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Onward!

No Thanks Necessary

Chapter 14

Naruto Uzumaki sighed. He'd been doing that a lot today.

He hadn't meant to let things get so out of hand. He didn't realize until he'd already done some of the pranks that he might be going too far. But Kiba was right there with him – helping him! And with the Inuzuka egging him on well…

Naruto never had been very good at acting as his own conscience, and when someone else lacked one as well there was no hope for the hyperactive blonde.

Anyway, now the Naras were angry at him. He had been messing with their son.

How stupid could he be?!

He had been trying so hard to keep his behavior good. Because Yoshino smiled at him, and not the empty smile he would get from the secretary at the Old Man's office, but a real one, focused just on him. And Shikaku would ruffle his hair, and ask how he was doing and actually tried to help Naruto understand the boring history that Iruka-sensei kept trying to force down their throats.

That was a conspiracy…the Academy must be trying to weed out the weak of heart through sheer boredom.

But it didn't matter. Naruto had finally felt what it meant to belong somewhere and he'd blown it. He wondered how long it would be until his apartment was fixed. He bet he'd never see the Naras again after this. They'd tell him it was time to leave and not even watch as Naruto walked out the door. They'd never care to see or think of him again.

Because he was stupid and had blown it. Because he was stubborn and had to always try to be the one on top. Because he had chosen their son as his latest prank target.

He huffed, pulling his knees into his chest, staring into the fire that Kiba had built in a pit they found at an outcropping of rocks that clearly had been used as shelter by other Naras as they tended to their meandering deer.

Shikamaru only responded to them with grunts and mutters of "troublesome" and had already turned over and gone to sleep for the night, his back to the both of them.

Not too long after, Kiba banked the fire and went to sleep himself, leaving Naruto to stare up at the night sky and wonder why he seemed to ruin everything. Was that why people were always mad at him? Because he just ruined everything he touched? Was that why everyone called him a demon?

Because for the first time in his life Naruto thought he might agree with them.

If he ever had anything good, he would find a way to destroy it. No matter how much he wanted to treasure it. No matter how much he wanted to keep it in his possession and have something to call his own, it wouldn't matter.

The second it became his, it was doomed.

The next morning, the trio traipsed down a gently sloping hill, following the tracks of the missing doe, Kiba's nose alerting them to the fact that the smell was getting stronger so the animal had likely been through this area more recently than the areas that they had been walking through the previous day.

"Mom says I've got the best nose in our family for generations!" Kiba boasted, thumb digging into his chest in overzealous confidence when Naruto asked how the boy knew where the deer was going.

Shikamaru pointed idly at a gap in the trees. "Tracks go that way…" he said after a heavy sigh and slouched off as the other two stared after his back.

Kiba's hand dropped back to his side and he silently stuck his tongue out at the Nara's back and the pair stomped along behind their sullen classmate into the trees.

They continued their trek, Shikamaru and Kiba continually having to wait up for Naruto who was slowed up by the countless woodland creatures who kept running up to the boy and darting about his legs. And Naruto would giggle and pet and play a bit with the small squirrels and rabbits that darted about with the blonde.

Kiba thought it was funny and laughed his ass off, calling Naruto an animal nanny.

Shikamaru just got progressively more peeved. He would grit his teeth, and eventually smack a fallen branch onto a tree or toss a stone near the group and the animals would scatter, Naruto's smile would slide off of his face and they would return to their search.

The tension in the air grew progressively worse as the three boys trudged on through the trees, interrupted by more cute animals or Naruto just toppling over his own feet or a random tree root. So when Kiba pointed out an uninhabited outcropping of rocks as night was starting to creep in, the group stumbled in and Shikamaru shed himself of his pack and moved as far away from Naruto as he could – his temper nearing the edge of his grasp.

Shikamaru set to clearing dirt, leaves and other debris from their shelter, while Kiba ran to the creek nearby to fill up their canteens. Naruto meanwhile was trying to get the fire started to fend off some of the chill that was creeping into the air.

But Naruto being Naruto meant that something had to go wrong. Normally, he would just stick the match into the collection of leaves and small twigs and watch it catch. But for some reason, these were a bit more resistant to the heat, so Naruto fingers were closed around the match just a little longer than they would have been normally, so the flames got a little farther down the match than they normally would have.

Naruto screeched, dropping the match and hopping up and down on his feet, waving his fingers through the air.

"Naruto!" Shikamaru hollered, grabbing the boy's wrist and forcing him to stop jumping around and taking a look at the reddened fingers.

Kiba had come running at the sound, carrying the filled canteens in his arms. "What's going on?"

Shikamaru grabbed one of the canteens, its strap tangling with the others and pulling all of them down out of Kiba's grip with a dull thunk. He ignored Kiba's shout of outrage, instead pouring one of the freshly filled canteens over Naruto's burned fingers, soothing away the pain that had so shocked the blonde into his earlier yelp.

The Nara took a solid look at Naruto's fingers and other than a little pink it didn't seem any worse than any other minor kitchen burn. "You'll be fine, but you can go soak it in the creek until the sting goes away." He muttered before turning to the fire and re-igniting the flames that had already burned through their tinder and faded out.

