Disclaimer: Neither the characters nor the artwork are mine. This is purely a fan work and I am making no money off of the use of any material.

This is AU – high school.

Definitely more angst-y than the last few have been.

Warning: the language in this one is a bit rough. There is swearing, but I'm more specifically focusing on hate-speech as the reason for this warning. It is offensive language and I hate to use it but it is integral to the story. There is also violence and considerable description of the after affects of said violence. Also, nothing actually occurs but reference and mention is given to some kinkier sex practices and fetishes. They are mentioned in passing and nothing like it occurs in the story, but I know it makes some people uncomfortable and queasy so this might not be the story for you.

And yes, I know I messed up on tenses, but it was more confusing to try and go back and fix it later and it does make sense as it stands and I doubt that anyone will become confused.

Image to be found at following link:

arcanehiddenmagic. deviantart. (com/) art/ Careless-Caring-196375957

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words: Story Seven

Careless Caring

OR: It is Home

Dammit! Shikamaru thought as he saw the shadows shift before him. Ignoring the painful throb in his right ankle, he pivoted and tore down a different hallway in an awkward limping run, clutching his right hand around his left arm as though that would take away any measure of the pain that coursed through his arm, causing his fingers to periodically jerk and spasm away from his palm without his consent to do so.

Why did I stay late today? The junior thought, as he skirted yet another hallway, trying to decide if the pounding in his ears was his pulse or the footfalls of his pursuers. The small fact of life that had helped to land him in this position fled his mind as horror slipped in. Rounding another corner he realized that he had worked himself into a corner without as escape route.

Damn his mind for wandering! Though it might be because of the slam against cinder block his head had received earlier.

"Faggot!" being shouted was the only warning he had gotten before a hand had clenched around the back of his shirt near the neck and he was lifted bodily from the desk he had been dozing in an empty classroom. He'd been thrown backward and into the wall, his head colliding with an audible thunk, lights flashing before his eyes as he tried in vain to fight the sudden dizziness and mild nausea that swam up within him.

Any attempt to run away was impeded by the horrible senior student whose name escaped Shikamaru just now, sat down hard on the smaller boy's ankles, effectively pinning the dark-haired youth to the ground.

"Looks like we got ourselves a little cock-sucker to play with eh boys?" He said haughtily, his rancid breath wafting into Shikamaru's face, making his stomach roil.

"We do we do!" A pimple-faced gangly flunky said off to Shikamaru's left, who gleefully cracked his knuckled before delivering a swift kick to the side of the trapped boy who grunted dully in response.

He wished that he could say that this was a rare occurrence. He wished that this was the first time he had been singled out by the other kids at school. He wished that he didn't have to have the hallways of the school memorized with all escape routes mentally highlighted in bright red.

He wished…

But he knew this was coming.

When back in middle school he had come out to his best friend Chouji. The other boy had taken it well enough, only caring that Shikamaru was happy, but neither knew that childhood friend and notorious school gossip Ino was lurking nearby. By the time he had arrived at school the next day the entire phone tree seemed to have been activated. Everyone knew.

The teachers were nice enough to stop it when they could, but the majority of the time things went unpunished. And Shikamaru didn't have the energy after just putting up with the names and the jeers and the "accidental" feet tripping him up in the hallway and the occasional cornering in the hallway.

And gym class was the worst. He would grab his clothes to change in the shower area so that no one started anything and then he never showered after gym, just invested heavily in deodorant.

He was followed everywhere by taunts and nee and horrible nicknames.

Faggot.

Sissy.

Cocksucker.

Pillow biter.

That one he had to look up! He'd never heard of some of these before. And do you know how awful it was to type in 'gay slurs' into a search engine as a way to arm yourself against the onslaught and hopefully not get surprised by one. He had this nothing that exposing himself to the words on his own terms would anesthetize himself partially against the pain that having them hurled at him would bring.

He had always loved reading. It brought joy and entertainment and knowledge. Having it used as a weapon, and against him, was a new slow torture.

But he still had Chouji, and the quiet Hinata didn't freak out at being named his partner in class. Shino was perpetually locked in his own little world and didn't much care for what anyone else had to say. He didn't defend Shikamaru but he didn't work against him either. A neutral party. His family was involved him some kind of hush hush business with the government too, so no one wanted to get on the boy's bad side. Shikamaru felt bad about occasionally using the boy as a shield, but until Shino said something against it, Shikamaru would likely continue to do so.

Kiba occasionally helped Shikamaru out. He was a rambunctious sort and relatively popular, especially with athletes as the boy seemed to be a part of every team that their small school possessed. But he was only concerned with what was directly in front of him. He'd make sure nothing started in his presence but paid no mind to the stories that would flow through the halls about the latest squashing of Shikamaru's battered spirit.

He found his unexpected savior, of sorts, though in the school fuck-up. Naruto had been an outcast since the day he was born. He was a foster kid who got shuffled from one house to another to group homes or orphanages, never getting the chance to stay in one place for a long time. Not having ever belonged anywhere, the boy didn't know how to interact with other people properly and often rubbed people the wrong way and annoyed them. The boy retaliated with a smile and a louder outburst before running away and telling the latest taunting teen to kiss his ass with a smack for good measure.

When the jeers began and there was no one around to shield him, Shikamaru had just stoically accepted his fate. Fighting back would be too troublesome and would accomplish nothing but letting them know that he was bothered by it, enticing them to step up their game because it was working.

