Break to Breathe

 

BREAK TO BREATHE

by Okami Rayne

Chapter Thirty One

[Dedicated to Ciiah]

 

Neji heard the words as if from far away. As far away as he could place himself while trying to slip from one defence behind another. Somehow, Shikamaru's voice reached him just before he could pass beyond reach.

"I lost the will to stop this three steps ago...So either push me away, or let me pull you back...'cause I'm not walking this time."

The low timbre of these words rolled through Neji's mind like distant thunder, churning up something inside him. Something he tried to make as cold and veiled as his eyes when they finally slipped open. He set his focus on the window, watching the wash of rain and scrape of leaves rather than whatever was playing across Shikamaru's face.

"I'm not walking this time."

I need you to.

Shikamaru stood close enough that he could feel the shadow-nin's breath. Breathing had never ached so much as it did in that moment. Because even though he could find the air this time…the air tasted like Shikamaru. And Shikamaru's taste now pulled up a different kind of hunger. A hunger that threatened to turn a want into a need.

No.

Neji swallowed, watching the rain hammer against the glass. He avoided those dark eyes watching him, possibly 'seeing' him when all he wanted right then was to fall behind the safety of another mask.

"I need this mission," Neji said tonelessly. "That is something you could never understand."

"I don't need to understand that to know that this," the Nara tapped a knuckle to Neji's chest twice, "isn't gonna end how you think it will."

"One of your two hundred possibilities, Nara?" Neji forced the words out, hardening them like his face. "Spare me."

Shikamaru's jaw twitched. "You have no idea how much I'm trying to spare you. Every time I walk away I spare you. And every damn time I do, it's one step closer to a possibility you won't accept because of your fucking need to stay in control."

Neji's eyes flared, but he kept them locked on the glass, glaring over Shikamaru's shoulder, wrestling with the venom inside him. He struggled to find that mask, the one that had been effortlessly in place since he was a child. As if sensing what he was doing, Shikamaru's fingers came to slash across his headband, a firm press along the hitai-ate.

"Wearing this to deny what you feel about what those bastards did to you doesn't change a damn thing." Shikamaru's voice softened a little. "And even ANBU's mask isn't gonna be enough for you to hide behind."

Neji almost jolted at those words. Surprise caught his breath and he jerked his head back, shocked at the impact of Shikamaru's unwanted accuracy.

"Don't," Neji ordered coldly, his gaze flicking up. "You have no idea what making ANBU does or doesn't mean for me."

"Then tell me what the hell it means for you." Shikamaru's eyes were fierce but lacking the edge of an attack. "Tell me this crap that you're doing to yourself is worth some 'leap of progress' into the Black Ops. Tell me denying the pain your clan and uncle put you through is worth suffering this."

Neji glared as Shikamaru's gaze pierced his chest. He reigned in the urge to lash out. Both at Shikamaru and against these words; against their truths and half-truths and bitter lies falling just to the side of the truth.

"I've told you enough," Neji uttered, shaking his head. "And every time I make that mistake, you seek to manipulate me with it."

"I'm not trying to manipulate you, Neji."

"Then what are you trying to do, Nara?" Neji's lip curled condescendingly, his voice dropping to a cold, condescending croon. "Are you trying to save me?"

He expected an angry retort.

Not the pinch of pain around Shikamaru's eyes.

It was more effective than any words the Chūnin could have snapped in his defence. The worst part was that Neji sensed it wasn't even intentional. He doubted that the shadow-nin was even aware of the look in his dark eyes.

God don't look at me like that…just walk away.

He didn't.

Shikamaru's fingers smoothed through Neji's bangs, pulling them away from his face with an ease of affection that should have belonged to someone who'd done it with permission countless times before. Only Shikamaru hadn't. Yet here he was, doing it as if it were natural and familiar.

Damn you.

Neji felt the numbness inside him beginning to throb with feeling, sparking off twinges of pain he didn't want to face – because it meant the walls were shaking, the blocks coming undone.

