Disclaimer: NARUTO and its characters were created and are owned by Masashi Kishimoto. Original characters and plot are the property of the author. No copyright infringement intended.
Title: UNDER THESE SCARS
Pairings: ShikaNeji/NejiShika, Kiba/Ino, Kakashi/Genma
Rating: M / R (language, themes, violence etc.)
Genre: Drama/Angst/General
Summary: Fate's changed the game but it's not over between the players. With Kusagakure's mission as the final round, Neji's agenda is finding his freedom. Shikamaru's agenda is forgetting his fear. But when an old and unfinished game threatens to pull Shikamaru back into the shadows of his past, Neji must make an impossible choice; his own destiny or Shikamaru's darkness. NejiShika, ShikaNeji [SEQUEL to Break to Breathe]
Timeline: Shippuden. Neji and Shikamaru aged 17-18 (post-Hidan and Kakuzu arc and pre-Invasion of Pain arc) 3 weeks after the Kusa Mission.
UNDER THESE SCARS
by Okami Rayne
Chapter Twenty Nine
The board had been chosen.
The Nara forest.
Neji stood panting at the threshold, his heartbeat keeping time with the thunder in his blood. Late afternoon sunlight spilled golden through the trees, striping him in bars of shadow and light.
Only there was no cage.
There was only the chase that'd led him to this point. A point where all those lines he'd ever toed or crossed finally converged. X marked the spot. And this spot was the last bridge left to cross. In the past, there'd always been indecision, hesitation, a fear of skating on thin ice. But now, his veins were rivers and the waters were clear and warm and deep.
And they all flowed in the same direction.
Forwards.
Neji closed his eyes, pulled on the sweet cedar air tinged with wood smoke. The breeze stirred his loose mane, pulled with playful fingers at his clothes and skin, calling, calling…
"Come find me."
Smiling, Neji breathed in freedom, breathed out fear – and then he flew, forwards, into the arms of the forest.
The chase was on.
Shikamaru ran.
Cut a wild weaving path through the forested grounds, fleet-footed as the stags which raced beside him, his muscles rippling with power. The electricity in his veins, the euphoria of the chase, they combined into a force, into a feeling, which drove him faster and further than he'd ever run before.
And finally…
For the first time…
He wasn't running away from something…
He was running towards it.
He's gotten faster…
Neji didn't think it was possible.
It seemed that what Shikamaru lacked in chakra stamina he'd steadily begun to make up for in his ability to run for long stretches. While Neji could hold his own in endurance running, he was built for sprinting, more muscle and more power for short and explosive bursts of speed. Shikamaru, however, was an interesting case. While he possessed the lean wiry build required for long distance, Neji had seen him outstrip seasoned sprinters when he was of a mind to hightail it.
The way he outran those chimaeras…
The way he was outrunning Neji now.
Made the Hyūga wonder where the hell all that extra power was coming from.
Chakra?
Shikamaru must've been siphoning off the reserves that'd gathered in his hara – that point just below his navel – which Hyūga shinobi and the Fire Temple monks knew was the key place to transmute sexual energy and store and replenish chakra reserves.
Am I playing into his hands, here?
More than likely. The shadow-nin had put on quite the ruse back at the restaurant. Pretending to be bested when in reality he'd had no intention of surrendering the round, only speeding the game along. Neji recalled the look in those razor eyes when Shikamaru had walked out of Hoteigu, wearing a subtle smirk of dark sexual promise.
I'm not the only one who's changed…
Neji smiled, Byakugan eyes fixed on Shikamaru's back as he watched the shadow-nin move, cutting through the woods sharp as a kunai. There was something different about the Nara now. He possessed a confidence, an edge, a heat behind the shadows in his eyes which hadn't been there before. Like a predator that'd come into its own power.
You always considered yourself the runaway prey, didn't you, Nara?
But no longer. Even now, chasing Shikamaru down in this thrilling simulation of a hunt, Neji knew it was all part of the game. There was no hunted party here. Only two hunters. Wasn't that always the appeal? Shikamaru's ability to challenge Neji. To be the chaser as well as the chased.
To think, months ago, it was you chasing me through the woods…
How that chase had changed the very course of their lives.
And what will this one change?
Or rather – what would it determine? What would it define?
Shikamaru veered up ahead, careening left.
Muscles shifting powerfully, Neji's body slanted and he smoothly changed course to follow. He had no idea where the hell they were going. And, to Neji's continued surprise around the shadow-nin, he discovered that not being in control of the direction of his every walking step felt somehow…
Freeing…
And then Shikamaru disappeared.
Shocked, Neji splashed through a shallow creek and skidded to a halt, spraying up leaves and forest mulch. A veil of shadow rippled before his eyes, misty as smoke, gyrating with swirls of Yin chakra.
Barrier Jutsu…?
Neji deactivated his Byakugan. The smoky veil vanished, appeared instead as nothing but a large empty clearing – until Neji heard the soft murmur of a spoken command.
"Kagefūin: Kai."
The air wavered like a mirage and the barrier shimmered away to reveal a rustic log cabin. Neji's eyes widened as he took in the large rough-hewn lodge. Elevated just enough to escape any runoff from the creek, the cabin boasted a broad plank deck which overlooked the stream. The timeworn wood was scabbed with lichen and splashed with patches of lime green moss. None of that diminished its charm. It lounged comfortably in the orange-gold light, its latticed windows and half-open door nestled in the shadows of its gently curving eaves.
Peaceful.
Private.
For a timeless moment, Neji simply stared. Streams of breath sloughed from his nose, muscles twitching from the run. While he worked on catching his breath, his heart ran on ahead, continued to drum out its rapid tempo as he finally approached the cabin.
An interesting board you've chosen, Nara.
Set beyond the risk of prying ears and eyes. Only the forest witnessed. Only the deer at the far edges of the clearing, watched.
It was as if this place had been waiting.
For weeks…
For months…
Maybe for a lifetime.
An air of stillness fell upon the moment; undisturbed and undiminished, even when Neji finally moved to climb the short flight of stairs. The old wood creaked, leaves rustled across the decking.
But somehow, the stillness held.
Wary, Neji approached the open door, listened out for signs and looked for shadow-play across the weathered planks. Nothing. Which meant Shikamaru was certainly up to something.
Of course he is.
And if the shadow-nin himself hadn't been the lure, Neji might've hung back, re-strategized his approach. But he was past the point of playing just to win. Besides, at the heart of it, they both knew this was never a game. But the analogy allowed them to keep playing. Allowed them to maintain an illusion of control over something neither of them had the power to stop once they got started.
And the truth is…if this is a game, then we're hardly the players, are we?
No. They were, as ever, the pieces being moved around by Necessity and Need. By emotions and compulsions which made them stronger and weaker, smarter and crazier, lonelier and less alone. It was the push and the pull, the give and the take, the chase and the catch, the in-breath and the out-breath.
The break and the breathe…
The delicious back-and-forth which always seemed to ensnare them in its rhythm. It was this very rhythm which moved through Neji now. Strong as a shadow possession, he found himself drawn to the threshold and into the darkness which waited beyond.
Within the confines of the cabin, it felt like standing in the dark yet iridescent heart of gold-sheen obsidian. The shadows appeared translucent, lustred by the diffuse light which washed in through the windows in dusty amber streams, colouring the darkness with soft powdery striations.
Warm and otherworldly…
…as if Neji stood within the womb of something smouldering.
And then he felt the heat of Shikamaru's chakra pulsing like a second heartbeat; pounding out the very same cadence which had pulled Neji through the door. Stirring his skin. Firing his awareness. Causing his blood to dance.
"Shikamaru…"
The darkness responded as if summoned by its master's name, its waking movements as sensual and sultry as the rhythms of sex. Tongues of purring shadow snaked up to lap across Neji's body; dragging at fabric, peeling it away like a second skin, divesting him of everything but the bandana wrapped around his brow. The shadows caressed it, but made no move to take it away.
There was respect in that.
Respect…and a sense of reverence.
Relaxing, Neji allowed the disrobement. Let Shikamaru's shadows strip him down until he was nothing but raw skin and naked hunger, a fine sheen of sweat misting his body. The darkness throbbed and the shadows seemed to thirst. They touched. They tasted. Licking along the flat slabs of Neji's chest, teasing across hard nipples, pinching and pulling until the sharp stabs of pleasure had his back arching.
He hissed, whispered. "Shikamaru..."
No answer, but Neji felt the shift in chakra. An elevated vibration, a delicious quivering which matched the hot ripple spreading across his stomach. Shadow hands. Ghostly palms tracing the smooth lean ridges of his abs. Behind, he felt the dual glide of hands sweeping down the valleys of his shoulderblades, stroking the sweat-polished groove of his spine. Those knowing hands massaged deep, kneaded with such flawless pressure Neji felt his own chakra loosening and leaking like pre-fluid into dark panting mouths of shadow.
Chakra merged, melted.
Somewhere in the darkness, he heard Shikamaru's breath ripple out. The erotic sound passed through the room like a wave over water and caused the shadow-tongues vining around Neji's sculpted calves to tighten and throb. This sudden twinning of their chakra changed the push-pull rhythm, altered the tempo.
Kami…
Neji felt the power build, tangible as a bass note pounding out against the membrane of darkness. The rhythm filled him and as if possessed, he felt himself sway, pushed closer to the edge by the hypnotic beat…only to be pulled back by the serpent glide of shadow.
"You feel it?" Shikamaru whispered, his voice raspy and breathless, taking on the same omnipresent quality it had earlier, seeming to encompass Neji from every angle. "Tell me you're feeling this."
"God yes," Neji breathed, the musk of arousal burning like incense. "Let me see you."
"Not yet. Just feel me…like this."
Like phantom lovers, the shadows took human form, bent themselves to the will of the Shadow Master controlling them and fell upon Neji's body like suppliants at a sweet sacrificial altar. Caressing, kneading, stroking, drawing Neji into dark erotic embraces which promised that sweet small death.
Hands fisted in his hair, tugged.
Growling, Neji arched, bared his throat and torso to the slavish worship of black mouths and tongues. Nipples were taken between dark velvet lips and tortured into stinging nubs. Hands gripped his haunches, kneaded powerfully, digging deep into taut buttocks.
"More."
Shikamaru's voice, Neji's thoughts. Chakra reading chakra. More hands. This time at Neji's hips, steadying him. He barely caught his breath, his balance, before he felt sleek pressure, feathering and torturous. A tendril-tongue. It began dragging through the slit of his rigid length, coiling along the shaft.
A curse seethed between his lips, opal eyes rolling back. "Shikamaru…come here."
"Not yet. Not when I can watch you this way. God, let me watch you this way."
That breathy whisper stoked Neji hotter than a blast furnace. Fuelled the maddening flutter in his core, radiating pleasure in red-hot ripples to the base of his erection until those ripples became waves, building, building, building…
Merciless suction, black lips wrapped around him.
Blunt teeth at his throat.
GOD!
Neji crashed into orgasm.
A virile roar and he arched into the pull of the shadow mouth, shooting dry and crying out. His knees would've buckled if Shikamaru's paralysis jutsu hadn't held him steady.
"Kagenawa: Kinbaku."
Instantly, the friction rubbing him into a raw panting mess changed, along with the composition of the shadows. The figures unravelled like so much thread, mixing textures. Rough and soft. At once coarse tendrils and black satin cords. They slithered over Neji's sweat-slick skin, roping into intricate, decorative knots around his wrists and ankles.
Tensing against the sudden stricture – or perhaps the implied restraint – Neji tried to gather back some control. "Shikamaru."
"Don't do that," Shikamaru spoke, the low gravel of his voice dragging over Neji's inflamed nerves like a match-head, striking fresh sparks in his blood. "These aren't chains. You know I'd never do that to you. This is all part of my move. The move you're letting me make. Trust me and go with it. The way I trusted and went with you."
Neji clenched his eyes shut as remembrance seared through him; the taste and feel of Shikamaru's body at the mercy of his mouth, his hands, his fingers.
More…more…more…
A beat in his blood. Shikamaru must've heard the rhythm. Must've felt its vibration through the leakage of chakra. "You want this. I want this. So trust it."
A zipping sound, like ropes being rigged above his head.
Neji tensed. "It's not about trust," he said, echoing back the shadow-nin's former words. "As you well know."
A shift in the rhythm. A flutter through the binding ties. And Neji felt those shadows laced so intricately at his wrists and ankles give a brief squeeze. Reassuring, not restraining. As if Shikamaru had imbued the shadows with sentiment, an emotional conductor between them.
Warmth, affection...something stronger than both.
"Bad memories," Shikamaru returned softly, the huskiness in his voice causing Neji's palpitating heart to beat all the harder. "I get that. You know I do."
"I know."
"So tell me to stop, I'll stop. Tell me to start…and I'll make it feel so good you won't want it to stop. Your choice, Hyūga. Always."
Choice…
The only thing Neji ever needed when it came to ceding control. And how many times had Shikamaru told him, this was never about control?
And even if it was…
After everything he'd given up for this man when the outcome promised nothing but pain…why hold back now, when the way Shikamaru was touching him, talking to him, promised nothing but pleasure?
"Tell me to start…and I'll make it feel so good you won't want it to stop."