But during the second week of his hell of school things changed a bit. The bully who had been the worst. The loudest. The most vulgar. The one who had come the closest to making the dark teen cry, whether he was in front of his peers or not. That bully had come into their shared homeroom first thing in the morning and sat in his usual seat, two rows behind Shikamaru's. Their homeroom teacher, the notoriously lazy literature teacher Kakashi, was deeply involved in a book most of the time and barely acknowledged his homeroom except to take attendance. This morning, the same as every other, his nose was buried into the pages and a bomb could go off without the many noticing.

It was one of the worst times of the day for Shikamaru because none of his friends who occasionally made this new state of affairs tolerable was in this class with him. The jeers started with the bell, softly so as to not call the attention of Kakashi who had torn his eyes away from the pages long enough to scan through the filled seats and send off attendance to the office on his computer. Once the teacher's attention was thoroughly averted the rest of it commence.

Talking at normal volume now, with the attention of all of the students in the classroom, the teen began to discuss in visceral detail what he thought Shikamaru's life was. Bending over for anyone who would shove his dick in. Drooling over all of the guys at school. He even went into lurid detail of what else Shikamaru must be into. Things like eating shit and being peed on. That he must do it with the deer on the nature reserve that they lived on as a part of his father's job as a park ranger. That he trolled public bathrooms looking for old men to suck off. How he liked dick's dirty and crusty and smelly.

Shikamaru's stomach turned with every new assumption, physically having to fight the urge to barf at some of the notions and feeling about an inch tall as other people looked at him with varying levels of disgust.

Being gay in a small town wasn't easy. Being gay in a small town in a backwoods part of the country wasn't easy. Being gay in this small backwoods town seemed to be a crime against humanity. And everyone was his own personal judge, jury and executioner.

The bell clanged loudly through his head signaling the end of the period. He stood up quickly, books in hand ready to dash to his next class, a new habit as the longer he spent in the hallway the more likely he would go home with bruises, when he heard a squeal from his tormentor.

Unable to stop himself, Shikamaru turned around and witnessed something so wonderfully funny, that with how on edge he was, he found himself bowled over in hysterical laughter. Unable to keep his feet under him, he fell to the floor, tears of laughter escaping down his face as sheer joy rocketed through him as someone else was made to feel humiliation.

Because his bully had been tricked himself.

Apparently, someone had made it to the classroom before Shikamaru had, and certainly before the bully, and had laid a trap for the teen. Super glue had been smeared along the seat and back of the chair/desk mutant creature that seems to be found in every school in every country on the planet. Unknowingly, the bully had adhered himself to the monstrosity of wood and metal and upon standing and instantly forced himself into an awkward stoop with so much weight in front that he could not keep himself standing and fell in a heap on the floor in front of him, ass stuck in the air.

The teen began to cuss and scream and attempt to get up again to uproarious results, and of course he blamed Shikamaru for everything, but that was okay because for once all eyes weren't on him.

Sobering up with that thought the teen quickly gathered himself up, cleaned the tears from his face and bolted to his history class. Iruka didn't care what the reason; you did not show up late to his class.

Two days later Ino, who had been the cause of all this mess and hadn't said so much as a word of apology, found herself soaking wet and make-up ruined before homeroom had even started as water balloons rained down on her the moment she opened her locker in the hallway that morning.

A student, who liked to find any spare chance to physically strike Shikamaru, as though he could beat the gay out of the teen, found himself the victim of yet another prank. A cheap cell phone had been taped to the bottom of his assigned chair in their shared algebra class. First that student's own ring tone rang loudly through the room, earning the student a lecture from the teacher before the class, despite mumbling that his phone was in his locker. Then a loud, wet-sounding fart noise cut into the teacher's explanation of the FOIL technique, causing everyone to glare at him in disgust and several people in his direct vicinity to shift their desks away and was recipient of yet another lecture from the teacher and a sentence of lunch detention that afternoon. It spoke of the level of control that that teacher had over a classroom that they actually got back to the lesson when suddenly the sound of sex filled the classroom. Breathy moans and deep groans bellowed from beneath him as he screamed in frustration, throwing himself out of the seat and looking around with frantic eyes at all the students in the room. "Who's doing that?!" Eventually the phone was discovered and the detention rescinded, but no one could access the password protected phone to trace back to the source from where the calls had originated.

It was the final prank that alerted Shikamaru to the person behind all the ruckus, and there reason for doing it.

Shikamaru had found himself in the nurses office with an icepack being held to his chin, which had a brand new bandage on it after being tripped yet again in the hallway had resulted in his chin slamming down on the staircase he had been preparing to climb.

The Principal, an older man named Mr. Sarutobi, had peeked into the Nurse Tsunade's office to have a word and spotted Shikamaru.

"Young Mr. Nara isn't it?" He said, a small smile on his face. "What has happened to you?"

"Tripped on the stairs." Shikamaru muttered. If one person is out to get you, you can snitch without worry. When the entire school is gunning for you, it only adds fuel to the fire. He would have avoided the nurse's office entirely except that the skin on his chin had split open and he knew he would have been sent if he'd attempt to show up to class with blood on his face anyway.

"Well dear boy, let's try to keep our feet under us next time alright?" It seemed horrifically condescending considering the circumstances, but Shikamaru sat back genuinely amazed at how out of touch with the student body the faculty and staff were. Over the course of two weeks he had become the school punching bag and none of them even noticed.

Struck with disbelief he gave a small nod, "Yes, sir."

The man walked over to the nurse's desk and grabbed a file from her before smiling at Shikamaru again and making his way out.

He heard the creak of the door to the office next door opening, followed by an odd and loud click and bang and the sound of the old man sputtering.

