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Break to Breathe	By : Okami-Rayne Category: Naruto > Yaoi - Male/Male > Shikamaru/Neji Views: 1959 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 2
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
- 44
- 45
- 46
BREAK TO BREATHE

by Okami Rayne

Chapter Forty Five

[Dedicated to Saiyanprincekills]

"I don't need chakra to tear you up."
Shikamaru's muscles turned to stone.
If there had been any air in his lungs, he'd have lost it. The blow of those words, from that voice, slammed straight into his gut and tore upwards through the frantic organ in his chest like a jagged blade.
Neji…
Against all sanity and sense came the immediate reaction.
Relief.
A nanosecond later came the immediate reality.
Panic.
Thunder exploded outside, as fierce as the adrenaline inside him.
He jutted his shoulder blades and pushed off his hands, trying to throw his weight back. It was ridiculous how easily Neji countered the movement. The Jōnin simply backpedalled without letting go, spun them once and slammed him back again.
The side of Shikamaru's face hit the wall with twice its prior impact.
Pain burst along his split cheek, into his ear and down along his jaw.
He made no sound. He couldn't. His lungs were already screaming.
But there was no air.
Those icy fingers flexed at his neck, tightening like steel around the chords in his throat, crushing any attempt to snatch a breath. With a choked hiss, he tried to snare the Hyūga's thumb to break the hold – but he couldn't get a grip.
Fuck!
"How does it feel, Nara…" those deep tones rolled low at his ear, perfectly calm, utterly disturbing. "To be caged in the grip of something you cannot escape."
There was no rise in intonation to suggest that was a question.
It was spoken like a detached observation and the hollow ring of the words left Shikamaru in no doubt about the possible outcome of this situation if he didn't react fast. But the pressure building in his head and behind his eyes was crippling his ability to think – or that was the complete lack of oxygen?
THINK!
In a desperate surge of panic, he rocked back again, kicking off the wall in a weak shove. Only this time he tucked his leg back and hooked a foot behind Neji's knee.
He pulled sharply.
Neji's leg buckled and the ground came rushing up.
Shikamaru twisted as they fell, landing hard on his side, lashing out with his elbow in a violent crack that struck bone. He heard Neji grunt. The grip at his throat dislodged, allowing him to roll away and onto his back, gasping like a resuscitated corpse, shuddering and coughing.
The air filled his lungs like acid, chest heaving, organs burning and set to burst like balloons.
But then the oxygen hit his system.
Adrenaline was a heartbeat behind.
Commands fired out from his brain like kunai.
RUN. MOVE. GO. NOW.
He scrambled to his feet, the world zooming and shrinking like a warped kaleidoscope as he groped along the wall, trying to get a grip on something blunt that he could swing.
Lightning offered a warning flash.
Neji's shadow hit the wall in a strobe flicker.
Shikamaru ducked just in time.
The side of the Hyūga's palm sliced through the air, grazing his ponytail as it smashed into the wall, spraying plaster.
FUCK!
Shikamaru staggered back, gulping air through his bruised throat. He rolled onto the bed and off the other side in a swift movement that put some distance between them, struggling to calm the panic tearing through him.
Lightning forked through the skies.
And like a ghost finding form, Neji materialised in the bright flickers of illumination.
Shikamaru's expression pinched.
Emotion crashed and tumbled and rolled through him, louder and crueller than the thunder as it shook the world. But he didn't move, he couldn't, he stood numb and paralysed by the look in those eyes.
Eyes as white as snow and twice as cold.
Neji shifted forward, the lethal grace in his body as unmistakable as the deadly way in which his gaze remained locked and lifeless; dispassionate and alarmingly calm.
Like an executioner.
Shikamaru's skin prickled at the cool scrutiny and he quickly traced his focus over the rest of the Jōnin, over the robes still stained with blood and ash.
A bitter resurrection from the last time Shikamaru had seen him.
What was even more disturbing was the fact that he'd come straight to the Nara residence. He hadn't even changed his clothes.
Shikamaru swallowed around the brittle rock in his throat. "Neji…"
No reaction. No shift in those cold eyes. Neji simply turned and rounded the bed in smooth, driven steps, forcing Shikamaru to spring to the other side again. Without breaking stride or expression, Neji simply turned on his heel and made to round it the other way.
They moved back and forth.
One stalling as the other stalked.
This is insane.
"Neji…" Shikamaru husked, holding up a palm. "Stop."
It was like waving a white flag into a cyclone. Neji clearly had no intention of stopping and he kept up the semi-circle of their movements near the bed, his sharp turns becoming more jerky and impatient with every orbit.
"Would you stop?" Shikamaru rasped, hopping backwards onto the mattress as Neji switched directions in a heartbeat.
"You walked me into a pipe-bomb."
The words were so unexpected that it took Shikamaru a moment to respond. He shook his head, blood trickling down from the gash across his cheek to run along the slant of his jaw. He shifted his weight between each foot on the bed, the springs creaking as his muscles tensed, body set to bolt at any moment.
"There was no way you wouldn't take that exit," Shikamaru explained, ignoring the pain it took to work his throat. "And I had a failsafe in that tunnel in case you didn't."
"How considerate of you," Neji uttered tonelessly. "However, you'll find your exits are barred, Nara…"
The Hyūga stopped abruptly at the end of the bed. Shikamaru tensed, watching as those crystal-cold eyes lifted. Their gazes locked; as fiercely as they had in the Hanegakure clearing.
