The Proposal, a naruto fanfic

Summary: …or how Naruto got platonic-married to one of his friends and in the end didn't regret it at all.

Warnings: Naruto's logic, mild violence, fear of the female, general craziness, TWT (timeline, what timeline?)

A/N: Another one of my pointless plotbunnies that fluffed up until they were basically postable. Don't expect much substance. It's a time-killer. FYI, I imagine them about fifteen or sixteen here, but in a society where they are considered adults.

The Proposal

"Ne, Naruto…?"

"What's that, Shikamaru?"

The answer wasn't immediately forthcoming, so Naruto thought he would open his eyes and look at Shika. The guy wasn't easy to read, but Naruto could at least get the idea if there was something really bothering him.

The sun glared right into his eyes. Naruto shut them quickly, and whined. He rolled over on the grass, pushed up on one elbow and rubbed his eyes with the heel of his free hand. Ouch, ouch. That was nasty. That was mean. The sun wasn't his friend anymore – and it looked like they would have such a great, low-key day off together.

Shika at least was his friend, even if he was being weird and evasive.

Shika sighed, as if it was too much trouble to put his ideas into words, and then said: "Will you marry me?"

"Wha?!" Naruto leapt to his feet and waved his hands around, trying to express how absurd and not okay that was. In the end, he managed to verbalise: "I'm not gay, Shika." He felt a little bad for disappointing his friend, but he had had no idea Shika felt like that about him, and not that it wasn't okay, but it wasn't really Naruto's thing. And Shika was a really great friend, but Naruto really only liked him as a friend. So. Ehm. That.

Shikamaru rolled his eyes and spat out a blade of grass he had been chewing on. "I'm not asking you to have sex with me. Just to marry me."

Naruto looked at him through one eye, exaggerating his doubt. "I'm not sure you understand how marriage works."

Shika sighed again, this time much more heavily, and his eyes darkened the way some shinobi's did just before they entered a battle. "Look, Ino and Temari have been fighting over which one will marry me, and I didn't care in the beginning, but then they tried involve me… then they forced involvement on me… and now it's become…"

"Troublesome?"

"…unendurable," Shikamaru finished, genuine despair somehow creeping into his grumble.

Naruto reflected on Shikamaru's proposal. At times like these, he looked so much like a four-year-old making the life-changing decision about whether he wanted chocolate or vanilla ice cream (with the changing facial expression and the chewing on the inside of his cheek) that it was very hard to believe he wasn't clinically retarded.

That was why it always horribly jarred Shikamaru when Naruto came out of that state to say something inspired.

Like right now. "So, you want to marry me out of laziness?"

That wasn't entirely fair, because Naruto didn't know what it was like to have two loud, aggressive blonde kunoichi fighting for his body and his seed, but he dismissed the whole matter with a shrug. The truth was that he could have found a civilian to marry to forestall this whole production, although that carried with it the onus of disappointing his parents and having to deal with a civilian in his business. Civilians were finicky. The Nara did have a few in their clan, and Shikamaru had learnt a long time ago to stay out of their way. They made him want to drown kittens, or something equally as evil. Going missing had seemed like a viable choice at one point when he was nine and watched his cousin come down with a nasty case of whipped.

Alternatively, Shikamaru did have the right to refuse to marry either of the girls. If he didn't mind the resulting feud with the Yamanaka (and the consequent break-up of the Ino-Shika-Cho team, in their generation if not in the previous one as well) and Suna (although chances were that Naruto would manage to smooth that one over by using his Friendship Jutsu on Gaara).

Shikamaru glanced up at the clouds. He refused to believe that Naruto didn't have a Friendship Jutsu. It was about the only thing aside from sheer mythology that could explain him.

"It's not worth the trouble," Shikamaru summarised eventually.

Naruto opened his mouth and took a deep breath, but then he hesitated. He hunched as if an invisible weight had been dropped onto his shoulders. After a while of staring sideways at the generic treetops he shrugged, pulled himself straight again and gave a close-eyed grin. "Sure, Shikamaru. I'll marry you."

Stunned, Shikamaru gaped at his tentative friend.

He really hadn't expected a positive answer. Now was the highest time to retract his proposal if he wanted to minimise the damage he had unthinkingly wrought through what he had thought would be taken as sarcasm, or an off-colour joke at worst.

But, now that he thought about it, watching the shadows hiding in the nooks and crannies of Naruto's expression, it occurred to him that he might have out-thought himself on this one. The reasoning was solid; the concept of marriage of convenience well established, and there were many potential benefits for both of them.

Shikamaru thought of his Mother, and inquired: "Do you think I could move into your apartment?"

Naruto's face expressed doubt of Shikamaru's intelligence, which he took somewhat personally. It was the one facet of himself he was proud of, and which he wasn't used to being doubted.

"It's barely big enough for one," Naruto pointed out. "Most days I don't get hot water."

Both were reasonable objections (the absence of hot shower after a bloody mission couldn't be abided), and Shikamaru perhaps should have figured that out but, in his defense, he had never been to Naruto's place, and had only an indistinct idea of his address.

"Then I'll hunt for apartments that would fit both of us." Shikamaru glanced up, resting his chin on the ball of his hand. "You don't mind living with me, do you."

