Title: Dryad
Art trade with: Kyuubi1010 in exchange for the sheer fuckhotness that is my banner and theme over on Y Gallery.
Pairings: Asuma and Shikamaru (Apparently, I do write things other than NaruSasu -snort-)
Warnings: Slightly historical with hints of supernaturalism and mythology. General sex and romance and hotness. Self Lubrication, kink, magic (kinda)...oh...and deer -snort-
Disclaimer: Naruto is not mine, really. –pouts- Neither is Ovid's Metamorphoses
Note: Dryad are tree nymphs in Greek mythology. Nature spirits that were born from Gaia- the Earth. They were normally considered to be very shy creatures, except around the goddess Artemis, who was known to be a friend to most nymphs. They usually lived in the trees they were born in or close to them. Melia- ash tree dryads.
Note the second: This fic shamelessly blends reality, history and myth together into one melee of fantasy just accept it as it is, please because NO, I really don't want to explain anything. And the majority of trees/bushes and animals mentioned within are completely fictional and the products of my imagination.
Moreover- Yes I AM a bleeding heart PETA activist, carbon emission hating, tree hugger- what of it? _
One more thing: My regular updates will be coming soon- namely Dearly Beloved and Induction. But I figured I should just post this here in case any of my fans like Asuma and Shikamaru together -shrugs-
The forest seemed alive.
High boughs of gleaming silvery wood softly swayed and dipped with a force of its own above the dark forest floor. The swirling mist that rose ghostlike from the valley and the river below crept with preternatural grace through the dense clusters of foliage, slipping around broad tree trunks like whispers and rendering the entire hillside something out of a dream.
Tired, cold and swallowing hard Asuma pressed himself deeper into the hollow created by the arching roots of an ancient tree, the abnormally smooth bark at his back providing a fleeting sense of security. A hacking cough shook his chest and dimly the woodsman watched as more of his life blood seeped through his clutching fingers to spill, red and black wet over his fingers and soak the torn remnants of his shirt that was pressed into the hole ripped into his right side.
But damn, that hedge boar had gored him good.
A head of riotous dark hair fell back to the trees bark with a dull thunk and through lidded eyes the shallowly breathing man watched as the silver tree limbs swayed and entranced his mind like a hypnotist.
Moonbeam Tree they called it down in the plains of his homeland- Fey trees that only grew deep in the far hills of the virgin centres of the Northern Mountains. Cores of the gleaming wood were priceless and it was the need to find it that had brought the young hunter all the way from his home in the Rice Plains to the cold and treacherous hills.
They had tried to caution him down in the village when he had politely started asking questions- one by one the elders- the old ones who still remembered the tales of that fantastical wood- had approached the large, quiet stranger who had rode into their town one night with nothing but a beast of a black horse, a small satchel of clothes and a long handled ax with a wicked looking double edge blade. They had tried to explain- to tell him of the strange and fey things that lived in that valley of white wood and dark water, of the danger and darkness and cold-but the twenty seven year old had merely nodded his head and steeled himself. He had a woman back home that he was keen on and he couldn't wed her until he had proved himself capable.
'Shiromori' was its true name the elders quietly explained to him when they had finally accepted his determination. The place where the whitewood grew was five days north of here, across a ridge of hills and on the lee of a mountain called the Hokage Head. Rare and stronger than iron the wood was impossible to cut until a certain season in the year when the heavy rains weakened the bases and roots.
Asuma had stayed then, determined to pass the month until the rains began. The town was Konohagaure- the village hidden in the leaves- a small prosperous settlement famous for its trade in the cores of the numerous beautiful woods that grew there. Asuma was impressed when he had seen the extensive ways the people used their greatest resource- everything possible was made of the finest wood. Mahogany houses gleamed dark red brown in the sun with roofs made of shimmering oak and bridges carved from the enormous ironwood elks and that looked like stone. It was beautiful there- like nature herself was growing the buildings.
The people were welcoming and many nights the tall, barrel chested man had to politely decline offerings of lodging since so many years working outside and alone had left him spoiled for silence and solitude. He slept outside on a grassy knoll to the east of town with no company but his horse Goliath and the soothing smoke of menthol and tobacco invading his lungs.
When the skies began to darken and the nights were flooded with water Asuma found himself reluctantly under the cover of a local tavern house and inn that was beautifully carved from ironwood and Ashwinder trees.
"There is a river on that side of the mountain." The woman who served him pints of warm mead had said as she deposited the large wooden mug before him. "A river called the Rasengan that flows from through steep trenches on the other side of the cold mountain- the ones who have gone before you used it to float their cargo back down to the valley."
"Rasengan," Asuma murmured to himself. "… 'the torrent." He translated loosely.
The woman nodded once, her tight bodice revealing more of her ample cleavage as she reached down to take remove his previously emptied cup. "Aye," she concurred. "It's deep and swift- but treacherous. Do you float entire trees?"
"No." Asuma replied quietly in his low deep voice that made the mistress bite the inside of her cheek a bit. "I core what I need where the wood falls."
She nodded again, her eyes trailing down the lengths of large muscled arms and thick shoulders that stretched the limits of his shirts. "Then ye'll be needing supplies. Inuzuka is our specialist here- the rope he makes from Hedge Boar hide is nearly unbreakable."
The man nodded. "Thank you." He murmured, seeming to dismiss her. Frustrated, she tried again.
"It's going to be winter soon- and you'll be in the mountains a while. The rains last for months but they come at night. Not much snow falls here but what does renders the bones to ice. Surely," she said leaning in until the woodsman was flooded with her scent of spicy anise wood. "…surely you'd like a warm place to sleep before suffering that frost?"
A thick dark eyebrow twitched upwards and the young woman- as did all the other single, unmarried women who had seen this fine specimen of male since he had stepped foot in the village, felt things deep within her flutter and yearn.
He was beautiful in a raw and masculine way; his very presence exuded quiet power and obvious strength. His thighs in the thick, tight rawhide breeches and boots he wore were taught with corded strength and did nothing to hide the very generous blessing he had been born with.
"Are you offering me a bed, ma'am?" Asuma remembered asking lowly.
