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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
- 8
- 9
- 10
ON THE CUSP

by Okami Rayne

Chapter Nine

The clouds pulled their swollen hordes together, turning the twilight sky into one broad, black belly hanging low over Konoha, eager to open up. Thunder rumbled deep in its bowels, hungry for a storm.

As always, the Nara deer could sense it.

The taste and smell of rain clung in the air, making every breath feel laboured and heavy on the lungs. But it did little to interfere with the crepuscular habits of the deer. Does gathered in nervous ranks, haunches quivering, large eyes and long lashes blinking fast and wide in the dim light.

Beneath the angry skies, a clash and crack of antlers filled the Nara forest.

Thick streams of vapour gushed in geysers from the nostrils of two fighting stags. Nature had fashioned their arena – an open clearing.

The harts battled it out in a brutal charge and crash.

Blood streaked across the rich coat of one buck, its sleek hide torn by the antlers of its larger rival; a royal stag which bore down on it with the full fury of its twelve-pointer tines.

Rikumaru dropped his huge head and butted forward.

The warring males crashed and locked.

Solid muscles shook and rippled beneath sweating pelts. They pushed backwards and forwards, heads lifting and falling until Rikumaru disengaged, lashed out and caught the younger stag just below the throat, opening a gash that forced the buck to backpedal.

Rikumaru scythed his antlers in a finishing blow.

His tines tore across his rival's flank.

Blood sprayed.

The buck crashed into the loam, letting out a strangled bark.

The fight was over.

Rikumaru stamped a violent victory, the thick cuff of his hooves and accompanying sway of his antlers warning other stags to reconsider the wisdom of challenging him. He rose up on his back legs, front hooves boxing in bone-crunching kicks. The hinds started and quivered nervously as Rikumaru let out a deep, dark bellow.

Shikaku stepped out from the trees.

"Rikumaru…" he rolled the stag's name quietly.

Instantly the boxing stopped.

Those powerful legs dropped and locked, shaking with adrenalin. The deer swung its head level with Shikaku, nostrils flaring, body set to charge. Without batting an eye, Shikaku raised his hand; a subtle signal that the deer responded to by stretching his muzzle out to sniff and snort against the shadow-nin's palm.

Shikaku nodded, set his hand between the stag's brow tines and pushed.

Rikumaru reversed, backing off.

That done, Shikaku turned to the fallen buck. Shadows snaked after him like obedient serpents, twining around his body then out across the foliage in a rush and slither of tendrils. They wrapped around the kicking legs of the fallen stag, pinning the animal down.

"Easy now," Shikaku soothed, his rusty voice tickling the stag's ears into an anxious twist.

It tried to turn its head, antlers angling towards him in threat.

Shikaku's lips twitched. "None of that."

The Nara crouched down beside the panting animal, passing his hand over the slick, coppery coat frothed with blood and sweat. The buck's eyes rolled in distress, nostrils wide and quivering.

It bellowed its pain.

Shikaku hummed and stroked his hand across the ruined pelt, assessing through narrowed eyes. He shook his head at the feel of a hot, wet torrent spurting too fast between his fingers.

Damn.

His palm came away soaked in red.

He sighed softly, reaching for the tantō behind his back.

He hated this part.

The blood washed off the blade faster than Shikaku's skin.

He worked the pump-action faucet, soaped off the final traces of death and towelled his hands dry.

By lantern light and shadows, erasing the evidence of it had become habitual.

Dropping the cloth, he took a silent inventory of the cabin. It consisted of one large room sectioned for various purposes, open shelves lined with canisters and stacked with containers. The wooden shelter had once served as a teahouse, ensconced in high grasses at the edge of the Nara forest. Eventually, Shikaku had taken practicality over the original purpose and had turned the teahouse into a storage facility for veterinary supplies and deer horn.

Three stags this month…

On cue with that thought, Shikaku reached for the bloody sack dropped by his feet. Hefting it over one shoulder, he shrugged against the dig of an antler into his back and moved over to a large trunk dominating one side of the room.

The deer horn would be powered down for use in the Nara laboratory.

Even the pelt, hooves and bones would be used.

Nothing went to waste.

Unfortunately, it wouldn't be the last death among the herds this autumn. While the Nara clan tried to limit the fatalities during the rutting season, there was only so much they could do without meddling in nature's affairs. Sometimes all one could do was help a suffering stag along, or patch it up when its life was salvageable.

Something scraped across the cabin window.

Shikaku turned his head, catching a flash of wings in his peripheral vision. He spotted a falcon perched on the sill outside, watching him. This bird wasn't native to the forest, which identified it immediately as the one his son had been tending to.

Shikaku arched a brow and straightened up, gazing back.

The bird cocked its head.

Shikaku smiled a little. "Stick around."

The falcon let out a soft kee and took off before he could say anything more.

Outside, thunder juddered in the distance.

Shikaku stashed the antlers, locked up the cabin and headed home.

The ledge served as the line.

Do not cross it.

Neji drilled the words into his steps, walking along the same open rooftop he'd stalked earlier in the morning. A clear, concrete boundary. He toed this self-defined line at a meditative pace.

Focus.

He'd been walking this way for several minutes, his gaze scanning the ryokan opposite – searching.

There.

Neji stopped pacing.

Using his dōjutsu, he cut through the density of a darkness made thicker by the pending storm and found what he'd been searching for. But the second his focus hit on the figures playing Shogi, a mental command urged him back a pace.

