Summary: He felt annoyed. He finally had sex with Ino and he couldn't remember it.
Pairing: ShikaIno (Like it won't be obvious within seconds).
If you don't like this pairing then you'd be something of an idiot if you read this anyway. If you want to flame then I'll go ahead and copy/paste this warning in reply. Please don't be silly.
Warning: Gratuitious smexiness. Multi-chapter.
Disclaimer: Oh good heavens, if only I owned it. Then I could fix certain things...
I hate hangovers, Shikamaru thought groggily. I'm a genius, I should be a bit smarter than this.
At least the bed was comfortable. Though it wasn't his own bed.
He raised his head, moving his arm and feeling something silky shifting beneath his skin. He blinked and realized that there was silky blond hair trapped beneath his arm. And then he knew where this was heading.
Ino was lying next to him, her cheek pressed against the mattress, one hand resting near her face and the other arm framing the outside of her head with her hand buried underneath the pillow. Her hair was fanned out around her and some of it was trapped underneath his arm.
He stared at her, taking in her peacefully sleeping expression. It was so unusually quiet. It looked like there was an interesting hickey on the crook of her neck, almost hidden by her hair. And there was no sign of clothes, from the smooth expanse of her back that was available for viewing. Though there were some quite fascinating red grooves against the outside of her shoulders.
He shifted slightly and could feel warm sheets against his bare skin.
Then he felt annoyed. He finally had sex with Ino and he couldn't remember it.
Stupid alcohol.
The clock read nine. There was really no reason for him to be awake yet. Maybe he should just go back to sleep.
But there was a very beautiful and naked girl lying next to him in bed. It beat cloud-gazing.
And even Shikamaru wasn't that lazy.
Ino shifted slightly in her sleep and Shikamaru's eyes were magically drawn to where her chest was pressed against the mattress. He wished that her breasts were a bit more visible, but it was certainly more than he ever saw otherwise. She shifted again, pressing against the bed to rise slightly, stretching her spine for a moment, and turned to face the other direction and she pressed back against him.
This was a great and precarious place to be.
It was precarious because they were both naked, but no longer drunk. And one of the best and worst aspects- it was Ino.
She was gorgeous and knew it. Even down to the way that she moved, though that was something he wasn't sure that she even noticed anymore. And this whole thing started in the stupidest way too.
"Take care of my body, Shikamaru."
There was only so much a thirteen-year-old boy could take of holding onto or guarding a beautiful girl, before he started getting a bit crazy. And then it had turned torturous to use his shadow technique against her, because the very idea of making her body do things felt so inappropriate and was such a turn-on.
Stupid Ino with her stupid body.
And then there was her personality. Her personality which ranged from really friendly and sincerely caring to mean, impatient, and kind of annoying. And she'd always end up yelling insulting questions at him that made Asuma snicker.
"Why won't you let me fight more?"
"Why don't you ever really fight against me?"
"I'm not weak!"
Even Choji had bugged him about that for awhile, complaining about how Shikamaru seemed to have no trouble letting him get hurt and why was it that Ino got all the special treatment.
And then there was Asuma laughing in the background, his eyes bright with amusement.
Asuma must have told Kurenai about it because she'd get a stupid sort of grin when she saw him if Ino was anywhere nearby. Which in turn made Shikamaru feel that it was absolutely necessary for him to throw a biting insult at Ino that would quickly enrage her and they'd get locked in a vicious fight.
It only got worse as they got older. She kept getting prettier and prettier and she settled down on a lot of her stupider habits. And she got over her crush on Sasuke. It hurt her when they'd all made a pack to kill Sasuke, but that was painful for a lot of them. Not even necessarily about Sasuke himself, but about having to kill someone that they'd trained with, that had been a part of their experiences. It hurt to think about what it would do to Naruto who had made it his personal mission to get Sasuke back, as though his redemption might be enough to redeem himself, even though he'd done that in spades.
They'd also gotten much closer after Asuma's death. Ino fully accepted Choji and Shikamaru without any restraints, using them as supports as though her life depended on it.
It felt strange to be beneath that level of trust.
