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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
- 10
- 11
- 12
ON THE CUSP

by Okami Rayne

Chapter Eleven

"I'm not here for a memory, Shikamaru…just a moment…"

A moment…?

It took more than a moment for Shikamaru to process those words. His brain had gone into lockdown, the border-control around his mind refusing to allow any rational thought to pass through.

Logic? Out of-commission.

Fallback plan? Not happening.

This left him at the mercy of his body and the tremors wracking through it. It felt like corpuscles of chakra drifting in his blood. Tiny charged motes that followed the ley-lines of his body, tracing through the chakra pathways intersecting every organ and muscle, tickling tenketsu into pulsing flares and turning every nerve-ending into a conductor.

Shikamaru's teeth ground together, fingers crabbing against the glass.

"Let…go…" he choked out.

The squeak of Neji's palms startled him. His dazed, lidded eyes struggled to focus, coffee-coloured hues squinting until his peripheral vision sharpened on the flex of those strong, slender hands. They slid until the Hyūga's palms flattened against the glass beside Shikamaru's fingers – close, but not touching.

The panes misted from the heat radiating off their skin.

"Let go? I'm not holding on, Shikamaru, you're holding back," Neji murmured, his deep voice gliding over Shikamaru's nerves like hot steel wrapped in cool, black satin. "You're hiding behind your shadows."

Shikamaru's forehead twisted against the glass. "No," he snarled.

"I don't know how you learned to mask your chakra this way, but it won't keep me from finding you."

Shikamaru frowned, struggling to cut through the thick sensation clouding up his head, struggling to focus just long enough to grasp those words.

Mask my chakra?

His eyes widened, but he lost his grip on the disturbing thought the second Neji's thumbs dipped and traced along his wrists. The barely-there touch sent static crackling along the underside of his arms. He jolted as if shocked, fingers flinching hard, teeth clenched around a hiss.

"Dammit…stop…"

Neji's lips grazed the shell of his ear. "Let me find you, Shikamaru…"

Shikamaru's eyes flickered wide, then pressed shut against the damp sting rising to the surface. Emotion, confused and heavy, twisted its vines inside him, crushing his breath into a hoarse knot in his throat.

"Why?" he rasped. "It's not like I ever found you."

Neji stiffened, his arms going rigid either side of Shikamaru. "What?"

The shadow-nin shook his head, the ball in his throat burning harder and hotter until his breath all but vaporised.

"Not once…" he whispered, brushing his lips across the ghost in the glass, misting up Neji's reflection. "And every night…I lose you all over again…"

The flow of Neji's chakra cut out in a jolt.

Gasping, Shikamaru slumped against the glass, shuddering from the aftershocks. The warm breath at his nape ceased, leaving a chill behind.

Gone…

Panting, Shikamaru squeezed his eyes shut.

Fuck…it's over…let it be over…

It was time to wake up.

Wake up…

Rain slivered down the panes, cold as the dread dripping down his spine.

Wake up…

Shikamaru swallowed hard, feeling Neji's nearness as no more than a phantom presence now that he couldn't hear or feel the Hyūga's breath. Their bodies were a twitch away from touching – but neither of them moved. Neither of them breathed.

The dream would end…any second now…

Wake up…

The illusion dragged on sadistically. Heat continued to build against Shikamaru's back, sweat beading at the same time his skin pebbled in a shiver, a familiar sense of cold and loss stealing over him.

God, let me wake up…

Waiting to wake was worse than chasing after ghosts. Waiting was the limbo between the heaven and hell of his dreams. Waiting was purgatory. Waiting was fucking torture.

His fists slammed against the glass.

WAKE UP!

Warm palms skimmed over his knuckles.

Shikamaru's eyes snapped open, wide and wild. He froze, stomach tucking in as his chest seized. Transfixed, he watched Neji's long, pale digits slot between his own rigid fingers, lacing olive and ivory skin in a slow fold.

Shikamaru's lips parted, his stare fixed in shock.

He watched Neji's fingers tighten around his, clenching until strings of sinew striped the backs of the Hyūga's hands. The pressure increased. A spasm of pain twitched from their grinding bones.

Pain…real…

Neji's thumbs arced and folded over the shadow-nin's.

Real…

Real enough that a slim scar shone silver on the back of Neji's right hand, a neat slash from the middle knuckle down to the back of his wrist.

Shikamaru's eyes widened.

There was never this kind of detail in his dreams.

His dreams were stripped of the human imperfections of flesh and feeling, leaving hazy outlines defined by blazing opal eyes. In the dreams, Neji was never real enough. Never rough enough around the edges to be anything other than a polished memory, fragile as porcelain. Knowing that fragility, Shikamaru handled the dreams with care, never looking for the cracks, knowing everything would shatter if he found them.

Why look? Why search for more reasons to doubt it was real?

The dreams were as real as it would ever get. Even if they were a constant lie he had to wake up from.

This isn't a lie…

Shikamaru continued to study the backs of Neji's hands, his gaze tracing over the valleys and creases in the blanched knuckles, at the zigzag pattern of their locked fingers down to the hard angular bones of the Hyūga's wrists.

No dream…

It was so far from a dream it was crazy. Crazier still to have thought he could convince himself it wasn't real. There was no chance of that now. Any need he had to turn this into something imaginary, just to make it less painful to let go of, was lost behind a stronger need.

The wild, bewildered gleam left Shikamaru's eyes.

His expression softened, slackened and saddened into something he wouldn't have recognised if he'd caught his own reflection in the glass.

Unable to find his voice, he squeezed his fingers experimentally.

The barest of hesitations and then Neji returned the grip – hard – grinding their knuckles until their hands shook. Shikamaru's lashes flickered at the flash of pain, his senses feeding off it. The ache in his fingers set off sparks along his arms, a fresh wave of heat tightening his skin.

Real…

Ice touched the back of his nape.

He flinched, shoulders drawing up only to relax when he registered the familiar bite of steel. Neji's hitai-ate. The cool metal rested like the flat of a blade, giving Shikamaru a darker perspective of the dangerous position they were in.

One push in the wrong direction and he'd lose his head completely.

If I haven't already…

He squeezed his fingers around Neji's, his voice so quiet it was just a shadow of sound past his lips. "Troublesome Hyūga…"

Shikamaru felt the cold steel at his nape press harder. Before he could think to turn his head, Neji moved. The Hyūga's wrists angled outwards, pushing their linked hands into a slow skate across the glass. Shikamaru relaxed the tension in his arms, not trying to follow or control the movement, just letting it happen…just letting himself drift on the current of something stronger…like a cloud on a warm wind…

Just a moment…

His eyes slipped shut completely, brow tapping against the glass.

