The bar was small: just one main room filled with smoke and the scent of fried food that wafted out from the greasy, pokey little kitchen at the back of the building. The jukebox rattled out another song while clunking gently, and the clink of glasses sounded over the murmuring babble that spooled around clusters of people.
"Did we have to listen to this music?" drawled a young man with auburn hair and fresh bloody streaks of paint striping each side of his face.
"I felt it was rather inspiringly energetic!" the man on the other side of the table exclaimed enthusiastically, thick black eyebrows raised into a pudding bowl haircut.
Shikamaru raised the cup of sake to his lips, sighed, and kicked the whirring, clunking jukebox so that it changed track. In the dim light of the overhead bulb, the smoke stung his eyes. He coughed as the nicotine and the smell of tobacco swirled down his oesophagus.
With a tired and withering look in the general direction of Choji and Kiba, who were currently engaging in a vivacious peanut eating competition, Shikamaru told both of them quite curtly that if anyone choked, he would not be the one performing mouth to mouth.
Lee looked on, a wistful expression on his face as Kiba guzzled down what he counted to be the 94th peanut and leaned forward for a handful more.
It had to be said that for all of Kiba's fine gallantry, Choji was definitely winning.
"It almost made me wish," Lee began with a pleading look at Shikamaru, his hands twitching as Choji de-shelled his peanut with an expert flick of his thumb, "that I too-"
Shikamaru put the sake cup down and gave Lee a deeply imploring look as Kiba bit into something that was definitely not a peanut. "Oh no," he began in tones of panic, "you promised, Lee. You promised that you at least would stay sane. No nuts, remember?"
Lee nodded reluctantly, although his lower lip wobbled and he could not help but add, "and yet in the spirit of youth…."
This was just as Kiba held the thing that was Not-A-Peanut up to the light and asked the bar in general if it looked like his tooth.
"Too much youth," Shikamaru replied in darkly foreboding tones, "is a bad thing."
"C'mon, Maru," Kiba said playfully, flicking an empty shell at his grumpy friend. "We all got together because you were down, and all you do is complain about it!"
Lee shot Shikamaru a puzzled look which was ignored as the bar door swung open. The bead curtain that hung like a cloth in front of it jangled to allow a flood of newcomers into the smoky atmosphere from the dark shadows outside. They all noticed Shikamaru glancing nervously over his shoulder as a girl with long blonde hair took a seat on a bar stool close to them.
"It's not her," Choji told him reassuringly, between mouthfuls of peanuts. Kiba let out a laugh like a dog's bark and gave a delighted grin. Shikamaru merely frowned at all of them.
"You were a big, yellow-bellied scrap of a coward, weren't you?" the auburn youth accused him, grin almost feral in its broad intensity. "Have some fun, why don't you?" he urged.
"If that is what you define as 'fun'," the pony-tailed ninja replied tartly, glaring at the nut pile, "you can count me out." And he pushed the sake bottle at Lee who politely declined, muttering something about "Never again."
"Besides," he added, slumping back in the seat and reaching to pull something small and cylindrical from the top pocket of his jacket, "someone had to be sane enough to carry all your sorry asses home."
Both Lee and Kiba looked at Shikamaru disapprovingly as he began to roll the small and cylindrical something on the tabletop using his forefinger and thumb. Choji meanwhile continued to eat.
"It really was a most heartily felt shame that our friend Naruto was not here with us on this occasion," Lee interjected suddenly into the conversation, staring wistfully at the empty seat to their left.
"Where had our spunky blonde companion gone recently?" Lee asked as his thick eyebrows knotted together in a frown of bold perplexity.
From across the table, Shikamaru and Kiba exchanged a well-rehearsed look, instigating one of them to spin out the already formulated lie:
"He's been a little antisocial lately," was the evasive answer, "you know- with Sakura gone and everything. He's pining, the romantic bastard."
"He should get out more then," Choji said seriously. He had devoured the last of the peanuts much to Kiba's displeasure. "Although he didn't seem to be pining to me, when I last saw him- well relatively speaking I couldn't quite see very much of him underneath the both of you."