Another brilliant flash lit the heavens, another roll of thunder rode the wind.
And then something so deadly calm it was twice as destructive as the elements.
Neji's voice.
"There is no exit from this."
Shikamaru bolted.
He moved so fast that the mattress didn't even spring.
Like lightning, the shadow-nin zigzagged, feinting right and dashing left, using a subtlety of movement his father had taught him; it had earned him more trial and error bruises than his body could catalogue.
Nara shinobi relied on it explicitly when pitting speed against superior strength.
Had Neji's Byakugan been active, it might never have worked. But the subtlest shift of Shikamaru's footing saved him a hairsbreadth from a crash. Neji swerved to avoid the doorframe and Shikamaru grazed the Jōnin like an arrow, shooting straight past into the black tunnel of the hallway.
He didn't get far.
Pain exploded in his shoulder blade.
The force of the blow pitched him sideways and he crashed into the wall, twisting and ducking as the heel of Neji's palm slammed into the brick.
SHIT.
Shikamaru surged up, his fist careening towards Neji's jaw. The Jōnin easily swayed and turned, slamming his knee into the base of Shikamaru's spine. The knock bowled him forward and he followed the momentum into a neat roll, coming up on his feet to veer out of the hallway and into the black cavern of the living room.
Ducking behind the couch, the shadow-nin hooked his arm back, fingers grazing his shoulder blade. His touch came away sticky with blood.
What the hell did he hit me with?
Shikamaru scowled, gritting his teeth against a hiss.
Tension thickened the air, crackling with violence, pulsing like a heartbeat.
Calm down. Breathe. Think.
Shikamaru remained crouched, drawing air inaudibly.
Even as he calculated, he was already assessing how many blunt objects he could use to his advantage. There was no way Neji's blood would be clotting normally yet. To come at him with the intent to draw it would be disastrous.
So is getting fucking murdered, genius.
The thought left him cold. As cold as the intent to kill; which Neji seemed willing to entertain, if the promise in his words and actions was anything to go by.
Speed. That's all you've got.
As far as brute force and raw power was concerned, Neji had the edge. Add the edge to his intention to use it and Shikamaru's options were rapidly narrowing down to possibilities that were dependent on how fast he could move or how the hell he could knock Neji's balance long enough to make a break for it.
He flicked a glance at the windows, trying to catch the Hyūga's reflection.
Keep distance and get the hell out.
Listening out for movement, Shikamaru inched his way across the room, keeping low. He had no idea how long Neji had been in the house, let alone which room the Hyūga had entered from. Not that it mattered at this stage, any entrance was an exit and Shikamaru needed to take it fast. He calculated the quickest route with the most obstacles between them.
He braced himself in a crouch.
Then set his hand on the edge of the table.
The entire surface of it slammed up towards his face.
FUCK.
Shikamaru jolted back, the wood almost grazing his jaw as Neji upturned the table in an angled kick. It flew sideways, crashing into the couch. The Nara scrambled back and gripped the base of the antler ornament that had tumbled across the ground. He flipped it over in his hand to strike with the blunt end and whipped to his feet, the flash of Neji's hitai-ate in the darkness giving away his position.
Shikamaru gauged distance and moved to strike on instinct.
Lightning arced outside.
Neji's eyes flashed like glowing opals.
Shikamaru's heart clenched and his aim changed.
The hit glanced off Neji's collar bone, avoiding the vagal nerve completely.
His hesitation cost him.
The flat of the Hyūga's palm slammed into his chest, throwing him across the room like a leaf hit by a gale. His spine struck the wall in a sharp crack and he dropped forward onto his forearm and knee, the air knocked out of him, winded and dazed.
"Pathetic," Neji stated, as harsh as his hit. "Aim for vitals, Nara, you ought to be good at that by now. I have no problem drawing your blood, so you'd best move to take mine."
Shikamaru scraped together a weak attempt at a breath and sucked it through his nose, shaking his head.
"I'm not gonna do that to you…" he wheezed.
Not again.
"Of course, you need a direct order for that, don't you?" Neji cut back, the smooth apathy in his voice almost giving way to a tremble. "I, however, require no permission for what I'm going to do to you."
Shikamaru shook his head sharply, trying to hear past the pounding hammer of his pulse, which spiked wildly as he caught Neji moving across the room in a predatory shift that was almost seductive.
"Although I'll spare you the manipulation you dealt me," the Hyūga murmured, flowing around furniture like an icy breeze. "Even I'm not that good an actor."
Shikamaru flinched at those words, anger warring with the pain pushing into his eyes.
"It wasn't an act," he growled, shoving to knees and onto his feet in a stagger, throwing his arm out against the wall to brace himself, flexing his fingers further along – searching for the light switch.
"No. It was just a game," Neji announced, rounding the other couch. "And now it's my move. I will not lose to you."
Shikamaru flipped the switch.
Nothing.
Fuck.
"Your shadows won't save you this time."
A muscle ticked in Shikamaru's jaw, his eyes slicing back and forth, searching the darkness. The shatter of rain broke endlessly across the windows, catching sparks of light from the storm.
Get outside.