Outside, the storm shook the world.

Inside the room, the stillness was absolute.

And for a stolen moment, the stillness settled on Shikamaru like snow. Quiet, gentle and melting into those parts of him that needed the calm. And when it reached those tired, tender parts, the stillness turned to peace.

A stolen peace…but peace nonetheless…

A peace that stole across the insignificance of years, easing the ever-increasing weight of age that Shikamaru had carried inside him since he was a kid – a weight that had tripled when he'd hit fifteen. It had branded him with a cynical weariness of heart and jadedness of spirit that ninja in the late winter of their years hoped never to carry.

Until now, he hadn't even known he'd been carrying it; thought he'd put it down two years back.

But the peace took away the past trying to resurrect itself inside him. The peace overpowered the nightmares and surmounted the fear.

And just for a moment he pretended it would last.

It lasted as long as the glide of their hands, which eventually stilled beside Shikamaru's head, bringing the peace to a gentle close. With a soft exhale, Neji flattened the shadow-nin's hands beneath his palms, slotting their fingers together again.

"Tell me," Neji rumbled, his hot breath seeping through the fibres of Shikamaru's yukata to tease the skin beneath. "Tell me what's wrong."

The words stroked over Shikamaru's mind, but dragged a blade of fear along those scars buried deep inside him. Pinpricks of emotion welled up like blood. He had no intention of tearing back the scabs.

"Shikamaru, tell me what's wrong…"

Shikamaru flexed his fingers in a gentle squeeze. "This."

Neji hummed, the deep sound reverberating down Shikamaru's spine, forcing the shadow-nin's calves to go taut. "I know…" Neji whispered. "I'd apologise…if I regretted it."

"Don't." Shikamaru's lashes slipped open and he stared without focus at his own reflection. "I hate that word…"

"Regret?"

"No. Sorry."

Neji's head came up a notch. "Why?"

Shikamaru pulled in a sharp breath.

Why?

Now there was a question he dodged as vehemently as the word itself: sorry. Sorry, regret, remorse, guilt. Useless, worthless, impractical words attached to useless, worthless, impractical emotions. Guilt solved nothing, regret changed nothing and remorse threw a pity-party. But sorry was the big black hole that would suck every synonym of 'sorry' and every meaning attached to it into a one-way void he'd never escape if he let himself fall.

Not a chance.

Shikamaru let out a slow breath, his voice taking on the same disturbing blankness as his face. "I'm not sorry…"

Considering the countless contexts those words could apply to, he didn't expect Neji to grasp the meaning. He hoped the Jōnin wouldn't search for it either. In response, Neji grasped in the only way he could, which was to tighten his grip until Shikamaru's fingers were forced flat against the glass again.

"Would you rather I wasn't sorry either?" Neji said.

Shikamaru frowned. "What?"

The cold steel vanished from his nape, replaced by the warmth of Neji's words caressing his skin. "That night…what I did to you…"

Shikamaru's fingers flinched, muscles tightening. "Forget it."

"I can't forget it."

"You should. I have."

"Have you?" Neji returned, his lips skimming just behind Shikamaru's jaw. "Nightmares don't just—"

"No they don't, but that's not it," Shikamaru cut in, shaking his head, trying to focus on the words and not the heat of Neji's breath. "That's not it."

That I could deal with…

The night Neji was referring to, while occasionally returning in nightmarish flashes, never haunted Shikamaru to the degree it probably should have. It scared the hell out of him sometimes to think back on it, to consider all the outcomes that could have played out. But there was no point in calculating "what if's". His dreams of Neji never included the violence and vengeance of that night – if they had, it might've made it easier to force himself to forget.

"It's not you," Shikamaru muttered. "Though that'd make sense at least…"

The only thing Shikamaru knew for sure was that while Neji might have woken up the nightmares, the Hyūga wasn't part of them. For the past couple of nights, it had been the nightmares, not Neji, pulling Shikamaru into a waking state of panic. Neji had been the trigger, not the trap. The trap was the past. And right now its iron jaws were clamped around Shikamaru's brain like a vice.

I just need to re-wire it…get my head straight…

Honestly, he should have been trying to do that now.

Right now.

Neji's palms felt too warm against his skin, his breath too hot against the tense line of Shikamaru's jaw. And while they still weren't touching back to chest, the scant space between them felt like a magnetic wall pushing at his body and pulling at his blood.

Crazy…

Just the heat radiating off Neji's skin threatened to burn away the cool and rational thoughts struggling to get a toehold in Shikamaru's head. He could feel his mind slipping, feel the stirring of a deep, primal need like a reverse current inside him. With every heartbeat it picked up a dangerous voltage and a spine-tingling tension.

So crazy…

He shook his head, speaking aloud without realising it. "Guess sense never applied."

"No…" Neji agreed gently. "As you once told me, not all our senses are rational."

"Yeah. You're not exactly helping me with that."

Neji's fingers played across his knuckles, pulling his heartbeat into a rhythm he tried to fight. Damn those hands…and their ability to fine-tune him like some instrument that responded to every string that Neji pulled without even having to try.

As if sensing his thoughts, Neji's lips settled at his shoulder, the Jōnin's deep tones lilted with the barest trace of humour. "For a mind like yours, that must be maddening. Do I leave you senseless, Nara?"

You leave me fucking useless, Hyūga, that's what you do…

"Not sure you've mastered the leave part," Shikamaru growled instead.

Neji went quiet.

His fingers froze against Shikamaru's hands, chilled into stillness.

Startled by the sudden silence, Shikamaru lifted his gaze to glass – and jolted. It wasn't the ice in Neji's face that struck him – it was the intensity of what was smouldering in his eyes. A storm of opal fire, burning raw and blistering violently with emotion…but it was emotion so painfully controlled…emotion destined to remain deep and distant...like the heat in the hearts of dying stars. It was a look so full of futile feeling, so full of knowing sadness it ripped Shikamaru's breath from his chest.

And then Neji's smile almost ripped his heart out. "There are worse things I could fail to master when I'm near you, Shikamaru."

"God, don't," Shikamaru husked, shaking inside. "Don't you fucking dare, Neji."