There was a significant pause in which Lee gave both Shikamaru and Kiba a wondering once-over before Choji continued:
"He seemed more like he was in an argument with someone close to him, and by that I don't mean a woman."
Shikamaru glowered at Choji with slanting brows over his narrow-tilted eyes, hastily changing the subject- "Anyone else for a drink?" - and pouring out the sake. He pushed one rather forcefully at Lee, tilted his head and drank another himself.
"Careful," muttered Kiba in growly undertones, sharp canines glinting in the murky light. "I'll be the one hauling your sorry ass back if you don't put on the brakes." He paused for a second, crumpling his nose into a soft grin: "Not that I mind of course."
Shikamaru gave a slightly disgusted sort of snort, "Unlike you and Naruto, I can hold my liquor."
In all honesty, however, his head felt ever so slightly muzzy and his tongue thicker than normal, a sure sign that he wasn't too far away from grinning for no reason. Possibly he would be intoxicated enough to even sing something trashy with Kiba and then slump into a customary dead stupor. Perhaps he'd better stop soon, despite the foul mood he was in. It was no reason to make a further fool out of himself.
As they began an interesting conversation about who had the nicest shaped legs in Konoha, the situation quickly swerved into something that Shikamaru had spent all day trying to avoid. It was given by the subtle signal of Choji kicking him painfully hard beneath the table, causing Shikamaru to bite down hard on his tongue to prevent himself from yelling cuss words. He then tried to make himself as inconspicuous as possible, without giving up altogether and just diving underneath the table in despair. Which he did consider but decided (only just) against.
Lee regarded Shikamaru as if he had lost his mind, and then looked at Kiba, who rolled his eyes and jerked his head towards the door.
Two girls were standing at the brink of the bar entrance, pushing the bead curtain to one side as if deciding whether to venture in or not. One was a small lithe girl with dark brown hair tied in two buns over the top of her head, each pierced with ornamental chopsticks of the same colour as the simple, pink silk shirt and trousers she wore. As Ten-Ten looked across the bar, she spotted Lee who was waving cheerfully at her, and turning to her tall blonde-haired companion she motioned for them to walk over.
The tall blonde, however, looked piercingly at the table and its occupants with verdant green eyes, pursing her milky pink lips when she spied Shikamaru. She then said something to her friend with such a look of violent revulsion that it could only have been a swear word, and stormed right back out again.
Ten-Ten gave Lee a little apologetic shrug of her shoulders and ran out after her.
"You're a dickhead," Kiba told Shikamaru conclusively and swung back in his chair with a slight crunching noise, as some peanut shells splintered beneath the shifted weight.
"Oh, not this again," Lee lamented, as Choji nodded critically. "What deplorable thing had you gone and executed now?"
"I have no idea why," Shikamaru snapped; staring determinedly into his sake cup, face a mixed mask of depression and annoyance: "…but it happens every time we ever do it." He frowned more and ran one hand through his hair, slumping back into the chair again and closed his eyes.
"It didn't take a genius to work out that you should stop doing it then," Kiba told him bluntly, to which Choji patted Shikamaru comfortingly on the shoulder.
"Oh, it's not like I planned to!" Shikamaru snapped back defensively, "I was lending her a gas heater because her boiler blew this week." He shrugged his shoulders,
"I was leaving, you know, by the front door, putting my shoes back on- when she came in from the kitchen wearing an apron, put her hands on her hips and looked at me like this." …And he proceeded to do a fairly accurate imitation of what Ino looked like when she was being demanding and bossy all at the same time.
"And then she asked me in this funny tone of voice: 'is that all you came over for, Shikamaru Nara?'
"So I said, 'Why, did I forget something?' I thought in all seriousness she meant the boiler when… she came at me." His voice trailed off and he put both hands over his face.