"When did it become so hard to hate you?" Neji whispered bitterly, his voice rattling in his throat. "To want to hate you…like I need to hate you…"

"I can't answer that," Shikamaru said quietly. "And I'm not sorry."

Neji felt a slow caress along his jaw; the drag of Shikamaru's knuckles. Knuckles he'd rather have had strike him…hard enough to pull up a pain he understood, not this ache he couldn't stop.

"These aren't lines I'll let you cross, Shikamaru."

"Better push me back then."

Neji felt the control that had once protected him now twisting inside him like barbed wire, lacerating parts he'd been anesthetising for two months. He sucked a sharp breath against it and clenched his eyes shut before twisting his jaw away from the Nara's touch, making to step back before Shikamaru's voice cut him short.

"You want me gone, Hyūga? Then push me back."

Shikamaru stepped forward and Neji felt those long fingers rake through his hair and slip to his nape, caressing with a tenderness that bruised him inside.

"Push me away," Shikamaru challenged softly.

"Be careful," Neji snorted, snapping his eyes open to glare at the hollow of Shikamaru's throat. "I don't have to hate you, to hurt you."

"Yeah? So go ahead," Shikamaru tilted his head back a little, baring his throat to more than just Neji's eyes, inviting whatever hurt the Jōnin threatened. "I won't stop you."

This familiar and brutal display of trust, with its total lack of defence, struck Neji harder than Shikamaru's fist ever could have. He jerked back as if burned, but Shikamaru's fingers tightened at his nape, drawing him forward again, kneading gently.

"Let it go, Neji."

I can't.

Neji shook his head, his fingers gnarling as they snapped to Shikamaru's hips. "Don't touch me like this."

Unthreatened, Shikamaru leaned in until Neji felt that low, smoky voice roll against his ear. "Then tell me how the hell I have to touch you, to reach you."

Fingers hooked into the obi belt at his waist and a subtle twist of Shikamaru's wrist had the knot unravelling.

The yukata fell open, parting with a soft rustle of fabric.

Shikamaru's palm skimmed across his aching chest, trailing down along the sculpted muscles of his torso, causing him to freeze to keep from thawing under the caress.

"How damn deep under your skin do I have to get," Shikamaru breathed, "before you get that you don't have to do this to yourself?"

Neji's skin prickled, both at the words and the current fraying his nerves wherever those fingers skimmed. The charge Shikamaru pulled through him was more elemental than the lightning ripping up the skies outside.

Neji hissed. "Stop."

"Let it go, Neji…" Shikamaru murmured, framing the words against Neji's ear like a mantra, raising his hands to thread his fingers into the mocha strands. "Just let this go. Let it out…"

No. Never. I can never let it out…I can never forget…

His grip at Shikamaru's hips was his answer, demonstrating that he wasn't about to release anything. Certainly not two months worth of control that had sapped more strength from him than he thought it required. That effort would not be wasted on weakness.

I am not weak.

He dug his fingers in tighter at Shikamaru's hips, as if wanting to crack and splinter the bones in the same way Shikamaru's words had cracked and splintered his defences. But to the Hyūga's frustration, Shikamaru didn't move to defend himself, didn't even move to deflect or divert what must have been causing him significant discomfort if not pain.

"You'd think I'd take this chance and walk away," Shikamaru murmured against his throat, a weak, breathy chuckle falling bitterly from him. "You make it so damn easy…and I still can't do it…"

Neji felt himself tearing, the grip on his control slipping.

Shikamaru's hands slid around to his back, fingertips tracing scars, actively seeking them out. "And I'm still not sorry."

Neji swallowed thickly, trying to breathe through the tightness in his chest. "Stop saying these things…"

Shikamaru shook his head, stroking the callused tips of his fingers in an easy sweep along Neji's spine. "Push me away."

"I can't."

"Why?"

"If I push you, I will kill you."

Those hands stroking along his back stopped.

Just when he thought that Shikamaru might step back, a knuckle hooked under his chin, forcing him to raise his head a notch; asking him to meet the dark gaze searching his face.

"This isn't three years back, Neji," Shikamaru said. "And you've passed up every chance I've given you to kill me."