He'd rather take his chances with the lightning than with Neji – as to which would strike faster, he could have hedged his bets either way. He edged along the wall, calculating distance and ways to keep it between them. But there was an unbearable ache building in his chest and it had nothing to do with the hit he'd taken.
"It wasn't a game," Shikamaru rasped.
"It was never anything else."
Another flicker of illumination and Shikamaru caught a flash of the face that had been haunting him for days. A brief glimpse of translucently pale and gaunt skin, pulled tight across the carved angles of a bone structure more pronounced than he'd ever seen it.
But that was nothing compared to Neji's eyes.
The opalescent glow was gone, leaving them hard and deadened.
Like lifeless stone.
"You killed me before this could."
Shikamaru stopped moving.
He pressed into the wall, suddenly unable to think or move even a step ahead; his eyes clenched shut against the sadness cascading through him, stronger than the panic in his blood, stronger than the pain in his body.
"You saw a weakness and you exploited it," Neji surmised in a toneless narration, closing distance at a slow, calculated pace. "Congratulations, Nara. I didn't see it coming."
"No…" Shikamaru shook his head against the brick, pain cramping along his spine and inside him. "That's not it."
"That's exactly it," Neji countered viciously, lunging.
Shikamaru dropped and rolled with a hiss, ignoring the flare of pain in his shoulder as he came up onto the balls of his feet and dashed for the kitchen. Neji cut him off, powering into him with an impact that slammed him clean across the surface of the table. He hit the floor in a crash of limbs and lacquered plates.
Ceramic sliced into his side and bit into his arm as he twisted around, wincing.
He heard shards crunch beneath Neji's sandals.
The steady pace exuded control and destruction. "Fight back, Nara."
Dragging himself away on an elbow, Shikamaru kicked out sharply at one of the chairs, sending it flying across towards the approaching figure. Neji's fist smashed straight through it, shattering wood like glass.
Shikamaru's eyes widened.
He grabbed the first weapons at his disposal and sent a round of lacquered plates sailing Frisbee-style in the direction of the footfalls. Not waiting for the outcome, he hunched forward, pushed to his feet and ran, holding an arm up to protect his face from the plate fragments that exploded around him like shrapnel.
Get out. Move.
Bursting into the living room, he hurdled over the couch and fallen table, moving towards the porch door. His shoulder struck the shoji panel in a crack that sent a painful jolt along his spine.
A plate shattered beside his head.
MOVE!
He tore open the door to the porch.
Rain slashed into him in ferocious sheets and the world beyond the house shook with thunder, ripped up by the streaks of white lacerating the sky.
Run.
The storm bellowed like a beast.
Shikamaru shielded his eyes, ducked his head and flung himself into its jaws.

The lighter snapped shut, flicked open, snapped shut, flicked open.
Over and over, a steady click in the unlit room, the darkness broken up by the lick of flame that disappeared and reappeared like a firefly sputtering in the black.
"Asuma…?"
The Jōnin paused with his thumb on the shiny case, his eyes drifting up from their blank stare at the rain streaking down the window. The lighter's flame wavered gently, turning the Sarutobi's eyes to bronze.
In the dim room, the woman who had spoken was cast mostly in shadow, giving Asuma a veiled impression of a tousled mane of dark hair, set off by the elegant drape of a pale silk robe belted loosely and flowing in a gossamer dance around long, shapely legs and bare feet.
I must have done something right, at some point, to deserve this.
He smiled as she approached. "Not smoking, don't worry."
Crimson orbs gazed back at him softly. "When you quit, it's always a cause for worry. What's wrong?"
Asuma's smile wavered. He flicked the lighter shut and set it beside his untouched pack of cigarettes on the table. Four days without a drag should've been fraying his nerves; maybe it was a good thing they were knotted with concern instead. But that wasn't the only thing keeping them together.
Leaning back into the couch, he reached up a hand without a word.
Kurenai smiled and laced their fingers, lily white digits tangling with bronze.
"Shikamaru," she said.
Asuma sighed and tugged her towards him. "I might just murder that kid."
"If you can catch him," Kurenai teased gently, sliding onto his lap to stroke her free hand up along the broad, powerful contours of his chest, kneading a tense shoulder. "He'll tell you in his own time, Asuma."
"How he'll manage that with my hands around his throat will be a miracle," the Jōnin grumbled, his voice gruff and sleep-hoarse.
Kurenai chuckled softly, the sound instantly warming him. He watched the kunoichi raise their linked fingers to her lips, brushing a kiss across his knuckles.
"With you stalking him like a ninja hound, its little surprise."
Asuma's brow knitted, his gaze straying over her face for answers. "Four days, Kurenai."
"I know," she murmured, curling their hands towards her heart. "What more can you do? You'll just have to trust him."
"Yeah, trust him to hightail it. He's got sneakier too. Wish I could be happy about that."
Kurenai smiled, squeezing his fingers. "I know you're worried about him."
Asuma sighed, thudding his head back against the couch, watching the rain play across Kurenai's skin. If only he could shrug his shoulders on this one. But the curdling feeling inside him was strong enough to curb his urge to smoke – that hadn't happened since his old man had died. Of all the things he had a tendency to avoid bothering himself with, there were some key exceptions to his laid-back rule and only a select few of them were people.
What's got you hiding, Shikamaru?
He'd checked every avenue in his mind and found nothing but dead ends.
