Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

REVISED 5/30/2015

All posted chapters have been revised. This basically involved cleaned up typos, rewording a little dialogue, fixing a messed up name and correcting a continuity error. While there are very likely still errors because I'm not perfect, these should be a little cleaner. I have redone all that was already posted in order to get myself back in the game of writing. I know it's been getting close to a year now since I've last updated, but I am working on it. Life happened and I'm sorry but I'm back. And if it makes you feel better, my little sister is going to be badgering me to update and since I live with this person and I'll want her off my back, it is likely that you will get more frequent updates now.

No Thanks Necessary

Chapter 7

Shikamaru had known the second that the words left his mouth that he should have kept quiet. He should have kept to his usual pattern around adults and just ignored them all and gone back to sleep.

But no – he'd screwed up.

Kiba's dad had tensed and that same look that Shikamaru saw on shopkeepers faces after they had chased Naruto out of their places slipped over the hulking man, but as muscles flexed and split flew from the man's mouth as he hissed in response, Shikamaru knew that it was a bad idea for him to be directed towards anyone just now. Let alone Naruto who already had a lot to put up with every day.

In short: He'd screwed up big.

And when he heard Kiba's mother shout about not hurting Naruto he knew he'd done something worse than just a screw up. This wasn't something that would end with a lecture from his dad or extra homework from Iruka-sensei or a new round of chores from his mother. This was something far worse – someone else was going to be hurt because of what Shikamaru had said. It was almost like he had cocked back an arrow and his words had let the deadly weapon fly, one that he had aimed directly towards Naruto who would have no warning that anything was even coming.

As his father darted off into the night after the pair, and his mother wrapped her arms around Kiba's sister and guided her inside, Shikamaru felt like curling up under their porch and hiding away from the world. Instead, he chose to sit on the steps and keep watch, hoping that his father would sort out the mess that he had made. His father was a strong jounin, he could do it.

When Yoshino had offered to take them to see Kiba and Naruto the next morning, Hana had reached out and grabbed Shikamaru's hand before they left the Nara house. Normally, Shikamaru would have pulled away, declaring girls troublesome or insisting that he was too grown to need to be holding someone's hand on a walk into town. And if anyone asked, he would insist that these phrases had been muttered under his breath and that he hadn't pulled away out of politeness to Hana who was a guest to the clan.

But reality was different.

In reality, he clenched her hand back just as tightly as she held his, desperately seeking the reassurance that someone else was just as scared as he was, and it was someone older, due to become a ninja herself this next graduation cycle. He was tired and confused and guilt-ridden. He wanted to find out what had happened and he didn't. He knew whatever he was about to see was his fault and he would have to live with that. The problem was that he didn't know if he could…

He was going to have to face both boys at school day after day. He would have to walk past the Inuzuka Clan compound whenever he wanted to go to his own home, or from home to the village. He was going to be reminded every day that he was an idiot who couldn't keep his mouth shut. What kind of ninja was he to give away vital information without a thought and lead directly to his comrades getting attacked and being hurt? And he was the son of a clan head – he should know better!

Shikamaru had sat on that porch for hours, staunchly resisting his mother's attempts to bully him into bed. He needed to wait for his father, he needed to see him come back, Kiba at his side, telling him that everything was alright and it all had been a big misunderstanding. Even better, a bouncy Naruto at his side screaming something about ramen. That's what he wanted to hear but he knew that that was just wishful thinking. There would be no point in trying to sleep tonight anyway, for once in the young boy's life, he know sleep would not be coming to him, and should it visit him, it would not be anything that he would wish to experience.

Instead he got a messenger, just as the sun was rising, saying that his father was remaining at the hospital with "the kids."

Shikamaru didn't breath for a moment. Hospital? Someone got hurt…someone got hurt and it was his fault! What the hell was he supposed to do to fix that…? How could he ever hope to start?

And so he held tight to Hana's hand as they followed his mother through the streets of Konoha, the few people out this early in the morning, paying no mind to the small group likely as they were only just waking up themselves and not aware of the world around them. It seemed wrong that everything could look so normal to his eyes when it felt like his world had spun completely out of control. But there was the reality of it in his face as a man came out in his robe to pick up the morning paper with a yawn.

He vaguely noted the thinning of the lips of the woman who had smiled in greeting to his mother before she explained why they were there. Another one of those Naruto things that no one would explain to him and as frayed as his nerves were that made him very angry right now, so he kicked the small desk and glared at the nurse as the left, after she finally confessed the room number to them.

"Shikamaru!" His mother scolded him, but he didn't care, instead just scowling as Hana squeezed his hand and they moved down the hallway.

They hadn't reached the room yet when a brown-haired streak came flying out and slammed into Hana who thankfully released Shikamaru's hand before he joined the pile of limbs on the ground, likely having used the Inuzuka nose to smell the familiar scent from within the room.

Kiba was clutching at his sister like he hadn't seen her in years, sniffling softly but otherwise remaining quiet.

Hana was openly crying and she curled up around Kiba. "You're okay." She whispered, whether she was trying to convey that message to herself or make a promise to her brother was unsure, though maybe it was a little bit of both.

Shikamaru left the siblings as his mother tried to encourage them to get up off of the floor. He peered slowly around the doorjamb and first saw the dark form of his father sitting against the window ledge his shadow cast over the bed next to him.

Naruto lay in the bed, not looking as bad as the boy had feared. There were a couple of bandages around his arms and slapped against the back of one hand, but the boy's neck was the queasy blue/purple/red/yellow/green color of a bruise that was on its way to fading.