Because one chance is all it will take…one slip…one mistake…one moment's loss of control…

Neji didn't expect the thought of hurting Shikamaru to stab ice into a part of him he thought was already too cold to care. But then, he hadn't expected that seeing the shadow-nin dangling above a pit of stakes would make him feel as if one of those stakes had driven straight through him. And he sure as hell didn't expect to be hurting when Shikamaru's voice whispered out into the air.

"God, just let this go before it fucking kills you."

Neji frowned, more jolted by Shikamaru's tone than his words. Because he couldn't defend himself against that tone like he could defend himself against those words, utterly unwilling to process them as a possibility. They weren't a possibility. Not when he was the one responsible. The one in control. Death was a risk he would overcome, had overcome and would never fail to find a way to overcome.

I always prevail. I will not lose.

He let his fingers twitch from their violent grip at Shikamaru's hips, stroking his touch up to the jut of the Nara's shoulder blades, digging his fingers into the sharp grooves before dragging his hands back down.

"I would never allow this to kill me, Shikamaru. I'm not that weak."

He almost jolted when Shikamaru's hands flew to his head. For the briefest moment those fingers fisted in his hair so tightly he suspected Shikamaru was going to tear it out. But the clutch softened almost immediately into a slow stroke through the long, damp strands, dragging along his scalp.

Controlled, quiet…yet capricious.

There was something different about this touch – but Neji couldn't define it.

Like so much else between us...

He closed his eyes, bowing his head with a ragged sigh, trying to find the will to pull back from the strange but soothing thread through his hair.

I don't need this…

He told himself this repeatedly as silence settled, scarred only by the sound of the storm; an endless shatter of rain and wind.

Then a guttural roll of thunder shook the windows, rattling the glass.

Shikamaru's lips moved against his throat.

At first he thought it was a kiss, but belatedly realised that the shadow-nin had spoken something against his skin, mouthed words he hadn't voiced.

"Shikamaru…?"

Neji tilted his head down in an attempt to finally catch the dark gaze, only to have Shikamaru's fingers slip along his jaw and turn his head away. It bared his neck to the press of the Nara's lips. The kisses came in slow, open-mouthed caresses, the kind that caused Neji's lashes to fall to a half-shutter.

The kind that woke up a burn inside him but held it at a simmer.

Then fingers charted his chest, drawing those unseen lines between the dark bruises. Every place his own fingers had stabbed to shut-down, Shikamaru's swept to stir-up. Neji tensed up against it, but Shikamaru read him like brail, through touch alone.

…And Shikamaru began to touch every scar, every bruise, every flaw and every imperfection. He touched them with a gentleness that caused unseen wounds deep beneath the surface to open up inside Neji, begging to bleed out the poison still festering there.

I can't let this go. I can't let this out.

Neji's fingers clamped back at Shikamaru's hips, digging in hard enough this time to draw discomfort to the shadow-nin's eyes. But Neji wasn't looking; all he could sense was the air being torn out of him with every passing second.

"Stop," he said automatically, his left arm starting up its treacherous shake, every muscle tensing in rejection of what Shikamaru was suggesting he be.

Weak. I will not be weak.

Shikamaru's hand squeezed his nape gently. "Let it go before you push yourself so far away that I can't pull you back."

Neji felt his ribs twinge, stabs of pain crippling his breath.

STOP!

The air was wrenched from him.

Neji's breath shattered, paralyzing his chest.

But before the panic could fire off, Shikamaru slanted his head and sealed their lips firmly, cupping the back of Neji's head. He drew a deep, slow breath through his nose…then he fed the soft exhale into Neji's mouth, returning the air that had been ripped away.

Shikamaru breathed into him.

Breathed for him…

And the second he did something inside of Neji, buried deep down where he was still too numb to feel it…something cased in thirteen years worth of armour…cracked.

---

Lightning broke up the skies, tearing and illuminating the chaos raining down, battering the earth into a pulp.

The world was raging.

But its fury was lost on the two Konoha ninja.