"You know something? I'm a guy, I had hormones too, I was not responsible for my actions if she was perfectly willing to- I mean it was her idea. I came over to fix the central heating for Christ's sake, not to do it on the kitchen table, or on the stairs, or even in the bedroom. Then she got all furious because I had to leave because I was already late for a meeting and Tsunade was going to eat me alive- and she literally blew her stack! I gave up with her, I really did. It was just too much of a hassle to even speak to the woman let alone-"
"I'm sorry," Kiba asked, his mouth slightly slack as he rolled his empty glass from one hand to another, "…how many times did you do it?"
Shikamaru gave him a poker-faced death glare.
"Well she's quite mad you know," Choji said factually, to which even Lee nodded, "…but, you know, you did lead her on Shikamaru, so it was your fault for being-"
"You know something," Nara said very loudly so the whole bar could hear this time, "I would appreciate it if someone did not just assume I am an evil lecherous hump."
"Nobody's saying that," Lee interjected quickly, but he was smiling as cheekily as Kiba, who picked up the empty sake bottle and gently tapped it over his tired friend's head:
"I did pronounce you an idiot, Sir Idiot because we all just thought it instead. Now you may rise," and at this Kiba waved the bottle in the air in a mysterious sort of way before getting up and ordering them more drinks.
"So, this made it time number…?" Lee asked as delicately as it was imaginable for Lee to possibly ask someone, with one hand cupped around his mouth as if this gave the act some more discretion.
Choji started on the bowl of nachos.
"I've lost count," came the miserable reply, chin now on his hands as Kiba made his way back to the table and chucked Shikamaru's empty wallet at him.
"So have I mate," was the wolfish friend's insertion, "but I tell you what, no more talking about that. After this round, we'll go off and do something fun, yeah?"
Lee gave the drinks a deeply suspicious look. "I happened to know," he said slowly, "that the last time you and Naruto proposed something fun, you both woke up naked in a field of cows."
"Indeed, we did." Kiba responded happily, grinning, "Good times." He gave a long sigh, "except this time it would be nice, if instead of cows we woke up in a field full of cows and strippers."
Shikamaru snorted out the alcoholic beverage he had had the misfortune to try and sip at that exact moment. "Male or female?" he had to ask, a bizarre mental image dancing around his brain. Wiping his nose on the back of his hand, he continued shaking his head disbelievingly.
"Well, that's the surprise!" Kiba told them, and continued to grin.
They all sighed at this, and Shikamaru was halfway to giving in to his friend's bizarre enjoyment for peculiar entertainment, when a distraction once again passed in through the bar door. It walked right across the room, stood directly behind their table and looked like a highly enraged Ino tossing long blonde hair over her shoulder. It then swiped Shikamaru furiously across the back of his head.
Shikamaru let out a yell of pain as his forehead collided with the wooden table top; Kiba made a sound that resembled a dog being strangled as the glasses leapt several inches in the air; Lee looked thunderstruck- an impressive expression on his animated face- and Choji toppled backwards.
"Don't hit me you evil woman!" Shikamaru yelled back at her, getting up from his seat, one hand on his nose the other on the lump that was forming at the back of his head. "Jeeze, what the hell have I done in the last twenty-four hours to deserve that!?"
Ino's expression breathed pure fire as she slammed both of her fists onto the table. The legs wobbled, creaked and skittered in their posts; the rest of the bar had become deadly silent as she leant forwards and snarled at Shikamaru:
"You fucking lied to me you piece of shit."
Her ferocious gaze then flew to Kiba, who wondered how he could have possibly become mixed up in their turbulent love affair and wilted and blanched under her gaze. He seemed to sink into his chair whilst Shikamaru glared right back at her, unequalled but nevertheless very sore.
"Had you gone completely mental? What the hell were you talking about?" his eyes narrowed, now not as angry as he was curious, recognising the way her face was screwed up, how her knuckles were clenched chalk white so the bones almost popped straight through the skin and how her pink mouth twisted down. What had happened to make her this upset?
"You said there was nothing wrong, that it was all fine. 'Oh, oh no Ino, you were just making-it-up.' You told me it was just my imagination and that I was looking for things that weren't there, even fucking Hinata knew and I didn't!"
