Kindred

A/N: many thanks to those who reviewed.

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Neji Hyuuga awoke at the same time every morning, almost without fail. He got up, went to the bathroom, changed from his black sleeping pants into his white workout pants, and in the darkness of a large bedroom he shared with no one, practiced his taijutsu.

Neji was a physically powerful man. Twenty-three years of disciplined training had made him a force to be reckoned with. Neji belonged to a wealthy family who preached discipline as though it were a religion—and practiced it in much the same way as well. In his family, no quarter was given. Asking for it usually meant that you were ridden twice as hard as everyone else for your trouble; surviving that was no small achievement. In the course of Neji’s life, there had simply been no tolerance for anything but first place. Nothing existed except becoming the best, and then remaining the best. It was the cornerstone of the Hyuuga existence.

For all that Neji understood, he was the most intelligent, most physically powerful man he knew.

Not surprisingly, though, Neji was raised in a very sheltered environment, away from the harsher realities of life. For all his physical strength and mental acuity, he lacked a pivotal basic understanding of human psychology.

On the one hand, it meant that Neji could calculate the possible outcome of any scenario without the interference of his own emotions. It also meant that no one could manipulate Neji into giving way; it was impossible to play on weaknesses the Hyuuga did not possess.

On the other hand, it meant that Neji would calculate the possible outcome of any scenario without taking into account the emotions of everyone involved. It also meant that Neji didn’t socialize beyond what was required to do his job with anyone other than his family. He never visited anyone at their home, or invited anyone to his. Social functions were like breathing water to Neji, something he was simply not naturally equipped to do. It wasn’t a weakness, Neji surmised, if the skill wasn’t practical to begin with. Neji didn’t see a need to be able to socialize. Dating, for example, was something that others did, a ritual in which Neji was disinclined to participate.

It had been an issue for Neji since electing to become an investigator. If he couldn’t see it, hear it, taste it, touch it or smell it, then as far as Neji was concerned it didn’t exist, and could therefore not be taken into account in the final analysis. Someone as intelligent, powerful, and yes disarmingly beautiful as Neji would have been a waste as an investigator due to a lack of ability to factor in the human element. So, when Neji had been placed on the roster, he was teamed with someone who counted on the human element in all his calculations, someone whose track record for cracking cases had gone unrivalled for the whole of his career.

Neji didn’t like his partner at first. Shikamaru appeared to be too laid back and uncaring, quite at odds with Neji’s personal ideologies. He looked funny, with his hair pulled neatly up into a single ponytail of spikes and waves near the top of his head that brought to mind the tip of a pineapple. Neji had never been personally acquainted with a man who wore an earring in both ears before. Shikamaru never wore a tie, either. During the shift meeting it was not uncommon to find the Nara with his head down on the desk having a nap. Shikamaru’s economy of movement and speech, something for which Neji should have admired him in theory, only served to confuse and, as a consequence, displease Neji. In the beginning of their partnership, Neji found it nearly impossible to reconcile the man with the reputation that preceded him.

Then they were assigned their first case as partners. If Neji hadn’t been wide awake the entire time, he would have missed it. He hardly had time to gather his bearings before Shikamaru had broken the case into pieces and cracked it flawlessly. If Neji had been physically capable of expressing awe, he would have sat silently, mouth agape as the Nara laid it all out for the men in their department. What took the average detective or investigator months to analyze had taken the Nara only hours, and that was with no assistance from Neji or anyone else. It was then that Neji began to understand Shikamaru’s psychology, and, as a consequence, to understand the psychology of others.

And now, two years later, it was mostly through the Nara that Neji experienced his own humanity.

Beads of sweat formed on the Hyuuga’s long, lean, muscular physique as he moved fluidly, gracefully, from one precision taijutsu position to the next in the darkened room. Strands of his long, dark brown hair clung to his sweaty back and shoulders. There was fierceness in his beautiful, pale eyes, clarity of intention that few had ever witnessed up close.

Neji Hyuuga: age 27, wealthy, unmarried, childless, special investigator, prodigy—and a living, breathing phenomenal work of art.

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The morning light crept in through the curtains far too early for Shikamaru’s liking. He checked the clock on his bedside table—he’d managed to get two and a half hours of sleep this time, an improvement over the night before. Some days he wished he were normal, like others who only used a small percentage of their brain. Sure, they were morons, but they were morons who could sleep for eight hours in a row.