Asuma knew that whatever it was had been troubling Shikamaru before the mission in Hanegakure. The way the young Nara had reacted to the team swap had been telling, not to mention the whole Nijū Shōtai business.
"Asuma?"
The soft call of his name drew him back from this musing. He gazed up quietly at Kurenai, raising his free hand to stroke a few dark strands away from her face. She cocked her head into his touch like a cat, smiling sleepily. Asuma smirked, tilting his head the other way.
"Ninja hounds. Not a bad idea really."
"Asuma…"
He wrapped a bronze arm around her waist with a wolfish grin. "I like how you think."
Kurenai scoffed, but her eyes were warm. "Well I think you might be losing your edge, Sarutobi."
Asuma arched a brow, a hint of mischief dancing in his eyes as he narrowed them in playful warning. "You do, huh?"
Kurenai walked her fingers quickly along his bearded jaw, up to his temple and across his brow in an imitation of running feet. "I also think your favourite student might just be able to outrun an old wolf like you."
Asuma's lips curved. He knew she was trying to distract him without dismissing his concerns.
Tightening his arm around her he hummed deeply. "Can you?"
"Hmn?" She paused with her fingers above his mouth.
Asuma snapped his jaws with a grin. "Outrun me."
Their gazes held for a beat, both homing in on each other, drawn closer by tendrils of attraction and affection and then Kurenai was up and running so fast Asuma almost crashed into the table in an attempt to catch her around the waist.
Like adults reduced to kids, the sounds of their chase filled her apartment, peaking with shrieks of giggles from the running kunoichi and lilting with the low, deep rumble of Asuma's laughter as he pursued her.
They tumbled into the game with their hearts on fire.
Outside, the storm churned and crashed.
And across the village, two hearts beat hard in a different kind of chase.

The Nara forest.
It was an inevitable escape, maybe the only escape.
The only exit.
Which is why Neji took a path that would cut across the running Chūnin, aiming to intercept him. He would not lose to the security of the forest, nor harm the deer to catch the shadow-nin they would undoubtedly protect.
Protect…
Neji's lip curled in a snarl and that vicious rage inside him tore the word to shreds.
He had no use for hesitation.
It would cost him the speed and the strength he needed now.
Unleashed, that dormant thing inside him had exploded into his veins, a rush of pure, unadulterated fury. It fuelled him now, turning his body into one ripple of predatory muscle. Every limb worked in-sync to launch him like a weapon into the night, cutting through the thick of the downpour like a blade.
He was closing distance faster than Shikamaru was creating it.
The Nara was falling back precious inches, whether by injury or lack of footwear it made no difference. Shikamaru would learn what it was to lose. For Neji, it was an inevitable win and he would take it with the same cold, detached sense of objective that Shikamaru had used to rope him down and cage him in like some lost pet that needed to be vaccinated and returned to the Hyūga household.
Bastard…
He'd been tamed with tenderness, just to be led into another cage.
Like a wild animal.
How fitting then, that he was hunting now.
He could make out the shadow-nin at this distance; he could see the smooth, slick planes of his back as the rain washed down his torn skin. The air was like ice. Neji hoped it was leaving the Nara as bitter as this chase was leaving him.
There is no room for feeling here…
He growled, launching forward, upping his pace.
He let the hot flood of anger crash through him and decimate that treacherous stir of emotion; emotion which had been breathed into him only to corrupt him.
Lies. A game. A mission. A means to an end.
And then the smallest whisper of a voice locked so far in the back of his mind that he barely registered it was there. A voice that wasn't angry, just achingly sad.
Why, Shikamaru?
The pain was explosive, but so was the rage that followed it and Neji devoured the final paces between them in a sudden burst of aggression that veered him straight into Shikamaru's side like a hammer to the anvil.
Something cracked.
Shikamaru choked out a cry that almost pierced the red mist in Neji's mind.
Almost, but not quite.
They struck the ground hard, crashing into the carpet of wet leaves and mud in a sickening squelch and slide. The rain-beaten earth churned beneath them as they struggled, the soil clinging like cloying fingers.
Another white rip scorched the sky.
Neji swung his leg across, straddling the body beneath him, jerking one of Shikamaru's arms and pinning the Nara's wrist above his head. The angle stretched the Chūnin's ribs and the strangled scream of pain that tore out of Shikamaru's throat was drowned out by the thunder.
Neji didn't hear it.
All he could hear was the roar of blood in his ears and the howl of the wind.
Lightning crackled and tore down in a jagged bolt a short distance away.
Neji's eyes narrowed and he rocked back onto his feet, jerking Shikamaru up with him.
He wasn't going to let a storm do the damage.
Dazed by the fall and whatever pain he was in, Shikamaru put up a weak attempt at resistance that Neji overpowered by herding him back towards the house. The same exit Shikamaru had taken became the entrance and Neji pitched the shadow-nin headlong into the room with a shove.
Shikamaru surprised him.
The Nara caught himself on one hand against the arm of the couch, pushing up and twisting round awkwardly. Neji caught the swing aimed towards his face and locked their wrists in a jolt before the blow could connect. The antler ornament gripped in Shikamaru's hand almost grazed the Hyūga's cheek.
"Hn." Neji glanced sidelong at the makeshift weapon. "Using the sharper end this time? It seems we're finally on the same page."
Shikamaru's face twisted with pain.
