Warning: Mostly some swearing. Oh and there is some yaoi (a little), big surprise right?

I don't own Naruto

I know I haven't posted anything in a long time… (Don't hurt me!) I really have no excuse… I've been busy. I hope people haven't given up on me or anything. I won't abandon my stories without telling you 8D. Good news though, I now have a new laptop (I love you new-laptop-san!) so hopefully I'll write more.

This starts in the flashback… it's not going to be yet another high-school fan fic, ( I promise), just some short reminiscing that takes place in middle school, high school, and college. Okay, it bounces all over the place, let me know if that irritates you or if you find it confusing in anyway. o.O

On with the fic Yay!

This is for all my positive feedback reviewers who wanted me to continue, thanks guys. I really like this story and I'm glad others do too, and I actually know where it's going from here… well I know how it ends anyway, how it gets there is a complete mystery to me… but that's still cool right?

Helping People

It's So Much Harder When They're Cranky

Chapter Two

(Still nine years earlier)

Naruto meandered about the empty halls of his new school the next morning looking for the office so he could get his classroom number, holding a note from Tsunade that explained about his transfer. He hoped transferring in this late wouldn't single him out as the weird kid; sure, being ostracized wasn't new but he couldn't say he liked it. Baa-chan was a psychologist so maybe she transferred a lot of kids so maybe no one would notice, Naruto didn't really know, all he knew was he should probably not reveal to any of his new classmates that his only comfort in this strange place was most likely imaginary.

His maybe imaginary comfort walked beside him, eerily silent, nothing Sasuke did made any sound whatsoever; his shoes made no squeaks, his clothes didn't swish… Naruto admitted to himself that he found it very creepy.

"Sasuke!" Naruto said in a loud whisper "Talk would you! I can't, so you have to. I need noise!" The dark haired ghost continued to glide down the hall silently, Naruto's demands clearly being beneath his notice. Naruto stopped in the middle of the hallway throwing his arms wide then placing them on his hips, trying to convey his anger to the frustrating, unresponsive ghost. "At least you could outline the plan, I mean, you said you would help me but so far you haven't told me how… and it's making me nervous." He looked at Sasuke… no response. Naruto continued to whisper his inane babble although it was clear that it was completely pointless, "Fine, I'm going to sing loudly and off key until you do what I want,"

'We're the pirates who don't do anything.

We just stay at home, and lie around

And if you ask us, to do anything

We'll just tell you…

We don't do anything'

'…And I've never owned a parrot!

And I've never been to Boston in the fall.'

Naruto's boisterous singing would soon draw disapproving onlookers but at the moment the blond didn't care.

"Ah! Jesus Christ! What is wrong with you? Alright!" Sasuke yelled, looking at him like he had grown a second head, exasperated that Naruto was being so ridiculous, "What do you want me to talk about? You're so annoying. I'll outline the plan for you if you shut up."

So Sasuke outlined the plan which consisted of this: if Sasuke saw what he thought was a ghost then he would try to talk to them, tell them to fuck off or whatever and if they didn't respond then Naruto could assume they were not dead. Hopefully that would diminish the recognizable crazy.

They waited for an opportunity to present itself for about a week. A week where Sasuke verbally abused everyone they came in contact with and Naruto worked on not showing his emotion. Something finally happened in Social Studies, this was Naruto's class right before lunch. The teacher was droning endlessly on about the principle exports of some random South American country that Naruto couldn't care less about. The know it all seemingly high school aged guy… aka Sasuke, was sitting cross-legged on the floor beside Naruto's desk having fun at Naruto's expense, he found it amusing to critique Naruto's note taking skills, when a strange figure appeared in the doorway.

The boy was dressed normally in jeans and t-shirt but he was not someone that Naruto recognized so he cleared his throat in the agreed upon signal. Sasuke popped his head above the desk, looked at the doorway and then stood.

"Hey! What do you want?" Sasuke spat quite belligerently, the boy looked right at the sort of threatening black haired young man but didn't reply. "Looks like we've finally got a dead one here, moron." Naruto glared straight ahead, not even glancing at the bastard but his fists were clenched so tight the knuckles were white. Sasuke chuckled, and continued his badgering of the new apparition, "Seriously, what do you want? He's busy so you're going to have to talk to me."

The apparition didn't really say anything; he just looked at Naruto again then began walking toward him at a sedate pace.