Naruto muttered a quick thanks and darted down to the creek to let his fingers sit in the gently flowing water for a while. A small smile sat on his face though – because Shikamaru had helped him. No matter how annoyed Shikamaru seemed to be with Naruto, he still didn't want Naruto to be hurt, so maybe they were still friends? That would be good.

Shikamaru poked idly at the fire with a long stick, crouched down just within reach of the radiating warmth. When Naruto had yelled, he had jumped into action without thinking. The thought of the boy being hurt because of some stupid mistake.

He knew all too well that stupid mistakes could cause pain.

He sighed and poked at the log some more. He was pathetic.

Naruto settled down next to him at the fire, clearly having finished with cooling his fingers. He had even filled the canteen that Shikamaru had emptied over his hand and placed it next to Shikamaru's foot.

"Hey…Shikamaru…?" Naruto's voice questioned softly into the night.

Shikamaru's looked up from the fire and saw that Kiba had his eyes trained on Naruto's face with unwavering attention.

He drifted his eyes over slowly to the blonde, who was biting his own lip and kept his eyes clenched shut.

Shikamaru felt something in his gut clench, this was fear. A low level of fear, but Naruto was approaching Shikamaru with fear – and he couldn't bear the thought of the boy who had to fear almost everyone in the village having to add him to the list as well.

"What Naruto?" He tried to keep his voice calm. He didn't want to come across as angry and shut Naruto down, but he couldn't admit bring himself to allow his voice to come out as weak as it wanted to, if only for his unwillingness to let himself be seen as weak, even if he knew himself to be.

"What did I do wrong?"

The question hung there in the air, like the sour tension in the air after a nightmare. Shikamaru's mouth went suddenly dry.

"I mean, most people are mean to me…and I don't know what I did wrong, but I must have done something…they wouldn't be so mean if I hadn't done nothing." His eyes were open, and voice heartbreakingly earnest. "But you…you used to be one of the few people who would talk to me, and were nice to me. You didn't look at me with those eyes and even played with me after class!" There was a happy tint to his voice now and a small sad smile.

Naruto's eyes slid over to finally lock gazes with Shikamaru. "Now…now you pretend like you just don't hear me or see me. Like I'm invisible." Naruto's hands clenched into the fabric of his shorts, "That's worse than the bullies! At least bullies see me…"

Shikamaru kept working his throat, trying to work up enough spit to swallow, but he failed. He was worse than bullies huh? Well that was true enough – bullies tease Naruto and make him angry…but their words never landed the blonde in the hospital.

The Nara turned his eyes back to the fire. Not too long ago, Shikamaru had idly thought that Naruto was so loud because he was always screaming into the void, trying to make up for the silence he was surrounded by in his own home. And as that thought raced back to the front of his mind, Shikamaru found that he actually could feel more scum-like than he already did. This whole situation sucked, it sucked for all of them, but he was the one making things worse…Chouji was right. Shikamaru was acting out of a mix of selfish blowback and misplaced guilt.

"I'm sorry…" he whispered. "I'm so sorry…" He closed his eyes and buried his face into arms that he had folded over his knees.

Slowly, Shikamaru explained everything. He told them about noticing the odd relationship between the pair, to his slip of the tongue, and his selfish behavior leading up to today. Throughout he slipped in apologies and requests for forgiveness and he struggled not to cry. He'd already cried enough over this.

"That's kind of stupid…" Kiba scratched at the back of his head.

"No it's not!" Naruto defended Shikamaru. "Well…I mean…thinking that what happened what your fault was stupid." He added quickly making Shikamaru feel like he was punched in the gut.

"That's what I meant though!" Kiba insisted, "How can the fact that my dad is a mean jerk ever be his fault?!"

Shikamaru couldn't believe what he was hearing. He had been tearing himself up over this, terrified about what they would think if they found out that Kiba's father had located them because he had too casual a tongue, and they didn't even care.

"You know, I always thought that you were really smart Shikamaru, but it looks like you are as stupid as the rest of us!" Kiba had tossed his arm around Naruto's shoulders and smashed the blonde's cheek into his own, cheesy grins spread across both of their faces.

"Tell you what, here's the deal. We'll try not to bug you so much, if you stop being a moron." Kiba announced.

Naruto's smile seemed a bit strained now and he pushed a bit away from the Inuzuka. "I won't ask your dad for help with training every night…I'm not trying to steal your dad…it's just, I've never had one…and I just wanted to know what it was like…I'm sorry."

Kiba looked like he had swallowed a lemon and Shikamaru stared in black shock, neither having expected the pure heartfelt honesty out of the boy. Suddenly they were both terrifyingly aware of the fact that Naruto was an orphan, and exactly what that meant. No one at home, no one to care.

"We promise we won't bug you anymore, but you have to tell us!" Naruto promised, eyes sparkling with determination.

"Yeah!" Kiba laughed, "How are we supposed to know if you don't tell us?!"

The next morning the boys woke to the still form of Shikaku Nara sitting at the edge of their outcropping, a very pregnant doe alongside him.

"Alright boys, it's time to go home."

Alright! So that's the latest update! Let me know what you think!