Two shinobi standing still and silent. Held in a moment that had narrowed down to the space between their mouths. The space where one's breath was passed to the other, back and forth in a cadence as soft as a whisper. Sharing something more vital than blood. Breath. Life.

And Neji soaked it in, drawing it deep and passing it back until the ebb and flow between them was as natural as a heartbeat. Steady, slow and completely in synch with each other. Neither led nor dominated. They lulled in perfect cadence until breath was joined by taste; the slow, sultry dip and dance of tongues.

A pulsing had replaced the pain, pounding slow and steady in Neji's chest. He raised his hand to Shikamaru's jaw just as Shikamaru's hands reached for him. The callused pads of the Nara's fingers drew around to this back, following his spine upwards until the tips touched something that caused Neji to break the kiss with a sharp inhale.

Shikamaru hummed questioningly, his fingers pausing above the area. "This hurt?"

"No," Neji sighed, blinking almost dizzily.

"Your blind spot," Shikamaru said, smiling a little at the look he received. "Yeah, I know."

Neji tilted his head. It shouldn't have surprised him really, that Shikamaru had clocked such a thing. It was one more flaw in an image of perfectionism the Hyūga clan projected.

Perfectionism and pride, progress and prestige, power and prominence.

Prison. Punishment. Pain.

Shikamaru's fingers rubbed the blind spot lightly.

Pleasure stole across the pain. It blossomed across Neji's back, tingled along his spine and his eyes flickered shut at the sensation. Years of concentrating chakra to the area to accommodate for the Byakugan's weakness during combat had caused that region of his spine to become extremely sensitive.

In battle it was a defence that could save his life in an instant.

In the bedroom however, it was an inadvertent erogenous zone.

One that he'd allowed no lover to exploit.

Trust it to be him…

Shikamaru pressed the area again, his thumb rolling small circles over the sensitive vertebrae. Arousal flared hot and low in Neji's abdomen, tightening the muscles in a ripple as Shikamaru's free hand coasted along his stomach.

Neji swallowed thickly, gripping Shikamaru's shoulder.

Shikamaru paused. "Neji?"

Neji squeezed gently, the only response he could muster given the dizzying pleasure racing up and down his spine. Like so much else with Shikamaru, the Nara saw what was supposed to be undetectable, unreachable or otherwise off limits to any person in possession of their common sense. Not that sense had anything to do with what tended to take hold of them when they were together like this.

Neji's common sense and his intelligence should have been speaking the same language. The kind Shikamaru had labelled "stupid simple". Right now the logic was blaringly simple. Warning. Danger. Eliminate the threat. Shikamaru was on territory Neji should never have let him past the frontier of. Because it was too close to the raw places that not even he stepped onto.

Gods what am I doing…

"Where are you?" Shikamaru spoke the words directly against his mouth, drawing Neji's focus to the dark orbs watching him.

"I don't know anymore…" Neji felt the words ache out of his throat before he could choke them back down.

A faint smile touched Shikamaru's mouth, not quite completing its way across his lips. It was as gentle as the track of his thumb as it traced out Neji's eyebrow, following it along to the Hyūga's temple.

This touch caused a crackling fission in the Jōnin's limbs, breaking up the ice in his blood faster than he could frost it over.

"Neji…"

Neji turned his face into the touch, closing his eyes.

"I don't know anymore…" he repeated, hoarse and tired.

He felt lips sweep across his own, parting to exhale a soft breath against his mouth. The tickle of Shikamaru's breath caused his lips to part, but the kiss he expected didn't come. Instead, he felt Shikamaru slide behind him, prompting his body to turn automatically. He was stopped however, when Shikamaru's hands came to rest at his hips, turning him back to face the window.

Neji frowned slightly. "Shikamaru…"

"Relax," came the deep murmur at his ear. "Time I showed you where you are…"

The ambiguity of that statement shouldn't have been seductive.

If anything, it should have been registered as a threat.

But Shikamaru's voice drifted through his tension like smoke, casting his senses in a haze. He turned his head only to have the shadow-nin's fingers grasp his jaw, turning his face back towards the window until he was staring at their reflections.

