Note: NejiSakuShika is just too delicious to leave alone. Hence, a collection of random works involving our three favorite genii. :) More or less, these won't be really tied together in terms of plotline, developments, etc. Also, spoilers for post-timeskip.

Rated PG-13 for the usual stuff. Slight suggestive content, language, and mention of a threesome, etc, but nothing explicit.

This one is an adapted-fifty themes set. Yay.

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Comfort

Each drop of rain washes a little more blood away from Sakura's hair, face, and hands; it isn't soon before her own tears are mingling with the rain, but then she feels her cheek pressed against the rough material of Shikamaru's vest as he mumbles soft reassurances under his breath, and Neji is holding them both close as well, her head nestled against his neck. They hold each other like that for a little while, until Sakura's breathing regulates, and the rain comes to a slow stop.

Kiss

A completely plastered Sakura plants a messy kiss on Shikamaru's cheek, and the tactician looks up at Hyuuga Neji, looking slightly bemused.

Neji shrugs almost imperceptibly, and leans down to brush the barest of kisses on the top of Shikamaru's head. In response to his friend's thunderstruck look; he nods toward the grinning Sakura. "She's drunk, and she just passed the jounin exams. I think that we should honor her wishes—at least for tonight."

Shikamaru shakes his head. "I don't think you're quite sober either, if you're talking like that."

Neji gives Shikamaru a slightly lopsided smile.

The other jounin sighs, and makes a great show of pressing an over exaggerated kiss to Neji's hand. "Whatever you say, Hyuuga-sama. If we're lucky, none of us will remember this tomorrow, anyway."

Neji smirks a little when Shikamaru's back is turned. And who said that he couldn't fake drunk to save his life?

Soft

Sakura really, really dislikes it that both Neji and Shikamaru have better hair than she does. Neji's is…immaculate and godlike…and Shikamaru's is extremely thick and black and fun to play with. Whereas hers, aside from its color, is just plain average.

(She doesn't know that both Shikamaru and Neji envy her hair its softness. They have both purchased the brand of shampoo and conditioner she uses, regardless of its pink sparkly bottle. If they have their way, Sakura will never, ever know this.)

Pain

Neji and Shikamaru have both been under her care for the most horrific of injuries, and yet, they both turn into semi-comatose whimpering little pansies when they have headaches.

Sakura mocks them because of this, of course, even though she does heal them, eventually. Once, she asks them about this, after coming back home from the hospital to find them lying on the sofa of her apartment, several bottles of aspirin scattered around them.

Unsurprisingly, Neji answers this question after only a moment of thought. He taps his forehead. "Shikamaru and I are designed differently from – say, Naruto. Headaches affect a greater number of pain sensors in our brains than it would for a normal human being."

"Well said, Hyuuga," Shikamaru mutters, from under his pillow. "Hey, Sakura—don't glare at us like that—"

They both earn a swat to the head for their troubles.

Potatoes

Sakura loves potatoes. Neji is indifferent to them, but even the thought of potatoes is enough to make Shikamaru shudder.

He eats Sakura's potato salad, anyway, just because it's her that's cooking it.

Well, that, and the fact that she'd probably punch him through a few walls if he refused it, hurting her feelings in the process. Shikamaru thinks that it is all very troublesome.

Rain

Rainy season in Konoha is depressing. Neji, Sakura, and Shikamaru spend it inside, doing intellectual things like shogi and Go, and sometimes, random discussions about ethics and assorted clever topics.

Of course, they also spend some time doing not-so-intelligent things as well, like debating hair care products – or debating why the hell Neji can't loosen up and have some fun sometimes.

Neji takes offense at this, and usually takes the opportunity to remind both Shikamaru and Sakura that he can too have fun.

Neji, Shikamaru, and Sakura all really love rainy days.

Chocolate

One of Neji's many secrets is that he loves chocolate. So much so Shikamaru secretly refers to him as the Chocolate Monster.

On Valentine's Day, after an all-night shift and falling asleep over his desk, Neji wakes up to see his comrades leering at him. Genma shoves a package at him, grinning around his senbon. "I believe our little Neji has a secret admirer."

The package is wrapped in pale shimmery pink-and-red paper with a green border. On top of it is a card with a huge smiling heart on the front.

There is also a drawing, added on in blue pen, of what looks like a tiny version of Neji hugging a chocolate bar. The picture is circled in red pen, and captioned The Chocolate Monster Strikes Again!

Neji flops back down on his desk, ignoring the giggling, hair-ruffling, and general obnoxiousness that his workmates are displaying.

