Drinking Buddies

"What are you doing?" Shikamaru demanded, his voice nearly reaching the pitch of a squeaking mouse. Naruto's hand, which was currently sliding up his arm, stalled somewhere around his elbow.

The boy looked at him for a second, blinking stupidly, before removing his hand altogether. "Just touching your arm, no big deal," he muttered, reaching for his cup instead and finding it, disappointingly, empty. "Uptight much?"

Shikamaru continued to watch his drinking companion warily for several seconds, refusing to answer the question as a matter of pride. He wasn't uptight, that was for sure, and he stated this with as much dignity as he could muster while Naruto frowned at him skeptically.

"No."

"Yes," insisted Naruto, "You are so uptight. You're worse than Sasuke."

"No!"

"Yes!"

They glared at each other, both under the impression that the discussion they were having was both significant and rather intelligent. Such are the effects of alcohol consumed in vast quantities.

"I'm not uptight."

"Yes. Yes you are. I'll prove it."

Shikamaru watched with slightly unsteady eyes as Naruto reached for the bottle of sake between them and painstakingly poured himself another draft. He looked at his empty cup pointedly, but Naruto ignored him or didn't notice. With a mischievous grin, the boy held the bottle of sake over his head and tilted it ominously on its side, spilling several small droplets onto the carpet.

"That's gonna stain," Naruto slurred, eying his friend for a reaction. "How does that make you feel?"

"It's your carpet," Shikamaru retorted. The sake bottle jumped in Naruto's grip and a good amount sloshed onto the floor. He giggled stupidly as Naruto cursed and looked around for something to dry the spilled liquor. "Now you're uptight. I mean… now who's uptight?"

"You"

"No!"

"Yes"

"If you're so uptight…" Naruto began, paused, and then self-corrected, "I mean, you're so uptight that you would probably freak out if I told what's-her-face how much you like her."

"Who? Temari?" Shikamaru asked blankly. It was the only "she" Naruto would be referring to in this context. "Eh."

"Eh?" Naruto echoed, looking put-out, "Liar."

In lieu of answering, Shikamaru took the bottle and poured another shot of sake into his own glass. Then he gave the wine back and Naruto followed suit. As he lifted the cup to his lips Naruto mimicked him and they drank deeply in unison. When Naruto lowered his glass, his expression was fairly shrewd for someone so thoroughly tanked. Shikamaru quirked an eyebrow, feeling slightly afraid.

Naruto's hand was back in the crook of his elbow before he could react at all. "Hey!"

"See? Uptight," Naruto confirmed, "It's like you hate it when people touch you. What are you going to do when Smorry wants to cuddle?"

"Temari?"

"Whatever," Naruto murmured back, his arm now sliding over his comrade's bicep. "That's weird." Shikamaru yanked his arm away with a scowl, looking a little embarrassed.

"What's weird?" he asked after a moment, curiosity getting the better of him. The question seemed to knock some sense into the other boy.

"How…uptight you are," he answered in an off-hand air, taking a drag directly from the bottle this time. A minute went by during which neither boy spoke. "You're pretty strong for such a skinny guy," Naruto added abruptly, "I mean… well, you were flexing right?"

Shikamaru glanced down at his bicep and then back at Naruto, who was looking at the ceiling. "No," he said quietly, eyes on his empty cup, thinking maybe, just maybe, he'd had quite enough sake for one night.

Naruto scoffed disbelieving, "You're so uptight even your muscles are uptight. You're so uptight – even when you're drunk. It's sad."

Maybe it was the booze or the memory of his so recently failed mission, but suddenly Shikamaru did feel a little sad. He tried to snatch the bottle from Naruto's hand, but the boy just laughed and held it away. A little more spilled, mostly from the sides of the bottle, but neither of them noticed.

"It isn't doing you any good," Naruto explained before taking another nip and wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. His lips were ruddy from the dark sake and his eyes half-lidded.

