"Bite me."
Ino would have done a double take, if not for the fact that she was currently bleeding out on the ground and moving hurt, damn it. "Excuse me?"
Karin rolled her eyes, slipping an arm out of her sleeve and kneeling next to the blonde. Instead of flawless white, angry red scars crawled up her arm, almost like--
"Are those tooth marks?" Ino exclaimed, forgetting that she was meant to be dying.
Karin smirked humourlessly. "Like I said. Bite me."
Ino had known from the beginning that this was a bad idea. While Taka had more than proven themselves trustworthy in the years after the war with Akatsuki, that didn't make Ino like Karin any more. The woman was loud, obnoxious and looked really good in hot pants. If there were better reasons to hate someone, Ino couldn't think of them.
And of course (because fate or karma or Tsunade was a bitch), Ino had been sent on a mission with her. And for much the same reason (nothing to do with her distaste for the woman at all), the mission had gone horribly, horribly wrong, and Ino was paying for it now with a chest wound the size of a fist.
"We're running out of time, Yamanaka," Karin huffed. "Bite me, or I'll make you do it."
"You couldn't make me do anything," Ino rasped. The effect was rather ruined when she coughed up blood and had a forearm unceremoniously shoved between her teeth. Karin's other hand grabbed her jaw and pushed, forcing Ino's teeth to break skin.
The blonde screwed up her face, expecting the taste of someone else's blood to fill her mouth. Her eyes flew open when cool chakra swept through her body instead, centring on her chest wound and...
Healing it?
Above her, Karin panted slightly. Intellectually Ino knew that it was probably just against the pain and exhaustion that comes with getting your ass handed to you and then giving your arm to a dying teammate for a snack, but that's not how her hormones chose to read it. A horrendously inappropriate shot of heat spread though her body and inadvertently, Ino's teeth clamped down on Karin's arm.
The resulting look on Karin's face was not conducive to dissipating said heat.
"Bitch," Karin gritted out, shifting around to get a better look at the rapidly disappearing chest wound. "Ah, shit." Without warning, the woman pulled out a kunai and sliced down the precise middle of Ino's shirt.
The blond jerked as she suddenly found herself bare-chested to the world (or cave, as it were). "What the hell?" she managed to choke out around Karin's arm.
"Did you want to be walking around with bits of your shirt sticking out of your skin?" the red-head asked, picking out stray bits of purple cloth before the wound closed completely around them. "No, I thought not. Also, ow."
Whatever the hell her chakra was doing, Karin obviously wasn't a healer and it showed in the extremely painful way that she was removing Ino's shirt from the injury. Not vindictive in the slightest, Ino bit down harder on Karin's arm.
"Fuck! Hey, I said bite me, not chew my arm off!" Karin yelled, digging her fingers into the wound.
The blonde cried out, back arching up, and a very different look flashed over Karin's face. However, by the time Ino was in any frame of mind to decipher that expression it was gone, replaced by some strange hybrid between a glare and pout.
They stared at each other, Karin tugging her arm from Ino's mouth as the wound finally closed, cloth-free.
"You're so annoying," the redhead mumbled, abruptly looking away. "And you're welcome, by the way."
Slowly, Ino sat up, moving slowly to avoid aggravating any of her other wounds. It was then that she realised that she had no other wounds. Whatever was in Karin's chakra, it was good. "Thanks," she said begrudgingly.
Karin looked over her shoulder and smirked. "Nice tits."
Ino blinked and then choked, crossing her arms over her chest protectively. "Lend me a shirt," she demanded.
"No."
"All of my clothes are back at their base!" the blonde protested. "Why won't you lend me a shirt?"
Karin pushed her glasses up with a single finger and looked remarkably satisfied with herself. "Call it payment. For saving your life."
Ino ground her teeth together, shivering inadvertently. "What, am I a whore now?"
"All ninja are whores." Karin shrugged, that damnable smirk still playing about her lips. "Sell your body for money, right?"
"You know what I mean!" Ino carefully rearranged her arms, holding one hand out. "Give me a shirt!"
Karin looked far too smug. "No.'
"Damnit!" Ino stamped her foot and immediately regretted the childish action when Karin's smirk widened. "You are infuriating."
"Oh, I know."
Ino glared, and then huffed, and then glared some more, making as much general noise as she could, keeping her arms tightly crossed over her chest.
Why me? What the hell did I ever do to deserve this, huh?
Okay, don't answer that question, self.
Karin looked over her shoulder from where she was pulling things out of her pack and gave Ino another smirk. Ino shivered – well, it was cold, damn it. It certainly didn't have anything to do with that look.
"Cold?"
"I wouldn't be if you would give me a shirt," she spat. "Wh-what are you doing?" she stuttered as the other woman rolled her eyes and stood, sauntering over.
