For the very first time Ferret wanted to skip training. He didn't want any missions, and he definitely didn't want the paperwork that came with being an ANBU-captain. He just wanted to go home and people could tell. His subordinates saw him constantly glance at the clock on the wall. He'd glare at anyone that approached him with files, and judging from the glares no one wanted to know what would happen if someone came with an actual mission for him. After three hours, four crying subordinates from other divisions and a bruised arm, Ferret's subordinates decided that their captain should be left alone, and that they needed to fix whatever it was that had their captain in such a bad mood.
So Cat, Rat, Beaver and Eagle were sent off on an unofficial mission, while the rest made sure that their captain didn't destroy ANBU headquarters or kill anyone.
"We should check captain's place first." Rat said and not soon after noticed that he was moving on his own. He stopped and turned back around. "What?"
"Are you insane? If captain finds out he'll make us wish we were dead!" Eagle cried.
"We're ANBU; it's not like we don't know how to cover our tracks." Rat said. Seriously, what was wrong with the other three?
"It's captain!" Cat exclaimed. The poor thing looked like he wanted to high tail it out of there and hide in a hole somewhere far far away from Konoha.
"But if we fix whatever it is that's wrong, captain will be back to normal again." Beaver reasoned.
Rat turned to Beaver. "Thank you! See?"
Ferret was pretty famous amongst the ANBU. There were a lot of rumours going around andthey only seemed to be getting worse. Ferret himself was doing nothing to discourage the rumours and his subordinates loved to scare new recruites shitless with supposed consequences of what would happen if you the ANBU off. The current situation wasn't helping his reputation either.
In fact, many of the rumours were true and only a few knew about the 'other side' of the ANBU. The side that made his subordinates follow him blindly into whatever mess he would lead them to.
"Okay, but we'll have to careful. Captain can never ever know that we were there." Eagle informed them. What they were about to do might as well be classified as an S-ranked mission, if not suicidal.
They all agreed, fully aware of the consequences of what they were about to do, and that was the reason why Cat was nervously fidgeting on the spot.
They moved out and approached their target.
"Rat and Eagle, you'll check the surroundings. I'll take the north side and Cat; you'll check the west side. Don't take out any traps yet, we need to get a grasp of the situation first. Rendezvous will be in 15 minutes outside the northern window." Beaver ordered and they moved.
15 minutes later Beaver, Eagle and Rat were discussing the lack of traps surrounding the captain's apartment, not that there weren't any but there weren't as many as they thought there would be knowing their captain, and were waiting for their last team member. When the 15 minutes passed and there was still no sign of him the others went to look for him.
Now, they were moving in broad daylight, close to the market, and there were a lot of people moving on the street below them. But they were ANBU, and unless a jounin was paying close attention, no one would be able to see or hear them. And they weren't being as carefull about hiding their presence as they would have been on enemy territory, but considering where they were maybe they should treat it as enemy territory.
As they rounded the corner of the building they spotted Cat crouching on a branch outside of the living room window.
"Cat, what the hell are you doing?" Eagle hissed at him. The poor thing flinched and almost fell out of the tree before he settled back down.
"There's someone inside." Cat told them and pointed.
"What?" The three of them turned as one. The window looked in to the living room, but also gave a view in to the bedroom if the door was left open, which it had been, and they could all clearly see a figure curled up in the covers on the bed.
"Hey, isn't that Nara Shikamaru?" Rat asked with disbelief in his voice.
"Why would Nara be in captain's…? Cat! Cat, what are you doing?" Beaver yelled and reached out to grab him but too late.
Before any of them could stop him, Cat had disabled the few traps, climbed through the window and was heading for the bedroom. He moved around soundlessly and crouched down by the bed.
"Nara-san? Nara-san, are you all right?" Cat asked the figure lying on the bed. Cat had been watching the person lying on the bed for a while before the others had arrived. He'd noticed, not only that it was broad daylight outside and that he was still sleeping even though Nara should be at the academy, but he also noticed that the Nara didn't seem to be doing so well.
Nara groaned and turned around on the bed, moving away from him, which was alarming in itself, and Cat reached out a hand to lightly shake him by the shoulder. But almost as soon as he'd touched Nara's shoulder he drew back. By this time the other three had followed him inside.
"Is he all right?" Rat asked when Cat touched his forehead.
"He's burning up. We need to cool him down." Cat said and from the tone of his voice, calm and controlled, the other three started moving while Cat tried to get Nara into a more comfortable position. His concern for the teacher increased when Nara Shikamaru, a strong, respected and very much capable jounin, did not react to him handling him apart from a groan of discomfort. Eagle and Rat searched the apartment for the things that Cat needed to bring down the Nara's fever; Cat was the teams assigned medic-nin, even though he probably needed something himself for his nerves.
