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On The Cusp	By : Okami-Rayne Category: Naruto > Yaoi - Male/Male > Shikamaru/Neji Views: 2205 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: NARUTO and its respective characters were created and are owned by Masashi Kishimoto. No copyright infringement intended. I make no money from this story.

Chapter List
- 9
- 10
- 11
ON THE CUSP

by Okami Rayne

Chapter Ten

Leave. Walk away. Go.

The words trickled through Neji in rivulets, streaking cold as the rain across his reflection in the glass. The downpour mirrored the conflict hammering against every nerve inside him, eroding the edges of his resolve.

Priding himself on control had never felt so hypocritical.

At least when he'd been blocking his tenketsu, he'd had the excuse of believing it was the right thing to do, considering his goal.

There is nothing 'right' about me being here…

Neji tightened the chord of the black yukata Shikamaru had given him and gazed past the ghost of his own face, staring into the lightning-slashed sky. He contemplated all the reasons why sliding back the glass doors and vanishing into the rain would be safer, smarter and saner than staying here – in the eye of a far more dangerous storm.

The aroma of coffee hooked his nose, drawing his gaze away from the rain.

Neji's eyes refocused on the glass.

He stiffened in surprise.

Shikamaru's reflection played in a shimmer against the panes, an amber-limed silhouette comprised of familiar angles. Neji re-emblazoned them in his mind, tracing out every contour –jagged as the shards of the spiky ponytail.

How long had Shikamaru been standing there?

And more importantly, why hadn't Neji sensed him?

Making no move to turn, Neji watched the Nara by way of the glass, trying to gauge the other ninja's countenance in the meagre light. Thunder rattled the broad panes, punching with elemental knuckles. Lightning lashed back, a violent burst that flashed off Neji's hitai-ate, its metal hanging like a collar at his throat.

"Branch pet."

The steel gleamed, the glow catching in his eyes.

Neji reached up to replace the headband across his brow, a slow roll of his wrists wrapping the fabric ends around his knuckles. With a whispering glide of material, he pulled the knot tight beneath the long, damp sheet of his hair.

He could feel Shikamaru's gaze on him, awareness tingling at the base of his skull.

But one thing he couldn't feel was the shadow-nin's chakra.

Impossible…

Neji forced his expression to remain neutral and tried to trace what should have been instantly detectable to him. But the languid, smoky tendrils of energy that Neji remembered so precisely…they were gone.

How?

Neji's gaze sharpened, pressure knotting at his temples. He fought back the urge to use his dōjutsu – not that he should have needed the Byakugan to detect Shikamaru's chakra.

There's no way he could mask that from me.

Or any Hyūga…could he?

Neji wracked his senses, searching again for some trace of the other ninja's chakra.

Unperturbed, Shikamaru slanted against the doorframe leading into a small kitchenette. Cradling a cup of coffee in one hand, he dropped his chin so that the steam rolled over his face, ghosting across sharp, lidded eyes. The shadows were thick and black behind him – just two steps back and the darkness would swallow him completely.

He offered up nothing into the silence.

Neji's search for chakra was futile. Rather than allow this to frustrate him, he switched his focus onto Shikamaru's face. An ache of concern roiled in his chest. He might not have been able to sense Shikamaru, but he could see him.

And the shadow-nin looked thinner, noticeably so.

Somehow, a fortnight had managed to whet and whittle Shikamaru's body into something sharper and harder – but also something worn. His cheekbones were a little more prominent, the hollows beneath them deeper. Neji couldn't see his eyes, just the shadows beneath them; the chocolate orbs remained hidden beneath a hood of dark lashes and shuttered lids.

Impossible to read…

Neji willed those eyes to open wider, just for a moment.

They didn't.

Seconds slipped between them and the tension grew heavy and weighed.

Beyond the window, rain hammered down in a tinny shatter, keeping them from a completely oppressive silence. All the while they studied each other, Neji staring directly while Shikamaru gazed from beneath his lashes, both taking in two weeks worth of absence and the impact it had created.

"What happened to your face?" Shikamaru eventually asked, breaking the silence on a murmur.

Neji turned his head a little, looking askance in non-verbal query.

Shikamaru arched a brow and grazed a thumb along the edge of his jaw to indicate the deep, yellow and purple bruising across Neji's face. The Hyūga had all but forgotten about his earlier penalty at Hitaro's hand. As with most punishments in his clan, the brunt of the damage was beneath the surface, usually internal bleeding or bruising – there might have been something morbidly poetic in that.

"Sparring," Neji lied.

Shikamaru opened his mouth, hesitated, then drew his tongue across his lips, pressing them together after a beat. "Right."

More like a "yeah, right" that Neji didn't need to hear to sense it was implied; it plucked one of the many strings of tension pulling tighter and tighter between them.

So make this easier. Turn and walk away.

He managed to accomplish the first instruction and turned – inadvertently – towards the shadow-nin. The second he did, Shikamaru's body angled away, leaning further into the kitchenette until he straddled the threshold.

Neji paused, raising a mental eyebrow at the skittish reaction.

Half-wrapped in shadow, Shikamaru recovered his slouch and sipped at his coffee, slipping back into an image of lazy, unaffected avoidance. Or at least he might have looked that way, had Neji not seen those long fingers tighten around the steaming mug.

