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“Naruto.”
His hand paused on the sliding door at the older Nara’s quiet rasp. Shit. He mistakenly believed the older man had already left for his own room in the Nara compound.
Shikaku stood just off to the side, definitely having not gone to bed yet. Cricket chirps echoed through the night air, their chorus of voices harmonizing with the muffled sobs beyond the door in Naruto’s sight.
Naruto bowed his head acknowledging he’d been caught, but didn’t look up at his friend’s father. His fingers grasped the door handle.
“Nara-san, I just-“
“Naruto.” The older man repeated, even softer.
“I’m sorry! I know I shouldn’t be here, and I’m sorry for intruding, I just came to check on him, but…” Naruto broke off and grunted in frustration.
Shikaku stood there, the picture of almost infuriatingly calm composure.
“I can’t just leave him in there alone!” burst Naruto. “He’s hurting, sir, you know that! I want to help him, I know he has to do some things alone, but why does this have to be one of them! I know I wouldn’t want to be alone, if Kakashi-sensei die-“
Naruto grit his teeth. His hair hid his eyes from the fluttering lantern light, but Shikaku noticed the tendons in his wrist flex. The deafening silence lay over the night like a woolen blanket, occasionally perforated by hiccups of breath and aborted cries that rang out from inside the room.
“Sir, he didn’t go to the funeral. I didn’t see him at all today. Choji and Ino said the same.”
Shikaku crossed his arms and leaned against the wooden post of the porch. From inside the room he had left his son, another choked cry sounded from within. Naruto’s head whipped up, his eyes blazing. From his rigid stance, it was taking everything in him to not slam the door open.
“Please. Please.” Naruto murmured. He finally raised his head enough to meet Shikaku’s eye.
“Shikamaru…he’s always been there for me. He visits me when I’m in the hospital, you know? Every time. He doesn’t have to. But even when we didn’t know each other that well, before the chunin exams? He was there, just because. Even brought a fruit basket.”
Shikaku could see a rueful grin creeping over Naruto’s shadowed face.
“And when we chased after Gaara, and when we went to go retrieve Sasuke. He was the one who told me to go ahead, let him stay and fight. That he would be right behind me, even though he called it troublesome. Didn’t ask for anything in return, just expected me to let him do all the work while I kept going on.”
Naruto’s hand loosened its grip on the door handle.
“Even this last time, when we came back without Sasuke? Shikamaru said to me that the next time something came up, he would be there to help. And I know he will. He’s someone I can count on. He’s someone who has my back, no matter what.”
Shikamaru’s gasping sobs pierced the air once more. Naruto finally turned to face Shikaku head on.
“I need to do the same for him! I need to be in there, I need to help him! I can’t stand to know he’s in there alone and on his own! What kind of…what kind of friend would I be to do that to him!”
The last few words rang out in an echoing growl.
Shikaku studied the quivering boy in front of him, resolved blue eyes firmly locked on his own and glowing in the warm, flickering light. The scarred corner of his mouth twitched up, and he let out a breathy laugh.
He pushed himself off the column and unhooked the lantern from where it hung, carefully blowing it out. Without a look at the boy, he turned and began to amble back to his quarters. Naruto’s chin dipped to his chest. He bit down on the side of his tongue and grimaced, clenching his fists. Nails dug into his skin of his palm.
The Nara slid the door to his own rooms open, and stepped through. In the surrounding darkness, his footfalls stopped.
“Naruto.”
The teen’s head snapped up at his name, mouth set in a thin line.
“Inside that room you’ll find a closet to the right. Blankets and a sleeping mat are on the second shelf. Careful where you step.”
Naruto’s eyes widened, and Shikaku’s door slid shut.
~*~
Naruto took a moment’s hesitation to process Shikaku’s words before exhaling a shaky breath. With a nod to himself, he quietly slid the door open into the barren interior of the room. Without the warmth of the lantern, only the empty moonlight spilled across the colorless tatami mats of the floor and the curled up body in the back.