Neji told himself it was physical and that the look in those dark eyes was just a trick of the shadows and meagre light. He didn't dare focus too long on any aspect of the shadow-nin's features.
In the darkness, it was easy enough to do.
In the darkness, he didn't have to see Shikamaru's blood and bruises – they were as unseen as the raw pieces inside his own chest. Easy to deny and just focus on lashing out rather than face the pain it was causing and the blood it was drawing.
And then Shikamaru released the antler.
It clattered to the ground.
Disgusted, Neji shoved him back with a snarl. "Pick it up."
"No…"
Shikamaru banded an arm around his ribs and the bone-pierced skin, his body glistening with rain and sweat and something that would be red and rawer than both as he backed away, panting heavily.
"You made a fatal error if you assumed I'd let this slide, Nara."
"I never...assumed you would..." Shikamaru gasped out. "I never...expected you to..."
"Your words are ash on your lying tongue."
Shikamaru scowled, his voice strained. "I'll bet believing that makes you feel more in control."
Neji's lips cut upward mirthlessly. "Very clever, Nara. I'd expect no less from you. Using my values to manipulate me; it's not like it hasn't served you well."
"That's not true."
Neji hardened his expression and advanced. "No? Tell me again that you just followed orders. Suddenly a runaway coward like you decides to behave like a dutiful shinobi."
"No, that's not why I did it…"
Neji snorted, letting the anger snuff out the feeling; a dying flame in the cold chasm of his chest. He continued to advance, forcing Shikamaru down along the hallway back towards the Nara's room.
"Spare me your drivel, Nara," Neji spat, seething and bitter and something else beneath it all. "You knowingly jeopardized my chance to obtain what you knew I would give my life for."
"That's why I couldn't let you do it," Shikamaru rasped, stopping so suddenly that Neji halted in tandem, pre-empting a strike.
But the Nara made no move to attack.
He leaned into the doorframe with a gasp.
"Your life was more important than your final goal…" Shikamaru said, his voice thickening, roughening with emotion. "And more important than whatever I…" he cut off, shaking his head.
"Than whatever you what, Nara?"
Shikamaru closed his eyes, twisting his forehead against the frame as he struggled to work his throat. "I told you…if you need to hate me…then hate me..."
Neji's eyes narrowed. "How noble of you."
"There's nothing noble about it…" Shikamaru's lashes slipped open a little, revealing dark eyes that were oddly luminescent given the lack of light. "But I can still take you hating me…"
For a moment, the red mist swirling inside Neji's head seemed to thin and dilute into something less concentrated. Something less certain. Shikamaru met his gaze, the Nara's words dragging out on strained breaths.
"Because doing what I had to do…and thinking about what would've happened if I hadn't…both outcomes are the same…and that tears me up worse than you ever could."
Neji went rigid on the spot.
Unable to react, unable to think as those words cast around his mind.
Lies...
He grasped desperately for that reckless rage inside him, holding onto the need to punish and attack the one who had broken and betrayed him so deeply.
But the rage was slipping out of reach.
Slipping back between bars that didn't exist, because there was nothing to hold it now; no restraint, no control, no curse marks or chakra blocks. Gods, if the rage slipped away...then there would only be one thing left; the wounded thing in his chest that his anger was protecting.
The thing that should've been robotically beating, not breaking all over again.
No…
Neji's eyes widened.
Gods if he couldn't protect what was left of his heart, then what use had he for it?
He fell back a step, shaken up and torn down all at the same time.
"Neji…"
Shikamaru made the error of reaching for him.
And in a flash as sudden as the lightning, the rage was back, tearing to the forefront of Neji's mind to protect the part of him that might have responded to the touch, that might even have seen past the anger long enough to feel what was beneath it.
NO.
Neji snarled, driving forward to knock Shikamaru's hand aside and shove him back so violently that the Nara flew across the room and struck the bed in a bounce that would have thrown him off it again if Neji hadn't bore down on top of him.
Shikamaru cried out in pain and tried to band an arm around his ribs.
Neji, deaf to his pain and blind to his panic, pinned him ruthlessly.
Opal eyes frosted over callously.
"You enjoy tearing open my wounds, don't you, Nara?" he seethed in a voice as cool as liquid nitrogen, turning the air arctic with every syllable. "I think it's time I tear open some of yours."
Shikamaru's eyes widened, their moist sheen struck with a ripple of fear that calcified into stone-cold obsidian. He went very still and very quiet beneath Neji, staring up through eyes that were suddenly unreadable.
"Get off me, Neji," he said, his voice low and hard.
There. A scar. A wound.
The reaction turned Neji's eyes fiercer and he gripped harder, one hand at Shikamaru's throat, the other pinning the shadow-nin's left wrist while the right remained trapped under his knee.
"You're not the only one who can rip into scars."
"Get off me."
Neji leaned down, rainwater dripping from his bangs, splashing across Shikamaru's face, trickling along the sharp features hardened by a mask that failed to hide the truth. Fear. Fear beneath the hard fury. Neji could almost scent it. He adjusted his grip on Shikamaru's throat, arching his thumb to stroke along the Nara's jaw in a parody of gentleness.
"You said no one's seen you or touched you like I have," he crooned, his lips hovering close enough to Shikamaru's to know the shadow-nin was holding his breath. "Was that another lie, Nara?"