Tsunade had jumped to her feet to dash out to the school office see what happened and Shikamaru too could not abate his curiousness and peeked out the door.

The Principal stepped back out of his office and Shikamaru saw that he was covered head to toe in white feathers that seemed to have stuck to him, likely with glue Shikamaru thought, seeing the upended plastic buttons dangling from just above his door.

Mr. Sarutobi took a long breath before walking calmly over to the intercom. "Naruto Uzamaki, please come down to the office. Naruto Uzamaki, to the school office. Thank you."

Shikamaru had to admire the man's poise in the situation. In fact, he swore that he saw a hint of a smile underneath the coat of feathers.

Shikamaru had returned to his seat on the cot next to Tsunade's desk when a few minutes later the brash young student in question burst into the office.

"What does the old man want now?" A scratchy voice asked loudly. "I actually like music class."

"Glad to hear it Naruto," Sarutobi's voice announced and Shikamaru leaned over to see through the door out into the main office.

The Principal stood tall, hands crossed in front of him, looking for all the world like it was a totally normal day. Except he was still covered in feathers.

Naruto's face twitched once. Twice. And then a full laugh bubbled up and exploded from his mouth. "Chicken man!" He announced, finger pointed at the authority figure, while his other hand clutched around his stomach.

"Very funny Naruto." The man said with a long-suffering sigh. "Do you want to tell me why you do this?"

Naruto wiped a tear away, "You have no proof that I did anything at all." Naruto said with certainty.

"Well that is true. But your record does speak for itself." The Principal looked over the top of his glasses at the blonde who rolled his eyes. "There's been quit a string of pranks recently that no one takes credit for."

There was a moment of silence and Shikamaru thought about the boy glued to his chair, and Ino's unwelcomed shower and the hilarious phone debacle. Had this boy done all of that? Why?

"You can't punish me without proof and I admit to nothing." Naruto said with a hint of defiance. So he had done all of them, and the Principal knew it. But if there was no proof, nothing connecting Naruto to the pranks except the Principal's gut instinct, there really was nothing that they could do to it.

"Maybe someone just thinks you're a chicken old man. Maybe they thought the outside should match the inside. Only a chicken stands by as a school takes out everything on one student for stupid reasons." Naruto was looking out the window onto the soccer field next to the school, a gym class was starting to take the field, preparing for a game.

"Naruto, I'm sorry that the students treat you that way."

Naruto made a strange sound in his throat and turned around quickly, fixing the man with the same incredulous stare that Shikamaru knew his own face had been wearing moments earlier.

It wasn't about him. He wasn't getting revenge for how the school treats him.

Shikamaru felt like he had swallowed a dish cloth. Something odd settled in his stomach, a heavy weight that wasn't painful but ever present.

He was getting them for me. Shikamaru thought, shifting back to a normal seated position, his arms now shaking too hard to hold up his ice pack anymore, though it had lost most of its chill already. The one with the biggest mouth, the one with the hardest fists, the one who started it all, and the Principal of the school who not only doesn't stop it but isn't even aware that it is going on.

He heard Tsunade tell him that he could go back to class now and handed him a late pass to show the teacher so he didn't get in trouble.

He slipped into the main office just before Naruto could let the old man have it in eardrum bleeding fashion, and he would have smirked seeing the sudden change of expression on the blonde's face if it didn't hurt his sore face to do so.

Shikamaru stopped next to the Principal who had been between himself and Naruto. "Sir, do you have any evidence that Naruto committed this pranks? Any witnesses? Confessions from Naruto to teachers? Anything?"

There was an odd glint in his eye as the old man responded, "No. No I don't."

"So without any evidence, and purely based on your own assumptions, you have pulled a student out of his classes, depriving him of his education all because someone, whose identity you do not know, poured glue and feathers on you?"

"Your assessment appears to be accurate Mr. Nara."

Shikamaru gave a terse nod, "Then with all due respect sir, Naruto and I have music together and we really should be getting back to class. We have an exam on major chord structures next week."

The man was definitely smiling behind his feathers but he agreed and sent the pair on their way to class.

"Thanks for getting me out of there!" Naruto jerked a finger back towards the office before linking his hands back behind his head to walk to their class clear on the other side of their school. The odd thought flitted through his mind of Who the hell walks like that?! before he just shook it off. There were other things to discuss.

"Shouldn't I be the one thanking you? Never thought I was going to get a knight in scruffy orange armor." He indicated towards Naruto's always loud clothing, today a pair of jeans that had been hemmed by the friction of walking, worn out canvas shoes that were a pumpkin orange color and a BRIGHT neon orange shirt that was too large and seemed to have taken a tumble in the dirt somehow without loosing any of its eye-catching tendencies.

Naruto scratched the back of his head. "I uh…well…"

Shikamaru stopped them both at the bottom of the staircase where he had taken him tumble, absentmindedly noting that there was a rather large smear of blood still there, waiting for the janitors to come through and clean it tonight. "Listen…thanks. But I have to know why?" He figured straight-forward and blunt was the way to work with a guy like Naruto anyway. "Lots of kids get picked on. You don't jump to their defense. Why me?"

Naruto looked at his shoes. "Because you shared your snack with me when I didn't have anything. And you loaned me a pencil in class." Naruto continued to list off all these interactions where Shikamaru had helped out Naruto. Interactions that must have seemed to insignificant to Shikamaru that he didn't even remember them happening. But there were obviously important to Naruto. What must it be like to live a life so rough where these things stick out as something that must be repaid? Shikamaru made an unusually rash decision right there, that this list would grow so long that Naruto wouldn't be able to rattle it off like this anymore.