"A bed," she had whispered, dark eyes glittering with triumph, "And a body to go with it."
Now- in pain and strength fading fast -Asuma's lips twitched in dry amusement as he realized that he would've been better off staying in town with the innkeeper's large breasts and strong liquor than here in the cold dark, dying under the eaves of silver trees.
Icy wind whispered along his lips and in his semi-unconscious state the woodsman fancied he could hear voices flittering on the edge of the breeze. The air stirred softly again and Asuma's muscled arm clutched harder to blood slick Blackthorn handle of the enormous Ax that he had inherited form his father.
"Kurenai…" he thought as his lids closed and his breath from between chapped lips condensed to fog before him. "Kurenai, I'm sorry."
The birthing had been hard but Shikamaru had managed it.
When he had been woken from his evening nap against the trunk of his favourite Red Oak by the cold nose of a massive stag Shikamaru had opened his eyes and found a deer named Thantos snuffling above him, enormous splayed antlers gleaming ivory in the late sun and majestic bronze hooves pawing the ground in agitation.
"Hey," Shika had murmured sleepily, eyelids still half lowered over ethereal eyes that shifted between green and hazel depending on the light. "What's-"
The stag grunted through his nose and tossed his head towards the forest, dark eyes wide and mahogany coat rippling over tense muscles.
The slender youth paused, his agile brain flitting through the possibilities that could have so frazzled the forest monarch. Again Thantos snorted, this time lowering his velvet nose and carefully butted Shika in the stomach mindful of the spears of bone upon his crown. Hazel green eyes widened.
"Delilah." He murmured, hauling his slender form up to his feet and fastening his thick fleece cloak around him. Reaching down the brown haired youth patted his thigh to ensure the presence of a solid bone knife before facing the stag and agilely leaping upon its broad back. "The fawn is birthing isn't it."
A soon as his cargo was seated Thantos had taken off through the thick trees with a speed and agility that only forest creatures could achieve, darting over sharp jutting rocks and treacherous roots so skilfully that it seemed like his hooves never made contact with the ground. Shikamaru clutched the animal's shoulders, his body rising and falling with expert motions to counter the jarring effects of the gallop.
Thantos bore him up the steep mountain incline, passing the line where the Red Oaks ended and the sliver boughs of the Whitewood trees sotted the headline. There was a hollow just up ahead and the young man sprung off the cantering beast's back towards the mass of heaving golden brown doe that was lumped on her side in the thick mulch of the forest floor.
Delilah was wide eyed and twitchy, huffing through her nose and releasing small noises of pain that made Shikamaru wince. Smoothing a hand down her large belly the brunet struggled to calm the panicking doe. With tender hands Shika felt around the too distended stomach and winced again.
"Troublesome." He muttered lowly. It was worse than he's hoped for- the faun was turned the wrong way and was coming out hoof first.
Shika grit his teeth and stripped off his coat with sharp movements, baring golden brown arms to the elbow. Shifting to the doe's hind quarters he scratched the animal on her ears once more before setting towards his business.
"Sorry girl. This is gonna hurt a bit.
In the end the doe had given birth to twins and a blood-stained Shika sat against a moss covered rock watching the tiny new-borns try to balance on matchstick thin legs in the darkening twilight. Delilah was weakly licking the muzzles of both young bucks and Thantos was standing at the crest of the ridge, fierce black eyes proud.
Shikamaru would never understand how so many humans thought animals were mindless- that stag was the wisest creature the brunet had ever come across in his eighteen years of life.
A sharp snuffling brought the drowsy Nara's attention back to the large beast and Shika cocked a lazy eyebrow when the stag scented the air before turning around and darting off into the foliage. A good few minutes later, when the fawns had finished suckling themselves to sleep, the deer bounded back into the clearing and tossed his head towards the incline of the mountain again.
Shika paused.
"There is no way in hell you got another female pregnant and its giving birth at the same time. Doesn't the word monogamy mean anything to you?"
The animal's eyes narrowed and Shikamaru gave up. Yawning he hauled himself to his feet and grabbed his coat. Evening was fast darkening to night and Shika pursed his full lips and blew a puff of warm air up unto his freezing nose, managing to flutter a few wayward strands of cinnamon hair in the process.
"All right, damn it. I'm coming."
The stench of blood had soured the air metallic and Shikamaru felt the muscles in his back and neck tightening with wary anticipation. Sharp green-hazel eyes expertly noted the smears of ruby blood staining the trees trunks and leaves burgundy in the places where it had dried.
Something large had died here..
Thantos cleared a clump of Rosenthorne bush in a single leap and came to a halt in a before a copse of trees, thick with the fallen silver brown leaves of the Whitewood.
Hazel-green eyes widened and his breath caught in his throat.
A man was there, wounded and dying against the trunk of a towering plant, the roots of the old tree curling and wrapping around his solid body. His face, thrown back against the bark, was square, handsome and utterly bloodless- the thick life fluid which should have been there was coating his entire abdomen and lower half instead, dripping down to pool and seethe upon the ground below him.
And he wasn't breathing.
Leaping off the stag's back Shika stumbled in his haste to get towards the man, knees weak and fear causing his heart to triple its beating until the thumps of the organ were one continuous race.
This was bad.
Reaching the prone form the youth reached out only to recoil for a moment in repulsion. Clutched in the man's lax grasp was a long handled ax, its wicked black blade gleaming with blood-the man's or the beast that had mauled him Shikamaru did not know. It was a logger's ax…a corehunter's weapon.
Shikamaru gritted his teeth, "Murderer." He muttered to himself, slender calloused fingers curling in upon themselves as an angry and bitter part of him contemplated leaving the man to die in just retribution for all the damage he had undoubtedly done.
Sharp eyes darted back to the prone form and lingered on the hand, wincing when he saw the dark glitter of gold. Damnit, he was married. Probably had a busty wife and a brood of children waiting for him. He couldn't leave him in this nameless place to face death in anonymity and his children to suffer. Shikamaru knew what it was like to grow without parents- it was a bitter hurt and he couldn't condemn any to it, even if the bastard was a heartless slaughterer.