"It's true."

"DAMN YOU, HYŪGA!" Shikamaru roared, whipping his hands back and twisting around to shove Neji away from him, scared that the burn in those eyes would blaze straight through him. "Get the FUCK away from me!"

Staring back, Neji didn't retreat, recoil or react. He simply recovered his calm. And he recovered it with that damning, hateful grace that put him just that bit further out of reach without him having to leave.

Sadness pulled at Shikamaru, tearing him down the centre like a jagged knife.

His lip curled in a snarl. "Get out!"

"Get angrier," Neji countered quietly. "You never had the chance before. Maybe that's what you need."

Shikamaru's eyes rounded, enraged, incredulous. "Need?" he echoed.

Neji gazed back, utterly calm. "Is that what you need, Nara?"

The question snapped something in Shikamaru's mind.

In the span of a heartbeat he lost his footing on the mental wires he'd been walking. In a red flash, the cables short-circuited and the border-control in his head flipped the switch from 'brain' to 'body'.

Intellect stepped back.

Impulse surged forward – straight into his fist.

"You sadistic, selfish sonovaBITCH!" he roared.

Opal eyes flashed wide.

Neji threw his weight back to avoid the punch, his spine bowing like a limbo dancer's, bending from the knees without losing his footing. He caught himself on his right hand, left leg snapping out towards the shadow-nin's inner thigh.

Shikamaru's reflexes saved him.

He tucked his feet up in a neat jump, fist drawing back the instant his body came down again. He felt the rough crack of his knee hit the ground, impacted by the slam of his fist into the space Neji's head had been just seconds before.

"DAMMIT!" he shouted.

Shikamaru twisted around.

Neji's palm shot towards his face, the heel thrust up and out.

Throwing his head back, he felt the Hyūga's wrist graze along his throat, clipping his chin. Following momentum, Shikamaru flowed into a backward roll that set him on the balls of his feet, granting him purchase enough to spring.

He launched forward.

Neji met him a quarter-way into the lunge.

Their hits connected but cancelled each other out, pushing Shikamaru into a series of sharp jabs, each one deflected seamlessly by curves and dips of Neji's hands, the Hyūga's wrists rolling over Shikamaru's in an effortless, nimble dance.

"Does this feel better than running away, Nara?"

"Tch!" Frustrated, Shikamaru kicked off the lacquered table, swinging his leg in a round-house kick.

Neji ducked, flowed right and came up fast, lashing out. The blow whistled through the air near Shikamaru's jaw but he was already rolling away from it. He came up in a crouch, dark eyes scanning for Neji's ebon and ivory figure, watching the black ends of the yukata flowing in concert with the Hyūga's hair as he slunk panther-like in a circle.

"Two weeks ago you should have fought me this way," Neji said. "Finally, you have the sense to come at me like you actually mean it."

"Shut up!" Shikamaru growled, sharp eyes slicing through the dark.

"Then you'd best talk instead, hadn't you? Although this role-reversal game better suits your sense of irony, doesn't it?"

Shikamaru's eyes narrowed, the words slicing deep into his heart, snapping like barbed whips inside him. "Well sure, thanks to you I've got 4AM nightmares down to a fucking art. Give me a control complex and I'll work on the coughing up blood part."

"Good. Give me that anger."

"Anger?" Shikamaru seethed, tense and trembling, one arm stretched out behind him for balance. "Yeah, I'll bet you get off on that."

Neji halted close to the alcove, ice-white eyes glittering dangerously. "You think your pain pleases me?"

"Asks the closet sadist."

A quiet chuckle. "I've missed your sharp tongue, Shikamaru."

And yet all his sharp tongue seemed to be doing was cutting away at his own heart, chipping at scabs and scars one hateful word at a time. Shikamaru bit down on his tongue, tasted the coppery tang of blood.

"I'm done talking."

"Well bodies talk too. And they never lie." Neji stopped circling, turned sideways with his arm held out, fingers curving in invitation. "So, let's have an honest conversation, Nara."

"I'm gonna break your fucking jaw, Hyūga…" the shadow-nin snarled.

"Really now? That's a high threat," Neji smirked, goading with that same infuriating calm. "Let's see if you can back it up. Surely the Nijū Shōtai taught you something."

Shikamaru didn't get a chance to respond.

Neji launched off his right leg, driving forward in an aerial scissor kick.

Cursing, Shikamaru skipped forward a pace, dipped under the kick and spun into a butterfly twist over the lacquered table. Landing in a crouch, he felt Neji's foot graze his spine and shoot past his shoulder, a hairsbreadth from his cheek.

Shit!

Twisting his head, Shikamaru cut a glare along Neji's taut leg, stretched like a blade across the table, hard as granite, muscles locked. Yet he looked calmer than a monk doing a kata.

"Hn." Neji raised his chin, looking down through his lashes over the stretch of his leg, arching a brow. "Can't break my jaw all the way over there, Shikamaru."

"Just your knee," Shikamaru spat, twisting onto his back to slam his feet into the table, aiming to take out Neji's planted leg.

Neji was off the ground before the hit could connect. As the table shot past, Neji smacked his palm onto its zooming surface, his entire body arcing in a one-handed cartwheel that carried him right over Shikamaru, straight back onto one foot.

The other leg lashed back.

Shikamaru deflected the hit and drew back on his haunches, shoulder-blades jutting like hackles, palms up and ahead, ready for the next strike. Neji's kicks struck rapid-fire, the same foot lashing out at a stellar speed that Shikamaru countered with elbow, forearm, wrist and hand.

Their movements were lightning-lit blurs in the darkness, staccato flickers.

The kicks came faster.

Shikamaru cursed, felt sweat stinging his skin.

Neji didn't make a sound, wasn't even exerted.

One blow impacted harder than the others, glancing off Shikamaru's crossed arms, thrusting him back on his knees across the tatami flooring in a harsh skid. Breathing hard, he glared up at Neji's turned back.

With eerie deliberateness, Neji slanted his head a degree, glancing over his shoulder through one Byakugan-veined eye. Limned in the lightning glow, he took on that ghost-like visage that almost caused Shikamaru to second-guess the entire reality playing out in front of him.

"You're faster than before," Neji noted, his voice completely neutral. "Though I doubt Asuma-senpai taught you to fight without focus. Where's your strategy? And more importantly, where's your chakra?"

