Adult-FanFiction.org : Naruto

An Interlude of Bears and Insects	By : GrizzlyTeddyBear Category: Naruto > Het - Male/Female Views: 937 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don’t own Naruto, and this makes me sad. It also means I make no money from this venture. Naruto belongs to Misashi Kishimoto.

Chapter List
- 2
- 3
- 4
Authoress Pre-ramble:
And here is the big reveal! This
interlude is where I’m smashing the two worlds of Paige Stone and CasaHouse’s
Drake into one. Now this will mean that
not everything adds up from Reading
Totems. I know. Please don’t think I don’t know. I hated the idea of going back and rewriting
a fic that works perfectly well on its own.
So I left it alone. And our
collaboration also will work perfectly well on its own. This interlude is to familiarize everyone
with the new world created in the collaboration as well as taking a peak into
the lives of Paige and Shino and the possible future interactions with Drake.

A big “Thank you!” to
all of my readers and reviewers! And an
even bigger “Thank you!” to CasaHouse for the quickie betaing of the chapter
and the borrowing of Drake.

Title: An
Interlude of Bears and Insects
By: GrizzlyTeddyBear
Disclaimer: I
don’t own Naruto, and this makes me sad.
It also means I make no money from this venture. Naruto belongs to Misashi Kishimoto. I do own Paige Stone, my OC! All information regarding animal totems was
collected from Dancing The Wheel by
Sun Bear and Animal Speak by Ted
Andrews.
Main Pairings:
ShinoxOC
Rating: M for
mentioned adult themes
Warning: AU,
Post-series start time. Rookie 9 is
23-24 years old. Fic mentions pagan
religions, if you can’t handle it, don’t read! Also is OC-centric. Hold your pants, all will be revealed as the
story progresses.

***Chapter 3***

After the small amount of dust kicked up had disbursed and
Paige was sure the floor beneath her feet wasn't going to suddenly shift again
from another teleportation jutsu, Paige stood in what she presumed to be ANBU
headquarters flanked by her two masked escorts. She had had just enough
time to change into something more suitable than pajamas to meet with Ibiki
when they each grabbed an arm and she was told she was going. Unhappy,
was not the word for the mood the man-handling had put her in. Obviously
they either didn't know her, or didn't care who she was. Well, it was
time to fix that. Making a show of rearranging her
clothing, "Gentlemen! As much as I love to be gotten out of
bed at o'dark thirty and being immediately ordered around, I remind you that
this is a contract I entered into voluntarily with Ibiki and am under no obligation to maintain
this. Should another incident of such—impolite—nature occur, I will not
hesitated to terminate this agreement." As an afterthought she
added, "Oh, and I'm sure you've heard of my stunt I pulled in the council
meeting several months ago. I'll be sure to give your names to Ibiki for
reprimand." Even though she didn't know who exactly they were, she
didn't have to let them know...

Nervous

Paige allowed herself a small smile of satisfaction at the
small amount of fear she put into the two ANBU. Checking to see if her assumption that she
was standing outside of Ibiki’s office was correct, she felt his totem of Owl, made sure he was the only one
present in the room, and walked into the office. “Ibiki-san.”
She waited for a response and tried to project the image that she felt a
lot more comfortable in the man’s presence than she really was.

“Paige,” was the interrogators acknowledgement of her
presence. He hadn’t looked up from the
file he was looking at on his desk. After a few more seconds of awkward silence,
Ibiki closed the file and slid it across the desk towards the totem
reader. “This is the case we need
assistance on.”

Taking the file and giving the information inside a quick
once-over, she asked, “Why this one?” It
looked rather straight forward at first glance.

A slightly more than creepy smile lit up Ibiki’s face, “I’m
head of ANBU’s torture and interrogation squad, but that only helps after we
capture someone that has information. We
have a suspect, but I was unable to attain a confession.”

Paige grimaced slightly at the look of anticipation on the
interrogator’s face. “Creepy...” Looking over the information again, her
morning sickness tried to assert itself as she took in the gruesome details of
the murder. Swallowing back her nausea,
she looked back at Ibiki, “How would you like to start.”

“The suspects mind was blanked by a technique we cannot
dispel. We need to connect him to the
crimes with more than circumstantial evidence.”
He motioned her to follow him out the door.

Keeping pace with the ANBU shinobi, Paige tried to memorize
her way through the wandering passages, doorways, and stairwells. One thing was for certain…they definitely
kept going down. The press of her ravens in the back of her
mind also was becoming greater. Once she
had to steady herself against the wall at the images she was shown.

Ibiki waited until she had regained her composure and then
resumed walking. He did not ask her if
she was alright. He did not ask if she needed
assistance. He simply waited.