She sent Kiba another murderous look here, who tried valiantly to look innocent by distracting himself with another peanut.
It didn't work.
"We've had this discussion," Shikamaru said slowly, a sucking, sinking feeling pulling from his stomach right down to the bottom of his feet. "We told you-"
"Stop lying!" She shouted at him, almost crying she was so angry.
"Oh, you told me alright, you had them spin off lies right, front and centre, and I knew something weird was going on. Everyone's been talking about it." She leaned in close to Shikamaru now, so only millimetres separated her face from his.
"So; tell me now Nara. How come Sasuke Uchiha was just seen at Naruto's apartment?"
It was at this moment that Kiba, who had unfortunately tried to swallow a peanut, choked. The silence in the bar seemed to drop and spiral as everyone stared at them.
There was a split nanosecond in which Shikamaru considered all options here, evaluated each ending and course of action involved and picked the best track for him to take.
He started laughing.
One of the good secrets of becoming an elite ninja in any state, country or province trusted with valuable information, is of course the knowledge of how to lie convincingly. Shikamaru had discovered a long time ago that it wasn't just lying credibly that mattered: a good alibi always came in handy for sure, but acting the part was just as important as the actual lie itself.
He was surprisingly good at it.
"I- he- there's what?" he managed to squeeze out, doubled over, one hand on the table top for support, wide grin splitting his face.
"Ino- you didn't expect me to believe that do you?"
He shook his head and doubled over again, still laughing. "Sasuke Uchiha?!"
Someone else in the corner of the bar began to laugh as well, and like a ripple effect with a few stuttering guffaws and hearty chuckles, the whole room became a raucous collision of laughter and people slapping each other on the back at such a ludicrous proposition.
No one seemed to notice that Kiba was turning slowly purple.
"I- but- it made…Yumi said!" Ino began, flustered, turning a light shade of crimson that didn't suit her as she took a step backwards. "I mean, she was telling everyone how she was delivering Ramen and-"
"And how the tooth fairy turned up and whisked all the noodles away?" Shikamaru interrupted, he felt mean for ridiculing her like this, especially with the way her green eyes were focused on him as if she had trusted him not to do this, and asking him to stop now. He wanted to, he really wanted to, and he swallowed, his mouth dry.
But he couldn't; there was more at stake here than just their fragile and awkward relationship.
"People don't just turn up from the dead, you know."
"Nobody ever proved Sasuke-kun was ever dead."
Shikamaru waved his hand, suddenly noticing the little wheezing noises Kiba was making as he began to go from mauve to indigo. He slapped Kiba hard on the back, and they all watched as the peanut shot out of his mouth and hit the barman on the back of the head.
"So he's harbouring other S-class criminals there as well, is he? I suppose Orochimaru is hiding under the bed and he's holding a tea party—sorry, a ramen party for all the other Bingo Book candidates that are soon to slide down his chimney?"
Even Lee and Choji laughed at this, whilst Ino pursed her lips and looked at the floor. Someone at the back of the bar by the pool table called out that it was probably just Naruto having a laugh and spooking Yumi, for the hell of it.
Ino turned her back on Shikamaru for an instant to respond to this, and in the moment's distraction, he took the opportunity to grab Kiba by the back of his collar and drag them both into the men's restroom.
As Kiba Inuzuka looked around and wondered why they were standing in a little cubicle that smelt unpleasantly of piss and vomit and other bodily stenches, he felt the painful solidity of Shikamaru wrenching himself up onto his shoulders so he could open the dirty little window that led to a small crooked alleyway next to the bar.
They followed each other, squirming out from the frame to land with a little 'plop' onto the wet dirt. Kiba then launched himself onto Shikamaru, his brain whirring into action and threatening to implode as he whispered in hoarse undertones:
"He's killed Naruto, hasn't he? He's killed our Naruto!"
Shikamaru pulled a very sour look as he peeled Kiba from around his neck, placing one hand firmly over his mouth in an effort to keep him quiet. In a voice dripping with sarcasm, he replied:
"Yes, Kiba. He killed Naruto and then ordered take-out ramen."