"Get out," he orders them in a perfect Hyuuga Deadpan.

They leave, still chuckling. Genma hesitates, though, and reaches toward the package…

Three offices down and a few minutes later, Mitarashi Anko hears a loud bang.

"Get the hell away from my chocolate!"

She shakes her head, and returns to her paperwork. Newbies.

Happiness

Neji, like all Hyuugas, does not like admitting to being happy. As a matter of fact, he is secretly convinced that there is a law about not admitting to being happy somewhere in his clan's history.

But sometimes, when Sakura is curled up against his chest, her breathing deep and even, and Shikamaru is on the other side of him, his long fingers tangled in Neji's hair as he mumbles complex mathematical problems in his sleep, he feels his resolve weaken slightly.

Times like this, Neji comes pretty damn close to admitting that he is happy. More than happy, as a matter of fact. So he bites his tongue (metaphorically), buries his face back into his pillow, and falls into a peaceful sleep.

Telephone

Neji, Sakura, and Shikamaru have very interesting three-way conversations. Genma and Raidou like to tap them, just for fun, and they have the hardest times stifling their giggles as they listen in.

Ears

There are a total of four people in Konoha who know that Neji is self-conscious about his ears. He is convinced that they are abnormally large. That is the real reason why he wears his hair so long – so that they shield his ears from being viewed by outsiders.

Sakura and Shikamaru, however, will have none of it. They claim that he has the most adorable little ears in the world, all the while prodding the aforementioned body part. Neji bears this indignity with a stoic expression, but the corners of his mouth quirk up the tiniest bit, and he admits to feeling a little mollified. Just a little.

Name

Shikamaru talks in his sleep. He once calls Sakura extremely troublesome and Neji a pretty boy diva while amidst a particularly hostile dream.

He wakes up on the couch, with the bedroom door firmly locked.

Sensual

Sakura had previously thought that Shikamaru was too lazy and Neji too asexual for them both to be any fun in bed.

She soon discovers that she couldn't have been more wrong.

Death

Shikamaru accepts death, but he secretly lives in fear that someday, Neji or Sakura might die without him, and he doesn't think he can take that.

Sex

Upon learning of their relationship, a highly pleased-looking Jiraiya sauntered up to them and proceeded to point out all of his Icha Icha novels that included threesomes. He gave them a commentary, too.

Neji, Sakura, and Shikamaru sit in bed that night, sneaking each other surreptitious looks.

"Hey, Sakura—you're a medic-nin, so…is that thing with the blue silk stuff even possible?"

"Don't ask me. Neji's the one with the Byakugan."

Both of their heads swivel toward the Hyuuga prodigy.

Neji smirks slightly. "Why don't we figure it out ourselves?"

Touch

Shikamaru and Neji are both ticklish – a fact that Sakura frequently takes advantage of, whenever she wants someone else to cook dinner for her.

Weakness

Sometimes, when they train, Sakura takes delight in punching the ground so hard that even the almighty Hyuuga-ness wobbles in his defensive stance, and Shikamaru has to drop to his knees and quickly form a new strategy to corner her with his technique.

("And you both thought I was weak, once," she says triumphantly, as she bandages their wounds, later.)

Speed

Physically, Sakura is still the slowest of the three, if even only by a small margin. As incentive to train harder, she manages to wrangle a kiss out of Neji and Shikamaru every time she keeps pace with or passes them.

Within two weeks, Sakura is faster than both of them.

Life

Kakashi lowers his book slowly, fixing his gaze on Neji and Shikamaru, who both unconsciously stand up straighter and try and look very, very worthy of the Copy Ninja's only female student.

Kakashi regards both of them slowly. Then he leans forward, and deliberately pokes Neji in the chest. "You're too old for her."

Neji can't help it – he splutters in momentary disbelief. Shikamaru takes it upon himself to defend the Hyuuga prodigy. "He is only a year and a half older than Sakura," he points out mildly, and then quails when Kakashi turns toward him.

"And you," Kakashi says, looking a little bit distasteful beneath the mask. "Are too lazy. Brilliant, but lazy."

Neji and Shikamaru stare in what can be most accurately described as openmouthed disbelief.

In a few moments, Sakura appears beside them in a swirl of cherry blossoms, holding a few grocery bags, which Neji and Shikamaru hasten to take from her. Unaware to the aura of general tension, she gives all three men a sweet smile. "Making friends?"

