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 one is AU – high school.

Image to be found here:

nooneym. deviantart. (com/) art/ Busted-in-the-Closet-190655953

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words: Story Four

Busted in the Closet

'Why do I let Ino talking me into things like this?'Shikamaru mused to himself as he slinked along the outskirts of yet another high school party. The beer bongs were long and the wits were short and really he'd rather be just about anywhere else right now, as long as it was quiet.

"Lighten up Shikamaru!" Kiba's voice screamed at him as the soccer player ran by, "It's a party! Live a little!"

Faceless cheers chorused around him and made the resident genius roll his eyes, but throw out a quick grin with a jerk of his chin and a partially raised hand.

Once Kiba was gone so too was Shikamaru's false smile. He slipped down another hallway and spotted one of the many closets populating the sprawling home of the Yamanaka family, rich off of a wedding planning business that her father had grown out of a simple flower shop.

Smirking to himself he quickly slipped inside to sit quietly against the wall, smiling genuinely as the soft click told him that the door had closed and latched, seperating him from the rest of the nut cases at the party. Now Ino couldn't get on his case for leaving early and no one else would annoy him.

He rested his head against the wall, prepared to wait out the next few hours in blessed solitude.

But it was not to be.

After several peaceful minutes there was a ruckus outside. High pitched screams of girls, guttural bellows of boys and the booming barks of Kiba's dog rang through the house. Footsteps stomped everywhere at a fast pace as though chasing down something.

Light pierced his eyes and the door to his voluntary solitary confinement was yanked open. He saw a shock of blonde hair before the door was hastily pulled shut behind the newcomer. Shikamaru didn't have time to warn the boy of his company before he had turned around and tripped over Shikamaru's own feet.

He gasped in pain as a boney knee slammed into his shin with full body weight, before being followed by the entire force of a rambunctious teenage boy plus gravity and momentum. All the air forced its way out of his lungs as an errant elbow slammed unseen into his ribcage.

A muffled yelp came from the instigator of all of this pain, dampened by the fact that his face had buried itself in Shikamaru's shoulder.

In the milliseconds since his privacy had been invaded, Shikamaru's quick mind had worked out several things:

Naruto Uzamaki had crashed the party.

Naruto Uzamaki had been caught crashing said party.

Naruto Uzamaki had run from the hoard of inebriated teenagers (and one dog) and sought a place to hide.

He had a lapful of a panicking Naruto Uzamaki.

Hearing footsteps as they continued to stomp around, Shikamaru acted quickly. One arm wrapped around Naruto's mid-section stopping the imminent thrashing of limbs before they could even begin, while the other reached up and cupped the back of Naruto's head, keeping his face planted firmly into Shikamaru's shoulder and muffling any sound.

Placing his lips next to the blonde's ear, Shikamaru's hissed quietly, "The more you move, the more noise you make, the easier it is for them to find you. Let it die down and I'll sneak you out later."

Naruto's body had frozen stiff as Shikamaru spoke and he could feel the smaller boy's tension. His body was literally trembling like mini-earthquakes were raging underneath his skin. Shaking hands buried themselves into Shikamaru's shirt for lack of anywhere else to go and the pair waited.

Hot moist air blew against his neck as Naruto settled down, his smaller body settling as a comfortable warmth just on top of him. For a strange moment Shikamaru pictured the boy as a blanket that he could curl up with for a nap but he pushed that image out as "Where is the little freak?!" echoed down the hall where they remained hidden.

The sudden break to their silence shocked Naruto into shifting, at which point Shikamaru discovered what it felt like for someone else to apply pressure below the belt as Naruto's knee sought the ground to push himself up.

On instinct though, Shikamaru's arms tightened around the form creating that wonderful feeling and a rather embarrasingly high pitched groan had him burying his own face into Naruto's shoulder, trying to muffle the noise, hoping that the other boy hadn't heard it.

He should have known better, everyone knew Naruto had the ears of a fox.

Naruto gulped audibly, "Shika...maru..." he whispered, surprisingly soft considering his nature, "Maybe I should get up now..."

With hands pushing against Shikamaru's chest, the blonde tried to once again push himself up, but he wasn't helping the situation in Shikamaru's lower regions, in fact all the attempted shifting was making matters worse and Shikamaru was sporting a rapidly hardening dick.

"Stop!" He gasped, feelings of arousal and fear and surprise and about a million other things all at once coursed through him, and he was just trying to hang on for dear life to something solid to help keep his feet on the ground – which just so happened to be Naruto. His voice came out ragged and his eyes met Naruto's, the blue shinning impossibly bright in the darkness. He had been expecting revulsion, horror or something of the like. But instead the eyes of the school outcast held concern, and worry and possibly a touch of fear, and something else that made Shikamaru's heart pound hard against his chest: interest.

For once in his life Shikamaru decided to take the initiative. He shifted his hand from around his back to the blonde's shoulder before pulling his own upper body up to meet Naruto's lips with his own.

It was a bit awkward, as first kisses tended to be. Noses bumped in the dark, and lips were occasionally missed, but Shikamaru felt his shirt tug up as Naruto's hands fisted ever deeper into the fabric. His own fingers were burying themselves into hair when light once again permeated his chosen hiding place.

His eyes snapped open, though he didn't know when they had closed, and heat flooded his face as he took in none other than Sasuke Uchiha, essentially the King of their grade, witnessing their personal moment.

Naruto pulled back, and terror flashed in his eyes before being replaced with that rock solid determination that seemed to radiate off of the boy most days. He glared Sasuke down as though daring the boy to say something, never mind that there was nothing whatsoever intimidating about his position, straddling Shikamaru's waist, hands so twisted into fabric that he couldn't free them.

With a rush of courage that he didn't know he had, Shikamaru smirked at their audience. "We're busy. Go away."

With a jerk of his leg, he kicked the door closed, and laughed lightly at the yelp and cursing followed.

Naruto finally suceeded in freeing his hands and looked down at his partner in crime with sad eyes, "It's not that simple..."

Shikamaru cut the other off, instead pulled Naruto's head down to rest against his chest, "Don't make it complicated. Complicated things are troublesome."

"But..." Naruto tried again.

"Shh." Shikamaru shushed the boy, "We've got about two minutes before Sasuke snaps out of it and gets reinforcements. Let's enjoy the silence a little longer."

Shikamaru was right, slightly over two minutes later, Naruto had kept his eyes on his watch because he didn't know where else to look, the sound of many filled the hallway.

But those two minutes before, they were already worth all of the trouble he'd get in when he opened that door.