She volunteered information anyway. “That room we just passed holds a serial
murderer.” She shuddered. “He likes to keep a lock of hair from his
victims...red heads.” Paige swallowed
against more bile rising in her throat.

A small nod of his head was the only acknowledgement given
that she had been accurate. Moments
later, Ibiki stopped in front of a set of double doors and motioned Paige to
enter one while he opened the other.

Stepping into the small room, she noticed the one-way mirror
on one side and an ANBU standing in one of the corners of the room.

Lizard. Duty.

Paige let a small smile show and nodded her head at the
friendly presence of Neji in ANBU attire.

He motioned to the single chair in the room.

Taking the offered seat, she faced the glass which let her
peer into the next room and watched Ibiki work; a small speaker offered her the
opportunity to listen in as well. Paige
tried to be as objective as possible while she watched.

“Do you want to change your story?” Ibiki questioned.

The man, who looked like he’d been through a few rounds of
beatings, frantically shook his head ‘no’.
Fear. Dread.

“His fear is genuine,” Paige confirmed. She closed her eyes to concentrate on things
more. “It’s not…” She searched for the right words, “It’s not
forced or faked. He truly doesn’t know.” Trying to arrange herself in the most
comfortable position she could, she sank further into her connection with her
ravens to ask for any information on the case.

The images were intense.
Bodies were contorted at unnatural angles. Broken bones…cutting just to watch blood
flow. Paige tried to hang on to her own
sanity and her stomach. Trying to
separate her own reactions from the images she requested and those of the
victims’ from their messages, she narrated the events in a monotone voice. “He enjoyed the work. That’s how he viewed it too…work. It was his job to test the limits of the
human body to see how to perfect the technique.
He doesn’t know what technique though.
That was someone else.” She
paused for a moment before her eyes flew open and her hands covered her
mouth. “I’m going to be sick…” she
stated.

A small trash bin materialized in front of her.

Paige proceeded to lose her dinner from last night into the
bin. She attempted to spit out the
lingering flavor of bile when she was finished…but was unsuccessful. Continuing the reading, she announced in a
hoarse voice, “His name was Nobu. I
can’t find information on the technique used to blank his mind…the dead don’t
know that answer. But find Nobu, and you
find the technique.” She looked up at
the suspect, now identified as the perpetrator.
“That one is actually weak-minded.
Probably why Ibiki was frustrated on not being able to get the information
himself,” she added absent-mindedly.

A derisive snort was the response that came from the
direction of the doorway. “It’s more
than we had before. And it gives us the
victim’s perspective,” Ibiki stated. The
look in his eyes was almost one of approval.
He gazed turned to the trash bin in front of Paige.

“I’ll get used to it.
Next time, no puking.” She gave a
sheepish grin. Her stomach made another
drastic contortion. “Or maybe not. I need to go now. I’ll send any more information I get.”

A hand on her arm guided her to stand.

The next thing Paige knew, she was back in her house and Neji
had disappeared in another teleportation before the dust from the first jutsu
had cleared. Unfortunately for her, a
glance at the clock told her time had actually marched on, unlike the rest of
her sleepless night. It was now time for
her to make her appearance at the Konoha
Hospital’s Psychiatric
Wards. She grumbled as she walked towards
the bathroom to brush her teeth before leaving.

***

She was still grumbling when she walked out of the
hospital. According to all her
experience and education, there was no truly scientific reason that if you have
one person screaming on the ward, everyone starts screaming and acting
out. The only plus was that with all of
that agitation, she got to see if her staff were capable of the non-injurious intervention methods she
was trying to impress upon them. There
had been a few firings over Dai discovering some medic-nins not understanding
that broken bones were not conducive to mental health. Paige had raised a few eyebrows when she
chose to make her point about her techniques being effective by demonstrating a
few holds on the largest male shinobi she could find…and successfully kept him
immobilized.

Dai, however, just started laughing.

A small smile tried to eclipse the overall glowering
expression she was wearing as she remembered Dai’s comments on how she had
emasculated every male ninja that worked for her.

Ramen.

Paige spied Ichiraku’s ahead and altered her course home to
include a stop for ramen. Cooking for
one was just not practical…and it only served to remind her that Shino wasn’t
home to eat her cooking. The smell
actually made her stomach grumble in appreciation for once. There was some unidentifiable totem—very
strong—that caused her to hesitate slightly before pulling back one of the
flaps…and laying her eyes on one of the largest people she’d ever seen.

Giving her order of something she was pretty sure would keep
her stomach happy after taking a seat two stools down from the man, Paige took
the opportunity to study him…using all of her methods of observation.