With a soft intake of breath, Naruto quickly closed the door behind him with a clatter and started towards Shikamaru. His bare foot caught on something hard and he winced. Looking down, he puzzled at the lone shogi piece staring up at him.
The rest of the room finally caught his eye, and as his sight adjusted to the darkness, Naruto took in the overturned shogi board and the pieces scattered around the room.
“Shikamaru…” he called softly.
His friend made no sign that he had even heard Naruto, or even realized his presence in the room.
He squinted in the darkness to his right; his eyes just barely made out the closet Shikaku had advised him about. Glancing again at Shikamaru, he weighed his options, and his brow furrowed. Tripping over only a handful of shogi pieces, Naruto stumbled his way over and pulled the closet open. He thrust his hand out and struck the shelf in the dark, a shot of pain smashing through his fingers. He cursed and moved his hand up more warily, finding a soft fabric right above where he had originally reached. He scrabbled for the blankets, pulling two out and ignoring the mat.
Naruto tucked the blankets under his arm and shut the closet door. His side mission complete, he bee-lined over to his shaking friend.
Naruto lowered himself to his knees next to Shikamaru, who still had his back turned away from him. He set the blankets aside, mind racing on how best to approach this.
At the first tentative touch to his shoulder, Shikamaru immediately stiffened up and Naruto felt himself freeze. Paralyzed, his mind supplemented very unhelpfully a few seconds too late.
Shikamaru automatically triggered his shadow possession, he realized.
“Shikamaru, it’s me. Naruto, yeah?”
Shikamaru gave no response. His breathing hitched as he tried to control his tears, lungs seizing every time he went to take in a breath. Naruto didn’t try to break the possession, and instead raised his voice.
“It’s Naruto. I’m not an enemy, Shikamaru. You idiot, you know that. Come on, I know you can hear me.”
Locked in place, Naruto took what time he could to examine his friend. Shikamaru’s hair spread out behind him loosely, his hair elastic probably somewhere thrown across the room. He had shut his eyes so tightly that his forehead wrinkled with stress and grief. His teeth ground together as he tried to stifle his sobs, to the point where Naruto was worried he could crack his jaw. Tear tracks streaked down his cheeks, with more drops spilling from his eyes every time his breath hitched up.
Naruto fought the urge to wipe away the lines with his thumb. Not that he could do much of anything right now, trapped as he was.
A few agonizing moments passed, and whether they were seconds or minutes, Naruto could not tell. All of his focus zeroed in on the gasping teen in front of him, and his own frozen fingers on his shoulder.
Suddenly, the sensation of a puppet being cut from its strings coursed through Naruto and he staggered a bit, finally able to move. Shikamaru still made no motion that he recognized him at all, instead curling up even more on himself. He breathed like there wasn’t enough oxygen in the air, and his panicked little gulps sent Naruto’s pulse skyrocketing.
Naruto moved from his aching knees with a bitten-back groan to sit cross-legged closer to his friend, keeping his consistent touch gentle. Slowly, he rubbed his fingertips into the tense shoulder, massaging little whirlpools into the muscle.
Shikamaru’s agitation grew stronger and stronger, his body quaking as Naruto chanced laying his whole hand on Shikamaru and rubbing his arm from shoulder to elbow.
“Shikamaru, I’ve got you. It’s just me. It’s alright.” Naruto’s voice was barely a whisper.
Shikamaru sobbed without abandon and rolled over into his friend, his head and shoulders falling into Naruto’s lap. Startled, Naruto quickly wrapped one arm around the trembling shoulders, pulling him in closer to keep him from falling back to the floor as Shikamaru let loose again, no longer able to hold back anything.
The forceful, heart-wrenching wails of grief that ripped through Shikamaru’s throat tore through the last of Naruto’s personal space barriers and he grasped Shikamaru tighter. He clenched his arm around him and wrapped his other around his other side, lifting the limp man into a sitting position in his lap. Shikamaru buried his face into Naruto’s neck and his hands came up as well, one finding a home clutched in Naruto’s shirt and the other wrapping around Naruto’s back to cement itself in his shoulder.
