Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. 'Tis true.

“He that is thy friend indeed,

He will help thee in thy need;

If thou sorrow, he will weep;

If thou wake, he cannot sleep:

Thus of every grief in heart

He with thee doth bear a part.”

Of Every Grief

It was vaguely pathetic, but Sasuke was almost content just to sit there, alone at a two-person table in a restaurant, staring out the window as rain blotted runny shapes on the glass. He wasn’t tired, but there was a deep, numbing exhaustion buried inside him, that had been there for months and months and that he felt, pessimistically but instinctively, would remain for many more. At least here, in this crowded place where no one was watching him and no one cared that he was the current owner and director of the Uchiha company, he could relax, empty his mind and pretend, for a moment, that he wouldn’t have to get up and walk back out into the downpour.

He was nearly as relieved as he was irritated that Karin had stood him up - for him, these meetings were strictly business, but for her, attracted by his money and looks, it translated into more. He couldn’t stand dealing with her. He would even have said he hated her, if he had not known what true hate was.

He glanced down at his watch. He couldn’t afford to waste any more time here if she really wasn’t coming. He stood briskly, but with a certain barely noticeable reluctance to his movements, and walked up to the cash register, where he stated expressionlessly, “Cancel my reservation. I’m leaving.”

The cashier, a young inexperienced-looking girl, stammered nervously, “Is it under U-Uchiha, sir?”

“Yes,” he said impatiently, and had just turned to go as she typed into the computer when he heard a loud, incredulous voice call out behind him. “Sasuke??! Oi, Sasuke!”

He started violently, more at the name itself than at the call. Practically no one referred to him as Sasuke these days; it was always Mr. Uchiha. Feeling almost apprehensive about whom he was about to see, he slowly swivelled around.

The name was in his mind before he had fully registered what he was observing - spiky, offensively bright blond hair, wide babyish blue eyes, bizarre whisker marks on tanned cheeks, a surprised and tentative but blinding grin. Uzumaki Naruto. Sasuke hadn’t seen his old high school room mate in years, but he was as unmistakable as ever.

Sasuke stared at him, saying nothing. Naruto, who knew the Uchiha’s nature to be one of few words, was unflustered by this. “Sasuke!” he repeated heartily, taking a few strong strides forward and placing his big hands on the cash counter, leaning over. “Man, I haven’t seen you in forever! How’s it going, by the way? I heard you inherited the company or something? Bet that keeps you busy!”

Sasuke kept staring. “What are you doing here, Naruto?” he asked eventually, voice low and toneless.

“Huh, me? I work here. A chef, you know.” Naruto grinned at him, a goofy ear-to-ear artwork that had always prompted Sasuke to roll his eyes at the sheer stupidity of its appearance. Actually, his chef position should have been evident; he was wearing a white apron and his unruly hair was kept out of the way by a thick orange headband, and ordinarily Sasuke wouldn’t have missed it, but his shock had momentarily arrested his other faculties.

“So are you having dinner?” Naruto asked eagerly. “There’s a free table over there, and the special’s ramen today. I make the best ramen ever, even you won’t be able to deny - ”

“No,” Sasuke cut him off brusquely. “No, Naruto, I’m not staying. I don’t have time.” He was only semi-aware of what he was saying - for some reason, the sight of Naruto, his once best friend, after all this time, had completely blown his mind. He just couldn’t fathom it.

The beginnings of a frown showed up on the blond’s face. “Don’t have time for what? Dinner? You gotta eat, Sasuke.” He said it lightly, like a joke, but the absence of that good-natured glimmer in his eyes said something else. “C’mon, stay. My shift ends pretty soon, too - we could go out for a drink after or something.” His expression turned pleading, and Sasuke couldn’t tear himself away from it. It was all so familiar, familiar like nothing in his life was right now. “You have to have time for just a quick appetizer, right?”

“No, I...” Sasuke found himself at a loss for words. He closed his eyes - it was easier to think clearly, think sensibly, when he didn’t have to look into those blue eyes that knew and reflected a different time and place, a different Uchiha Sasuke. “...I just don’t.”

With that, he spun and left, careful not to look back. He flagged down a taxi, blocking out Naruto’s voice, confused and shouting after him, “Wait! Sasuke! Sasuke!”

The bone-deep exhaustion came crashing down on Sasuke as soon as he was sitting in the back seat, and it was all he could do not to curl up right there. In fact, he very well might have if not for the sharp, jarring discomfort of a hollow, aching hole at his core, a bitter taste he recognized on his tongue as naturally as water. Regret.

