AN: Yay! Second Naruto fic, which may be a bit OOC since I haven't watched the show in ages. There might be a few grammatical errors (hopefully none), but yeah, check it out, and look back and remember the joys of mandatory community service. Oh yeah, and the story's AU.

Tell Me a Story

I guess you could say the bit of community service I'd been pushed into was "my fault", but what good ever comes out of playing the blame game? Besides, we all know that there never even would have been an incident that caused the damage of a shelf full of children's books if my best friend (which is totally a title I was rethinking after it happened), Sakura, hadn't decided to play the 'selfless saint' game.

I mean, it wasn't even my idea to go to the library and check out books to read to horribly sick children in the hospital who can't check out there own books (since they're, you know, sick and hospitalized) and are surrounded by people too lazy to do it for them. So yes, the sob story got to me and I agreed to help only to be blown off by the girl because she's 'sick'. She must have caught crappy-liar-it is, which makes every word that escapes your mouth loose its credibility. But back to the point at hand, I was stuck there in the children's library left to pick out books at a 1st grade reading level at which point the direct causer of what is forever to be known as The Incident, or it in boldface if referring to the little pronoun form.

So by this point you're probably wondering something along the lines of 'oh Ino with the best hair and style of all of Konoha, what is this supposedly horrendous incident you've been going on about for the past 2 paragraphs?'. Well my faithful followers, The Incident is what happens when your just minding your own business, picking out books like a good citizen and some guy comes up and carelessly knocks you over, ending in the damage of half a shelf full of books by water. That was The Incident.

Okay, so maybe it didn't happen exactly like that but it was close enough to that for me to say it wasn't all my fault (because it takes 2 to win Dancing with the Stars, or to tango, or salsa, or do all that other dance-y stuff). So what if Kiba had warned me that he was delivering water for the lady at the front desk and warned me that he was coming and I was 'in his way'. What-ever. He could have gone around me like I told him to or at least waited for me to get out the way but no. He had to keep going which caused him to ram into me, the both of us to fall over along onto the bookcase next to us, the bookcase to fall because the inertia or something was to great for it, the water to spill all over the books, the librarian to come running to see what all the commotion was, and therefore her coming to the conclusion that we were trying to pull one over on her and have 'sexual relations' in the children's section. That, my friends, is The Incident, which was arguably the worst and most embarrassing moment of my life.

Thinking back to that moment, I believe putting the blame onto other people is exactly what this situation calls for. Sakura and Kiba can split the blame 50/50. I was just an innocent bystander in the scheme of things who was pulled into a terrible experience, that lead me to community service, after I, along with dog boy, was forced to pay for the books the damaged, of course. Until they come in though, we're stuck with the same sentence. Telling little kids stories of our own creation…that we're supposed to create ourselves…together. Fun (sarcasm openly intended).

So there I stood in the front of a at least 25 kids who were no older than 7, waiting ever so patiently for Kiba to just hurry up and get here so that I could get this over with. Next to me was the librarian, the same one who accused me of having 'sexual relations' with the guy who takes 'man's best friend to a whole new level. She's over there shaking, obviously nervous and she wasn't even the one who was made a fool of.

"I-is he c-coming?" she asked me for what felt like the millionth time, to which I responded with an easy, "He wouldn't dare not show up. He knows that you can't take pets to jail, so ending up there for skipping this would totally kill him."

And speaking of the devil, Kiba finally managed to show just mere seconds after I was done talking, effectively stopping the next onslaught of 'are you sures' from the nervous gal next to me. For the first time since the beginning of this entire ordeal, I was almost thankful for his appearance (I repeat almost thankful, not actually so). So he walked on up to us, acting like its all good, and had the nerve to look around and say, "Nice crowd."

"You're late," I told him. "15 minutes late."

"Possibly 15 minutes late," he let out smoothly, swatting his hand lightly like he was brushing all my words away. "Kids have no real sense of time. For all they care, I could have just been on time and they were all early. Don't tell them I'm late and it's all good."

No it was not 'all good', which was a fact that I expressed to him, before deciding to get this over with before another incident occurs (i.e. someone gets cursed out in front of a bunch of little kids). "So what is it we exactly have to do?" I asked, turning my attention to the fidgety librarian, who seemed to be even more so at the moment (must have noticed what she'd gotten into).

"W-well y-you two t-tell an original s-story t-to t-the k-kids. I s-suppose y-you b-both already k-know what you're story is a-about?" she stammered out, the ending question throwing me off a bit. I mean I knew I had to tell a story with Kiba but I never thought we were supposed to get together to plan it out. Because, you know, that would involve us spending extra time together and with this whole servicing the community thing I think that's enough time to be spending together already.

I was actually about to tell her that when I was cut off by none other than the brunette man himself, slinging his arm over my shoulder and flashing the woman a smile. "Of course we know what our story is. We spent all week planning it."