Wasn't that the story of their lives? Ever since that first kiss? That first touch?
A rush of longing.
It joined the lust, changed its nature into something altogether deeper. It was more than desire. Much more. Maybe more than Neji could afford to give. But he gave it anyway, wholly, utterly.
Because I've already given my life…
What was a little control, in comparison to that?
Unable to speak, Neji answered in breath, let the tension shudder out between his lips. Rewarded for this small surrendering of power, the texture of the shadows seemed to melt against his heated skin. They became smooth and cool as silken ropes, twining higher in a diamond mesh along his forearms and calves, striping him in intricate patterns – a living geometry lacing ornate designs across his body.
"Say it, Neji…" Shikamaru's voice purred through the darkness, in a warm smoky undertone, soft and luring. "I need to hear it. Hear you. Say yes."
An erogenous tickle against the backs of his knees and Neji felt those black silken ropes progress up his legs, pulling erotically against his skin, twinning into thick lattices and infinity knots which began to press into acupressure points.
Holy…
"Fuck…" Hissing the word, Neji swallowed roughly and bowed his head, sucking air against the tingling pressure and growing heaviness, holding on by a single stubborn cord. God, but the chakra control Shikamaru needed for this must've had him sweating blood.
"Say it. Say yes."
Neji shook his head. Not to fight, not to deny, just to test.
Shikamaru didn't disappoint.
Another zipping sound, more ropes being jerked and Neji felt himself pulled upright, shoulders rolling at the pressure of his arms being yanked above his head. He snarled, a leashed lion, dark mane flying as he seethed out another black curse. But he didn't ask for mercy. The hint of rough treatment almost took him back to the night Shikamaru had bound him to that tree and kissed him senseless.
Senseless…
Hardly what he felt now, given that all his senses were alive; nerve-endings blistering, glowing like fuses set to blow.
"Stubborn to the last, aren't you?" Shikamaru said.
Neji might've smirked, but his expression tightened and twisted with pleasure as he felt the downward slither of plaited tendrils threading like a tribal tattoo along his elbows, biceps and shoulders, following the leylines of his tenketsu and the grooves of his musculature, those tiny knots digging deeper, burning hotter.
Incredible…
In only three weeks he'd mastered a shiatsu-style shadow technique? It shouldn't have surprised Neji, but then, it took the average Hyūga student months to learn the precise locations of the meridian points in order to manipulate them.
"Not playing this time. Say yes," Shikamaru repeated, his voice sounding heavier, rougher. "Say it or I'll stop this right now."
Fascinating, how the threat of ceasing this game seemed worse than the torture of continuing it. But before Neji could register the note of desperation abrading Shikamaru's voice, the shadow-nin's next whisper cut the Hyūga's stubbornness to a single fraying thread.
"Neji...please."
And just like that, Neji's pride unravelled in a tender heartbeat. "Yes."
"Yes."
That single word changed everything. Shikamaru felt it go through him in a sensual rush, driving away the white-knuckle strain of holding back. Standing on the periphery of the scene, cloaked in nothing but shadow, he worked on Neji the way an artist worked on canvas, stroking the shadows over pale skin and living flesh like black brushes and obsidian paint.
And the Hyūga's voice was his muse.
Every shaken groan. Every hissing breath. Those sounds directed the pattern of Shikamaru's shadow ropes. Inspired, infatuated, he laced them into intricate braids, knots and riggings along the length of Neji's beautifully stretched body. No part went untouched; throat, shoulders, the width of his chest, the trembling abs, the dip of his groin, the sensual furrow of his spine and the sculptured lines of his powerful legs. Shikamaru dressed it all, entwining black strings into thick ribbed chords which rubbed and squeezed, plaiting pressure along the meridian points in a shiatsu massage which had Neji arching and gasping at the intensity of the pleasure.
"Shikamaru…" Neji sighed his name, over and over and—
Don't stop saying it…
Sweat trickling down his temple, Shikamaru looked on in veneration. He was no real connoisseur of the finer arts; ikebana, the tea ceremony, calligraphy, brushwork or poetry. Took more pleasure in cloud-gazing than the virtuosities of the creative arts. But for the past three weeks, he'd mastered the use of the Kagenawa Jutsu.
Shadow Rope Art.
In a bid to experiment with his jutsu, he'd taken to research. And studying knots and rope work had led him – almost serendipitously – to the erotic practice of kinbaku:aesthetic or sexual bondage. While the thought of tying someone up – artistically or otherwise – hadn't stirred even an ember of arousal – bad memories – the thought of possessing another with his shadows in an act of passionrather than paralysis…of bringing pleasure instead of pain…had intrigued him…then inspired him.
And now, it inflamed him.
Possessed him. His arousal so acute that just watching Neji move, respond and permit such intimate treatment, left Shikamaru on the verge of orgasm.
God, the ways I wanna make you move…
And hell, did Neji move. Hands pulled above his head, the bound lines of his body undulating, sleek and sensual; muscles shifting, the shadow ropes darkening and intensifying those firm delineations of muscle and skin Shikamaru yearned to trace with his tongue and teeth and the tips of his tingling fingers.
Damn, but he craved Neji.
Craved him the way those wild strangler plants craved the light, reaching up from the shadowy recesses of the forest to twine themselves tighter and higher along the solid limbs of their chosen host. And god, but Shikamaru climbed alright; climbed Neji's body tendril by tendril, rope by rope, vining his shadows into exotic patterns which paid homage to nature's most visceral design; that primal urge to consume, to combine, to consummate, to reach the very beating core.
Fuck…
The core.
The crux of this Need eating him alive.
That's where I want you.
At the burning centre, cracking him open so all that heat, all that pressure, all that liquid fire could come out. Overwhelmed by the force of this want, this Need, Shikamaru almost lost himself…almost lost control of his Jutsu. Had to go down on one knee, his shaking fingers still locked in a seal as he struggled to focus through all the fumes and the fire and the dark, dark smoke.
Nawashi.
Rope Master. He focused on that title – on that honour – and used it to steady himself, to concentrate every drop of his Need into the chakra feeding into his shadows.
Can you feel how much I want you?
He wanted to ask, wanted to scream. But like a predator crouched in the dark, he held his silence, watched with fevered eyes the dance of Neji's body as it rippled and undulated beneath the throbbing lattice of black rope; watched the broad pale chest rise and fall again and again, nipples abraded by the thick masthead knots Shikamaru had laced there.
"Ah...Shikamaru…"
The deep vibratory groan rumbled through Shikamaru's bones, shaking his foundations. Shit. He wasn't going to last long with Neji making those hoarse throaty sounds, his cool Hyūga reserve crumbling as he succumbed to the pleasure.
"Tell me you want more," Shikamaru said, trying his damnedest to keep his voice steady. "Tell me you want the endgame. Say yes."
A leonine purr, muscles contracting, sweat rolling in ribbons down flushed, glossy skin. "God, yes."
Wishes and commands. Knowing he had the power and the pleasure to grant it, to give it. He had to hold back a groan. Flicking his fingers, Shikamaru altered the seal, gasped a lungful of air at the warning twinge in his gut, letting him know he had just about enough chakra left to complete this erotic scene. Eyes sharpening on Neji's roped-up body, he murmured to his shadows, watched them hasten to obey.
"Kageyose."
A hot-cold fission of chakra and tendrils began splitting off from the various patterns of interwoven ropes; thick trinity knots, neat cobra stiches, interlaced webs and interlocking chain sinnets. All of which bound Neji so precisely, so aesthetically, the shadows seemed engraved like obsidian filigree into the pale granite of his thighs, calves and buttocks.
Shit…you let me mark you like this…you let me make you mine…
Knowing the extent of vulnerability that took, Shikamaru's heart constricted.
Could he do the same?
Blinking hard to keep his concentration, he flicked his fingers again.
"Kagenui."
Another flood of chakra and the frayed threads began to stitch back together in a delicate lattice which flowered between Neji's legs, thin black liana crawling the veined pillar of his erection, twining around the swollen head into an intricate cloud knot, squeezing and rubbing the sensitive glans.
Rocking onto the balls of his feet, Neji cried out, an articulate roar.
Not yet.
Panting, Shikamaru got to his feet, picked up a slim bottle of oil-based lubricant and circled round three times, taking in the magnificent scene. Like catching a lion in a snare. To see the normally controlled and statuesque body succumb to such arousing carnality.
At my hands…in my shadows…
Shikamaru could barely draw breath. Could barely break away from the exhilarating urge to just stand and watch the ravishing twist and grind of his shadows, his chakra, possessing this creature no cage and no clan could truly own.
And yet you've given me this…
Not power. Not control. Shikamaru had no desire for either. It was trust.
You trust me…
Even after all the lies. All the wrong turns. All the mistakes. Swallowing thickly, Shikamaru gathered his shaking breaths and turned a final circle before he approached Neji from behind.
Sensing him through the haze, Neji's wrists twisted and pulled.
"I'm right here." Shikamaru hushed him, watched the contours of Neji's back tighten beautifully beneath the dream-catcher design knitted across his shoulderblades. Its webbed centre was bisected by a thick ribbed plait that knotted from Neji's nape down to the base of his spine, where a dark ocean-plait knot dug into the lower vertebrae, adorning the sensual V where the slopes of his back dipped before rising into the taut swells of his buttocks.
Shikamaru focused his chakra at this root point.
Neji gasped, his glutes going hard as rocks, the backs of his roped thighs pulling. "Fuck…" he hissed, his cultured tones roughening to a hoarse whisper. "I'd never let…ah…anyone…."
"I know." Hell, did he know. "Just like you know I'd never do this with anyone else…any of it."
It was as close to a confession as Shikamaru could get without falling too hard into the ever-deepening waters washing back and forth between them.
Yeah, only it's a little too late, isn't it?
Much too late.
He'd quit treading those waters, quit fighting the flow of all the damned feelings that'd never stopped since the day they'd started. Now, he was happy to sink, to go under, to hold his breath and share what remained of his air before Neji stole it all with a look, a touch, a smile.
You make me lose my head…make me lost…
And damn, if he didn't Need that as much as he needed logic and answers.
"You make this crazy some kind of sane," he whispered. "And I can't find that anywhere else…god knows I've tried."
Neji's breath rattled in his throat. "I know."
Heart brimming, Shikamaru had to swallow several times before he popped the cap on the bottle and stretched out his hand. Three shadow tendrils unravelled from the knot at the base of Neji's spine, moving in lazy spirals.
Crouching, Shikamaru twisted his fingers and made a fist.
In an instant mimicry, the three tendrils twisted together into a ribbed cord which tied itself off in a wall and crown knot, fisting into a thick bulging tassel. Shikamaru anointed the knot and cord with oil, slathering it generously before backing away, not trusting himself to stand too close to the object of his unravelling sanity without losing control completely.
"You know what comes next," he husked, bringing his slick fingers together in a new seal. "Let me give it."
The lubricated shadow-rope danced like a charmed cobra, snaking its way back to the base of Neji's spine before sliding down the tight crevice between the tightly clenched glutes.
Neji jerked at the sensation, his body going rigid.
Letting out a breath, Shikamaru stepped closer. "Let me give it," he breathed again, hesitating before he reached out to graze his palms over the elaborate rope-work at Neji's back, swallowing thickly as the muscles fluttered beneath his ghosting touch. "Say yes."
Neji said nothing, flexed his arms powerfully against their overhead seizure, a predator strung up and straining for release – just a different kind of release.
"Neji."
"Let me feel you first."
Biting back a groan, Shikamaru's palms skimmed up over the Hyūga's raised arms and he almost gave in when Neji swayed back in a bid to touch him, feel him.
Fuck…
Wincing, Shikamaru stepped out of range, his palm pressed between those pale grinding shoulderblades. His fingers twitched and trembled in an effort to control both himself and the pressure of the shadow-ropes binding Neji in their dark sultry spell. "Say yes," he choked out, squeezing the ropes tighter until Neji gasped. "Before I lose it…fuck…say yes, Neji…"
Before I lose this round and take you myself…
He was a twitch away from giving in to the urge. Hanging on by his quivering fingertips. And then, so soft Shikamaru almost missed it, Neji whispered. "Give me what you've got."
In that moment, Shikamaru would've given him anything.
Everything I have.
As it was, he gave Neji the feel of the shadows moving within him. A wordless chakra-imbued command and the oiled tendril pushed its blunt knotted head past the guardian ring of muscle in a twisting grind.
Neji's breath shattered.
A rough, pained sound quickly followed by a deep sonorous moan.
Shikamaru's eyes rolled shut at the erotic sound. He clenched his fist, concentrated feverishly on the core of Neji's body; the slow spiral advance of winding that tendril deeper, shifting its tempo, thrusting slow and angling deep until Neji's low moan broke off into a harsh raucous cry.
There.
Striking that spot, Shikamaru aimed true again and again, watching the shadow-rope plunder faster, harder…an extension of his want, his need…listening to those deep cries build and build, louder and hoarser – until, unable to hold back, Shikamaru came forward, touched his hand to Neji's burning skin and whispered his name.