Sasuke wasn’t sure what brought him back to that downtown street the next Friday night, one of his few free evenings in a long, long time. He’d left his suit and tie in his closet, was casually dressed in jeans and a T- shirt for the warm summer night. The light, soft clothes felt strange on his skin, and his bare forearms looked almost grotesquely pale, as if he hadn’t been in the sun for ages.

He settled stiffly on a bench, briefly toying with the idea of heading for the pub a few doors down before discarding it. He had drunk much more often when it had been illegal for him to do so, sneaking into clubs with Naruto and the rest of their gang in his youth, but even then he had rarely gotten really intoxicated. If he had, he wouldn’t have been able to guide an inebriated-beyond-lucidity Naruto back to the dorms, through a combination of steering, shoving and spoken directions interspersed with insults. But somehow, although that had seemed like the most bothersome thing in the world at the time, drinking had been a much more appealing prospect back then.

He suddenly felt stupid. What was he hoping for, anyway? It was unlikely that Naruto had the same shift ending at the same time tonight. It was a different day of the week, even. Why did he want to see Naruto again, anyway? They weren’t friends anymore. Barely acquaintances, really.

“Sasuke?”

His head whipped up toward the sound, and he found himself staring once again at that unchanged face. But Naruto looked different this time - no grin, no headband, no apron. And the way he said Sasuke’s name - a bit questioning, a bit uncertain, remembering how it had gone last time. He glanced down, cast into shadow, and Sasuke thought for a second that he was going to turn away, walk off in the opposite direction.

“Naruto!” He had leaped to his feet and spoken aloud without realizing it, hands clenched into fists at his sides. Naruto had never turned his back on him before; that had been all Sasuke. The thought of him doing so now filled Sasuke with an unknown panic.

But now Naruto looked up, blue eyes widening, and the emotion Sasuke read in them was not dislike, not resentment, not uncertainty, not despondency. It was hope. And Sasuke was glad.

“Hey, Sasuke!” Naruto’s grin appeared. “Were you waiting for me?”

Sasuke managed to snort. “Like I’d do that,” he muttered. But he sat back down and let Naruto join him on the bench.

They stayed that way for a while, just sitting next to one another, neither quite sure where to start with what they wanted to say but both sure that this was where they should be. The sky over the city was starless, clear but black. They watched it, listening to the alternately quiet, alternately raucous whispers of night life. Finally Naruto leaned back with a gusty, exaggerated sigh, folding his arms behind his head and burying his grubby fingers in his hair. “So, long time no see, eh, Sasuke.”

Sasuke gave a noncommittal grunt of agreement. They didn’t discuss last week’s exchange.

“What’s going on with you?” Naruto asked, glancing over at Sasuke curiously. “You’re some corporate kinda person, aren’t you?”

‘Corporate kinda person’ was a paltry description for all the tasks that Sasuke was in charge of, but it would do. “Something like that,” he allowed. “You?”

“Well, you know I’m a chef.” Naruto nodded firmly, clearly proud of the fact. “It’s awesome. I’m thinking of opening my own place sometime, even. Maybe after Hinata and I are settled down.”

“Hinata?” Sasuke repeated. He didn’t recognize the name.

“What? Oh, my girlfriend, Hinata. She’s soooo pretty, and nice, and she even likes ramen, too.” Naruto looked like the perfect picture of contentment at that moment, his eyes pure and dreamy, his lips curled upwards, serene and happy.

“You love her.” It wasn’t a question. Even after all this time, Sasuke knew Naruto well enough to tell.

“Yeah,” he agreed immediately, unhesitating and unashamed. Naruto had always been like that. “I’m thinking of popping the question soon, actually.”

Sasuke raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. The night seemed to be getting colder, and he shrugged his shoulders to keep the heat circulating. He wondered what the fact that Naruto might be getting married meant. All he knew was that marriage seemed like an unbearably faraway and foreign concept to him, and that when Naruto talked about these miles between them, he didn’t know how to respond.

Naruto jumped suddenly. “Whoa! That reminds me, I have a date tonight. But it’s okay - Hinata will understand.” He dug out his cell phone and began to text a message.

“Understand what?” Sasuke inquired grimly, slightly puzzled but preparing himself for the inevitable letdown. If Naruto had a date, he’d be leaving. It shouldn’t be a surprise - they led separate lives now. They didn’t have time to try to coordinate with each other, to try to push together two self-repelling magnets.

“That I can’t go out with her tonight, duh.” Naruto rolled his eyes, smiled at something in his cell phone, then snapped it shut. Sasuke felt as if someone had poured a bucket of water over his head - but not freezing ice water, rather hot, soapy bubble bath. “She understands - I’ve told her a lot about you.”

Sasuke felt simultaneously warmer and colder. Evidently Naruto had never forgotten about him. But although he’d remembered too, he had never talked about Naruto with anyone - there wasn’t anyone.