"This isn't how I imagined seeing you again, Shikamaru…"

A faint smile kicked at the visible corner of Shikamaru's mouth. "Yeah. A mission would've been less troublesome."

Neji inclined his head in acknowledgement rather than agreement. A mission may have given them roles they understood, a set script to adhere to, a safe stage to interact on – but it didn't account for what went on behind their masks.

And you always saw beneath mine…

Neji traced his eyes over the fold of the burgundy yukata drawn unevenly across Shikamaru's chest. He followed the bared "V" of olive skin up to the jut of a collarbone, then across to Shikamaru's throat, rising back up to the chiselled profile.

The Nara didn't look at him. "Minus the bruising…you look well…"

"You don't," Neji returned, realising too late how blunt he sounded.

"Thanks, Hyūga." Shikamaru's lips flicked up weakly behind the coffee cup. "Too bad you missed my road-cone hat. You woulda had a field day on the verbal abuse front."

The lazy drawl spiralled through Neji, smoking out feelings he'd pushed deep into his chest. He could think of nothing to say that wouldn't betray him and nothing to do that wouldn't betray them both.

Never short on quick-thinking to avoid slow torture, Shikamaru spared them the pain of another silence. "How'd the peace negotiations go?"

An irrelevant but safe enough question; better than anything Neji might have said. He suspected a mass of tripwires outside of this secure work-related zone.

Neji shifted forward, needing to move. "Peacefully enough, all things considered."

Shikamaru hummed, tensing up in a barely discernible shift when Neji stepped away from the glass doors. "Got Gaara's stamp of approval, right? Temari mentioned inheriting allies."

"The incestuous world of politics," Neji concluded dryly, inclining his head. "Yes, the Kazekage is in accord."

"In accord…" Shikamaru drawled, poking fun at the formality.

There was something infuriating and achingly familiar about that.

Neji had to admit – albeit begrudgingly and silently –that his refined air was nothing short of ridiculous in this situation. Here they were, exchanging debriefing details like they were no more than newly acquainted comrades.

That IS all you are…comrades…

It's not like they were ever friends. Not really. Friendship? They'd done one hell of a leap and bound over that personal touchstone and all its social hallmarks.

Neji paused by the takonama alcove, prepared to measure the reaction to his next words. "You're not sleeping."

You're having nightmares, is what he wanted to say.

Shikamaru smirked, gazing into his mug, his stare vacant. "Nijū Shōtai's got me keyed-up. Lee would love it. Makes Gai-sensei's workouts seem like warm-ups."

"I doubt Asuma-senpai would let your training compromise your health."

As suspected, Shikamaru's brows drew together at the mention of Asuma and the shadow-nin raised his mug to his lips, blowing steam off the top. Neji filed away the reaction.

"You got back yesterday?" Shikamaru asked, steering the focus back onto Neji.

"Yes." Neji hesitated before adding, "I will be leaving again."

Shikamaru spent a moment digesting that, then nodded. "Mission?"

"That remains to be seen," Neji replied, certain that Shikamaru would deduce the hidden meaning in his words: I'll seize whatever opportunity I can to keep distance between us, mission or no mission.

Which didn't explain why he was still here.

"A-ranks are aplenty, Hyūga." Shikamaru's eyes lidded in a lazy blink but his knuckles flashed bone-white against the mug's ceramic. "Whatever comes up – take it."

Neji didn't react to the bite in those words. He knew he deserved them and told himself it was better this way. Better that Shikamaru's hurt and anger created distance between them rather than close it. Or so he told himself.

Shikamaru took a sip of his coffee, the muscles of his throat working once. "So how's Hanegakure?"

"Healing," Neji replied. "There are still scars on the minds of the people. Hibari has a long way to go in washing the blood off his clan's name."

"Yeah, guess that's to be expected. And the caster kids?"

Neji hesitated, his face carefully blank as the image of Maki's crayon sketch and heart-shaped cookies came to mind, accompanied by visions of children revived from their former ghost-like shells; boys and girls baring toothy grins, dimpled cheeks and bright, hopeful eyes.

Hope for a future without tradition's chains and cages.

Blinking slowly, Neji glanced at the wall scroll in the alcove: an image of a crane taking flight, white wings stretched against sunset skies.

His lips softened in a fleeting, barely-there smile. "They're free."

Shikamaru's head turned.

Neji sensed his gaze, but didn't return it. There was no guarantee that another lock of their eyes wouldn't trigger a landmine on this precarious territory. One digression might lead into that grey area they'd both sworn off.

Stay focused.

Searching for anything to distract from the silence, Neji let out a quiet breath. "Speaking of the children, it would appear you've garnered yourself a couple of fangirls, Shikamaru."

Shikamaru's mug froze mid-way to his mouth. "What?"

"Surely you remember," the Hyūga admonished. "They dubbed you 'Tricky'."

Shikamaru jerked his head a little, then let out a quiet chuckle against the rim of his mug. "Right, the limpets."

"Limpets…?" Neji echoed blankly.

"They attach."

Neji looked over, nonplussed.

Sensing the lack of comprehension on Neji's face without having to see it, Shikamaru rolled his eyes and lazily swayed a hand back and forth across his waist, indicating imaginary arms wrapped around his torso.

"They attach and they cling," he said, making another half-assed gesture. "Limpets."

"I see." Amusement flickered in Neji's eyes. "I should have asked them to demonstrate why they call you Tricky."