He was just plain huge.
There was no other way to describe him.
He wore all black, including a black bandana. A glinting of metal drew her attention to the
hite-ate. The slightly stiff manner he
held himself spoke of the weapons he most likely had scattered about his vest
and large coat. Or maybe it was the
kunai protruding from his shoulder that was restricting his movements.

Concentrating slightly, she was puzzled that he didn’t feel
like he was being hampered by the injury at all.

Fire Lizard?

She held on to the edge of the counter as the force of his
totem again pushed at her abilities.
Little sleep and little food didn’t do much for her equilibrium…on any
front. Add in pregnancy to empathic mood
swings…and well, sometimes she wondered why people weren’t running away
screaming from her more often.

Paige smiled gratefully when her order was delivered and
gave a happy sigh after her first bite.

She contemplated the totem…fire lizard…her best guess was a
dragon. She’d look into it later.

Eyes slid towards her direction briefly before returning to
ramen. The newly identified dragon totem
holder appeared to be working on adding to a sizeable stack of dirty bowls.

The attention caused Paige to shift her own gaze back to the
large man with the kunai. This guy
needed his priorities straightened.
Feeling slightly snarky, she decided to break the ice in her typical
fashion. “You should get your shoulder
looked at,” she blurted out, gesturing towards the kunai. “It can’t be comfortable.”

His full gaze was turned on her. “I’m eating.”
He turned back to his bowl of ramen and proceeded to demonstrate. The voice that accompanied that man was just
as large as he was, but didn’t hold any anger, mainly indifference.

“You’re also bleeding,” Paige challenged.

Chopsticks were halted momentarily as he turned his head to
give his injury only slight consideration.
“I’ve had worse.”

“Uh huh,” was her only reply. She could believe it…but sitting down to
dinner with a kunai jutting out of your shoulder? Who did this guy think he was?

“Really.” He
scratched the top of his head in an absent-minded gesture of thinking. “I’ve kinda lost count of all of my
injuries.”

The gesture and feeling of nonchalance started to convince
Paige that maybe he had lost track of his injuries, but still! “You should go to the hospital.”

An eyebrow arched over a green eye. “Why are you so concerned?” Another empty bowl was added to the stack.

Their conversation was interrupted when Ayame delivered
another bowl of ramen to the tall man.
“Paige is always concerned about everyone,” she stated to him. She switched her attention to the mentioned
woman as she refilled her drink. “Have
you heard anything?” Her eyes held
concern mirrored by her voice.

Sighing, she replied.
“Nothing yet, but no news is good news when you consider everything.”

Ayame withdrew, leaving a slightly awkward silence behind
her.

Paige stirred her ramen absently then glanced over at the
large man again to find him looking at her with some sympathy.

“Boyfriend a nin?” He
was turned to face her now.

“Husband. And
yes. He’s been on mission for a while,”
she rubbed at her forehead tiredly. “And
I’ve gotten to run things at the clan by myself while he’s gone,” she mumbled.

“Who?” his brow was furrowed like he was trying to think of
who would match the information he was given.

“Aburame Shino.”

The ramen paused in its journey to its fate of being
eaten. “You’re an Aburame?” he gaped.

She gave an awkward mock-bow while still sitting on her
stool. “Co-head of clan, at your
service.”

He gave her a critical eye.
“You don’t have any kikaichu.”

Paige gave a mysterious smile. “Nope!”

“Then how do you…” he trailed off in bewilderment.

Taking the small opening offered by his confusion, she
launched herself off of her stool, grabbed an end of his long coat and tugged
the large man to his feet. “And if I
tell you any more I’d hafta kill ya! But
for now, I’ll settle for getting that shoulder checked out.” She shouted over her shoulder, “Put it on the
Aburame account, Teuchi-san!”

The ninja she was currently dragging gave a small start, but
allowed himself to still be hauled off when he turned and shouted, “I’ll pay
when I bring the bowl back!”

The short journey back to the Konoha Hospital
was probably amusing to the observer.
Paige Stone, all of 5 feet tall was dragging a man easily over 6 feet
tall by his coat through the streets while he ate ramen and had a kunai
sticking out of his shoulder. Once
inside the hospital, people were less covert and were blatantly staring at the
scene.

Paige dragged the now highly amused nin behind her while
ignoring the stares and made her way to the triage counter. “Hi Nami, I need a room for…” She turned around expecting the answer to
come from him.

“Drake!” answered Nami from behind the counter.

The totem reader’s head whipped back around. “You know him?” A small part of her mind confirmed her
suspicions on his totem being a dragon based on his name.