“Are you sure that’s...” he forced himself to say, trailing off awkwardly.

Naruto saw his insecurity for what it was. “What’re you talking about, Sasuke? Like I said, she knows. Besides, this must be the first time, or one of ‘em at least, that the bastard himself came out to hunt me down. It’s a special occasion for sure.” He let out a bark of laughter, loud and gleeful and filling the air with an almost tangible scent of companionship.

Sasuke turned his head to look at Naruto, really look at him, with a desperate intensity. It was hard to believe that this blond-haired, blue-eyed, cheekily-grinning apparition wasn’t just some illusion, his starved heart haunting him with visions of the only true friend he’d ever had. But his subconscious couldn’t fake the gleam of mirth and pleasure in those unique eyes, or the brightness of that orange sweater made brighter by its wearer, or the childlike dimples making indents between the whiskers. Sasuke knew he wasn’t capable of that; no imagination or imitation could do the living, breathing, laughing Naruto justice.

“Oi, Sasuke, want to get a drink?” Naruto invited, nudging his head towards the nearby pub.

The idea was much harder to discard when it was Naruto’s, and Sasuke didn’t try. He figured, however, that he should probably find out the address of Naruto’s current abode before the blond got totally hammered, to make the guiding part run more smoothly.

For now, though, he stood up and met Naruto’s playful, pleased gaze, feeling the smirk of old (that was really closer to a smile) steal across his lips. “Let’s go, then.”

Naruto found him at the bar, slouching on a stool, but somehow so stiffly that he might as well have been on a bench in a prison cell. The glass in front of him, liquid enticingly brown-orange, was untouched. His face felt like stone, cold and frozen, tight skin capable of being chipped off with a blunt blade, and he was sure it looked the same. If Naruto didn’t know exactly what that expression meant, he could guess.

“Want to talk about it?” Naruto asked eventually. His voice wasn’t exactly soft, but it was a good deal quieter and deeper than usual.

Sasuke’s silence was sharp and intense enough to slice through solid rock. Fortunately, Naruto’s heart was not made of rock, and his nerve certainly of much sterner stuff, and he persisted. “Hey, Sasuke, I’m gonna rephrase that. Want to talk about it, or do you want me to toss you on the floor and beat it out of you?” It was a semi-serious offer. Sasuke, who had never been able to express his pain verbally, had to do it some way, and in his adolescent turmoil of unresolved emotional baggage his anger had revealed itself especially brutally. The dormitory supervisors had often barged into Sasuke and Naruto’s room to find them in varying states of disarray, glaring, growling and cursing, but nonetheless openly communicating. That violent release had been all Sasuke needed to keep him sane - because what he needed wasn’t someone who would run away from him, someone who would ignore his concealed distress, but someone who would stay and duke it out with him. Naruto had been able to do that, and he was the only one, ever. He knew what Sasuke needed.

If it had been any other grievance, Sasuke might have taken Naruto up on the offer. But he was cracking apart himself, and the only thing keeping him whole was Naruto’s undamaged presence at his side. He didn’t think he could stand it if Naruto started to bleed and break and bruise the way he already was inside. So he talked, lifeless in his agony.

“Itachi’s dead. He was shot and killed instantly - a bullet to the heart.” Sasuke closed his eyes as he spoke, a mistake, as he saw it all played out, black and white and red, in his imagination.

Naruto was silent for a while. He didn’t know all about Itachi, but he knew more than anyone else. And although he didn’t know, he understood - he’d always been annoying that way. “...Sorry.” Sasuke suddenly despised that word with a passion, and almost lashed out at Naruto for daring to use it, but he saw more than just apologies in those blue eyes, and he swallowed the biting words back down, nearly strangling himself with their misdirected vim.

“Don’t be,” he said tonelessly. “It was about time.” But it wasn’t, not really. Itachi had been thirty years old and more than ready to die, ready younger than that although it had taken a while for it to come to pass, but in reality it was Sasuke who wasn’t ready. He had hated his brother and had fed that hatred with everything he had, and he had always instinctively believed that when Itachi’s death came about, he would be involved - he would be the one to cast the fatal blow, whether directly or not. To find out that his older brother, his loathed brother, his one and only brother had died in a town Sasuke had never been to at the hands of people he’d never met, died in the space of a second without Sasuke even being aware, was almost more than he could bear.

He inhaled, trying futilely to purge himself of all the bad air his lungs screamed at, and the sound was like a dying machine, rough and raspy and laborious. “I wanted to kill that damn bastard myself,” he snarled, eyes blazing at nothing, words filled with visceral, lost desires. Then, just as quickly as it had come, the infuriated aggression faded, and his voice sank to a low, anguished mutter. “I wanted him to suffer...” ...the way I did. The statement went unsaid, but Naruto heard it all the same.