Sasuke pulled a black and white katana with a small red and white fan on the hilt suddenly out of nowhere, just as quickly he was wearing a white gi with a black belt. Stepping in front of the boy he assumed the karate fighting stance. Naruto had no idea where this new outfit had come from, but he imagined it implicated that Sasuke knew karate and he would worry about that later. "I said that he's busy." Naruto cleared his throat again, trying to convey that he thought it was going a bit far threatening the poor kid like that. "What? He has a jones for you, do you give off a super potent pheromone or something? And I meant metaphorically not physically, sicko."

"Naruto!" The blond jumped at the loud voice from the front of the room, his teacher's tone indicated this was not the first time his name had been hollered. "Are you sick?"

"No sir."

"Stop making strange noises then."

The boy finally left without actual bloodshed. Sasuke looked down at his new uniform, his expression very perplexed before his usual outfit appeared in a blink. So their plan still had some kinks to work out and Sasuke needed to work on not being such a bastard but it was a start.

Later that day Naruto was on his computer trying to figure out some things about Sasuke but didn't have much to go on. The emblem on Sasuke's blazer was a dead end; Naruto did a search for any school in the area and widening it as far as he could and found nothing. He thought about the uniform Sasuke was wearing briefly, "Hey Sasu, do you think you were possibly in karate somewhere? I think I saw something like it in a movie once. You must've thought of karate as a good way to protect people or something, which made you change your clothes." The blond smiled brightly, proud of his deductive reasoning.

Sasuke shrugged, "Hm, maybe."

Naruto did another search for dojos that might have the red and white fan logo but still found nothing. He even did a missing persons search but apparently he didn't have the resources to find anything, so that was when he decided to become a detective.

"Hey Sasuke, I have an idea."

Flashback Ended

(Present day… well almost)

Naruto smiled at his reminiscing as he pulled into the parking lot of a quiet Italian restaurant, where he'd planned to have lunch with his girlfriend Sakura. Sasuke could be difficult at times but he wouldn't trade their time together for anything, the brunet also inexplicably possessed invaluable knowledge about the inner workings of police procedure so that was helpful. "You coming?" he asked Sasuke, who was staring out the window and still hadn't said anything since the stoplight.

"You know I can't stand your girlfriend."

"Yes, but what if something happens."

"Hopefully she'll die."

Naruto rolled his eyes and adjusted his Bluetooth so anyone watching wouldn't think he was crazy. Being sent to a mental health clinic was not a fun time he ever cared to repeat. He shuddered just from thinking about it. "You're such an asshole. I don't know why you have such a problem with her; she's not that bad, except for being a little bossy." Sakura, being a RN, takes care of people for a living so it really isn't her fault if she's a little pushy sometimes.

"And violent, rude and mean." Sasuke finished for him. "I don't know why you're with her in the first place. Oh right, it's because she's a front because you're too afraid to admit you don't like girls."

Naruto just ignored him, feeling irritated he opened his door and went into the restaurant. Sasuke was wrong anyway, he did like women he just… Naruto stopped that train of thought and filed it away in the too-painful-to-think-about-right-now box and looked around for his girlfriend. He saw a pink haired young woman sitting at a table by the window, smiling he went over to her, gave her a quick kiss and sat down. "Hope you weren't waiting long, I had to finish up some things for work."

"No, it's fine, I just got here. So how's work?"

Naruto shrugged looking over the menu briefly, "It's work. How about you? Did you get word yet about that new position in the pediatric wing?"

"I think they're giving it to Lee."

"Oh, well that's too bad."

"Yeah, but he's really good at his job, kids love him even with his bad haircut. Oh, but I have something interesting to tell you."

"Huh? What is it?"

"You know that painting you have of the young black haired man holding the katana with the red and white fan on it?"

Naruto froze, the painting she was referring to was one that he had done for his college art class and it was, of course, of Sasuke. Naruto blamed his inspiration to create it on his insecurity and fear of abandonment, he was afraid Sasuke would leave him and he wanted something to remember him by. It was the only painting of him that Naruto had ever done, but it turned out rather well so the blond hung it on his apartment wall.

In the painting Sasuke was facing off against an invisible opponent with his katana, a fierce expression on his face, his bottomless black eyes intense and determined. Sakura had been quite impressed and intrigued by it, especially when she'd learned that Naruto had painted it.

"Yeah, what about it?"

"Remember the conference I had to attend in Connecticut? The one I just returned from yesterday?"

"Yes."

"I was reading the local paper in the hotel and I saw a piece on a family with that symbol in the background. Apparently they own a dojo and they have a long history with the police department and the son is in the FBI."

"What was their name?"

"Here," Sakura handed him a piece of paper, "I wrote it down so I could give it to you."

He looked at the piece of paper, Uchiha, it said. He just stared at it uncomprehendingly, dazed that after all this time he would so randomly discover Sasuke's family.

TBC

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