The rain dragged watery ribbons across the glass, which mirrored onto his body, pale and leanly carved as if from marble. But scarred, bruised. He watched Shikamaru's fingers tug away his half-hanging yukata until it crumpled at his feet. The Nara's clothing follow suit behind him, then Neji felt the warm, firm press of the shadow-nin's body against his back and the distinct arc of hot, hard flesh jutting against him.

It was erotically forward; not that Neji expected any less at this point.

Their mutual desire for dominance should have pushed them away from each other. But it had turned into a magnetism Neji couldn't escape. A match he couldn't deny. A match struck two months back which had caught a flame. For all his icy defences, he couldn't smother it.

He watched Shikamaru's hands glide over his ribs in the glass, watched the rain's reflection trickle along the shadow-nin's arms.

Then Neji's gaze drifted up.

Shikamaru's eyes met his in the glass.

Simmering, mahogany eyes, which despite their half-mast gaze, glittered with a very non-drowsy intensity. They watched him from beneath the rim of dark lashes. But Neji caught something more in the heat, something more in the look he was receiving.

Don't think that way.

Shikamaru pressed a kiss to his shoulder, never breaking eye contact as one hand swept aside the long stream of mocha hair until it hung over his shoulder, the other hand smoothing down his chest to his hip.

Neji watched, transfixed, tense.

Then Shikamaru slanted his head.

An instant later Neji felt the wet drag of a tongue - right against that sensitive spot on his spine. His muscles rippled in a shudder. A cool sweep of Shikamaru's breath followed across the wet patch, exploding tingles along his skin.

Gods…

Shikamaru hummed, an open-mouthed kiss and suction to the spot sending a bolt of heat straight to Neji's groin. The Hyūga hissed, snapping a hand back to dig his fingers into Shikamaru's thigh. He bowed his head with a gasp.

"No." Fingers carved through his hair, coaxing his head back up until he felt Shikamaru's mouth at his ear. "Watch."

Neji's eyes slipped open, catching their reflections in the glass again.

He didn't know what was more arousing; watching Shikamaru's hands or feeling them as they dropped to his hips, each palm sliding outwards to caress the sculpted muscles of his thighs. Neji held his breath, only to expel it in a shiver as Shikamaru's mouth returned to that treacherous spot on his spine. The scrape of teeth almost had him arching, but he found an anchor by reaching back again, gripping Shikamaru's hip, panting.

"Easy," Shikamaru murmured against his skin, chasing fresh tingles along his back.

It shouldn't feel this good…

Neji drew a sharp breath, feeling the nimble skim of Shikamaru's fingers tracing up from his thigh, teasing trails across from one hipbone to the other, avoiding the hard pillar of his erection.

"Watch," Shikamaru purred against his nape, biting down lightly. "And tell me where you are."

Neji bit back a groan, his clouded eyes shuttering heavily as he watched the erotic movement in the glass. Shikamaru's words swirled around in his head, the answer stirring up in every fibre of his body as it hummed with arousal, want, yearning…

Need.

"Tell me," the Nara said, kissing a path across Neji's shoulder, lips fastening at that pulse point beneath the Hyūga's jaw.

Neji tilted his head back, sucking air through the clench of his teeth. His lips parted around a sigh as Shikamaru's fingers curled around the thick base of his heavy shaft, the pressure enough to cause the swollen length to throb harder, hotter.

Kami…yes…

Shikamaru's lips stroked his temple. "Tell me where you are, Neji."

"Here…" Neji answered at last, the word falling on a hoarse pant. "Here…"

"Exactly," Shikamaru whispered, almost sadly.

The tone caused Neji's eyes to seek contact.

Their gazes met and held in the glass.

Opal on obsidian.

Neji squeezed Shikamaru's hip gently, prompting the shadow-nin's lips to skim down from his temple until Shikamaru angled his head around. Neji met him half-way, turning his head to seek Shikamaru's kiss, finding it with a slick dip of his tongue into the Nara's mouth. At the same moment he used his grip at the Chūnin's hip to tug them closer together.

The rigid press of Shikamaru's arousal nudged against his backside.