But then after all of that, she fell apart. She was dating wildly, anyone that she didn't know and that none of her friends knew. She'd never let any of them contact any of her real friends, but it was clear that none of them treated her very well. Some vicious rumors started and Ino seemed to revel in it. A complete self-destruction.
Then one day Shikamaru saw her with some random guy, standing outside of a shop near the edge of town. She was smiling at the guy with such a fake smile, her arms wrapped around his neck as she went up on her tiptoes to kiss him. Just some civilian with a stupid smirk on his face.
Shikamaru was suddenly across the street, jerking the guy back, shoving him hard enough into a wall that it left him on the ground stunned. He caught Ino's arms tightly and scowled hard at her.
"Stop fucking around."
Ino stared at him startled before her temper rose magnificently in her eyes. Then she suddenly backed down and shrugged. She looked off to the side.
"Okay."
To the shock of her friends, she did. She settled completely back to the way she was before and was suddenly back on missions with her team. Well, the semblance of her old team. She and Choji had both made it to chuunin, but Shikamaru had been promoted to jounin.
He was usually allowed to pick his own team, so their old team was resurrected.
But now there was hard sexual tension.
On his side.
Towards her.
That she somehow didn't seem to notice.
And it was driving him crazy.
Which is most likely what led to last night.
Apparently team vacations were not only a bad idea, they were actually a terrible idea. Not that having sex with Ino was a terrible thing. No, the tragedy was being unable to remember having sex with Ino.
He smoothed her hair back, tucking it behind her ear. There was a tempting expanse of shoulder, but he was tempting fate as it was. Ino shifted again and he felt her wake up. She stretched a bit and paused when her leg brushed against his. He backed up a bit as she rolled onto her stomach and turned to look at him.
"Really?" she said.
What a disappointment.
"Apparently," he said with a shrug.
She leaned her head face-down into the mattress. "Sorry about that," she said, her voice muffled.
Shikamaru hated feeling awkward. Were they just going to hang out in bed? He wasn't really into that unless there was a bit more enthusiasm on the part of the girl.
"Do you remember what happened?" Ino said, turning her head to look at him.
He shook his head. Ino sighed. "I wonder where Choji is."
That was actually a good question. They had been rooming together. And he and Ino didn't even appear to be in that same hotel. And last he knew, Ino had the keys.
"So you don't remember anything?" Ino asked again.
He shook his head again. Being depressed made him tired.
"You're supposed to have some great memory."
"It doesn't work during a black-out."
"Do you know where my clothes are?" she said.
"Around," he said.
They were a part of a rather impressive display of violently strewn clothing covering the expanse of the room. Shikamaru sighed in further regret of not being able to remember. "You look away," Ino shot at him.
Dammit.
He buried his head in the pillow as he listened to her rooting around the room and pulling on clothing. Finally she came and sat on the bed again. "So… where is Choji?"
Shikamaru lifted his head slightly so that his voice wasn't completely muffled. "My turn to get dressed."
Ino sighed. "Fine," she said, drawing up her knees and covering her eyes with her hands.
Shikamaru rolled his eyes as he internally realized exactly how childish they were. Like they hadn't seen each other in near-nude states before. Granted that was usually when there was some sort of injury that required clothing to be removed, but still.
"I think I still have the key to the room," Ino said through her hands, "And Choji doesn't have one. You don't think he had to sleep outside, do you?"
"He's a ninja," Shikamaru said while yanking his shirt on, "And there were windows."
"Yeah, but none of them opened except for one, and that one was small. The others are just flat glass."
This was true, Shikamaru mused while forcefully tying his hair back in place. He caught a glimpse of his reflection and sighed in displeasure. Of course Ino would have felt the need to leave a bite-mark on the juncture of his neck and shoulder.
It was so in-character for her. She'd been the type as a child to make sure that everything she owned had some sort of mark or trait identifying it as hers. Apparently that was something that she still unconsciously did even when grown up.
Though now it was more of a… successful conquest type of thing.
Stupid Ino.
"You're healing this," Shikamaru said flatly, fingers going near but not quite touching the bite mark.
"Did I leave something on you?" she asked through her hands.