"Maybe," Shikamaru thought as he reached out again, grasping handfuls of the man's shirt and biceps and began hauling him out of the grave of roots, "Maybe, in exchange for saving his life, I can ask him to stop it. A life for a life- fitting price."
Gritting his teeth under the weight of the other's bulk, Shika stumbled slightly and the man's shaggy dark head pitched forward and rested in Shikamaru's taut neck. A shiver ran through the brunet as soft, shallow breathing- barely there but present- skittered across his flesh and left raised trails of fine hairs in its wake.
A nudge to his side alerted him to the quiet, observant presence of Thantos and Shika grunted as he heaved the bloody stranger up and towards the kneeling animal's back. With vicious satisfaction and a sharp kick Shika watched as the ax skittered away to lie, hidden, under a thorny bush. Turning back to the blood stained cargo Shikamaru grit his teeth again and furrowed his brows.
Glancing up at the dark mountain sky the youth allowed the frosty air and the distant rushing of the Rasengan to wash over him along with the smells of earth and wood and green and blood. Ethereal fingers of premonition trawled up his spine in a ghostly touch heralding a change in the paths of destiny.
Shikamaru closed his eyes an accepted it.
"Troublesome," he muttered again.
The first time Asuma awoke it was to a world of black and deafening silence. His eyes wouldn't open but he was conscious and the blankness behind his eyelids was strange and unnerving. Pain speared so keenly throughout his body that his mind spun and swam with it, downing under the torrents. Unable to move, to think or to make a sound Asuma screamed internally as his consciousness was overwhelmed.
Without a fight he slipped back into the darkness.
The second time Asuma came to was the time that his stubborn eyelids finally heeded the commands of his brain and fluttered open to a small degree. His jaw was tight and stiff, muscles no longer screaming in sharp agony but throbbing in a dull continuous pain like the repetitive slam of a hammer. Breathing shallowly through his nose the hunter tried to focus, to bring what his eyes were seeing into harmony with his racing mind. His vision was limited and his chest hurt like wildfire but he managed to turn his neck. Straining, his stiff head twisted to the left and the colours swam and danced before settling into a soft brown of a far wall and what looked like hangings of ivy.
Asuma swallowed, the simple action causing sharp pain to his dry throat. There was a shift and a creak followed by the padding of feet. Eyes a colour he had never seen before swam into his vision and Asuma wondered vaguely if he had truly died and this spirit had come to claim him.
The eyes narrowed.
Opening cracked lips he managed to croak out "Water" before his exhausted eyes closed again.
Some increment of time later something cool and smooth was placed against his mouth and like an obedient child the man opened it, almost crying in relief when a few sips of cool, sweet liquid trickled in. Mindless he drank the mouthfuls of water slowly given to him in bouts and broken by pauses to allow him to breathe.
Full, Asuma barely felt the bracing palm slip from behind his throbbing head as he surrendered to the dark again.
It was sound that brought him out of the dark place the third time. The low raspy tones of a soft voice as it spoke in lilting flowing verse.
"Of bodies chang'd to various forms, I sing:
Ye Gods, from whom these miracles did spring,
Inspire my numbers with coelestial heat;
'Till I my long laborious work compleat:
And add perpetual tenour to my rhimes,
Deduc'd from Nature's birth, to Caesar's times.
Before the seas, and this terrestrial ball,
And Heav'n's high canopy, that covers all,
One was the face of Nature; if a face:
Rather a rude and indigested mass:
A lifeless lump, unfashion'd, and unfram'd,
Of jarring seeds; and justly Chaos nam'd.
"Poetry," Asuma thought mistily as his faculties of thought, memory and recognition crept upon him and a shadow of a grin tugged at the edges of his tight mouth. Someone…someone was reading him poetry.
No sun was lighted up, the world to view;
No moon did yet her blunted horns renew:
Nor yet was Earth suspended in the sky,
Nor pois'd, did on her own foundations lye:
Nor seas about the shores their arms had thrown;
But earth, and air, and water, were in one.
Thus air was void of light, and earth unstable…
And water's dark abyss unnavigable.
No certain form on any was imprest;
All were confus'd, and each disturb'd the rest.
For hot and cold were in one body fixt;
And soft with hard, and light with heavy mixt…
Dimly the wounded man listened with all the attention he could muster as the soft voice spoke of the creation of the world from formless chaos and the birth of life on earth.
"Beautiful," he thought as he drifted peacefully to sleep this time, "What a beautiful voice."
Fever woke him next, his body shuddering in vicious spasms of cruel cold even while inside his skin he seemed to boil alive.
Hazy and delirious Asuma cried out in a rough shout, desperate to get away from the flaring heat and pain. His cries and grunts of discomfort were jagged and pleading….but nothing…no one came. Twisting Asuma buried his face in the wet sheets below him, wondering frantically why no one was coming.
Seconds seemed to drag by, each tiny stretch of time magnifying his pain out further until- finally, dear god finally- there was a scramble and cool hands came down upon him, seeming to be everywhere at once, petting and soothing and holding. Deft, firm fingers pried his clenched jaws open and poured a thick liquid down his throat that tasted of mud and black elderberries. Asuma couched and spluttered but swallowed and fell back gasping.
"For hot and cold were in one body fixt indeed," a voice murmured darkly, even as soft hands smoothed his soaked hair from his feverish head and brushed the droplets of sweat from his beard.
"You don't make anything easy do you, stranger."
"-uma" he managed a few minutes after while weakly fighting the heat and the dark and the nausea. "Name…'s Asuma."
The fifth time, finally, brought peace.
Though he was stiff as a week old corpse and his wounded side ached with the throb that only recently knitted skin and muscle could, but he wasn't delirious anymore nor was he sweating buckets through his skin and sheets.
Opening his eyes with a sigh, Asuma blinked, and allowed his vision to clear. He was in a room of some sort but it was the strangest place he had ever seen in his life. The walls looked like stone but not the bland grey of normal rock- no, striations of pale pink and brown swirled through the grey and gave the walls a soft luminescence. Long tendrils of well-groomed ivy fell down the rock face at various intervals like wall curtains and the floor was padded with mat that looked woven from the strands of silken river reeds. Running the circumference of the room was a continuous shelf recessed into the walls, every spare inch of the circle crammed with a great multitude of books of all sizes and scrolls of various thicknesses.
