Disclaimer: Naruto not mine.

A/N: Just as I was drifting off to sleep last night at about 2:40 am, this came to me. So don't expect much. They're about 17 and both Orochimaru and the Akatsuki (and Itachi) have been defeated, leaving Konoha in relative peace. Sasuke has only recently returned and now has to deal with everything that's happened.
This is a different Sasuke.
Take it as you will.

My Only Friend

The water rippled gently under the breeze as he sat on the edge of the pier. The boy stared off into the distance with his hard black eyes, trying not to care that he was alone yet again. But if he wanted to do that, it would have been a better idea not to have come to this particular place. All it held were bad memories. Every time he came here he remembered the first time he'd gotten validation, the first time he was recognized as his father's son. And the last time he'd had a family.

Dipping his foot into the water, he kicked away the distorted image of himself that looked back at him. He didn't like his reflection because now all he could see when he looked at it was the traitor, the failure that everyone else saw. And he didn't like that they were right.

He hunched his shoulders and sighed, an unreadable expression on his face as he felt a presence approach him.

Closing his eyes, he smirked as that presence tried to sneak up on him.

"What do you want, Naruto?" He asked flatly.

Naruto stopped, disappointed, a huge frown taking over his face. He leaned back on his heels and crossed his arms, thoroughly upset that he'd been found out. It would have been so much more fun to surprise Sasuke, but he'd been yet to actually achieve this. "Aw, how'd you know it was me?"

Sasuke snorted. "A blind, deaf, and dumb man could've felt you coming." Gracefully, Sasuke got to his feet and turned to face Naruto, a wicked sneer on his lips. "I saw you coming before you even got out of bed."

The blond shinobi just glared back at Sasuke's over-exaggeration. Of course, the blond already wasn't in the best of moods. When he went to seek his friend out, he hadn't expected to find him here, of all places.

Sasuke tilted his head and quirked an eyebrow. "What's with the bad mood?" He asked, channeling Naruto's own thoughts.

"I don't like the water." The blond answered, confusing the other boy. He lowered his arms and spun sharply in the other direction, back to land. Sasuke began following, as he always did these days, but refusing to rush to catch up.

"Why?" The brunette asked, despite his normal uncaring attitude. But lately, since returning to Konoha, he'd found himself talking more and more, even if it was only to his present companion.

Naruto slowly came to a halt and looked to the ground. "Bad things happen near the water." He answered enigmatically.

"But you need water to survive, stupid." Sasuke replied as he reached Naruto's side.

"I need not to be near water to survive." He turned his gaze to Sasuke with a determined cast to his deep blue eyes. Then narrowing said eyes, he turned and continued walking away and onto the grass. Sasuke again followed, confused by the look and the statement, but returned to being his normal, quiet self.

After a while of this silence and what seemed to be aimless wandering, he reluctantly chose to speak.

"Where exactly are we going?"

Naruto faced him, with a much more typical grin on his lips and a sparkle in his eye. Sasuke raised his eyebrows. "You're treating me to ramen today!"

"Tch!" Was all the Uchiha said before turning on his heel and walking away. He never remembered agreeing to that.

"You owe me." That stopped the black-haired teen in his tracks. Naruto flinched at his own bad choice of words. Actually, it was true, even if the other didn't remember that they'd made a little wager which Naruto had indeed won and had come to collect on. Well, it was a bit of an excuse, too. Ever since Sasuke's return, the boy had shied away from people, keeping mostly to himself. Naruto didn't think this was at all healthy and finally decided to take it upon himself to do something about it. That, and he hadn't seen his friend in a long time. Too long. But he didn't always know how to deal with this new Sasuke. He didn't act like himself anymore.

"Don't you remember our bet?" Naruto explained, trying to ease over his previous mistake. He watched Sasuke visibly relax at his words. That should have made him feel better.

It didn't.

Slowly, Sasuke once again faced Naruto, stoic expression firmly in place as he began walking up to the blond. "Fine." Was all he said.

Naruto let a smile grace his lips as he ran past the moody teen, laughing as he shouted back. "I'll race you!" And with that, he took off, receiving only an annoyed tsk as his response. That actually did make him feel a little better.

When Sasuke finally arrived at the ramen bar, Naruto was already slurping down his third bowl. With a disgusted sigh, the brunette sat down and placed an order of his own. They ate in silence until Naruto was about to order his eighth bowl, at which point Sasuke slammed the blond's hand back to the table, giving him a meaningful glare.