Shikamaru gulped noisily and looked away, "I don't think it's doing either of us any good."

"Speak for yourself"

"I am"

Naruto just scoffed and muttered darkly to himself. Shikamaru rose unsteadily to his feet, knocking his empty cup from his lap. Here he was, burdening a good friend with his presence when he was no more fit to be around than a funeral procession. It wasn't fair. Naruto's mission success rate at this point had to be twice as bad as his own. "I'm going," he told Naruto's profile, "I should go."

"Yeah," Naruto's tone was darkly sarcastic, not at all like his usually chipper cadence. "Go home to your mommy and daddy. They won't be able to tell what you've been doing."

Shikamaru's movements toward the door halted at once. "I'm of age," he argued after a moment's contemplation, "Why would they care?" He knew, of course, that this wasn't true. His father might imbibe with the best of them, or more frequently his old war buddies, but he was a world-class hypocrite when it came to his son following in his weaving footsteps.

Naruto's tone continued to be sarcastic, "You're telling me that you've got no problem going home in the state you're in? Look in a mirror, Shikamaru. You. Are. Wasted."

That was true enough. Shikamaru didn't need a mirror to see that going home would earn him a sound rebuke. And in the morning, regardless of how he felt, there were sure to be more chores forced upon him than he could handle. "I'll go to Chouji's."

"There's a bright idea."

"You got a better one?"

Naruto's eyes snapped up to meet his own and his pout was lousy with silent reproach, "Stay here, of course. I don't have any parents to hassle us." They way he said it, it was obvious that he didn't actually think this was a perk.

Shikamaru sat down heavily, not knowing how to respond, but knowing that Naruto was right. As soon as he did so, Naruto's hand was back on his arm. When he drank, Shikamaru realized with no small amount of anxiety, Naruto became very, very handsy.

"You can't do that!" Shikamaru snapped, feeling a panic rise in his chest. Indeed, Naruto was right when he called his friend uptight. The muscles in his arm were twitching wherever the boy touched and goosebumps started to surface on his flesh. He tried reminding himself that he should try and be good company for Naruto, but it did him little good. The idea of Naruto touching him, now stroking the bottom of his jaw with the pads of his fingers, was too much. Shikamaru leapt backward and away, ready to fend Naruto off with force if necessary. Tears of drunken frustration welled in the bottom of his eyes, threatening to spill over at the least provocation.

"I'm pointing…I'm proving a point," Naruto insisted.

"What?"

"That you're uptight!"

Immediately realizing that it was his best possible course of action, Shikamaru decided to just give it up and agree with his stubborn friend. "Fine. I'm uptight."

Naruto responded with a satisfied grin. "Good for you. Saying you've got a problem is the first step."

"I know," Shikamaru agreed ruefully, still eying the half-empty bottle in Naruto's left hand. If he was going to stay the night, his brain reasoned, there was no reason he shouldn't indulge a little more. It might help him relax. It might even help him put up with Naruto's erratic behavior. Speaking of which…

Shikamaru's eyes narrowed as Naruto got unsteadily to his feet. "Don't," he told him warningly, backing away.

"Don't what?"

Naruto reached out the arm currently attached to the neck of the sake bottle, offering it up for grabs. For a second, Shikamaru relaxed and moved closer, intent on nothing other than getting another drink of that sticky sweet liquid. Then, Naruto tackled him and the wine went flying.

The boys wrestled wordlessly for several minutes, Naruto continually getting the better of Shikamaru despite his advantage in height and intelligence. The main problem seemed to be that he was incapable of hurting Naruto in any way. His goal was to escape, rather than to win the fight. Why they were fighting in the first place was beyond him, but he was determined to get the kid off him if it was the last thing he did.

"I'm trying to help you," Naruto ground out, having just slammed his elbow into the leg of a nearby table with a painful-sounding thump. He rubbed it as he sat astride the other boy, who in turn stared up at him in frozen horror. "For God's sake, Shikamaru."