The room was small but not uncomfortably so and was sparsely furnished with a small table and chair in one corner and a tall, gently battered chest with bronze locks that probably housed linens or clothes. A nook near the back had a smooth clean counter and cooking utensils and beside it was a large fireplace hewn into the rock, the stone on the inside crystalized from the heat. The bed Asuma was lying on was in another corner and seemed to be made of piles upon piles of padded tatami, raised above the floor by slats of wood and covered with soft, plain sheets that smelled of air and river water.
Bracing himself the large hunter heaved up and sat upright, allowing the world to spin before it righted itself. It was a homely abode, all done up in calming earthy browns, greens and creams. The only thing odd really was the lack of windows but Asuma shrugged it off and began to take stock of his body. His arms and hands shimmered with the silvery skin of scars and there was a long jagged line across his chest that he remembered was caused by a thorny bush he had run past in his attempt to escape the hedge boar. The worst injury by far was his right abdomen where the horns of the animal had pierced. Deep red and angry looking the still incompletely healed scar was an eyesore and Asuma knew he would carry it for the rest of his life.
Bit by bit and bracing his injured belly the muscled male made his way out of bed towards the mouth of the odd home. Brushing aside the Ivy that hung there he stepped outside, wincing as the sunlight hit his sensitive eyes. He was in a clearing of some sort, well-tended grass surrounded the place and his ears caught the babble of water somewhere nearby. Venturing out further but careful of his step and stride Asuma rounded a corner of the home and found his jaw hitting the floor.
The house - was a tree.
It was one gargantuan Red Oak tree that had a ridiculously wide trunk and roots so thick that they measured the diameter of Asuma's torso. The tips of its branches towered over the rest of the forestry in the distance. Even more stunning, the tree was springing from an outcropping of rock- which explained the stone walls- and its outside was just a breathtakingly beautiful as the inside.
"You shouldn't be walking." A gruff voice said from somewhere to his right. Asuma's head snapped to the direction and found himself staring at the lean back of a slender youth who was kneeling in a flowering garden.
"I'm sorry?"
The other male turned his gaze over his shoulder and with a jolt the injured man recognized the piercing gaze of those golden green orbs. The boy was beautiful- high cheekbones and full mouth balanced by the squareness of his jaw and still developing shoulders. He was lean and had the slightly gangly look of a man just growing into his body. Dark brows furrowed and the line at one corner of his mouth deepened as the youth took offense to being stared at.
"You- you were the one that saved me." Asuma stated half in realization to himself.
The boy regarded him for a moment before nodding sharply and returning to his garden. He was pulling up root vegetables, Asuma noticed in one corner of his mind. Slender masculine fingers pulled the plants up out of the dark earth, deftly plucking the inedible tops off and depositing the softer under bulb in a wicker basket beside him.
A minute passed.
"Thank you." The huntsman finished quietly.
The young man paused before his tense shoulders sagged a bit and a dirt smeared hand came up to wipe his brow, the action leaving a smear of brown in its wake.
Inexplicably, Asuma found it charming.
"You should go back to rest. You're not healed yet, not really."
The huntsman winced. "I feel like I've been lying down far too long- my body is stiffer than nails. How long have I been out?"
"Thirteen days." Was the succinct reply.
The woodsman's eyes flew open in shock. "And that was only since Thantos had found you. Who knows how long you were lying there before that."
Thirteen days….dear god.
A thought occurred to him. "Goliath! My horse, did he-?"
A sharp jab of a finger to the left cut him off and Asuma looked over to see the great black hide of his companion gleaming in the sun as he blithely munched on a mouthful of particularly succulent looking grass.
"Smart animal that." The youth said moving on from the ground tubers to the carrots. "Found its way here on its own without harm." A shrewd eye fell upon him and for a second Asuma got the distinct feeling that the youth- generous as he was to save his life- didn't particularly like him very much.
"Smarter than its owner anyway." The other muttered turning back to his carrots.
Asuma winced. "I-"
"-should go back inside and lay down. You're lucky that you survived that attack much less the poison and infection that came after. That fever lasted for three days."
The man cocked his head. "Infection I understand…but poison?"
The youth stood up, unfolding his lanky frame in smooth movements and reached down to pick up his basket. "Hedge boars sharpen their tusks on Grapplebone trees- the sap is poisonous. You're lucky to be alive."
The other brushed past him and into the house and for the briefest second Asuma hesitated. He had been due back in town for over eight days now. Undoubtedly, they thought him dead. Grimacing, the man reached up to scratch his rough beard and caught a whiff of his skin. Miraculously, he smelled clean- the boy must have bathed him as well. Asuma shook his head in wonder before inching his way back inside.
"I owe you my life," he said to the once again turned back of the beautiful boy.
"Yes." The other replied without inflection as his clever hands cleaned the ground provisions in a bowl of water. Gingerly easing himself back unto the bed the larger man tried again, desperate to build some kind of rapport with this boy who had given him back his life when he had almost carelessly lost it.
"Can I at least know the name of the man who so generously helped me?"
The other tipped the clean vegetables unto a board and splayed them to dry. Turning around Asuma found himself lost in those ethereal eyes for an eternal moment before the other sighed, the brief gust of air fluttering wayward strands of longish cinnamon brown hair.
"Shikamaru," he finally replied in a low voice, "My name is Shikamaru. And I am sorry Asuma, but my help didn't come free."
Asuma nodded, accepting. "Whatever's your price, I'll pay it."
The youth's lips thinned. "Go to sleep," he ordered as he made his way back through the door. "We'll talk later."
They never did have that conversation. Not in the evening when Asuma had woken and Shikamaru had presented him with a delicious rich stew and thick slices of soft bread sprinkled with slivers of walnut nor in the next day when Asuma had gone to reacquaint himself with Goliath and had watched the youth from under the eaves of a Saberback tree.