Kakashi turns toward her, before Neji and Shikamaru can wibble in fear. He smiles at the pink-haired medic-nin beneath his mask, his eyes going up into their crescent-moon smiley expression. "Oh yes. We're all going to be like a big, happy family."

"Indeed," Neji echoes weakly. Shikamaru can only nod.

This is going to be troublesome, indeed.

Jealousy

The first time Naruto and Sasuke see Shikamaru and Neji arm-in-arm with Sakura, they both look as if they've just had heart attacks from the sheer shock.

Sasuke recovers first, and sends Neji a poisonous glare. The Hyuuga prodigy is almost certain that the Uchiha would have gone to Level Two and tried to kill him if Naruto hadn't been collapsed into his arms.

Neji smirks slightly, as they pass Sasuke. Too bad, Uchiha. You had your chance.

Devotion

Sometimes it seems that everybody in Konoha—especially Ino, Naruto, Sasuke, and Kakashi—disapproves of Neji and Shikamaru having a relationship with Sakura.

"I find it amusing that everybody was praising us to the skies before we started seeing you," Neji says dryly.

"—All that stuff about us being two of Konoha's most capable shinobi, maybe even some of the greatest stars of our generation—" Shikamaru cuts in.

"—It was all lies," finishes Neji. "Wasn't it?"

Sakura giggles, leaning back in the armchair. "It's really not that bad."

"Oh yeah?" Shikamaru retorts. "Ino gives me this fish-eyed look all the time, and when I was in the flower shop today, she gave me a lecture about treating you right."

"Which was exactly what your former teammate tried to speak to me about this afternoon," Neji adds.

Sakura looks up from her magazine and narrows her eyes. "Tried to?"

Neji sighs. "His shift ran out before I lost my temper. Besides, I figured that the Uchiha didn't need any more scars."

"Which is very good of you," Sakura replies evenly, and she smiles suddenly, looking at Shikamaru, who is slumped over the armchair, and Neji, who is regarding her with his white eyes open wide. "You know, it's not really as bad as you're making it out to sound."

Both men snort in unison.

Sakura gets up, and flops down between them on the sofa. She stretches her arms around both of their shoulders, tugging them in closer. "They're just a little bit overprotective, that's all," she says soothingly. "Give them a chance to get used to the idea."

Shikamaru 'hmphs' softly to himself. "So we're just victims of your devoted protectors?"

Sakura considers this. "Yes."

"Lucky, lucky us," Neji mutters.

Sakura laughs, and gives each of them a kiss on the cheek. "Indeed."

Forever

"You know," Shikamaru asks once, in a rare serious mood, "do you think this is going to last forever?"

Neji is silent, but his hands tighten around Shika's and in Sakura's.

Sakura closes her eyes. "Yes."

And when she says it like that, no matter what their common sense says, both of them choose to believe her.

Sickness

Initially, both Neji and Shikamaru found it almost laughable that even medic-nins could get sick. In the face of their laughter, a feverish and testy Sakura threw assorted sharp pointy objects at them, all gathered from the bedside table.

So, both of them learned how to tend to sicknesses. Not by learning how to use their chakra for medical purposes, but by standing in the kitchen trying to fix chicken soup without making something explode, and things of that sort.

By the end of the day, Sakura always felt a little bit better and Neji and Shikamaru always felt like they were ready to collapse. But then, they would all lie, wearily tangled together, in bed, and that felt nice.

Home

The first time Shikamaru and Sakura visit the Hyuuga compound, Shika looks around the place, before turning back to Neji. "So, this is the place that we're going to rule?"

Neji chokes on his water. Sakura pats him on the back, and he secretly thinks that his ancient clan will crumble after only a week of having them as the heads of the family.

Confusion

Once Ino asks Sakura which one of them she plans to marry—"Honestly, Sakura, they're both geniuses and they both love you; you can't go wrong either way…"

Neither Neji nor Shikamaru knows why Sakura won't meet their eyes for the rest of the night.

Fear

Ever since that incident with Kidomaru, Neji has been afraid of spiders. He hides it well, but sometimes he wakes up in the middle of the night, shivering and gasping for breath.

To their credit, Shikamaru and Sakura try to understand, even though will never be able to grasp the depths of the horrors that he experiences in his nightmares. But Shikamaru holds his hand, nevertheless, and Sakura slides out of bed and checks the room, the bed, and the walls for spiders or spiderwebs, and they both hold him gently as he falls back asleep.

Bonds

"Genii need to stick together," is Sakura's excuse for the first few times they always manage to end up at the same bars, restaurants, and just in the general vicinity of one another.