Naruto's expression softened as he took in the other's panic-stricken expression. For some reason his wine-addled brain couldn't adequately explain, he reached down and stroked a strand of hair which had come loose from his comrade's ponytail during their tussle. "I…I'm trying to help you," Naruto repeated doggedly.

Shikamaru just squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head back and forth, unable to speak. A fine layer of sweat was breaking out on his face.

"Calm down," Naruto told him, trying to be soothing, "It's okay."

Far from calming down, Shikamaru was finally finding himself pushed to the limits of his patience. In one remarkably swift and graceful movement he reversed their positions, leaving Naruto stunned and lying under him now.

"Whatever you think I need help with, you're imagining it," Shikamaru told him in a low growl. He tried to stand up but Naruto grabbed both of his wrists, holding him in place.

"Why can't I touch you?" Naruto countered. "Nobody else seems to have a problem. Maybe you just hate me."

Shikamaru's face blanched, "No!"

"I repulse you"

"You don't repulse me," Shikamaru's voice was tremulous.

"Then why?"

Shikamaru took a deep, calming breath and made sure to look Naruto directly in the eye when he answered. "It's all in your head, okay?" He was finally able to extricate himself from Naruto's grip as the other boy contemplated this. Unfortunately, it didn't stick.

"Okay…woah," Naruto sat up a little too quickly, "If it's all in my head…" he began, shaking said body part to clear it slightly, "Then you prove it." Shikamaru just stared at him blankly. "If you're not uptight and I don't repulse you… what's the problem?"

"I don't have a problem," Shikamaru's voice sounded shrill to his own ears. It sounded pathetic. "Maybe you have a problem, but I don't have a problem."

"Shit," Naruto cursed again but it wasn't in response to his friends words. He'd finally noticed the upturned bottle of wine, its contents gurgling slowly onto the carpet. "I think you're right." He handed the wine to Shikamaru and began sopping up the spilled liquid with the best thing he could find at such short notice – his shirt. Of course, this required removing it first.

Shikamaru placed the mostly-empty bottle on the table and it was soon all but forgotten. He watched Naruto's movements with baited breath, his mouth slightly agape and a light flush of color rising to his cheeks. Repulsed by him? No, far from it. And that was the biggest problem of all. His only consolation was that Naruto had stopped pushing him for answers he wasn't ready to give, answers he couldn't have given if he'd wanted to.

After a few minutes, Naruto gave up the battle to save his carpet. He was having a difficult time remembering why it mattered in the first place. "I'm gonna settle this once and for all," he stated slowly, throwing his rag of a shirt aside (it was ruined too) and crawling toward his friend on his hands and knees. "If you can touch me without flinching then I'll believe you."

That sounded easy enough, but Shikamaru's breathing was becoming shallow again. Was he imagining it, or did a faint whistle escape his chest every time he exhaled? Naruto was getting closer every second, but he was frozen in place. As soon as he resigned himself to Naruto's test, all the fight went out of him. His hand lifted of its own accord and proceeded to touch his comrade in the most innocent way he could devise – he ruffled Naruto's hair as if placating a much younger child.

"There," he said softly, "If you think…"

Naruto lunged forward, knocking Shikamaru to the ground and knocking the wind out him to boot. "You flinched," he growled, his breath tickling the other boy's skin. "Admit it. You hate it when I touch you. You hate me."

"No I don't" Shikamaru denied vehemently, wondering why he was back in this position and why he didn't just walk out the door whether Naruto wanted him to or not. He wasn't sure how much longer he could fend the kid off while his head was starting to swim and his blood was beginning to flow south. How many times had he imagined this very scenario? Too many, that was for sure. If Naruto ever found out exactly what he was thinking…the prospect was too horrible to consider. "I'll prove it," he pleaded desperately, "I'll touch you…wherever you want."