Smiling a little, Shikamaru ducked his head and scratched at the bridge of his nose, the embarrassment picking up in his voice. "Yeah well, I guess the stupid name makes sense."

"Of course." Neji smirked. "If you were a well-trained dog."

Shikamaru let out a soft, breathy laugh.

Neji closed his eyes at the sound, a light crease forming between his brows.

"I wish," the Nara muttered, a roll of his wrist sent steam wafting. "A dog's life is easy. Give me a heart-shaped cookie and I'll have an excuse to roll over and play dead."

Neji scoffed, unable to resist a playful jibe. "I doubt you need an excuse for that trick, Nara, let alone a food prompt."

"No kidding." Shikamaru tipped his head against the doorframe, glancing out the corner of his eye. "Never catch a Hyūga playing possum, huh?"

"No." Neji forced his lashes open, fighting a smile. "It's not dramatic enough for a Hyūga."

Another quiet chuckle. "Yeah, 'cause you never do things by halves, right?"

"You should know."

"Not likely to forget even if I wanted to."

Do you want to?

The question struck Neji's brain like a flash bomb, startling him. He almost asked, but refrained, managing to cling to the thread of humour, hoping to hold the moment together rather than shatter it.

"Permanence, Nara. That's the effect of a dramatic, lasting impression."

"Not so sure about that. You keep impressing your hitai-ate into my skull and I'm gonna dramatically and permanently start forgetting shit."

They laughed at the same time, both looking across in an ill-timed heartbeat.

That was all it took.

The second their gazes locked, an incendiary spark struck deep in the pit of Neji's stomach, throwing an ember into that grey, colourless territory of ashes and dust, licking fire up into the ghostly white of his eyes.

Instantaneous heat.

Shikamaru's dark orbs flashed wide with it.

And then Neji felt it.

The Need itching beneath his skin, aching to burn.

Shikamaru's lips parted, snatching a breath that had the hollow of his throat darkening and deepening.

Neji turned to face him – and the air turned with him.

Immediately, the room felt charged, electric and humming with the static of a thousand unfinished, unresolved tensions. Everything condensed into a hair-raising friction. Delicious and dark, it crawled through blood and over skin, stretched itself across bodies holding back and holding in.

And then Shikamaru snapped his eyes shut.

It severed the connection so abruptly that Neji almost jolted.

The vital chord of that bond pulled too tight and snapped back like a whip, cracking across his heart.

"Leave," Shikamaru rasped, shaking his head. "You need to leave."

Neji blinked slowly, his breath tapering off.

He made no move to indicate that he'd heard, or that he'd comply even if he had.

Shikamaru's lips framed a snarl. He made a sudden retreat into the kitchenette, underscored by the loud clack of his mug hitting a lacquered counter.

It snapped Neji from his daze.

Moonstone eyes refocused on the black square of the kitchenette's doorway, searching for movement he didn't suspect would happen.

But this wasn't an avoidance act.

No sooner had Shikamaru vanished into the kitchenette then he was moving out from the darkness back into the amber hues and patchy shadows of the main room.

The second he crossed Neji, his expression closed off.

The anger sucked out of his face and seeped into the room, leaving a different charge in the air.

Neji inhaled deeply, trying to calm the cinders in his blood. "Shikamaru…"

The Nara shook his head, pacing the room in an agitated stop and start, heading eventually towards the glass doors, keeping distance at all times, raking his fingers along his scalp.

Neji remained calcified on the spot, the fight inside him bordering on futile.

Fight.

He knew how to fight – at least he knew how to fight anything else. He wasn't so sure he could win this battle this time around.

"Neji...stop fighting."

The air turned to lead in his lungs. Gods but fate was a fickle, fractious mistress, forcing him to wage a war against the only part of himself that he'd ever allowed to stop fighting – at least for a little while.

While I was with you…

He watched Shikamaru press his brow against the glass doors, clouding the rain-streaked surface with his breath.

The shadow-nin chuckled darkly. "Damn, I hate irony."

Neji tensed at the hollow laugh – and the clairvoyant nature of the words – a coil of unease winding in his stomach.

"Irony?" he echoed.

Shikamaru exhaled another rough, mirthless laugh, fogging up the glass, twisting his forehead against the cool pane. "I really, really, hate irony."

"You think this is ironic." Neji didn't pitch it as a question. Maybe he already considered it an answer. One he immediately cast aside.

"What the hell else can this be?" Shikamaru whispered, more to himself. "Unless I haven't woken up."

Neji tilted his head. "Woken up?"

Shikamaru pressed his eyes shut. He smoothed his palms along the doors and leaned in slowly only to push back, elbows locked, fingers splayed against the glass. He stayed this way for a few tense seconds, his arms braced. Then they dropped, one hand jamming at his hip, the other passing across his mouth to frame his jaw.

Neji gazed wordlessly, taking a kinaesthetic approach.

His mind still held the language of Shikamaru's body – its translation locked in memories. Memories locked in silence and symbols. A script he'd traced out with his tongue, branding Shikamaru's skin in a searing brail he had only to run his fingers over to remember once again.

In place of his hands, he ran his gaze over Shikamaru instead.

Eventually, the shadow-nin slipped his eyes open, staring blankly at his reflection. "Quit giving me the onceover, Hyūga."

Neji's eyes sharpened to the same tightness as his mouth. "Then give me some answers so I don't have to search for them."