Sasuke felt Naruto’s hand stretch across the back of his neck, palm pressing down into those hard spikes at the top of his spine. It wasn’t the gentlest of touches, but it was firm and assuring, a heat source and an anchor. Some time ago, maybe not as long ago as he had thought, he wouldn’t have allowed it - he didn’t want any contact, anything that could weaken him. But he’d changed, and Naruto had changed, and things had changed between them. It hurt, but it was a pure pain, different from the vicious, tearing grief his brother had left in him.

“Well,” Naruto said slowly, his hand unmoving, “it’s over now.”

It was amazing how Naruto could bring all of Sasuke’s internal chaos to a summing climax with one sentence. Naruto had a knack for calling things for what they were, no matter how stupid, unobservant and clueless he might be. And although he was undeniably all three of those things, he was right. It was over - at least, something was. Something faraway and withered and dead. But something else was far from over, something new and vibrantly alive, brushing shoulders with him, and that something was here.

At last, Naruto shifted and removed his hand, and Sasuke felt several long years’ worth of burdens lift with it. “So, who’s paying tonight?” Naruto asked casually, perhaps irreverently considering the circumstances. He eyed Sasuke doubtfully. “’Cause it’s looking like it’s gonna be a hefty sum.” It might have seemed insensitive and rude, but tact had never been Naruto’s strong point, and Sasuke had never dealt well with hushed wishes of sympathy anyway.

Sasuke felt like punching Naruto. Then he felt like crying. Then, most astonishingly, he felt like laughing. But he did none of those, instead stating grudgingly, “It’s on me.” He drained his full glass in one gulp, swallowing deeply.

After all, he was rich. And listening to Naruto cheer and crow, he couldn’t think of anything more worthy of spending his money on.

Sasuke was standing in the doorway of the now-familiar restaurant, waiting to be seated, when an even more familiar orange blur vaulted over the counter and joined him noisily.

“Hey, Sasuke! I’ve got something for you!” was Naruto’s proud, eager proclamation as he dangled a white, gold-cornered envelope in front of the Uchiha’s face.

Sasuke raised his eyebrows and snatched it primly out of the blond’s fingers, opening it with the fluid ease of someone who was used to getting lots of mail. His brows furrowed as he scanned the contents, but before he could comment, Naruto beat him to it.

“See, it’s a wedding invitation! See? See?” Naruto was practically hopping, some kind of overgrown brat wearing an apron on a sugar high.

“Yes, as a matter of fact I can see, Naruto,” Sasuke confirmed, a bit of testy iciness creeping into his voice. But then his face relaxed into a smirk as he remarked snidely, “Give my condolences to Hinata.”

“Wha...? But she’s the one I’m marrying!”

“Exactly,” Sasuke replied levelly. As offended comprehension dawned on Naruto’s round cheeks, Sasuke pocketed the envelope and added, “Idiot.”

“Heeeeyyy! Hey hey hey! Bastard!” Naruto howled, while Sasuke neatly dodged his fist. Then he spotted the manager hastily making his way in their direction, and quickly shut down the blond loudmouth.

“Moron, if you don’t shut up we’re both going to be thrown out,” he murmured, docilely taking the seat that the disgruntled manager pointed out for him. Naruto was bodily hauled back into the kitchen area, no mean feat considering his tall, sturdy stature, and Sasuke perused the menu.

A perky waitress stopped by. “May I take your order, sir?”

Sasuke’s eyes halted at the day’s special, a dish that was more than well-known to him. He smirked again. “I’ll have the ramen, please.”

A/N: I accidentally referred to both Naruto and Sasuke as a "her" at least once in this story, before catching my mistake and changing it. There's something a little off about that. Oh well.

Anyway, just a little Naruto-Sasuke oneshot for my second anniversary here, writing and posting fanfiction. I've got 26 stories to show for it - doesn't sound like much, considering that 730 (I think that's right? It's a well-known fact that I can't do math during the summer) days have passed since then. Anyway, I love these two. They're probably my favourite pairing, and they're not even romantic...

The quotation at the top, if you couldn't guess from the "thou"and "doth" stuff, is from none other than Master Shakespeare. I was just kind of idly scanning his sonnets the other day, and that verse caught my eye. I wonder if he was the origin of that "a friend in need is a friend indeed" thing. But hey, it's about friends and Naruto and Sasuke are friends! Besides, you know, it's Naruto, and then it's Shakespeare. They go hand in hand, right?

Anyhow, thanks to all of you readers and writers for another fun, challenging year of fanfiction! Feedback is ever appreciated.