Naruto looked at him. His eyes were older than Shikamaru imagined they could get, and an unfamiliar line formed around the corners of his mouth. There was, it seemed, a lot more to Naruto than even Shikamaru had anticipated.

This was already becoming exciting.

Shikamaru felt slightly sick, but in an almost good way.

"If you find someone willing to rent to me…" Naruto left that sentence fragment hang and looked to the side. There wasn't anything there but some trees and a cumulus flying above them, and obviously the whole point of it was turning away from Shikamaru.

As if Shikamaru had ever bought into the permanently-happy-joker façade.

Naruto's darkness was the toothy kind, and Shikamaru was the type to run his fingers over the sharpest tips and edges of those teeth just to see if he would get cut.

Shikamaru had the arguably unfortunate tendency to bite down on the juiciest mystery around and not let go until he had figured it out. He hadn't meant to do anything of the sort when he had set out for cloud-watching today, or when he had let Naruto sit with him, or when he had engaged in conversation… not even really when he had speciously proposed marriage.

But now there was the mystery – there was the challenge, and Shikamaru couldn't not rise to it.

Even if he had to empty his secret accounts to acquire a property of his own.

"Yeowch!" Naruto yowled, hoping that his loud reaction would help lift Sakura-chan's mood, and she wouldn't hit him again.

Sakura-chan raised her fist.

Naruto cringed.

Sakura-chan let her fist down, let out a hellhound-like growl, and satisfied herself with kicking Naruto's ankle. It smarted. She knew exactly where to strike to make sure it did. At this point Naruto usually let out a stream of apologies, here and there interspersed with curses, which just got him hit or kicked again.

He and Sakura-chan had a routine. They were friends. She didn't get the point of cloud-watching, or puppy-racing or eating dares or… really anything fun whatsoever, but Naruto loved her sincerely and ardently and he would happily let her beat him up anytime she liked. Or. Okay. Maybe not happily. But he would let her anyway.

"I don't get this," Sakura-chan grumbled, perching on a chair and subjecting Naruto to a suspicious scrutiny, as though she were looking for signs of genjutsu. Or fever. "Are you stupid?!"

That sounded like a trick question. "You keep telling me I am," he complained. It was true enough. "It's mean, Sakura-chan, but everyone knows you're smart, so I guess you've gotta be right." Yeah. There. Let her try and argue her way out of that one.

She slammed her palm on top of the kitchen table, rattling the vase with the smelly pink flowers (probably a gift from Lee, that slick bastard) but not breaking anything, the way Tsunade-baba would in her place.

"Oh no. No. You're not getting out of this that easily!"

Naruto pouted and shrank in on himself. If he didn't need someone to explain the paperwork and the customs to him so he wouldn't make a complete idiot out of himself, he absolutely wouldn't even have told Sakura-chan that he was getting married until… ugh, maybe, like, their fifth anniversary. Or something.

"And now you're mad at me," he pointed out.

Sakura slapped the table again. The vase rattled and leaned over, and Naruto leapt up to rescue it from falling over the edge and shattering on the floor.

"Damn straight I'm mad at you, idiot! Why did you say yes?! You don't love him, you're not even attracted to him and, sure, he's got an unparalleled strategic mind and a Clan Headship waiting for him, and that would be really handy on your quest to become Hokage, but you're not the kind of person that would matter to. So why?"

Well… damn. That was exactly the thing he hadn't wanted Sakura-chan to ask. He should have known she would, though, because she was the smart one, and Naruto didn't have a hope of fooling her when she was paying attention. She was paying a lot of attention now.

Maybe he could tell her some half-truth? Something that would make marrying Shika sound… heh, not reasonable, he wasn't asking for miracles here, just maybe not completely insane?

In the end what came out of his mouth, mostly because he really, truly loved Sakura-chan, was the unvarnished truth.

"…because he asked."

Sakura-chan exploded.

"That's it?! That's the most retarded reason to marry somebody I've ever heard of!" She gripped Naruto's shoulders, stabbing her raptor-like talons into his poor, abused flesh. "You agreed to tie yourself to that lazy ass just because he asked?!"

Naruto did. Well, that and the fact that Shika was his friend, and also the way Shika had looked genuinely distressed, and a little bit because Naruto believed that living with Shika might be… nice. Shika was cool and laid-back, and if he could make it so that Naruto would be accepted into a nice place with hot water and electricity… well, those were all really very good things.

Maybe he should have said this all to Sakura-chan, but he wasn't sure she wouldn't react by offering to let him live with her, and he loved her lots, but he didn't want to live with her. Emphatically.

Instead, he just dislodged Sakura-chan's hands and pointed out: "Well… it's not like anyone else ever will."

Sakura-chan made the face like a fish, opening and closing her mouth a lot, without making a single sound. Naruto guessed that this was the time for a strategic retreat, so he vamoosed.

He had real good ears, though, so from the outside of the house he could hear Sakura-chan talking to herself.

"What." There was a thump and a following crash of the vase finally falling to the floor. "I'm going to hit someone. It'll probably be Shikamaru."

Naruto hoped she wouldn't, because Shika didn't have nearly as thick a head as he did. Nevertheless, he summoned Gamatatsu and sent him to the Nara compound with a warning.