And on that day Naruto and Shikamaru became friends, both school outcasts, but never alone.

They were freshman in high school when Naruto first surprised the lithe teen with a kiss. Shikamaru had been helping the blonde study. He usually didn't sit well but tonight he seemed exceptionally fidgety. "Seriously, Naruto! You need to learn this for our final exams. You need the credits to move up to sophomore."

Naruto pushed himself up from his position, lying on his stomach on the floor of Shikamaru's bedroom. "Okay okay, but I need to try something."

"What?" Shikamaru asked in exasperation, laying on his side and propping his head up on one hand as he looked over at Shikamaru.

Naruto bit his lip, "Promise me you won't get mad?"

"You know I don't make such open ended promises."

"For me?" And for the first time in his life he understood what his dad meant when he talked about the look that his mother could give his father that had him putty in her hands.

Shoving down that odd stomach-rag feeling again, Shikamaru looked away. "Fine." He sighed out, with what he hoped was indifference.

And then Naruto was close and in his face, and the smell of the boy, a bit of sweat, chalk dust (he had to bang out erasers during lunch for talking back during class that morning) and a slight tinge of plastic (Naruto had been moved to a new "situation" recently – the blonde would never call them homes – and once more he was given two black plastic trash bags to put everything he was bringing with him in them), and something else that was so uniquely Naruto and he had never been able to put his finger on what it was but it made that stomach-rag feeling go away and for that second everything was perfect.

He didn't have enough time to berate himself for how bad he had it for his friend this time.

Because in the blink of an eye, Naruto's lips had been placed against the corner of Shikamaru's mouth. Like the flit of a hummingbird's wing, it was there and gone before it could be acknowledged and Naruto was already sitting back on his heels, hands bunching in the fabric above his knees.

Shikamaru remained still for a second. "What was that?" He whispered, because his brain seemed to have stopped functioning momentarily.

Naruto let out a light, forced laugh. "I thought you were smart Shikamaru? That's called a kiss." His bright fake smile was back and Shikamaru almost wanted to smack it off his face, because he would rather see the negative emotions that the blonde felt that see that stupid fake smile he showed to the rest of the world.

Shikamaru pushed himself up and pulled in his legs so that he was sitting cross legged, facing Naruto's side. "Why?" He said quietly, while wondering if hearts were supposed to lead sambas in his chest, because he honestly couldn't remember just now.

"Because I…" Naruto choked a bit, "Don't make me say it…"

Shikamaru put one of his hands on Naruto's. Because he had to hear the boy say it. Ever since he had told Chouji years back, he heard a constant barrage of hatred spewed at him every day. Everything he heard about himself and his orientation was negative and hurtful. He needed to hear something happy. And for the first time in years he started to think that something happy really was heading his way. "Please Naruto," he mentally baulked at how tight his voice sounded, "I need to hear to you say it. Please? For me?" He added with a smile.

"I needed to know." He said quietly, and Shikamaru's heart stuttered a bit.

Shikamaru closed his eyes and squeezed Naruto's hand without knowing it as his whole body tightened up. Forcing words past a narrowing throat he got out, "Please tell me you didn't need to know if you were gay and decided to test it out on your only gay friend?"

Shikamaru was actually praying. Praying to gods that he had never believed in to please let this not be the case – he could use all the help that he could get.

"Tell me our friendship means more to you than that. Tell me that I do." He pleaded in a whisper. Teenage crushes blow the genius thought in the back of his mind.

"No!" Naruto said loudly, startling Shikamaru out of his haze. "No Shikamaru, God no." The blonde worked his captured hand around to grab Shikamaru's, while his other was placed on Shikamaru's shoulder as the blond turned fully to face his friend. "No, I wouldn't do that! I needed to know…" Naruto stopped looking like he was choking on the words, and stopped and took a breath while Shikamaru waited with his bated. "I had to know if you would ever…if I was…ifyoucouldeverlikeme?" He said in a rush, hands clenching actually painfully but Shikamaru was way to happy to think a small thing like that mattered.

Apparently he was becoming stupid because his rather extensive vocabulary completely abandoned him at this point and no words would escape. After a moment too long, he decided fuck it! and pulled the blond in and kiss him full on the lips. He didn't care that their noses kept bumping, or that when attempting to shift Naruto lost his balance and slipped forward, leading Shikamaru to the odd experience of kissing an ear lobe. It didn't matter, because everything was perfect in that moment.

And when they walked into school the next day, not just side-by-side as the students had become accustomed, but hand-in-hand, both of them trembling slightly at the audacity of their actions, the jeers increased and the threats doubled, but they seemed to have lost their bite and couldn't find the foothold in Shikamaru that they used to be granted so easily.

This all brings us back to today.

Naruto had had detention.

He remembered now.

He had stayed late to walk Naruto home.

The seventeen-year-old had become emancipated from the state, no longer a ward or subject to their rules, he had rented out a small apartment with money that he had found out he was left by his parents who had died in a car accident just days after his birth and he now had access to. The apartment was cheap and decent and clean, but not in the best of neighborhoods and even though Shikamaru knew that Naruto could take care of himself, he needed to see with his own eyes that the boy was fine. So under the guise of helping the teen study, Shikamaru would walk him back every day after school, staying until well after nightfall and walking to his own home or calling his father, if the weather was bad, to come and pick him up.

He had been waiting to go with Naruto and had dozed off. That's when they found him.

