I didn't see Shikamaru for a long long time. I drowned myself in work. I pressured Tsunade to allow me to be Anbu, again and again and again. Hana and I had a row when she found out. Mom stopped talking to me. I moved out of the house. Akamaru never left my side for even a minute. And the nightmare kept repeating.

I took medicine to stop myself from dreaming, but eventually it wore off. The girl hadn't been executed, just jailed. I refused to tell anyone about my nightmares, but when I snuck in and tried to talk to her, she just smiled. She had no chakra left, the manacles prevented that. She was chained hand and foot to the wall, with even a collar around her neck.

"Make them stop."

"I have no power over anything right now, not even myself." She replied. And then she smirked. And even though she couldn't morph her face, for a second she looked exactly like Hana. I fled.

Shikamaru left me notes that were concerned and beautiful and perfect, because we were always missing each other. It was intentional on my part. They said things like "Come over for dinner sometimes." "Don't over work yourself." "I heard from Sakura that you're having nightmares. I'm here for you if you'd like to talk about it." "I miss you." "I love you." I kept them all.

My replies were short and I always ended them with "I love you." or "I miss you." But despite the fact that both of those things were true, I kept avoiding him. I couldn't let him know what was in my head. I wouldn't be able to face him... I would defeat these nightmares, I promised myself. I would defeat them and then everything would be okay.

I pushed away everyone, even Hinata. Neiji would've beat me within an inch of my life if she hadn't stepped in, ensuring him that it was mutual. But it wasn't really mutual, she knew that things had gotten worse for me. Hinata could see through me as if all of the walls I built to keep her out were made of a thin sheet of glass. But she let me have my space. She let me be on my own. I told her that everything would be okay.

Everything was not okay. It just got worse.

Tsunade made me come in from a check up—I think because Hinata said she was worried—and discovered my lack of sleep, so she gave me a forced vacation.

"If you take a step outside of this village I swear to God that I will beat you within an inch of your life. You will rest. You will relax. You will get some sleep. I will not have you dying on a mission because you were too stupid to keep your body healthy."

Shikamaru was off on a mission for the first few days of my vacation, but I didn't really do anything except train. After Tsunade forbade me from entering the training grounds, I wandered listlessly around town for a week or so. Then Shikamaru got back.

I managed to avoid him for a full 80 hours, but then he caught me when I was home. The talk was awkward. I was rough with him, although I tried to seem happy. and I was happy to see him, I was so happy. My heart felt like it would leap out of my chest. He was so beautiful and I had missed him so much... I just didn't want to let anything slip. I would die before I let on about my dreams to him. There was no need to concern him with my problems.

Because they had continued, even after the girl had been chained up, drained of her chakra. What if there was something to them? What if Shikamaru would hate me once he knew? What if I truly would, one day, betray him? Even if Shikamaru just thought that and I never did betray him... It could ruin us. And I loved him more than I could describe to you.

It must seem awfully silly to you. It even seemed silly to me. I was avoiding him so much, I knew that there was no way he didn't realize by this point, and that was straining our relationship. There was no way that he did not know that something was bugging the hell out of me, but I wasn't telling him. He had helped me when Dad left. He had known about my previous brand of dreams. There were three people who I was supposed to be able to tell anything to; Shikamaru, Hinata, and Akamaru.

But... But out of fear that this would shatter his trust in me, I was holding it back from him and already betraying his trust in me.

Ha.

I'm an idiot.

Anyway, he showed up at my door around noon. I was still asleep, so I answered the door all sleepy-eyed and with messy hair, only half conscious. I thought I was dreaming, so I just smiled and kissed him when I saw him. He managed to steer me back into the apartment.

"Much better than my normal dreams..." I mumbled, breathing in his scent. My head rested in the crook of his neck as we stood in my tiny kitchen. He smelled like... Well his deodorant was a warm almost vanilla scent, and his clothes always smelled like pine needles from being dried on a line so close to the woods. But Shikamaru just smelled like... Shikamaru. And it is still the best scent in the world. I kissed his neck softly, tenderly, afraid that as soon as I got carried away, the dream would turn sour.

Shikamaru laughed a little, pulling my head up to his and kissing me deeply. Long, and deep, and beautiful. He tasted fantastic too.

"I missed you too" he said, grinning as he finally broke the kiss. That's when it hit me fully that this wasn't a dream. I almost flung him across the room.

"Kiba?"

"Ah. Ah! Sorry sorry sorry! I thought I was asleep and then..." I rushed over to his side, trying to make sure he wasn't hurt. I had pushed him over a chair.

He just smiled up at me. "I'm fine Kiba." His voice was slightly throaty, different from any tone I'd ever heard. It was... It is, the best kind of tone. My blood begun to rush to a certain place, not that it hadn't really been rushing there before hand, but... Well. You know. I wanted to jump on top of him and kiss him from head to toe and do unspeakable things, but I just helped him up and made an excuse about the shower. I took it cold. Really cold.

When he came out of the shower, fully dressed and with his mentality in tact, Shikamaru was just getting off the phone. His face was scarily blank.

"Shizune-san says she needs help cracking a code."

"There's something else..."

"Yeah. Jiraiya died in action." I just nodded, and swallowed, and thanked god for the interruption, and hated myself even more.

That night, I went out and I bought myself a punching bag and some stuff to hang it up in my room. It didn't take much effort and only two hours of my time. And then I boxed with the bag for four hours without break. I didn't put on any wraps. I hated myself. I hated the fact that I had lived this long. I was a useless coward who couldn't face the man he loved. I couldn't do anything. So I imagined that the bag was me, and I punched it and I punched it until I couldn't lift my arms anymore and my knuckles were bleeding.

I felt Akamaru's fur beneath my hands, and then I blacked out.

AN: I'm so so sorry for the short update! You guys deserve so much more... I just recently came back to this story, and I really love these characters and this storyline, so I'm going to work on finishing this over the next month or so. Please look forward to more!