Walk away.

One step back was all he could take.

His knees folded and he sank to a crouch, perched on the edge of the building, cradled in the shadows beneath a large awning. Activity played out in other areas of the ryokan, with other figures and other faces – adjacent, above, below – but Neji saw none of them. Not even the delicate, winking bulbs of HOTARU's exterior distracted him.

Nothing could.

He was too absorbed in scanning every angle of Shikamaru's profile. He used his dōjutsu to zoom closer until he could see the way the fabric of the shadow-nin's yukata folded into the crook of his elbow or pulled across his chest when he stretched his arm further across the game board.

But even this wasn't close enough.

Neji let his gaze reach beyond the line he wouldn't cross, stretching and honing his dōjutsu so keenly that he could detect even the subtlest shift of the sinews in Shikamaru's hand every time his fingers flexed above a Shogi piece. Neji took a moment to examine the long fingers, the hard and knotted knuckles, the callused tips brushing an innocent, idle stroke across a Shogi piece.

Shikamaru's thumb tapped twice, calculating.

Neji missed nothing. But in clocking everything he began to notice a pattern of movements he hadn't experienced in the few times he'd played Shogi with Shikamaru. The shadow-nin was avoiding every opportunity to end or advance the game.

Strange.

Reluctantly, Neji flicked his gaze to Asuma, assessing.

The bearded Jōnin paused between drags on his cigarette, casting Shikamaru glances made heavier by the grave looks of concern accompanying them. The weight of unease in Asuma's expression had Neji's gut dropping.

What's happened?

The Hyūga's spine straightened and he canted forward, the muscles in his thighs tensing, ready to launch him forwards. Then it occurred to him what the hell he was thinking – or how he wasn't thinking at all.

Damn this.

The emotions that compelled him were obviously still too foreign to decipher, even after two weeks of trying to come to terms with them. Easier done when he was away from the source of what had provoked them in the first place.

You 'are' still away provided you keep distance. Stay away. You said you would.

Unable to make a move, Neji did nothing but stare.

He gazed unblinking at Shikamaru's profile, a tender concern edging into the corners of his eyes. The Nara might have looked different to the last time Neji had seen him, but distance made it difficult to determine. Even Neji's eyes, for all their enhanced ability, were still limited by a subjective interpretation of what they saw.

Blinkered by my rage, you always saw more than I did…

A weak smile died at the corner of Neji's mouth before it could shape his lips.

You're still that elusive shadow in the dark, Nara…

Shikamaru was never without his own masks – in the past, the shadow-nin had changed faces too subtly and too quickly for Neji to completely catch him out.

The Hyūga had only managed to do that once.

And what did you do? His mind taunted.

Neji swallowed, his eyes straying down to Shikamaru's hand.

The memory of what he'd done once he'd caught Shikamaru with his defences down still ate like acid around the edges of the Hyūga's heart. He still recalled the echo of his own words, his voice deepened and darkened by a wrath he scarcely recognised.

"You enjoy tearing open my wounds, don't you, Nara? I think it's time I tear open some of yours."

And he had. He'd ripped right into Shikamaru's wound. But he hadn't stayed to see the damage. He'd walked away before he could cause more. The Nara's wound had become just one more of the countless unsaid, unhealed and unexamined things swirling like ash between them.

We went up in flames, didn't we?

Several times. But then, it had never taken much for their ashes to become embers when they were close to each other. Whether it was anger, desire, pleasure or pain, something would always begin to burn between them.

It's always there…

Neji's jaw tightened and his breathing deepened as he watched Shikamaru's fingers flex and fold and feather across the Shogi board.

Neji almost felt the nearness of that hand rather than saw it.

And when I see you…though I can't feel you…it always starts again…

The yearning pulled across his chest and a hot coil tightened in his stomach.

He pressed his eyes shut.

He didn't see Asuma crush out his cigarette. And he didn't see Shikamaru's fingers shake before making a move that ended the Shogi game.

The sky was rumbling and crackling by the time Shikaku stepped up onto the porch, splashes of rain beginning to dot the garden stones and ripple the shallow pond.

Distant whistles and barks of deer calls quietened.

Moments later the skies opened up completely.

Shikaku stared, watching the forest beyond the garden disappear. It vanished behind opaque sheets of rain, which shattered and smashed against the world like glass, kicking up a fine haze over the ground.

The world looked like it was breaking.

Shikaku stood there for a long, lingering moment, then finally turned to go inside. He didn't expect the door to slide when he tried it, but the shoji panel slid back without resistance.

He paused at the threshold – listening.

The lights were off but Yoshino was home.

He knew this immediately, instinctively.

He slid the door shut behind him, locked it, kicked off his shoes and went through into the house, moving toward the only source of light he could detect. It slotted from under their bedroom door, soft and grainy.

Pacing with a twist and tilt at his hips, Shikaku led with his right shoulder, the other dropped a little behind him. It was automatic for Nara men to 'flow' at angles when they moved. To the ignorant, it looked like lazy posture or awkward slouches. In reality, Nara shinobi commanded one of the most nimble styles of nagare or 'flow' in their most unconscious of movements.

"Oh yeah?" Inoichi had once teased. "Tell that to a Hyūga, Shikaku."

Shikaku had – and then he'd proved it.

Hizashi had challenged him to a rematch.

"I'll take you down, Nara."

"Next time around, Hyūga?"

Hizashi had laughed. "And every time after that, Shikaku."

Too bad they'd never know.

