The Strong Ones

The mirrored bathroom cabinet was well-stocked with pill bottles of different colours and sizes. A beautiful array of his favorite anti-psychotics, starting with the ones that made him mellow but nauseated, all the way down to those that gave him shivers and made everything look blurred. His gaze shifted to the antidepressants occupying the entire bottom row. He took three of the bottles, skimmed over the labels and then put them back with a barely suppressed sigh.

Closing the cabinet, Gaara leaned his head against the mirror and stared ahead with half-lidded eyes. He was so close to the cool surface that his reflection appeared overlain and out of focus, but the dark circles around his eyes were still easy to make out; especially since they'd gotten a lot darker recently. He needed sleep, desperately needed it. The sleeping pills were in his bedside drawer, five different flavors. The strongest ones would knock him right out, but he didn't like taking them. It never felt like sleeping, like resting, it was always more of a forced blackout that did nothing to restore his energy. But he'd probably have to take them tonight.

'Oi, Gaara!'

He turned on the hot water, reached for the soap and started washing his hands again. His eyes slid shut without him really noticing it, his forehead still pressed against the mirror. The soap slipped out between his fingers, falling down into the sink with a loud clinking and he jumped slightly, straightening up and opening his eyes.

'Dinner's almost ready! I think...'

Gaara picked up the soap and scrubbed his hands, the skin had turned bright red from the heat – and the fact that he'd already washed them three times in a row. He decidedly turned off the water, ignored the pain as he dried his hands with a rough towel, and finally stepped out of the bathroom.

Naruto was struggling with two frying pans and one pot on the stove, trying his best not to burn anything. 'It should be ready in a minute', he shouted without turning around, reaching for a lid as the sauce started bubbling and painting the wall with red dots. 'Dammit!' The lid, having been lying right next to the hotplate, burned his fingers and clattered to the ground, landing on his bare foot. 'DAMMIT!' Cursing loudly he jumped up and down, trying to rub his fingers and toes at the same time.

Gaara quietly closed the door and walked through the open room to Naruto's side. With an oven mitt he picked up the lid and put it on the pot, taking in the sight on the stove for a minute. 'Why are you making pasta in a frying pan?', he finally asked. Naruto stopped jumping, evasively buried a hand in his blond hair and scratched the back of his head. 'Ah, you see, I started with the sauce, since it takes longer, and I used the pot for that, right? Totally forgot you broke our other pot that day –'

'You broke it.'

'– so when I started with the noodles, I kinda had to improvise, I guess. But it works this way, too, you just can't fit that many noodles in one pan, so I used two, and we'll still probably have more sauce than pasta, I had to stretch it with water after the salt incident. But we can just pretend it's tomato soup. With noodles!' He grinned happily at his roommate who, after another two minutes of staring, just sat down on a stool at the kitchen island.

Naruto continued cooking and burned his fingers a few more times. He talked about one of his sociology professors and the project he had him do, a field study of gender structures in a youth subculture of his choice. 'I was thinking street art', he contemplated while using a scooping iron to get the noodles out of the water. 'But that's gonna be hard, since it's illegal and all. I'd need a good way to contact scene members and have them openly talk about this stuff... And I couldn't really participate in the culture without doing some illegal things myself. I still gotta think about it.'

'Your professor doesn't want you to commit crimes.'

'Painting on a wall isn't a crime! Well, I know it's a crime, but not a crime crime, like, with a victim and all. And I'm not talking graffiti here, these people create real art! Like, paintings on the ground that look all three dimensional if you look at it from a certain angle and stuff. It's really amazing!'

'Is street art even a youth culture?'

Naruto paused briefly, before continuing to fill their plates. 'I guess... But now that you mention it, it seems to be mostly about the art, not about hanging out. At least as far as I know. It's probably not made up of young people only... but then again, you can say that about almost every other subculture.'