He was pulled up against the wall and momentarily lost his breath as he was slammed against it. It was however the simultaneous actions of a punch to the gut and some other jibe from the mouth of halitosis teen that resulted in what had been only a matter of time.

Shikamaru vomited all over the kid. Lunch charged back up his esophagus like a Spartan Army, leaving nothing behind and giving every ounce of strength it could muster. It burst with distance from his mouth, landing on the face of his attacker and down his front.

There was a moment when none of them moved before Shikamaru, feeling too weak to do much of anything, was thrown back again and slid down the wall.

"You nasty son of a bitch!" The moron exclaimed, looking down in shock at the prone boy while his friends started to snicker. "You THREW UP on me!" He accused, still sounding like he didn't believe it himself.

Shikamaru snorted and between gasps bit out, "With your bad breath, it's lucky I didn't just keel over and die."

"You fucking faggot queer!"

"I do believe that last one is redundant."

"Re…what?" Suddenly the boy actually looked afraid. Shikamaru wasn't behaving the way he had expected, and it was throwing him. "Let's just go. He's crazy." He had obviously meant it to sound like an insult but it sounded too shaky.

Shikamaru though seemed to prove him right, as a manic laugh, interrupted by occasional coughing fits, sprang from his mouth. "I'm crazy alright. Better go or it might rub off on you."

Frankly, Shikamaru was scaring himself a bit now but he couldn't seem to stop.

He remained sitting where he was long after his latest tormentors had gone; wondering was this strange loose feeling was. Like a string had been snapped within him.

He giggling momentarily to himself, "My last flying fuck has been given. It was tied down, but has now flown away." He found this hysterical and knew something was wrong – probably a hit to the head and where was Naruto?

The teen's thoughts came so fast that he couldn't even follow them anymore.

They all came to a screeching halt though with the shout of, "Shika!" that barreled down the hallway accompanied by pounding feet.

"Oh my God…" he heard mumbled as gentle hands tried to survey the damage. "We're going to the hospital."

"No hospital. Hate hospitals. Doctors think they know everything." He waved his good arm around in the air in a manic fashion.

"They know a lot though and they need to see you." Naruto shifted back, trying to figure out what to do.

"I hate hospitals." Shikamaru pointed out.

"I hate school and you make me go." Naruto said succinctly. "And I come here every day. You can go to the hospital once for me."

Shikamaru glanced out of a swollen eye towards his Naruto. "Oh hey! Twin Narutos! Two for the price of one!"

Naruto clenched his eyes for a moment before grounding out the word "concussion."

"Probably," Shikamaru agreed with a smile.

"Listen, Guy sensei is still here since he did my detention. I'll get him to drive us to the hospital."

Naruto moved to get up and Shikamaru grabbed his hand. "No you stay. Twin can go."

Naruto sounded wrecked and on the verge of sobbing when he finally spoke again. "There is no twin. You have a concussion. I need to get help."

Shikamaru suddenly felt like a child, "I'm scared of being alone."

"I know!" Naruto said quickly, "I'm petrified of it, but I'm coming back. I promise."

Shikamaru paused. Naruto kept every promise, no matter how stupid or difficult, he kept them. He would keep this one too.

"Okay. Go quick." Sensible Shikamaru had returned for the moment. "Seriously, go now before I get loopy again." And he actually pushed his boyfriend away.

And Naruto was off, running faster than he ever had before.

Naruto flew through hallways, terror clutching as his heart unlike anything he had every known. This was bad. He knew that there were better words, smarter words, more Shikamaru words, but all he could come up with was 'bad.' Three little letters encompassing so very very much.

He slammed through the locker room doors and into the office of the physical education teacher Might Guy who was just swinging his coat on to go home himself.

"Naruto, what are you still doing here? Go home." He said before actually taking in the teen. The boy was scared. His eyes were like a frightened animal and his hands tremor violently dangling at his sides. "What's wrong?!" He demanded.

"They beat up Shikamaru again. It's really bad. He's acting funny…he's got a concussion and I don't know what else…"

Guy ignored the 'again' part because he was unaware of the Nara boy being beaten up. He'd heard a few snide comments about the boy but nothing more than that. He grabbed Naruto's arm and pulled him out of the office. "Take me to him." At which point, Naruto clench one of his trembling hands around his teacher's waist and pulled him towards his fallen boyfriend.

Shikamaru was starting to jump at the shifting shadows as the sun went down. Naruto said he'd be back. He promised. He kept repeating it in his head like a mantra. But he was scared. He had returned enough to himself to know that he wasn't acting right, but part of him didn't even care. He promised.

He promised.

He promised.

He pro-

Pounding footsteps interrupted his mantra and soon Naruto was there at his side with their over enthusiastic gym teacher looking uncharacteristically seriously.

"You came back." He whispered softly to Naruto.

"I promised." Naruto pointed out and the blonde was crying.

"Don't cry. You're happy. No wait…you're my happy…no…happiness! You're my happiness! Happiness doesn't cry." He felt his brain slipping again and he couldn't fight it.

"Nara." Guy's voice was curt. "Did they hit your neck or back?"

He tried to focus on his teacher but his eyes were swimming, "No…" he groaned out as he felt nausea trying to make a come-back. "Barf…" he announced leaning forward, but thankfully there was not much left to loose and he emptied the small remainder of his stomach on his own pant legs.

"Naruto…" he whimpered, leaning back into Naruto's comforting smell, with the something there that he had never been able to name.

"I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

That's when Shikamaru passed out.