"Get. Off. Me."
"Was it? I think someone else beat me to it."
Shikamaru closed his eyes. "I'm not going there with you."
"Who was it?" Neji grazed their lips, his breath caressing Shikamaru's mouth like death's kiss, wraith-like and icy. "Who did you give that control to, Shikamaru?"
"Control…" Shikamaru growled, jerking his head away, eyes still closed. "It always comes back to that with you, doesn't it?"
Neji arched a brow, turning his head to keep his lips aligned directly above Shikamaru's in a chilly intimacy. "You should know. But then you already did, didn't you?"
Shikamaru's eyes clenched tighter.
Neji's fingers snapped up, tugging the Nara's chin towards him. "You knew and regardless of knowing, you ripped it away from me when I was at my weakest."
Shikamaru's eyes snapped open, flaring like hot coals. "That's not what happened!"
"Wasn't it?" Neji countered, his voice taking on an edge. "Tell me that being forced to 'cooperate' wasn't all that different from whatever happened to you."
The weapon of his words struck exactly on target.
Shikamaru bucked sharply, snarling against his mouth. "How the hell can you call that the same thing!"
"Is that what happened to you, Nara?"
As fast as Shikamaru's pained anger had exploded it shrank back to a controlled burn, blistering deep in those dark orbs. Neji felt the Nara's jaw clench in his grip and watched the chords of the shadow-nin's throat pull tight.
Only the thunder spoke, bellowing low as the rain shattered down.
Neji traced his eyes over the shadowed face beneath him, gazing intently. "What happened to you?"
Shikamaru swallowed thickly and choked out a bitter snort. "What, do you get off on the thought of it, Hyūga?"
"Answer my question."
"No."
"Who was it?"
"Go to hell, Neji."
"You sent me there already. Tell me…" Neji leaned down, almost touching their brows, feigning tenderness so bitter it tasted like bile. "Was it someone you trusted as much as I trusted you?"
Shikamaru's eyes clenched shut, his expression pinching sharply. "You want another reason to fight…I'll give you one…but not like this."
"You really don't need to give me another reason, Nara. Your betrayal has ticked all the boxes, I assure you."
"I didn't do it to betray you."
"Of course, because it wasn't personal, was it?" Neji drew his head back, tracing his lips along Shikamaru's torn cheek to settle his mouth at the shadow-nin's ear, the sultry murmur of his words as rich as spilt ink; tainted and black with threat. "However, I consider being fucked highly personal."
Shikamaru stiffened.
Neji smirked bitterly at the reaction. "Tell me, did the Godaime explicitly state that you should screw me senseless so I'd be foolish enough to think I could trust you? Or should I credit that manoeuvre solely to your brain?"
Shikamaru's breath shook out, his voice a rough whisper. "Neji."
The sound of that voice breaking on his name cracked the ice in Neji's expression, but he immediately hardened it, his eyes clenching shut as he dragged back the fierce armour of his anger, wrapping it icily around his words and face.
He would not be drawn in by this ruse of emotion.
Lies…
Neji drew back and slipped his eyes open to gaze down impassively, but his voice betrayed him, a hairline fracture running through it.
"You are an excellent strategist and manipulator. You played me flawlessly." He paused here, shaking his head somewhat incredulously as his thumb dug into the hinge of Shikamaru's jaw. "I'd be impressed, it if it hadn't been at my expense."
Shikamaru twisted his chin free in a sharp tug. "Did you ever stop to think why the hell I did it in the first place?"
"You said it yourself," Neji reminded, leaning down again. "Hokage's orders, which translates to using whatever means necessary. Yours was to rip down my defences in a way no one else has ever dared to. A callous but effective tactic."
Shikamaru's eyes shot open, glaring up with another hot rush of emotion. "It was never a tactic."
"You don't get to defend your motives, Nara."
"Like you'll listen even if I try…"
"Save your breath," Neji snapped heatedly, slamming Shikamaru's wrist down when the shadow-nin almost ripped it free. "You were ruthlessly seeing things through to the end, no matter the means."
"That's not true!"
"No matter the cost. And what did it cost you, Nara? Nothing."
Shikamaru shook his head sharply. "God, you're wrong…"
"Liar. You had nothing to lose. I had everything to lose!"
"Including your fucking life!" Shikamaru yelled hoarsely, his neck arching as he roared his strangled words against Neji's mouth, eyes brimming with pain. "You want me to say I regret not letting you die? Well fuck you 'cause that's not gonna happen!"
Stung and looking to sting back, Neji gave an acerbic snort. "Fuck me? A poor choice of words, Nara." He slid his hand down between them to grip Shikamaru's hip brutally. "Especially now that I have you beneath me."
A heartbeat after those words, it happened.
Shikamaru reared with a strength that took Neji by surprise.
It literally exploded.
The shadow-nin surged upward, throwing Neji's balance enough to free a hand, ball a fist and smash a punch so hard into Neji's jaw it drew blood and almost cracked bone, whipping the Jōnin's head back.
Snarling, Neji reacted instinctively to snare that hand and pin it high.
The angle pulled their torsos flush together and the Hyūga's thighs locked like granite around the Nara, as hard as his grip around those twisting wrists.
"Get the fuck off me!" Shikamaru yelled, thrashing so fiercely that the bed rocked and groaned.