Now I don't know about him, but I didn't spend my week doing anything but pretending I didn't have to spend my weekend doing this. I didn't plan anything; in fact, I thought we were both just going to wing it. Apparently though, his words were enough to win over the librarian, who finally seemed to be on the less tense side of things.

"Good," she said letting out a sigh. "I'll j-just be in the back observing y-you guys and making sure i-it all goes smooth."

I opened my mouth to ask her what that meant, but she must have known that spending any more time around the two of us was bad news since she'd already took off. So I decided to turn my attention to the one who put me in this situation in the first place. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" I hissed out, carefully to keep my volume low.

"Lying through my teeth so that we both can get out of this as soon as possible," he answered. "I mean kids aren't that difficult. We just tell 'em some made up story and leave. Easy. I'm guessing you must have some sense of imagination so it's not that big of a deal."

I gave him a harsh glare. "I'm going to ignore that little insult and just pay attention to the first part of what you said, which was actually somewhat intelligent." Moving my hand up, I pulled his arm from around my shoulder, turning him so we were both facing our 'audience'. "Now," I said in my fake excited voice, "who wants to hear a story?"

There was a couple 'I do's', some curious looks, a few words that I couldn't understand, and the waving of a booger from some kid with his hand shoved up his nose, which lead me to conclude to things. 1) This wouldn't be as hard as I thought, and 2) kids are disgusting. I adverted my eyes from the nose picker letting a slightly strained, "Great."

Off to the nice start I decided to be the 'oh so kind' person I am and turned to Kiba asking him if he wanted to start to which I received a nice 'I'll start next time' which really just meant, I want to watch you suffer. Rolling my eyes, I wracked my brain looking for something to start off with. It took a couple seconds and then it just came to me, like an omen telling me that I was a faster thinker than everybody liked to think I was.

"Once upon a time," I let out, a smile n my face.

"Oh wow," came from next to me. "This is gonna be good."

Discreetly sending him a glare, I decided to start again. "Once upon a time, there was a girl who lived in a village hidden in the leaves. She was a beautiful girl, blonde haired, blue eyed, charismatic, funny, and bold. Any man would cut off his left foot to be with her. You know, if it wasn't for the fact that she had been cursed by an evil witch with a spell that didn't allow her to speak. Every man that she dated always broke up with her, because he said he couldn't take all the mixed signals. They said it wouldn't work out because she didn't know how to say I love you.

So one day, she decided to leave her rural village to go into the city and start a new life there where the people were less simple minded. In the dark of night she packed her bags to leave before heading off into the forest. She walked through even though it was said to be filled with dangerous creatures like lions and tigers and bears. But she didn't fear. Her only fear was love. Well not really, but that's how it went in the song, but bottom line is, she wasn't scared of the lions and tigers and bears, okay? So there she was, walking through the forest when out popped a giant tiger. But did she scream. No. Well she couldn't have if she wanted to, since she's you know, mute. It leaped and right when it was about to attack her, a man leaped out of the darkness.

The man was gorgeous with effortlessly spiked blue-onyx hair and dark black eyes, his body rippling with muscles and she could tell he was in great shape because he was shirtless. I mean, this guy was-"

"Okay! We get it!" interrupted Kiba. "The guy's in shape, good looking, and obviously Sauske Uchiha! Get on with it!"

I shot him a glare, stepping on his foot. "I would if you would stop talking! And he's definitely not Sauske Uchiha…he just bears a striking resemblance to him is all. Now, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, a handsome man leaped out the forest, in front of the tiger, effectively scaring it away. 'You' he said to the woman. 'You are the most courageous person I've ever met. Not to mention you're beautiful too. I'd cut off my left hand to be with you. Will you marry me?' She nodded and then they kissed and rode off into the darkness on his white stallion and lived happily ever after."

"That's so pretty," said one little girl. "Is that how it really happened?"

I nodded. "Of cou-"

"No that's not how it really happened." And there goes Kiba cutting me off once more, ruining little girl's dreams. Has he no shame?

"What are you talking about?" I shot at him, starting to get annoyed by his antics.

"What are you talking about?" he shot back. "That story sucked. Who in their right mind would like that?"

"I liked it!"

"Exactly! You'd have to be crazy to think that was a good story and everybody knows that Ino Yamanaka isn't exactly the sanest girl out there!"

"Are you insulting my state of mind and my story telling abilities?"

"Yeah! If that story was a movie I'd recommend no one see it because it'd $12 down the drain that they'd never get back! Where's all the action? The gore? The guy who dies in the end?"

"Yeah, 'cause that's what happens in every child's story! Death and blood! Whoopee! You think you could've done a better job?" I asked.

"I know I could've done a better job," he answered back cockily.

I snorted. "Go ahead, try. And let's try and make it not revolve around puppies okay?"

He gave me short glare, before turning to the kids. "Now I know we're all sad we had to sit through that tale but don't worry, I'm going to make it all better. Now what Ino told you guys wasn't completely incorrect, but it was just so unbelievable since she left out what happened next, alright?

