Under Pressure // Naruto // PG
Title: Under Pressure
Fandom: Naruto
Characters: Shikamaru, Tsunade
Rating: PG
Word count: 402
Author Notes: This was written for Word #143 on 15_minute_fic. It has not been cleaned up, or altered beyond the minor editing done within the time limit.
"Impossible." Tsunade-sama's voice was flat, steady. Shikamaru was aware that she'd had practice in turning down this sort of request. Knowledge was easier to swallow than the reality of it happening to him.
He stared back, dark eyes narrowed and peculiarly resolute. Throttling his inward panic. The swooping disconnect between his stomach and his brain and his mouth. Things were broken like this. There were very few things that he cared enough to put forth the effort. This was one of them.
"I have a plan," Shikamaru said, and knew he'd have to talk fast.
Tsunade-sama, Hokage-sama, didn't need to know that his plan was three parts desperation, one part damn the odds, and five parts he will fix this. The last small, slender part was simply hope.
She wanted want tactics. Strategy. It made her a good leader, that demand.
He had very little of that right now. It was a bit like flying blind, not sure of what to say only that when he'd woken up, the world had been solid and now it was all wrong and he had to fix it. There was an edgy sort of desperation that had crawled under his skin and wouldn't be dislodged until things were back to normal. Implacable, unmovable.
They were his team.
It was pure luck that he hadn't been captured with them. Statistically, he knew the odds. It was likely they were dead by now--except they couldn't be because that was impossible and not acceptable and now his thoughts were reminding him of Ino at her contrary best--or being tortured (and what sort of world was it where that was the acceptable alternative, he wanted to know) and Shikamaru refused to dwell on that. Refused to dwell on the idea of Chouji battered and broken and a shell of his former self.
Insanity. To think that his team meant more than any of the others who'd been caught and captured before.
Truth. They did mean more. To him.
"Alright," Hokage-sama said, her bright brown eyes piercing him, cutting him. "Let's hear this plan, Nara."
He started speaking, the words tumbling out, low and even and distantly he was aware that they made sense, that they were almost plausible, that it was a plan that might even work and how about that? How about that.
For them he would do the impossible.
They wouldn't be stuck there long.
Fandom: Naruto
Characters: Shikamaru, Tsunade
Rating: PG
Word count: 402
Author Notes: This was written for Word #143 on 15_minute_fic. It has not been cleaned up, or altered beyond the minor editing done within the time limit.
"Impossible." Tsunade-sama's voice was flat, steady. Shikamaru was aware that she'd had practice in turning down this sort of request. Knowledge was easier to swallow than the reality of it happening to him.
He stared back, dark eyes narrowed and peculiarly resolute. Throttling his inward panic. The swooping disconnect between his stomach and his brain and his mouth. Things were broken like this. There were very few things that he cared enough to put forth the effort. This was one of them.
"I have a plan," Shikamaru said, and knew he'd have to talk fast.
Tsunade-sama, Hokage-sama, didn't need to know that his plan was three parts desperation, one part damn the odds, and five parts he will fix this. The last small, slender part was simply hope.
She wanted want tactics. Strategy. It made her a good leader, that demand.
He had very little of that right now. It was a bit like flying blind, not sure of what to say only that when he'd woken up, the world had been solid and now it was all wrong and he had to fix it. There was an edgy sort of desperation that had crawled under his skin and wouldn't be dislodged until things were back to normal. Implacable, unmovable.
They were his team.
It was pure luck that he hadn't been captured with them. Statistically, he knew the odds. It was likely they were dead by now--except they couldn't be because that was impossible and not acceptable and now his thoughts were reminding him of Ino at her contrary best--or being tortured (and what sort of world was it where that was the acceptable alternative, he wanted to know) and Shikamaru refused to dwell on that. Refused to dwell on the idea of Chouji battered and broken and a shell of his former self.
Insanity. To think that his team meant more than any of the others who'd been caught and captured before.
Truth. They did mean more. To him.
"Alright," Hokage-sama said, her bright brown eyes piercing him, cutting him. "Let's hear this plan, Nara."
He started speaking, the words tumbling out, low and even and distantly he was aware that they made sense, that they were almost plausible, that it was a plan that might even work and how about that? How about that.
For them he would do the impossible.
They wouldn't be stuck there long.