"You said you were cold," Karin said simply, sliding on to her lap and draping her arms around her shoulders. "I'm warming you up."
"Get off!" Ino cried, shoving at the redhead's shoulders. She bit her lip at the tingle of pleasure that came from her breasts brushing up against the fabric of the other woman's shirt. Normally, it wouldn't have affected her. Normally, Karin wasn't looking at her like she was a particularly delicious dessert.
Karin laughed low, and the sound thrummed through Ino's nerves, making her hands still against her shoulders.
"I hate you."
"Oh, angry-sex! My favourite."
"Would that be because no one is ever happy when they're screwing you?" Ino growled. "Get away from me!"
There was a faint pause, and then Karin rolled her eyes and clambered off. "You're kind of a bitch, you know that?"
"I'm a bitch?" Ino ignored the bite of guilt that gnawed at her from the flat look on Karin's face. "You're the one who won't give me a shirt!"
Something white hit her in the face and she blinked, pulling it away. A shirt.
"There you go, problem solved. Now you're still a bitch, and I'm not."
Ino shrugged quickly into the shirt, red in the face. "What's your problem?" she snapped, a little harsher than she'd meant to, all things considered. Karin had saved her life, after all.
"I don't have a problem. That's sort of the whole point." The other woman pulled off her glasses and started to clean them. A few spots of dried blood scraped off onto the white of her shirt. "You, on the other hand, clearly have a problem. With me. Which makes you fun to mock, but a bitch to try and get along with." She slid the glasses back on. "So what's your problem, huh?"
Ino pursed her lips and turned her back on Karin. "I don't have a problem," she said tightly. When Karin had said it, the words had sounded believable. From Ino, it was just this side of pathetic. "Why would I have a problem with you? I don't have a problem with you."
"You totally have a problem with me. Considering that you put me into the equation all on your own there."
...Damn it. Ino's mind scrambled around for an excuse, any excuse.
What was she trying to excuse again?
She didn't like Karin. Right? She couldn't stand it when the redhead smirked, lips tipping up just so, or how she tied her hair up when she was thinking, or the way she moved when she was killing things, or the fact that she always knew exactly what to say to make her, her, Yamanaka Ino, blush.
"You look really good in hot pants," she blurted, and thank god her back had been turned, because she didn't think she could stand to see the look that came with the pause and sultry laugh that met her ears. "Oh, god."
"That's your problem? That I look good in hot pants?" The rustling sound of someone slowly sauntering towards her was way louder than it should have been. Ino felt her face shift from tomato red to an odd shade of puce as a pair of hands snaked over her shoulders and a warm body pressed up against her back. "Are you jealous? Or do you just want in the hot pants?"
Ino spluttered indignantly. "What are you – I'm not – I'm not—"
"Oh, you so are." The redhead rested her chin on her shoulder. Ino could feel her breath tickling her ear, and totally did not shiver.
Ino swallowed, distracted by the press of Karin's breasts against her back. Maybe putting that shirt on again had been a mistake...
"I'm not!"
Karin's lips touched her ear. "Prove it."
Silence.
"What? How do I prove it? I can't prove that I'm not attracted to you! How do you prove something like that?"
"I don't know, but you just proved that you are." The woman's smirk was cool against the hot skin of Ino's neck, and why wasn't she moving? "Once again, who said anything about you being attracted to me?"
"You intimated it!" Ino struggled to turn around under Karin's light grasp so she could better yell at the woman. "You—" And it turned out that facing the redhead didn't help her yell in the slightest because Karin was kissing her.
Ino dizzily noted that the other woman tasted like blood and maybe cherries before slamming the heel of her palm into her shoulder and ripping away. "What the hell was that?" she yelled.
Karin was pouting. Karin was pouting, and after stealing a second to take that in, Ino decided it didn't really matter what the hell that had been, she wanted more.
"I hate you," she growled, before her fingers curled into the other woman's shirt and she jerked the redhead closer, kissing her again. Definitely cherries, she decided, remembering staring when the other woman tied stems with her tongue.
Teeth clicked together on the edge of pain as Karin dragged Ino on top of her, laughing against her lips before tongues slid past each other in what had to be the most debauched kiss Ino had ever participated in while still clothed.
"No you don't," Karin whispered, flipping them over so that she was pressing down against Ino. "You're just saying that to make you feel better."
"No, I really do hate you," the blonde managed to say between biting kisses.
"Prove it," Karin insisted, mouth trailing down her neck.
"Oh, shut up," Ino huffed, dragging her back up for another kiss.
Later, when Karin filched her shirt back, Ino didn't complain. After all, it distracted the other woman enough that she could make her own sneaky theft.
As good as Karin looked in hot pants, she looked far better out of them.