"Damn…" Shikamaru smirked. "You feeling the irony yet?"

Neji's expression flattened and frosted. He had no idea what the hell he was feeling, only that he needed to fight it – and fast. "No."

"Figures. This hypocritical kind of crap always comes back to bite me in the ass."

Hypocritical? What the hell are you talking about?

Frustrated now, Neji clamped his jaw, pulling in a slow breath to keep from pushing forward. But stepping back wasn't an option either, so he did the only thing he could, which was stand his stubborn ground whilst respecting the distance Shikamaru had put between them.

"Confused, huh?" Shikamaru tipped his head back, staring at the top of the glass doors with a slim smirk. "Keep up, Hyūga. This might actually be funny when you're on the same page…"

Recognising the tactic, Neji's frustration guttered out, his frown dissolving. "You always did channel your anger into sarcasm."

"Sorry to be predictable. I better up my game."

"Is that what you're doing here, Shikamaru? Playing games again?"

Shikamaru barked a hoarse, harsh laugh. Pivoting on his heel, he cut straight past Neji, his steps building in an aggressive, inner crescendo.

"Isn't the more pressing question what the hell you're doing here, Neji?"

Panic kicked Neji's pulse into a canter.

Any truth he might have uttered was shot down by a belated flash of self-preservation. There was absolutely no way he could provide Shikamaru with an answer without pulling up a hundred other buried questions.

That wasn't why he was here.

Gods, why AM I here?

Another deeply buried question, with an answer clawing its way to the surface of his face. Threatened by the risk of unearthing these unspoken and unresolved truths, the armour came up around Neji's expression in an instant.

He raised his chin and dropped his voice, deep tones limed with ice. "Be careful, Nara. Given your aquatic adventure in the tub, I doubt you'll want to go another round with that question. I'll only return it and I don't think you're game."

Shikamaru froze mid-stride, stopped cold in his tracks.

Neji frowned, not having predicted that reaction. It was as unexpected as every detail he'd witnessed up until this moment; from Shikamaru's vicious waking hours before, to his idiotic stunt under the water, to the change in his features and the shadows carved into them.

"Gods, what's happened to you?" Neji breathed out, not so sure he wanted the answer, already feeling accountable.

Neji stepped forward.

Shikamaru's shoulders drew up.

"Shikamaru…"

The shadow-nin gave a quick turnabout and paused just as fast, angling his body half in light and half in shadow. He shot Neji a wide-eyed look edged with a strange, wild emotion the Hyūga had never seen in those mahogany orbs before this night.

Neji blinked, drawing his head back in confusion.

What could have possibly happened in two weeks to have caused this?

The look in Shikamaru's eyes was impossible to place. It wasn't quite fear…or anger. Maybe something bred from both.

Neji's voice gentled to a murmur. "Shikamaru."

At the shift in his tone, Shikamaru's glare faltered, softened, stroked over Neji's face and then – as if sensing his gaze was betraying him – he snapped up a hand to rub at his eyes and across his brow.

"Shit…" A rough sigh sloughed through his nose. "I used to be good at stopping things before they started…at least the stuff that isn't happening now."

"What isn't happening now?"

"Detach and delete. I'm good at that…"

Neji cocked his head, waiting for clarity. It never came. Shikamaru blew out a long, shaky breath, dropping his hand to his hip, staring hard at Neji's throat without raising his eyes.

"But not this…" he added after a long moment. "This always happens."

Resisting the urge to frown, the muscles in Neji's jaw pulsed. "What happens?"

"You happen!" Shikamaru snarled, throwing a hand up. "Every damned night! Not sleeping? I fucking wish."

A sharp, indrawn breath.

Neji went abruptly still, a weak attempt to stop what rattled through him on the inside.

Shikamaru's eyes flicked over his face in quick, calculated darts, searching for a reaction, something to latch onto.

Neji's expression didn't change.

Shikamaru's lips pulled back, teeth bared in a brief, angry flash. "Before you decided to play lifeguard you were watching me." His eyes sliced thinner, dark orbs glittering. "Why?"

Neji cursed inwardly.

Damn.

"You're so good at reading people, Shikamaru, so you tell me," Neji replied, the chill in his voice not matching his eyes at all.

Shikamaru's eyebrow cut upward. "Weak, Hyūga."

Weak.

The word hit Neji's pride dead-on centre, prompting a dangerous ripple of muscle before his spine tightened. He fought for control and arranged his body back into some semblance of calm, his countenance instantly composed.

"I didn't intend to come here tonight," he said quietly. "Or for this to happen."

"No?" Shikamaru rocked his head to one side, jaw tight. "Funny that, but then it's not like you're big on intentions. Action is your credo, right?"

The corners of Neji's eyes pinched hard.

God…he remembers everything…

And what pained Neji more than those words being thrown back in his face was the thought that Shikamaru had probably spent two weeks trying to forget them – and had failed miserably.

"What you do." Shikamaru paused here, swallowing down a ragged chuckle. "Or maybe it's more about what you don't do."

The punctuation of the last two words dug like kunai into Neji's sternum. But the usual urge to defend or attack didn't come. He lacked the anger needed to do either of those things.

For one tender second, the guard dropped around his eyes.

Then his face wiped clean of all expression and he closed the distance in sudden, steady steps.