"Neji…"
The soft call of his name, coupled with the touch of Shikamaru's hand, ripped Neji off the edge. Arching in bliss, he roared, a full-throated howl as he shot dry, hips lurching again and again. Pleasure rent the world. An exquisite knife. And it threatened to slice through clogged tenketsu and unravel him completely.
But the blocks held…
The pressure causing tiny stars to fizz and burst at the corners of Neji's vision…
Had he not been held by the shadows, he'd have fallen.
God, but I have…
He knew this. Knew it with such unshakeable certainty even as he felt the climax rocking his body back and forth, running its delicious course, washing over his senses before drawing back like a wave, retreating for the next build, the next climb and crash…
I don't think I'll survive the next one…
Ah, but what a beautiful way to go.
"Come back."
Again, Shikamaru's voice hooking his heart, pulling him ashore. It took Neji a long breathless moment to recover. A vertiginous swirl consumed him, resurgent desire spiralling through his muscles in wild helix coils.
He struggled to raise his head. "Shikamaru…"
The darkness parted. Its gold-sheen curtain drawn aside by the backward sweep of a hand. Knuckles grazed Neji's flaming cheekbone. Opal orbs flickered up and the tattered breaths streaming from Neji's lips cut off on a sharp intake as Shikamaru's silhouette resolved from the darkness directly ahead.
It happened like a dream.
Shadow rolled like smoke across the emerging figure, flowing in a hundred darkening shades over honey-warm skin as Shikamaru stepped forward. The shadows melted back across the hollows and ridges of his sharply-hewn body, spilling black and grey and golden-hued over torso, hips and thighs while the diffuse light streaking in through the windows cast his damp skin in an amber sheen.
Neji's heart stopped beating.
It was if a kami of fire had stepped from the darkness. Embers in his eyes, burnt sienna motes dancing like flames. But unlike the cruel residual shadow-figure from Neji's nightmare, there was no cunning in Shikamaru's smile, no malice in the fire in his eyes. Just warmth. Just want.
Need.
Neji shook his head, floored beyond words.
Had the shadow tendrils not held him aloft, he'd have gone down to his knees. Seeing the enamoured look in his pale wide eyes, Shikamaru's smile went crooked, seemed to waver almost self-consciously before he came forward. His hair was down, hanging in dark sunset-streaked shards. The gesture of letting it loose without being asked or seduced was not lost on Neji. Neither was the look in those lambent eyes.
Neji's fingers fisted, body tightening against the shadowy restraints. "Let me go," he husked, aching to touch.
Closer now, Shikamaru's head went from side to side, a hypnotic sway. He reached out a hand, grazed his fingertips across Neji's burning face with the tentativeness of a man expecting a wild beast to turn. Not knowing which one of them was wilder, which one of them was less in control of the Need.
Shikamaru's eyes were alive with it, shadow and flame. "If I let you go…I'll go too. Go someplace I'm not sure that I…" he trailed off, jaw clenching.
Taken aback by the struggle in those burning eyes, Neji tilted his head, lowering his voice to a soothing note. "Not sure that you can what?"
Throat bobbing, the shadow-nin searched Neji's face with a look of such aching tenderness it took Neji's breath all over again. "I could get lost in this, Neji. In you. In this thing between us. I could get lost in more ways than I can predict. More ways than I can account for."
Frowning softly, Neji gazed back for a long moment, reading the shadow of emotion chasing in and out of the flames in Shikamaru's eyes. He'd seen it before. "And that scares you."
Shikamaru's expression tightened, his fingers grazing down Neji's jaw before the long digits curled away against his palm. The shadows loosened at Neji's wrists, came undone like the emotion in Shikamaru's voice. "It's just like you said…I am my shadows. And while I'm not afraid of the animal nature of that darkness anymore…doesn't mean I can't get lost inside it." Swallowing, he tapped his fist above Neji's pounding heart. "And when I'm with you…I want that…need that…so damned much I can't breathe…"
That much, at least, Neji understood.
Forcing himself to steady both his breath and his body, Neji pulled his arms free from the unravelling binds and took the shadow-nin's jaw between his fingers, tilting his head to catch Shikamaru's gaze, holding it steady with his own. "You want to get lost, Shikamaru?"
Another nod. A little jerky. Like Shikamaru felt rattled by the confession. "Always used to think I was just in the habit of running away. From trouble. From everything. Never used to think about why I did it…because Asuma was always chasing me down…but then I realised that sometimes I just need to get lost…just for a while. Not to think. Not to be a ninja. Not to be responsible for anything but my own peace of mind. Was a time I used to be able to do that just by cloud-gazing but…"
"But not anymore."
Shikamaru pressed his lips, gave a sad rueful smile. "It's not that simple anymore…the things I've done…seen…the people I've hurt…the kids I've killed…"
Neji flinched. "Shikamaru."
The shadow-nin silenced him with a look. "Those are my scars, Neji…and I can live with them. But what I can't live without?" He paused, dropped his gaze to the whorl of scar tissue on Neji's chest. "When I'm with you...I get what I need without having to run. You know how crazy that seems to my head?"
"Yes," Neji admitted, having once thought – felt – the same way. "It defies logic. Always has. Isn't that why you said you wanted it? Because you didn't need to figure it out."
Shikamaru blinked. "You remember that."
"I remember more than you can imagine. I could never forget. Even when I needed to. And as you've said time and again…I'm not sorry for that. Are you?"
Shikamaru shook his head in amazement, his eyes lighting with a wonder which was almost incredulous. "Not one bit. But just 'cause I'm not sorry, doesn't mean it doesn't scare the hell out of me."
Neji frowned, set his hand at the tense junction between Shikamaru's neck and shoulder, squeezing gently. He felt the rapid-fire pulse. Heard the quickening of breath. "What can I do?"
"Do?" Laughter, soft and shaky. "Nothing you don't do all the time. Give me something I can't get anywhere else. And when I have that…I can do the rest."
"The rest?"
Shikamaru's eyes lowered a fraction, his gaze going distant. "I can do necessity. I can do duty. I can be on call whenever my village needs me. No matter what the hell that demands. I can suck it up and make the tough choices and sacrifices. Create the cold strategies. Hell, I can do it all, no questions asked…so long as I can have this." He thumped a fist above his heart before flattening the same hand against Neji's chest, twisting his palm – hard, frustrated – teeth grit against some internal struggle. "God. Just for a while…if I can have this…and not have to call it our…"
"Our what?"
"Endgame," Shikamaru choked out, shaking his head. "Tell me this isn't our endgame, Hyūga."
Thrown, Neji's eyes widened before he came forward, shaking his head. "It's not our endgame."
"Yeah?" Dark eyes flickered up, a faint sheen washing across the fire and the smoke. "Then why the hell does it feel like I can't have you beyond tonight?"
Stunned, Neji gripped the shadow-nin's wrist, held that palm steady above his pounding heart when Shikamaru made to pull back. "Don't you say that to me. Not after everything we've done. Everything we've said. Everything we've suffered. Don't run from me now. If you want this…you can have this, Shikamaru."
Brows tugging together, Shikamaru stared hard at Neji's chest. "What if I can't?"
"Why can't you?"
"Because when I get lost in something that gets me this deep outta my head…I don't know if I can trust myself to find my way back." He paused here, expression tightening in pain. "And as much as I need to get lost sometimes…I need to know that I can come back."
"You can. You will."
"You say that like it's easy for me to do…like its simple."
"I once told you, what we have has never been easy, Shikamaru. But it is simple."
"Right." Shaking head, Shikamaru pulled back his hand and swiped at his glittering eyes, a rough laugh catching in his throat. "Well it better be Stupid Simple, Neji…because I once told you something too. That I tend to stop thinking when I'm with you. I lose myself."
"Good."
"Good?" Shikamaru's gaze came up, along with his trademark brow before his expression knitted in confusion. "The hell? Didn't you hear what I just sa—"
"I heard you perfectly, Shikamaru. Better yet, I hear you." Before the Nara could breathe another word, Neji reached up roughly with both hands and framed the shadow-nin's face between his palms, holding Shikamaru steady so he couldn't flinch away. "Look at me, Nara."
It was only when Shikamaru went utterly still and returned his gaze that Neji allowed his fingers the freedom to slip upwards into ink-black strands, carving them away from the Nara's wide, worried eyes before he settled his grip at Shikamaru's nape. A touch that'd become as familiar to them both as it was essential, grounding, affectionate – and a thousand other things that had no words…but were somehow always heard.
"I hear you," Neji repeated softly, "Now hear me." And at this point, he searched Shikamaru's eyes with an intimacy which laid him raw. "You can lose yourself with me, Shikamaru…because I will always find you. I will find you. And I will bring you home."
A pledge.
A vow.
The kind that carved out contracts on something far more substantial than paper and far more tender than stone. Tissue, flesh, enamel and bone. Stunned, it took Shikamaru a long staggering second to catch both his faltering breath and his falling heart.
"You can lose yourself with me, Shikamaru…"
A flicker of doubt.
A knee-jerk kick of fear.
And then a single searching look into Neji's eyes; two incandescent moons glowing with white fire, obliterating all the shadows of doubt and all the imagined fears that'd ever darkened this Need between them.
"…because I will always find you."
Knowing that, trusting that, Shikamaru went with the flames. Drawing Neji against, he sank into the slow burn of bodies pressed close. Lips dragged, breaths steamed, tongues dipped into a slow liquid dance and Shikamaru lost himself in the kiss.
They came together again like old lovers…
…and forged something stronger this time.
Shikamaru felt it go through him; a rush of emotion, a force as primordial as time itself, taking possession of the heat between them. The rhythm with which they moved against each other was no less carnal, no less incendiary, but it felt…
Different…
Went deeper, far deeper than Shikamaru thought he was capable of falling. "Neji."
Neji hummed, kissed a moist path down Shikamaru's throat to the flushed juncture of neck and shoulder, pressing closer still. Shikamaru pressed back until he felt the Jōnin's stiff length sliding along the curve of his groin. Arousal gripped harder, had the hot spheres at the base Shikamaru's erection cinching tighter, his flesh stiffening to a point of aching pressure which blurred the lines between pleasure and pain.
Damn, he'd missed this.
Missed it in ways which hurt to remember, hurt to recall. He gasped, eyes clenching shut. "Ripped me up…when you went cold on me...in Kusa…on those docks…kills me when I can't reach you."
Apology, in the kiss, in the caress of Neji's fingers at his nape. "You always reach me."
Was that desire speaking, or something else? Not wanting to think about it, Shikamaru's fingers dug into Neji's skin. "Don't go cold on me again."
"I can never stay cold with you," Neji murmured, a deep-throated rumble which travelled up the length of Shikamaru's neck in a warm purr, followed by the barest graze of teeth. "Don't you remember how I was with you in Hanegakure? Can't you feel it now? Everything's on fire. So tell me…how slow do you want it to burn?"
"Slow…" Shikamaru breathed, pulling Neji into a kiss which set the pace, tongues rolling in a slick languid tempo which brought all the embers between them to a smouldering burn. "Slow."
Groaning softly, Neji nodded into the kiss, drew Shikamaru against him and turned them, backing the shadow-nin up across the room. Shikamaru heard the bottle topple and roll ahead of them, but hardly felt the cold wood pass beneath his feet, or the cool whisper of the breeze from the air-locked windows. In some distant corner of his mind, he registered the ripe fertile scents of the forest, cedar and pine beneath the musk of sex, salt and whatever shampoo Neji had used earlier in the showers. Consumed by taste and smell, he barely registered the catch and drag of the threadbare rug at the foot of the low platform bed with its dark rustic wood fashioned at the headboard to resemble the winged edges of a temple gate.
Beds and altars.
He barely even felt the mattress against his calves.
All he felt was Neji.
The Hyūga's hot lethal hands moving up along his back, blunt nails raking gentle trails. Sighing, Shikamaru arched backwards into the touch. Rough-velvet lips found his throat, mouthed low sultry praises against his neck, sucking on the tight cords which quivered to the low vibratory moan which came shuddering out of him in a rapturous shiver.
"Cold as I've been, god knows I've burned for you," Neji whispered. "I've burned with every sunset…and every sunrise…ever since the first day I walked away…"
A deep pang in his heart and Shikamaru's eyes flickered open, his gaze swinging up as Neji pressed him down onto the supple velvety deerskin coverlet. Whatever he might've said in return lodged in his throat as he stared up, stunned into silence by what he saw.
Neji stood over him like something out of myth, out of legend.
An elemental force, a demi-god somehow caged by the confines of human flesh; his mane loose and wild, muscles rippling with restraint beneath scarred alabaster skin, the proud strong arc of his arousal riding high and hard as veined marble.
Captivated, Shikamaru came forward, grasped the backs of those powerful thighs, drawing his touch up until he gripped the firm buttocks. Holding Neji's gaze, he drew the Hyūga forwards, parted his kiss-swollen lips around the enflamed tip and pulled Neji's rigid flesh into his mouth.
"Ah…" Neji's eyes rolled back, his lashes flickering dark and sooty as he scraped his fingers against Shikamaru's scalp, fisting the inky strands.
Shikamaru hummed approval, the pressure on his scalp sending a delicious crawl along his spine, causing the throb in his groin to tighten. Hungry for the taste, he laved Neji from root to tip in a wet glide, tracing the veined lines which decorated the swollen stem. A hint of nectar at the crown, seeping past the chakra blocks.