He felt slightly jipped when he woke up in the hospital and there was no beeping heart monitor. In every movie and TV show ever, someone who wakes up in a hospital first hears that annoying, Beepbeep…beepbeep… and sees that monitor with the stupid green line.

No, he had an IV tube and a chair with Naruto's jacket tossed over it, though no sign of Naruto. He could see out in the hallway a bit, through one eye as the other seemed to have fully swollen shut now, and Guy sensei was still here. He'd have to thank the man later he thought absently.

Then Naruto slipped into the room, Shikamaru's crappy and battered flip phone in his hands, worrying the ancient antenna between his teeth. He froze almost dropping the phone as a comical look of surprise flashed across his face until a relieved smile took up after it. "Shikamaru…"

"Hey," Shikamaru whispered, suddenly exhausted even though he'd only been awake for just a few moments.

Naruto shuffled to the chair, knocking his jacket to the ground without notice or care that he had done so. The phone was dropped on the bed as both of Naruto's hands gently grasped Shikamaru's. "Welcome back," he said softly after a long moment of staring at Shikamaru with his bright blue eyes.

"How long?" He croaked, finding relief as Naruto grabbed a class of water off of the table next to him and held it to Shikamaru's lips, letting a bit of the cool liquid trickle down his throat.

"You've been out for a few hours." Naruto murmured.

Shikamaru hummed in acknowledgement, resting his head back against the pillow and letting his eye slip shut.

"The police are here. They want to talk with you." Naruto whispered again. It was rather odd to hear that usually loud and boisterous voice so quiet and even, as though Naruto ran every thought through a mill before it left his mouth, something Shikamaru had surely wished that the blonde would occasionally do, but now that he was hearing it wished he had never had to. Naruto sounded so…dead…lifeless. And Shikamaru couldn't bear hearing that from the lively teen.

"Now?" He croaked again.

"The sooner the better Mr. Nara." Guy had come into the room.

"Thank you for your help sensei." Shikamaru said softly, eye's still shut, enjoying the feeling of Naruto's thumb running in circles against his palm.

"I wish it hadn't been needed." The man sounded uncharacteristically serious, then again, Shikamaru thought, this wasn't exactly a characteristic situation.

"Let's get it over with," Shikamaru muttered, peeling open his eye as Naruto's warm hands left his, a nurse taking up position next to his bed.

"Before the police question you, I have a few." An older woman came in, grey skirting through her hair, and a stark white outer cotton coat, so damn stiff it probably could cut glass. The doctor is in. Shikamaru mused to himself.

"Mr. Nara where are your parents? The hospital, your teacher and your friend have been unable to contact them." That's why Naruto had my phone…

Shikamaru furrowed his brow for a moment before the answer swam up, "India. Mom had a business trip, dad went with her. They left yesterday." I didn't tell Naruto because I wanted to surprise him with the empty house…

"Do you know where they are staying?"

"It's somewhere in the house. Um…" there was another thought trying to work it's way out. "Mr. Akimichi is supposed to check in on me…"

"Crap! I forgot to call Chouji!" Naruto yelped from his settled spot by the wall. "I'll go call them," he muttered, ignoring the perturbed look from the doctor.

"Mr. Nara, you have quite a few superficial injuries, bruises and contusions, three bruised upper ribs on your right side, and a rather large concussion, which is why your world is probably a little wobbly right now and the nausea." She paused to make sure that Shikamaru was still following. "I'm prescribing mild pain medication for your ribs and general condition, but you can't take them yet as they will make you tired. I'm sorry to say but we've been trying to rouse you for a bit. With a concussion like yours we need to keep you awake for a while so that you don't slip into something worse." Don't want to be in a coma…

"When can I leave?" He cut her off. He was edgy and slightly confused and didn't want to listen to this woman anymore, and he certainly didn't want to be here any longer.

"Chouji and his dad are on the way here. Mr. Akimichi says he has some form from your dad so he can make decisions for you with them not here." Naruto re-entered the room and met Shikamaru's eye.

"Good, we can get all the paperwork sorted then."

Shikamaru stared up at the ceiling. "Can the cops wait until Mr. Akimichi get's here?"

"That sounds reasonable." Guy sensei murmured, Shikamaru had forgotten the man was there for a moment. "I'll tell them." Footsteps told him that the man had left.

"Can he sit up?" Naruto asked someone, maybe the doctor, maybe the efficient and silent nurse, Shikamaru wasn't sure. "It's just…if you want him to stay awake, it will be easier if he sits up…"

Shikamaru almost smiled, Naruto is smarter than people think, especially when given an incentive.

"Just be careful of moving him." A soft answered, the silent nurse…

Then Naruto was there helping him shift, something he was embarrassingly incapable of doing on his own. He was gasping with pain and excursion by the time his back met the metal backboard of the bed, though Naruto had been as gentle as it was possible to be.

Shikamaru was just catching his breath when an anxious Chouji came barging in, a petrified expression on his face, replaced with mild relief at the sight of Shikamaru conscious if nothing else.

He was followed quickly by the rotund Mr. Akimichi, whose ever present smile had finally been wrenched from his face for the first time in Shikamaru's memory. Shikamaru had been able to explain his injuries but there was no more time before two uniformed officers stepped into the small hospital room the same carefully schooled expression on their faces.

Shikamaru found each hand enveloped, one by his best friend, the other by his boyfriend, and the comforting sure presence of his father's friend just there, at the foot of his bed and he felt safe for the first time in recent memory. Gathering strength from his friends he explained what had happened in full detail to the police who wrote down the names and actions of those involved.