Shikamaru snorted and resisted the urge shove her. She was very near the edge of the bed, just the slightest little shove would send her toppling off. It would be gratifying at the very least.
He quelled that thought. His head already hurt enough, there was no reason to provoke Ino into shrieking at him.
"Aren't you dressed yet?" Ino asked in exasperation.
"Yes," he said, marveling at her hypocrisy. A complaint like that from the girl who took forever to get ready.
Well, in comparison to himself and Choji anyway.
Ino dropped her hands and stared at him. Shikamaru shifted uncomfortably before he realized that she was zeroing in on his neck. "Wow," she commented, "I did well. That must have bled."
He scowled at her, but she didn't notice as she was too busy flipping the sheet down a bit and lifting a pillow slightly. Yup. There was a blood-stain just below the pillow. "C'mere and I'll heal that," she said, lifting her eyes back up to him and gesturing with one hand.
"You're lucky, Shikamaru," Ino commented as she activated her chakra and placed her fingers above the mark, "Normally I don't heal this stuff. I kinda think of it as like, a gift of sorts."
"Don't you ever shut up?" Shikamaru snapped annoyed.
Ino glared and pressed her fingers down hard on the bite. It immediately burned and he jerked back. Damn. He knew better than that kind of timing. It was a stupid idea to taunt Ino while she was doing something for him. Taunting should be done afterwords or else when she wasn't doing anything.
"There," she said with narrowed eyes, "All better, you baby."
It was actually.
Ino reactivated her chakra and placed her hand on her own head. "I don't like headaches," she explained loftily when she saw him watching, "I'd offer to fix yours, but you're being a jerk."
Immature brat.
"I'm going to go find Choji," he muttered getting to his feet, "Go check if we paid for this yet."
Ino began to protest that she wasn't going to pay, but then just glared instead. Shikamaru was in a perpetual state of having no money and she was in a perpetual state of being spoiled by her parents. She usually paid for things among her friends, actually.
Shikamaru let the door slam behind him and gave the slightest of smirks when he heard her shout after him in response.
It turned out that they were only a block away from their original hotel which made Shikamaru inwardly sigh because it meant that he and Ino had headed to this one for the specific purpose of fun time. Their original hotel was much more modest than the one he'd woken up in that morning, but it was still a very nice hotel.
Choji was in the hotel restaurant on the first floor, thoroughly enjoying the breakfast buffet. He choked when he first spotted Shikamaru and then his grin got steadily more Cheshire-like the closer that Shikamaru got to him. Which made Shikamaru pause wearily by the table, before he accepted the inevitable and sat down.
"And to think we were worried that you didn't have a place to stay last night," he muttered.
Choji started snickering. "What, you mean after you two abandoned me?"
"Shut up."
"Yeah right."
"How'd you get into the room?"
"I just told the front desk that I lost the key. It was easy enough."
Right. There were non-ninja ways of doing things. It'd be easier to remember if his head didn't hurt so much.
"So do you remember anything, or were you in black-out mode?" Choji asked, never losing his grin.
"Black-out mode," Shikamaru said.
Choji waited to see if Shikamaru would ask. He remained undaunted by the ensuing silence, however, and his grin somehow grew.
"You've never giggled that much in your life," Choji managed before breaking out in laughter himself.
Giggling. Oh good.
"Granted Ino thought it was hilarious as well," Choji managed, "Where is she, by the way?"
Shikamaru shrugged. Choji snorted, "Don't try to sell me any BS about not waking up with her this morning. I know where you both went off to."
"She was still there last I saw her," Shikamaru said with a glare.
Choji just nodded and was silent for a moment before he started laughing again. "God, Shikamaru, I've seen you in black-out mode drunk before, but what the hell? I was up late laughing last night and now that I see you it's still funny."
"Shut up," Shikamaru groaned, "I don't want to hear it."
"If I had a video of you, I'd show it to you," Choji said, "It was that great."
…
At least Ino didn't remember either.
How much did he even drink anyway?
He glanced over to where Choji was breathless with laughter. Stupid best friends.
"I don't like you," he said.
Choji smiled, "That's not what you said last night. If I remember correctly, you told me that I was the greatest guy ever, that you didn't deserve to be my friend, and that you loved me. 'Dearly' was the word you added. Followed by, 'a lot' and then a bunch of giggling."