What really stumped Tsunade was the fact that Naruto hadn't told her.

She first heard of the idea yesterday, but she had been drunk and dismissed it as hallucination, or alternatively a hoax, but here it was, black on white, a report from the administration that Nara Shikamaru had applied for a domestic partnership license for himself and Uzumaki Naruto, with a heap of legalese on the topic of not uniting their clans.

"I'm a little surprised he went as far as that," Shikaku mused. "I would have thought he would just take the Uzumaki name and give up the Headship. It is not as though he wanted it for anything but the challenge of it, and I expect that motivation would last him for six months on the outside."

"They're both tricky boys," Jiraiya mused, leaning deeper over Tsunade's desk, less so to distinguish the writing and more to appreciate her cleavage.

She bopped him on the head for the principle of it.

While he whined in pain, partially embedded into the floor, she surveyed the report once more. The wrongness of it niggled at her; she was pretty sure this wasn't a prank on Naruto's part, and the little Nara wasn't the pranking type. Leastways, up until now he hadn't shown himself to be the pranking type. It was quite possible that he amused himself with pranks on a level that was imperceptible to the average Konoha citizen.

Come to think of it there was that odd outbreak of badgers a couple of years ago. And last autumn, that one farmer known for being verbally abusive to young people had all his fruit mysteriously grown in shapes of genitals.

Tsunade paled as she realised what the union of these two hell-raisers would mean for the village, and decided there was not enough sake on the continent to deal with that.

"They are both my shinobi," she declared firmly. Her voice almost didn't waver. "I do have the power to forbid this."

"In theory," Shikaku agreed, stapling his fingers over his knee, cool as snow – absolutely unbothered by his son's intention of espousing the resident jinchuuriki. "But in practice… well, the clans may take this as you attempting to meddle in their business."

Even as coolly as he said it, Tsunade could clearly hear the threat in it; she was welcome to try enforcing her veto, but Shikaku would be unhappy with her on behalf of the Nara, and she could take it as read that the unhappiness of the Yamanaka and the Akimichi would follow. It was a bleak prospect, and Tsunade didn't fool herself into thinking it would stop there. These people were leaders; other clans would regard them as examples.

"And," Jiraiya added grimly, "that is not even taking Naruto's reaction into account."

"The brat will get over it," Tsunade grumbled, sulking perhaps a little more than the acting Hokage should.

"I do not doubt that," her erstwhile teammate agreed with deceptive mildness. "He's had a lot of practice getting over much injustice. I'm sure he would forgive you."

"I'm trying to protect him!"

Jiraiya looked at her skeptically. "By denying him the right to marry the person of his choice?"

Tsunade sulked some more, while pulling out her emergency bottle of sake, which she kept inside a storage seal tag stuck to the bottom of the top drawer in her desk and masked with a genjutsu. She poured herself a cup.

Then she noticed Jiraiya staring at her with an intensity that was a clear sign that he was trying to communicate something without alerting the witness to it. Bitterly, Tsunade gifted him with a cup as well.

Shikaku didn't seem to be paying the proceedings any attention, lost deep inside his thoughts, but Tsunade wasn't in a position to make enemies needlessly, so she preemptively poured a cup of her precious, hard-won, tragically finite secret stash of sake for him, too.

She and Jirayia drank. Shikaku contemplated, letting the precious liquid slowly evaporate into the atmosphere.

"I didn't even know he was gay," said Tsunade.

"He's not." Jiraiya shook his head and raised his hand to stave off her protests, never mind that she had the application for licence as exhibit A. "Trust me on that one."

She shuddered as it occurred to her how the old pervert might have come by this information. "Don't tell me any details."

"Eh." Jiraiya scratched the back of his neck – a gesture he had adopted from Naruto, and mostly used unknowingly when thinking about the boy. It was freaky, but also a little adorable. "He's not even bi. Not really. More of an I-try-anything-once guy, but not into it." He sifted through memories of their learning trip, pursing his lips as he considered if this instance or that could have been a hint of something. "I could maybe see this happening if he fell arse-over-teakettle-stupid in love with that Nara… but he didn't."

Shikaku shrugged and finally attended to his poor, abandoned, waiting cup. "Well, Shikamaru is sure as death not getting married for love."

Jiraiya turned his head to the side and gave Tsunade an almost pleading look. "What's happening, hime?"

Tsunade scowled, feeling as if the solid earth under her feet had suddenly fallen away. It hurt and frightened her, but she had to admit: "I don't know."

His Mother was flipping insane.

It was a fact of life for Shikamaru, but it seemed especially pronounced and inescapable today.

The crazy woman was holding a pair of chopsticks and alternatively using them to stir the mass that was supposed to become udon through some culinary magic, and gesturing at Shikamaru. A fly buzzed past, and she let one of the sticks fly, pinning the insect to the wall.

The other chopstick went straight through the heart of a titmouse outside the window. The bird flopped sadly and deadly into the grass.

Shikamaru very quietly shuddered.

Glancing sideways at his Father, he determined that the man was much more skilled at hiding his reactions to his wife's insanity. He didn't even twitch as she reached for a new pair of chopsticks, pretending to be wholly engrossed in his go board.

"Is this about Ino?" Shikamaru's Mother asked because, despite all the apparent madness, she wasn't actually stupid.