Shikaku shook off the thought. His fingers grazed the bedroom door, easing it open with a deliberate creak, pooling light into the corridor. No response. He moved to stand in the doorway and slouched against the frame.

Yoshino didn't turn her head.

She stood by the window, limed in golden hues from the lamp. Her hair hung loose from its usual tie, spilling down the curve of her back in a lustrous stream. She said nothing, but he knew she'd heard him.

Seconds slipped by.

The rain shattered against the glass, glittering in rivulets.

Something flashed in Yoshino's hands. A neat, glossy square. She held a photograph, framed by the firm grip of her fingers. Shikaku watched her from beneath his lashes – waiting. Yoshino sensed his gaze stroking over her and shook her head. Her hair swished across her back and like a ripple across the room Shikaku instantly smelt the fragrance of ferns and lilies.

"Yoshino," he called.

His voice abraded the air, caused her to shiver, raised the gooseflesh on her arms. But she didn't look at him, her large, dark eyes fixed on the picture.

"I left the door open," she said, her voice very quiet.

Shikaku watched her brush a thumb across the photo, the edge of her nail tracing out some detail in the image. She sucked her lip hard, frowning.

"Did you lock it?" she asked.

He didn't answer. He went to her instead, crossing the room in a whisper of movement that had her skin prickling again. She felt his proximity before they could touch and took a quick step to the left, avoiding what might have been the circle of his arms, or maybe his shadows.

She tugged open a drawer, making to slip the picture away.

Shikaku's touch stopped her cold.

His fingers stroked along her forearm, paralysing her movements like a shadow-possession, his long, rough digits tracing the veins in her wrist. Of its own volition her hand turned, displaying the picture.

It was a photograph she'd taken years ago; one of father and son.

The photo had captured them at sunset. Shikaku lay on his stomach in hay stocked for the deer, holding his 9 month old son upright while Shikamaru dozed, already in the early stages of mastering the art of falling asleep while sitting upright.

Shikaku smiled, tracing his eyes over the image of his son.

The memory remained as clear as the snapshot in his mind.

He remembered supporting his child's back with both hands, paranoid that if he slackened his grip, Shikamaru would topple backwards. In the picture, Shikaku's mouth was open in mid-murmur as he gazed with tender affection at his drowsy son.

He remembered exactly what he'd said too.

Shikaku's eyes drifted shut, an imperceptible tightness tugging at his brows.

"Did you lock the door?" Yoshino asked again.

He said nothing.

Yoshino stiffened when his fingers closed around her wrist, thumb rubbing circles at the heel of her hand, pressing along her palm until it hit the edge of the photograph, dislodging it from her grip.

It dropped onto the top of the dresser.

"You need to lock it," she ordered, her voice hushed but harsh.

Shikaku's thumb rolled across her nails, his fingers ghosting over knuckles and along the pale skin at the back of her hand. When his lips grazed the edge of her jaw, he felt her shiver again.

Then she went rigid.

Finally.

Shikaku's eyes slipped open a nanosecond before she whirled on him.

He caught the hand that slashed toward his face, stopping the slap just shy of impact.

He could feel the heat of her hand against his cheek – nothing compared to the heat in her eyes. Yoshino's dark orbs blazed, her face cast half in light and the rest in shadow, gold and black dipping into the dells of her bone-structure to draw out the fierceness.

Shikaku studied the ferocious, frighteningly beautiful look through hooded eyes.

He'd been waiting for this violent outburst for two weeks.

"Tell me," he murmured, hooking his thumb into the veins at her wrist, feeling the rapid throb of her pulse. "You've been wanting to for weeks."

Yoshino's fingers clawed, nails grazing his left cheek without a scratch. She carved unseen wounds to match the scars that slashed the opposite side of his face.

"You tell me, Shikaku," she uttered back, mahogany strands fluttering by her lips. "Tell me you never see him this way."

Shikaku blinked slowly, drawing his head back.

"This way…" he echoed, his voice like mist, pulled apart and drowned out by the angry stagger of Yoshino's breaths.

She clapped her free hand above the photograph, impressing it like a precious flower between her skin and the polished wood of the dresser.

Shikaku arched a brow. "What way?"

Perfume bottles rattled when her hand came down again – hard.

"This way."

Shikaku didn't spare the picture a glance. "No. I don't."

His wife's eyes rounded, a moist sheen flickering across them. "You don't…"

"I can't," Shikaku murmured.

An incredulous laugh caught in Yoshino's throat. She pressed her lips to smother the sound, shaking her head in disbelief.

Tearing her wrist free, she made to strike again – but didn't. "Tell me, Shikaku."

"You know what I see."

"Remind me." Plush lips drew tight, but her voice trembled. "Remind me what you saw when he came back from that mission. Remind me what you saw when we came home to find him hurt and bleeding in his room! What did you fucking see, because I saw this child!" she jerked her chin towards the photograph, eyes on him. "My child! Your SON, Shikaku!"

Shikaku's head angled in a warning.

Yoshino stood her ground. She always did.

"Remind me," she spat out. "If you'll let yourself remember."

Shikaku's jaw tightened and the lamplight struck the edges of his scars, burnishing them gold – like taut, barbed wire. But the lines that cut into the corners of his eyes were sharper.

"Don't you dare look at me that way," Yoshino hissed, her own expression god-awfully fierce, teeth bared. "Out there I can't protect him! Out there I force myself to remember he's a shinobi but HERE he is my SON! OUR SON!"