Shikamaru resisted the strong urge to kill himself. "What did I do to deserve a friend like you, Choji?" he said darkly, "I've always tried to be a decent guy."
"Probably making up for bad karma in your previous life. Maybe you were a serial killer. Or, y'know, just a mean jerk," Choji said, nodding sagely.
"Apparently you paid for the room last night," Ino said carelessly to Shikamaru as she flopped down in the chair between the two boys at their four-sided table. She rested her head on her arms, turning to look at Choji. "Did you have to sleep in the hallway?" she asked.
"No, I just-"
"Good," Ino said. "So were you the sober one last night?"
Choji's grin returned. This was a great day. "I didn't want to get drunk enough to miss the show," he said.
"Did I tell you embarrassing secrets?" Ino asked.
"A few," he said.
Ino looked at him for a moment. "That's fine, I trust you. You're good at keeping secrets."
Shikamaru rolled his eyes. It was a bit of Ino's manipulative magic. Now Choji would feel honor-bound to keep those secrets. One glance told him how effective Ino's words had been.
"That smells delicious," Ino said glancing at the plates of food in front of Choji. "Of course, I am on a diet," she said contemplatively. "What the hell, I'm on vacation."
Choji waited until she was out of earshot before snorting. "Diet my ass," he muttered.
The two boys knew very well by now that Ino's perpetual diet was a complete lie. Though she seemed to truly believe that she was on a diet, she in no way acted as though she was actually on one. She'd make some mention of it and then proceed to eat good amounts of whatever she wanted. And she'd use whatever excuse.
Choji was under the impression that she was just doing it to appear dainty. The simple fact was that the girl had a great metabolism. But the one time that Choji made a mention of how much she actually ate, she freaked out at him, beat him up, called him a lot of names, and then- of all things- started crying.
It was a topic to tread carefully around.
"If you were sober last night then why didn't you take care of things?" Shikamaru said.
Choji blinked. "What? Did you want me to stop you from sleeping with Ino?"
"When I was drunk out of my mind? Yes," Shikamaru said.
"But you were both having such a great time!" Choji protested.
"I was drunk out of my mind."
"Yes," Choji nodded, "And you said, 'I'm having such a great time.'"
Shikamaru shuddered slightly. He wasn't the type to make declarations like that.
"I figured that you must have been having one of the greatest times ever in order to actually say that. Do you know how many times I've heard you say that you were having a good time? Yesterday brings that count to a total of one," Choji said.
Shikamaru narrowed his eyes. Stupid, traitorous friends. Willing to let him make a fool of himself.
Ino came back with a plate full of generous servings of colorful foods. Choji's eyes widened. "They've got cream pie out now?" he asked in a delighted voice, "I'll be back."
Ino took a bite of her slice of cream pie and then looked up and glared at Shikamaru. He returned her gaze warily. "Do you know how many bruises I had to heal?" Ino said.
He blinked. "What?"
"There were bruises on my arms, and my shoulders, and my hips, and jeez! You're supposed to tell the other person if you want some S&M play," she said with the same glare as she took another bite of her cream pie.
How embarrassing.
"That's hardly S&M," he muttered, looking away and idly turning an empty water glass. "And how do you know what happened? Do you remember it?"
"No," Ino said, and he could tell that she was telling the truth, "Somewhere around the twelfth or sixteenth drink is where I blanked out."
"Twelve or sixteen?" Shikamaru repeated, "You can remember up until then? Alcoholic."
Ino's temper flared. "It's not my fault that you're such a freaking light-weight! And besides if I'm an alcoholic, what does that make Choji? He was matching drinks with me!"
"And he's about twice your size and eats significantly more than either you or I throughout the day."
"That's totally true," Choji said, returning to the table, "Besides, I stopped drinking after the eighth drink. I was just faking after that and you were too drunk to notice."
"You lying cheater," Ino said scowling, "What kind of friend cheats at games and lies to their friends?"
"Just because I'm friends with the both of you doesn't mean that I need to act as dumb as the both of you," Choji said, unaffectedly.