"Is there any reason that these boys would have targeted you?" A bored sounding voice asked after.

Curtly, Shikamaru responded. "Yeah, they were bored and I am gay."

The second officer's head shot up and he fully took in Shikamaru for the first time. "They know you are gay?"

Naruto rolled his eyes, "They are part of the group that had hounded him since middle school after a former friend outted him."

"What is this?" Mr. Akimichi asked, clearly Chouji had not shared the information with his dad, and Shikamaru suddenly found himself close to tears. Chouji told his father everything, but he kept Shikamaru's secret to himself.

"Ino overheard Shikamaru telling me back in middle school, she blabbed." Chouji said, resting an uncertain gaze on his dad.

"That's why you boys are so standoffish with her now…" the man mused. He didn't seem to care one iota about the fact that his son's best friend was homosexual; he just was concerned with the path they had eventually led to this development.

"So you have been the victim of harassment from these boys and others for how long?"

"Four years…?" He mumbled, "It's bullying, every kid gets bullied." He tried to shrug but gasped as the throb of pain that the simple motion brought.

"This is not bullying." The officer said sternly, "and that should never be tolerated either. By you are saying that they knew you were gay and targeting you because of it."

Shikamaru nodded, "The first word out of their mouths was 'faggot.'"

Mr. Akimichi inhaled sharply, while Naruto squeezed down on Shikamaru's hand and Chouji made a strange gargling sound in the back of his throat.

"So this wasn't just assault." The officer pointed out, "This was a hate crime."

Shikamaru pushed air rather forcefully out of his nose. It was true though. He was one of those kids you hear about now. He had happily had his head in the sand because he just had to get through school and he had enough people around him to help him through to do that. But not anymore. No amount of long sleeves in summer or pretending to not have heard would get him out of this one.

He gulped and Naruto slid an arm around his shoulder and pulled the suddenly unresponsive boy into his side as he sat down on the edge of the hospital bed.

The first cop, who had remained quiet until now asked a little aggressively, "And you're the boyfriend?"

Naruto's eyes were defiant and he stared the man down.

His eyes narrowed at the two before he scoffed and turned on his heel, leaving his partner in the room.

The remaining cop sighed, and ran fingers through his hair. "Here," he handed Shikamaru a business card declaring him to be named Yamato, "we are going to need evidence beyond your word, but if this has been going on for three years, but we'll check the video cameras at you school to see if we can show them leaving after this happened, and I'm heading over to his house now. If you vomited on him there is a chance we can make a direct link."

Shikamaru just nodded, tipping his head in thanks, wishing he could go to sleep.

Shikamaru had been allowed to leave the next day. Mr. Akimichi had made sure everything was squared away with the hospital and his parents had been tracked down in India and were a bit bogged down by rain but would be home within the next few days.

The Akimichis had wanted Shikamaru to stay with them but he had flat out refused. He just wanted to be home, in his own bed and Naruto was staying with him making sure medicine was taken on time and doing light cooking (the Akimichis sent food over and the blonde really just had to heat it up).

It was Monday of the next school week now, and the pair of them were returning to school. Yamato had called to tell them that the ringleader had been arrested, while the other two, who technically hadn't down anything had been read the riot act and freaked out but released.

Shikamaru knew that it would be all over school that the little fag has snitched. And it wasn't like he had gone to a teacher; the cops had hauled another kid away. He was going to be in for it in a massive way, but hiding out here wasn't going to help. He had got a call from his parents last night, stuck in a layover but they should be home by noon and frankly, he didn't want to have to deal with his mother's crying and his dad's betrayed look, wanting to know why his son had never told him the extent of the problems at school.

Shikamaru sat on the edge of his bed, wearing just grey sweatpants as Naruto finished applying a new bandage to his rib cage. His hair was loose and laying on his back as he stared at his feet. Naruto sighed for a moment, wresting his forehead against his boyfriend's shoulder before pulling back and sighing again.

"You okay?" Shikamaru asked quietly and Naruto took a brush to Shikamaru's smooth locks, the teen not being able to put his arms up that high without pain quite yet.

"I don't want to deal with them." He said softly, putting the brush down and gathering the hair together. He couldn't manage Shikamaru's gravity defying pony so it would have to be a low one against the nape of his lover's neck.

"Well, them or my mother…?" Shikamaru tried to joke but it fell flat.

Naruto managed one "Ha" before giving up. Instead he leaned forward and gently kissed a bruise just where his neck slipped into shoulder. "Let's run away, and forget all of them…" he muttered, pulling back and completing the hair tie.

"That is so incredibly tempting right now." Shikamaru murmured.

He turned to face Naruto, his eye no longer swollen, though surrounded by a faded bruise a mix of noxious green and yellow. He could see the pain that Naruto felt in the swirling blue eyes; they had been duller since that day. And dammit no! Just no! They weren't taking that away.

As quickly as he was able he pushed himself to his feet. "Come on, let's go!"

"Shikamaru don't push yourself…" Naruto had been quickly on his feet beside the dark haired teen.

"Nope," Shikamaru shook his head widely. "I'm done. I'm just totally done."

"With what?"

"They been making me feel like shit for years. Making me think I was worthless. Making me think it was just my lot in life to get through, like someone had to be a punching bag for the school and I had just pulled the short straw." He rounded on Naruto and put his hands on his shoulders, "Fuck them!" He said a slight hysterical edge to his voice. "Fuck them and their pretentions and their 'morals' and their high and mighty gospel. Fuck them and their belief that I am wrong because I am different. Just fuck them. Because this?" and he gestured to his battered face and torso, "Isn't a reflection of me. It's a reflection of them. This is their fault and their doing even if they didn't throw the bunch because they created the culture that made it okay to do so. I am their mirror and they are damn well going to see what they've done!" He knew his smile was on the edge of manic but as Naruto's eyes shift from concern to surprise to admiration to determination, lightening every step of the way like the tip of a sunrise, Shikamaru didn't care.