"That's it. I'm not paying for any more." The Uchiha said forcefully, counting his money and placing it down. He got up without another word and walked away.

Naruto quickly caught up; afraid he'd lose the other on the bustling streets. "Cheapskate!" He yelled teasingly.

Sasuke stopped and turned to face Naruto. "I don't have that much money, you know. I have to ration." A strange expression came over Sasuke's face before he began walking away.

Inwardly, Naruto smacked himself. With everything that had happened, Sasuke got few jobs and all were low paying, and with his family's money locked away, he really didn't have much to spare. But still, it seemed to Naruto that Sasuke was being especially moody today.

He ran up to catch his brooding friend and scolded him. "There's no reason to be such a jerk about it! You could've told me earlier."

"Hn." The truth was, Sasuke wanted to spend time with Naruto, even if it did drain his pockets. But he wasn't about to say that. Not Uchiha Sasuke.

They continued walking to nowhere without speaking when they ran into Shikamaru and Chouji, who also seemed to be just walking to nowhere. Naruto jumped up and down like a little kid and waved. Shikamaru rolled his eyes and Chouji just continued to pop chips into his mouth as the blond shinobi ran over and began talking animatedly with the two. Sasuke hung back, leaning against a wall, clearly not missed at all and uncomfortable to be standing alone in the center of a crowd. He felt like all those eyes were staring at him, all except for the ones he wanted.

Finally, Naruto walked back over with a confused and annoyed look on his face. "What are you doing all the way over here?"

Sasuke just shrugged as Naruto frowned at him in disgust. The blond opened his mouth to speak when yet another distraction called over.

"Hey, Naruto! Whatcha doing there?" It was Kiba.

Without a second thought, Naruto again ran over to have yet another conversation with someone else. Sasuke felt very much like a third wheel. An unwanted, broken one at that. Unable to face it anymore, he turned from the scene before him and walked away, unnoticed.

After a good fifteen minutes, Naruto said his goodbye to Kiba and walked back to where Sasuke should have been. Only Sasuke of course wasn't there. Pouting furiously, Naruto cursed the jerk for just walking off and leaving him alone in the middle of the street. He raced around for what seemed like hours, looking everywhere for his missing friend. And a small part of him began to panic. Irrationally, he started to fear that Sasuke had again left Konoha, leaving him behind to try and pick up the pieces.

Then, at long last, he found the errant boy sitting idly in the woods, plucking at grass in a daze. And Naruto couldn't help but be annoyed at what he'd just been through. Little did Sasuke know how much he could still affect the seemingly ever-happy teen.

Still reeling from his frantic search through Konoha, Naruto threw himself behind Sasuke, leaning back against him. He instantly felt the Uchiha stiffen at the contact and this only made Naruto that much more irritated.

"You're so tense." Naruto complained, trying to readjust his position against Sasuke's back. "You make a really uncomfortable chair. I mean, what's your problem?"

Said chair tensed even further at the comparison. Unsure of what to say, he held his tongue, but then irritation got the better of him.

"What do you care? You were having a fine time with everyone else." The brunette said quietly and a touch annoyed.

"Yeah, well, you're not my only friend, you know." The blonde answered harshly, a little annoyed himself. "My world does not revolve around you, Sasuke."

The Uchiha stood up suddenly, causing the other to fall back, hitting the ground hard with his head. The black-haired teen faced away from Naruto, clenching his fists tightly at his side, hunching his shoulders, trying to fight back the anger and frustration that welled within him.

Naruto sat back up, rubbing the non-existent bump on the back of his skull as he looked up to his standing companion. "What'd you do that for!"

But Sasuke remained silent, staring at the ground, his eyes squinting almost painfully. Because it wasn't fair. Because the thing was, Naruto really was his only friend. And his life did sort of revolve around him, now that everything else was gone. His enemies defeated, his main goal accomplished, he had nothing left to look to. So he'd latched onto the one thing he thought was his, the one thing that was always there beside him, even when he didn't want it. Naruto. And he didn't like being so pathetic, for the great Uchiha Sasuke to have to rely on someone else for his identity. But he'd done it anyway.

It wasn't fair that Naruto didn't feel the same.

He couldn't take it anymore, it was like cruel sort of rejection, emphasizing yet again his isolation. Not needing to be reminded of it, he took a step forward and prepared himself to walk away. Again. Maybe this time forever.

"Where do you think you're going?"

He stopped in his tracks, shocked by the unusual reserved gentleness of that voice. Turning back around he was faced with a Naruto with a very odd expression on his face, as if he couldn't decide whether he was angry, sad, or afraid. So Sasuke just stared back.