In fact, they didn't speak of it at all. Not once in the long hours or days that followed was the mysterious price mentioned. Asuma felt awkward and a burden for those days- unused to relying on the help of anyone for anything much less the basic necessities that a standoffish Shikamaru was forced to assist with. The first time he had failed to bathe himself in the clear brook behind the house had been a deep and cutting shame for him and Asuma had kept his dark head down while Shikamaru had thoroughly but gently cleansed him.
It was Shika who dressed his wounds, making poultice after poultice of herbs that Asuma had never seen in his life and it was Shika who helped him stretch the healing skin and muscle, making no comment when Asuma grit his teeth and groaned piteously.
Both silent creatures by nature, there weren't many words passed between them in those early days. Still trying to figure out how he had offended the silent youth Asuma found his hours occupied with watching him, either from under lowered lids as he lay in the bed pretending to be asleep or from the cool shade of the Saberback tree near Goliath's paddock that he had taking a liking to.
"Let me sleep on the floor," Asuma tried one night while they prepared for bed, his voice gruff with disuse. "I shouldn't be kicking you out of your bed."
Shika had immediately dismissed him with an incredulous snort. "The ground is shale stone and as soft as the mats are, you'll rip that side open in one night. It's fine."
Unable to believe it Asuma had found himself watching even more closely, noting things about the youth that fascinated him. Like the noon when he had finally noticed the contents of their meals.
"It's all vegetable," he realized the second he had gone to spoon a mouthful of oats porridge with honey.
"I don't eat meat." Shika had replied, eyes on his own food.
As the time passed the hours of daylight were getting shorter and shorter, darkness creeping upon them sooner than in the previous days.
"Season's changing," Asuma stated quietly to his companion who was sanding down a set of newly whittled bowls. "The days are getting colder."
"Winter comes fast in these mountains." He paused for a bit as he settled one of the beautiful golden brown bowls down. "…If you want to leave then you had best do it soon or the pass of the spine will be blocked."
Asuma knew a chance for escape when he saw one but his honour chaffed like flint rock and he steeled himself to somehow repay the other male.
"I…no…I don't think I'd make it very far in my condition." He lied- but only slightly.
Shikamaru regarded him for a while, eyes steady and even. "Fine… But it'll get cold…and you'll need warm clothing."
Asuma thought. The packs that Goliath had been saddled with and which Shikamaru had rescued didn't contain many warm things. The plains of his home only got chilly winds during the winter months and snow was rare.
"A trip into Konohagakure?"
Shikamaru went as stiff as a plank of iron, eyes blazing with a sudden anger and Asuma was just about to apologize for being presumptuous when the brunet cut him off.
"That town of murderers? No thank you- I only force myself to enter it every other year when it's necessary to get metal tools and rope that I can't make myself. Every day I pray it burns to ashes."
With that Shikamaru had stomped out, jaw tight and eyes flashing. Stunned, Asuma could only wonder at what the enigmatic youth meant by the accusation. It was just another mystery to add to the puzzle that was Shikamaru.
It was some increment of time later when Shika returned to the home, his arms laden with a bundle of thick black stuff that looked like fur which he quietly placed on Asuma's feet. The woodsman looked up from the book of histories that he had been perusing by the embers of firelight.
"It's the hide of the hedgeboar that you killed. I found it dead a few days after I found you and skinned it. It's been tanning since." Shikamaru paused and shifted and for the first time Asuma realized that the youth looked quiet.
"Can you sew?" Asuma was asked.
"Yes," he replied softly, heart filling with a strange compassion and gratitude.
The boy nodded but lingered by the man's side for longer than he normally would have.
"Is…something wrong?" he asked lowly, hoping for a breakthrough with the other.
Shikamaru faltered for a bit before the line came back to his shoulders and the walls snapped up again. "No. Nothing's wrong. There should be enough yards for some long socks, gloves, a vested jacket and maybe a hat if you're careful enough. Needles and things are in the chest over there- you can do it when you're ready."
Asuma swallowed hard, a strange mix of bereavement and yearning crawling under his skin as he watched the youth walk stiff backed away from him.
And he didn't know why.
It was while searching for the needles and thread that he found it.
Tucked into the very bottom of the trunk was a beautiful ancient Go board, its edges carefully carved with twisting vines and delicate leaves of intricate and painful detail. The stones, kept in smooth bags of supple kidskin were opalescent moonstone and drops of blackest obsidian.
Asuma felt a surge of joy and wonder at the finding of the pastime that he had played so often with his own father in his childhood. Without a further thought the man removed the board and placed it on the table, the previous one lone chair now accompanied by a plain but sturdy stool that he used while taking his meals when inside. Enamored with the beautiful old relic Asuma didn't hear the quiet footsteps behind him.
"What are you doing?" Came the voice, sharp and cutting as a slap.
Asuma turned to face an annoyed looking Shikamaru and with a wince realized his mistake. "I'm sorry…it just- reminded me of my childhood so much that I couldn't resist. I'll put it back if you like."
Shikamaru was silent for a minute, his shrewd eyes flitting back and forth between the board and Asuma's face.
"…You play?" he finally asked, voice wary as though it was an incredulous concept.
Asuma grinned crookedly, "Fairly enough, yeah."
Shikamaru snorted as he deposited his load of cleaned potatoes in the kitchen nook before moving to take a seat in his chair, the beginning edges of a smile dancing around the corners of his mouth.
"We'll see about that."
For hours they played and with each move Asuma saw deeper into Shikamaru's mind than ever before.
The boy… was a genius.
"Christ," Asuma muttered to himself as he again found himself backed into a corner and surrounded. "Your mind is nothing like I've ever seen before."
Shikamaru gave a tiny smirk before getting up from his seat to go ladle the now ready food into wooden bowls while Asuma contemplated the very few options he had available to him.
"Played with that many people huh?"
Asuma shrugged his broad shoulders and flashed a crooked grin to his keeper as he accepted the warm fragrant bowl of curried lentils and fluffy wheat biscuits.
"My father," he volunteered. "He played with me for years. Everything I learned came from him."