Blindsided by this unexpected reaction and the accompanying movement, Shikamaru's head drew back – but the rest of him didn't. His fists balled, nostrils flared, aggression locking into the fierce square of his shoulders.

Unfazed, Neji met the Nara head-on.

He only halted just shy of drawing toe-to-toe.

Time slowed and reality narrowed down to the charged space between them, blurring lines into indistinct smudges in Neji's mind. His focus sharpened on Shikamaru's eyes, which hooded immediately; but the shadow-nin wasn't fast enough to disguise the deepening black of dilated pupils.

Neji's blood stirred.

Ignoring the primal line between aggression and arousal, he forced a practiced calm through every tingling nerve, flooding it into his muscles like chakra.

"And what don't I do, Shikamaru?" Neji asked at length, his voice deep and low.

Shikamaru's eyes tapered to slits, tensing in struggle.

The sight of it drove that razor pain a little deeper into Neji's chest.

Battling with himself, the Jōnin gazed without expression, willing an answer with his eyes, searching for it in Shikamaru's face. For a fraction of a second, he almost caught that answer etching into the centre of the shadow-nin's brow and the far corners of his dark eyes.

But it was gone in an instant.

"It doesn't matter," Shikamaru murmured, barely pulling off a half-shrug. "Not to sound all schoolyard, but it's not like you started it."

A muscle in Neji's jaw ticked. "I started it tonight."

"Like you could," Shikamaru returned, trying for a bitter smile. "You can't."

Neji's stony gaze knocked the twist off Shikamaru's lips but rather than recover his smirk, the shadow-nin's face softened in the barest betrayal of what his eyes had given away earlier.

"Because how the hell can it start…when it never stopped?"

If anything stopped, it was Neji's heart.

Stopped…

Just for a moment.

Then lurching, it picked up its beat in an erratic throb he had to swallow against just to draw air. Pain and need washed through him and the sudden surge of feeling was almost impossible to fight, impossible to control.

Control…

Neji almost slipped up, but he curbed the urge to reach forward by reaching deeper inside himself. God, surely if there was anything he could do and could do well, it was control.

Shikamaru salvaged a smirk, eyes hooding. "And you can't even humour me by laughing at the irony. Thanks, Hyūga, you're still an uptight pain in the ass."

Any irritation or anger that Neji might have felt was eclipsed by something he hadn't stopped feeling since the day he'd walked away. And for a fleeting moment, the feeling stole into his face and across his pale orbs, transforming his gaze into a look he'd never set on anyone else and instinctively knew he never would.

Not like this…

Shikamaru startled at the sight of it and closed his eyes.

Neji made to step forward.

Dark eyes snapped open and Shikamaru stiffened, body braced to bolt.

The reaction stopped Neji immediately. If only it had surprised him. Of all the memories that haunted him, the violence he'd unleashed on Shikamaru two weeks ago topped the list of indelible regrets no stretch of time could ever erase.

Perhaps that was for the best. If he forgot it, he risked repeating it.

That lesson didn't include the 'letting go' part.

Stayed by this understanding, the move Neji might have made never came. He fell back a step instead, not needing to be pushed or prompted by anything other than the Nara's reaction to him.

Wary, Shikamaru remained rigid, dissecting and deliberating Neji's move like a pause in a game before his voice scraped out. "Who'd have thought you'd use your head this time around."

"And who'd have thought you'd be the one holding your breath…" Neji returned quietly. "If that's the irony, Shikamaru, forgive me for failing to see the humour in it."

"That's too bad, Hyūga," Shikamaru murmured, his smile more weary than wry. "Takes the edge off the past just long enough to make you think you can forget it."

Forget…

The word dug its bitter sting scorpion-like into Neji's chest, flooding venom in a hot rush of anger that cooled and tempered into the steely angles of his face, hardening his eyes to keep them guarded.

Forget…?

Hadn't Shikamaru told him not to? And even if he hadn't, it's not like any part of Neji had a hope in hell of erasing the memories. It didn't matter that the memories were broken or bruised or bloody. Because deep, deep down, where no one could touch them, or taint them, or take them away from him, he risked the pain just to find the peace that lay scattered amongst all the pieces.

He needed that peace.

Because when the nights were beyond long and bordering on endless and when the days bled together with a monotony of duty and goals of distant destinations it was the memories he returned to.

They were all he had left in a part of himself he'd almost lost.

I can't forget.

Shikamaru spoke then, his voice drifting out in a floating, faraway murmur. "It's one hell of a placebo if you can convince yourself."

"To forget…" Neji clarified, a profound sense of loss threatening to open up inside him.

"Yeah," the shadow-nin whispered. "To forget…"

Neji gave him a long, searching look, pulling every muscle taut to keep from making the move he'd only just avoided. "And have you?"

"Convinced myself?" The shadow-nin said, deliberately evasive. "You'd think that trying to would make two weeks of damage control a little easier."

Neji frowned, seriously doubting that "easier" fitted into any context ever created by the paradoxical worlds of chaos and calm they'd woken up inside each other. As for damage control – isn't that why he'd walked away?

"Is it any easier?" he asked softly.

"No…" Shikamaru husked, barely keeping his voice level.

Neji remained silent, eyes fixed on Shikamaru, every fibre inside him focused on trying to find the faintest tendrils of the shadow-nin's chakra. He could almost feel it again, a hairsbreadth beyond reach.

The silence dragged on.