He sat on the second stool and started inhaling his tomato soup with noodles, while Gaara flipped through a management book, only occasionally taking a bite. 'I mean, that's kinda the problem with the whole culture thing', Naruto continued with a mouth full of pasta. 'You never really get a clear definition. Or maybe you do, but then there are like, ten thousand exceptions or the definition was only based on a model-reality in the first place... it's maddening sometimes.'

Gaara shot him a look from the corner of his eyes and Naruto hurried to reassuringly wave his hands. 'Don't worry, I'm not changing my subject again. I actually feel quite at home in the social studies.' He swallowed and let out a little laugh. 'Seriously, I don't get how you could stick with economics. It's so... sterile. Inhumane even. Then again, I guess that does fit you.' Gaara ignored his winking roommate and turned back to his pasta. Naruto pointed at him with his fork, grinning widely. 'Exactly what I'm talking about.'

They continued to eat in silence. And while Naruto knew that Gaara was the opposite of chatty, it had been unusually difficult over the past few days to uphold a conversation with him; the silence was starting to creep him out. Eventually, he couldn't bear it anymore. He had long since finished his pasta and finally put both their plates in the sink, since it didn't seem like Gaara would eat any more of it. 'What's up?', he asked conversationally, knowing full well it wasn't that harmless of a question when directed at his roommate.

Said roommate decided to go with a noncommittal noise for an answer, a low, incredibly deep humming from the back of his throat that always had the blonde thinking his stoic friend might have an amazing singing voice. He let warm water run into the sink and turned around to lean on the counter, watching Gaara skim through an article about diversity management. 'You had your job interview yesterday, right? How did it go?', he asked tentatively.

Gaara finally put the book down and looked at him with his usual calm expression. 'They didn't approve of me.'

Naruto furrowed his brow and absentmindedly turned off the water, reached for the dish liquid and began squirting great amounts of it into the sink. 'Sorry, man. What went wrong?'

'My appearance seemed to be the problem. Especially my hair colour', Gaara said calmly, running a hand through his messy, crimson hair.

Naruto gaped at him. 'You're not serious.'

'I am.'

The blonde let out a laugh, sounding more aghast than bemused. 'Wow, are they for real?' Shaking his head in disbelief, he put the bottle of dish liquid away and started scrubbing his plate with a brush. 'Well, you may disregard their opinion, they're jackasses. And don't you dare dye your hair or something.'

'I should cut it at least', Gaara mused, but Naruto turned around and dangerously pointed at him with the foam covered brush, the swift motion creating a rain of soapy water that hit floor, counter and Gaara. 'Don't!', he warned. 'Don't listen to them. If you start listening to them now, you're gonna have to listen to all the other jackasses telling you off, too, and soon you're gonna look and act and be like everyone else!'

Gaara wiped the soap from his forehead, revealing what looked like a light red kanji right below his hairline. 'They didn't like this either', he said tonelessly, and continued before Naruto could start breathing fire: 'They thought it was a tattoo.'

'Even if it was!', Naruto replied angrily, going back to cleaning the plates, his rough motions proof of his rage. 'So what? Have they never seen a tattoo before? Don't tell me, they gave you crap about the eyeliner, too, didn't they? Because yeah, young people nowadays, getting tattoos and wearing make-up and having red hair, they're gonna be the end of us! Man, it's just a stupid office job for crying out loud. You know, I think this might even be some form of harassment. You could sue them!' He reached for the towel, only to find Gaara looking at him with the faintest amount of humor in his eyes. 'What?'

The notion vanished quickly as Gaara got up to turn on the water boiler, then grabbing a cup and tea leaves from the cupboard. 'My father died last week', he admitted quietly in that patented, monotonous voice of his, making it a point not to look at Naruto. 'There was a death notice in the paper.'

Naruto went eerily silent for a moment, drying the plates and watching Gaara prepare his tea. 'Are you okay?', he finally asked.