"Not really," Shikamaru replied lackadaisically, even though he knew it would just make her madder.

Whatever. His life philosophy was maximum comfort through minimum effort while optimalising gain, which made his upcoming matrimony about the most logical thing he could do aside from getting hitched to Chouji, and Chouji had quite definitively told him no and refused to share chips with him for fear of catching cooties for the next two weeks. So, Naruto. Yeah.

He was sure his Father told her what was going on, and he was sure it had been on purpose. He would just bet the man was getting his kicks out of this; otherwise he would have vacated the premises at the first hint of Yoshino's rage.

"Shikamaru… If you… like… him…" His Mother cringed and clenched her fists so hard the chopsticks fell to the ground in several broken pieces. "…then go out. Date for a bit. Have fun." She looked like it pained her to say even that much. As if an association with Naruto was somehow embarrassing (admittedly, Naruto embarrassed himself daily, but that was a whole other matter, and Shikamaru had never felt like it reflected on him in any way). "But you'll inherit the Headship one day. You will have to father an heir."

"I'll think about it," he replied.

In fact, he already had six or seven possible solutions thought up. His favourite was accepting the Clan Headship for about two years, to see how he would rise to the challenge, and then, once it would start boring him, just handing it over. Eager cousins were always aplenty.

His Father blinked at him, startled. He moved a stone on the board. Then he frowned.

His Mother, under the impression that she had won the argument, when she had in fact lost soundly through allowing herself to be placated by a cliché, went off to… gossip with the other women or something equally as banal and wifely.

The possibly-udon bubbled menacingly in her wake.

Shikamaru decided to move up the date of the wedding. It would be a drag if his Mother had time to do anything before the whole situation was a done deal.

Shikamaru hated waking up at the crack of dawn, but needs must.

He arrived at Naruto's apartment without meeting anybody he knew, which he counted as an achievement, since he had to sneak out of the Nara compound. Sloppy guards – or, more likely, his Father's intervention, which Shikamaru just decided to take as tacit support. Well, more like a decision to tolerate his progeny's new and interesting excess, because it looked like it could be a source of amusement in the future.

Shikamaru decided to take what he got. He knocked on the door.

Naruto opened almost promptly. He squinted through sleep-puffy eyes and then glanced over his shoulder at the clock. "Shika… what are you doing here at five to six in the morning?" Then his face morphed into concern. "Did ya get kickhhhheaaad out by your folks 'cause of me?" It would have been touching, if not for the jaw-breaking yawn there in the middle.

"Get dressed," Shikamaru ordered. "We're doing it now."

Naruto blinked. He cast another glance over his shoulder, just to make sure he had seen the time right, and then looked at Shikamaru doubtfully. "At six in the morning?"

Shikamaru decisively nodded. "We want to avoid the rush."

Naruto groaned and grumbled several half-intelligible phrases, most of them very crude and probably physically impossible. Shikamaru was very determined to never even try to find out if some of those things could be done. They sounded painful.

"Water," Naruto said from the only room of the apartment. "Kitchen. Uh, ramen."

Shikamaru went to the kitchen and put on the water. He expected the cup ramen would be in the cupboard; he wasn't disappointed. The cupboard was full of cup ramen. He decided they would have Chouji over for dinner every other day. Chouji's cooking was very good.

The water boiled, and Shikamaru pured it over the debatably-palatable dried mass inside the cup just when Naruto entered, bleary-eyed and messy-haired (more so than usually, which was a little scary), but dressed in a basic chuunin uniform sans the vest. "Uhm… three more minutes? Whyyy?" he inquired, tears gathering in his eyes.

Shikamaru mentally noted that this was all the warning a sane person would need to call the whole thing off. He blamed him Mother's genes for not changing his mind.

"Go and get your hitai-ate," he commanded. "And your coat. We'll have the reception at Ichiraku."

Apparently, as a means of motivating Naruto, Ichiraku worked really well. Shikamaru felt the corners of his mouth lift. This was going to work out.

"Two chicken, two beef and one shrimp," said Naruto-kun, loudly but uncertainly.

It was less than he would usually order, and Teuchi exchanged worried looks with his daughter.

"Chicken ramen for me," added Nara-kun, slipping into a seat next to Naruto.

Both boys looked a little startled, a little pale, but there had been no significant news on the gossip front, so Teuchi gave Ayame the sign and disappeared into the back to attend to the pots.

Ayame leaned her elbows on the counter and smiled in that guileless way of hers. "What's the occasion?"

"…married…" he could hear Naruto mumble.

"What?!" screeched Ayame.

"Just got married," reiterated Nara-kun far more distinctly.

There was a while of silence. Crickets chirped. Somewhere far off a wheelbarrow wheel clattered on a stone in the road. Naruto's seat creaked as he nervously wriggled in it.

"You…" Ayame cleared her throat. "Uh. Erm… congratulations?"

Teuchi admired his daughter's poise. He, in fact, was still gaping at the vat of noodles. What in the name of the Thundering God?

"Thank you," Nara-kun said placidly.

"This is our reception," Naruto informed them.

"In that case…" Ayame took a deep breath, and then grinned and clapped her hands. "First five bowls are on the house!"