She jerked her hand up, balled a fist and crashed it hard above Shikaku's chest, hard enough to feel the muscles tighten on a rough exhale. She hoped it hit his heart with twice the impact, hoped it rattled something loose that would dispel the shadows in his steady gaze.

But Shikaku didn't baulk, didn't budge, didn't blink.

He simply gazed down at her with those dark, fathomless eyes; his lashes shuttered just enough for him to see without being seen in return.

But Yoshino held nothing back from him.

She glared up through large, almond eyes shining with angry tears and condemnation. The pain in her gaze pulled Shikaku forward a step. Yoshino drew back, folding her arms around herself as if fighting off a chill...fighting off the hurt. Gods but she was hurting.

Hurting for the pain Shikaku hid behind the shadows in his eyes.

Hurting for the choice he'd made long ago to hide that pain from their son.

Hurting for the choice he was making right now to hide it from her too.

Hurting more than all of this because she knew why he had to hide it.

He did it every day; just to get through the days when she couldn't hide it too.

Shikamaru was too sharp to miss it if they let it slip. That slip would lead to too many questions, too many possible regrets. Too much to ever take back. Too much to ever make right.

"This is his home…" She squeezed her eyes shut to keep from looking at Shikaku, to keep from going to him, to keep from reaching for him. "I'm supposed to make it safe for him here. God, never. He should never be afraid here."

Shikaku levelled her with a long, lidded stare. "I know."

"No, Shikaku, you can't possibly know. You're not his mother."

Shikaku curled his tongue behind his teeth. Years ago he might have stirred from his passive-aggressive nature long enough to follow those words into an argument and – if pushed – even further into the kind of heart-tearing confrontation he knew she wanted.

But that would only drive them apart.

Or tear them asunder.

At best, she would shout and he would stare her down or wait it out, armed with an arsenal of patience. At the very worst, the limits of his patience might stretch beyond the clear point that marked its dangerous end.

No.

He never again wanted to test his ability to control what happened after he allowed himself to be pushed beyond that point. It had almost been a one-way road in the past. The return trip from that part of himself had garnered him scars far deeper and lasting than the ones across his face.

Never again.

"I'm his mother," Yoshino uttered again, softer this time. "Forget to remember anything else, Shikaku, but don't you dare forget that. I am his mother."

"Seventeen years ago and 39 hours into biologically proving that point, you broke five bones in my hand." Shikaku hooked his knuckle to skim her mouth, searching for a smile. "I don't think I'm ever likely to forget, Yoshino."

Yoshino might have smiled, but it wobbled and fled her lips too fast for him to be certain. He closed the distance between them and she ran a hand across his chest and clutched the black fabric of his turtleneck, gnarling her fingers – as if to squeeze his heart.

"Everyday I wonder if we did it right…" she whispered, fisting his top until the fibres bunched into a knot. "If I did it right…"

"Yoshino…"

"I push him so hard. To the point of driving him out of my arms when all I…" she trailed off with a tremulous whisper. "When all I want is to hold him again…"

Shikaku reached for her then, drawing her to him. His shadow swallowed hers when she moved into the circle of his arms, mouth open against the tendons of his neck as she exhaled a long, shaking sigh.

"It scares me every day…"

Shikaku's throat bobbed against her lips as he swallowed, the only hint that he'd reacted to her confession. Those words from his wife were unfamiliar, foreign sounds. He settled a hand at the back of her head, caressing her silken mane.

"Scares you?"

"I don't think he'd ever let me hold him again, Shikaku…and what scares me more than that is knowing that if he ever did…I don't think I could let him go…" she choked off on a watery breath, shaking her head.

Shikaku's eyes softened then drifted shut.

"So let this go instead. Cry and let it out," he breathed into her hair.

He felt her hands claw up his back, fingers digging in at his shoulder blades so hard he could feel every individual nail biting through the fabric into his flesh. He felt the demand in the clutch, the desperation to have him fall with her. To let out what she didn't want to suffer alone. Sure enough, her nails dug deeper.

"I need you to let it out, Shikaku…" she whispered.

He leaned back enough to scour rough palms across her cheeks, guiding her head up, trying to capture her gaze. "You know why I can't do that."

If the hoarse scrape of his voice wasn't enough, the tender stroke of his lips across her cheek urged her to face him – urged her to let the tears build. Her lashes fluttered open and glittering, dark pools stared up at him.

"You leave me so alone in this…"

Shikaku's brows pinched, but he controlled the look that threatened his eyes. Yoshino's vulnerability gouged him deeper than her anger ever could. He slipped his fingers across her flushed, damp cheek, stealing around towards the baby-fine hair at her nape.

"You're never alone in this."

"Shikak—"

He lowered his head and kissed her, silenced and seduced her mouth into softening and responding. She opened to him with a surrendering gasp, reaching up to cup his scarred cheek.

He kissed her harder, pulled her closer, moulded her against him.

Without a fight, Yoshino melted into an exquisite gentleness no one would have thought her capable of. It was the same gentleness she'd used to save Shikaku from a darkness no one would have thought him capable of, years before.

"Very impressive. Who taught you to play?"

"My sensei."

"And did he teach you to think like this too?"

"Like what?"

"Like a King, rather than a pawn."

"It's just tactics."

"Yes and you just beat my best tactician, forty years your senior."

"I'm just playing the game."

"To win."

"That's the point of the game, isn't it?"