This seemed to calm the other boy ever so slightly, but he still wouldn't back off. "Here," he muttered, nodding to his right shoulder and allowing Shikamaru to extricate one of his arms. He complied at once. As soon as he placed his hand on his friend's shoulder, Naruto's hand flew up to cover his own. "Here," Naruto said again, more firmly, guiding Shikamaru's hand across the broad expanse of his chest.

"Naruto," Shikamaru intoned miserably. He was becoming painfully aroused and less and less able to disguise this fact with every passing second. If being drunk made Naruto handsy, then it made Shikamaru weepy. A few more seconds of this torture and fat tears would surely begin spilling from his eyes. Then what would he be to Naruto, one of his most trusted comrades of all these years? A big, crying baby is what. "Stop it already. You're acting like an idiot."

This was apparently the wrong thing to say. Naruto's eyes narrowed angrily, "I'm acting like an idiot? How many hints do I have to drop, huh? How many fucking times do I have to invite you to drink sake at night, alone? We're not kids anymore, Shikamaru." Shikamaru said nothing as Naruto's temper ran its course. "Where do I have to touch you to make you…" he trailed off as if receiving sudden inspiration.

Shikamaru knew what he was going to do a second before he did it, "Naruto, wait!"

Too late. Naruto reached down and palmed his half-hard length through the thin sweat pants he was wearing. It felt so, so deliciously wrong. An obscene moan fell out of his open mouth and it echoed around the small room.

"How long, Shikamaru?" Naruto mumbled against his ear. Shikamaru lay perfectly still, torn between hoping Naruto would let him leave or keep doing what he was doing.

"W-what?" he stuttered, when it became clear Naruto actually wanted an answer.

"How long have you wanted me to do this?"

As if emphasizing his point, Naruto squeezed, eliciting another, even louder moan from the boy beneath him.

"I don't know," Shikamaru gasped helplessly, his brain and body spinning out of control, "a long time. We can't just…"

"Yes, we can."

"Yes," Shikamaru's head began twisting from side to side of his own accord, his fingers clutching desperately at the carpets rough fibers. "Oh god, yes. Naruto!"

"Shh," Naruto's ministrations stopped at once, causing Shikamaru to whine pitifully, but he wasn't left wanting for long. Fingers hooked under his waistband and his pants were soon around his ankles, exposing his quivering length.

The first thing he felt was a stream of hot air, which made him shudder. His hips rocketed upward but the other boy caught them in his firm grasp and forced them to the floor. "Nggh," Shikamaru groaned erratically, "Uh-uh"

Naruto shushed him again, gently fingering his coarse, dark hairs, "Don't worry. I know what I'm doing." Shikamaru nodded fervently, feeling dazed. He was already harder than he'd ever been in his life and it was driving him crazy. Naruto was driving him crazy with firm, consistent strokes. With each one, his hand would encircle the base of Shikamaru's thick, throbbing cock and glide up his length only to leave off as soon as it reached the overly-sensitive tip. And again. And again.

"I think I figured out the problem," Naruto said, his voice casual and teasing even as he pumped Shikamaru lazily with one battle-calloused hand. "You don't hate me at all, do you?"

White spots erupted in front of Shikamaru's eyes as a tremendous pressure began to build between his legs. His upper back arched up from the floor, hands gripping for purchase and finding none. He could barely hear anything Naruto was saying – something about making him admit it. Admit what?

"Say you want me," Naruto commanded, "Go ahead, I'm listening."

"I - want you. I do, but –"

He was cut off when, without any warning, Naruto's mouth enveloped his rigid length. All thought stilled and he gave up in that instant. Either this was happening or he was going crazy. Either way, it felt too good to stop. Unfortunately, that wasn't really up to him.

Suddenly, something tight cut off his breathing and Shikamaru was starting to panic before he realized that Naruto was just taking off his shirt. As soon as it was discarded, he experienced a brief moment of clarity which allowed him to grab his stubborn friend by the back of his head and pull him down for a kiss that left them both gasping for air.

