Shikamaru jiggled the door knob for the nth time. It still would not budge. From inside his room came the unmistakeable sounds of Mistoffelees conjuring lightning and trashing his room.
He wondered which way would be less time and energy consuming - fixing Mistoffelees into his shadow, getting mad, or bribery.
Getting mad was not an option. It took way too much willpower to get angry.
On any other day, Shikamaru would've gone with bribery, but today, there was nothing to bribe Mistoffelees with. His wallet was sucked dry by another of Ino's shopping sprees, and the catnip had run out.
He had no choice but to wait until there was a break in the flashes and quickly shot his shadow through the crack in the doorway.
He frowned, visualising his room and hoping that Mistoffelees was on the ground so that he was trapped. It seemed that Mistoffelees was trapped. The crashes and booms had stopped, at any rate.
"Mistoffelees, take the jutsu off of the doorknob so I can get in..." drawled Shikamaru.
There was a long pause, in which Shikamaru moved the door knob around hopefully. No luck.
"Mistoffelees..."
"It's not a jutsu," came the huffy reply. "It's a spell."
"It amounts to the same thing," said Shikamaru non-chalantly. "Now take it off."
"I need to move my arms-."
"Don't give me that shit, Mistoffelees," Shikamaru snapped. "I know perfectly well what you're capable of. You don't need your hands at all. You just do that to make yourself look interesting. Now shut up and take the jutsu-."
"Spell!" Mistoffelees hollered.
"Jutsu, spell, jinx... whatever, just take it off."
"I refuse to undo anything until you have correctly named it!" Mistoffelees called childishly. Sometimes Shikamaru wondered if Mistoffelees really wasn't a kitten.
Shikamaru sighed, exasperated. "Now you're just acting like a brat, Mistoffelees. Stop being such a baby."
There was no reply from inside his room. But when Shikamaru tried the knob again, it still wasn't working.
He gave an exasperated little puff of air and turned so that he was facing down the hallway. Shikamaru crouched, and pushed off. As soon as his feet left the ground, Shikamaru canceled his jutsu.
He landed about 10 feet in front of where he started. Inside his 8 by 10 bedroom, he heard a crash and a loud yowl as Mistoffelees crashed into the wall.
"Mistoffelees, I don't want to do that again," called Shikamaru.
He heard some muttering from inside his room, and the door swung open. Shikamaru stepped inside cautiously, afraid of what he would see.
Went for the clothes, probably.
Sure enough, Mistoffelees had gone for the clothes drawer again. A heap of his underwear was singed and still smoking from Mistoffelees' lightning, and the rest of his clothes were strewn haphazardly over the entire room.
Mistoffelees himself was on the bed, having landed there after banging into the wall. He was pouting and massaging his head. Shikamaru sighed and shook his head at the sight of the anthropomorph.
"What?" Mistoffelees demanded.
"I don't even know why the hell you're mad at me," said Shikamaru. "What the hell'd I do?"
"You kissed her."
"Ino?"
"Yeah."
"So?"
"So... so I don't like it."
Shikamaru raised an eyebrow and walked over to Mistoffelees to pat his head. "Why?"
Mistoffelees pulled Shikamaru down onto the bed and hugged him tightly. "I don't know. I just don't like it. It makes me angry."
"What, you're jealous?"
"I don't think so. Jealous is for romantic relationships. I think I'm just slightly protective of my owner. I'm very territorial."
Shikamaru laughed, disentangling himself from Mistoffelees and ruffling his head fur. Mistoffelees growled, smoothing his fur down with a paw, and planted his feet on Shikamaru's chest, ready to kick.
"What's so funny?"
"You are. You're hilarious, Mistoffelees."
Mistoffelees grinned and playfully swiped at Shikamaru.
"I won't do it again, if it upsets you that much," said Shikamaru, catching Mistoffelees' paw in mid air. "I promise."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Seal with a meal?"
Shikamaru sighed. "Fine... I'll call Chouji and we can go to that restaraunt with that grill in the middle of the table." And get Chouji to pay, he added in his head.
Mistoffelees cheered and hugged Shikamaru again. "Yaaaaaaaaaay!"
Muttering something that sounded like "troublesome..." Shikamaru pushed Mistoffelees away and went out to the hall to phone Chouji.
"He said he wasn't jealous?" Chouji asked.
"Yeah."
"You okay with that?"
No. "Course. Why wouldn't I be?"
"... nevermind. See you later, then."
"Sure, Chouji. See you."
Shikamaru hung up the phone and went back to his room, where Mistoffelees was using his magic to draw a picture (read: etch a scribble) on the wall.
"You sure you weren't jealous?" Shikamaru called teasingly.
Mistoffelees turned, puzzled, and nodded. "Why?"
Shikamaru looked away.
"Just asking."
Personal favourite line: "You just do that to make yourself look interesting."
I was having trouble ending this, actually. First slashy thing ever. Kind of just popped into my head.
Mistoffelees is from the musical CATS. You don't need to know his character or anything to be able to understand this. He's basically a magician.
As there are two Naruto characters (Shikamaru and Chouji) and only one CATS character (Misto), I decided to categorize it under Naruto.
Because, face it. No-one's gonna read it if you put it under cross-overs.
MC