Teuchi had to give it to the precious girl – she had the heart of a business-woman. Best customer and beloved pseudo-nephew Naruto might have been, but letting him eat all he could in one sitting was a little too expensive for a wedding gift.

Still, Teuchi added another ladle of chicken to both first bowls.

Then he reconsidered, and took a bottle of sake to the counter for a toast. Toast was a must, and, well, there was no better way of getting all the information than pouring alcohol down his targets' throats.

Shikamaru knew better than to refuse the invitation to dinner from his parents, when it was delivered to his hands by his father's favourite deer, Fuki, and was written out to both him and Naruto.

Now he wished he had taken his life into his hands and refused it anyway.

He was sitting by his Father's right hand, on his Mother's left, opposite Naruto. Naruto kept casting him increasingly angrier looks. The jinchuuriki was completely out of his depth at the table of a Clan Head, but he had never let anything of the sort intimidate him. He had yelled at Kage and talked down berserkers in the past – Shikamaru's parents probably weren't a big step up from that.

"Do you like the meal, Uzumaki-san?" Yoshino asked, and gobbled up a piece of fish.

"It's real good," Naruto replied, unabashed (Shikamaru maybe smiled a little at the artlessness). "But why d'you call me that?"

"What should I call you then?" she inquired, ignoring Shikaku's warning looks. It never ended well for the people who provoked Naruto.

And, Shikamaru thought with a scowl, if she was trying to sow enmity, he would be placing himself firmly on Naruto's side in this. Naruto was a guest.

"Naruto, I guess? People who don't know me mostly call me rude things, but I don't suppose Shikamaru's Mum would be that kinda person."

Huh, he was nervous. Shikamaru only realised this now, trying to figure out why Naruto's street-accent came back so thickly.

"Well, that just shows you don't meet the right kind of people," Yoshino said and…

…and Naruto blew his top.

"Is this about how I'm not good enough for your son?!"

Yoshino, startled, jumped backwards off her chair, as if Naruto had gone full-on Kyuubi on her.

"Believe me, Lady, you're far from the first poohead to tell me I'm worthless and I should die because my presence is dirtying this village," Naruto rose to his feet and pressed his palms to the table in between the bowls and the cups and the cutlery. "You know what? Next time you feel like someone stole your only child, go down the Kaigara Road to the three-story house with the face falling off it, go inside, and adopt an orphan. Then you'll have a kid that you can control and mold how you like, and it will love you anyway, because living under your tyranny will still be hundred times better than having no one at all." He paused.

Then he bowed, said "thank you for the meal," in a perfectly respectful way, and walked out of the clan compound.

Shikamaru's Father slowly, carefully set his chopsticks down across the top of his bowl, and steepled his fingers together. "I think I like him."

Yoshino sniffed. "Yes, yes. Fine."

Shikamaru gaped.

His Mother shrugged. "He's a tough little firecracker, and he'll keep you on your toes, pekopeko. That's the most important thing. He won't let you climb into your shell and ossify."

Shikamaru had no idea what was happening, and he didn't like it. He liked it even less when he became completely certain that his Father was silently laughing at him.

His Mother patted his shoulder. "You must tell your husband that he's welcome in our home any time."

Shikamaru had thought he was accustomed to his Mother's insanity.

He hated it when this happened.

"Ne, Iruka-sensei," Naruto said, waltzing into the Mission Room, "can you give me something that will keep me out of the village for two weeks or so?"

Iruka frowned, suspicion forming in his mind. "Did you make Sakura-chan angry again?"

Naruto sighed despondently. "She is so mad!"

Iruka sighed and shook his head, unsurprised. Young people always made love complicated. With young ninja it was about ten times more complicated yet. But Naruto was his favourite, and Iruka had actually witnessed Sakura-chan's Fist of Female Fury, so he sorted through the unassigned mission scrolls and handed over a patrol check that would usually go to one of the special jounin.

"Thanks, Iruka-sensei!" Naruto replied almost cheerfully, waving on his way out. "See ya when I get back!"

He was barely out of sight when there was the first sign of commotion.

"Sensei, sensei!"

Iruka closed his eyes for a moment, centered himself, and put on an equanimous expression an instance before Konohamaru-kun barreled in the door of the Mission Room, braked hard on the stone floor and managed to stop five inches before he would have bumped into the desk.

He was getting better at braking.

"Sensei!"

Moegi and Udon, never far behind their leader, appeared in the doorway and executed a complicated but well-trained maneuver that let them use each other's momentum to stop their own. Udon ended up briefly in a handstand, but he righted himself without an injury.

"Sensei!" Konohamaru yelled again.

"Yes?" Iruka said, notably in an indoor voice.

The three kids vibrated with excitement.

"Did you know that Naruto-niichan got married?!"

Iruka blinked. For a moment he floundered, without a reference for this completely whacked piece of dog poo that Konohamaru-kun tried to sell him. What kind of tasteless prank was this?

And when did Konohamaru-kun get so good at lying?

"Where did you hear that?" Iruka asked, and the sweetness of his voice freaked out even himself.

Konohamaru-kun once again proved that he was about as observant as a brick wall, because he didn't notice the danger. With a smile stretching from ear to ear he exclaimed: "Naruto-niichan told me!"