"So let me tell ya what really happened after the blonde chick got onto that horse. Yeah they rode off into the darkness, but unbeknownst to her, that black haired dude had a dark side. He wasn't really taking her to be married. Nope. He was taking her back to his evil lair. You see onyx eyes over here was a thief and he was really good at it. He worked for this dude Orochimaru or something who was just bad news. I mean the dude was like half man, half snake and lived inside a giant house creeping with various types of his favorite animal.

"So onyx eyes decided to take his new found girl to his master, Orochimaru so that she could become the guy's snake princess slash captive. So they ride away on his evil white horse to the village in which Orochimaru has control of. They get there and she gets locked up until her wedding to the snake dude, blah blah blah. She can't say anything against it 'cause she's mute, yada yada. Let's just skip on to the next part.

"Now, around the same time this was happening, another plan was being set off into action back in that village that's all up in those leaves, okay. There's this dude, a very studly dude, if I may say so myself, on his way to meet the ruler of the village, and let's just call her Tsunade. But this is no ordinary dude; he's a world class, highly trained, wait for it…" He paused here, probably for dramatic effect, at which point my eyebrow raised at how much he was getting into this. "A ninja. A ninja on his way to get a top secret mission.

"He makes his way to meet up with the village leader who tells him what he is to take care of. He's to take out the snake man himself, Orochimaru, rescue the girl he's captured, and return justice to all the lands. The journey will be dangerous and is not for the faint hearted, but he has confidence that he can do it. So he goes home and gets his most noble companion, the beast of beasts Akamaru to join him on this most great journey.

"They venture out into the wild, falling back on their most primal instincts until they reached the home of the snake man. His house was crawling with guards all around, but thanks to their ninja backgrounds, our handsome stud and his amazing companion managed to slip into the building only to come face to face with the man who had carried off the mute fair lady.

"It was to be the showdown of epic proportions, but with all his ninja training, he knew he could take him. He sent Akamaru to go find the girl while he took out the trash. Using his quick speed he pulled out his kunai preparing to-"

At this point I thought it best to cut him off, before he said something stupid that ended up scaring some of the kids to death. I mean, who thinks it's a good idea to tell a bunch of kids about how you stabbed someone repeatedly with a kunai until they died of blood loss (and don't think for a second that's not how this would end!). I decided to intervene with a more 'child friendly' version of the story.

"What Kiba means to say is, that he took his kunai out to throw it down," I said, the words coming out slowly and awkward. What was I supposed to say? I was making it all up as I went along. "Yeah he threw it down because he…he…didn't believe violence was the answer?"

I removed my hand and looked to Kiba for help who actually managed to catch on and nod affirmatively. "Yeah, what she said. He threw it down and told the guy they'd make a deal. If the ninja won, onyx eyes tells him where the snake guy is and then takes a hike. If onyx eyes wins, then he gets a ninja man servant, Akamaru not included. Cause who would do that to their dog? It's just inhumane forcing them to do something like th-"

"Get on with the story!"

He sent a small glare at me before getting back to the point. "So they arm wrestled, and naturally the ninja won. Onyx eyes told him Orochimaru was in the throne room taking his mid-afternoon before tea nap and would be out like a light. So he made his way over there, quiet as can be discovering the snake king to be just as he had been told. He tiptoed over to the throne and poured a vile of poison into the sleeping snake man's open drooling mouth.

"When he was sure his mission was complete, he left the house meeting up with Akamaru outside, who had brought the mute girl with him. And, to appease the lovely Ino here," he shot a me a wild smirk, the same one he gave to the librarian right before lying to her. "They fell in love at first sight, breaking the spell put on her by the evil witch so she could talk all she wanted. Even when people got tired of hearing everything she had to say. Which was a lot. Because I guess she wanted to catch up from all the time she couldn't talk. Or maybe she just wanted everyone around her to suffer –"

I took this as my cue to once again cut him off, laughing lightly as I hit him in the back. Ha ha (that laugh was sarcastic). "And they got married and lived happily ever after. The end."

So after having to go through that torturous story telling we had to meet back up with that twitchy librarian so she could tell her how much we sucked. Only she didn't because apparently the story was good and me and Kiba (thought mostly me) have a nice combined 'charisma'. Whatever.

"That went better than expected," he said to me as I was making my way out the doors.

I decided to humor him and talk. I mean, he's not that bad. "Yeah, your story was better than I expected." Insert hair flip here. "The guy got the girl and they lived happily ever after."

He slipped his arm around my shoulder, a fact that I decided to openly ignore this time around, giving me a wolfish smile. "That's how it happens, right? Studly guy, hot girl, and a sunset framed happily ever after."

AN: So in case you didn't notice, Ino was the mute girl (that was a little bit of irony there) and Kiba was the ninja. I had wanted to go more in depth with both of the stories they told but was just too lazy (I feel bad about that). Anyways, all the characters in both the stories are people they're supposed to already know (which is why Kiba knew that Ino was trying to make Sauske her hypothetical prince). Oh almost forgot! Review if you please (i like to know if i totally suck or not; no pressure).