Gaara said nothing and stared straight ahead. Anyone else might have mistaken the redhead's silence as a plain attempt to avoid the question, but Naruto knew better by now. Gaara rarely ignored or avoided his questions, it just sometimes took him a while to come up with an answer; especially when it was his own state of mind that was being sought after. It took him almost five minutes of silent contemplation this time. 'I might be despondent', he reluctantly confessed. 'I'm not sure why.'

Naruto carefully sat down again, eyes trained on Gaara and hands thoughtfully roaming over the counter top. 'Okay', he began. 'You haven't seen your father since you were a kid, right? So maybe you regret never getting to know him?'

'No. I don't wish to know him.'

'Alright. Maybe... I mean, could it be that on some level, you did still care about him? And now you're just sad he died?'

'No.'

'Are you sure? Because he was your father and –'

'I am sure.' He took a sip of his tea and then shook his head. 'Talking to you will not help.' Naruto helplessly raised his shoulders. 'I'm sorry, I'm trying. It's just... I'm sorry. I don't know anything about your father. If you told me what happened –'

'I have to study.' With that, he got up, took his cup and left the kitchen, shutting the door to his room behind him.

Now this was him avoiding the question.

Sighing, Naruto rubbed his forehead. For a second, he considered following Gaara into his room and trying to help him through this – but then he remembered this was Gaara and he would most likely kill him if he did that. So he just went back to washing the dishes, all the while keeping an ear out for his friend. Just in case he asked for help.

They'd met in freshman year. Naruto had, for lack of any better idea, started studying economics and was drowning since basically the very first lecture. But he was actually trying to prove everyone wrong, to show up all those people telling him he wasn't cut out for college; he would do this right. So instead of lounging in the last row with his friends, like he had done in school every day, he showed up fifteen minutes early for the first tutorial, bent on picking a seat in the front row.

Only that Gaara had arrived even earlier and was sitting in the middle row. Naruto being Naruto, he of course sat down next to him, thinking that everything else would have just been mean. He found him intimidating though, this stoic, slightly creepy redhead with the dead eyes, who was already being speculated about around campus, despite it being only the first week. While he was sitting there, trying to talk to a person who was only giving him nonverbal or noncommittal answers, he actually found himself praying for the damn professor to show up. Even as the room slowly filled with other students, his seatmate's aura kept everyone at bay. Nobody wanted to sit near them, and when every seat but the ones right next to them were taken, none of the people forced to sit there wanted to talk to them either.

But then, halfway through the tutorial, when Naruto was desperately trying to follow the professor's explanation and was completely screwing up his notes, Gaara suddenly pushed his own, neatly arranged notes over to him. The way he was very pointedly not looking at him while doing so convinced Naruto that he'd done it on purpose. And in Naruto's opinion, that's when they became friends.

Gaara would deny it, of course. For some reason, Naruto always had people denying their friendship with him at first, which was a little weird, but he didn't let it bother him anymore. He sat next to Gaara in every lecture and tutorial they shared, always stopped to talk to him when they met on campus and often followed him to the coffee shop or library after a lecture; all along ignoring the increasingly annoyed glares being thrown his way, as well as the advice of his other new friends to stay away from this one.

They went so far as to sit him down for an intervention after the famous hug incident. When Gaara had actually invited him to tag along to the library one day, Naruto had been so delighted by the breach of their usual protocol that, without thinking, he'd gone in for a playful hug.

Gaara had headbutted him. Hard.

So hard even, they'd both ended up on the floor, blood running down their foreheads and dizzily trying to orientate themselves. Instead of seeing it as proof for the rumors that his friend was a violent sociopath, Naruto chose to take it as a mere establishing of boundaries between them. He'd wiped the blood away, gotten on his feet and grinned at the glaring redhead. 'Alright then, no hugs. Jeez!' And they'd continued walking to the library together. That was when Gaara, too, begrudgingly admitted to having become friends.