Blood oozed from the wound at his ribs, cracked from Neji's earlier tackle. But the pain obviously didn't register, because he fought like a thing possessed. Like an animal caught in a snare, its life hanging by a thread.
Violent, desperate, crazed.
Neji stared down, completely shocked by the force of what was unleashing beneath him in blind panic and building rage. How the hell this kind of rabid fear and fury could exist inside someone like Shikamaru was beyond his capability to grasp.
Gods, what happened to you?
He could feel the chakra inside the shadow-nin blistering like hot oil, spitting and crackling and just needing the spark of light to ignite and release the shadows like a conflagration of black flame.
But Shikamaru was without his weapons, stripped raw with no defence.
Just like Neji had been.
The Hyūga should have felt vindicated.
But all Neji felt was a horrible agony spearing through his chest.
Like he'd rammed a blade through his own bleeding heart in order to rip into Shikamaru's; it was an excruciating kind of pain.
One he hadn't felt before.
The Hyūga held himself rigid, chorded muscles like marble beneath his skin. But watching Shikamaru thrash and fight, the anger in Neji was starting to crumble, breaking the ice in his eyes and the steel in his voice.
"Stop it!" he snapped, pressing himself firmly against the rabidly twisting body. "I'm not quite as callous as you in my methods."
Shikamaru continued to struggle, but the effort was drawing his breath thin and his blood thick. Neji continued to hold him down, waiting until the adrenaline bled out to the effort of sheer will. The strain of it pulled across the Nara's body, tearing some of his strength away – but to Neji's amazement he continued to fight, chest heaving, his skin slick from sweat, rain and blood.
"Sadistic bastard…" Shikamaru choked out against Neji's jaw. "If you're gonna kill me then get on with it!"
"What?" Neji sneered. "You want me to thank you instead?"
Shikamaru dropped his head back onto the mattress, shaking it savagely as his lip curled back, baring his teeth in a snarl. "I never wanted anything from you! That's the point!"
"You lying bastard. You wanted my guard down," Neji alleged flatly, trying to pull the plug on the horrible pressure and pain in his chest. "And you managed to do it. Commend yourself. You're the first to have achieved it…and God knows you will be the last. Never again."
Shikamaru's struggles grew less vicious, his breath snagging in shallow gasps, a terrible hurt crawling into his eyes. "Neji…"
"Maybe I should thank you," Neji seethed, desperately trying to reign in what Shikamaru's pain and panic had drawn out of him, the urge to protect what he was supposed to be punishing. "You did what I have been attempting to do for two months. Finally, for the first time, I feel nothing. Psychologically, I'm already ANBU."
Shikamaru stopped moving altogether. "Don't…"
"Does that hurt you? I couldn't care less," he hissed through his teeth. "Were you always that many moves ahead, Nara? Did you get so far as to predict this moment between us?"
"God," Shikamaru whispered shakily, his eyes filmed in a wet mist as the strain shook through him. "I never predicted what would play out between us…and I didn't take the chance to stop it…even when I realised something was happening…"
Neji stilled, lifting his head enough to glare down into those glistening orbs, ignoring the twinge they caused inside him. "Why?"
"I should have stopped it, every damn time…but I didn't…I couldn't."
"Why?"
Dark eyes squeezed shut again. "If you want revenge, you better hurry up."
"Answer my question!"
"Because I wanted you!" Shikamaru roared, his eyes flaring open, lashes wet but tears not falling. "I wanted you so damned much!"
Neji froze, staring down.
A furrow drove between his brows like Shikamaru's words through his heart. "Why?"
Shikamaru shook his head, fingers snapping into fists. "I don't know why! I don't want to know why. You were the one fucking thing I didn't wanna have to figure out!"
And like strings snapping inside him, Neji felt his fury collapsing. He gripped Shikamaru's wrists tighter, but it was a futile attempt to hold on. He was staring into eyes so swamped with pain it was making him forget his own.
No…
"No…" he whispered, shaking his head.
Shikamaru stroked his gaze over Neji's face and the way he did it was more potent than a touch, more tender than a caress. "I wanted you. Maybe I needed you. Whatever the hell it was I took what you gave me like a selfish bastard when you let me in. Stupid simple, right there."
Neji bit down so hard he could have crushed stone with his jaws. He screwed his eyes shut as he dug deep, searching for that fury, calling out for it, desperately trying to drag it forth to protect him from these lying eyes and brutal words.
"Shut up…"
"Wouldn't be the first time I told you I didn't know what the hell I was doing when it comes to you."
"Shut up, Nara…"
He tightened his grip at Shikamaru's wrists, feeling that pressure building, swelling, growing in fierceness and in force, only it wasn't anger, it wasn't rage.
"I tend to stop thinking—"
"Enough!"
"—and then I fuck up. That's how it is Hyūga. There's your answer! That's what you're not fucking hearing!"
"Because everything out of your mouth is calculated! A lie!" Neji bit back, his voice shaking.
The emotion inside him was at his throat, tearing into his voice.
Tearing into his heart.
But there was no more rage…no more anger…no more denial…
God why…why…why you…?
"Look at me, dammit! It was never a lie!" Shikamaru twisted his hips, trying to jolt Neji into opening his eyes. "It would be a hell of a lot easier if it was! A hell of lot easier if I was just like everyone else! Screwing you over and betraying you instead of giving a damn. I'm not your fucking clan!"