Kiba gasped, his eyes popping, wrenching Shikamaru's hand from his mouth.
"The fiend!"
Sometimes Shikamaru wondered why he even bothered.
Together they jumped over the alley wall and scrambled across rooftops. They'd leave Choji to pay this time, seeing as he owed them at least six free dinners and that was just counting this month.
"What we want to know is the reason why Naruto didn't open the door!" Shikamaru called back to Kiba, arms out as he landed precariously on a brick wall whilst Kiba scrambled up the vertical slab beneath him, using only his feet and momentum for purchase.
Kiba came to the top slightly breathless and screwed up his face as they set off again to pelt down another side street: "So you don't think Sasuke…?"
Shikamaru rolled his eyes and wondered vaguely if there was any possible way you could pull those muscles from overuse.
"Somehow I think the idea of Sasuke Uchiha ordering take-out ramen as a celebration of Naruto's demise is kind of out of the question," he yelled over his shoulder as they shimmied up the side of an apartment complex and leapt from someone's balcony to the next row of roofs.
"Whatever the hell the reason," he finished, "we've just got to clear this mess up. You do know what's going to happen now, don't you?"
Kiba made a pained face as he scrambled from one wall to the next, twisting his body as he flung one leg forwards and used the other to spring to the adjacent wall. "People are gonna turn up… well… girls will turn up."
"This being exactly what we don't want," Shikamaru reminded him as they shot through someone's back garden.
"So… what are we going to do?"
"We? No. You, Kiba, you're going to be our wonderful decoy."
Kiba stopped mid-jump, with the words "I-don't-like-the-sound-of-that" on his lips as he fell flat on his face. As he scrambled up and pelted after Shikamaru's smeary black silhouette in the gathering darkness, spitting dirt from between his teeth, he panted: "I- what? Who- WHY? When did I agree to this exactly?"
"Doesn't matter," Shikamaru yelled back at him over the slope of his shoulder, "you're still being the bait whilst I take Naruto to see Tsunade about this, before she finds out some other way and kills him, and then me, and then you. This was honestly the last thing in the world that I wanted to do tonight!"
"Well this was hardly on the top of my list," Kiba mumbled, gaining level with Shikamaru again and casting him a dark brooding look. "We almost had Lee drinking alcohol again."
"Your fascination for getting Lee drunk escapes me," was his friend's curt reply, "I don't know why I agreed to help you do it."
"Because you weren't there when we did it last time, Maru—you'd understand then that it was the funniest thing—"
They pelted up the spiralling steps to the fourth floor, their footsteps crunching and clattering onto the concrete, as metal and heel and shoe connected with the floor.
"I have the key!" Kiba said brightly, fishing around in his pocket for it.
Shikamaru licked his lips and kicked the front door with his left foot. He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted: "Uzumaki Naruto, you had better be alive in there! Because we are going to kick your ass!"
Meanwhile…
As Naruto sat up, he dimly tried to make sense of it all. Using his elbows for support, he slowly murmured into a mouth that was hot and raw like burnt marshmallows: "What the hell do we do now?"
Sasuke, Sasuke Uchiha with his dark hair and even darker eyes, just looked at him. Expression keen, lips gently parted as he leaned down, he ignored the question and pressed against Naruto's own yielding embrace.
They both fell down together, a tangle of arms and legs—Naruto's spine pressing hard against the floor as Sasuke played with Naruto's tongue, tracing the insides of his mouth, reaching right down deep inside so he could touch his back molars.
Naruto groaned, and sense bubbled and popped… not that there was much anyway. All his sense had gone. The Kyuubi purred inside his mind, a great monster clawing at his chest, momentarily sated with carnal pleasure. It flexed as Naruto moved his head back to allow Sasuke to draw the rough flat of his tongue down the smooth column of his neck, in slow meandering circles. Sasuke moved little by little: teeth nipping at light cappuccino-stained skin, up to the lobe of Naruto's right ear before his tongue rimmed the outer flesh and then slipped, almost glided in. Naruto gasped, moaned, and wriggled as Sasuke pushed hard on his chest with one hand, his other fingers snaking up to cradle the back of his neck to prevent him from turning his head to meet Sasuke's tongue and teeth.