People eventually got used to the sight of them together, so that after a while, they started talking to Naruto even though Gaara was there. After another while, some even dared to address Gaara directly. Suddenly, Naruto's friends would greet him, too, even when Naruto wasn't with him. And by the end of the first semester, they actually considered Gaara their friend.

So when Naruto failed all of his exams for the second time and had to drop out of university, at the same time losing his job and, by extension, his apartment, Gaara didn't think twice about letting him stay with him. Not even Naruto did; he just waltzed into Gaara's apartment with all his luggage, claimed the sofa bed and started complaining about his life. Gaara expected him to stay for a few months tops, until he found another job. But even when he started waiting tables again, he didn't make enough money to support himself. So Gaara cleaned out one of the two bedrooms that he'd been using as a study room and made it Naruto's room. He had more than enough money for the both of them and never asked for rent. Naruto never offered either, but instead started to do the laundry, shopping, cooking and cleaning, until he was teased by all his friends for being Gaara's housewife. It didn't bother either of them. When Naruto decided to give college another try and enrolled in sociology, the option to move back into the dormitory never even occurred to him. Everything seemed fine the way it was.

The first time Naruto had seen the contents of the bathroom cabinet, he hadn't been that surprised. Contrary to popular belief, he was not completely oblivious; he knew there was something wrong with his best friend. One of their friends, Sakura, was studying medicine and she had suggested it might be Asperger's syndrome, which seemed plausible enough and they'd all come to accept it as fact. However, it was the sheer amount of pills Gaara took every day that had alerted Naruto. He didn't really know what the majority was for, most of them he couldn't even pronounce, but he at least recognized the antidepressants – he'd had some experience with those himself. And since they were living together, it was also hard to miss that his roommate barely ever slept. After seeing him without his eyeliner for the first time and realizing that the skin around his eyes was almost as black as the make-up, he'd even dared to ask about it; naturally, he hadn't gotten much of an answer.

And now his father was dead. Never had Gaara voluntarily offered any information about his family. For him to actually confide in Naruto like this and admit to feeling down was more of a red light than any medication could ever be. Naruto couldn't help but listen to any sounds from Gaara's room almost all night long, not even really knowing what he was listening for. He just knew that something was seriously off, had been for quite a while now, and for Gaara's sake, he really wanted to be around when it all came crashing down.

Gaara had decided to go another night without the strong sleeping pills. He'd taken the second strongest instead, which usually made him drift off in a matter of minutes and sleep for at least five hours. But of course, it hadn't worked this night.

He was sitting in the lecture hall, eyes drooping and head bent over until his nose touched the keyboard. He'd barely managed the past six lectures, but now it was getting dark already and he was exhausted. Luckily he shared this lecture with about three hundred other students and no one expected him to do anything. He couldn't sit up straight, for when he tried, his neck suddenly seemed to lose all stability and his head would go lolling from one side to the other. It felt ridiculous, but he couldn't help it, so he rested his head on the laptop. Some girls next to him were giggling and he would have glared at them, hadn't that required turning his head in their direction.

They stopped being amused when the lecture ended and he still didn't get up, effectively blocking their way to the closest exit. 'Excuse me? Are you gonna let us through?', one of them finally asked annoyed.

'No', he curtly replied, his voice a tad more dangerous than he had intended. The girls huffed indignantly, turning around and going the long way, whispering insults. He closed his eyes, still not sleeping, just unable to move.

'Gaara? You alright?', someone asked a few minutes later.

'Is he asleep?'

'I think so.' A hand touched his shoulder and Gaara sat up with a start, making the person next to him jump a little. He heard a familiar giggle and looked up to find Sakura, Shikamaru, Kiba and Chouji standing next to his seat. He must have looked at them with a very dumbfounded expression, for Kiba and Sakura burst out laughing, even the always kind Chouji was chuckling a little. 'That's usually my thing, sleeping in class', Shikamaru joked truthfully. The pink haired Sakura pointed at Gaara, still laughing. 'Ah, you got some marks on your forehead. From the keyboard.' - 'It's an R and a T, I think', Kiba added helpfully, wolfish grin in place.