“Hi Nami,” replied the apparently well known Drake with a
wave and a smile. “How are the kids?”

Nami replied to Paige dismissively. “Everyone in this place knows Drake. I think your department is the only one he
hasn’t been admitted to.” She turned to
Drake, “What is it this time? And the
kids are fine,” she replied with an answering smile.

Drake pointed to his shoulder, “Kunai. One of my students was a bit more determined
than the rest.”

Chewing her lip slightly while checking some books, Nami
nodded her head. “Pretty minor this
time. I still remember that arm
reattachment a few years back.” She
shuddered slightly.

One mortified Aburame was left to try and comprehend that
bit of information. Wait…he was a sensei
at the academy??? Her thoughts were
interrupted by Nami.

“Looks like Room 116 is open.” She looked up. “Paige since you’re here, it’ll go quicker if
you escort him to the room while I go see who’s on duty for patch-jobs.”

Taking up the corner of Drake’s coat again, Paige dragged
him off towards Room 116.

For his part, Drake obediently let himself be hauled off
while clutching his bowl of ramen.

Once inside the room, Paige perched herself on the stool reserved
for medical staff.

Drake sat on the exam table.
“Why are you still here?”

Paige shrugged, “Figured the magical pull of Ichiraku’s
might try to convince you to leave before you get your shoulder taken care
of. I’m here to fight its hold on you.”

The large man snorted.

After a small amount of silence, she just had to ask. “Did you really get your arm reattached?”

“You work here. Read
my file if you don’t believe it,” was the reply.

At that moment a medic walked into the room carrying the thickest
file Paige had ever seen. And to top it
off, in bold black marker was the phrase “Vol. 5 of 5.” She grabbed it when the medic placed it on
the counter.

A low grunt drew her attention from the file towards
Drake. He had taken off his shirt to
give the medic better access to the wound.
Paige tried not to stare at all of the scars covering his upper
body. Ok, so maybe he did have some
experience at being at the hospital. Her
eyes wandered up and met the green-eyed gaze of the large man on the exam
table. Realizing she had been caught
staring anyway, she blushed slightly and started reading the synopsis while
Drake was being healed.

There were so many injuries listed! And towards the bottom…one of the first…arm
reattachment. She didn’t think her
eyebrows could go any higher. Paige
cleared her throat, “I have one question for you.”

Drake raised one eyebrow in invitation.

“If you’re such a good jounin, why don’t you dodge better?”

The medic giggled.

Drake scowled. “I've
found dodging to be counter-productive when placed between something sharp and
someone you're protecting.”

Paige turned back to the file. Moved to Konoha a few years
ago. He was married…to
TenTen. “TenTen normally is the one
dragging you in here, isn’t she.”

He had the sense to look a little sheepish and gave a
nervous chuckle. “She’s on mission too.”

She gave a smirk and a small nod to herself. Made sense that the weapon
mistress could handle him. Paige
sighed. His wife. Reading
about his marital status made her think about her own. Shino. Closing the file and replacing it on the
counter, she gave what she hoped was a convincing smile. “I guess it’s my time to exit seeing as how I
actually got you to take care of that shoulder.” Hopping off the stool, she made her way to
the door.

“Paige-san?” his voice called.

Pausing with her hand on the door handle, she turned
around. “Yes,
Drake-san?”

“You never answered my question,” he crossed his arms in
expectation, his shoulder now fully healed.

“Ah, well, you never finished asking it,” was her
comeback.

“I’ll be right back to have someone sign off on your
release, Drake.” The medic tried to
squeeze by Paige to leave the room.

The totem reader took advantage of the moment, slipping
mostly outside the room. Pausing just
before she closed the door, she poked her head back in. “The only thing I’ll volunteer is that even
though I’m civilian, I’m perfectly capable of handling myself against most
threats,” giggling to herself at his confusion, Paige shut the door to the room
and used her knowledge of back routes and corridors to evade being followed by
Drake. Engaging in conversations about herself without knowledge of his security clearance was a
big no-no that Tsunade, Ibiki,
and the entire Aburame clan had drilled in to
her. Sighing, she felt her previous mood
return as she once again headed towards Ichiraku
before heading home…she wanted to make sure Teuchi-san
charged the Aburame account.

***

Authoress’s Post-ramble: Tah dah! Anyone curious
about Drake should mosey over to CasaHouse’s page and
read his fic The
Code. I promise it’s a good
read. Besides, the more people pester
him to finish it, the sooner we can get our collaboration under way! Until next time, Happy Freakin’
Holiday of your choice!
- 2
- 3
- 4
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

An Interlude of Bears and Insects