Naruto kept one arm around his friend, crushing him to his chest, while the other burrowed into Shikamaru’s hair to press him tighter against his neck. Shikamaru’s anguished screams muffled into Naruto’s collarbone as his tears started to soak his shirt. Naruto only curled closer around his grieving friend.
Another agonizing scream tore itself from Shikamaru’s lungs. Naruto grasped the back of his friend’s head, entangled his fingers deeper in his loose hair and pressed a fierce kiss on his crumpled forehead. He rested his cheek against Shikamaru’s temple, and began rocking him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
All that mattered now was the shattered heart of his friend held together by the glue of Naruto’s arms. With each wail from Shikamaru, Naruto’s eyes watered more, and he tried everything he could to hide Shikamaru from the suffering the stupid world thrust upon him.
Naruto lost track of time.
An eternity passed.
No time passed at all.
Almost imperceptibly, Shikamaru’s cries began to quiet, his breaths began to even out, and to Naruto’s relief, his forehead began to smooth as well. As he held the man against his chest, the occasional hitches of breath at his neck were all that was left of Shikamaru’s exhaustion, until even those were given peace in the mercy of sleep.
Naruto loosened his grip on his friend, flexing his aching fingers and arms and untangling his grip from his hair. He looked down at Shikamaru, who had fallen asleep as a comfortable weight against his chest. His mouth was slack and open, eyes finally shut in relief rather than sorrow. The tear tracks down his cheeks still glistened in the moonlight, and Naruto finally gave into the urge and ran his thumb down those cheeks, clearing away what moisture he could.
Naruto stifled a yawn himself, and glanced over at the still folded blankets. He reached out to grab them, and carefully making sure to not wake the finally sleeping man in his arms, scootched himself and Shikamaru back against the wall. With one hand he shook the blankets out and cocooned Shikamaru in one, and used the second to cover them both as best he could against the moonlight.
Rewrapping his arms around his friend, he settled his chin on the top of Shikamaru’s head and finally fell into sleep himself.
~*~
Naruto cracked open his eyes halfway, and groaned in disgust. His left hand came up to dig out the eye gunk from his vision.
Blinking into the morning sun, he rolled over on the floor and snuggled further into the blankets. He hoped Shikamaru wouldn’t mind if he took another third of his share, Shikamaru didn’t even normally use two-
Shikamaru.
Naruto gasped and lurched up into a sitting position. He felt around to find that both blankets had been layered carefully around him sometime in the night.
Looking across the room from the makeshift blanket nest, his eyes widened. No trace of his friend remained in the space, leaving Naruto alone. The overturned shogi board was now right side up, and the floor was clear of any waylaid wooden pieces. Struggling out of the blankets with a curse, Naruto stumbled to his feet and shuffled over to the board.
The pieces were set up in a somewhat organized manner, as if someone had stopped in the middle of a game. Naruto crossed his arms and tilted his head in confusion. He had never played the game, didn’t even know the rules. Shikaku couldn’t have come in and set this up either; Naruto would have noticed his chakra.
He looked up towards the door, still closed to the outside world. The muted glare of the sun shown through the windows, creating a warm, basking glow throughout the room.
Naruto opened the door in a flash and the clattering of wood falling to the ground caught his attention. A shogi piece had been lodged in the door, and Naruto bent to pick it up.
Inked on its surface was “King”.
Naruto stared in confusion.
Looking around outside the complex, his friend was nowhere to be found. Scowling, he grabbed his shoes and shoved them on as he stumbled out of the Nara complex, shogi piece in hand.
He held it up one more time, turning it over carefully in his palm, and on the back of the piece was Shikamaru’s scrawl.
Naruto’s mouth dropped in surprise, and then he laughed. He clutched the piece in his palm a moment more, before standing it up on the railing of the porch. Snatching his jacket and headband from where he had dropped them on the stairs the night before, Naruto burst up into the trees towards the training ground, where he was certain Captain Yamato was already waiting.
The shogi piece keeled over onto its back from the force of Naruto’s jump, leaving the handwritten side up:
Troublesome Idiot
Naruto snickered as he bounded through the forest.
Shikamaru would be just fine.