Growling, Shikamaru leapt for the couch, riding on instinct alone. He swung his leg high, the heel coming down in an axe-kick toward Neji's skull, realising too late the lack of support from the cushions.

His kick lost momentum.

Deftly, without appearing to try at all, Neji caught the kick between the cross of his wrists. "No closer to breaking my jaw than your own leg, Nara."

"Fuck you," Shikamaru growled, jumping off his braced foot in a lean ripple of muscle, careening his knee toward Neji's face.

But Neji was already in motion and Shikamaru felt the world dip in a nauseating whoosh, throwing him completely. He flew head first over Neji's shoulder and landed on his back with the wind knocked out of him, gasping hard.

He didn't have time to catch his breath.

Neji bore down on top of him, pale fingers snaking around his wrists.

Shikamaru bucked hard. "GET OFF ME!"

Neji tugged his head back to avoid a broken nose. "If you're going to fight me mindlessly then hedge your bets on your chakra, Shikamaru, not your luck. You're fresh out."

Shikamaru froze, ice flooding through him in a wash of memory.

"You're all out of chakra, Shika-kun, and shit out of luck."

Panic rippled across Shikamaru's eyes, black crawling into his vision.

No…

Deep inside him, his chakra slid like oil, darkening and thickening along the ley-lines of his chakra network, pooling into tenketsu like ink filling potholes, spilling over, spreading further, slipping out of control.

Neji stiffened and drew back, Byakugan eyes wide, head cocked to one side.

Shikamaru stared up but didn't see a thing, didn't sense the lunar eyes scanning his body or the cold hands framing his head – didn't even hear the words Neji breathed against his mouth.

"I'll fight you to find you if I have to."

"Didn't think I'd find you in my old man's onsen, Shika. Can't say I'm disappointed."

Shikamaru's heart thundered.

Lightning white-washed the room, tearing away the black.

Neji's eyes flashed in the glow. "Fight me, not yourself!"

Shikamaru snapped back to himself, shaking. He didn't have time to react. Neji hauled him off the ground and shoved him back, granting him distance enough to regain his focus but not time enough to solidify it. He couldn't get a grip. Focus slipped and slid from his mind.

He looked up and Neji was a blur, driving forward again.

Against everything he'd been taught, Shikamaru didn't move.

His training fled his mind completely.

Had he used his mind to choreograph and calculate the next stage of the fight, he'd have switched to the taijutsu tactic of 'balance breaking'. Had his brain been piloting his body, he'd have sought to use speed, distance and angling to manoeuvre Neji into a position that would knock his equilibrium. This tactic gave him the safest, smartest and most successful shot at winning. He'd have done it immediately and automatically if his head had been directing him.

But his head was out of the game.

This left Shikamaru doing the stupidest thing he could have possibly done when faced with a charging, close-quarter fighter. He launched straight into the oncoming attack like a missile set to detonate, damn the cost.

Neji's eyes flashed wide seconds before impact.

Thankfully, seconds was all the Hyūga needed to slant his body.

They crashed just off-centre, their shoulders jarring hard.

The collision snapped Shikamaru's teeth together, the impact jolting along his arm and up his neck. They slammed, spun and slammed again, forearms locking like blades, both shoving back and forth, looking for purchase and power, pushing for pain and position.

Lightning blazed outside.

Shikamaru changed the angle of his shove, forcing Neji to twist. And by some blinding stroke of luck, Neji's strength faltered. In the barest flicker of a moment, pain tugged at the corners of his pale eyes and he arched with a gasp, like he'd taken a hit from behind.

His right leg buckled.

Shikamaru didn't stop to wonder what the hell had happened, he just reacted. He took the opening and drove forward with a snarl, shoving Neji back, knocking the Hyūga's balance. He followed through with a ram, catching the Jōnin square in the sternum.

Neji's back hit the wall with a violent crack.

Shikamaru stepped in, arm drawn back, ready to drive home the hurt with a fist.

He swung just as their gazes locked.

Something changed.

Shikamaru's fist crashed into the fusuma panel beside Neji's head, tearing through the paper, smashing past the wood, shattering the lattice and colliding with a bone-jarring thud into the wall beyond. Pain exploded in a hot rush, riding along Shikamaru's arm with the same force as the sound tearing up his throat.

He couldn't contain it…

Couldn't control it…

He squeezed his eyes shut, let his mouth fall open against Neji's neck…and screamed.

The sound of Shikamaru's cry went through Neji like a blade.

It cut upwards through his sternum and tore into his heart with twice the impact of Shikamaru's fist through the wall. The sound shattered him, shocked him, stopped him cold. His fingers dug into the panel at his back, body like stone.

The hoarse scream exploded in his head, over and over.

Stunned, Neji stared sightlessly over Shikamaru's shoulder, Byakugan eyes wide.

The violent pain in his kidney – courtesy of Hitaro – was gone. He felt none of it. All he felt was the percussive boom of his pulse beneath the shadow-nin's mouth, the rasp of chapped lips against his neck and the hot roar aching out like fire. And it burned straight through Neji, incinerated his breath into a ball of ash in his throat.

For a horrible moment he couldn't breathe, couldn't think.

Until another blue-white flash flickered beyond the windows. Thunder cracked and rolled, drowning out the echo of Shikamaru's roar. It was enough to break Neji from the shock, pull him from the alarm clouding his focus.

FOCUS!

The air came back to him in a jolt.

Blinking fast, he flicked his gaze across to Shikamaru's arm. The whole of the Nara's hand and wrist were embedded in the shattered panel. Veins protruded along the lean muscles of his forearm and biceps, olive skin slick with sweat, dappled with blood, twitching and shaking.

Neji blinked again.

Gods burning…

He pulled in a slow, steady breath, working against the immediate need to rage and react. The calm came fast, dousing the fire in his blood, easing the violent circuit of his chakra.

Chakra…

The veins around his eyes tightened, Byakugan pupils swelling and shrinking as he scanned Shikamaru's body. The black network he'd glimpsed spilling out of control and into chaos along Shikamaru's chakra pathways had all but vanished, returning back to its lazy meander.

What the hell was that? He didn't even seem conscious of it.

And Neji had never seen chakra coagulate so strangely only to liquefy back into a state of idle circulation. It confounded him. But stronger than his confusion was his concern.

Think clearly. Respond, don't react.

Every logical response instructed him to push Shikamaru back. He braced himself to do just that only to find that he couldn't. The orders to create distance wouldn't compute and he hovered in a state of paralysis until, by some instinctive volition, he raised a hand and let it hover at the base of Shikamaru's spine.