Well…

Maybe it wasn't Konohamaru-kun's prank after all. Maybe the true culprit here was Naruto. In which case…

"Thank you for telling me, students. If you'll excuse me, I have an irritating brat to catch and interrogate."

Fifteen days after he had set out, Naruto returned to Konoha. He reported to the Mission Desk, glad that there was a kunoichi on shift that most certainly wasn't Iruka-sensei. By now the rumour about the marriage would have spread everywhere (he had had to answer a few uncomfortable questions of a team from Sand that he had met on his way back) and Iruka-sensei was a problem he would like to tackle on another day.

Not that Iruka-sensei was a problem! No, not at all! He was just bound to be… upset.

Like Sakura-chan had been. Hitting Naruto and asking why he hadn't invited her to the ceremony. What ceremony? A formal exchanging of vows and a few signatures, it was just like being assigned an A-rank mission, only he wasn't getting paid for it.

Moreover, Naruto didn't know it was happening until about fifteen minutes before it was happening, and he didn't want Sakura there because she would have hit Shikamaru, and that would have derailed the whole thing.

So… home.

He trudged up the stairs to his apartment. Someone had been inside in the meantime, and Naruto steeled himself for destroyed stuff and hateful graffiti, but the apartment looked untouched. There was only a square card lying on the floor, two feet beyond the doorway.

He approached carefully, but it wasn't a tag, and he couldn't feel any chakra from it. When he picked it up, he found there was an address on it, and a scrawled 'come over when you get back'. Below, someone had crudely drawn a deer.

Naruto face-planted into his futon and decided to leave any moving until tomorrow. He still wasn't entirely sure this was really happening…

Aside from weapons, Naruto brought over a backpack's worth of personal possessions and a storage seal full of cup ramen. Shikamaru stared into their brand new, shared pantry for a while, and then simply placed the storage seal tag into the centre of the empty shelf.

"Wow!" Naruto exclaimed for the fifteenth time since he had trudged in through the front door. He investigated the living room, both bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom, and oohed and aahed with such childish amazement that it filled Shikamaru with second-hand resentment for the way Konoha treated their jinchuuriki.

"Naruto…"

Shikamaru fell silent when he entered the living room and found Naruto's posters hung on the walls, and Naruto himself perched on the edge of the sofa, scrutinising the game of go Shikamaru had set up on his rotating board table. The space looked like it belonged to the both of them, and it wasn't a bad look for it. Not at all.

Autumn breeze wafted in through the window, and the swallow-shaped chimes clinked.

"Yeah, Shika?"

Shikamaru flopped down onto the free part of the sofa and sank as low as he could. His back ached pleasantly. "Why did you agree to marry me?"

"That's… I… Only…" Naruto glumly dragged his fork along the bottom of the recently emptied ramen cup. "I always wanted a family. When I was little, I thought I'd make one when I grow up. But then I grew up, and I found out about Kyuubi, and I knew I would never have a family. No one wants to be saddled with that much bother."

Shikamaru didn't think that was strictly true, but he had a fair idea of how Naruto had come to this conclusion.

"I guess…" Naruto set the cup and chopsticks down onto the floor by the foot of the sofa (and that was a habit Shikamaru would try and get him to break, because that way lay slovenliness and an invasion of ants). "I guess it felt like you were giving me a chance on a dream I'd abandoned as impossible."

"Aren't you the specialist in making the impossible happen?"

"Looks like it, doesn't it?" Naruto grinned at him.

Shikamaru nodded and took a while to crunch through the information he had just been given, trying to figure out all the premises and implications and deduce the most favourable shape of their future together. His eyes narrowed, and it was all he could do not to pinch the bridge of his nose. "You want kids."

Naruto flinched, grin fading abruptly. He stared at Shikamaru, wide-eyed, and the shadows of resignation spread around his eyes. "That's not… really an option." He turned away, and nearly managed to hold the poise – until he raised his hand and wiped his cheeks into his sleeve.

Fuck, Shikamaru thought. It sounded oddly apt. Fuck.

This would have been easier if Naruto was some arsehole, or if he had married Shikamaru for the power and influence of his clan, or for money, or even for his abilities. But looking at him now, Shikamaru saw a terribly human child beaten into apathy toward his own fate, with all Naruto's rare, extraordinary diamond-hard will redirected into sheer insane altruism.

It was disquieting and a huge potential future problem, if Shikamaru was to be honest, but at the same time it made Shikamaru disgusted with himself for even considering heaping further strife on his… friend? Husband? Partner?

More like pet, the strictly rational part of him pointed out, side-eyeing his conscience.

"But you want it," Shikamaru whispered.

Naruto rose to his feet so rapidly that he might have well thunder-godded. He strode for the front door, wrenched it open so hard that one of the hinges was ripped out of the wall, and slammed it behind himself.

Fuck, Shikamaru repeated for the third time.

Iruka heard about his favourite student returning from his mission just before the lessons started in the morning. He had to hold himself in check for the whole day of trying to keep his little students alive – which in between Konohamaru's cohorts and the Inuzuka twins was a full-time job for two chuunin – before he could go and hunt down Naruto and shake him until answers fell out of him.

Nara Shikamaru.

What were they thinking?!