"Alright!" Naruto cheered, "Let's show 'em!"

The pair quickly got dressed, Naruto having to help Shikamaru get a shirt on over his head. Shikamaru had jotted a quick note to his parents when a honking car horn alerted the pair that Mr. Akimichi was there to drive them to school.

Shikamaru was flanked by Naruto and Chouji as he climbed the stairs into entrance of the school. The clamor of the hallway came to a screeching halt as the trio walked through the doorway. He saw girls flinch back at the fading bruises on his face and forearms. Students nudged their friends who had been turned away at their entrance and soon all eyes were trained on them. Head held high, the small group of students moved through the hallway.

No one student, aside from Naruto and Chouji, had fully understood what Shikamaru had faced over the years. All of them had heard a story or two, and assumed that that was it, that that had been the full extent of it. None of them would have thought it would come to this.

It had been mentioned in the newspapers, though Shikamaru's name had been withheld as he was a minor, but it didn't matter. It was a small town – everyone knew who they were talking about. So the students had read about years of torment at the hands of their fellow students. That it hadn't been one or two incidents over the years, that this had not been the first time he had been met with fists.

And the kicker was that their fellow student, who they had egged on with laughter when he taunted and jibed Shikamaru, was being charged with hate crimes.

Hate crimes.

Tormenting a student just because he belonged to a certain minority group in society, with that as the sole instigator, the usage of the vulgar slurs that all of them had heard chase the teen down hallways, sometimes thrown by their own mouths – that was a hate crime.

And the worst was to see him, defiance and determination radiating off of him wearing the evidence of their hatred on his face and body, in the slight hunch of his shoulders and stiffness of his torso that spoke of injuries that they couldn't see. It churned a few stomachs as they passed.

The school was a somber place that day and teachers and staff helped to keep in going, looking down in judgment at the students in the classrooms who had full knowledge of what had been occurring and no one had mentioned a thing or even participated in it. Strict and condescending was the rule of the day and lessons turned towards discrimination seemed to have been planned out by teachers across the gambit.

By lunch he could recognize shame in the eyes of my students but he felt nothing for them. They didn't matter. What mattered was Naruto's eyes had brightened, and that Chouji had lost that tormented look in his eyes when Shikamaru had explained in the car that morning that he was going to make sure that they all knew what they had done. Or that Kiba, slammed down a tray at their lunch table, lips curled in a snarl and staring down the couple of trouble maker friends of the arrested thug who may have been making their way towards the table where they were eating. Or Hinata sitting with them and walking them through the notes that she had compiled for the pair so that they didn't fall behind in their classes to badly – something no one else had thought to do – despite her overwhelming shyness, knowing that the eyes of the school were trained upon them.

Shikamaru looked around at his table of friends, who had been there for him throughout everything and still were with him now.

Naruto's hand found his under the table and laced their fingers together, squeezing gently.

For years his life had been hell with little spots of good things acting as a beacon against impending darkness. And as he met Naruto's eyes with a small smile he thought, it was time to fight and he had people at his sides and he wasn't going to be in darkness anymore, because a few people had cared. Things would get better…or worse…didn't matter. Because he wasn't alone.

Flaunting convention, and a few school rules, Shikamaru leaned forward and laid a gentle kiss against Naruto's lips that responded after only a second of surprise in a gentle kiss that felt like Naruto smelled, that part of his scent that he had never before found a name and that's because it had every name.

It was love and life and joy and comfortability and strength and determination and laughter.

It was home.

Kiba gave a hoot and a cheer.

Hinata blushed purple.

Chouji released a little chortle.

And Naruto? He smiled at Shikamaru, banishing forever that weird stomach-rag feeling that had plagued him for years because when faced with trauma, minds become clear. And Shikamaru knew, Naruto was It, with a capital I. The one who would remain at his side, the one that Shikamaru would work for and with. The one who remained at his side in hospital rooms and cared for him when he was sick.

The one for whom life was inherently simple despite how complicated his own looked.

When they were in middle school, he stood up for the kind boy, the sudden hatred of whom he could not understand, even though they had not even been friends.

When they were freshman, he had kissed that same boy who had brought butterflies to his stomach. Being gay or straight were just words people used to him. He knew that Shikamaru made him feel giddy and he wanted to feel that every day.

And now, he had become the person Shikamaru needed him to be, because there was no one else to do it. The forever irresponsible blonde and been the foundation that had kept Shikamaru from spinning right off the surface of the world. Getting him help, asking the nurses how to properly bandage Shikamaru's injuries at home, helping Shikamaru move about even when the teen lashed out in frustration but he had remained calm and steady when Shikamaru could not.

Naruto was It.

And It was home.

This was rough to write, but my brain wouldn't stop...maybe it was like - you're not going to have a computer until February so I'm going to make you write a ton of stuff now! Either way it works out well for you guys so I hope that this one-shot said something for you and while it ended fluffy it wasn't nearly as fluff-tastic as the rest have been.

PLEASE, leave a review of what you thought, good bad and ugly. When I write stuff like this I become very concerned with how it is received. So please take a minute to write a sentence or two to tell me how you're feeling after reading this. Thanks!