Hesitating, he breathed a cool stream across the Nara's temple. "Shikamaru…"

Shikamaru flinched and let out a tight, choked sound, the tendons in his neck stark and straining. The muscles in his arm tightened to a violent bulge. Neji flicked his gaze down to the scant space between them. Shikamaru's yukata had caught and slanted to one side, bearing a segment of heaving chest and trembling torso that glistened in borrowed light. His ragged pants shattered out against Neji's throat, louder than the rain against the glass.

"I'm not…" he rasped, over and over. "I'm not…I'm not…"

Not? Not what?

Something told Neji that now wasn't the time to voice that question – or any question for that matter. An interrogation spelled disaster. He'd done enough damage just by pushing an avoidant personality like Shikamaru into a confrontation he thought he could control.

A stroke of arrogant genius, wasn't it? Neji's mind taunted. Kami, you fool.

Evicting the self-derisive thoughts, he drew from a deep reservoir of calm. But he didn't have to wait long. Shikamaru's breaths steadied fast, the quiet chant of his words tapering into mouthed whispers against Neji's throat.

'I'm not…'

Slowly, with infinite care, Neji stroked his palm up Shikamaru's back, following the groove of the Nara's spine, dragging over blood red fabric, skimming over a bared shoulder-blade until he reached Shikamaru's nape.

He squeezed gently. "Shikamaru…"

Shikamaru's body slackened at the touch, the air gushing from his mouth in another hot rush. His shoulders pulled up defensively but he didn't struggle. Instead, he smacked his other hand into the wall beside Neji's head, shuddering once, putting all his weight onto his arms, keeping their hips apart.

However unconscious, that was probably a smart move.

Neji frowned, hearing the grind of wood and crackle of paper. He shot a glance at the still-buried hand. He needed Shikamaru to take the pressure off it.

Neji pressed the shadow-nin's nape again. "Lean into me…" he said quietly.

Shikamaru dropped his brow to the crook of Neji's neck, sucking in a long, deep breath through his nose. He didn't press forward any further, but he didn't pull back either. It left Neji at the knife's edge of a decision he didn't want to make; a choice of whether to take control or let everything unfold unpredictably, one agonising ripple at a time.

Instinct screamed at him to take control.

Control.

Gods, he'd lost it completely by coming here, by remaining here and by letting Need overrule Necessity. It went against every rule he'd needed to put into place. But even the most hard-wired and deep-seated of his needs were overruled by something stronger.

The need to 'stay in control' taken over by the need to just…

Stay…

Neji squeezed his eyes shut, trying to fight off all the fears that word inspired. Clenching his teeth, he turned his mouth against the familiar zigzag hairline, his fingers stealing up from Shikamaru's nape to caress the Nara's head.

Enough thinking. Do something.

Do what? Push Shikamaru to the same edge that the shadow-nin had pulled him back from?

Leave him alone. That's what you need to do. Let him forget…

What a cruel punchline to the irony – walking away again not because he'd stopped caring, but because he cared too much.

Far too much…more than I –

"Shit…" Shikamaru whispered suddenly, startling Neji out of his thoughts.

He ducked his head to show he'd heard, nudging Shikamaru's cheek in an attempt to draw the Nara's chin up. "Talk to me, Shikamaru."

Nothing.

Neji held his breath, ears ringing as he strained to catch a reply that wasn't going to come.

Damn.

Fingers of tension gnarled in his stomach. Predicting silence, Neji jolted when Shikamaru let out a broken, shaking chuckle, following it up with a belated wince and a reflex twitch of his arm. Wood groaned and clattered beyond the panel.

Shikamaru grunted. "How troublesome…"

Stunned, Neji let out a sudden breath at the soft catchphrase. But the cold grip in his gut didn't leave him; because despite Shikamaru's fractured attempt at humour, Neji could feel the flex and flinch of every muscle bunching in the shadow-nin's jaw.

Bodies don't lie.

Neji's eyes softened. This much at least was predictable about Shikamaru. He was trying to recover his chameleon act, regroup his senses.

Regain control.

Had Neji not understood the nature of control and the need to defend and cover oneself from every possible angle, he might have felt at a loss. But all he felt was an overwhelming compulsion to protect. And it had nothing to do obligation, orders or objective thought. It felt instinctive, innate, inescapable.

That's not my right, or my role.

His role right now was damage control.

How appropriate…

Searching for the fastest way to secure the situation, Neji followed Shikamaru's lead, latching onto the lifeline of humour. He touched his mouth to the Nara's ear, measuring his words before speaking quietly.

"Not your smartest move."

"No shit," Shikamaru muttered, his voice muffled against Neji's shoulder. "Add this to the vandalism tally…"

Neji arched a brow, then recalled his earlier 'breaking and entering' tactic. Honestly, he couldn't care less about the property or reimbursement costs. That was a matter easily fixed – there were worse things damaged here.

The scrape of smashed agarwood sounded louder beyond the ruined panel, grinding with the movement of Shikamaru's fist as he flexed his fingers experimentally.

"Yeah…" Shikamaru winced. "That's all kinds of broken…"

"Your hand?"

"That too."

The dry response didn't distract Neji from the shake in Shikamaru's voice; like his body was still reeling from the scream he'd let out. Neji knew he'd be hearing its echo for weeks to come – along with all the words attached to its pain.

"Some things belong in the shadows…"

What things? What was he hiding from? The questions brought back the image of Shikamaru thrashing in the water, ripped up with fear yet holding himself under all the same.

Why?

Neji had seen the Nara's heart racing, had seen through skin and muscle to the panicked, beating core.

What the hell is haunting you, Shikamaru? And why now?

The questions sent chills crawling along Neji's spine, provoking an even more disturbing thought. Had the brutal exorcism of his own past and its demons resulted in the resurrection of Shikamaru's?

"Thanks to you I've got 4AM nightmares down to a fucking art…"

The air swelled in Neji's lungs, holding tight. He almost jumped when he felt the gentle pressure of Shikamaru's hand at his hip, followed by the soft tap of the shadow-nin's thumb, beating out a familiar rhythm.

Neji translated the message in the touch: breathe.

Sadness and the weight of memory crashed through him and the tightness in his chest reached his throat. He felt Shikamaru's lips skim along his jaw, settling at the pulse-point.