"I can never stay cold with you."
Tasting that truth, Shikamaru knifed the point of his tongue through the hot salty juice and kneaded the backs of Neji's tense thighs, taking the Hyūga deeper into his mouth before the tug on his hair forced him to relent.
Neji swept down, slaked Shikamaru's thirst with a kiss which plundered and shook, robbing him of air, filling him with heat. "Tell me yes, Shikamaru."
A flutter in Shikamaru's stomach. Old nerves. Old fears. "There you go, Hyūga, stealing my lines."
"Be grateful I'm not stealing your moves." Neji licked along the moist seam of his lips. "Neither of us would survive another round without release."
Shikamaru husked a chuckle and reached up to slip his fingers through the long chocolate hair spilling over Neji's shoulders, smiling warmly before his gaze sobered and his touch slid to the bandana still striped across Neji's brow.
Neji tensed, as he always did.
Old angers. Old pains.
Shikamaru paused here, glanced up into bright lunar eyes. Neji stared for a moment, read the question in Shikamaru's gaze…and gave a slow permissive blink, nodding into the touch of the shadow-nin's fingers, head bowed.
Shikamaru's eyes widened, softened.
The wordless gesture reminded him of the Nara deer and he felt the same humbling sense of honour he always did whenever a wounded stag trusted him enough to let him get this close to their scars, their pain. With infinite care, he followed the strip of cloth around to where Neji had fastened it at his nape.
Nimble fingers worked the knot.
The cloth fell away in a pale ribbon, revealing the scar beneath.
Shikamaru grazed his thumb over the curse mark, then against the soft furrow driving between the Hyūga's brows. Cupping Neji's head, he pulled the Jōnin down and settled his lips against the cruel green seal, mouthing soft words.
Neji leaned into the touch, closed his eyes and let out a slow breath through his nose. "Can you believe how far we've come?"
"I try not to think about it."
Neji raised his head, looked him in the eye. "Why?"
Because it scares me to think we almost didn't make it…
That he'd almost lost his mind. That Neji had almost lost his life.
That I almost lost you…the way I lost Asuma…
Beating back the pain gnawing at his ribs, Shikamaru forced a smile. "Troublesome." He tilted his head for a kiss.
Not willing to accept avoidance, Neji swayed back, arching a brow playfully. "Why?" he pressed again. Gentle. Curious. "Why do you try not to think about it?"
Shikamaru sighed, leaning back. "Because every time I start racing down memory lane, I start thinking about all the short cuts, all the dead ends, all the pitfalls…all the 200 possibilities which could've resulted in you not being here with me right now. But you are…and I'm starting to think that 'right now' is all we've ever got."
Neji's eyes widened a little, but he must've seen the hint of vulnerability in Shikamaru's face. Rather than push any further, he leaned in to stroke their lips, humming softly. "That's very philosophic, Shikamaru."
Humour. Safety. Just what he needed. Snorting, Shikamaru's mumbled response was swallowed by Neji's mouth settling over his, coaxing a chuckle and then a soft, breathy groan. "Illegal move, Hyūga."
"A slight on my honour, Nara," Neji murmured back, dipping into another kiss, one hand framing Shikamaru's jaw, the other stroking over his head with rough affection. "But if one day, you ever do decide to look back…remember that all the moves we did or didn't make still led us to this moment. The 199 other possibilities don't matter."
Shikamaru arched a brow. "Tell that to my head."
"I'm not talking to your head."
No. Because it wasn't Shikamaru's head losing beats between every breathless catch of their lips and drag of their tongues. "That's too bad. I heard it's my best asset."
Neji's smile stretched. "I can assure you, it's not."
Laughing to cover his embarrassment, Shikamaru narrowed his eyes. "All this foreplay and now you're flirting with me, Hyūga?" Neji laughed. Deep and sonorous and sexy as all get out and in a bid not to look like some lovesick idiot, Shikamaru clicked his tongue in mock relent. "Well, guess you did buy me dinner."
More laughter and Shikamaru was lost to the sound of it, pulling Neji down to taste it, feel the rich melodious ripple across his tongue. It tuned him in to a different wavelength of desire and what started out playful and slow turned primal and hungry pretty damn fast. It took a hell of a lot to keep from taking the lead and getting them lost down a different path.
No.
That's not what he wanted.
Needed.
But I can't stop.
Breaking the kiss, he rocked his head back and closed his eyes, tongue curling behind his clenched teeth. "Fuck…stop me...stop me before I—"
"Sssh." Neji hushed him, skated his lips over the tightly bobbing throat. "Trust me with you. I won't let you speed this up. I promised you a slow burn and I mean to give it to you." He kissed the hollow of Shikamaru's throat, bowed his head against the Nara's pounding chest. "Just say yes."
The rush of the last word slithered along Shikamaru's chest in a hot breath, caused his skin to prickle and stir. Like he was fine-tuned to respond to Neji. No matter how light the touch. How faint the words. Sitting up, he combed his fingers through Neji's hair in hopes of getting a grip on the damned reins.
A little late for that.
His heartbeat was cantering a mile a minute, his breaths catching in a hoarse rattle every time Neji's slick tongue and artful mouth rasped across his throat and collarbones.
"Say yes, Shikamaru."
Again that request.
Clever. Using his own language to get him to listen, to hear. Only Asuma had ever really known the significance of echoing back to Shikamaru words the young Nara had spoken in moments of emotion. The tactic tended to stall Shikamaru's brain long enough for him to feel a response rather than just give immediate logical feedback.
"Say yes, Shikamaru."
His heart clenched, emotion wringing his throat.
Shikamaru parted his lips to speak then lost his words when Neji's mouth wandered down, streaking moist lava trails from one dusky nipple to the other, moving at such a steady drawn-out pace it dropped Shikamaru's brain into limbo and left his body burning in slow-time.
Fuck…yes…
Panting, he pressed one hand back behind him for support. But before he could catch his balance – much less his breath – Neji sank down to his knees, tugging Shikamaru to the very edge of the bed, insinuating himself between the Nara's legs.
"You know I could keep you like this for hours…" Neji groaned. "Sometimes I can think of nothing else…this constant craving to watch you come alive beneath my hands. My hands alone."
And then those hands were on him, massaging up along Shikamaru's legs at a maddening crawl, thumbs digging inwards, finding pressure points, breaking down resistance muscle by muscle, minute by minute.
Shit, he'd asked for the slow burn.
And hell, he was getting it.
Hissing, Shikamaru cursed softly, torn between the delicate tug of teeth at his nipples and the slow torture of those hard callused hands kneading him into a boneless puddle of raw nerves. It felt as if all the tension were draining out, pooling between his legs, filling him up to the stoppered brim until he was convinced he was about to blow.
He almost reached to touch himself, to find some relief.
No…
Again, that's not what he wanted.
Needed.
His fingers wound tighter in Neji's hair. "Nnh…Neji…fuck…you're t-ah god…tearing me up here...give me…your next move…before I…pass out…" A deep lusty chuckle against his chest and Shikamaru's hips jerked at the sound, pre-fluid beading at the crown of his neglected length when Neji's thumbs stroked down over his heavy sac, cupping him, rolling him. "Dammit…Neji…"
"If you want more, then you know what to say." Neji's mouth bumped the underside of Shikamaru's tilted jaw, lips moving against the pulse point. "Tell me yes and I'll give you what you want." He nipped at the pierced earlobe, stroking his tongue along the cool metal stud. "Tell me yes…and I'll give you everything I have."
"Ah…you already did."
Neji stilled at the tender words, drew back with his hands braced on Shikamaru's thighs. He searched the Nara's lidded gaze, his lips tilting in the warmest of smiles. "And I'd do it again. In a heartbeat. If that's what you needed."
"You know what I need," Shikamaru whispered, afraid his voice might shake if he raised it. "Just tell me one more time."
"Tell you what?"
A moment's stillness as that question settled between them; ashes of the past fear over embers of the promised fire, smoking out the last vestiges of doubt, forcing Shikamaru to confront the ghost of his old shadows, his old scars, once and for all.
"Tell me I can afford to get lost with you."
A gentle rounding of those lunar eyes, emotion waxing full and bright. Smiling, Neji leaned forward, gaze steady, his breathing slow, almost meditative as he grazed his knuckle up along the bared stretch of Shikamaru's throat, grasping the Nara's chin, staring deep into warm dark eyes.
"You can get lost with me, Shikamaru. Because I will always find you. The way you found me. The way you still find me…every time."
Shikamaru went abruptly still.
Breaths stalled, heartbeats staggered…and his eyes grew dark and wide. But he didn't look away. He stared back for a long penetrating moment – his gaze laying him just as open, just as raw.
"The way you found me."
How long had he ached to hear that? How long had he needed to hear it? Hear it just like this. Not when Neji was blitzed on opiates and doped out of his head. Not when he was caught in the grip of desire. But when he was sober and serious and staring Shikamaru dead in the eye.
"The way you still find me…every time."
The gravity of those words, and the look in Neji's eyes as he said them, turned the tides of rising fire in a direction of no return. But finally, at long, long last, Shikamaru didn't have to worry about getting lost in those deep dark woods where fire met shadow and he couldn't see the smouldering forest for the burning trees.
"I will always find you, Shikamaru."
That was all he needed to hear.
The rest was Stupid Simple.
The rest…was never a thinking thing.
Neji held his breath, a fireball in his throat.
He tried to read the emotions scudding across Shikamaru's face. Tried to guess the direction those feelings would take him and which way Neji would need to run in order to chase him down. Back into the past? Forwards into the unknown future? Or would his words keep Shikamaru grounded here, in the now, where Shikamaru claimed was the only place they could ever really be?
Say something…
Shikamaru said nothing, though his throat worked as if the words were caught there. Neji didn't push him, just waited. And for a countless moment those wide dark eyes simply stared back at him, searching more than just his gaze, more than just his face. Shikamaru looked beyond, looked deeper, in that keen penetrative way he always searched…always reached…always found.
And then, thank the gods, Shikamaru smiled.
His lips curved in that slow lazy twist which had his gaze softening. Warm smoky flames breaking through the shadows in his eyes. Neji's heart kicked hard against his ribcage, struck sparks off tightening bone.
It set a different kind of fire inside him.
The heat flared, climbed the scant space between them…
…and just for a moment, they watched each other burn.
Until Shikamaru breathed his name and Neji went to him, summoned by the flame on his tongue, the heat in his eyes, the warmth of his mouth gasping open. The kiss consumed, seemed to conspire with the flames, sent them leaping at every touch.
"Let me find you," Neji whispered, again and again between the wet brush of tongues, the moist cling of lips. "Say yes. Kami, say yes."
"Yeah," Shikamaru whispered, feverish now. "Yes."
A surrendering sigh and Neji pressed an open-mouthed kiss above Shikamaru's thundering heart. He touched his scarred brow to the tender spot, sent out a prayer to whatever god or kami or guardian spirit had governed their broken stars and minded their shattered pieces while they put themselves back together.
Shikamaru stroked his head, caressed his nape. "Neji…"
An invocation. Sighing out hot whispers, Neji dipped even lower, seared a wet worshipful path to the shadow-nin's navel, then lower still to where the heat swirled hotter than chakra burn.
He took Shikamaru between his lips.
A shuddering along those roped thighs and Shikamaru's soft moans misted out on breaths which shook to the rhythm of Neji's mouth playing over his hard flesh. Such exquisite music, the low raspy sounds the shadow-nin made. Neji could've played him for hours, drawing on all those delicious strings, listening and watching as fibres and chords went wild, singing and straining in erotic chorus.
But gods, I want you…need you…
Needed to be deep inside, feeling the base notes, drumming them into and against Shikamaru's body with every beat and roll of his hips. Shifting on his knees, Neji drew back without letting go, one arm stretching behind him, teeth scraping gently along the sensitive shaft pulsing in his mouth until he was tonguing the deep slit at the crown, tasting salty cream.
Pressing back onto his elbows, Shikamaru gave a strangled moan.
Neji's gut clenched at the sound, his own arousal beginning to leak thin hot ribbons as blocked tenketsu strained against the anticipatory pressure.
Not yet.
Groping around behind him without disengaging his mouth, he located the slim bottle that'd rolled across the floor and got caught in the rug.
There.
Curling his long fingers around the container, he came forwards again, the muscles in his stomach and thighs clenching as he levered himself closer, taking Shikamaru deeper. A sensual hiss, like steam off a hot pan as Shikamaru sighed through his teeth, his thighs tensing.
"Goddamn…" he whispered, sounding agonised as the pleasure/pain line crumbled around the pressure. "Neji…too much…"
Not nearly enough, Shikamaru…
Humming wickedly, Neji gripped the base of Shikamaru's erection with a chakra-charged hand, kneading with his thumb to forestall the coming spasms and cement the tenketsu blocks. A soft flare of blue-white light and Shikamaru jerked as if shocked, his over-sensitive flesh going electric at the torture.
An incoherent shout – half cry, half curse and somewhere in-between, Neji's name.