After a few months, however, she stops making excuses.

Market

Food shopping is always hard and somewhat stressful for them, but the rest of Konoha's shoppers find it an amusing sight to see the pink-haired kunoichi ordering two of the city's most decorated shinobi around, both men holding baskets and looking rather meek.

Technology

Sakura finds it exasperating that Neji and Shikamaru always insist upon using her favorite shampoo and conditioner—with the thickness of Shikamaru's hair and the length of Neji's, it always runs out sooner than it's supposed to.

When she confronts them about it, they both stare at her blankly for a few moments.

"I find the hair-softening and frizz reducing technology to be rather pleasing," Shikamaru deadpans at last.

Gift

Ino assumes that because Sakura has two geniuses shopping for her at Christmas, she will get the most wonderful presents ever.

Sakura decides not to tell her that, no matter how smart Neji and Shikamaru are, when let loose in a perfume shop, they're just as bad as Naruto and Kiba.

Smile

In the few months that he's known Shikamaru and Sakura, Neji has come dangerously close to smiling. In public. In general. It disturbs him.

His first real smile with his teammates was when he saw Tenten and Lee playing with a couple of stray kittens on the street after a mission, all dusty and grimy, but with huge smiles on their faces as they hugged and cooed over the kittens.

Tenten had told him, later, that if he didn't smile over the sight of adorable kittens and happy teammates, then he really did have no heart. Or sense of humor. Anything.

What really puzzles Neji, though, is that Shikamaru and Sakura don't have to be happy or playing with cute kittens to elicit a smile out of him. He wants to smile in the middle of Sakura's rants against stubborn patients—often including himself. He wants to smile when Shikamaru calls various things troublesome, and when he falls asleep over his desk, leaving ink prints on his cheek.

Sakura and Shikamaru are dangerously close to breaking him down.

The strange thing?

Neji doesn't think he minds.

Innocence

When Neji's first genin team asks him why he lives with two other people when he could be residing in the expansive Hyuuga compound, he closes his eyes for a moment.

The little kunoichi in his team shoves her counterpart—a black-haired mini-version of genin Naruto—and points out that maybe Neji-sensei just wants to live with his friends, duh.

"Exactly, Ayame," he tells them, and nothing more is said about the subject.

Completion

No matter how sizeable their individual skills are, they only feel really complete when they are with one another.

Clouds

Neji had only ever noticed clouds in the context of birds, and Sakura had never paid them much attention at all.

Under the influence of Shikamaru, however, they end up on the roof of the ANBU headquarters, lying in a circle and guessing cloud shapes.

Sky

Ever since their genin days, both Shikamaru and Sakura always noticed the way Neji's pale eyes always followed birds on their paths against the skies. They didn't understand, before, and thought it slightly odd yet touching.

Now, they both think it's slightly adorable, and still touching.

Heaven

Neji doesn't quite cry when their pet bird dies, but he pales and his throat constricts and his eyes burn, and Shikamaru puts a comforting arm around him, as Sakura kisses the top of his head and tells him that all birds go to heaven.

Sun

Sakura finds sunsets extremely romantic, but—as sappy and disgusting as it sounds—between them, Neji and Shikamaru can make anything romantic.

Moon

Neji dislikes nighttime, because his Byakugan is at a slight—very slight—disadvantage at that time. As a result, they don't stay out past ten, because Neji is secretly afraid that someone else will discover his blind spot, jump them, and that they will be taken by surprise and not be able to beat the intruder like they would be normally.

Neji's paranoia is a well-known fact, and that is why they choose to simply stargaze, most nights.

Waves

One mission to the Wave Country, it is discovered that Shikamaru loves seashell hunting. Sakura thinks that watching him kneel in the damp sand looking for shells in the dark is both very cute and mildly sad, so Neji activates his Byakugan and walks around by Shikamaru's side, pointing out where all the best shells lie.

Hair

Neji is quite protective of his hair, unlike Shikamaru, who is content with dragging a comb through it once a day.

However, Shikamaru and Sakura are both quite fond of playing with his hair, since it's the longest and most pliable of all of theirs.

As a result, Neji spends at least one evening a week sporting various hairstyles, the most frequent being a French braid.

Supernova

"Hi," Sakura says, looking a little flustered, and Neji and Shikamaru look up from their dumplings. "Mind if I join you?"

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This. Pairing. Is. Hot.

I'm taking requests, by the way. Knock me out. XD

Reviews appreciated!