Tai: Congrats! I belted out this chapter in a little over a week and I've got a thousand word start on the next chapter. I have something else I want to work on, but considering I started this back in '07 I figured it was time I actually finished it. Hopefully the next chapter or two we'll get an ending. And be glad! I have a friend who's told me it needs a happy ending =)

Aiming for roughly 3000 words on the next chapter, aiming for 10 total so two more after this one; happy ending, etc etc. If there's anything you really want included before the end review and let me know; whether its a request for some serious intimacy or fluffyness.

Anyway, chapter time

A smirk danced in the golden eyes of the short haired brunette as he knelt over the ebony haired male, hands either side of the older teen's head and panting as he attempted to catch his breath. The pale eyed male wasn't much better, his pale cheeks flushed amidst his exhaustion. A shimmer danced across their skin in the moonlight as it reflected off the sweat that drenched them, both males out of breath and barely paying attention to the world around them.

The tanned male finally threw himself onto the dew covered grass next to his dark haired companion, staring up at the stars. "Fuck…its hot." He breathed, draping an arm over his eyes. "It's the middle of the bloody night; it shouldn't be hotter now than it was during the day."

"You're right…fuck I'm going to be covered in bruises tomorrow thanks to you." Neji muttered back, finally sitting up. Running his hands across his arms and running one briefly down his back, he let out a sigh. "You need to cut your damn nails; I'm covered in scratches."

"I'll cut them and they'll grow back in a couple of days, a week at most. They grow to this length and stay there; I can't help it." Kiba shot back. "Besides yours aren't much better, and I have bruises to go along with them. Did you have to be so rough?" Sitting himself up, his bright yellow eyes locked onto the lilac of his companion and smirked.

Rolling his eyes the Hyuuga stood. "Did you?"

"Of course."

Muttering under his breath Neji headed to the edge of the lake, leaving Kiba sitting back alone on the grass. Sniffing at the air Kiba checked their surroundings; some nesting birds sleeping, a few small mammals scurrying about beneath the trees but thankfully no other people. He'd stopped checking a while ago, and things had been so intense between them that he was almost certain Neji had too. No lingering scents indicated that they hadn't received any visitors to check up on them tonight.

His gaze flickered over to the Hyuuga who was slowly circling the lake edge, pale feet dragging through the water and causing ripples over the surface. His long dark hair seemed darker than normal against his pale skin, absorbing all the light of the evening like some endless pit. His skin meanwhile seemed to glow and shimmer in the moonlight, a mystical sparkle making him seem almost like a spirit.

Surrounded by the peaceful, undisturbed area it seemed almost like a dream, the Inuzuka realised, and it was one he didn't want to wake up from. He'd almost started to live for the night, for the time right after they finished, just so he could watch the way the light moved over Neji's slender form, the graceful way he stepped through the water. He could smell the sweetness of the Hyuuga's sweat in the air, making it intoxicating and almost overwhelming experience.

The first few nights he tried to avoid staring; he'd lie looking at the stars, the trees, or stare at the centre of the lake or the distant shore, anywhere that wasn't the Hyuuga. That had lasted a week, and that was being generous; without being consciously aware of it he started sneaking glances, trying to mentally record the image of the older male.

He gave in further when he realised that small glances weren't quite enough to capture the exotic and beautiful figure that was Neji Hyuuga. Complete surrender was only a step further; short periods of staring at the male lead to Kiba needing to tear his eyes away from the coffee haired male and he quickly found that difficult.

'Just one more time.' He mentally told himself; as he had every night since he'd started staring. 'I can't keep gazing at him like this; or at the very least I shouldn't…and yet here I am still staring…'

He wasn't sure if Neji had noticed his fascination; he always seemed to be off in his own world when Kiba found himself staring at the pale skinned magnificence of the older male, and only seemed to snap out of it when Kiba finally decided to jump into the lake. It had quickly become their nightly routine; time exhausting themselves, a swim and then they'd both go home and get some sleep. Occasionally one of them would fall asleep on the grass, and when that occurred they both stayed out there for the night; generally so whoever had fallen asleep didn't catch hypothermia overnight.