Gaara reached up in a halfhearted attempt to comb the hair over his forehead with his fingers, but he didn't really care that much. He was still a little confused as to what Naruto's friends were even doing here. Chouji, always the considerate one, seemed to notice. 'You guys invited us for today', he reminded him. 'You were supposed to drive us, so we waited outside. We came in to check when you didn't show.'

'Pizza's getting cold, by the way', Shikamaru added, demonstratively lifting up the giant pizza cartons he was carrying.

Right, Gaara remembered. Naruto had told him this morning, basically already out the door, that he'd have to pick up 'the guys' after classes, since except for Naruto himself, they all finished at the same time today. Grunting, Gaara forced himself to get up, packed his things and started walking towards the parking lot, the others tagging along and chatting.

'Really, you can't blame a man for falling asleep. I slept through five of my lectures today.'

'That's not really a surprise with you', Sakura deadpanned. 'I wish I could afford to just nod off like that, but if I don't pay attention one hundred percent of the time –'

'That's what we get for studying medicine', Kiba interrupted with a shrug and Sakura, with pretended condescension, replied: 'Well, you're in veterinary medicine. That's not real medicine.'

'It's not about the subject', Chouji interfered, before Kiba could say anything else. 'Physics is very hard, but Shika can sleep through it because he's so smart.'

'Oh, so we're stupid now?'

'No, that's not what I meant...'

'Sure sounded like that, Chouji. Since when are you one to insult your friends like that?'

'I'm not! I didn't mean... That's not what I was saying!'

'Chouji', Shikamaru said calmly. 'They're just teasing.'

Gaara covertly rubbed his temples, trying to ignore the bickering behind his back. They were always like that and he'd mostly gotten used to it, but today they suddenly seemed a lot more annoying than usual. He stopped when he reached his anthracite SUV and started looking for his keys.

'I'll never get tired of this car', Kiba said, walking around and inspecting it with the habitual envy on his face. 'It's the coolest thing ever.'

Gaara finally got a hold of his keys and unlocked the doors, everyone immediately piling into their usual seats. Kiba, Shikamaru and Chouji got in the back with Shikamaru in the middle. Sakura normally drove shotgun, but today Gaara held out the keys to her. 'You drive', he said as he got in. 'I'm tired.'

He could literally feel everyone gaping at him. Gaara never let anyone drive his car because, well, it was the coolest thing ever. And he didn't like giving other people control over his belongings. But he could barely keep his eyes open and his legs felt so weak, even the short walk to the parking lot had almost been too much. He let himself fall into the passenger's seat, leaned back and closed his eyes, ignoring Sakura's concerned look as she got in and started the engine.

It was completely silent for the first few minutes, everyone apparently trying to wrap their heads around the situation. Then, Kiba let out a dissatisfied grumble. 'You know, I've been bugging you for years to let me drive your car!'

'Maybe that's why he doesn't let you. Because you're annoying', Shikamaru answered with a yawn.

'Sakura is the most responsible driver out of all of us', Chouji explained unnecessarily. 'I failed my test three times.'

'Y'know, whatever, I'm a good driver! Gaara, seriously, just one ride, please? I swear I'll be really, really careful!'

'Shut up and fasten your seatbelts', Sakura instructed harshly. 'Gaara, are you okay? You're not getting sick, are you?' If she didn't make it a strict rule to keep both hands on the wheel while driving, she would have reached out to feel his temperature. She was one of the very few people who regularly ignored his aversion to physical contact and Gaara had kind of gotten used to it over the years. He mostly calmed himself down by thinking that she was going to be a doctor. It was alright to be touched by a doctor. 'I don't think I'm getting sick', he answered truthfully, not finding the energy to open his eyes again.