"Absolutely, Shikamaru. Sadly, most minds lack the capability to move in sync with the game at large. But clearly, you're not like most minds, are you?"

The Shogi piece slipped from his fingers, hit the board and shattered it. Rows and columns exploded, squares flew in all directions, divided, collided like cosmic bangs and scattered outwards, blew up and multiplied into universes of possibilities.

He couldn't predict them all.

Stop…

It didn't stop, it sped up. Multiplying too fast, too many, too many figures, too many fractured pieces raining down, striking his brain like hail, over and over and…

STOP!

He tried to raise his hands to grip his skull but his movements dragged, limbs pulling through the air as if through water. Steam filled his lungs, stinging his face and the sweat began building and beading on his skin, submerging his body, pulling him into hot waters.

The onsen.

No…

All the squares of the fractured board were floating on the surface, Shogi pawns sinking, Kings floating, Rooks, Knights, Bishops swirling.

Swirling like the tongue dipping into the hollow of his throat.

"You still taste like fire…"

Neji?

A dark head lifted, hair slipping off the scalp as the figure shed Neji's skin, grew wavy black strands. Hyūga-pale orbs blackening into slits, cold and sharp as flint – sharp as the smirk twisting a mouth that foamed and frothed with blood, saliva, poison…

"Game on, kid."

NO!

Shikamaru jack-knifed awake, dark eyes wide and wild.

He lashed out but struck nothing.

Nothing…

Gasping, he jerked forward on the futon, gripping the sheets.

Rain slashed into the windows, reflecting in streams, painting his skin and the futon in rivulets. His body was damp with sweat, robbed of heat, yukata soaked through.

He sucked a long breath through his nose and exhaled in a shiver.

Calm down.

He jumped as thunder rattled the glass, boomed across the sky in a violent roll. Sound and sight penetrated his head in bursts.

Dream…memories…dream… a dream.

Shikamaru closed his eyes and dropped onto his back, dragging a hand across his face, almost clawing skin. Blunt nails digging into his scalp, he focused on cramming every strobe flicker of the nightmare into one freeze-frame.

Fade…please…fade…

He focused on shrinking this freeze-frame, draining it of colour and definition until his mental screen went blessedly blank.

Breathe.

He dropped his hand with a shudder, blinking up at the slither of rain reflected on the ceiling, listening to it wash against the glass, hammering off the veranda like tiny stones.

His heart slowed its angry pound against his sternum.

Breathing became easier, easy enough for him to hold his breath and release it slowly, counting the seconds. Focus, inhale, hold it, exhale, repeat the process. He carried on this way until he calmed enough to shift his focus to the damp chill on his body.

It prompted him to move.

He rolled off the bed, orienting himself in the darkness. Flickers of lightning illuminated a path out of the bedroom and Shikamaru touched each pillar as he moved through to the suite's central room.

The shadows prevailed here, swallowing up the atmosphere.

He made no effort to search for the light switch, comfortable in the darkness.

He'd kept the shoji doors open after Asuma had left, displaying the large, wide windows. The panoramic view of the garden was lost in the rain, just a velvet backdrop broken up by the glimmer of an endless torrent.

Shikamaru padded towards the window, seeking distraction.

He stared out into the shivering opacity and dropped his brow against the cold glass. His breath ghosted across the pane; misted, faded, misted, faded. Eventually, his attention slid toward an adjacent room that branched out onto the veranda.

Hn…

Ino hadn't been joking.

"Don't freak out Shikamaru, they have private open-aired baths in the rooms too."

Sure enough, the suite contained a rotenburo. An open-air bath that served as a mini-onsen for those guests less inclined to bathe publically. Sheltered by a large awning, with glass walls and shoji panels for privacy, the room would grant a fantastic view of HOTARU's private grounds on a clear day.

Not that the shadow-nin would seriously consider submerging himself.

Not on a clear day or on a crappy one…

Shikamaru turned a little and frowned at the tightness in his body.

Despite all resistance, the urge to purge himself crept over his skin, layering itself thicker than the cold sweat he'd woken up in. Unfortunately, the image of sinking into warm waters left him with a chill. A hot shower, sure. But serene, steaming waters were a deep end for his psyche no matter how shallow or safe the tub or onsen.

He didn't realise he'd balled his fists until his nails bit into his palms.

Get over it.

He had. Hadn't he? Staring at the large bath, he recalled the last time he'd sunk into waters that warm and cleansing. He'd been at the Temple retreat on the return trip from Hanegakure.

Yeah, but I wasn't having fucking blasts from the past at the time…

No, he'd just been scared shitless over Neji's condition instead. Automatically, he carried the thought of the Hyūga from the past into the present, holding it heavy in his mind, feeling it sink into his chest.

Shit, when will this start to get easier? Just a little easier…

Shikamaru's brow creased, pain pulling at the corners of his eyes until he had to close them. Damn, what he wouldn't give to just sleep and not dream. That's what his body needed anyway. What his mind needed was distraction or detachment; both, ideally.

The Shogi game with Asuma had brought him peace, only to have it violently shattered by mention of something Shikamaru had no idea how to react or respond to. He hadn't been able to.

"I'm sorry."

He shook his head against the glass, tapping his fists to the panes.

The weight of Asuma's words only added to the guilt sitting heavy in his chest, grinding away until he felt it sliding into his stomach like a chiselled rock.

He'd tried to remain focused on the game, tried to appear unreachable.

A weak disguise.

Asuma had soon seen through it, as he always did and always had.