God…
Neji almost came in another dry pulse at the sound. For someone who wore such an impassive and jaded skin on the surface, Shikamaru's hidden stripes and buried animal passions were all the more exotic and thrilling to witness, to tease, to draw out hungry and panting from the shadows.
How Neji wanted to claim, to capture, to caress those uninhibited parts of his nature.
Claim him, both inside and out.
The thought had Neji leaking hotter, desperate to mark, to fill to the brim, to spill so deep Shikamaru would feel him for days…for nights…for always.
Stop…breathe…
A controlled breath through his nose and Neji drew back, easing off. Standing, he took himself in hand and delivered similar brutal treatment, keeping tenketsu sealed tight.
Not yet.
Catching his breath – and his control – he stared down through his lashes at the man sprawled beneath him. Head pressed back, Shikamaru was breathing in hard, ragged jets. His fingers fisted in the deerskin throw, knuckles blanched, the muscles in his forearms strung so tight Neji could see every pull and quiver.
Beautiful…
Neji could almost hear the music in the shadow-nin's veins, in his blood, in the hot wild beat of the heart pounding out its staggered cadence. Burnished in the sunset glow and half-wrapped in shadow, the soft patina misted orange-gold over Shikamaru's body, revealed to Neji the tiny shakes running through the shadow-nin like electricity, his skin marked in places with rough kisses, wet saliva trails and the faintest indentation of teeth.
Hunger deepened, darkened.
Neji licked his swollen lips.
Gazing up at him through glazed eyes, Shikamaru's focus went to his mouth. "You're killing me here, Hyūga…you trying to give me a slow burn or a cremation?" While the words were intended to tease, Shikamaru's drawl was way off its lazy game. His voice shook as hard as his body, torn into rusty threads. "Dammit, Neji…don't look at me like that..."
A promising smile and Neji came forwards, a knee at the edge of the low mattress. "I think you enjoy my eyes on you. My hands on you." He dropped the bottle atop the coverlet and with palms warmed by chakra, he touched the Nara's thighs, urged Shikamaru to scoot higher up along the bed, right up towards the headboard. "Go higher."
"Not possible."
Neji bared his teeth in a salacious grin. "Dare me. Now move."
Eyes flashing, defiance and desire, Shikamaru moved higher up the bed, sinuous and slow, dragging the soft buckskin pelt. "Wasting moves, Hyūga."
"No moves are wasted." Mesmerized by the shadow-nin's lithe movements, Neji stared for a long count as he considered the best way to approach this without touching on bad memories.
Shikamaru sensed his hesitation. "Don't," he croaked, beckoning with his eyes, with his smile. "It's just you and me. Don't hesitate. You never hesitate."
Only when it comes to you…
But not this time.
"It's just you and me."
And the flames roaring between them. Rather than settle between Shikamaru's long powerful legs, Neji took up the bottle and moved to lie beside him, stretching his body alongside the shadow-nin's left flank to the right side of the bed.
Frowning, Shikamaru made to turn onto his side.
Neji touched his chest, pressed him back onto his elbows. "My move," he reminded. "I need you just as you are." Truth to tell, he needed Shikamaru in more ways than he could fit into a lifetime let alone a single evening.
Make it last…
He intended to.
Complying, Shikamaru tilted back against the low headboard, propped by the pillows, keeping Neji in his line of sight. With those dark eyes tracking his every move, Neji took his time. Hiking his right leg, he curled it beneath him so he could half-sit, half-kneel, keeping his balance steady and his hands free.
That done, he uncapped the lid of the bottle.
The snap of the plastic caused Shikamaru's skin to pebble.
Anticipation?
Anxiety?
Neji swept his gaze along the length of Shikamaru's body, found nothing but hard wanton flesh rising up, seeking touch, the hot musky scent of sex thickening the air. Testing ground, Neji raised his left hand and touched the shadow-nin's flat stomach with his chakra-charged palm.
Static and sparks.
Gasping, Shikamaru's heels dug into the mattress as muscles jumped and undulated, his lower abs pulling hard. Neji paused, fascinated, as always, by the way such simple touches could provoke such powerful reactions in this normally detached and unaffected ninja.
He repeated the move.
Same effect, stronger this time. Shikamaru's teeth flashed, lashes flickering, a growl catching behind his curled tongue. When Neji made to draw back, Shikamaru reached across with his right hand to grip the Hyūga's wrist, squeezing. "Don't."
Neji froze, looked at him. "Don't?"
Shikamaru's eyes burned. "Don't you dare stop."
Desire pounded out, an intense throb between Neji's legs. "Make me start," he purred, leaning in to graze his teeth along the sensitive shell of Shikamaru's ear, nipping the lobe. "Move my hand over you, Nara. Show me what I do to you. What you want me to do to you."
Groaning, Shikamaru slid his fingers between Neji's knuckles and dragged the Hyūga's dimly glowing palm along the trembling ridges of his taut belly, moving downward over the rise of his hip, along the dip of his sharp pelvis until they reached the base of his shaft.
Shikamaru stopped here, breathing hard.
"Go on," Neji urged, kissing a high cheekbone, skating his lips to the corner of Shikamaru's mouth, tongue feathering out along the seam. "Show me the moves you want me to make."
"Neji…"
"Show me, Nara."
Turning his head, Shikamaru tried to silence him with a kiss. Smirking, Neji kept their lips hovering apart but dipped his tongue inside that hot panting mouth, stretching the slick appendage to stroke its slender tip along the waiting playmate, coaxing Shikamaru's tongue to meet him halfway, rolling into a wet glide.
As their tongues slid and rubbed, Shikamaru's breathing sped…
His hips tilted…
And shockingly, his touch changed.
Rather than mould their hands around his neglected length, Shikamaru fastened the link of their fingers and skidded lower; bypassing the root of his arousal and the heavy sac; folding his fingers over Neji's as he'd done earlier in the showers, guiding them down, down.
Neji sucked a breath through his nose, lashes flickering open in surprise.
Drawing back a scant inch, Shikamaru looked up, his breaths fanning against Neji's mouth. Their gazes held. A look as intimate as the way Neji dared to touch, to test, curling his fingers beneath the pressure of Shikamaru's hand until he brushed the sensitive patch of skin.
Shikamaru's breath caught behind his teeth, but he didn't pull away.
Encouraged, Neji rubbed his fingers experimentally. Jaw clenched, Shikamaru lifted his hips into the touch then hesitated, his right heel drawing up across the coverlet, spine pressing back down into the mattress.
Neji searched his face. "Do you want me to sto—"
"God no. No way."
"Then what?"
A flash of vulnerability and dark eyes pressed shut, brows pulling together in that blissful look of torture he'd worn earlier. "You know what."
Heart panging in his chest, Neji kissed the furrow between those tightly knit brows. "Trust me to bring you back. Trust that when I do, you'll bring this moment with you to erase any and all moments that ever came before. It's yours," he paused, swallowed thickly, and added in a murmur against the Nara's temple, "…as am I."
Shikamaru's eyes flashed open on the words. Before he could process them, Neji dipped his shoulder and – fingers still linked with Shikamaru's – reached further, grazing their joint touch over the tight entrance, sending a weak jolt of chakra to the spot.
"FUCK!" Arching up, Shikamaru rocked forwards and curled over as if winded, the muscles in his stomach clenching hard. He dug his free hand against Neji's thigh for support. "Shit…Neji…you keep on…pulling these kinda moves…I'm gonna pass out…I swear to g-AH!"
Neji pressed another white-blue ember against that clenching portal, felt Shikamaru's fingers spasm and tighten around his hand. "Ah, but I think this master of shadows is enjoying the slow burn. Just like you wanted. And you want it just like this, don't you, Nara?"
Shikamaru squeezed Neji's thigh, blunt nails digging in. He didn't lean back against the headboard, body still curved forwards, abs clenched, every muscle braced for the next touch. Trying to predict. Trying to prepare.
I'll get you out of that head, Nara.
Neji smiled, decided to mix things up.
Moving just as slow as he promised, he drizzled the oil-based lubricant over their joined fingers and glided their knuckles together. Shikamaru flinched in surprise, then watched, transfixed, as long white digits moved with erotic intent over his own sun-kissed fingers.
The erogenous sensation, shocking and new, seemed to captivate him.
Neji's smile curled a little deeper, so did his fingers, rubbing and sliding through and over Shikamaru's in a sensual dance.
"Shit…" Shikamaru whispered, gasping at the drag of their knuckles between his thighs, spreading his right leg and drawing it higher so as not to obstruct the view – though his high-riding erection, refusing to be ignored, was doing an excellent job of that. "How the hell do you do this?"
Neji watched, mesmerised by the play of light against their oiled skin. "Do what?"
"Make everything so fucking hot."
Neji laughed, pressed his lips against Shikamaru's hair. "Nara Shikamaru. So seductive. So eloquent."
"Blood. Brain. Opposite ends."
Indeed. Neji's gaze went to the proud shaft curving up between the shadow-nin's legs. Never in his life had Neji taken any man into his mouth – much less let one inside him – until Shikamaru. And gods, but what a beautiful exception he'd made.
"You seem to be the exception to every rule I have ever lived by and understood."
He hadn't meant that lightly. And the weight of this moment building between them was no less important. No less significant. For all their fighting, all their holding back, he'd found rest and shelter time and again with the shadow-nin.
All our stolen moments.
All their precious pieces.
And now, Shikamaru wished to get lost. Wished to lose himself, just for a while – and Neji wanted nothing more than to give him that reprieve, that release, that rest.
"Neji…?" Shikamaru's head went back, dark strands sliding away from his face as he gazed up, his oiled fingers sliding over Neji's in a slow roll. "You oka—?"
Tilting his head down, Neji touched their lips and stilled the Nara's words. "Lose yourself with me, Shikamaru?"
Blinking slowly, Shikamaru gave a crooked smile. "Halfway there, Hyūga."
That smile, those words, was permission granted.
Stroking their lips in a gentle nod, Neji folded his hand over Shikamaru's in a slow curl, allowing him to control the movement of the Nara's fingers. Going with the flow, Shikamaru seemed to think nothing of it. While Neji guided their hands back down, the shadow-nin seemed too distracted by the affectionate slide and bump of their mouths and the dampness of their mingled breaths to care what Neji had in mind.
Only he might. Go slow.
Following this mental order, Neji drew out the seconds as he tucked Shikamaru's oiled fingers down, directing them south of the perineum's border, pressing them slowly, experimentally, against the narrow opening to that hot, hot sanctum.
Shikamaru tensed up, his mouth stilling beneath Neji's.
Expecting this, Neji stoked their lips, murmured, "Together." Explaining. Inviting. "We'll show you together, how good this is going to feel." Breath held, he waited for Shikamaru to either reject or accept.
Shikamaru swallowed audibly, a tight sound. Neji's heart pressed hard against its tightening cage. His grip on their linked fingers slackened, allowing Shikamaru the freedom to redirect the touch.
He didn't.
Instead, Shikamaru flexed those long oiled digits, linking their fingers in a brief but firm squeeze. The reassurance in the grip had Neji's heartbeat levelling out – only just. And then he felt the shadow-nin's tongue dart out across his lips before that wet mouth moved softly against his.
"Your move, Hyūga."
The game terminology once again set the board, or at least, the illusion of it. Appreciating the safety Shikamaru found in the analogy, Neji went along with it. He knew it was the best way to take the edge off whatever nerves were playing beneath the raw tremolo in Shikamaru's voice.
"It is," Neji agreed. "Now make it with me."
On those words, he coaxed Shikamaru's fingers to join the next move, guided them to smear the warm oil around the sensitive opening until both their fingers were working in tandem, rubbing slow circles, swirling, swirling.
Shikamaru's breath halved, fell into a husky shiver.
Exquisite. Fresh arousal forked out in lightning streaks through Neji's muscles, charged his nerves into a static tremble. He traced Shikamaru's top lip with his tongue. "Just hearing you this way…do you have any idea what it does to me?"
"Yes…" Shikamaru managed, his voice nothing but a ghost of breath against Neji's lips. "Ah…yes…"
Neji's head swam. The scent of sandalwood oil and the erotic musk of sex filled the balmy air, hung thick as honey in the beams of amber-gold light streaking in through the window.
Slow…slow…
Slowly, Neji teased his fingertips through the sensitive valley between Shikamaru's oiled knuckles, drawing up the sinews along the backs of the Nara's hand before dipping back down to where the shadow-nin's fingers rolled in slow circles.
"Go deeper, Shikamaru…" Neji breathed, encouraging the command with the barest pressure, pressing two pale digits over Shikamaru's long middle finger, forcing it down against the tight opening. "Where I ache to go…tell me how it feels…and if you want it…it's yours…"
Chakra flooded between them in a current. Neji felt it in the air, saw it move through the Nara's body, a ripple which fluted outwards from the apex of his thighs. His head went back slightly, the fire in his eyes blackening the forest-brown hues to the same gold-sheen obsidian that'd cloaked the cabin earlier.
Primal.
Thrilling.
It was seductive to watch, caused the white, white heat in Neji's groin to stiffen into unyielding steel. Desire swirled, swirled…like their fingers around the tense gateway. "Go," Neji urged, letting the word roll from his tongue and rumble against Shikamaru's lips. "Show me. Slowly."