'Just not getting much sleep, hm?', Kiba nodded knowingly. 'Same with me, exams are coming up and I'm studying, like, all night.'

'Didn't you go to three parties last week?', Shikamaru inquired with a grin. 'And two this week?'

'Alright, so I party all night. Still means I'm not getting much sleep.'

Gaara tried listening to them for a while, but their voices kept becoming distorted and unintelligible, until realization hit him: He was actually falling asleep. If he was lucky, the ride would take about twenty minutes, maybe more when they hit all the red lights. That was better than nothing.

He hadn't considered how hard it would be to wake up. Once the pills had done their work, not even the loudest noises could really rip him from the grips of sleep again until the effect wore off. So even though Sakura was shaking him roughly, going so far as to slap his face, he couldn't open his eyes. He wasn't really sleeping anymore, he could hear them frantically talk to him and each other, could feel her hands on his neck – was she checking his pulse? He tried talking, but his jaw and tongue wouldn't move, so he just managed an inscrutable little noise.

There was movement and several more hands holding on to him, a warm body on both sides and arms around his shoulders, way more bodily contact than he was comfortable with. But he was so beautifully sleepy that he didn't mind that much. It seemed to him he was half walking, half being carried somewhere, and then a smell hit him. Nothing in particular, really, not a smell he could describe or whose components he could make out. He just knew it was the smell of home, of his room, and this soft thing under his head was a pillow. With a content sigh, he stopped trying to wake up and just let his mind drift away.

Gaara woke up with a start, instantly aware of his surroundings. He checked his alarm clock, it was half past nine in the evening. He must have fallen asleep around six o'clock, so that wasn't too bad; less than the pills usually gave him, but at least he'd finally slept. He could hear Naruto and his friends talking in the living room over the sound of a movie. For a moment, he debated whether or not he should join them – they were bound to have questions about him falling asleep like that. But Naruto had taught him that it was impolite to hide in his room when there were guests, so he quickly changed from his jeans and shirt into more comfortable loose pants and a hoodie, before quietly leaving his room.

Sakura, Shikamaru and Naruto were sitting on the sofa, Kiba and Chouji on the floor next to them. When Gaara entered, Naruto was the first to notice him. 'Gaara!' With a bright smile, he waved him over. 'Sleep well? Want some pizza? There is still some pepperoni left.'

It quieted down while Gaara got himself a piece of cold pizza and sat down next to Chouji. He felt their eyes shift from the TV to him for a second, then back. People often didn't know if they should avoid his gaze or openly stare at him, so he was used to this and just started eating. The movie was some kind of action flick he had seen before, with a famous actor whose name he could never remember, but he liked the explosions and gun fights. The others started talking among each other again, exchanging anecdotes and unimportant details of their lives. Even when they weren't looking at him, Gaara could feel their eyes burning into his skin.

At some point, Chouji turned to him, his face full of sadness and sympathy. Gaara stared at him when he leaned uncomfortably close, since Chouji had always been one of those who respected his personal space. 'We didn't know about your dad', he said apologetically with big, teary eyes looking directly into his. 'I am so, so sorry.'

When Gaara looked up, he saw Kiba and Shikamaru staring intently at the TV, obviously listening, while Sakura and Naruto met his gaze, Sakura with tragic compassion. He locked his eyes with Naruto's. 'You told them.' His roommate stared at him like a dear in the headlights, then nodded reluctantly.

Gaara let his half-finished pizza fall to the ground and got up. For a second, he just stared at them, hands balled into fists by his side. Then he turned around, walked back into his room and loudly shut the door.

He opened his bedside drawer and rummaged around for a while before finding the strong pills. Swallowing two of them dry, he sat back on the bed, breathing heavily and shaking a little. It didn't even take a minute until he felt his muscles relax. He fell backwards, fast asleep before his head even hit the pillow.