Gaara squinted his eyes at the blinding sun overhead, the sky a warm amber as it settled into dusk. The heat of Sungakure only seemed to worsen as time drew on, and Gaara desperately clung to his sibling’s hand and the teddy held to his chest in an attempt to combat it.

Gaara always clung to you like this, finding solace in the only person to treat him like a human being. He stumbled over sand dunes, hiding into your leg when passerbys looked to him in fear.

“… People are staring at us again,” Gaara told you, his little voice hushed to a tiny murmur as he tottered alongside you.