The friction caused a hitch in the shadow-nin's breath.

But the heated, rushed need to jump headlong into the fire didn't come. Instead, they eased into a kiss as slow and languid as the stroke of Shikamaru's fist along his pulsing length. Drawing the torturous motion out with a patience that suggested Shikamaru had picked up more than a near-death experience from Neji's round of tantric torture.

A fast learner…

Neji drew back from the kiss, arching with a sigh. "Gods…"

"If I do this right, maybe," Shikamaru said softly, biting down lightly at Neji's throat without drawing a mark.

Neji hummed deeply.

Shikamaru's other hand settled at his hip, gripping firmly as the Chūnin sank to his knees, dragging a hot trail of tongue and teeth down along Neji's spine to the small of his back. That fist continued its slow, steady strokes, forcing Neji's breath into a shallower pant as the pleasure drew out into a lapping burn.

His throat locked around a groan that the skies spoke for him.

Thunder growled low and long outside.

Lightning flashed, casting a flicker of illumination in the room.

Another boom resounded, rolling into a judder that mirrored Neji's breath as it shivered out.

The hand at his hip pulled gently, turning him around in a slow sway that did nothing to break the rhythm of Shikamaru's stroking hand, which dragged back down to the base of his shaft, tightening in a pulse before releasing it to slide to his hip.

Not enough…

Neji dragged in a breath as he dropped his gaze down, staring through his lashes at the dark eyes gazing up. The easy warmth in Shikamaru's eyes disarmed him, as did the flicker of conflict lingering there, drawing a furrow between the Nara's brows.

"Shikamaru…"

Neji tilted his head and reached up a hand, his fingers tracing out the frown before trying to smooth it away. This attempt ended up with his palm cupping the shadow-nin's jaw, his thumb tracing the Nara's lips.

I can't need this…

He shook his head as he slipped his fingers around to the back of the Chūnin's head, tugging gently to urge the shadow-nin to his feet before pulling Shikamaru into a kiss he intended to be fiercer than it was.

It gentled into something slow and tender almost immediately.

Hands moved to cup faces, stroke shoulders and caress napes.

Hips pressed and rolled together, finding direction as Shikamaru moved forward, navigating Neji back until the Hyūga felt a nudge at the back of his knees. Then the world dipped, depositing him on cool, crumpled fabric before burning hot skin blanketed across his body.

Shikamaru pulled across him like a sheet, slick and smooth and shaking until their mouths settled, hovering close as lips touched but didn't meld. Their eyes met, gazes holding in a dangerously intimate way.

Something pulled tightly in Neji's chest, causing his throat to tighten.

Shikamaru hummed softly, his voice as faint and sad as his smile. "Yeah, I don't need this either."

Neji blinked and swallowed thickly, his breath seeping out into Shikamaru's mouth. At the same moment, Shikamaru's knuckles grazed his jaw, tilting his head back before the Nara returned the breath, feeding it slowly back between Neji's parted lips.

They continued this way for a few moments until a lift of Shikamaru's hips allowed for the shadow-nin to reach between their bodies, seeking the root of Neji's arousal, stroking the shaft back to its marble stiffness, all the while watching Neji's face.

"Ngh…" Neji arched into the grip, lifting his hips slowly, parting his lips beneath Shikamaru's to accept the sigh the Nara breathed into him.

He raised his hands, stroked them down the strong curve of Shikamaru's back, feeling the muscles shift. He kept his touch firm but slow, kneading his way up to the Nara's shoulder blades. He felt Shikamaru shudder, felt the mouth gently moving above his own slip away to his throat, kissing the salty skin before moving down to his collarbone, tracing out the sharp clavicle with his tongue, dipping into the hollow of his throat.

The hand gently stroking him shifted to his hip, holding him steady as Shikamaru began to move down, chasing the mirrored raindrops cast across Neji's skin. The Hyūga tilted his head down, watching the sharp sway of Shikamaru's ponytail before reaching out to pass his fingers through the spiked strands.

Shikamaru paused, glancing up.

Half of his face was cast in shadow, the rest in raindrops.