Beaver looked around the bedroom and the living room, and found a bag of clothes that didn't seem to belong to their captain. There were also graded and ungraded tests and other documents that obviously did not belong to their captain on the living room table, and the apartment was not in the same state of organized cleanliness that they had come to associate their captain with.
Cat placed his hand on Nara's forehead and let out healing chakra that would hopefully help bring down his fever. Cat knew that he could force the fever away and probably get him back into almost perfect health but it was never a good idea to force the body with chakra. Cat would have preferred it if he only had to use the normal means when nursing a person with a fever, but Nara's fever had been a bit too high for his comfort. Eagle returned with a bowl of cold water, a towel and a glass of water, and they could all hear Rat moving around in the kitchen. Eagle left the room and Cat could hear him asking Rat if he was making enough for all of them.
When the Nara was in a slightly better condition and with his fever under control, the four of them gathered in the living room.
"You think this is why captain's been in such a bad mood?" Cat asked and threw a glance back into the bedroom every now and then.
They knew captain knew Nara Shikamaru but they'd had no idea that their captain was close enough with anyone to let them stay in his apartment. But their captain had been acting too emotional for it to simply be concern for a friend that was staying over at his apartment. There had to be something else.
"I haven't heard anything about the apartment complex Nara lives in. It could be some damage only to his apartment, though." Eagle guessed.
"Nara has at least four other people he could, and is more likely to go to, in case he had to leave his apartment for some reason or another; and two of them have guest bedrooms. Not to mention his parent's house." Rat told them. Rat always seemed to know everything about everybody in the village. And the closer the person was to him, the more he seemed to know about them and the people connected to them.
"I think Nara might be more to captain than a friend." Beaver told them. He was holding a piece of paper, a picture, in his hands. It was worn and somewhat wrinkled, and seemed to have been through a lot. It appeared to be a much loved picture. Beaver showed it to the others.
In it there were two young men, barely out of their teenage years. One was Nara Shikamaru and the other was their captain, a younger version of their captain but unmistakably him. The Nara was smiling, for once not frowning and not looking like everything was a bother, and the ANBUs had to agree that he looked good smiling and with his hair down. They were surprised by how good he actually looked, how different he looked. Their captain wasn't smiling, not really, but there was something in their captain's eyes. Something that the camera had managed to capture and that was directed at the Nara. Something that made him look completely different and exactly the same at the same time. They were standing together, the younger version of their captain embracing the Nara from behind, and they wondered, briefly, who it was that had taken the photo of the two.
"Are you serious?"
The four of them had all known their captain for some time and even before being ANBU, the captain had been known amongst the shinobi, and never had they heard about their captain together with someone in a relationship. Least of all with someone in a relationship for what seemed to be at least four years from the looks of the photo.
"What are you doing?" a new and hoarse voice asked, and the four ANBU were ashamed to admit that they jumped into a defensive stance at the sound of it.
"Nara-san? You should be in bed, you're sick!" Cat panicked but didn't move from his spot, twitching.
The four ANBU were actually in a rather embarrassing situation.
Shikamaru was standing in the doorway to the bedroom, wearing sweats, a long sleeved shirt and socks, with his hair in a mess and looking surprised, confused and ill.
"Is everything all right?" Shikamaru asked, apparently having jumped to conclusions since his surprised and confused look now turned into worry.
Beaver moved towards him seeing as he swayed slightly when he took another step forwards. The big man towered over the school teacher and was prepared to pick him at the slightest indication that he was going to pass out, which was very likely judging from the look on the smaller man's face. "Everything's just fine, Nara-san. There's nothing to worry about. Now, please, at least sit down. You had a very high fever, and you need to rest." Beaver moved to his side and helped him sit down on the couch. Eagle wrapped him up in a cover placed on the back of the couch and Rat went to get him some soup he had prepared earlier. Cat checked over his condition and was pleased to find that his fever had almost subsided, and that the medication he had given him was working.
Rat returned with a cup of chicken soup and Shikamaru thanked him for it, once again looking confused. He had a good reason for it, it wasn't everyday that one woke up to four ANBU acting as your personal nurses.
He carefully drank from the warm soup and looked at the four ANBU surrounding him. Shikamaru wasn't a genius for nothing, and even slightly high on medication he knew who they were. Rat, Eagle, Beaver and Cat. They were part of his boyfriend's ANBU team. Not because his boyfriend had told him, that would be against the rules, but because he had glimpsed them once. Just once, but still he remembered them. Nara Shikamaru never forgot. "Could you tell me what this is about?" Shikamaru asked, even though he knew that it wasn't likely that he was going to get an answer.