More than once Kiba had woken up in Neji's arms, but more frequently he woke up with the slender male in his own arms. He always felt content with the older male next to him; warm, relaxed and happy. Those were the mornings he never wanted to move, never wanted to leave the lakes and would've been happier than anything for the world to end, but it never did. Moments later the reality of the world would come crashing down on his mind; all the responsibility he was meant to assume in a little under a month…

He let out a sigh; it'd already been a month since they'd started training together at nights and they were routinely going home covered in bruises and scratches; anything worse was treated by Sakura, whom had no objections to being woken up by one or the other of the pair. She'd initially wondered about the injuries until they'd admitted to training to 'get their blood up' some nights, and while she found it strange she was still highly excited by the idea of their…nightly activities.

'And I'd be lying if the idea didn't excite me a little as well…' Shaking the thought from his mind he stood and stripped off his shorts before walking into the cold water, diving toward the centre as soon as he was hip deep. 'Get those thoughts out of your head, Kiba.' He mentally scolded himself, enjoying the freezing feeling as it rushed past his skin. Surfacing he found the Hyuuga watching him, a frown fixed onto his fine features.

"What's wrong, Neji?"

"The scratches on your back are bleeding…" he muttered, gaze fixed on the younger male. The Inuzuka reached up and ran a hand across his back, frowning as he spotted the faded red on his fingers. "They shouldn't be deep enough to bleed again now."

"They're not; it'll just be how the blood dried while we were on the grass." The tanned male shrugged, watching the Hyuuga curiously. "Some of yours might act up when you hit the water…sorry." He didn't wait for a reply, opting to dive back beneath the surface of the water and allowing the cold to envelop him once more.

He could almost taste when they Hyuuga hit the water; some of the scratches started bleeding briefly as the dried blood came away in the water, and opted to surface. They floated around in the lake for a while, enjoying the silence and refreshing feel of the water on the hot night; just enjoying one another's company.

"How about we give training a break tomorrow night, Kiba?" the Hyuuga suggested, floating lazily on his back. "I mean we can still come out here, but I think we need to let the bruises and scratches heal a little."

Gazing at the sky he thought about it for a moment before agreeing. "Sounds like a plan. Any suggestions on what we could do then?"

"Hmm…I'll let you know."

"Sounds good." Re-righting himself in the water he moved back toward the edge and stepped out, flinging himself back onto the grass. "So what, cards? Board games?"

Neji laughed happily, making the now naked Inuzuka frown. "Not sure yet; good suggestions though."

He felt more than saw the pale Hyuuga drop onto the grass next to him, and sighed. "So I'm not allowed to know? Brilliant…Do you know what I realised? There is no way in heaven, hell or earth that anyone would believe us now if we told them the entire truth about this."

The pair lay staring at each other for a short moment, seriously considering the repercussions of that realisation before both started laughing. "We are so completely screwed."

'Stupid, stupid, stupid! The heck were you thinking, Neji?' he mentally swore at himself as he headed for their normal meet-up spot. 'A day with everyone and no training tonight, you're going to be with Kiba the entire day! Why the hell did you think this was a good idea? Full day of faking a relationship in front of everyone, and then he still has to see me tonight.'

Naruto had decided it'd been too long since they'd done something as a group and stated it was time to change that. Everyone was going to be there; the boisterous blonde had stated, and there was no excuse he would deem acceptable for missing it.

…unless you were Shino; the insect ninja had stated he was going on a mission, gave Naruto a brief window to object and walked off without another word. The Aburame was the only one amongst them that could pull off such a feat.

The pale eyed male wanted to hit himself for suggesting tonight for their break from training; sure he was sore but they could rest tomorrow instead of tonight. He wasn't really that sore, in truth, it just seemed like Kiba might've needed someone to talk to considering his birthday was only a month away.