Shikamaru’s eyes roamed the bedside table and the small bottle of prescription medication that sat there. He had opted out of taking the medicine again last night, which meant he’d be a zombie again today. It was nothing new. If he’d taken the medication he’d have gotten more sleep, but then he’d be even more of a zombie. Shikamaru still had regular flashbacks to the day eighteen months ago when he had been driving them to the address of a witness. The next thing he remembered was waking up alone in a hospital room. It was the middle of the night; he was bound in an odd assortment of bandages and feeling a substantial amount of pain. Shikamaru wasn’t sure if he was dreaming or not until a nurse walked into the room. Eventually, through a painful process of trial and error, he’d been informed of the circumstances surrounding his hospitalization: Shikamaru had lost consciousness behind the wheel just after driving into an intersection, and their vehicle had been hit almost instantly by a woman in an SUV who had been talking on her cell phone. Neji, who had been sitting in the passenger seat, had had no time to try to prevent the collision. Thank goodness they were at the intersection of a four-way stop in a residential area; no one was driving that fast, so impact could have been much worse. It was enough, however, to land them both in hospital beds with substantial injuries.

The Hyuuga’s injuries were such that he had been treated and then monitored for a few hours until it was safe for him to be released from the hospital. Shikamaru, however, didn’t wake up until a day later. The doctors determined that the prescription sleep aid he’d been taking had caused him to arbitrarily lose consciousness.

Shikamaru had been put on the AmbienCR™ as an alternative.

Neji understood about Shikamaru’s insomnia and encouraged him to take his medication, offering to assume the role of permanent driver in their partnership. But Shikamaru couldn’t do it. He had inadvertently hurt Neji, and even though Neji healed quickly and was as good as new, Shikamaru wasn’t willing put him at risk again. The little bottle of pills that sat on the nightstand had become a constant reminder of what Shikamaru stood to lose.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The Nara scratched his back as he made his way to the bathroom of his small apartment. As he stood in position at the commode, memories of the previous night’s cell phone conversation flooded his thoughts.

Neji.

Shikamaru had been partners with Neji for two years, and even at that, Neji hadn’t taken the Nara’s good-natured teasing very well. In hindsight, Shikamaru supposed he probably shouldn’t have done it. But he couldn’t help himself. Images of the mystically beautiful Neji tucking the Nara into bed, wearing only sleeping pants, his hair a thick dark curtain around that pale, muscled body, got the better of him. It was Neji’s own fault for making that comment in the first place. And why had he said it? Was he really that concerned about the Nara’s sleeping habits? Shikamaru was troubled. Despite how well they worked together, there were still times when the Nara didn’t know how to read the Hyuuga. By all accounts, their partnership had been carefully constructed on a foundation of strategically-positioned boundaries. In light of the previous evening’s conversation it seemed even more unlikely that the Nara would ever be able to reveal his true feelings for Neji.

Oh, well. Shikamaru had never been one for romantic relationships. His last and most prominent relationship had been a threesome with a lesbian couple! They had all met and befriended each other in college. At first, neither woman was a lesbian; they didn’t even know each other. Then, at different points in time, each had become involved in relationships with the Nara. Not six months after the breakup of the second relationship, the two exes met each other, became friends, and eventually fell for each other. It was then they decided that Shikamaru still needed them, and more or less dragged him back into the fold.

This threesome went on for six months, and it definitely had its moments. Shikamaru learned a great deal about women in that time. He learned that most women hate pink and love Johnny Depp. He learned that the expression ‘size matters’ also applies to a wide variety of feminine hygiene products. He learned the hard way not to choose a side when two women with whom he regularly had sex were fighting each other and not to allow a woman who’d been drinking to give him head. Shikamaru was certain he could still feel teeth tracks along the underside of his penis, even after so much time.

The Nara also learned to cook, clean house, and give remarkable oral sex.

Then one day, after six months of extreme emotional highs and lows, the pair decided that they no longer needed Shikamaru—or any other man. Both women dismissed him. Neither woman noticed when the Nara left.

Shikamaru had been reluctant to pursue relationships after that.

It was all the same, though. Shikamaru knew that he and Neji had formed a powerful partnership, and did need each other on some level, however negligible. For now, that would have to be enough.

Neji. He was almost always Shikamaru’s first thought in the morning, even ahead of his work (the thought of which usually came directly after). Maybe the erection Shikamaru had every morning when he awoke wasn’t just a coincidence.

Shikamaru finished, and then reached over to turn on his shower with a sigh. There was work to be done…and Neji was waiting.


A/N: Please review.