However, at his question there was suddenly not only one jumpy ANBU, Cat had serious problems with his nerves, they all knew that, but four of them fidgeting in the living room. Shikamaru thought for a moment that maybe the medication they had given him was stronger than he first thought.
Eagle suddenly handed him a picture. "Sorry." He mumbled. Shikamaru turned it over and suddenly, in some strange way, things seemed to make some sort of sense.
"Does he know you're here?" Shikamaru asked. He didn't receive an answer which was answer enough. Shikamaru sighed, really, sometimes ANBU were just as bad as the little kids he taught at the academy. "You can go back, now. I won't tell him you were here."
The four ANBU seemed to have some silent conversation and none of them made any move to leave.
Shikamaru had spent some time teaching the small demons at the academy how to kill and destroy, and had been the intended victim, like all the other teachers, to many pranks. Because of the constant danger, to his pride more than to his life but sometimes the little devils got creative and their pranks lethal, Shikamaru had, like all the other teachers, developed a sixth sense. It was this sixth sense that made it possible for Shikamaru to have a slight understanding of the situation, and he understood that he wasn't going to be left alone for some time.
By some very strange turn of events I've been settled with four ANBU nurses… Might as well, I really don't feel good. Shikamaru held up the now empty cup and it was immediately taken from him. He leaned back and pulled the cover tighter around him as he shivered. Cat was immediately at his side and checked his temperature; he was then given two pills and glass of cold water that did wonders to his sore throat.
"Nara-san, you should get back in bed. We'll take care of things here." Beaver told him. They were ANBU, Konoha's best shinobi, and it was their duty to take care and protect her people from the worst dangers possible. Nara Shikamaru was not only a citizen of Konoha, a fellow shinobi and a teacher at the academy. He was also the most important and precious person of their beloved captain.
Shikamaru nodded slowly, the medications starting to take effect. "I'm behind on grading tests. There's a correction sheet, follow it." Shikamaru had once done the mistake of letting his lover help him with grading tests, he'd been forced to lie to his kids that a dog had eaten up the tests because there was no way he could give those tests back to a bunch of 6 years old without consequences.
Beaver nodded in understanding and helped Shikamaru up who stumbled slightly, the medication he'd been given was strong and this time he was awake for the effects. Shikamaru was too drugged up to react when he was picked up and moved to the bedroom. He didn't remember much after that except for some light noises in the rest of the apartment and someone checking up on him from time to time.
When Shikamaru woke up several hours later, he was feeling better. He wasn't feeling good but at least he was feeling much better than since the fever started last night. And he won't worry, now. Wonder what he did that four out of his team felt the need to come here.
Shikamaru sat up in bed and listened. The apartment was quiet, but wasn't surprised when he saw the time. He left the bedroom and checked the apartment. He'd told them that he wouldn't tell on them and decided to check the rest of the apartment just to be sure that there were no traces left of them. When Shikamaru was done checking the apartment he sat down on the couch to rest, he hadn't had much energy to being with. He must have dozed off for a couple of minutes because he was startled awake when a familiar hand caressed his cheek.
"Ssh, it's me. I'm home. How are you feeling?"
Neji. Shikamaru leaned into the touch and looked at his lover crouched before him. "Tired, sore and my throat hurts. My fever's gone, though."
The hand on his cheek moved to his forehead to check, and the relief was obvious in Neji's voice. "That's good. I was really worried, could hardly concentrate today."
I know. Shikamaru smiled and reached out to grab his lover's hand in his.
"I told you I was going to be fine, I just needed sleep." And four ANBU nurses from your team with strong drugs.
"Have you eaten?"
"Mmh, chicken soup. I think there's still some left." His lover's presence was calming and Shikamaru found himself relaxing more and more by the second.
Neji raised their hands to his lips and placed a kiss on his lover's knuckles before he leaned in and kissed Shikamaru softly. It was obvious the other was still sick but Neji didn't care. "I'm going to place you in bed, heat up some soup and take care of you for the rest of the evening."
"I'd like that." Shikamaru smiled and wrapped his arms around Neji's neck when the older man picked him up. He sighed happily when a kiss was placed on his forehead.
"I'm taking tomorrow off. This time I want to be here to take care of you." Neji told him and Shikamaru could hear the knowing smirk in his voice.
"So you found out." Shikamaru laughed.
"I promise you I won't be too hard on them since they took good care of you in my place." Neji said as he gently placed his precious cargo on the bed.
"I love you, Neji."
Neji smiled, and had anyone seen him they would have seen the same look in his eyes as in the photo. "I love you too, my Shikamaru. Now rest, this time you have an ANBU-captain to nurse you."