"…woke me up and asked me to come and heal Neji's arm…figured for a start that he was getting a bit too rough...you hear about Inuzuka's and their bedroom exploits…"

Neji stopped and frowned at the sounds as they reached his ears. 'Sounds like Sakura is talking to the girls about the fact we've been waking her up for minor healing.' He was close enough to hear parts of the conversation, but far enough still to miss sections of it as he moved through the trees. Opting to pick his way lightly through the trees so he could continue to listen, he activated his Byakugan to check who was already there; it seemed the girls had met up early.

"What changed your mind on that?" Tenten's unmistakeable voice questioned, and Neji paused in his movements. "I mean there had to be something that happened to make you think that it wasn't just them having sex that was causing it."

There was a long silence and the Hyuuga almost held his breath, glad he already had his byakugan active to check that his cousin wasn't using hers. "Well…a few days after that Neji turned up for help with Kiba. When I got there his shoulder was dislocated and he was covered in bruises."

"You mean Neji was the one getting rough with Kiba?" Ino sounded suitably shocked at the idea, and Neji couldn't help grinning at the memory of that night. It was the first time he'd managed to take the Inuzuka by surprise.

"That doesn't sound right…" 'Ah Hinata….so innocent sometimes…'

"That's what I thought, and then a few days later Akamaru came and got me instead of either of them; there were both in one hell of a state; fractures, major sprains, a few deep cuts. They looked more like they'd just returned from a deadly mission than anything else. So I asked…"

"And?"

"Well we all thought them going out every night to…y'know, was a bit much, and it turns out they don't. They meet up and either have sex or train…or occasionally both. Apparently training puts them both in the mood-"

Ino interrupted whatever the pink haired woman was going to say. "That sounds like an out and out lie; if that were true wouldn't they have been rushing off to take care of themselves every day after training since we left the academy?"

"Maybe it's just when they're alone?"

"Or maybe all those times out at the lake all they're doing is training and they aren't in a relationship?" Tenten posed finally, and the Hyuuga inwardly panicked. 'Shit…she couldn't really be onto us, could she?'

A derisive laugh left one of the girls, though he couldn't immediately tell who. "And what, the night Sakura caught them that was a coincidence? Like Neji was out there alone, Kiba bumped into him and somehow they ended up naked and on the ground?" He blinked at the blonde's curt dismissal of the idea. 'I know all of that's true and it sounds like a damned lie…'

"She's right though; if it was Neji and Shino we were talking about it might be a lie; they're both smart enough and determined enough to keep up that sort of farce. It's not though; it's Kiba and Neji, do you really think he is smart enough to carry on that sort of thing for a month?" 'Ah..well…yes, but none of you would believe me if I said that.'

A small noise behind him made the Hyuuga turn sharply, and he found the aforementioned tanned male standing there smirking wolfishly. 'Yeah yeah…you called it…' Rolling his eyes he turned back toward the girls, who were still quite a way in front of them and still talking about it. "Feel like interrupting them?" The deep growl sounded right by his ear, and he was certain that without the male's hand on his shoulder he probably would've jumped and given them away.

"No." he muttered back, just as quietly. "There's almost certainly going to be a better point to interrupt them coming up."

"…just tell us that?"

"Oh come on! Three months; they were together three months and the only thing any of us noticed was them getting a little tired every now and then! Do you really think they'd tell us everything unless we were asking the right questions?"

"Neji probably told him-"

"Told me what?" He bit back a laugh as the clueless tone reached his ears; Kiba had bounded ahead without him noticing and had seen fit to interrupt the girls. 'I don't think he could've picked a better time.' Making his way through the trees, Neji did what he could to recompose himself.

"Kiba! How long have you been there?" the pink haired woman's tone made it clear she was at least a little worried about how much he'd overheard. Although they all agreed that Kiba wasn't the brightest crayon in the box, he was one of the strongest and most temperamental, and insulting his intelligence wasn't really a good idea.