And then Shikamaru closed his eyes, swallowed with difficultly and shuddered out a gust of pent-up breath. "No…" he repeated roughly. "And one more memory of trying to fix you…only to break us both…is about as much as I can take…"

Neji's throat constricted, crushing his breath. "Shikamaru…"

"Don't," Shikamaru rasped, raising his hands with palms held outward, backing away and shifting into that chameleon skin Neji had sensed was coming. "I've done the damage, Hyūga…I trust you can handle the control part."

Even if Neji had possessed the ability to work his throat and croak out a reply, Shikamaru didn't wait on his answer. Without a backward glance, the Nara melted into the shadows of the corridor, leaving Neji to a silence broken only by the rain.

It can't be real.

Everything inside him knew that it was.

Shikamaru sat on the bedroom floor, elbows propped on his knees, back against the wall. The sleeves of his yukata hung in deep, dark triangles at the crooks of his bare arms, olive skin prickled against the chill biting into the room.

"I started it tonight."

Every night…this might as well be one more dream…

Too bad his intelligence tended to sabotage his capacity for imagination. If it didn't, he might've been able to convince himself that everything that had just happened was just another dream playing out in his head.

That it was all fantasy.

That Neji wasn't real...just some figment as fleeting as the smoke.

Shikamaru inhaled it passively, not reaching for a drag just yet. He'd lit it for the haze, for the obscurity and for the comfort of the familiar smell. It steadied his nerves in place of Asuma's presence.

Given his state of mind, he could have used his sensei's grounding company right now.

Fortunately, it helped just knowing that Asuma was near. Always just around the corners that Shikamaru wedged himself into when he withdrew. It made it possible for him to run without ever worrying about losing his way.

Can't run from this…

Shikamaru swallowed, watching ash eat along the cigarette. It dangled between the knuckles of his long, lax fingers, streaming its life in ribbons. The smoke drifted like white ink in black water, waiting to be scried. But there was nothing to be augured, no nebulous answers or sage advice – or if there was, Shikamaru couldn't see it.

It's not like he believed in divination, destiny or dreams.

It's not rational. It's not real.

Thunder boomed like canon fire.

The cigarette's thin paper flashed blue-white in the lightning glow.

Shikamaru didn't blink, his vacant stare fixed on the smoke spiralling off the end, swirling in a draught carrying from under the door. The chill was a far cry from the sensation eating through the shadow-nin on the inside, hungry as the burn steadily turning the cigarette to ash.

That's what you do to me…

The Need had fangs this time around, gnawed deeper than it ever did in his dreams. And he couldn't fight it. And he couldn't block out the low rumble of Asuma's voice reverberating through his mind.

"Then you do the only thing you can with a need like that."

Shikamaru eyes stung but it wasn't the smoke.

He rolled the dangling cigarette from his knuckles into a secure pinch between his fingers and thumb. He pressed it to dry lips, dark glassy eyes fixed ahead. A long drag pulled the tobacco deep into his lungs, the urge to cough adding to the pressure building in a moist burn behind his eyes.

Oil on fire, gasoline on flames – that's what it felt like under his skin.

"You live with it, Shikamaru."

The smoke left his nose in a gush and crushing out the cigarette, he turned his gaze toward the door. The haze cleared from his eyes, leaving them shining but sharp. Ignoring the dusting of ash on the carpet, Shikamaru pushed to his feet.

Live with it…?

He'd live with it until there was nothing left to burn.

The ryokan suite took on a cavernous quality in the dark. Doorways gaped like open mouths, exhaling a chill breath through the main room. Shadows clung to the walls and dipped into the alcove, the amber floor lamps now dormant at the feet of fusama panels. Rain reflected off everything, making the floors, pillars, glass and shoji screens seem like they were shedding watery skins.

Shikamaru idled through the dark, not bothering with a light switch.

He'd clocked the suite's layout the second he'd entered earlier in the evening.

Passing by the low, lacquered table, he took a beeline towards the glass doors, subconsciously picking the safest, most strategic position to observe from. It allowed him to monitor everything behind him as if on a screen. There was an odd, one-way mirror quality about it that made detachment seem easier.

He'd need that security, even if it was a lie.

Because he needed no conscious cuing to know he wasn't alone.

"You're still here…" he whispered, his voice rusty.

For a long moment, the only sound Shikamaru could detect was the crash of the rain on the veranda and the throb of his own heartbeat filling his ears, crowding his head with pressure.

Movement sounded across the room.

A rustle of fabric brushed in a soft sweep against the wall, giving away the unseen presence. Shikamaru read the nonverbal response: I'm still here.

Nerves knotting at the base of his skull, Shikamaru swallowed thickly. "You never go…"

Rain dribbled along the panes, coiled in runny question marks and chased each other in confusion. Shikamaru touched his fingertips to the cool glass, watching it fog around the edges of his skin.

"I see you every night…" He flattened his palm, smeared the condensation of his breath and watched it fade. "So maybe this is one more dream."

More silence.

Rain fell, filled and flooded over the veranda.

And then Neji's deep, melodious voice spilled into the quiet like wine over silk. "Maybe that's all it ever could be, Shikamaru. All it ever was."

Shikamaru ground his teeth as that voice stroked over him. The pulse at the base of his throat beat harder.