But the Sarutobi had accepted the act, the façade that Shikamaru tried to keep up, pretending he could continue the game as if nothing had happened. Asuma accepted the bullshit, the lies, the avoidance. As always, it was this acceptance from Asuma that brought the curtain crashing down. Having sensed his student's defences crumbling, Asuma had stubbed out his cigarette. But Shikamaru had ended the game– and any chance of a conversation, or a confession.

He just couldn't go there.

Because it's not real anymore. It's not happening now. It's finished.

Then why the hell was it haunting him? Now? After two years of staying buried?

I'll drag it back…I've done it before.

Slipping his eyes open, he stared at his reflection, seeing for just a fraction of a second the part of himself he'd sent to the bottomless depths of his soul – wrapped in the shackles of his darkest shadows.

Yes, he'd done it before.

And I'll do it again.

Neji hadn't moved. He should have. Backwards, not forwards.

Don't cross the line.

The words pulsed through Neji's brain, keeping him frozen just behind the ledge, watching the concrete line shiver, shatter and spit out rain in a spray.

"I think the only line you walk is the one between sadist and masochist."

Balancing on an inner tightrope of conflict, Neji had to wonder if there wasn't some truth in Shikamaru's words. They fit all sorts of complicated contexts inside of the Hyūga, but maybe that had something to do with his threshold for pain – or some deep-seated belief that he could no longer feel it.

The greatest lie I've ever let myself believe…

It was this arrogant assumption of self-control that had almost cost him his life.

It didn't surprise him to discover that it was costing him all over again.

And even knowing this I'm still standing here, paying for a sin I cannot afford…

Perhaps there were several sins playing out in what he was doing. Given how long he'd been watching Shikamaru, he could probably add voyeuristic stalker to his list of vices. There must have been something distinctly masochistic in all this. Bringing himself this close to the source of something that brought him as much pain as it did peace was…insane…

Insane enough to risk my last chance at attaining ANBU. What am I thinking? Losing focus is the last thing I need.

Neji frowned, cutting short his mental diatribe before it could start.

Need…

Strange how that word used to run parallel with Necessity in his mind, only to veer into a violent, perpendicular angle the second it had come into contact with Shikamaru.

There was no logical explanation for that.

There never would be.

You changed the very chemistry of my nature…

Neji smiled slightly, moonstone eyes still fixed on the inverted figure of the shadow-nin across the distance. Swathed in a shroud of steam, Shikamaru had his head tipped back against the edge of the open-air bath he'd slipped into about half an hour ago. His eyes were closed, his hair loose from its high bind. He hadn't moved much, which, Neji supposed, wasn't really unusual for the Nara.

He'd better not fall asleep in there…

The Hyūga tilted his head, Byakugan vision cutting through the steam like a knife.

He traced out the angles of Shikamaru's greyscale face, keeping his Byakugan stare fixed above the surface of the water. He convinced himself it was an attempt at integrity – not wanting to admit that integrity had less to do with it than the urge to control his impulses.

And this need.

With Shikamaru, the word 'Need' had taken on an entirely different meaning. And Neji had created this meaning in a place outside of his mind.

"This isn't a thinking thing…"

Neji couldn't deny that. He'd stopped trying to weeks ago. Because whenever he added 'Nara' to the neat equation of "Need + Necessity" something got subtracted and another thing multiplied. The formula changed so inexplicably that it didn't fit with Neji's logic – which pushed the equation out of his head and into his heart.

The ache tightened in his chest.

He didn't have the strength to analyse that part of himself, searching for a clue he knew he wouldn't find. Shikamaru might have been rooted there, but it wasn't the only place that Neji felt him.

You're in my veins, after all…

But unlike the brodifacoum poison still coursing through him, he knew he'd never get Shikamaru out of his system. He'd already accepted that the ache was something he'd just have to learn to live with.

I wouldn't have survived without it…

And there was fate's sadistic sense of irony. He'd been healed, but to retain the humanity Shikamaru had carved into him he'd always wear a wound across his heart.

Time will toughen the scar...

He allowed himself to believe this, almost let himself consider all the ways he could try and speed the process.

The train of thought never started.

Everything inside him stopped, along with his heart, the second Shikamaru's head vanished under the water.

The water pulsed around him as if it was sentient.

Submerged, Shikamaru let the base of his skull tap the bottom of the tub.

His body hummed from the heat enfolding him like a second skin. Small bubbles escaped his nose, which twitched against the tickle of the thick, silky shards of his hair. He could feel the dark strands drifting, held suspended as if by watery fingers.

His own fingers curled hard against the base of the tub.

Here we go…

He focused on remaining under – wasn't ready to surface just yet.

Not yet.

He kept his eyes shut, water like hot oil against his eyelids. But his lungs began to burn hotter than his skin. The ridges of his stomach caved, the muscles rippled, chest arching, desperate for air.

He held himself under.

The heat saturated his skin, not deep enough to scorch his blood or char his bones. Only one thing, one person, had ever managed to do that. A flicker of opal eyes touched his mind, the memory carried away on vapours as thick as the steam rising fast from the surface of the water.

He didn't rise with it.

Not yet…

He bowed his spine to keep from jerking up and searching for air.

Not yet!

Like a gross mutation in his chest, he could have sworn his lungs were shrinking and swelling, filling with something other than air. He felt the panic building in his throat, tightening his spine. He forced his body not to spasm, not to kick or jerk.

