Just came from an idea of mine which were a combination of different kinds of shikaXino fanfics!
P.S.:
Sorry to the yaoi haters! Just needed a reason for ino to give up sasuke and I don't like sasuke and sakura together! And I am a SASUKE HATER! Sorry to the sasuke fangirls! Very!
Ino froze in her tracks, her heart freezing alongside her feet as it dropped. There, on the bench along the road, in the solitude of the evening, sat Naruto. On Sasuke. The Uchiha heir held the blond's hips, tipping his head back as Naruto devoured his neck. Naruto's knees rested on either side of Sasuke's thighs on the bench, his hips rocking in a slow grind against Sasuke's own pelvis. Her shock was immediate and the sudden jolt of unacknowledged pain almost sent her to her knees. She felt a little detached as she turned and headed away from the romantic and agonizing scene, her mind so dazed that she forgot to watch her feet.
Somehow, she made it to wherever her feet were taking her with only one scraped knee and a small gash in the palm of her right hand from a rock. She was dirty but her mind decided that that didn't matter and that stopping where she was, was a good idea. Reaching up automatically, she knocked listlessly at the door in front of her. After an uncounted amount of equally fruitless attempts to draw out the occupant, Ino sat beside the door and drew her knees up to her chest, burying her face in them as she wrapped her arms about her folded legs. And there she remained, dazed.
The door she sat by just happened to be that of the Nara household. It wasn't long before Shikamaru walked up to her, coming home from an errand. He was very surprised to see her on his doorstep. "Ino? What are you doing here?" he asked, crouching down in front of her. Something was obviously wrong and he didn't like that one bit. If there was one thing he hated it was to see Ino in pain. "Are you okay?" he asked, honestly concerned.
Lifting her head, Ino slowly looked at him with big, vacant eyes. For a moment she didn't seem to recognize him, but then, as her eyes narrowed into focus, clear tears started to fall making the odd blue of her gaze, strangely gem-like as she pounced on him, throwing her arms around his neck and tackling him into a sprawl on his back. She simply lay on top of him and cried, clinging to him desperately.
"Wha- Ino!" Shikamaru exclaimed, surprised by her sudden pounce. Not quite sure how to handle a crying girl lying on top of him, he awkwardly put his hands on her shoulderblades. "What's wrong! What happened!"
Sobbing, Ino tried to articulate what she had seen, and managed to get her point across with just a few choked words. "I - saw them..."
Her face was buried in his chest, her arms still clung about his neck, and their legs lay in a tangled mess. Ino's body shook with her pain, but it was a pain that the deeper side of her had come to accept already and had starting getting over already. The crying part... was her immaturity speaking loud and clear as she experienced the first major blow to her ego in her short lifetime. Her mind was slowly beginning to analyze and recognize the feelings for what they were, even as she bawled insensibly on one of her best friends.
Knowing what she meant, Shikamaru groaned silently and let her cry herself out. He'd been waiting for something like this to happen for quite a while now, though he certainly hadn't been expecting to end up on his back on his porch with Ino on top of him when it did. Not that he was really complaining. He'd been secretly smitten with Ino for years and was more than willing to lay there with her on top of him.
When she finally quieted, he slowly sat up so that she sat on his folded legs. "Feel better?" he asked with a gruff gentleness, still hugging her awkwardly.
"Mm... A lot better actually," she murmured and wiped at her eyes with the heels of her hands. "I'm sorry. I just... I couldn't think of anyone else to go to. I didn't mean to bother you," she added and yet she didn't move from his lap. She didn't want to leave the calm and comfort that Shikamaru was giving her heart right then.
"What did you do to your hand?" Shikamaru asked when he spotted the gash on her palm as she rubbed her eyes dry, not hearing her words at all.
Ino looked down at her palms, not even sure which one he was talking about. After examining them for a moment, she answered, "I think I tripped a few times on my way here. Got my knee too, but I'll be okay..." She tried to give him a tenuous smile. "I'm surprised, but... I think I'm okay in general. I think I was just... shocked. Or something."
He sighed and stood up, grabbing her wrist to drag her into the house. "You idiot," he muttered as he pulled her into the bathroom and dug the med-kit out of the medicine cabinet. "You're a ninja. You're not supposed to fall down and get hurt," he scolded half-heartedly as he cleaned the gash on her hand.