A dream…

If that's all it ever was then he'd never opened his eyes after Neji had closed them two weeks ago. The day the Hyūga had walked away a part of Shikamaru had walked away too. It had wandered, lain down and never got up again. Now it was lost someplace he couldn't reach. And something else had woken up instead.

The past…

He breathed slowly, fogging up the glass again. "Why are you still here?"

"I'm humouring your sense of irony, Shikamaru."

"Then you should be running away. That's what I'd do."

"Only you never did, did you?"

Shikamaru's throat tightened. "And what? You think that makes this right? Makes us even?"

"I didn't realise we were ever keeping score."

We weren't…

Maybe they had been in the beginning, when it had been about pride and priorities and pushing for excuses. Excuses to justify why they'd started playing this dangerous game in the first place.

Game…

Shikamaru's head came up, his unfocused gaze sliding across the glass, following the past as it played out in his mind.

That's not why I did it…

No, because regardless of the lies at the beginning he'd known the truth long before the end: it had never been a game. And even if it had been then they were never the players, just the pieces. Because there's no way he'd ever have let it play out the way it did. Rational thinking would have forbidden it.

Rational thinking: fat lot of good it had done him lately.

Shikamaru sighed, the shudder of his breath going bone-deep. It shivered into the air, stirring Neji from the shadows. Shikamaru caught the movement in the glass, but didn't follow it.

He couldn't.

If he did then he'd no longer be on the outside looking in. He'd be thrust into the moment; into the here and now. And if he was in the here and now, then there would be no running from it. No way to pretend that Neji was a mirage. A dream. An illusion. He'd no longer shatter or slip away if Shikamaru turned to take, touch, taste and make him tangible.

Make him real.

Just one touch would do it.

Maybe even one breath.

He heard Neji change direction; a brush of bare feet across the square tatami mats, conjuring an image in Shikamaru's mind of a Shogi piece sliding diagonally across a board. Come to think of it, the floor looked like a board, its design simple, squared, defined, clear-cut.

Something he could follow, classify and understand.

He found his voice with effort. "Wanna know what else is ironic?"

"Tell me," Neji urged gently.

The Jōnin's tone threw Shikamaru – threw him hard. He hesitated, almost shooting a glance at the ghost standing in the glass. He focused on working his throat, shaping words in a husky rush.

"I can play one hell of a game with the truth. I can lie and make it convincing enough for others to believe it. But I can never convince myself. I can't do make-believe." He shook his head, watching patterns form in the raindrops. "Not even as a kid."

"Why?"

"Didn't see the point in pretending that things which weren't real actually existed…"

"And yet you do this all the time when you strategize."

Shikamaru smiled bitterly, noting in some detached corner of his mind that this was turning into a conversation. They never had conversations in his dreams. Not the talking kind.

God, he'd missed their conversations…

Forcing himself to latch back onto the words, his eyes refocused on the glass.

"That's not what I do. I account for possibilities and probabilities. That's calculation, not creativity. They're not make-believe scenarios, they're possible outcomes." He cocked his head, watching the raindrops dribble, marvelling not at their patterns but at their possibilities. "Realistic, logical, viable outcomes."

"And how is any of that ironic?"

"The irony is that I could always work it the other way around."

"What do you mean?"

"Work it the other way around," Shikamaru repeated, tapping a fist to the window, tracing raindrops against the grain of their direction with a drag of his knuckles. "I can't make the imaginary real, but I can make the real imaginary. I can make something that happened something that's not happening now and move on. Make it some meaningless dream I woke up from."

"Does that include the nightmares, Shikamaru?"

The question dropped straight into Shikamaru's gut.

His fist froze against the glass.

He blinked hard, rasping. "What?"

"I always wondered at that…" Neji began, his voice taking on a resonant quality that made it impossible to gauge which direction it was coming from – it seemed to roll off the walls. "Wondered how you knew exactly what to do when I woke up at 4AM. How every time, whether you consciously realised it or not, you knew exactly how to respond to my panic."

Shikamaru's tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, throat dry and hot.

Lighting blazed outside, casting his profile in silver, the burst of light white-washing his brain with a flicker of memories, brief as a camera flash.

"Practice makes perfect," he drawled, blinking fast. "Know what beats damage control, Hyūga? Border control." He raised a hand, tapping at his temple. "Keep this straight, the rest falls into place. Fail to do that and it all falls apart. Told you before that I fuck up when I stop thinking."

He'd learned that the hard way. Learned early on that thought – including memory – triggered emotion. A fact of the fucked-up human brain: it was all in the neural wiring. Shikamaru had re-wired his brain at fifteen so he didn't have to deal with that shit. He'd turned days of numbing, post-traumatic shock into a period of autistic but accelerated learning. He'd worked on autopilot to master the mental techniques needed to stitch himself up inside before the apathy wore off.

He'd never let that pain take root.

In his mind this wasn't denial – it was detachment.

Shikamaru's panacea was simple: detach, disassociate, diagnose and delete.

Easy avoidance, quick results, all gain with no pain.

He wasn't like Neji.

He couldn't push emotions down into deep ugly wounds that never healed. He'd seen enough people do that to know how it ended. Their pain either delivered them from their darkness or it destroyed them. He didn't want to know if he fell into the latter category. He dealt enough in shadows as it was.

"Which might make your darkness far more dangerous than anyone else's if you let yourself fall."

He shook off Temari's warning: a stupid, presumptuous, unnecessary warning.

The past was over. No more than a fading scar across his mind.