A little more pressure.
Shikamaru's fingertip breached the tense outer ring and he clenched on reflex, thighs locking, jaw going rigid. He let out a tight breath against Neji's lips.
"Mmn?" Neji kissed him, light, chaste, stroking the length of Shikamaru's finger slowly, down to where the tip was buried to the first knuckle, struggling to keep a steady veneer over his low, brimming tones. "Tell me. Do you want to stop?"
"No. Just…don't."
"Don't what?"
"Hold back. I can feel you holding back. Hesitating. Don't. You can't screw this up."
Neji blinked, his head ticking back a fraction, surprised by the keen sliver of awareness glinting in those semi-glazed eyes. "I won't push you with this, Shikamaru."
"I need you to push me with this," Shikamaru invited, growling the words. "'Cause I know you'll pull me back. I don't mind slow, but don't go soft on me. I don't need that. I'm going out of my mind here…but I can't go further unless you're going with me…you hear me?"
Moved by the trust in that request, Neji nodded. "I hear you."
"Good…now make me move."
Spurred by gravel in Shikamaru's voice, Neji loosened the reins on his control. Swooping down, he sealed their mouths, pressed his tongue against the lush seam of Shikamaru's lips, mimicking the slow probe of the Nara's finger as he urged it deeper with his own, pushing harder, penetrating from both ends, forcing Shikamaru to open.
Shikamaru's finger slid in to the second knuckle.
Jerking, Shikamaru's teeth clacked against Neji's as he snarled, an animal growl, carnal and hot and god the sounds he made. Growling back, Neji pushed harder. The finger slid deeper, caused Shikamaru's hips to lift.
His eyes rolled, then fixed on Neji, burning, burning…
Holding back a groan, Neji slanted their lips, curled his tongue against the roof of Shikamaru's mouth and in perfect sync, he felt the shadow-nin's knuckles shift as Shikamaru crooked his finger inside himself, mimicking Neji's kiss.
"Just like that," Neji growled. "Now go deeper."
Shikamaru panted a half-laugh, teeth bared. "Make me, Hyūga."
Biting those half-smiling lips, Neji grabbed Shikamaru's wrist, pulled to draw that finger out, then shoved to thrust it back, right to the last knuckle.
Jolting, Shikamaru smothered a cry behind clenched teeth, eyes squeezing shut.
Beautiful challenge. Neji's nostrils flared and his blood roared, the perfume of want and need as powerful as an aphrodisiac. Not that he required one. The pleasure etched into Shikamaru's expression was all the impetus he needed. Canting his weight, Neji took up the bottle again with his free hand and leaned to trickle oil along Shikamaru's neglected shaft.
"Sssshit…" Shikamaru hissed, teeth still clenched.
Purring, Neji lashed at the smooth enamel with his tongue, nipped the Nara's swollen lips. Shikamaru denied entry. At least at this end.
"Push me, Hyūga."
Determined to deliver, Neji tugged the trembling wrist, drawing Shikamaru's finger back out to the tip as the lubricant dribbled over his sensitive glans and down the flushed length, pooling and gliding under the soft globes to gather at the place his finger worked.
Shikamaru's lip curled back, his voice snarling out. "Dammit, Hyūga…no more turns…move with me…"
Neji bit down on his lip, growled. "Patience, Nara. Wait."
Shuddering, Shikamaru's other hand reached for Neji's thigh, gripped, his thumb rubbing. There was something tender in that touch, at odds with the animal intensity of this moment. Like through the lust and the heat haze, Shikamaru was still unsure, still reaching for a lifeline so he didn't get lost.
Neji's lips softened immediately, as did his voice. "Wait," he whispered, gentler this time. "You want me with you? Same time?"
Shikamaru's lashes flickered open, his dark vacant gaze struggling to focus. "Yeah…" he husked, sounding broken and oddly faraway. "Every time."
Those words, echoed back to him, resounded through Neji on a bass note which went beyond the vibratory growls and into something deeply human. His eyes cleared a little and he kissed Shikamaru with a tenderness that shivered, pulling the Nara back a little from the edge.
And then he understood.
Shikamaru wanted Neji with him at this moment.
Fully, wholly. Not halfway. Not with Shikamaru several steps ahead, which Neji thought would be most comfortable for the shadow-nin. Sending him alone to scout the path inside his own body, decide whether he wanted Neji to follow him down that route.
"I can't go further unless you're going with me…you hear me?"
Those words took on a deeper meaning. And Neji cursed himself as ten kinds of a fool for having let his hesitation overshadow the realisation of what was happening here. Going on ahead was still going on alone.
"No more turns…move with me…"
Not one step ahead. Not one step behind. But beside him.
With him.
Understanding at last, Neji shifted his weight and deepened the kiss, softening it as he released Shikamaru's wrist. Gathering the oil, Neji slathered up his other hand, coating the middle finger generously, distracting Shikamaru with the slow roll of his tongue. The shadow-nin responded to the kiss, arched up into it, perhaps tasting something on Neji's tongue which wasn't there before.
I hear you…
Humming, Neji ceded control of the kiss. Let Shikamaru take charge. At the other end, however, Neji dipped his oiled finger down to join the shadow-nin's at the barely-stretched portal. Here, Neji pressed Shikamaru's finger back inside slowly, waiting until the first knuckle slipped home before he inched his own finger in behind, pushing forwards in tandem.
Shikamaru stopped breathing, his mouth stilling beneath Neji's.
Continuing the slow penetration, Neji drew back enough to catch the shadow-nin's expression; saw, to his heart's booming relief, exactly what he'd hoped to find: the heat in those dark eyes going from blistering to bottomless, the sharp gaze losing focus as he began to slip.
Kami…
Nothing more sublime in heaven or on earth could've captured Neji's heart as intently as the vision of Nara Shikamaru falling out of his head and into a place where his heart beat so hard against his rising chest Neji could've sworn it was trying to break free.
"You're…" Neji couldn't even find the words.
Shikamaru's throat tightened, a strangled sound catching before his grip tightened on Neji's thigh, his body easing back against the pillows even as his hips eased up. Neji followed without separating, shifting his weight until he knelt between Shikamaru's spread legs. He stroked his free hand along the inside of the Nara's right thigh as Shikamaru drew it up slowly, foot planted against the mattress, his knee resting against Neji's flank until the Hyūga pressed against it, spreading him wider.
Shikamaru was breathing hard now, leaking around his chakra blocks again.
Neji continued to watch him, riveted.
Dipping his wrist, he twisted his probing finger, pushing a little harder.
Lips parting, Shikamaru's brows tugged together in a slow pull as they both pressed deeper into his body. God, but he was hot there. Burning. And so tight around their fingers Neji was certain if he pressed himself inside that gripping heat he'd renege on his promise to ever bring them back and simply let them both get lost forever.
I'd follow you anywhere, Nara…
Never mind hell and back. As ninja, they lived on the borderline between hell and earth. But in moments like this, Neji believed in a heaven. And he wanted to take Shikamaru higher still, to a place where all those clouds he loved to watch would burn on in rapture from sunset to sunrise.
Shikamaru loosened a soft, breathy sound, or was it a word?
Knees braced, Neji leaned down over him, working his finger against Shikamaru's in that narrow passage, planting his free hand beside Shikamaru's head for support. "What?" he asked, husky soft. "What is it?"
Swallowing, the shadow-nin turned his face away towards the hand planted by his head. He pressed his sweat-slick brow against Neji's wrist, his expression going between pleasure and pain and something else Neji couldn't pin. "More…"
That, Neji heard.
Leaning closer, he began to flex and thrust his finger harder, deeper, coaxing Shikamaru to find the rhythm, to match it, to harmonise in that way they always did when they weren't going head to head. And Neji made it a mission to drive Shikamaru out of his head.
Out of his mind.
Bending over, he shoved hard, forcing them deep. Shikamaru's teeth flashed, face tensing. He wouldn't open his eyes.
"Shikamaru…"
The shadow-nin shook his head, pressed his brow harder against Neji's wrist, tension fissuring along his arm until Neji changed the angle of his next thrust, crooking hard. In a flash-bang jerk, Shikamaru lost the rhythm and himself, his mouth tearing open in a silent cry against the throbbing veins in Neji's wrist as his body contorted and he began to clench and spasm.
His orgasm came hard.
A sere wind tearing through the humidity. With tenketsu blocked, Shikamaru shot dry for the fourth time that day, a strangled roar catching behind his teeth. Compelled to draw out the pleasure, Neji yanked their fingers free, guided Shikamaru's slippery hand to his thigh and left no time for the Nara to feel empty before thrusting two fingers back inside, digging his thumb hard against the bull's-eye perineum.
Shikamaru roared without a sound.
His blunt nails sliced into Neji's thigh and he shuddered and rolled in the throes of the drawn-out climax, his open mouth bumping against Neji's wrist as he rocked, rocked, rocked, the breaths blasting in and out through his nose. Neji stroked him through the shockwaves, fingers scissoring, stretching, keeping up a steady but slowing pace, his voice whispering out in a low-pitched murmur.
"Breathe, Shikamaru…breathe slowly…slowly…"
The Nara struggled to comply, breaths halving, chest hitching. Neji watched with increasing emotion at the way Shikamaru's expression tightened and slackened with every shallow thrust, the sleek lines of his throat contracting and loosening in rhythm with Neji's fingers until the Hyūga slowly pulled them free.
Shikamaru's face pinched in protest, his breaths shaking out.
"Slowly," Neji urged again.
It took a while, like something more than breath had shaken loose. Shikamaru remained sprawled on his back, right leg bent and spread, face turned aside, gasping hard against the throbbing pulse point at Neji's wrist. He looked utterly spent, yet still flushed and hard and dripping. Still only halfway towards the place Neji wanted him to be.
"Shikamaru…" Stroking his hand along Shikamaru's quivering thigh, Neji leaned down into the press of his other hand and touched his lips to the shadow-nin's temple, stroking his nose along the sculpted cheekbone. "Open your eyes. Look at me. Come back."
Shikamaru's brow furrowed.
He shook his head, mouthed 'no' against Neji's wrist.
Smiling with affection, Neji loosened a soft enquiring hum and blew a soothing breath across the flushed cheekbone, kissing the sweaty temple, the far corner of a closed eye. "You could ruin me, Nara," Neji murmured. "I think you have. I've never seen anything more exquisite."
Shikamaru seemed to take exception to the 'exquisite' compliment, his nose crinkling in what might've been embarrassment before his expression eased and he swallowed thickly. With eyes still closed, he spoke, barely above a whisper. "Neji…"
Another quiet hum and Neji kissed the corner of his mouth. "What is it?"
"Neji…"
"Mmn?"
Shikamaru shook his head, just seemed to want to say his name. Neji had no problem with that. If anything, it kept his heart from galloping into panic zone. While he delighted in the knowledge that the shadow-nin had just gotten off on the feel of their fingers alone and was still as hard and stiff as a quartz wand beneath him, Neji wasn't so sure what to make of the Nara's refusal to open his eyes or turn his face.
"Neji…"
Stroking his oiled hand along Shikamaru's thigh, then higher along his trembling side, Neji continued to graze his lips over the flushed cheek and temple. "It's alright," he whispered, skimming his mouth to the sweaty hairline to stroke a kiss along scattered black strands before working his way to the Nara's ear. "I won't ask you to come back if you're not ready yet…but just tell me...are you hurting?"
Shikamaru mouthed 'no' against his wrist.
Relief. It dropped through Neji in a giddy rush. He nodded, angled his head to stroke his gaze over Shikamaru in another speculative sweep. "Are you alright with everything that just happened?"
A weak nod and Neji could've sworn those lips framed the words 'hell yes'. He breathed a relaxed sigh against Shikamaru's throat, kissing the pulse point. "You had me worried there."
The hand on Neji's thigh squeezed, reassuring.
Before Neji could respond to the touch, Shikamaru's other hand stroked up Neji's arm and around to his shoulder, pulling the Hyūga against him. Bent double on his knees, Neji went into the embrace a little awkwardly, scooping his palm up under Shikamaru's back to his shoulderblade to return the grip.
Shikamaru's fingers tangled in his hair. "Neji…"
Again, the soft rasp of his name.
Frowning softly, Neji held him for a long moment, felt Shikamaru's fingers carving through his hair and down to his nape where he gripped the Hyūga hard. Another lifeline clutch. Concerned now, Neji drew back. Shikamaru's grip slackened to allow the movement.
Neji eased onto his left side, facing the other ninja. "When you're ready…" He reached up, kneaded his fingers along Shikamaru's scalp. "Come back to me."
Shikamaru did.
A breath at a time.
Dark lashes flickered open halfway, crescents of burning irises just visible beneath the heavy lids until Shikamaru blinked slowly, eyes opening a little wider each time.
Heart tripping, Neji's lips twitched. "There you are."
Shikamaru blinked again, lazy, slow. He inched forward, nudged his mouth against Neji's gently curving lips. The affection of the kiss caught Neji a little off balance – no difficult feat, considering he was teetering hard from a great, great height, at risk of falling head over heels into the warmth beginning to spark anew in Shikamaru's gaze.