"EXACTLY!" Neji screamed – and it exploded out of him in a ragged, animal howl.
Shikamaru froze at the sound of it, at the devastating emotion behind it.
The truth beneath any lie ever created to protect it.
Neji's eyes shot open, the opal hues awash with a grief that burned and blurred his vision, his voice guttural and deep and breaking all the same.
"Did you ever stop to think that your motives would mean absolutely nothing to me, Shikamaru! Actions are what matter – what you do, not what you intend!"
The torture in his eyes caused Shikamaru's voice to crack. "Neji…"
Neji released the Chūnin's wrists, tearing back onto his knees, slashing a hand through the air to cut the other ninja off. "Spare me your good intentions, Shikamaru! I've been force-fed other's intentions all my fucking life! How dare you rob me of my own!"
Shikamaru remained rigid against the sheets, expression stricken, staring up through wide, wounded eyes.
And like a wall shattering in his chest, Neji could no more contain his words than he could the pain that was driving them; they spilled out of him in a torrent that ripped along every chord in his throat, drawing his voice into a husky, shaking roar.
Like the animal rage inside him was bellowing out its dying breath.
"The one time I decide to take my fate into my own hands, it's ripped away from me!" he shouted, grabbing the Nara's jaw to impress his next words with a broken snarl. "And it was YOU, Shikamaru! Not them, but you!"
"It was killing you!" Shikamaru yelled back, the tears turning his eyes to liquid black as he pushed himself up through the pain of his fractured ribs.
Neji rocked back, straddling Shikamaru's thighs, his body quivering with restrained power. "You did what I trusted you never to do."
"I had to, dammit!" Shikamaru choked out, grabbing the back of Neji's neck, pulling their faces close. "It was killing you…"
"No..." Neji's fingers dug in at Shikamaru's nape, meaning to pull him back, but only anchoring them closer together. "Being where I am, knowing it could be different. That is killing me!"
And yet the only pain he felt now was the one building between them as their mouths brushed and grazed, both breathing brokenly, foreheads pressed together, shaking their heads in opposite directions even as they gripped each other's napes with the same desperation.
"It's not the same…" Shikamaru murmured against his lips, his free hand fisting into the thick, wet mane of Neji's hair, pressing and twisting their foreheads together. "You know it's not the same…"
"It's all the same…"
"No, it's not."
Neji's lips parted against Shikamaru's, his teeth clenched in a snarl, but his entire expression was breaking apart. "If it was killing me, Shikamaru, then you should have let it…"
"No."
"It was my choice, damn you!"
Shikamaru yanked the mocha strands, drawing their faces a scant inch apart to level their gazes, glistening moonstone on shimmering black.
"Then hate me for it, Neji."
"You don't think I want to?"
"Then why can't you!"
"Because you are closest thing to freedom that I've ever known, you bastard!" Neji roared, a sole tear streaking unseen and unfelt from the corner of his left eye. "Do you have any idea what the hell you do to me, Shikamaru!"
Silence.
A silence so thick with emotion that the air trembled with the weight of it.
Even the storm suddenly seemed so far away.
All that existed was the one rolling between them.
Shikamaru's frown crumbled and in the lightning glow, his tears gleamed like silver in the black pools of his eyes. "Yes…" he breathed.
It was no more a lie than the look on his face.
Just one look caused one fracture – and that was all it took.
The final wall inside Neji collapsed.
He shuddered once, as if feeling the crash of every lie dropping right through him, heavy and brutal and pounding in his pulse. He squeezed his eyes shut.
"Gods, you break me apart…" he whispered.
Lips brushed his softly. "Neji…"
Neji lifted his hands to frame Shikamaru's head, leaning in until his words shivered out against the Nara's mouth. "You break me apart…but you're all I can breathe…"
And the truth could come no rawer than that, dragging in and out of Neji's lungs, coursing through every vein and every fibre, drawing even stronger through the chords of this inescapable bond that had roped each shinobi to the other.
Neji had come here to break that bond.
To tear Shikamaru apart in order to find it, destroy it and cast it away.
I can't…
Neji drew back a little, gazing deep into the dark sienna of Shikamaru's eyes, where the ripple of damp emotion still glistened sadly.
I never could.
The sound of frayed breathing drew his gaze to the Nara's mouth. The shadow-nin was breathing tightly through the loose clench of his teeth, the shallow, sharp inhales indicating the mounting pain he was in.
Shikamaru's voice scraped out raw, hoarse as gravel. "Did I find you…before I lost you…?"
The question would have brought Neji to his knees, if anything inside him had still been standing. He stared hard and long into Shikamaru's eyes. Then without a word, he leaned forwards. Shikamaru's lashes drifted down, thick and black as Neji brushed his lips across the closed lids and tasted the bitter sting of salt.
"God, did I ever find you…?" Shikamaru whispered against his throat.
The Jōnin offered no reply. He merely reached around, rubbed Shikamaru's nape gently and then gripped with a calculated pressure that sent the shadow-nin falling into the painless folds of unconsciousness.
Shikamaru crumpled backwards.
Neji caught him and eased him down onto the sheets.
And then the Hyūga sat back and stared down, with only the single glide of a tear to scar the mask he pulled across his face.
"Every time…" he whispered.
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Break to Breathe