"Not too long; he heard you guys talking and ran ahead of me about a minute ago. Why, were you saying something to insult my boyfriend?" The double lie rolled off his tongue easier than he'd expected, and when Kiba dropped down next to him he gave them his best wolfish grin. He felt a faint blush forming on his cheeks when the Inuzuka slipped an arm around his waist, but kept his grin firmly in place.

All four of the girls were too busy being caught between blushing and cooing at the sight before them to notice his blush, and none seemed ready to answer. "They probably were; look how red they've gone."

Gently elbowing the younger male in the ribs, he glared at him. "Be nice Kiba, we're spending the day with them, remember?"

"Fiinee…where's everyone else?" He could tell there was conversation going on around him but he wasn't really listening; it was odd to be standing so close to Kiba, rather nice to have the younger male's arm around him.

Not to mention he could finally put a theoretical number on how much taller the tanned male was. It wasn't a huge difference but it was probably enough to give the younger male some rather decent leverage if they ever ended up… 'Get those thoughts out of your head; you're not alone in your room anymore.' He could feel the colour already in his cheeks and was almost certain everyone else had seen it.

"…alone, you're the ones asking about what we do at night; it's not his fault if it reminds him of what we were doing last night." Kiba was almost growling; whatever their conversation had turned to was not sitting happily with the younger male. The arm around his waist had pulled him slightly closer, almost protectively, and much as they did when training, his eyes had taken on their rather feral glow.

"Huh?"

"Never you mind; now I'm pretty sure I asked where everyone else was?" Kiba stated, glancing briefly between Neji and the four girls.

As if on cue the rest of the group appeared down from the higher branches of the trees, Naruto in the lead and grinning like the idiot he was. Shikamaru looked as bored as he always did, Lee as boisterous and Choji….well he was busy eating, same as always.

"Great everyone's here! So any suggestions on what we could do today?" the cheerful blond asked, glancing around the group and receiving more than a few glares for his trouble.

"You got us out here before lunch and don't actually have any plans as yet?" Choji complained, dropping to sit on the ground. "What was the point?"

Shikamaru leant himself against a tree, closing his eyes. "You didn't really tell us to come all the way out here without a plan did you, Naruto?" All eyes had turned to the blond and Neji's momentary discomfort had disappeared.

"Ahhh…."

Glancing over at the couple her earlier doubts about the legitimacy of their relationship were gone; the Inuzuka had moved into a rather protective stance at the Hyuuga's side. While the older male seemed horribly distracted by…who knows what, Kiba had been very…un-Kiba-like. It was strange to watch Neji space out while Kiba stayed attentive and important; almost a complete reversal of their personalities.

"So, we're agreed then?" Ino asked, glancing around their gathered group. "Lunch and finding out some more about our lovely couple?"

The Inuzuka's smirk had returned, and the Hyuuga at his side was grinning rather mischievously; it was an unnerving combination. "I told you, if you want more information outta me you have to catch me."

"Oh, well, we'll just catch Neji instead." Tenten shrugged, and Sakura found herself nodding in agreement. The smirk on Kiba's face had widened, Neji's smile had grown and it was becoming somewhat difficult for her to figure out just what they were finding so funny, particularly when Shikamaru snorted at the idea.

It was the more timid of the two Hyuugas that finally spoke up. "Um…not to…uh…disagree with you, but…Neji…Neji's a jounin; why would he be easier to catch than Kiba?"

"And finally someone sees sense; Kiba and Neji are the fastest of our little group and last time we only caught Kiba because he wanted us to." The Nara sighed, shaking his head. "I mean sure Lee might have a shot at catching them, but only if he removed his weights and only if it was just one of them, but it's not. If they split up we'd have to pick one to chase down, and then we still need to be mindful that they aren't working together. Too many variables to consider with both of them here, not that you've thought about it."