"Troublesome…"

Neji swallowed roughly, his pale eyes drifting shut. "Very."

Keep looking...

Neji scoured the kitchenette, searching shelves by the light of a single wall-lamp. The ambient but annoyingly dim glow had frustrated his efforts, or a least he'd blamed it on this, rather than the influx of thoughts and warnings distracting him, snatching away his focus.

Leave. Leave now.

Shaking his head, he kept up the manual method of searching, refusing to use his dōjutsu. Delaying gave him time to think, time to assess.

Time to focus.

His fingers closed around a neat box tucked behind a bag of animal crackers. He tugged it free, glancing over the first-aid label. Mission accomplished, he turned to follow the sound of cursing and the scent of coffee, all the while preparing himself to assess the damage on the other side of the bedroom door.

Sliding back the panel he came to stand in the doorway.

Shikamaru sat on the futon, staring down into his coffee cup with a troubled expression. A few dark strands had escaped his high ponytail, framing the tense slant of his jaw like sharp, black brushstrokes. His yukata slanted haphazardly across his chest, baring a rigid clavicle and slice of bare chest, which rose and fell in a controlled rhythm.

His injured hand rested on his thigh.

Neji's eyes followed the drape of the yukata robe, tracing over the sculpted lines of thigh and knee, lower down to the taut calf, the muscle flexing in an agitated twitch.

Focus.

Neji blinked from the distracting direction of his thoughts and concerned himself with the matter at hand – literally. His attention switched to Shikamaru's injury.

Get this done fast.

It began with a mindless, moronic question that came out so automatically he congratulated himself on the ability to ask it without making a face.

"Are you in much pain?"

Shikamaru shot him a flat, hooded look. "No, Hyūga, it feels really good."

Neji stared back, refusing to feel foolish. "On a scale of one to ten."

Shikamaru's brow arched. "One being really good?"

The smile that threatened Neji's lips died at the corner of his mouth, a faint twitch that went unseen in the dim light. Both shinobi went on staring for a moment longer. Then Shikamaru blinked, breaking contact in the same way he had earlier.

He averted his gaze back to his coffee.

The original question went unanswered, leaving Neji to draw his own conclusions. He guessed the pain was either tolerable or too troublesome for Shikamaru to get expressive about without involving a third party. Shikamaru had ruled out the option of waking up Ino for a quick-fix.

Too troublesome, he'd said.

Neji guessed he was referring to the interrogation he'd receive in lieu of a no-questions-asked treatment. Shaking his head, the Hyūga slid the door shut and closed distance, ignoring the tic in Shikamaru's jaw, focusing instead on the shadow-nin's current state of monoplegia.

"Hold it up," Neji instructed, crouching down and setting the medic-kit on the bed.

Shikamaru propped his elbow on his knee and raised his injured hand without glancing up. Neji gripped the Nara's wrist with care, Byakugan veins creasing his milky eyes. He scanned the injured hand in a slow track. He'd already hypothesized a fracture or two, but no nerve injury.

He was lucky.

For all Shikamaru's grumbling about expensive damaged property it was thanks to the reinforced lacquer and limber of the agarwood that the shadow-nin had dodged the risk of injuring a nerve from smaller, more sinister splinters.

"Your nerves are fine, as are the phalanges. No sunken knuckles."

"Good to know."

"You have hairline fractures on the third and forth metacarpal bones."

"Great."

Neji brushed his thumb over Shikamaru's wrist, a completely innocent and inadvertent touch. He felt the pulse jump and sensed Shikamaru's fingers tightening around the mug he held in his other hand.

"I'll need you to make a fist."

Shikamaru flexed his fingers out with a frown then folded them into a loose ball. Neji watched the bones work and checked that the fingers curled correctly without overlapping. No problem there.

"Its fine," Shikamaru muttered, lidded eyes straying up when Neji's fingers traced the bones at the back of his hand. "I'll get Ino or Sakura to glow green on me in the morning."

Neji blinked, the pinched skin around his eyes smoothing out again. He set about binding the shadow-nin's hand, a task he did with mindless precision, having done it countless times in the past with his own hands.

Shikamaru sipped at his coffee, taking intense interest in the black contents. The aroma wafted between them, warm and heady. But it didn't disguise the smell that Neji had caught earlier.

"You've been smoking again."

Shikamaru shrugged, swirling his coffee. "Asuma."

Neji raised a mental eyebrow, not believing it for a second. He finished binding the Nara's hand and set down the medical kit. The 'click' of the case sounded intrusively loud in the quiet room.

Shikamaru set his hand on his thigh, flexing his thumb with a scowl.

Neji studied the annoyed look and his lips twitched without carrying the smile he'd intended for his next words. "If it's any consolation, I'm certain you'd have dislocated my jaw."

Shikamaru paused and looked up. "Too bad I can't take consolation from knowing someone else almost did."

Neji's face tightened.

The comment struck a too-tender nerve.

He tried to ignore the meaningful glance Shikamaru set on his bruised jaw. Refusing to react, an expressionless mask settled across Neji's features. But his mind pounced on the reminder of his earlier defiance with Hitaro and what it had cost him. The pain he'd been ignoring gave a sudden warning twinge in his lower back. His kidneys ached and nausea rippled through him. Nothing registered on his face, features smooth and controlled.

Shikamaru hummed, the nonchalance in his voice cancelled out by the calculation in his eyes. "Who were you sparring with?"

Neji said nothing but his jaw hardened. He shifted his focus towards the window briefly, watching the rain dribble down the panes. For a long while Shikamaru simply gazed, his brows eventually drawing together in a soft crease. It was a look of concern Neji had framed in his memory, along with all the subtle nuances of Shikamaru's expressions.

"Don't look at me that way, Nara," Neji sighed. "It's none of your concern."

Shikamaru's brow flicked up. "Says the voyeuristic hypocrite who Rock Lee'd his ass through a wall straight into my business."

Taken aback by the quick comeback, Neji snorted, stumped for a reply.

He looked away again.

Damn it.

Shikamaru offered a crooked smirk. "Great. If I'd known that'd shut you up, I coulda saved myself a load of trouble." He held up his bandaged hand for emphasis.

Neji tried not to react, grappling for control of his face before his mask slipped. The stoic look cracked at the corners of his mouth, which betrayed a faint twist. Not quite a smile. It ghosted away when he looked back to the dark eyes observing him.

"I acted rashly," Neji uttered, reluctant to admit it. "And I had reason to."