The Uchiha grinned, a hot moist breath against Naruto's ear as he withdrew his tongue. He listened to the blond's laboured, ragged breathing before he moved again to capture Naruto's mouth; drawing Naruto's tongue all the way into his own, to suck on it himself.
He loved the way Naruto arched into him, knees bending, hands skittering to the back of his neck, his spine, his waist, his pelvic bone and then lower… much lower.
Gluttonous hands wanting more, hounding for pressure and release… he could feel his own hardness pressing down and into Naruto's lower stomach, and Naruto's arousal pushing painfully into his thigh.
Sasuke pulled back from the kiss slightly, glancing across the Kitsune's full lower lip with barely the tip of his tongue. He watched as cornflower blue eyes, muzzy and clouded with desire, looked up at him. Head cradled in threads of shadowed gold against dark wooden floorboards; eyes that saw him, Sasuke Uchiha, without pretence and niceties. They had seen him scream, seen him bitch, seen him snarl, seen him threaten, and now they fell open so wide and innocent beneath him.
Nothing stopping, calling all forward with wide open arms.
Sasuke leaned down and tasted the flesh of Naruto's collarbone, fingers tugging down the blond boy's white t-shirt, teeth scratching at the protruding flesh. He tasted of salt, his mouth and his skin, different kinds of salt though. His mouth tasted like sea salt dyed deep indigo blue and dried in the hot summer sun, and his body tasted like sweat, blood, tears and sex.
"Naruto…" Sasuke growled into his shoulder, licking along a vein underneath the skin. He felt the blond give a little whimper of frustration as he attempted to reclaim Sasuke's lips, but felt them brush only lightly and teasingly against his own as Sasuke moved across to his other shoulder.
It didn't seem—didn't feel—real. Dreamlike, the Uchiha slid his hands underneath Naruto's t-shirt, feeling, counting each rib, climbing slowly up over hot sensitised skin. Watching every movement of Naruto's face as he shuddered, bit his lip, and crinkled his eyes shut as Sasuke tickled a sensitive area. Hardly even touching with the fingertip of his forefinger as he brushed against one of Naruto's nipples—but the Kitsune couldn't help but cry out. The loss of control for that one split second lit fires of dominance in Sasuke's chest.
He moved, plunging his tongue between Naruto's firm but pliable lips, lips that were flushed pink and swollen from the kisses, the nips and the biting.
The taste of him sharpened Sasuke's tongue and he tingled all over, suddenly anxious to feel more, to strip Naruto lest this blissful dreamlike reverie should fade. He wanted to get right in there, beneath the skin, inside his body, as close as he could to his soul. Somewhere that would envelop him totally but would never shatter, and he wanted him, oh god he wanted him so much it hurt.
"Naruto," he said again, his voice rough and husky. He dragged his body lower, hands slipping under the blond's back and moving them both to sit up. His fingers scraped at the white material of the blond's t-shirt until Naruto, shaking whether from the cold of the long wet kisses or from anticipation, lithely drew it up over his head. Keeping eye contact he leaned, within the same movement, back onto Sasuke.
Sasuke found himself pinned and grinning up into the fantastic, beautiful, insanely flirtatious face that was Naruto. Yes, he was grinning: because in this singular moment the world did not revolve around the sun, there was no solar system or even a universe. There was no need, there was just them, right here within this speck of time. No other reason was considered as Sasuke pulled Naruto onto him; he felt no shame in being so sexually aroused by another person, a man at that.
His heart skipped, fluttered, and thudded inside his throat as his fingers slid down to that hot forbidden place, as Naruto watched with heavy-lidded eyes. Sasuke pushed Naruto over again, with another tumbling of legs and knees that caused them to grunt and hiss.