Blushing a little, Ino stood there quietly as he bandaged her hand. "Thank you..." she said softly and reached up with her other hand to brush back a stray lock of dark brown hair that had apparently escaped from his ponytail. "Were you busy... I can leave... I kind of just dropped in on you, I know."
"Whatever you want, it doesn't matter to me." Shikamaru finished bandaging her hand, doing his best to ignore the butterflies her fingers on his face caused. "Fix your knee. I need to go check on the deer," he said as he left the bathroom, heading for the large pasture behind the house.
Ino watched him go. Then she made a quick decision. Putting a little medicine on her already cleaned knee, she followed him out the door. On silent feet, but keeping her distance a little, she left the house, hot on his heels.
Shikamaru was already in the pasture, refilling food troughs with the special feed the Nara family gave their herd and draining the water troughs only to refill them with fresh water after scooping the leaves out of them. Fawns kept getting underfoot, curious as to what their "uncle" was doing, and he kept shooing them away with light slaps to their rears, sending them back to their mothers. Some of the adult deer would walk up behind him and rest their head on his shoulder in greeting. In return he'd pat their neck and maybe give them a scratch on their favorite spot. The hot-blooded yearling bucks kept trying to knock him over by ramming him in the rear just to cause trouble, but he always knew when they were coming and whipped around to grab an antler and twist, sending the young buck to the ground as Shikamaru smirked in smug triumph. All of this was done in a comfortable silence, broken only by the occasional bleat that was sometimes returned by the human boy and the sound of food or water being poured. Throughout all of this the king stag watched calmly, checking each trough after Shikamaru was done with it to nod his regal head in satisfaction or nudge the boy's shoulder with his nose to fix something he didn't like. Shikamaru never questioned him, doing as told and being rewarded with an approving nod.
Ino stood on the outskirts, watching quietly as the peace of the scene infused even her. For the moment, her troubles were completely forgotten. She'd never seen the Nara family herds before. She wasn't even sure she was supposed to be back there. Something cold and moist nudged her leg and that was immediately followed by something wet and sucking and foamy. Ino eeped and ended up on her rear after tripping over the culprit. Immediately, she rolled up onto her knees picking the little one up.
"Oh! I'm sorry... you startled me..." she whispered to the little fawn. It was really little. :I hope I didn't hurt you... : "Oh..." she groaned in frustration and ran her hands all over the tiny, quaking body. She was shaking, the fawn was shaking... "We're both in pretty bad shape for such a small scare," she murmured when she'd determined that she, at least, hadn't broken anything. A step to her right brought her attention up to Shikamaru for a split second before she dropped it to the fawn again. "I'm sorry. She came out of no where and startled me. I think I fell on her - my legs did anyway - when I tripped over her."
"First off, that's a he," Shikamaru said as he sat down next to her and lifted the baby's tail, ignoring the fawn's bleat of complaint. "See, only one hole. Second, fawns are resilient little buggers and falling over him the way you did isn't going to do any more than scare him witless." He bopped the baby between his ears lightly. "That's what happens when you don't stay with your mother like you're supposed to," he scolded. The fawn had the grace to look sheepish, giving Shikamaru huge 'pity-me' eyes... which didn't work in the least and only earned him an amused scoff.
:This... This is Shikamaru: Impressed at the complete about face, Ino reached out a little and then hesitated. "Can I pet him? Or would that insult him?" She knew very well that the deer were intelligent beings simply by watching the king stag's behavior.
"Go right ahead. Buggers love being petted. Can't get enough of it." Shikamaru lay back in the lush grass of the pasture, folding his arms behind his head as a pillow and closing his eyes.
The king stag came over on silent hooves to look down his nose at Ino, warning her without words that to harm one of his herd meant death at his giant antlers. Without opening his eyes or even twitching, Shikamaru made a quiet sound - somewhere between a bleat and a huff - and the king stag transferred his attention to the boy for a moment before leaving, looking for all the world as if he had better things to do than baby-sit a couple young two-leggers.
Feeling like things had turned a little surreal under the attention of the king stag, Ino reached out the rest of the way and stroked the soft, mottled hair on the baby's back. "So soft..." she murmured and lifted the little one into her lap after crossing her legs. "Do you name them?" she asked while letting the fawn suckle two of her fingers. "I think he's hungry..."
"If they make to yearling we name them. Babies get numbers - that's twenty. And babies are always hungry. Mai!" he called without moving, and a doe lifted her head from a water trough. "Feed your spawn before he eats my teammate's fingers." In response the doe let out a bleat and the fawn in Ino's lap jumped up, running to his mama for a good long suckle. "Always hungry," Shikamaru muttered.