"Oh yeah?" Shikamaru challenged, eyes hooding warily. "That the same reason you were watching me?"

Neji's lips tightened, body slanting back and defences rising up. It did nothing to ward off the glaring spotlight that Shikamaru's words shone on his weakness. His greatest weakness. But he couldn't deny it.

"You know my reason."

Shikamaru looked down, swallowing hard before throwing his hand up between them as if to swat away the words. "I don't know shit when it comes to your reasons, Neji. Figuring out your mind almost cost me mine."

"Almost?" Neji returned, ruthlessly checking his pride, struggling to keep his voice both calm and controlled. "That's not what it looked like from where I was standing."

Shikamaru snorted and pushed to his feet with a rueful chuckle, forcing Neji to rise in a fluid, backward stride. He watched the Nara drift across the room, dangling his mug between long, olive fingers before setting it down on the ornate dresser to the side of the window.

The decisive 'chink' of the ceramic rang loud.

"From where you were standing," Shikamaru parroted, scorn lacing the slow drawl of each word. "Where was that again? Behind the invisible line you decided to leap and bound over?"

Neji took the verbal strike without reaction. But inside, the sarcasm stuck hard, more for the fact that Shikamaru had that unerring, unflinching ability to remember Neji's words and twist them around into recycled weapons. It drove the barbs deeper.

The Nara's lip curled wryly, sourly. "Reason for crossing that line? Old times sake? Or are you that much into pain?"

Neji tensed as the words sliced into his pride – and less guarded places. Even so, he made a show of bringing his hands calmly to his sides. "You know my reason."

"Not really."

"Just as you know that I didn't do it to end up here trading insults with you."

Shikamaru rasped a bitter laugh, angrily raking the stray strands of hair away from his face, cocking his hip against the dresser. "What? Met your daily quota already, Hyūga?"

Neji's lips flattened. "You've enough venom for both of us at this point."

"Venom?" Shikamaru echoed, his brow cutting up almost cruelly. "I'm pretty sure you're the one who got the brodifacoum booster."

Oh how easy it would have been to latch onto that. Neji's spine tightened dangerously, his pride screaming at him to take the bait and beat Shikamaru bloody at this bitter game. Gods knew he could take the Nara down a few pegs, bring them onto a playing field he'd have had no problem violently conquering in the past.

No.

Neji pulled on the air and exhaled calmly, purging his body of the toxic violence in a single breath.

Shikamaru smirked at the display of calm, his eyes hard. "Congratulations, Hyūga. What'd that cost your pride?"

The sarcasm rolled off Neji's defences like smoke off steel. He gave Shikamaru a long, level look before speaking softly. "And what was the price you paid, Shikamaru? Did you trade in your peace in hopes that I'd find mine?"

Shikamaru's eyes averted so fast his head followed the movement, turning his face away to hide what played across his expression. He brushed his fingers over a row of tiny glass bottles lined up on the dresser next to an oil lamp.

"Peace, pieces..." he muttered distractedly, hooking bottles between his knuckles to move them around like Shogi pieces, changing the arrangement into a square. "That's what we deal in, isn't it?"

Neji gazed silently, words hovering on his tongue but he swallowed them back. His silence drew Shikamaru's gaze, the sidelong glance shuttered and shrewd – but something less defined flickered just beneath the surface.

"Quite a team, aren't we? I'm calculated and you're controlled." Another dance of his fingers and the bottles were back to their original arrangement. "We have a riot with this game, don't we?"

"That's not true."

"Bullshit!" Shikamaru bit out, eyes flashing, a sweep of his hand sending the bottles crashing to their doom. "Our fates are fixed in this!" He whirled on Neji and laughed in sardonic amazement. "You're a goddamn liar and so am I. How's that for your precious progress Hyūga? It doesn't get more backward than this."

Neji said nothing in his defence, which caused his pride to rip him up one side and down the other. But there was more at stake here than the pride that had almost killed him.

And as painful as it was to sacrifice said pride, the silent tactic worked.

Shikamaru stared in bitter amazement, emotion scudding across his face in a shift too fast to be placed; something close to anger overthrown by alarm and anxiety straight back into anger again.

Good.

Neji understood anger, kept company with it often enough. He knew how to entertain it, feed it, play host to the rage. Knowing this, he gazed with nothing but calm understanding, taking a moment to string together words that Shikamaru wouldn't take, twist and turn into weapons.

I know what it is to fight…and why you're doing it…

Neji shook his head sadly.

"For all the lies between us, Shikamaru, none are more insulting to me than the truths you've twisted," Neji intoned, continuing on when Shikamaru remained silent. "And I would be angry, if I didn't know you were so afraid."

The reaction was instant.

Shikamaru's eyes rounded in a startled flash, the muscles in his throat pulling hard. Neji took in the panicked response with a tender ache behind his ribs. He didn't let it betray itself in his eyes and continued to watch the shadow-nin with unreadable stillness.

Threatened by that stillness, Shikamaru retreated from it.

He gravitated away from the dresser, pulled to the shadows in the corners of the room, passing into and out of their dark curtains in slow steps, rubbing his palms across his lean cheeks.

Neji watched him, the epitome of control if not calm. The urge to do something was maddening. But at this point, his words had hopefully spoken louder that any action he might have taken.

Wait it out…

And he did. Patience took root and he watched Shikamaru make two aimless orbits of the room, which eventually ended back at the futon. It was here that the shadow-nin turned and sank down onto the edge of the bed, shaking his head.

Neji waited a beat before turning towards him, testing the tension.

Shikamaru reacted by stonewalling any chance of a confrontation. He closed his eyes, propped his elbows on his knees and passed his hands across his face, sighing heavily into the cup of his palms. While he gazed forward, Neji could tell from his glazed stare that the direction of his focus had turned inward.

A scatter of wind and rain against the glass broke the spell.

Sniffing, Shikamaru shook his head and reached higher up to dig his fingertips against his hairline, thumbs pressed at his temples as if he could pierce them.

Neji could only guess at the speed at which his mind was racing.

A mile a minute…as always…

The stress rolled off him, louder than the growling storm.

And Neji stood in the centre of it all, utterly calm in the face of something that whipped around the edges of his control like a cyclone, pulling him back and forth in a tug-of-war battle between standing his ground and closing distance. There was no reconciliation to be found in the polar feelings the shadow-nin stirred up in him.