Sakura glanced over at her teammate and almost wanted to scream; the completely clueless look on his face made it obvious he didn't understand any of what was going on, or what Shikamaru had just said. "So all we're doing at the moment is lunch?"

"Unless you all feel like going for a run? Yes."

'Great…another game of chase the Inuzuka…' Sakura sighed, trying not to glare at the two males. "So, how about we just do lunch to start with and go from there? We can figure things out while we're eating." She decided, thankful when everyone agreed and started discussing where to go.

She wasn't really listening to the conversation as it progressed; agreeing when it seemed needed and following along when they moved on. 'Surely they're not faking it…I mean gay or not, Neji would've hit him for standing there effectively cuddling him…it's not overly convincing; they're not behaving like they're a couple that's been together for months. It's more like they've just…started…dating…'

"Neji! How long have you and Kiba been together?" she called ahead to the pair, somewhat startled when she noticed the younger male still had his arm wrapped around his supposed boyfriend's waist. It seemed as though he hadn't removed it since first placing it there.

"About four months now, why?" They Hyuuga frowned, and she could see he was almost itching to activate is bloodline trait to try and figure out what she was thinking.

"Oh don't worry; I'm just a little surprised is all. I mean, I expected Inuzuka's to bite a little more." She hoped it sounded casual and just a shrug off comment, one that they wouldn't think too much on. Thinking gave time for lies, and the only way she could figure out what was really going on was if she managed to catch them when they weren't expecting it.

And as she expected, everyone stopped.

"What?!"

"What."

"What."

"What?" She could feel everyone's eyes on her and bit back a grin. "The number of times you've called me out to heal random injuries and you've both been shirtless, and there's not a single bite shaped mark anywhere on Neji."

"Not that you could see."

"Neji!"

"What? She brought it up, it's not my fault." The pair were glaring at each other and her doubts faltered for a moment. "No, you didn't see any bite marks because he doesn't leave them where other people might –"

"Neji…"

"MIGHT see; it's not my fault you find it such a personal thing and you won't tell me why you don't want other people to see them." Neji turned away from the younger male, crossing his arms and glaring at a nearby tree.

"I've told you, it's difficult to explain…" Kiba defended, moving around in front of the older male. "Do you always have to pout when we discuss this?"

A cough from Ino made the pair jump, and Sakura thanked her lucky stars for the distraction; she hadn't been expecting that strange…revelation? 'Hell I don't even know what to call it.'

"Did you two want a moment to kiss and make up?" the blonde asked curtly, and the pink haired woman found her relief turning to annoyance; she wanted to watch this play out.

"Yes."

"No; he's not getting any such thing."

They were glaring at each other again and she heard the other males of the group sigh; almost cursing them for it. "Look, we'll go on ahead and get started on lunch, follow when you like but if you're not fast enough don't complain that there's no food." Choji stated, and it seemed the matter was settled.

They continued on toward town and, as they walked, Sakura found herself next to Tenten, who seemed just as disappointed by their departure from the couple as she was. "I wish Choji hadn't said that; I wanted to keep watching. I mean I know Ino was probably kidding about the kiss and make up but still…"

"That would've been something to see." She agreed, glancing over her shoulder; the pair were hidden from view by a thin wall of trees now, and she almost wished she could see through the trees… "Hinata, can you see what they're up to? Just briefly; I mean I'd hate for one of us to…ah…interrupt them because we were concerned they hadn't eaten."

The pale eyed girl had gone bright red, and she knew it was a really bad to ask the timid girl to spy on her teammate and her cousin, but she didn't have a choice.

"But-"

"I know…it's intruding a bit Hinata but I'd feel terrible if me bringing that up caused a serious fight between them." She inwardly celebrated when the girl complied and activated her byakugan, and the blush on her cheeks seemed to darken more.

"Well?"

"They're…ah…kissing…" she stated quickly, deactivating her bloodline trait and Sakura sighed. 'Guess I was wrong then…'