He was searching for something just beyond the panic.

Something buried deep.

He tried to grab this 'something'.

Almost.

And then something grabbed his arms.

The hell!

Panic punched through every cell inside him, blew apart his control, driving a flurry of bubbles from his nose. Fear boiled bile-like in his throat. He tried to lash out, tried to kick. And then the grip shifted and the grasp tightened, like an elemental force had taken hold of him, a tsunami of strength tearing his body upward.

GET OFF ME!

He broke the surface of the water on a ragged, barking cough; disoriented, shaken, gasping for air, choking on it. Water sloshed in hot waves. Shikamaru's eyes snapped open but he couldn't see through the steam, or through the mist filling his head with memories.

FUCK!

All he could feel was the grip of fingers digging into his arms hard enough to pulverize his panic, waking up something else buried deep in his mind.

A flash-flood of violence exploded through him.

The brown of Shikamaru's eyes burned black around the edges.

Through the steam, he felt the pressure of something solid. Snarling, the shadow-nin broke the grip on his biceps with a practiced circle and downward jab of his elbows, driving forward in the same motion.

His shoulder crashed into his opponent's, a solid slam of muscle and bone.

Water gushed over the edge of the tub.

Shikamaru tried to lunge again but his forehead struck steel.

His teeth snapped together painfully, white bursting across his vision.

A hand lashed up, fisted the wet ink of his hair and yanked his head back, levelling his face directly with his attacker's.

Breath hotter than the steam fired against his mouth.

"Stop it, Nara!"

The deep voice exploded in his head, blew apart the fog in his mind.

Shikamaru froze.

His insides turned to water, rippling shock through every muscle.

No way…

His eyes grew impossibly large, staring into the ghostly-white irises glaring back at him; they burned like two opals, set in a face crafted more exquisitely than the stone.

Neji…

Shikamaru blinked, his breath catching hard in his throat.

How…?

His mind scrabbled wildly, unable to form a coherent thought. He just stared at the phantom passing in and out of the steam in front of him; high cheeks and a strong jaw framed by mocha bangs, the wet chunks hanging sharper than blades.

Shikamaru blinked again. "Neji…"

The muscles of Neji's face flexed, eyes clenching shut. Then his fingers dropped to Shikamaru's nape, gripping hard, forcing the shadow-nin to hiss at the pressure.

"What the hell are you doing, Shikamaru!"

The dulcet blast of that voice hit Shikamaru like a hammer between the eyes, knocking his head back a fraction.

The shocked expression cracked, falling from his face.

He jerked away from Neji, sending a rush of water to batter between them, pushing them apart. The sudden movement aggravated a delayed throb in his head.

Ugh…

Dizziness swam through him and his brow knotted from the pain.

"Shit," Shikamaru whispered, pressing back against the far end of the tub. "Again with the head trauma…"

Neji stared at him, lunar eyes disturbingly intense.

And so hauntingly real…

Just as fierce as they'd been in Shikamaru's dreams…

The Nara swallowed, trying to work his throat. He couldn't. The wild sensations firing off in his blood caught him mentally flatfooted, short-circuiting his brain.

Is this real? It can't be…

"Shikamaru?"

The shadow-nin looked away, drawing a tight breath.

God damn that voice – and what it did to him.

Shikamaru shook his head, trying to drag his scattered mind back together, trying to remember to breathe.

Breathe.

Pain rocketed through his skull. He latched onto it, something concrete, not as crazy and confusing as this impossible moment playing out. He passed shaking fingers over his brow and pressed at his forehead, wincing.

Well one thing's for sure – the pain is real…

He checked the heel of his hand for blood.

"What the hell are you doing, Neji?" he croaked.

Opal eyes widened incredulously. "What am I...? Just what the hell were you doing, Nara!"

Shikamaru smiled a little despite himself, feeling dizzy from the shock, or the blow to the head – maybe both. "Right now I'm hearing an echo. Doesn't look like either one of us is gonna answer that question, does it?"

Neji scoffed, the stubborn sound equal parts peeved and proper. So controlled, so condescending, so infuriatingly Hyūga.

Shikamaru's heart throbbed.

Shuttering his eyes, he ran a hand back through the choppy cut of his hair, pulling soaked strands away from his face, rubbing his brow.

From under the hood of his hand, he flicked his gaze over Neji.

This can't be real.

He took in the drenched robes plastered across the Hyūga's strong shoulders, hanging heavy. Wet fabric delineated every muscle, clung and creased against every powerful contour.

Then Shikamaru made the mistake of raising his eyes higher.

Their gazes locked.

Both of them sucked in a breath, bodies tensing against the instantaneous pull towards each other.

Fuck. Distance. Now.

Looking away, Shikamaru draped a long arm over the tub, groping around for a towel. He steeled himself against the spotlight sensation of Neji's eyes following his every move.

The whole situation felt imaginary, like some bizarre conjuring of his mind.

Maybe he'd deprived his brain of too much oxygen with that little stunt.

But then he heard Neji move.

Water lapped against his chest and steam rippled away, allowing the shadow-nin to glimpse the Hyūga out the corner of his eye. Neji rocked onto his feet and rose up out of the water in slow motion – disturbingly slow – as if weighed down by something heavier than the drag of his soaking robes.

He looked ridiculous, hilarious and horribly dangerous all at the same time.

For the briefest of moments, Shikamaru recalled the day Neji had attempted to get the drop on him, only to end up soaked to the bone, courtesy of a rigged trap involving a large bucket of water.