The final tug came when Shikamaru lifted his gaze.

Neji's breath hitched.

Those dark eyes gazed directly at him, glistening like lacquered ebony.

Neji moved without thinking, one long stride putting him within reach. He lowered to one knee, bringing himself at eye-level with Shikamaru. The Nara's hands dropped limply to hang between his knees, dark eyes tracing over Neji's face.

Neither shinobi spoke.

They studied each other in the silence and time lulled into a kind of eerie stasis. Across the room, the steam wafting from Shikamaru's mug began to cool, dissolving into nothing. Outside, the roll of thunder receded and the crash of rain on the veranda faded beneath the synched thud of heartbeats and the hum of blood.

A lick of lightning reflected off Neji's hitai-ate.

Shikamaru's eyes drifted up at the same time his bandaged hand lifted. He traced his fingertips across the cold steel of the hitai-ate, thumb hooking beneath the metal plate, tugging upwards.

Neji stiffened.

Shikamaru caught the reaction and redirected his touch, sweeping a callused thumb underneath one moonstone eye, then down along the high ridge of Neji's cheekbone to the corner of his mouth.

"I don't need your reason," Shikamaru husked. "And I don't ever wanna know."

Neji blinked slowly to show he understood.

A sad smile touched one corner of the Nara's mouth. "What the hell does that make me? A hypocrite?"

Neji inclined his head into Shikamaru's touch, a faint tilt of his jaw. "Human."

And that was enough. Enough to feel the shift in Shikamaru's breathing. Neji leaned up at the same time Shikamaru leaned forward, cinching their foreheads together as they'd done countless times in the past. Breaths shuddered out in tandem, warm and wordless but speaking louder and truer than violence or venom ever could.

They gripped each other's napes, anchoring themselves close.

Almost too close.

Shikamaru's body locked, as if to keep him from falling forward. But nothing could keep Neji from falling back – back into a feeling he couldn't fight. It rattled the chains around his heart, made him believe he could break all bonds but for the one holding him here.

How can I be chained to you…and still feel free?

And then he felt Shikamaru's fingers slip down, kneading innocently before dipping beneath the neck of his yukata, following each vertebrae until the destination occurred to Neji seconds too late.

They dragged over his chakra-charged blind spot.

The reaction was instant. Pleasure bloomed and rolled across Neji's shoulder-blades and down his back, crumbling through bruised muscles and swirling across skin like dust and ashes threatening a burn.

Neji clenched his teeth, arching back with a hiss.

Shikamaru's breath played across his mouth. "Tell me you feel that…"

Gods above, he felt it.

It fed that primal yearning deep in the pit of the Hyūga's stomach, threatening to whet an appetite too ravenous in its need to be so easily controlled.

Control…

Neji shook his head and pulled a slow breath through his nose, opal eyes fluttering open to half-mast. "Don't push me, Shikamaru," he breathed back.

Shikamaru growled against his lips, fingertips back at his nape, digging in hard. "Just tell me you feel it."

Neji tensed at the rough edge in his voice. He drew back, aiming to search the Nara's eyes. He didn't get a chance to glimpse what was standing in them. Shikamaru's lashes came down, like a door slamming in Neji's face, cutting off access.

"Don't hide from me, Shikamaru."

"Tell me you feel it."

Neji cocked his head, grazing his thumb along Shikamaru's jaw, tipping the Nara's chin up so their lips nudged. The faintest touch, but the second their mouths brushed Neji felt Shikamaru's breath catch hard and shiver out.

"Feel it…" Neji murmured, gazing through his lashes. "Or feel you?"

Shikamaru didn't answer.

Confusion and concern washed Neji cold, dousing the heat in his blood. He blinked, drawing his head back questioningly. His body was shaken up with tension and arousal, the air so thick with both it felt like electricity dancing across his skin.

How can you ask me if I'm feeling this?

He didn't have time to voice his thoughts. Shikamaru flicked his lashes up, the half-twist to his lips both cynical and weary; but the look was diluted by the sadness in his gaze. And it was the sadness that had Neji's eyes widening in comprehension.

"That mind of yours…" He grazed his fingers along the prominent ridge of Shikamaru's cheekbone, following the fading scar. "Do you think you're going to wake up, Shikamaru?"

Shikamaru turned his head away, closing his eyes.

Neji ached at the reaction. He swallowed the tightness rising in his throat and grazed his lips over the shadow-nin's exposed ear, warming the cool stud embedded in the lobe.

"This isn't a dream. Look at me, Shikamaru…" Neji whispered. "See me…"

Shikamaru's body tensed against a shiver and Neji hooked his thumb behind the shadow-nin's jaw, feeling the stutter of his pulse.

Bodies don't lie…

Shikamaru's breath halved, his words below a whisper not meant to be heard. "I always see you."

Neji face twisted with pain. Longing and understanding welled up inside him, spilling like blood through the cracks breaking into his heart. "But you don't always feel me, do you?"

Shikamaru shook his head, a tight sound catching behind his teeth. "Don't, Neji."

"Don't what?" Neji dropped his lips to the hollow of the Nara's throat, pooling his breath into the shallow dip that deepened when the shadow-nin swallowed. "Make it real?" He grazed his teeth along a bared collarbone.

Shikamaru hissed and the sound shot sharp, dark arousal down Neji's spine. Addictive, undiluted cravings began to itch in his blood, screaming for the hard hit of an antidote that came from the same poison. That drug-like desire just the smell of Shikamaru's skin lured him towards.

Even my memories of you…are just ghosts…compared to this…I want it real...

Neji grazed his lips along the straining tendons in Shikamaru's throat. He mouthed slow phantom kisses up each side of his neck, caressing the skin into a flush with nothing but the damp roll of his breath and pinch of his lips until he heard the Nara panting through his nose.

Neji growled at the quickening breaths.

I want it...

And then he felt it.

Desire. Need.

They surged up inside him, flooding his system in waves of thick heat, pulsing warm honey into a hard throb between his legs. It devoured fear, threatened to sear away conscience and control, set aflame a carnal, dominant, blistering need.

I want you burning beneath me.

Neji's mouth stilled, teeth bared against the underside of Shikamaru's jaw, the tip of his tongue dragging a hot, wet slash across the pulse point.

"Shikamaru," he purred, caressing each syllable in a deep, sultry rumble. "God knows I'm going to make you feel this…"

TBC.
- 10
- 11
- 12
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On The Cusp