Ino giggled a little and then sprawled back beside him and sighed, her ponytail lying in a wavy line in the grass above their heads. She was stretched out at a slight angle to him, enabling her to look up at him by turning her head slightly from where it rested near his side. "They're adorable..." she sighed, smiling up at the clouds passing over the full moon.
"Until they nibble your fingers off and slobber all over your clothes and hair and of course let's not forget the time one of them pantsed me."
"Pantsed you!" Ino rolled onto her stomach, propping herself up on her elbows. "Really!"
"Yes," Shikamaru growled, making a face at the memory.
"Oh, I wish I'd been there! That would have been something to see!" she giggled and poked his cheek with a careful fingertip. Careful because she didn't want to poke him with her nail. "You should be thankful you have deer... All I get are flowers."
A curious yearling buck made his way over and got a swift kick to the chest from Shikamaru before he walk around them to get at Shikamaru's ponytail. "Not now, Hige. I don't want your slobber in my hair." When he left Shikamaru said to Ino, "At least flowers don't maul you." He was very talkative and open right then because he was at incredible ease, surrounded by creatures he understood completely and trusted (to an extent).
Ino played with the end of her ponytail and looked over as a slightly older fawn came over to her. "Do you take them off their mothers like some people do with their cows?" she asked as she sat up and pulled that fawn into her lap, where it nestled contently. "Do you give them anything special, like treats?"
"Every once in a while. And we pretty much just let them take care of themselves. All we really do is make sure they have enough food and water. In return we get their antlers for medicine when they fall off come winter. Careful, that one likes to bite."
"They bite?" she asked, looking up to him while scratching the fawn's chin. "But... they're intelligent aren't they?"
"So are humans."
"But we don't - Ow!" Ino started, spilling the baby out of her lap in surprise. "It actually bit me!"
"Told you," Shikamaru grumbled, sitting up with sigh. The fawn had already high-tailed it back to her mother to avoid Shikamaru's spank, only to get bitten on the neck by mama in scolding. "Didn't break skin, did she?" he asked as he leaned over to examine Ino's fingers.
Ino's breath hitched in her throat as he took her hand in his and examined her hand. "No..." she murmured, the tone of her voice a little... off. :He's actually... really handsome...:
"Good." Satisfied, Shikamaru lay back down in the grass with his arms folded for a pillow.
Without really thinking about it, Ino followed him, shifting and leaning forward as he lay back down. One hand came to rest on his chest while the other braced her weight on the ground above his head. She spent about one moment looking down into Shikamaru's face and then leaned down, her lips merging softly with his, kissing non-invasively but boldly nonetheless.
Shikamaru was so shocked he didn't react at all, his face slack with surprise and his heart pounding in his ears when Ino pulled away. That was certainly something he hadn't expected! "Wha- why-" he stuttered.
Ino's face was blank for a few seconds as he stammered, and then she smiled. Not the haughty smile, or a smirk, but an honest smile and, as he quieted, she lowered her face again to rub noses with him. "I think... I've been missing something all this time..."
"O...kay... Uh, Ino, it's getting late and... ano..." Shikamaru said shakily, blushing at just how close their faces were and at just how new all of this was. Never in his life had he ever experienced feelings like the ones he was having right now and he was going to need time to sort them out. "Are... you sure about this...?"
Now she smirked. "Yes... I'm sure," she answered softly. It was strange but at the moment, she couldn't care less who or even what Uchiha Sasuke was doing. She'd been over it before she'd known she was. And this new revelation was definitely... something she needed to jump on while she had the opportunity. "Are you?" she breathed and kissed him again, once, softly.
If there had ever been a time when Shikamaru was flustered, this was definitely it. He couldn't even make a complete thought at that moment, he felt so turned upside-down and inside-out. "I... uh... how... uhm... how about I... get back to you on that?" Without waiting for her answer, he got to his feet and walked very quickly to the other end of the large pasture in search of escape from the object of his confusion.
Watching him walk away, Ino smiled a little to herself. Who needed a playboy to be happy anyway? Shikamaru was twice the man Sasuke had ever been. At least he had a moral code and didn't go running off with the enemy at every turn. Standing slowly, she stretched and turned, heading for the house and her sandals. It was obvious he need some time to think.
-OWARI-
what? should i update or what?