When Iruka finally caught wind of Naruto, his heart skipped a beat. He recognised the unnaturally upbeat tone of voice. It meant Naruto was worried or sad and didn't want anyone to know.

Iruka paused at the edge of the roof and looked down.

Naruto was expressively rolling his eyes and throwing his hands wide – he almost managed to knock Kakashi's book out of his hand, to which Kakashi reacted by promptly stashing it out of sight.

"Kakashi-sensei, I think you missed the point completely. Shika is my friend." Naruto spoke the word slowly, loudly, like he was talking to someone deaf and stupid. "But then, maybe I shouldn't be surprised that you don't understand that." He tried to pat Kakashi on the head and almost lost a hand, but it didn't seem to faze him. "Maybe Iruka-sensei could explain it to you?"

"I would have thought Iruka-kun would explain to you how marriage works," the jounin snarked back.

"Like that time Uzushiogakure sent Mito-sama to marry Hashirama-sama because they wanted to seal the alliance by gifting Konoha a jinchuuriki?"

Naruto apparently decided that he had soundly won that argument, and took his leave over the rooftops.

"Cra-ud," Kakashi self-edited, as he spotted Iruka out of the corner of his eye. Iruka mentally added a point to Kakashi's tally. The less potty-language Naruto was exposed to, the better.

Now if only Iruka could find something to neutralise Jiraiya-sama… but that old goat was shameless.

"I always thought if anyone got married for love, it would be that brat," Kakashi said, scratching at the edge of his mask with his thumb.

Iruka jumped down to stand by his side, searching in vain for something comforting to say. They both were very fond of Naruto, even if Kakashi was chronically incapable of showing it to the boy, but neither of them had ever really managed to fathom the way Naruto thought. He was a perpetual source of surprise – the Number One Unpredictable Ninja of Konoha indeed.

"I think…" Iruka hesitated, but decided that it was truly about the most optimistic thing he could say without sounding ingenuine or ingenuous. "I think we'll have to wait and see, and only do something about it if he becomes unhappy."

"He didn't exactly seem joyous right now," Kakashi pointed out.

Iruka rolled his eyes. Really, it was as though the man had never seen a couple going through ups and downs. And while Naruto and Shikamaru weren't a couple in the traditional sense, they faced many of the same hurdles, and a few domestic arguments were good for the soul, as long as no one was aiming to hurt the other party.

"Well, I believe that Shikamaru-kun can be trusted with Naruto's well-being."

Kakashi blinked, as if that was an angle that hadn't occurred to him before, and offered to Iruka a dango stick he had recovered from somewhere (hopefully a storage seal). Iruka took it with good humour, because he was aware that Kakashi spent a lot more time with his ninken than in human company, and apparently treats were the way he knew how to express… well, anything.

It was half past ten in the evening, and Shikamaru found himself right back where this all started.

Way before that odd conversation with Naruto that had taken a sharp left turn and somehow resulted in matrimony, there had been one moment – a single instance – of carelessness, when he had let himself be spotted holding Mirai-chan, rocking her to sleep, while waiting for Kurenai to come back home from her evening out with friends.

In that single instance two things changed: Ino's baseless long-standing fixed idea that she would one day break Shikamaru's will to live and force him to marry her, and Temari's predictably antagonistic denial of attraction to Shikamaru. Both afflictions transformed into twin sudden aggressive obsessions.

Shikamaru looked down at the baby's pouting face and sighed.

"Troublesome…"

It wasn't really Mirai's fault, but Shikamaru wished he could blame someone else for his current predicament. He quickly banished the thought, before Kurenai used her womanly dark arts to read it straight from his mind. Sure enough, quiet footsteps sounded from the stairwell mere seconds later.

Shikamaru shivered, and quietly thanked the woman for being reasonable enough to not mask her presence: ninja didn't startle well, and no one wanted them startling while holding a baby.

He put Mirai-chan into her bed and moved to get the door.

Kurenai grinned at him, drunk as skunk. "Shikam'ru-kun…"

"Good evening, Kurenai," he replied, without even the slightest effort to hide the censure. "Should I be leaving you alone in this state?"

She rolled her eyes and tried to hip-check him; fortunately, he was fast enough to dodge that. He had enough nightmares without it.

"M'not alone," she drawled, and flopped down onto the sofa with just enough grace that Shikamaru could tell she wasn't completely sloshed, and rather exaggerated her state for her enjoyment. He had seen her during those first few months after Asuma-sensei's death – and then after Mirai-chan's birth – and knew that she needed this release, else she went off the rails. No one wanted to get caught in another block-wide genjutsu of colourful birds singing bawdy drinking songs while super-agile squirrels danced provocatively all over the place.

"I'd have thought you'd be in a hurry to get home."

Shikamaru tried to ignore her lewd grin and its implications – it was disconcerting enough without taking into account the fact that she was Asuma-sensei's widow – and shrugged. "As you say…"

Kurenai watched him through narrowed eyes for a while, and apparently found whatever she was searching for, because she lied back, closed her eyes and smiled. "Doncha worry 'bout us, Shikam'ru-kun. Anko'll be by later, checkin' in. One of these days, she'll believe me when I say I can take care of us."