Shikamaru didn't say anything even after he had settled and Asuma took it as an unconscious invitation to speak about his childhood.
Unlike the nobles and the newer rich, Asuma didn't have a last name really- they called him the Son of Sarutobi- an old wise man that had been Village Head for longer than most of the people in his home town had been alive. Without trepidation Asuma divulged that from birth he had always been the omega of the tribe- small and pale, suffering from a sickness of the chest that always left him hacking and gasping for air. It had made him quiet, a loner, more prone to observation than participation. Until he hit his sixteenth summer and his body literally evolved.
It seemed that he grew overnight, like the old gods of the realm had stolen into his wicker bedchamber at night and stretched his muscles and bones, breathing life into weak organs and squaring his shoulders and thighs into rocks of solid muscle. By the time he was nineteen Asuma stood hands and feet above the rest of the men in the village with clothes that stretched every time he shifted. Thick through the chest and with large hands Asuma found his calling in the heart of the blackwoods that surrounded his village home- he became a corehunter- one who made his living by felling the trees.
Asuma's sharp eyes noticed that the easy relaxation of the young male before him had disappeared when he mentioned the part about felling trees and he filed it away for further analysis since the decoding of Shikamaru now his most enjoyable and thought consuming pastime.
"What of the woman?" Came the gruff question from the golden eyes boy who was staring obstinately into the fire and not meeting Asuma's gaze as he had been doing for the past few hours.
The older man blinked. "Woman?"
Shika's eyes flickered to the ring on the hunter's hand and a wry smile crossed Asuma's face before he lifted his opposite hand and smoothly pulled the band of gold off.
"There is no woman." He murmured lowly as he looked at the band glimmering red gold with the reflection of the fire. "Not really. Her name is Kurenai; a schoolteacher with parents who have more ambition for her than I can provide." Asuma paused. "It was a promise to myself that I'd do everything in my power to win her over. But…"
Shikamaru was looking at him now and the larger man shrugged a thick shoulder. "She moved to a big city to teach at a private school there. This trip to the silverwood was a last effort to gain the means to win her." His smile grew even more wan. "It's been two and a half months…she's probably forgotten me now."
Asuma didn't see because he wasn't looking, too lost in the past to view his future, but the hard edges of Shikamaru's eyes softened and as the night wound onwards to dawn the inflexibility in the brunet boy's heart began to wear thin.
"That is not a DEER." Asuma shot back, his mind frantic.
Shika smirked back over at him and dimly Asuma realized that he was getting many more of those amused smiles these days.
"That is Thantos, the Monarch of this forest."
The shaggy headed man absolutely, positively refused to believe it and his dark eyes narrowed as he continued to stare suspiciously at the creature who was literally eye level with his own six foot three frame.
"No way in hell." Asuma ground out. "You have got to be feeding him fertilizer and the blood of virgins." Thantos snorted through his nose before turning to look at Shikamaru with a 'where did you find this idiot?' gaze prominent in his dark eyes.
"You brought him to me, remember." Shika smirked as he went off to the left towards the clean washing that had been hung to dry. "Don't go blaming me for your mistakes."
Asuma watched as Shikamaru regarded him out of the corner of his eye as he deftly moved towards the carrots and began deftly dicing them.
"You can cook." The other man stated flatly.
Asuma smirked back. "It was either that or starve to death as a lonely bachelor. I have more use than you think."
Shika's smirk became evil as he rinsed his hands and then moved towards the bed and flopped back.
"Make me dinner then." He ordered with an imperious wave of his hand even as he yawned and relaxed. It was something the taller male had noticed about Shika- along with his easy-going nature and unnatural wisdom, the boy was singularly addicted to sleep and lazing about when he didn't have to move. Asuma often amusedly thought that if he didn't have to take care of himself Shika would stay on his patch of grass under the Red Oak tree until he turned to stone.
"As you command, o Master." He replied before setting about his task.
(Some increment of time later)
…. A beat.
"…I swear I didn't mean for it to catch fire." The Sarutobi cringed.
Shikamaru turned an evil eye on him as they both stood outside in the cold darkness waiting for the last tendrils of black smoke to waft from the mouth of the tree/cave.
Meekly the huntsman followed Shikamaru back into the room and cringed again as the Nara poked at a blackened stack of lumps that had previously been sweet potatoes.
He turned to stare flatly at the other man.
Asuma grinned, unable to keep it in anymore. "I was aiming for 'well done'?"
Another beat.
Both men erupted into raucous laughter, their bodies shaking with mirth.
By the fourth time Asuma had nearly skewered his cold fingers with the needle Shikamaru had taken pity on him and come to sit by his side on the bed before undoing his own gloves and reaching slender fingers out to clasp over the huntsman's blueing digits.
Asuma looked up into almond shaped eyes the colour of the middle of spring and swallowed hard around the lump in his throat.
Shikamaru merely offered a half smile before softly slipping the needle and cloth from the other man and began to deftly sew the seam.
"Touch those candied beets again and you'll lose an arm." Asuma growled as he finished dipping the last of the red tubers into the pot of honey glaze he had made. If there was one thing Asuma knew how to cook damnit (that debacle with the sweet potatoes be damned) it was sweets, and Shikamaru had a raging lust for sugary things that had both shocked and charmed the hell out of the older male.
For three hours the boy who had finally revealed his last name to be 'Nara' had been edging around the worktable, fingers light and flickering as he pilfered the sticky stuff and Asuma pretended not to notice.
Shikamaru's full lips pursed into a pout and his eyes narrowed at being called out. Asuma cocked a brow. Shika slinked out of the house muttering darkly.
The plainsman had woken up swollen, his cock full and thick against his leg in the first erection he had felt since his injuries three months ago.
It was the middle of the night and the wind was howling outside the mouth of the thick ivy wall that was shockingly good at keeping out both creatures and nature alike. He was warm, so very warm under his hedge boar blanket and the sheets that Shika had confessed to hand-weaving from strands Maidenhair Fern and Asuma couldn't resist reaching a hand down to wrap around his thicker than average manhood. Squeezing the wide base and running light fingers along the well memorised tracks of blue veins and rigid muscle, Asuma groaned in pleasure as desire spread through his body like one of Shikamaru's warm filling stews.