A bruise in the distinct shape of an adult hand. A large adult hand. Like Biyoku's. Like Biyoku who had been put onto Naruto's sent because Shikamaru had a loose tongue.

Shikamaru's stomach roiled and he was glad that he hadn't eaten anything for breakfast this morning because it would have ended up on the floor. As it was he found himself compulsively swallowing as saliva flooded his mouth in response to the heaving his stomach was attempting.

"Come here son…" Shikaku spoke softly, and Shikamaru withheld no speed as he darted towards the man's form and threw his arms around the man as though he was a toddler once more. He didn't normally act like this – but then this wasn't a normal situation and he found himself desperately needing to just be with his father and see his father because parents figure out how to make it all right again.

"I'm sorry!" He gasped into his father's side as the man put one arm around his shoulder.

"It's not your fault." Shikaku replied with a heavy sigh. "It would have been found out eventually anyway…"

"I shouldn't have said anything…he didn't know about Naruto…" Shikamaru whispered, shaking his head into the man's side, even as the protective mesh scrapped against the skin of his own forehead.

Shikaku was silent and Shikamaru knew that the man agreed. "You didn't help matters." The ninja finally said.

The boy's chest felt heavy as he turned enough to see Naruto, still sleeping in the bed, though not loosening his grip or leaving his father's side. The bruising looked even worse from here because Shikamaru was able to see just how pale Naruto was. Naruto was the boy with the perpetual tan because no one ever told him to put on sunscreen and he spent most of his time outdoors. Naruto would run around at the beginning of summer with one or two good sunburns before his tan deepened to an almost gold that would hang on well through winter.

But now it was as pale as the fair Nara, settled in amongst the white sheets which combined with the form's inaction make Shikamaru queasy. There was such a strong sense of wrongness with what his eyes were seeing that he couldn't bring himself to keep looking.

"What exactly happened?" He whispered before turning under his dad's arm and looking out the window as a curiously clear sky, empty of any of the clouds that he loved so to watch.

"Can't say anything until the investigation is done…haven't even got to talk to Naruto yet."

Shikamaru elbowed his dad in the hip, but didn't say anything. Instead he rested his hands on his arms as they sat crossed on the window sill. He saw his dad's point – Biyoku was bound to find out eventually - but still…if he had just kept his stupid mouth shut then he wouldn't have found out when he did and it wouldn't be all Shikamaru's fault.

If he hadn't said anything, no one would have known where to find Kiba. They had already been looking, a family of trackers, so clearly Kiba had hidden his traces well enough to go without being found, knowing exactly what to work around for tracking purposes. And Naruto's neighborhood was the kind where people made a point of not keeping track of their neighbors' comings and goings, at least should anyone go asking about them, which almost no one did. If he'd had just kept his stupid mouth shut, the boys would have woken up in the morning and gone to school like it was any of the other nights that they had done this same routine, even if Kiba had gotten in trouble once he showed up for running off. It wouldn't have been the same as what happened tonight if he had just shut up.

But no. He had blabbed. He'd blabbed to his father but still…he had done it. And Kiba's dad had gone on a rampage and now Naruto was lying in a hospital bed and it all just rounded directly back to it being his freaking fault.

He was supposed to be the smart one. That's what Nara's did. They out-thought their enemies.

It would occur to Shikamaru years later that that was the first time in his life that he had ever had a face to associate with the idea of an enemy. Kiba's father had become 'the enemy' and would be what all future foes were ranked against at least in the recesses of his subconscious.

In the present however, he found himself swamped with the almost overwhelming urge to strike something, throw something, anything just to get this…thing…this creature that felt like it was taking up residence inside of his chest…out. His arms were tense and his hands clenched tight until his knuckles matched Naruto's sheets. There was just so much something within him that it felt like his skin was crawling and he hated this feeling. Then just like he had at the nurses station, Shikamaru swung back his leg and kicked the wall, not even flinching when the pain roared through his toes as his nerves were set alight because that was a feeling that he understood. With his world having heaved so much already in so short a time, he needed something that he could hold onto and understand.

So he swung back again.

And again.

And again.

At some point he shifted so that his hands were clenching the sill, using the structure as leverage as he heaved and pounded his feet against the wall, jarring his body again and again and again.

He heard his mother order him to stop, his father tell him he was being foolish, Kiba's cry what he was doing and still he continued on.

He didn't notice when the tears had started to slip from his eyes. He didn't notice when the grunts slipped into gasps and sobs. He didn't notice when everything else got quiet around him. He focused only the shaking of his limbs, the jolts of feeling, the fried edge of his nerves.

So he missed it when a bandaged arm wrapped around his chest. And he almost kicked Kiba in the face when the boy got between Shikamaru and his target.

But there they were, three boys confused and afloat and desperate, clinging to each other in the middle of hospital room on an otherwise normal morning in Konoha. Kiba Inuzuka had wrapped himself around the legs of Shikamaru Nara, while Naruto Uzumaki had come at the boy from the side, wrapping his arms around him in a hug while trying to pull him away from the window. As Shikamaru continued to make guttural noises through his clenched teeth, the boys held on and Shikaku gently pried his son's fingers from the now broken and split piece of wood that had been the nicely trimmed window sill of Konoha's hospital.

They sunk into a heap on the floor, Shikamaru sobbing, Kiba patting the child awkwardly on the back and Naruto clinging still to the Nara's middle, trying to figure out why Shikamaru kept insisting that he was sorry.

Shikamaru wept and clung to the people that he had hurt in his own moment of stupidity. They didn't even know that they were offering comfort to the one who had caused their pain. But he was desperate and he took it. Slipping against Naruto when his exhausted mind finally slipped away.

Shikamaru Nara was asleep.