"And how was that a game?" Shikamaru said, "All you said was, 'Have another drink.'"
"With more enthusiasm," Choji added.
"The game," Ino said darkly, with an angry look at the both of them, "was to see who could drink the most."
"Then you won," Choji said mildly.
The smell of the foods mixing together were starting to get to Shikamaru. He found himself wishing that Ino would forgive him enough to heal him. She caught him looking at her and stuck out her tongue. He sighed.
"If you had bruises then why'd you wait until after I left to heal them?" Shikamaru said as a challenge and then immediately regretted it to the point of being willing to sell his soul in order to redo that moment.
How, how could he have ignored the fact that Choji was there? Why had he felt that it was okay to ask something like that?
He'd only been trying to expose Ino as a liar, after all. He didn't deserve this kind of public humiliation. Shikamaru paused, but then decided that he was correct in classifying Choji as 'public.'
Ino tossed her head so that her hair swept imperiously over her shoulder. "Because I didn't really notice them until I actually began moving around. Do you know how annoying it is to try to walk around with bruises everywhere?"
"Yeah, Shikamaru," Choji said, desperately holding back laughter, "Do you?"
Ino shot an angry look at Choji then. "Stay out of it."
Choji did start laughing. "Congratulations, both of you, for being able to only hold out until the second day of our vacation," he trailed off into hard laughter until only a few words such as pathetic, impatient, awkward, and stupid could made out.
Shikamaru decided that he hated Choji.
Ino shoved Choji hard, and she was a shockingly strong girl. A few nearby patrons gasped as the boy's chair shot backwards, though Choji was able to stand before the chair hit another table with enough force to crack the wood. Choji was still grinning. "Jeez Ino, settle down."
Ino was standing in front of Choji then, and Shikamaru could see some patrons blink and back away a bit. This wasn't a ninja village and the poor civilians were not used to this kind of behavior.
"Stop laughing now or I will beat you up," Ino threatened loudly, her right hand curled into a fist.
This needed heading off immediately or the restaurant, and perhaps the lobby as well, would be completely destroyed. And this was a vacation so they wouldn't be able to charge the repair costs to Konoha.
Shikamaru wearily stood up, but the restaurant manager cleared his throat with obvious trepidation. "Excuse me Miss and Sir," he said in a high voice, "But I'm going to have to ask you to… not do this in here."
Ino snapped around to level the man with a dangerous look and the poor guy wilted under the force of her gaze. But then she had an abrupt mood change and she smiled widely. Choji and Shikamaru both instantly recognized it as her I'm-going-to-get-us-out- of-trouble-by-using-my-superhuman-charms-on-this-mere-mortal smile. And what was irritating, to Shikamaru at least, was that it almost always worked.
"I'm so sorry," she said with that bright smile and intense eye-contact, leaning in towards the man a bit, "My friend here was being less than a gentleman, and you know how important it is, to a woman, to make sure that you're treated well."
Choji snorted, but the manager completely missed it, staring back at Ino. "Of course," he squeaked.
Ino flipped her hair and then began wrapping a lock of it around one of her fingers. "We won't cause any more trouble here. This is such a beautiful restaurant."
"Thank you," the manager managed weakly.
Ino dropped the lock of hair and bit her lip, leaning even closer to the man, who had started sweating.
Shikamaru felt annoyed.
"So we can stay and finish our meal?" Ino asked sweetly.
"O-of course," the man said, "Here, let me help you to a new table."
Shikamaru stood grumpily and Choji had his arms crossed in contempt as the manager actually moved their dishes to a new table and actually pulled Ino's chair out for her. "Let me know i-if there's anything else I can do for you," he said, staring a moment more before fleeing quickly.
Ino waited until he was out of sight before dropping her smile and pointing at Choji. "No more laughing. I will beat you up."
End of Chapter 1.
This story is so much fun for me to write. It is a (secret) song-fic. But that's all I have to say about that.
Also- my brilliant friend The Laughing Fool has done an awesome fanart for it at:
http:/ /little- -frog . deviantart . com/art/Rough-Night-251573996 (without the spaces).
Anyway, review please. I love feedback!
-CR