If Sasuke thought about it, really thought about it, he wouldn't have done it. At least, not like this he wouldn't. He wasn't thinking, he wasn't himself, he was too relaxed right now, with him, all that blond hair against his nose.
Naruto pushed his forehead against Sasuke's shoulder and moaned. He bucked his hips, pushing deeper into Sasuke's hand as he cupped him, rubbed against him, hot urgent and needy. It was a wanton display of lust as his eyes rolled in his head, which tilted to face the skin under Sasuke's chin.
Sasuke felt teeth grating rigid against his larynx and then at the junction where his neck met his clavicle, hard and pressing with an awful pressure as sharp canines pierced into the skin. He cried out in pain and desire, a sick, kinky passion, whilst Naruto held onto his head to move in deeper. Sasuke could feel the blond sucking and lapping at the blood he drew, pulsing like water until it ran clear.
Naruto moved his head back, licking his lips so that they glistened.
Sasuke's deep breath came in erratic judders, his stomach writhing as he leaned forwards to leave his own teeth marks on the tender skin below Naruto's jaw. He returned to lick the seam of a panting Naruto's mouth as his neck throbbed. Sasuke Uchiha licked his lips, and then his teeth, savouring the taste of Naruto's mouth and skin. He felt drained with Naruto, like it was flooding every essence, every fibre of his body and he wanted… needed more. Salt in his eyes and between his fingers.
Naruto would let him do it, he was sure of that. The blond's body yielding unspeakable liberties as it rocked, ground, and yearned against him, intimate hardness as his weight shifted, and the sky seemed to lower.
Naruto watched his partner move down, across his lower stomach, tongue dipping across his navel and tracing the spiral of his seal-mark in a careful line.
Sasuke hesitated, for a fraction of a second, just before he reached to pull down the waistline of Naruto's boxers. In that fraction of a second, it was all over….
Downstairs there was a thunderous knock on the door, making it shudder in its hinges; then a shout, someone cupping their hands and sound waves penetrating through wood, metal and plaster: "Naruto Uzumaki, you had better be alive in there! Because we are gonna kick your ass!"
Naruto, who seconds before had had his eyes screwed up, panting heavily through his mouth, snapped cornflower blue irises wide, wide open and came to his senses.
He yelled, wrenching his body up as though someone had jabbed him with an electric poker. His knee collided with Sasuke's jawbone, sending him tumbling to the floor in an explosion of white dancing stars.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! We did not just do this, we did not just—oh my GOD!"
He stared down at his groin in utter horror as the sounds of a metal key scraped noisily in the lock downstairs. He leapt over a semi-unconscious lump of Sasuke, who groaned as Naruto's feet pounded past his face.
Naruto threw himself into the bathroom as he heard the sounds of the door jiggling about as if stuck in the frame—thank god he hadn't gotten that seen to yet, he thought as he turned the shower on full blast and stepped with his underwear still on (thankfully or unthankfully would be addressed later) into the icy downpour. He let out a yell as a sluice of freezing cold liquid drenched every last pore of his body. The sweat, the heat, the smell vanished instantly. In a few precious seconds and as fast as he got in, he jumped out, shivering, not even thinking to get a towel as he heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Straight out into the hallway he ran, and proceeded to drip onto the floorboards.
"Oh, Shikamaru, Kiba. Hey!" he pronounced in his I-am-not-being-suspicious-in-any-way-form-or-manner voice, and gave that easy carefree grin.
Kiba looked gob-smacked and Shikamaru gave him the best so-this-is-what-turning-insane-feels-like look he had ever seen.
"It's a funny time to drop over," he said conversationally, gallantly placing his hand on the wall behind him where he proceeded to make a hand-shaped wet patch on the wallpaper. "How's the weather?"
Shikamaru at this point seemed to be beyond speaking. His mouth rotated and flapped in mid-air as he slowly shook his head.
Then Kiba murmured in a soft but wondering voice: "You're making puddles, Naruto, small puddles…."
"Oh yes, so I am!" laughed the grin, widening, but the beginnings of panic seared up through his veins.
"Why…" Shikamaru began, regaining his ability to speak, "…why are you all wet?"