"I want you too," Naruto muttered, resting his forehead against the other boy's. Somehow, the gesture was more intimate than anything he'd done to him up to this point.

"Yeah?" Shikamaru asked desperately, wanting to believe but unable to get past all the years of doubt and indecision. An answer wasn't really necessary. He could feel Naruto's desire building against his own. The younger boy let out a lascivious moan that made Shikamaru gasp and look away. It felt too surreal to witness Naruto in the throes of ecstasy; inappropriate in a way, as if he were engaging in an act of voyeurism.

Naruto's hand cupped his cheek and forced his head straight, "Look at me," Naruto told him. Shikamaru did; he had to. The other boy's eyes were hazy, almost navy with lust. His lips were pink and soft looking and his skin was flushed and sweaty. He was absolutely beautiful. "Good," Naruto nodded, pleased with his friend's easy compliance, "Keep watching."

This time, Shikamaru had time to prepare himself. As Naruto crawled slowly, sensually down his body, he reached over his head to grab the legs of the coffee table in back of him. It was a sturdy-looking piece, hopefully strong enough to give him some anchor to this world once Naruto resumed his attentions. On the way down, Naruto made a show of keeping his eyes locked on Shikamaru, not allowing him to look away. He must have read some sort of fear or panic in his comrade's expression because he smiled reassuringly right before taking him in his mouth once more.

Shikamaru's eyes rolled back in his head as Naruto's tongue ran along the underside of his fully erect cock. The kid was right about one thing – he did know what he was doing. He put his mouth right around the head of Shikamaru's hard-on and sucked to his heart's content. Meanwhile, his hands moved to Shikamaru's balls, fondling them until they were pulled tightly to the base of his erection, drawing moan after moan from the tormented boy.

The noises coming out of Shikamaru's mouth could hardly be constituted as words at this point. He groaned, long and low, feeling a familiar contraction which signified his impending orgasm. "Naruto," Shikamaru gasped desperately, trying to give warning, but he was ignored. Taking a deep breath through his nose, Naruto descended, taking Shikamaru fully into his mouth and nursing him over that final precipice. As he came, Shikamaru was barely aware of his hips leaving the floor, rocking upward in quick, agitated jerks. Naruto moaned, the sound muffled, as he swallowed every bit of his seed. If that moan was any indication, the kid was enjoying this almost as much as Shikamaru. And no wonder.

When Shikamaru's head cleared, he looked down to see Naruto kneeling between his legs. His head was lowered, but Shikamaru could see him biting his lip as he slowly but steadily pumped himself with one fist, letting out a series of gasps and whimpers. The sight sent what felt like bolts of electricity flowing through his body.

"Wait," he said quickly. Naruto's eyes flashed up to his own and Shikamaru saw much need and desire in his gaze. He felt his heart, still racing madly as blood coursed throughout his body, tingling his toes and fingertips. He tried to sit up, but the aftershocks of his orgasm weren't helping him move or think clearly. With some difficulty and just a little help, he was able to sit upright. Naruto watched with baited breath as Shikamaru leaned closer, putting his lips to the rim of his ear. "You can – if you want to –" he said shyly, planting a gentle kiss on the side of his face, "Please, Naruto…fuck me."

He felt the boy shudder and lurch against him helplessly. "I don't know," he muttered distractedly. "I've never done it before so –"

"Please," Shikamaru begged, cutting him off, "I need you."

"I don't think I can last long," Naruto gasped. Shikamaru had to agree with him there. He could already see beads of precum forming at the tip of his erection. It wouldn't be long at all, unless… a sudden, brilliant thought occurred to Shikamaru and he prayed he had enough chakra at his disposal to make it work. "What is it?" Naruto demanded, his tone more than a little wary.

Shikamaru smiled, putting his arms around the smaller boy and hugging him tightly. "Don't worry. I have an idea."