He'd never looked so striking to the Jōnin as he did in that moment; half in the mask of his shadows, the rest of him exposed.

I see you too…

Neji blinked slowly, returning the steady gaze as he traced his fingers down across Shikamaru's brow to the Nara's temple, rubbing gently.

Shikamaru hummed and pressed a kiss above Neji's navel, never breaking the lock of their gazes as he lifted then bowed his head a little, his breath chasing over Neji's neglected length.

Neji sucked in a breath, watching.

Shikamaru tilted his head very slowly, feathering a stream of air along the hot shaft to the swollen head, the tip of his tongue barely grazing the leaking slit. Neji had to force his shudder into a shiver, breathing deep through his nose to keep from arching his hips in silent request for something he didn't think he'd ever allow between them.

But those dark eyes held him captivated, pulling him in with every heartbeat until he felt Shikamaru's thumbs stroking slow circles around his hipbones. When he didn't look away, the shadow-nin leaned in again. Shikamaru traced the tip of his tongue along the underside of the dripping, swollen head, rubbing small circles at the sensitive frenulum, in perfect sync to the roll of his thumbs.

Neji's eyes flew wide.

Holy...

"Gods!" Neji gasped for the second time, his voice shaking from the pleasure tearing up his nerves as his heels dragged against the mattress.

Shikamaru's lip quirked slightly, his eyes glittering with gentle amusement before deepening to that obsidian burn. Neji fisted his fingers in the sheets to keep from ripping the Nara's hair tie out, surging up, smashing their lips and reversing their positions. This flood of instinctive, dominant need eased a little when Shikamaru drew back, stroking his lips down the underside of the slick column instead, catching the pearly fluid with a slow drag of his tongue before kissing his way back to the engorged head.

Kami burning…fuck…

Neji felt his pulse jackhammer at his throat, which ached with heavy, shattered pants.

"Sshh," Shikamaru hushed, making the mistake of keeping his lips close enough to Neji's erection that the Hyūga felt the reverberation chase through his rock-hard flesh like an earth tremor.

He jerked with a hiss, causing Shikamaru's fingers to tighten at his hips to hold him down. The Nara hummed, shifting his attention to the dip of Neji's groin, sucking the sensitive skin close to his hip, drawing out the wait, the tension, the tide that was ebbing through Neji in waves.

He was burning, every cell on fire.

He was convinced he was throwing off enough warmth from his body to emit a heat wave.

Yet despite the dizzying state of fever, he couldn't help but keep his eyes open and force the stubborn lids from slipping shut. Because once again he wasn't sure what was burning him up more; feeling the touch or watching the one touching him.

As if sensing the intensity of his stare, Shikamaru's eyes flicked up. Neji's throat closed up again, his muscles tensing from the sheer penetration of Shikamaru's gaze. It pierced straight through him.

The sharp, seductive cut of the Nara's eyes softened a little. "You're shaking."

Neji frowned, not even aware of this fact until the soothing stroke of the Nara's hands eased the tension from his locked body, coiled so tight with arousal and restraint it was indeed shaking. He'd have snapped an indignant response if Shikamaru hadn't smiled a little.

The shadow-nin kissed his hip. "Relax…"

Neji glanced up, watching Shikamaru watching him.

Gods he could finish me off with those damn eyes…let alone touching me…

Neji swallowed, attempting to get his raging arousal under control.

Until the engorged head of his shaft was plunged into magma.

Without warning, Shikamaru's lips wrapped around him, that vicious tongue curling until the back of the slick muscle rubbed against the sensitive delta it had tortured earlier.

"Fuck!" Neji gasped out and had the shadow-nin not been holding him down he'd have lifted off the bed.

Seeking some kind of anchor, his fingers dropped to Shikamaru's nape, digging in as one heel drew up against the mattress, wedging into the yielding futon to keep from bucking. He locked his throat against the moans building there, holding them in until it ached as badly as the throbbing flesh Shikamaru lavished with a tongue-wrapping talent that Neji would have interrogated if he hadn't been somewhat incoherent.