"Because I just took a shower."
There was an impregnated pause.
"In your underwear?"
Naruto floundered and then countered with, "Yes, don't you?"
This was all too much for Shikamaru. He'd gone from depressed to stressed and now to bordering on the insane with this strain of conversation, and he finally snapped.
"HAVE YOU GONE MAD? HAS EVERYONE GONE MAD?! THERE ARE RAMEN NOODLES TELLING PEOPLE THEY'VE SEEN SASUKE, AND HERE YOU ARE BATHING IN YOUR UNDERWEAR!"
Both Naruto and Kiba stared at him as he continued, a tick-tock vein pulsing in his forehead, skin almost purple.
"ALL I WANTED TO DO WAS DRINK ALCOHOL AND MAYBE PASS OUT BUT KIBA HAS TO GO SEE COW STRIPPERS AND LEE WON'T GET DRUNK, CHOJI ONLY INDUCES KIBA TO CHOKE ON PEANUTS AND GOD DAMNIT I HATE HAVING SEX WITH IRRATIONAL WOMEN!"
Shikamaru, thus spent, let out a very long exhaling breath, slumped against the wall, and slid all the way down it into a sitting position at the base.
"Now," he said slowly, massaging his temples. "You are going to come with me to see Tsunade. You are going to keep why you are like this to yourself and I never want to hear the reason why. But you are going to dry off and put some clothes on first."
Tongues glued to the roofs of their mouths, Kiba and Naruto both nodded, looking somewhat dumbstruck. Naruto backed up into the bathroom and Kiba sidestepped into the closest bedroom, meaning to find Naruto some clothes in order to avoid Shikamaru's blazing glare of absolute irritation.
He got halfway across the room before he tripped over a solid warm something lying across the floor, a solid breathing something that had two hands over its face and smelled rather like Sasuke… except a Sasuke with Naruto on him. ALL over him, like his face, his neck, his back, his torso, his legs… and sweat, and saliva, and… oh.
Oh.
Crap.
Kiba whirled himself towards the chest of drawers and whipped the clothes out as fast as he could possibly do without ripping off the tops of his fingers.
He sprinted, half on his hands as much as on his feet, out of the door and slammed it shut as he heard Sasuke Uchiha behind him let out a loud groan and sit up.
Shikamaru gave him another withering look as Naruto came out from the bathroom, towelling his hair dry, only to be hit in the face with more underwear and tops and bottoms. He gave Kiba a little desperate look as if to say 'you too?' and was met with a slightly mad widening of amber eyes and a non-too subtle head jerking towards the closed bedroom door; and they both knew that Shikamaru didn't know and they knew they both knew it.
Naruto's arms shook a little as he slipped the shirt up and over his head and wormed his way into black slacks. He avoided Shikamaru's gaze and he quietly asked Kiba what the situation was, all the time his blue eyes wide, asking Kiba not to tell Shikamaru, because he wouldn't understand, because he didn't understand himself and it was complicated.
Kiba watched silently as Shikamaru and Naruto walked down the stairs together, and saw them out of the front door. He knew the plan—Shikamaru had told him the plan before in case things went wrong—as they had surely done now.
He wasn't going to do it unless he really, really had to… but that wasn't the point. He was acting decoy right now, and as such it was his duty to sort out Sasuke.
Sasuke who was emerging from the bedroom right now, a hulking great bruise forming on his jaw and some sort of red purple mark on the side of his neck. The discolouration that he was rubbing with one hand, eyes squinted almost shut as he looked about him. Then he stopped, and saw Kiba standing at the bottom of the stairs looking up at him: wary, mouth dry as he rolled up his sleeves and took the plunge. It was an absolute dive, and who knew where it was going to lead.
But Kiba would do it, on pain of certain death; he'd do it for Naruto absolutely.
"Sasuke Uchiha, you just made out with my best friend, didn't you?"
Sasuke looked at him with very dark, impenetrable eyes, face moody and pale, seamless complexion like molten marble as he opened his mouth to answer….