This really isn't the same thing…

Shikamaru's fingers grazed the towel.

He twisted around to get a grip on the tub – then froze. His gaze hit on the decimated remains of a shoji door. Wood and glass lay sprayed across the floor in shards, shanks and splinters. He noticed, belatedly, the wind and rain that whipped and whistled into the room, snatching away steam and chilling the air.

Guess that explains how he got in.

Shikamaru paused mid-twist, turning back.

Neji stood with his arms held out in a hangman position, the soggy sleeves of his robe spread like dripping wings. He scowled, stock-still in the centre of the large bath, incredulous, incensed and incredibly pissed behind the steely mien.

Tension radiated off him.

Shikamaru gave him a wry look. "Gee, that was dramatic."

"Shut up, Nara."

"Thought I told you not to leap and bound into any deep ends."

"Gods, I could murder you," Neji cut back, glaring down. "Though you seemed to have that covered."

"What?" Shikamaru made a face, amused, anxious, angry and too many other emotions to consciously process without his head throbbing again.

"Tch!" Neji snarled, wading to the other end of the bath. "Did you leave a note, Nara? That's your tendency before you do something phenomenally stupid, isn't it?"

"What? Like try to drown myself? Are you joking?"

"Am I laughing?" Neji queried in that icy tone he'd taken with Shikamaru in the past.

God but the past was having a field day with his head. Now it wanted to screw with his heart too?

Stop…

Forcing himself not to react, Shikamaru went about quitting the scene rather than adding to the drama. He rose in a fluid shift, turning his back to Neji and wrapping the towel about his hips all in the same movement, shards of hair hanging forward to curtain his face.

It should have felt awkward.

It didn't.

All it felt was abstract, surreal, like he was watching it play out from a distance. He felt disembodied, removed somehow from the reality. He still wasn't so sure it was reality; he wouldn't have put it past his mind to screw him over in his exhaustion.

I've lost it…

He must have lost something in his head, because there was no way he'd just found Neji outside of it. That possibility only existed in his dreams, literally.

Technically, he found me…

The rational, inner dialogue felt safe, keeping a barrier up. The bath helped with that too, even the steam and wind whipping between them made the distance clear, defined.

He didn't have to look across.

It was safer not to.

It was smarter not to.

And then like some glutton for pain, Shikamaru shot a glance at Neji and like two blades glancing off each other their gazes hit hard, sparking a mutual flicker in both their eyes.

The contact held, the distance dissolved in a single look.

Neither shinobi spoke.

Quiet held for a long moment, only the storm talked, rolling loud.

Try as he might, Shikamaru couldn't tear his eyes away. He soaked everything in like a sponge, not able to process meaning in his present state of shock. He filed away the details subconsciously; like the bruising along Neji's jaw, the altered way he held himself and how something about his eyes seemed different. They were calmer, even in their anger.

Not like in my dreams…

He'd lain awake for fourteen nights aching to see what he was gazing at now. Aching to see what his mind had granted him only in a cruel, ephemeral haunting. But the dreams were nothing compared to the reality – and even that hadn't hit home yet.

He could see Neji.

But it didn't feel real.

It can't be.

Shocked dumb, Shikamaru searched for something – anything – to say.

"I wasn't trying to kill myself," he managed to articulate, scowling at the thought and how stupid the words sounded.

So fucking stupid.

Neji arched a brow, glancing pointedly between Shikamaru and the bath.

The shadow-nin snorted.

"I might like to take things slow, but I take exception to dying that way," Shikamaru muttered dryly, challenging his anger into sarcasm. "Drowning? Way too troublesome."

Neji's expression didn't change.

Shikamaru's scowl cut deeper. "You seriously think I'm stupid enough to consider something like that?"

Neji kept his hands planted at his waist, dripping all over the floor, gazing intently – searchingly – at Shikamaru's face. "Are you?"

"What?" Shikamaru gaped, one hand gripping the knot of the towel around his waist, the other holding his hair out of his eyes. "Give me some damned credit, Hyūga. I still think shit through before I do it."

Neji's brows pulled down, but his bruised jaw raised a notch.

Another familiar gesture.

Shikamaru's anger dissolved in an instant, his lips framing the barest of smiles.

"Can't say the same for you," the shadow-nin drawled. "Nailing me in the head…" he hesitated, his voice falling quieter. "Again."

Neji's expression softened around the edges, just a little. "If it makes you feel better, I still don't plan it," he murmured. "Though I don't disappoint, do I?"

More familiar words, pulling up more familiar feelings.

Feelings Shikamaru had been trying to forget.

Fuck, I can't do this…

He crushed the ache in his chest and forced a smirk, tilting his head to indicate the ruined shoji door. "Dramatic as ever, Hyūga. I really shouldn't be surprised."

Neji's lips twisted and pressed together, fighting off a smile. He couldn't keep it from his eyes though. "I suppose a surprise is appropriate, however unplanned and dramatic."

"Appropriate?" Shikamaru echoed, sounding hoarse. "How'd you figure?"

Neji's face arched with amusement and the warm, teasing glint in his ivory eyes struck Shikamaru hard, causing the air to exit the shadow-nin's lungs in a shiver.

Don't let this be real…

The ache pulled up from his chest right into his throat.

I can't do this again…

Whatever breath he tried to find was lost the second Neji smiled.

"Happy Birthday, Nara."

TBC.

A/N: And so it starts. FINALLY!
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