They stayed like that for a while, for what seemed like an uncomfortable eternity. Finally, Sasuke directed his gaze away and shifted uneasily between his feet. Naruto sighed in exasperation.

"You're such a sourpuss." The pale teen snapped his head back, a sharp glare in place. But completely unfazed, the blond just smiled and patted the ground beside him as if in invitation. But when Sasuke looked closer at Naruto's demanding, unyielding eyes, it felt like more of an order. Sighing himself, Sasuke relented, lying down in the grass as Naruto quickly did the same.

He couldn't help but feel a little stupid; staring up at the sky for no reason in the middle of the day as the breeze gently blew his black hair over his face. Normally, he would have tucked the offending strands behind his ears, but instead he let it cloud his vision and block his view of the clear blue above him. After a while, he carefully turned his eyes to his companion, who didn't seem to be bothered by their situation one bit. Quite the contrary, he laid with a silly grin on his face, soaking the sun into his tanned skin, his arms resting comfortably behind his head. Sasuke returned his look to the sky, feeling even more self-conscious, with his arms lying limp at his sides like dead weight. He felt like a corpse. But then, in a way, he always felt like that these days.

There was a contented sigh beside him and he felt the other teen adjust his position, moving a little closer. Sasuke braced himself reflexively, still unused to having someone so near to him unless it was in battle. Naruto felt it too, when Sasuke tensed and his smile turned just a little sad. He knew that the Uchiha always had a problem with people getting to close in any way, but it had only gotten worse since his return. It was like he was afraid that if he got too close, everything would just disappear.

Naruto knew that feeling well.

The blond rolled his head to the side to look at Sasuke's face, and almost had to laugh at the extreme uneasiness he saw there. It was little funny to see him so at a loss, but a little sad, too. But still, it warmed his heart that Sasuke was here with him, awkwardness and all.

"I'm really glad you're home, Sasuke." The blond said, surprised a bit at himself that he had in fact said it at all. But the truth was the truth and his friend needed to know.

And that friend turned to face him, old impassive facade again in place, but less effective than once it was. Because he could no longer hold back the emotion in his eyes, especially not to the one person who knew how to read him better than anyone else. Black met blue, each searching the other as if reading their minds, seeing into their hearts. But then, maybe they did. They stayed like that for a time, locked in each other's gaze, in way that should have been awkward, but somehow wasn't. Black was the first to turn away, of course, to look at something suddenly very interesting in the other direction. Naruto had to stifle a laugh. He watched as Sasuke swallowed hard before whispering to the wind. But the wind carried his voice and Naruto heard it.

"Me, too."

A devilish grin split the blond's face as he watched the normally reserved boy fight back a blush and fail. It was just too much fun to watch Sasuke squirm, so Naruto decided to tease him a little. He elbowed him in the ribs, getting an annoyed grunt for his efforts and he nearly cackled when next he spoke.

"Huh? What? What was that? I didn't hear you. Did you say something?"

Sasuke was clearly un-amused as he turned his face once again to the sky, with a wrinkled brow and childish pout. Naruto fought back a laugh as he watched his friend wrestle with his discomfort.

Naruto was so distracted with teasing his friend that he almost didn't notice that his arm now lay over Sasuke's. On instinct, Naruto wound his hand around the pale wrist, ready to hold on when Sasuke decided to bolt. But Sasuke didn't move. And Naruto felt relieved when the arm he held was solid and real. He had an unreasonable fear that if he couldn't feel Sasuke that maybe he was spending time with a figment of his imagination. Or a sadistic illusion that would turn to smoke and float away, leaving him alone, holding onto air. But this fear was unfounded and frankly embarrassing, so he'd never admit it, even to himself.

Instead he continued to stare with his cheery blue eyes as Sasuke's frown deepened.

"You heard me." The brunette answered sharply.

Sasuke still didn't move his arm.

Deciding that was enough teasing or else Sasuke may in fact run away, Naruto took one last glance at his friend before looking again up at the sky. Leaning his head back, he let the sun's rays warm his face, reflecting the warmth he felt inside. He closed his eyes as he unconsciously tightened his hold. "I heard you before you even spoke."

And he let a big, contented grin cover his face, let the uneasiness wash away and the comfort settle in. And unbeknownst to Naruto, Sasuke joined him in smiling to the clear blue above them.

And he still didn't move his arm.

The whole "I saw you coming before you even got out of bed" line comes from Ocean's Eleven, of all places. Well, give credit where credit is due.