The man bit his lip as the errant thought of Shikamaru brought others to the forefront of his mind, like the twilight three days previous when he had woken late from an afternoon nap and ventured outside to find Shikamaru, wet and naked, enjoying the last of the stream behind his home that was slowly frosting over. The boy was leaning back, slender muscles glistening in the late light, chest slim but masculine and belly flat but not hard.
Asuma's mouth had gone dry when the brunet had lifted one long golden leg out of the water and began massaging oil into the skin, the shift revealing all his slender quiescent cock to hungry dark eyes. As much as he felt like a creeper, Asuma literally couldn't move from the natural beauty of the young man.
The hunter didn't wonder at his attraction. Even now as he jerked his rigid cock to visions of otherworldly eyes, the man had taken it as it came, never the type to fight his own body or instincts.
And his instincts wanted Shikamaru with a constant, ever present yearning that made even looking at the beautiful, brilliant boy a lesson in control.
Asuma wanted to open him up and press into him, wet and slick and deep- wanted to just hold himself there while the other clenched and spasmed on him, finding his release through Asuma's animalistic lust.
He had had men before- in secret of course, as was expected. In the plains, everyone knew but didn't speak of the surreptitious things that occurred between men when they were alone and away from their women. Especially when the parties of core hunters left for long trips during the fall when the wood had been fully grown and the summer air was heavier than wine. He had been younger then, just growing into his body but still large- and his first lover had been another new hunter, a boy with sweet eyes who had shyly kissed him in the dark and sucked his cock for hours under the gibbous harvest moon.
In his mind now, even as he lay in the darkness with the breath of his housemate soft and even a few feet away from him, Asuma imagined Shikamaru kneeling in front of him, eyes hazy with lust as he fought to accept the thick, leaking erection down his slender clutching throat.
The huntsman came with a grit of teeth and a fierce flash of colour- the exact same shade as a pair of golden green eyes.
"Too soon," Asuma heard the other mutter as he stepped out into the grey day. Shikamaru's eyes were turned upwards and to the left towards the climb of the mountain. Curious the older man followed the gaze.
"What?" he asked as he came to stand beside the other, not liking the thinness of Shika's lips or the deep furrow that creased his brows.
The boy jerked his chin to the tall crag of the Hokage Head Mountain which Asuma was shocked to notice was filmed in white.
"It's too soon for snow," Shikamaru muttered to himself as he tried to figure out what game nature was playing. "Winter is coming faster than we realized."
Asuma was quiet for a moment as he contemplated. "We should get ready then." He finally replied, reaching up to place a large hand on the youth's skinny shoulder. Shikamaru turned that gorgeous face up towards him and it was all Asuma could do to not lean down and bite the flush skin of his lower lip.
The youth graced him with a smile and their gazes met and held for an eternal second before Shika turned away with a soft haze of red blooming up his neck.
Asuma smirked.
''What are you DOING!" came the outraged scream and Asuma spun around from his position in front of the tall dry limbed Tabentwine tree that he had been about to hack into only to find Shikamaru descending upon him with a fire of rage in his eyes that the other had never seen.
Asuma stepped back unconsciously. "What do you think?" he asked as he stared enraptured but wary at the other male. Shikamaru was beautiful in his fury, long limbs trembling and his hair free of its customary ponytail to whip in long brown tendrils around his head. For a moment he seemed otherworldly.
"We need firewood."
The anger blazed brighter. "And you were going to hack a live tree to death to do it?"
Asuma cast an eye over the bleak, leafless pole of wood, its fingers bare as bone and stark against the grey sky. "…It isn't ali-"
"You fool." Shikamaru returned, voice an odd mix between anger and sorrow. "Every tree is alive, even in winter when they must rest and sleep like everything else with a soul."
And for a long moment Asuma was swallowed by a miasma of confusion before it parted and realization dawned upon him like light breaking through rainclouds.
"You…you're not…you're not like the rest of us are you." He stated voice low and deep as his mind spun with connections that seemed so ridiculously farfetched that they had to be true.
"I had thought- I wondered, how it was possible. How you survived way out here on your own at such a young age."
Asuma took a step forward and Shikamaru's eyes opened in something akin to fear as the other approached, his long fingers clenching around the basket of nuts that he had harvested for storage.
Nearer Asuma came, each solid footstep bringing him just that closer to his object of fascination, admiration and lust, until he was inches away from the slender boy.
"I'd wondered- about the way you moved- swaying like young limbs in wind- about the way your eyes shifted colour with your mood…about the way you'd go grey and pallid the times when the sun wouldn't show up for days."
Shika's throat worked as he swallowed but his words were cut off as a large, calloused hand came up to clasp his cheek.
"About how the animals came to you…how the thorns on bushes never scratched you when you took berries from them…how the grass you had just laid on became green for just a few moments."
So close were they now that Asuma was breathing in the soft puffs of air expelled from Shika's flared nostrils.
"I thought they were stories," Asuma husked, dark eyes roving over every spare inch of the youth before him. "At least, in my land they are just that…stories." He chuckled briefly before his smile fell and Shikamaru found himself hypnotized by that stare.
The huntsman's free right hand- the one not gripping the handle of his long missing ax that Shikamaru had quietly presented him with one night without a single word and a hard mouth- drifted down from Shika's face along the curves of his neck and chest to settle on a slender hip. The man's fingers grasped for a moment before pulling the younger one into him, his dark head lowering and the whiskers on his chin scratching softly against golden skin as he spoke.
"Meliai-" he breathed.
Shikamaru sharply jerked out of his embrace, chest heaving. "The forest gives us wood if you ask." He replied quietly, not answering nor confirming the other man's suspicion, nor moving to cover the slight rise of aroused flesh that was clearly shown through his dark leggings.
Shikamaru turned away, his final words bare whispers. "There is no need to kill any more of my cousins."
That night, after the last of the gathered food stores and flasks of water had been secured in cupboards and the newly woven winter mats- thick to fight the cold that would freeze the ground, had been laid, Asuma quietly dismantled the futon and added the piles he had been sleeping on to the warm nest Shikamaru had been silently building, merging both into one large sleeping place.