Seeing the coals, the smoke, the warm sunset forests in those ember eyes, Neji stroked his gaze in a lingering crawl over the sharply chiselled features. "Where did you go?"
Shikamaru's brows jumped a little at the question before his expression softened and he gave a crooked smile. "Come with me this time."
Neji swallowed, searched his face in the burning light. "Every time."
Every time.
The promise of those words flared in Neji's eyes, turned moonstone orbs to liquid mercury. Barely recovered from the emotional fall he'd just taken, Shikamaru stared unguardedly, could've stared for hours. Losing time and space and pieces of himself, discovering, with an almost childlike fascination, that the sum of his parts added up to something so different, so complete, when he was with this ninja, with this man.
Something different.
Something more.
Something he couldn't touch or find or add up to anywhere else…begging the question of whether some part of him had been searching for this feeling for a long, long time. Maybe he hadn't been looking to fix himself…just find himself? Was it possible to get lost and be lead back at the same time?
"Too much thinking, Shikamaru," Neji murmured, his smooth sonorous tones rolling over the air in hypnotic whorls, powerful as a genjutsu. "What is it?"
Like a man reaching through veils of shadow to touch the light, Shikamaru stretched out his hand and raked his fingers through Neji's wild silken mane, the long mocha strands streaked with autumnal fire from the sunset glow. "I just…all this time I thought my past was chasing after me…when I think maybe I was just chasing myself…trying to…" He shook his head, his throat tightening on the words. "Shit…I just didn't know I was so damned lost, Neji…"
Neji smiled sadly, the high curvature of his cheekbone and the strong line of his jaw edged in gold, the other half of his face in shadow. "You've been running for a long time, Shikamaru." He grazed his fingers along the shadow-nin's outstretched arm. "Your outward laziness is your greatest lie…and how well you fool the world, making everyone think you never move…when inside, you never stop."
Shikamaru's eyes flared in surprise, emotion thickening the knot in his throat. The accuracy of those words cut deep, but then, so did another realisation. "That's not true."
Blinking, Neji lifted his head a little. "Isn't it?"
"No. Not when I'm with you."
Neji's fingers stilled and his gaze fixed on Shikamaru, unblinking.
Holding that gaze, Shikamaru slid over him, soft as smoke, hard as steel, rolling Neji onto his back and straddling the Hyūga's hips in a deceptively lazy movement. "Don't look so surprised." He laced their fingers, pinned Neji's hands beside his head and leaned down. "When I'm with you, time stops for a while. That kind of lost is the closest I've ever come to being out of my head…why the hell do you think it's so hard for me to come back?" He touched his lips to the curse seal on Neji's brow. "You break my head down…and get me feeling whole some place else…lost and found, Hyūga…and I still have no fucking clue how the hell that's even logically possible."
Neji laughed. Such a free, melodious sound it caused a wild fluttering in Shikamaru's chest and stomach. "Nara Shikamaru," Neji breathed with such open affection it caused the fluttering organ in the shadow-in's chest to topple and trip. "How many times have you told me that what we have isn't a thinking thing?"
Rolling his eyes, Shikamaru couldn't curb his smile. "Yeah. Okay. Shut up."
"Make me."
Happy to oblige, Shikamaru took Neji's lips beneath his mouth, seduced the Hyūga's tongue into a light playful dance which turned slow, tender, warm.
I've missed you…
Neji's hands worked free from his grip and stroked up his back, down across his thighs. "I've missed you," he breathed.
Shocked, it took Shikamaru a second to absorb the impact of just how damned in-synch they were. Just when he thought he'd pegged the nature of this force that moved between them, it took on new dimensions, new depths; making it harder and harder for him to catch his breath.
"Shikamaru…breathe…"
He tried, felt the air shaking in his throat, like he wasn't physically able to contain what was happening under his skin…under his scars. Neji's hands slid up to frame his face, pulling him deeper into the kiss.
The tender moment stretched…
Breathing took on a tremulous quality, full and brimming…
Awareness sharpened, heightened, and the balmy air felt somehow hotter, thicker, rich with the strong fertile scents of the forest beyond. The only other time Shikamaru had experienced this kind of interconnectedness was when he'd had senjutsu coursing through him, forcing him to feel every damned fibre of natural energy crawling through the concrete filters all human minds learned to construct against nature.
Nature…
Neji was breaking him down alright. Down to his core, where the lava of his nature burned hot and wild. No shadows without light, after all. And if he was his shadows, then surely he was also the fire which cast them. Surely he owned, as much as his darkness, the hot, hot sun sliding down his spine and burning in the pit of his belly, sinking, sinking.
He gasped, a searing rasp against Neji's mouth. "Ah…Neji…"
Reading the need in his face, in his voice, Neji's hands moved, oily and warm, sweeping down Shikamaru's back as if chasing the wildfire, following the blazing trail along his spine, down, down to the backs of his thighs, tugging gently.
"Come here, Shikamaru."
Pulled as much by Neji's voice as by his hands, Shikamaru did as commanded. He rocked higher onto his knees, letting Neji pull him forwards. Sinking down, he felt the solid curve of Neji's erect flesh graze the crevice of his buttocks. A shadow touch, an erotic suggestion. Shikamaru reached back an oiled hand, caught Neji's stiff length and began to stroke.
Beneath him, Neji's body tensed in arousing response. "Shikamaru…"
Bending down, Shikamaru settled their lips, one hand still stretched back, working Neji into a hot mess. God but he loved this. The ability to turn ice to water, water to fire. Neji had always claimed to be cold, but damn, if he didn't burn when they were together.
"I've burned for you. I've burned with every sunset…and every sunrise…ever since the first day I walked away…"
To hear that, to see it, to witness this reserved and majestic creature surrender to passion and pleasure rather than the cage of pride and the prison of ice. To trust Shikamaru's hands to touch him, knowing they weren't looking to control or tame.
"Fuck, I want you," Shikamaru choked out. "I never stopped wanting you."
Liquid-silver eyes flared bright as melted steel as Neji gazed up at him. "You have me," he whispered. "You have me."
Shikamaru shook his head, dark strands swaying. He tightened his grip on Neji, tried to impress with touch what he couldn't work his tongue to say.
Of course, Neji already knew. But in that tortuous tantric way, he looked to drag out the burn, sucked a steadying breath. "You want me…" he paused, bringing his fingers around, lancing them down from the base of Shikamaru's spine, between the firm clenching cheeks and straight to the aching core, spreading, splitting, sinking deep. "…here."
Eyes rolling shut, Shikamaru's brain stalled and he bowed his head with an almost inaudible release of air, wincing against Neji's jaw. "Agh…Neji…"
"Is this where you want me, Shikamaru?" Neji crooned, seductive as sin. "Say yes."
Shaking hard, Shikamaru braced his other hand against Neji's neck and lifted his head to settle their mouths close. Eyes flickering open halfway, he fused their gazes and pressed back into the invasive pressure. "Yes," he mouthed the word, had no breath to speak it.
Spellbound, Neji held his gaze, pushed deeper. "Then keep looking at me."
Struggling, Shikamaru fought not to close his eyes, brows drawing together in tortured pleasure as he felt those long slick fingers, rough and warm, cracking him open. A stinging sweet stretch and they thrust deeper, direct as an arrow, until they struck the centre where he burned the hottest.
Solar heat.
Crying out, Shikamaru lost his grip on Neji and almost on himself, the world hazing around its edges. Seeing him close, Neji pulled his fingers free and rolled them slowly, over warm coals and rising heat, the buckskin coverlet sliding like a sand dune, taking them with it. Shikamaru didn't feel the ground, felt a hot wind pick him up and lift him…realised only peripherally that it was Neji.
Then hard ribbed wood at his back.
The wall of the cabin, the smell of cedar and resin and charcoal and—Neji. Pressing against him, supporting him where he might've slithered down that wall like so much smoke and shadow. Neji. Pinning him hard, yet smooth and solid and slippery with oil, redolent with the smell of forest and sex and skin and—heat. Wet and slick and thrusting between his lips, a kiss which took Shikamaru so damn high he rolled up onto the balls of his feet.
"Together," Neji whispered against his mouth. "Not me above, not you below…together…"
In a feverish effort to understand, Shikamaru's eyes flickered open, delirious and glazed as they stroked over Neji's face. He nodded, heavy, a loll of his head that nudged their mouths together, open and wet and – fuck I need you, I don't care how, I just need you.
Without breaking the kiss, Neji dipped down, knees bent.
Shikamaru growled against his lips, trying to chase him, but then he felt a slick hand pulling at the back of his right thigh, drawing his leg over Neji's hip. Understanding, Shikamaru broke the kiss, shifted his weight onto his left leg and reached above his head with one hand to grasp the ornamental antlers nailed into the wall. Drawing himself up a few inches, he set his other hand at the back of Neji's head, fisting the dark mane in his fingers.
Their eyes locked.
Breaths held, heartbeats halted, bodies shaking hard. And then, together, they moved in beautiful sync. Shikamaru sank down and Neji rose to meet him, spearing him open, lava hot and magma hard…sinking in so exquisitely slow Shikamaru felt every burning inch of the Hyūga's passage tearing him apart…
And then Neji struck his core.
Shikamaru's world flashed white, a fireball of pleasure…
Transitory pain melted away…
A shadow into the sun.
Beautiful fire.
Neji felt it, sinking and rising, swallowing him deeper, deeper into tight rippling heat. And all the while, he gazed in utter thrall at Shikamaru, watched the tension and emotion dance like shadow-play across his face. Dark eyes flickered shut, brows drawing together slowly as his head tipped back against the wall and his teeth flashed white, eyes squeezing shut in pain.
God, that's not what I want to see…
Bracing his feet, Neji shifted the angle of his hips, tilted his pelvis and gave a single solid thrust. Dark eyes shot wide and Shikamaru's mouth tore open on a silent gasp, his body clenching around Neji so hard it took everything for the Hyūga to still his hips and not plunge deeper into that sublime tightness.
Control.
Neji called on it, felt its steadying grip. He held still, trembling hard but not daring to move, one palm braced against the wall, the other gripping Shikamaru's left hip, his thumb rubbing soothing circles over the hipbone.
Shikamaru was barely breathing.
His right leg had cinched almost violently around Neji's waist, muscles seized in total stillness, like an erotic tableau frozen in time. It took Neji's breath. While he'd revelled in the sweet dark possession of the shadows enfolding him earlier, nothing compared to the feel of being inside the maker – the master – of those shadows. For all their current stillness, Neji could feel the rhythm pounding between them; in their cores, through their chakra, behind their chests.
Tell me I'm not alone in this.
A quick glance between their fused bodies reassured Neji that the shadow-nin was still aroused – painfully so, due to the chakra blocks – the underside of his leaking erection curved hard against Neji's stomach. But while bodies didn't lie, Shikamaru had a talent for it – and even now, in this honest and raw moment, Neji desperately needed to hear him speak the truth his body was silently screaming.
Sucking a breath, Neji tried to steady his voice. "Shikamaru…?"
A shiver along that taut glistening throat, tendons shifting as Shikamaru swallowed. The underside of his jaw tightened and the arm still stretched above his head quivered, the muscles straining against his honeyed skin. Like he was bracing himself against something.
Without knowing how, something in Neji told him to wait.
Give him a moment.
Shikamaru was either lost to the foreign feeling or trying to process it. While Neji sensed it was the former, he had no intention of pushing forwards to find Shikamaru too soon.
"When I'm with you, time stops for a while. That kind of lost is the closest I've ever come to being out of my head…why the hell do you think it's so hard for me to come back?"
Letting Shikamaru feel, get lost for a while, was what the shadow-nin needed. Knowing this, Neji waited, used the time to memorise this moment, it's every curvature and angle. The way the fading light glossed over Shikamaru's skin, the gold now tinctured red. The way the shadows folded around all the hard lines, bringing his body into sharp relief. The way the sweat rolled and beaded, tiny constellations across his throat and chest.
And then, the things that truly mattered.
The things Neji had not only begun to catalogue…but cherish.
Like the small bump on the shadow-nin's right shoulder which attested to a separated joint, an old injury. The ragged scars on the inside of his right thigh, most likely from barbed wires or rigged kunai. The indiscernible chip in the enamel of his left lateral incisor, probably from taking a knock that must've rattled his jaw on its hinge. The slight crookedness of the first joint of his left index finger where he'd broken the distal phalanx to escape Tayuya's genjutsu. The slim scar across his ribs where bone had pierced flesh the night they'd fought. The slight discoloration at the muscular rise of his left calf due to chakra burn that hadn't been treated fast enough. The way his body, for all its scars both inside and out, seized around Neji as if it had no intention of ever letting go.
All of this, and more, Neji carved into his memory.
And then Shikamaru moved.
His fingers, previously clenched in Neji's hair, loosened enough to drift down, squeezing the Hyūga's nape. The familiar touch, its grounding reassurance, caused Neji to smile. Straining to remain still, he tilted his head, kissed Shikamaru's throat and murmured to him, soft nonsense words.
Shikamaru's death grip on the antlers overhead eased.