Then why is it haunting me?

And if it had faded, then how had Neji seen it, ripped into it and made it real? Why now, after two years, did that scar crack and tear and bleed when Asuma mentioned it?

"I wasn't there. For whatever reason. For whatever happened. And I'm sorry."

Emotion burned like acid in Shikamaru's throat and behind his eyes.

I'm not…I'm not sorry…

The fear crawled cold up and down his spine and Shikamaru drew in a sharp breath through his nose. He flayed his brain with mental whips, a futile effort to stop his mouth from moving.

"Some things belong in the shadows…" he murmured to his reflection.

"Is that where you're hiding, Shikamaru? In your shadows?"

"I'm not hiding."

"Aren't you?"

When Neji moved again Shikamaru felt it rather than saw it this time. Gravitational laws they'd created weeks ago began to pull and grind between them. It felt real enough, but logically, so did the recent dreams when he was having them.

They're not real…

And yet he'd still wake up burning with a fever, or frozen inside with a fear he didn't want to think about. Maybe it made sense that he couldn't control that. Neji had woken up the fear. And everything that Neji had ever woken up inside him never responded to logic anyway.

Because it's not in my head…

A broken laugh rattled out of him, teeth snapping shut.

Fuck…I'm such a hypocrite...

He clenched his jaw against a judder, muscles bunching at the hinges.

"Shikamaru…" Neji's voice fell in a rumble, answered by a belly-growl of thunder beyond the windows.

But Shikamaru felt a different reverberation rattling through him; his every fibre picking up on the presence drawing closer behind him. Every sense heightened, tuning in to the shiver of vibration, energy, static. Reacting to the nearness. But it was just out of reach. Just short of being real.

And then Shikamaru felt it: the sultry heat of Neji's breath.

A damp, devastating caress against his nape that raised shorthairs, tightened skin and sent a rough friction tearing up and down his spine, pulsing hot ripples through every tensing muscle. The tendons in Shikamaru's throat pulled tight, his neck almost arching back.

And that was just Neji's breath on his skin.

Not even a touch.

Fuck...

Recovering with a hiss, Shikamaru's lashes flickered heavily and his gaze cast up in a damning second of weakness. And that second sealed his fate; fixed it in one look.

One look into ivory eyes and he was lost.

Neji...

Neji's eyes hung like moons in the glass: pale, lunar orbs emanating that gravitational pull which tugged through Shikamaru until he felt his body burning from the strain of holding back.

His eyes glazed to keep from focusing, the moist sting making it easier. "What do you want, Neji?" He tried for a smile, failing miserably, his voice so hoarse it fell below a whisper. "One more memory to try and forget?"

Neji tilted his head, lashes lowering until those moonstone orbs were no more than crescents. A slow blink later they waxed again, wide and searching. Shikamaru stared back, blinking through the blur of his vision, clueless as to what Neji was looking for – not wanting to know.

I can't…

He couldn't look away either.

Impaled and distracted by the intensity of those eyes, he almost jumped when the Hyūga's palms pressed into the glass either side of him, caging him between the strong and solid bars of Neji's arms.

Shikamaru froze, eyes wide, chakra beginning to blister and singe inside him, crawling over nerve-endings, catching on fire. "Neji…"

Neji's breath hitched against his nape. "There you are…" he whispered.

Shikamaru didn't have time to make sense of that. Neji's chakra washed over him in a thick, satin wave, flooding drug-like into his system, dimming his vision, knocking the air out of his lungs. Shocked, Shikamaru slammed his palms against the glass beside Neji's splayed hands, struggling for purchase.

He choked out a breath. "FUCK!"

Instantly, the rush of Neji's chakra eased its hot flood into a cool flow: ebbing, folding and kneading. It moulded around the smoky tendrils of Shikamaru's chakra, lacing patterns in places his body couldn't follow and his brain couldn't find.

"Right here…" Neji murmured.

The words were lost on Shikamaru, lost beneath the harsh pant that tore out of his throat. His heart lost its rhythm, picking up a beat that his blood began to scream to. Tenketsu throbbed in tiny flares. Dizzy, he dropped his brow against the glass to keep his head from dropping back, a tremor running through his thighs, fingers gnarled against the glass.

"Ngh! Shit..." he hissed. "W-what're you...doing..."

"Trust me…"

Shikamaru might have snarled at that if he wasn't mildly incoherent.

Another sudden pulse of Neji's chakra and Shikamaru felt his palms burning, the soles of his feet scorching as if he were standing on hot coals. Sweat broke out across his body but a chill chased right behind it, a crazy cycle he couldn't make sense of – hot and cold playing through him in a fever.

What the HELL is he doing to me…?

Shikamaru had barely constructed the thought before the intensity of energy running through him gentled and slowed. Easing off, it lapped in a soft, lazy current around the edges of Shikamaru's chakra, turning the heady rush into a hazy ripple.

Soothing, sensual, swirling south…

Shikamaru groaned.

He felt the bracket of Neji's arms tighten, just shy of touching his shoulders: supporting him without touching him. He shuddered, the scant space between his back and the Hyūga's chest crackling with something stronger than chakra, filling with an intensity that robbed him of his ability to breathe.

And then Neji's voice whispered tenderly at his ear, stopping his breath altogether. "I'm not here for a memory, Shikamaru…just a moment…"

TBC.
- 9
- 10
- 11
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