The boy said nothing, only shifting to give room when Asuma joined him on the bed and layered the heavy blackness of his hedge boar blanket over them.
The sleet came then, howling and lashing against the thick door and the ivy.
Without a word Asuma reached out and wrapped and arm around Shika's chest pulling the other back into his broader frame. His nose reached down and pressed into the hairline just beside his ear and he inhaled. The other wasn't sleeping- he knew it. Brushing his lips across the curl of an ear Asuma kissed the skin for a long second.
"…I'm sorry."
A moment later long fingers came up to intertwine with his.
"I know."'
Three am and darkness brought with them twisting, blistering lust.
Asuma's cock was leaking copiously against his leg, the hard ridge of the solid organ pressed tight between his own body and the high, taut curve of Shikamaru's ass.
"I know you're awake Shika." He whispered roughly, his grip on the slender hip tightening and pulling the other against his still swelling cock.
Asuma groaned, lust coursing through him like bushfire at the contact and the implication.
"Don't pretend beautiful boy- wake up and face what you've done to me."
The mewling whimper that escaped Shikamaru's lips went straight into Asuma's throbbing hardness, a hard pulse of the wanting organ causing the very head of his cock to flare and seep.
With a shift and a curse Asuma was over him, slipping between parted legs and under thick warm covers to press his overheating body into the slender writhing one below him. Shikamaru was awake, breath short and panting against Asuma's skin and body slender and supple beneath him. The taller male ground down, face burying itself into a sleep warmed neck while both large, rough hands grasped two hips and pulled the unresisting body up into his.
"Feel that?" he asked, the tight circular motions of his own pelvis frotting both clothed erections together. Shikamaru's left hand grabbed at his hair while the youth sucked in air.
"Fuck," he hissed in the darkness and for a moment Asuma felt bereft that he was denied the pleasure of those eyes. "I want-"
The huntsman undid the clasps on their bottom halves, reaching inside his own to fish out the throbbing organ before releasing Shika's long, slender one. He pressed down again, a large hand stroking both leaking cocks and the other hungrily squeezing the firm swell of golden ass that he was desperate to stain with his cum.
Shika groaned in his throat and for a second Asuma thought that the youth-obviously untouched as he was- would be reluctant to voice his need.
He was wrong.
"I want you inside, pulsing- want you bare and hard…" his voice dropped to a moan as his slender fingers reached up to tug at his tightened nipples in the barely there space between their bodies. "Want you deep…want your-"
The other broke off; a high moan ripped from him as Asuma's hand squeezed his fully, heavy balls.
"My what, beautiful…what else do you need?"
The answer was a long breath of want. "Your seed."
Clothes disappeared in a haze of red and black, and the only sound in the huntsman's ears were the cries of the boy beneath him as he sucked marks into virgin skin and bit at tender, throbbing nipples. Shikamaru's legs were shoved wide and back and Asuma was determined to plough him when a thought shot across his lust crazed mind.
"Oil." He cursed, panting. "I need-"
But wet lips silenced him, a firm tongue seeking determinedly into his mouth as long fingers crawled down his chest and belly to wrap around his desperate staff, smoothing the rivulets of thick wet down the trunk before grasping lightly and pulling towards Shikamaru's revealed entrance.
The hunter's body locked with shock when he felt the wetness that greeted the flared crown of his penis. Unable to believe it, his hand released a sweat slick leg and dropped down, rough thick fingers darting to the small entrance that was undoubtedly slippery and thoroughly wet. Amazed Asuma sank both fingers inside, groaning when the body accepted him, slick and soft and eased.
Shikamaru mewled and Asuma felt his vision swim as he fingered his lover, questing deep and hard as he searched for the small rise that would m-
"Ah!" came the exclamation and the slick hot muscles clamped down on the digits even as Asuma felt a wave of hot wet wash over his fingers. Pulling the soaked extremities back the woodsman kept his face close to Shikamaru's as he slowly moved them up to his own mouth and sank them inside.
Hazelnut.
Dear gods.
Blind with lust the older man sucked them clean. "You really aren't human," He whispered, the wet hand reaching down to press his cock against the tiny, grasping hole. "Are you." He murmured, pressing the fat head against the small ingress.
Shikamaru's hands were clutching his thick biceps and his reply was soft, needy: "Does it matter?"
In answer Asuma speared him in one thrust, fucking deep into the clutching tight and cursing in appreciation when his cock was coated in slick oil. The thrusts were deep and hard, each press forward bottoming out into Shika's belly and staining his insides as 'taken'. The Nara was shoving upwards against his reaming, accepting the thick intrusion with champion determination.
The gods alone knew how long they fucked each other. By the creeping tendrils of dawn an exhausted Shikamaru was copiously draining thick white from his gaping entrance and Asuma's once heavy balls were empty.
"Please," the wanton boy whispered from his place on his belly as his lover moved within him from above, Asuma's last erection tender inside his puffy walls. "Come…want it…please,"
The huntsman let out a cry and surrendered; flooding his waiting lover with everything he had left. Shika bucked up and arched with him and for a moment, eternity hung on silver threads.
Through tired eyes Asuma watched as Shika's slender hand came up and palmed his lower belly.
"Can feel it," the boy whispered, "So warm."
It was then that the plainsman knew that he was hopelessly in love.
Pulling out, he settled and wrapped his lover into him, loving the smell of his own body on Shika's skin.
It was a while later that he heard it.
"Stay with me."
The other frowned and tried to cling to consciousness. "Mmm'what?" he asked.
"My price- for saving your life. Stay with me. I was going to ask for you to stop killing trees but… I'm selfish."
For the briefest moment Asuma thought back to his home and the life he had led for so long before he had found this unearthly creature hidden in the woods like a gem in coal dust. That life of rigid cities and the expectations of others… of error and shame and loneliness… of glass and steel and worthless acquisitions.
How empty it was.
Asuma smiled against wet cinnamon hair.
"You didn't even have to ask."
THE END.