn't until he was back in that tree outside her window that the thought occurred to him: if he managed to fall asleep again, there was nothing to stop the beast from making an attempt to leave his vessel and fall havoc upon the world.

Within minutes he was back in her room once more and resuming the crouching position although it wasn't as comfortable this time. He looked at her as she slept, and there was nothing more than the urge to kill the woman. Something about the pink woman while she slept called to him. Her beauty so appealing that it might look better in death, and he closed his eyes to imagine his arm of sand wrapping itself around her form, covering her pale skin, the sharp angle of her jaw just wide enough to let out a silent scream as he freed her of life. One thought bubbled to the forefront of his mind as he once again drifted into a slow sleep:

He couldn't kill her. She was the reason he was able to sleep, and he didn't know why. Not knowing infuriated him, and when he finally woke up (several hours later, he judged) all Gaara wanted to do was shake her awake and demand to know what gave her this power over him and his beast.

Each night it was the same. He'd make the trek to her village despite the distance between them to test out his theory. She'd turn out her lights, and within a half-hour she'd be out, though each night it took her longer and longer to succumb to it. He wondered without much interest what made her toss and turn every evening before she fell prey to the exhaustion he was so intimate with.

Although for the time being he was content with testing out his theory, Gaara of the Sand couldn't help but wonder what would become of him if he continued.

–

TYK: Thanks for reading, guys! Hope you enjoyed it and keep reading. Read and review!