His body sank down a little more, the leg hooked around Neji tugging in a slow flex which urged Neji to rise, pushing him deeper. Shikamaru tightened around him, but it was a slow savouring clench, the kind which came from wringing out pleasure, not holding in pain.
"Ah…"
That soft, barely audible sound brought Neji's head up, his ragged breaths fanning across Shikamaru's lips as the Nara sank a little lower against him. "Shikamaru," he praised softly, grazing their mouths. "You're burning around me...hotter than I ever imagined you'd be."
Shikamaru's lips parted by degrees, his brows tugging into a rapturous knot, eyes still closed. He seemed to be feeling out every sensation. Beautiful to watch. Far more stirring than any overt sexual display. Never before had Neji been with a lover who burned as slow or as erotically as Shikamaru. Never before had he been with anyone so response. So sensual; in the truest sense of that word. Perhaps for someone who lived so explicitly in his mind, this slow passage back into the carnal space of his body left Shikamaru feeling…
What?
Nudging their mouths, Neji asked, his voice hushed. "Tell me…what is this you're feeling?"
"Neji…"
It was such a candid answer Neji almost laughed, though he sensed Shikamaru wasn't actually responding to his question – just saying Neji's name in that beautifully lost and breathless way he did when his brain stopped working.
Good. That's what we want.
In a bid to drive the shadow-nin a little further out of mental territory, Neji pressed up onto the balls of his feet and tightened his grip on Shikamaru's hip, pulling him down into the upward pressure, the blunt impalement.
Shikamaru's eyes flashed open and rolled shut with ecstasy. "Angh…yesss…"
The sibilant hiss of that word lashed Neji like a whip and he pushed harder, rolling his hips with the next upward thrust, watching Shikamaru's expression ripple and contort, again and again with every rock and grind.
"Kami…" Neji panted. "You undo me."
And then Shikamaru was kissing him, gasping against his mouth, wild insensible words, punctuated by a ragged yet unmistakable whisper of, "Mine."
Yes.
Groaning, Neji's eyes rolled shut and his hips rolled up, rocking Shikamaru back against the wall, driving hard but slow, stoking the fire in that oiled clenching channel. For a timeless while, they moved this way, undulating in rhythmic craving. Savouring the drag, the catch, the burn and the occasional savage bull thrust which slammed Shikamaru back and up, ripping a curse out of him.
Neji arched higher.
Shikamaru sank lower.
The friction, the pressure, the halting grind and staggered gasps. For all the six hells they'd suffered through, this was the seventh heaven. Neji lifted them higher, brought them down again, over and over until Shikamaru was shaking so hard the antler ornament began to rattle in his white-knuckled grip.
"How long…I've needed this…" Neji whispered, words breaking loose, uncontrolled, uninhibited. "To see you this way…ah…feel you…this way…this way that makes you mine. Kami, say you're mine."
A harsh possessive thrust and Shikamaru's eyes shattered open and rolled shut again, lips moving soundlessly. "Fuck yes…"
Another solid thrust. "Say it again, Nara."
"Ah. Yes."
"Again."
Shikamaru dropped his head, dark hair swinging forward. "Yes," he panted, again and again until mouths bumped, slid and ground together, tongues snaking out.
Yes, yes, yes.
Again, again, again.
Overcome, Neji flexed powerfully, rising, rolling, reaching to paint every inch of those tight satin walls with the hot wet streak of his dripping seed; holding back, holding in, his heart running on ahead after Shikamaru's as the shadow-nin's pulse began to ratchet, began to run wild.
"F-fuck…Neji…Neji…"
A gasping chant, a breathless calling…
And then Shikamaru cried out at an angled stab, a keening roar behind his locked teeth.
Clocking the angle, Neji shifted his hips to avoid striking that spot again – wanted to draw it out just a little longer – god let me keep him this way, this way where he's mine – grinding the Nara's trapped length between their bellies.
Shikamaru gripped Neji's shoulder, began to push. "S-stop. I'm…"
"Close?" Neji panted, well aware of the tell-tale signs of impending orgasm as Shikamaru began to clench around him and drip between them. "It's alright…let me feel you lose it."
Lose yourself…
Shaking his head, Shikamaru flexed his arm, pulled himself up one-handed using the leverage of the antler ornament to escape the pleasure, the torture, the sweet pending release.
Trying to run.
Predicting this, Neji bit his throat and lashed the scorched skin with his tongue. "Don't you run from me. From this. Not this, Shikamaru."
Twisting away, Shikamaru arched higher, drawing himself back up, his torso stretching in sleek powerful lines. Growling, Neji bent his head, took a dusky nipple between his lips. Gasping, Shikamaru lurched against him then sank back down into an imminent spearing, eyes screwing shut.
"I know what you need," Neji panted out between thrusts, one hand braced against the wall, the other arm encircling the Nara's waist, pulling him into the steady snap of his hips. "I know that this…scares you…but it's not our endgame…it's never our endgame…when this ends, we don't."
Eyes clenching tighter, Shikamaru's hand tightened against Neji's shoulder and the Hyūga knew he'd struck true. The Jōnin began to stagger his thrusts to change the pattern, never keeping it predictable, but always keeping it slow, forcing Shikamaru to feel every shift in muscular gear; every breach, every burn, every burying thrust.
Every part of me…
"Look at me, Shikamaru."
To his amazement, Shikamaru did.
Dark lashes lifted and Shikamaru met his gaze with such penetrative intensity it heightened the connection, the fusion, the feel of being consumed not only by this lithe powerful body, but by that inexplicable force that lived inside it.
"Mine."
Wholly his. Because Shikamaru held Neji at intimate knifepoint with those piercing eyes, his breaths catching in soft, barely audible moans until slowly, slowly, the edge bled out, his expression began to break and his lashes swept down to conceal the flash of emotion in his dark eyes.
Almost there.
A little more, a little further, and Neji would finally catch up to this shadow in the dark he'd never fully been able to catch or find. He began to whisper, began to speak, soft coaxing words. "Let me...let me find you..."
Shaking, Shikamaru's hand slipped, stopped pushing and began pulling, his arm hooking over Neji's shoulder, fingertips digging into the sharp shoulderblade, drawing Neji impossibly closer. "F-fuck...don't stop…don't want this to…stop…"
"It never stops," Neji soothed, hips rolling in deep languid strokes. "You know that."
"Neji…."
"You know that." Neji leaned in, kissed every angle of the shadow-nin's face; the soft furrow between his brows, the lines of pain etching into the far corners of his eyes, the tight edge of his jaw. "Shikamaru…let go so I can find you...kami let me find you…"
"Fuck…" The arm Shikamaru had hooked around him gripped harder, fingers sliding up and digging in at Neji's nape. Brutal. Bruising. "I don't wanna lose this…fuck…I almost lost this…I almost lost you…the last time I...got this lost..."
There you are.
Smoky tones shredding over the rocks. The pain in his voice lured Neji's gaze up to the burning sheen in Shikamaru's eyes. Neji watched him unblinking, emotion rising in his chest, pushing up against his throat. "But you didn't lose me. I'm with you. You can lose yourself now…and you won't lose me. Or the way back." He kissed the Nara's brow, his bobbing throat. "It's alright…I'm with you…as you were with me, the first time...and every time after...I'm with you..."
Swallowing hard, Shikamaru cupped the back of Neji's head and tugged him into a ragged kiss, messy and shaken before the shadow-nin breathed, "Then come with me."
Torn to beautiful threads by the dual meaning in those words, Neji smiled against Shikamaru's lips and began to let control unravel. "Then move with me," he whispered in return.
And together, they moved.
Reading Neji's eyes, Shikamaru reached up with a hiss and held himself aloft just long enough for Neji to disengage their bodies and glide in his chakra-charged fist along their straining lengths in turn, unblocking tenketsu in a quick sweep.
It took seconds, but even those seconds were too long apart.
They came together again, mouths melding as Neji rose back up and Shikamaru sank back down, fusing as if they'd been forged for this purpose. If this was their fate, Shikamaru sealed it as surely as he'd started it all those months ago. His lean powerful legs came around Neji, locking them together, the soft break of their breaths sounding out hoarse and ragged into the darkening room as Neji sank to the hilt...remained sheathed for a five count.
And together, they moved.
Moved as they'd always moved when working in tandem; in perfect harmony, in perfect sync, reading each other in that wordless way which combined all their former rhythms into a rhapsody so powerful, so charged, their chakra began to pulse to the beat of their bodies...a blue-white sheen in the darkness, shadows filling the room, drawing towards their rolling bodies.
As one, they began to moan, to cry out.
Deep, guttural cries, reverberating from their throats, shaking and tearing out of them as if all the shattered pieces they'd ever broken each other into were being scraped back together, pulled into this vortex of pleasure spiralling, spiralling, spiralling between them…
Chakra flared.
Solar heat turned nova.
It was at this precise point that Neji struck home, driving hard and fast into the burning core, breaking Shikamaru apart. The shadow-nin shattered upon impact, his entire body stiffening against Neji before it arched, his mouth tearing open in a silent scream, head thrown back, orgasm scorching out of him in hot wet waves.
Still thrusting, Neji watched him lose himself, completely overcome.
Come…come…with me…
Shikamaru's voice.
Only Neji heard it as if from within and all around; in the shadows, in the heat, in the feel of the shadow-nin's hand as it came shaking up his spine, fingers rolling along the sensitive vertebrate one by one, higher and higher…
…and then Shikamaru hit his blind spot.
A chain reaction. As if the shadow-nin had lined Neji's spine with gunpowder and set it on fire. Sweet, obliterating heat. It ripped along Neji's arching back in a shower of white-hot sparks. Gasping, his shoulderblades rolled down, his hips rolled up and Shikamaru's mouth swallowed his guttural scream.
Release…
The world imploded.
Washed white and black and all the shades in-between…wave after wave…chakra bursting like a thousand scattered stars, a thousand scattered pieces…
Pieces…
They were in pieces…
Pieces that swirled, spiralled, spread…but not too far apart…and never out of reach…they seemed to catch like stardust on a living current…a living pulse…that same mysterious beat that'd broken them apart…a beat of blood, of breath, of pounding hearts...a beat which caused the scattered pieces to spiral back together again…gathering, gathering…like the breaths in Neji's lungs…like the heat behind his eyes…like the warmth inside his chest…the emotion in his heart…
Come find me.
He did. Reached up with shaking hands, his fingertips skimming the wet warm angles of a face which leaned into his touch, soft breaths shivering out against his palms.
"Shikamaru…"
He breathed the name, felt fingers in his hair, at his nape, squeezing softly. Foreheads tapped together and reaching, searching, Neji found Shikamaru's smile and then his kiss, waiting in the shadows and the dark.
They lost themselves in each other…
…and found themselves too.
And Neji knew in this stolen moment, just as he'd known in all the moments they'd stolen before, that when the sun came up and it was time to leave, it wasn't just Shikamaru he'd be bringing back with him. He'd be bringing back a feeling and a freedom he'd never thought he'd find.
A feeling which caused his heart to fall…
…and a freedom which taught it to fly.
TBC.
Endnotes:
Haragei: In martial arts circles, haragei refers to those arts which supposedly enabled the practitioner to sense threats or anticipate an opponent's movements. Haragei literally means belly-art, often translated as a gut feeling, intuition, or pre-perception.
Jūkenpō Onibi: Gentle Fist Art: Will-o'-the-Wisp (Hyūga jutsu)
Kage Yodo – Shadow Pool (Nara Jutsu)
Kagefūin: Kai – Shadow Seal: Release
Kagenawa: Kinbaku: Shadow Rope: Tight Binding
Nawashi: literally, "rope master", "rope teacher" or "maker of string", but in SM circles it means "rope artist". Nawashi are those who have some recognized proficiency in the historic erotic art of kinbaku (lit. tight binding) or Kinbaku-bi (lit. beautiful bondage).
Shinbari / Kinbaku – Shibari (aka Kinbaku) is an ancient Japanese artistic form of rope bondage. Among the artistic and meditative uses it is also considered a deeply erotic expression of power exchange and intimate restraint. 'Shibari refers to purely artistic, aesthetic rope, whilst kinbaku refers to the artistic, connective, sensual, sexual practice as a whole.'
Kagenui – Shadow Sewing/Stitching
Kageyose – Shadow Gathering
A/N: Greetings, all! Ah yes, I know I said this chapter would be up soon, but as explained on tumblr, FB and the BtB homepage, setbacks caught me broadside. I overestimated by ability to multi-task, pack for my trip away and soldier through migraine headaches. As much as I like to imagine I am above my body's demands, turns out I am not Hyūga Neji…and we all know how well such stubbornness turned out for him in BtB. Alas! Apologies for the delay, but my appreciation for your patience. I hope this chapter made up for the wait! One more to go before the end! As always, the epilogues are shorter, so it shouldn't take long to get the next one up!
REVIEWERS: You are bloody awesome. If I could bottle your kind words and spike my tea with it, I would never want for creative sustenance…or any other teas, for that matter. Dear god. Thank you again, for supporting me, guys. For sharing your thoughts on these crazy characters and the choices and challenges they've come up against. It has been an amazing ride. One more instalment to go before the end. Hope to hear from you on this latest chapter! Thanking you and appreciating you, always. And now, finally…onwards to the end!