Shikamaru mused that Kurenai really didn't understand as much about people as she thought she did, and should just get used to being perpetually surprised. Anko would only stop coming by when she was dead, and it didn't even matter if Kurenai would ever choose to share a bed with her or not. Anko had appointed herself Mirai's Aunt. Shikamaru, from his position as Mirai's Godfather, counted her as an ally.

The promise of Anko's later visit reassured him so he felt comfortable enough to leave. Only once he was out of the house and in the darkened street it occurred to him that most people his age weren't Godfathers and Godmothers.

It also occurred to him that he would happily wade through a sea of blood for Mirai-chan.

Huh. Food for thought.

"Naruto-baka!"

Naruto flinched at the screech. He suppressed a sigh and decided that he could appreciate an advance warning. He appreciated it by switching himself with a kage bunshin, which dispersed a moment later under Ino's assault.

He almost choked on his dango as the memory transfer hit.

"You little turd!" Ino screamed, disregarding the detail that everyone in the street turned to see what was happening. Trust the blonde baboon to make a scene. She had barely changed from their Academy times.

No wonder Sakura had grown to act at best lukewarm toward her.

No wonder Shikamaru decided to abandon ship and save himself in an underhanded way.

Ouch. Naruto understood the motivation, but he couldn't deny it hurt a bit.

"You know," another voice said, and Naruto way too late realised that the kunoichi standing next to him wasn't a random person amusing themselves by watching the spectacle of Ino wailing and, well, honest to kami crying fat crocodile tears. Temari looked down at him. "…the thing that pisses me off the most isn't that he just wasn't man enough to say no to my face. I guess it got a bit too intense there – but then, I didn't know Yamanaka would get straight-up psycho about it."

Naruto shrugged. "We've seen the way she was about Sasuke, back in the day." He gulped, and determinedly sealed away all Sasuke-related thoughts. "Most of the girls grew out of it, but I guess Ino…"

"Didn't," Temari finished dryly, watching as Ino latched onto the nearest person, which was the dango vendor, and started yelling at him for… sabotaging her life, or something of the sort. "Yeah, okay. He had a point." She sighed. "I really… Damn it."

Naruto didn't know what to say in response. Temari seemed genuinely distressed. He felt like a horrible imposter, even though he knew that Shikamaru would not have gotten together with her one way or another. Shika always was going to reject her.

Probably. Unless they had gotten to know each other, and maybe found that it could have worked.

Temari turned fully to face Naruto. "If he was gay, I would be disappointed, but fine, that would be fair enough. He's just…"

"Lazy," Naruto finished with brutal honesty.

"Yeah," Temari agreed, and then she started laughing, and laughed until Ino's fit subsided and she remained sitting on the bench in front of the dango stand and sobbing into her palms.

Temari waved to Naruto, both a 'bye' and a 'you and I, we're okay', and went to join Ino. Shockingly, she nudged Ino's shoulder and whispered something that must have been comforting, because Ino nodded and leaned into the Suna princess' side, sniffling every once in a while but not hysterical anymore.

Naruto watched as the vendor offered the girls some sake, absolutely befuddled, and about as allergic to crying women as most men were.

Naruto felt a bit like crap. He swallowed the rest of his dango – still not comfortable with throwing food away, even if he didn't feel like eating it – and went to hide from the world, so he could for a while not be reminded of what a burden his existence was for everyone.

Shikamaru was annoyed with himself that he had to ask other people where he would find his upset husband.

He resolved to get to know Naruto better, so he would never be put into a situation where he would have to dodge Sakura's fists and face Lee's disappointed expression at the same time ever again.

Finally, he reached the top of the Hokage Mountain – and trust Naruto to find the most difficult to access, out of the way place to hide himself from the world and the people. Shikamaru sat down next to the boy without a word, and spent a moment wondering if sitting among the stone spikes made Naruto feel closer to his Father.

…if Naruto ever doubted that his parents were proud of him.

Shikamaru knew that legends tended to distort the people they were formed around, but he still liked to think that the Yondaime would have been a good father. And a good father-in-law. And, perhaps, a good grandfather, too.

"You want a child," he said after a while.

Naruto gulped. "Why are you doing this?!"

"I am a genius, Naruto," Shikamaru replied, trying to remain patient. It was a little hard when nearly everyone around him insisted on thinking in slow motion. "It's a word people throw about, but they never realise what it actually means." He looked down at the whole of Konoha, enveloped in trees, and then zoomed in on the Hokage Tower. "It means that if this is something you truly want, I can make it happen for you." Be it Hokageship, or family, or even both at the same time, he implied. "But consider the consequences carefully before you decide. From that moment on, there will be no turning back, and some of the results may differ from what you imagine."

Naruto turned to him, blue eyes coloured mauve by the setting sun, and welling with tears. "B-but… why would you?"

"We promised, didn't we? I don't know about you, but I meant the promise." He offered his hand.

Naruto low-fived him. "To share – everything, the good and the bad. To be each other's support. You are my friend, but you are more than that, too. You're my partner."

Shikamaru turned up to the sky, and watched another cloud fly overhead. "That's why."

By now he could identify the hitch of breath that came from where Naruto was sitting. The boy was crying again, trying to be unobtrusive, but really just making himself seem yet more suicidally open-hearted.

"Okay, Shika. I'll… I'll think about it."