Gods…yes…yes…yes…

"Yes…" he hissed, the word slipping unbidden from his lips.

He was rewarded however, with a deep hum that rattled him like the glass in the panes as thunder groaned outside. Neji felt an entirely different kind of thunder rumbling through him, building, tightening, rolling, climbing…

Fuck…more…

Shikamaru stopped just short of the explosion, cutting off the brain-halting ministrations to grab Neji's hips, slamming them down until the Hyūga felt the rush in his blood surge back on itself.

No…so close…

"Not yet," Shikamaru whispered, dropping a kiss at Neji's inner thigh, sucking the sensitive skin with a hum.

Neji arched, hissing out his breath, trying to scrape together enough sentience to remember to tread carefully when challenging someone who could apparently give as good as they got. No one before Shikamaru had had the patience, ability or understanding to work him into this state.

Gods…why you…why does it feel this way…?

Before he could attempt to get his mind to compute this question, his focus was dragged away by Shikamaru's tongue tracing the vein in his protruding length. Add to that the feathering touch of the Nara's fingers against the velvet sac just south of his arousal.

Neji's lips parted around a low, throaty moan, deep and drenched in desire.

He didn't hear Shikamaru inhale sharply at the sound, nor did he register the effect such a simple slip had until he was being taken in deeper, inch-by-inch, into that wet cavern. All the while that tantalising tongue pressed and rubbed along the underside of this aching girth, winding him tighter and tighter inside.

Neji's eyes fluttered shut.

Fuck…more…

"Shikamaru…" he hissed, gnarling his fingers at the Nara's nape.

He didn't realise those dark eyes were watching him, tracking every shift across his normally controlled face. When he began to tense with the onset of release, Shikamaru drew back to the leaking tip, his teeth grazing a careful, gentle friction along the heavy shaft until he removed his mouth altogether.

Damn it…!

A hand encircled the base of his arousal in a grip hard enough to slow the rush once more, causing Neji's eyes to flicker open, his voice a shaking growl. "Gods, Nara…you bastard…"

Shikamaru's lip curved in a lopsided smile, but his eyes were intense, almost searching as he slid his way back up Neji's body.

"All's fair, sadist…" the shadow-nin murmured, his voice thick with repressed need.

Neji gazed up, his eyes glowing beneath the rim of his lashes. "Shikam—"

The Nara's lips settled above his softly and that tongue dipped deep to silence him. Neji caught the musky scent and taste of his own arousal, mixed with that hint of smoke. The kiss deepened and he heard Shikamaru breathing heavily, adjusting his breaths to the rhythm Neji had used to control the pace of his own climax when he'd held Shikamaru teetering on the edge.

Gods, he does learn fast…

That kind of control wasn't something easily achieved unless, ironically, one knew which key muscles to relax. It took time to master. Perhaps Shikamaru's talent of 'relaxing' made him a natural. Neji would have been amused, but he was too far gone to hold the thought any longer. It was chased away by the roll of their tongues, the shift of their bodies, the stroke of Shikamaru's hand gripping them together…and then the feel of seed-slick fingers sliding down to that sensitive patch of skin just above uncharted territory.

Neji stiffened, breaking the kiss sharply.

Shikamaru's fingers stopped on cue.

Their eyes met, mouths poised a scant inch apart.

The moment held tensely between them, just like their breaths.

But neither looked away.

Shikamaru was the first to move, dropping his shoulder and curling his finger slowly until Neji felt the slick pad of the slender digit grazing his perineum, pressing lightly.

His blunt nails cut crescents into Shikamaru's back.

The Nara paused, waited, then pressed again, rubbing lightly.

Neji's eyes flickered shut, his fingers digging in deep at Shikamaru's shoulder blades as he tensed in a mix of pleasure and rejection.

"Tell me," Shikamaru ordered softly. "Look at me and tell me."

"Fuck you," Neji spat, bitter, confused, aroused. Too many things to process.

Shikamaru's lips nudged his. "Neji…"

Had his tongue wrapped itself around Neji's name in any other way, Shikamaru would have found himself flat on his back across the room, possibly with a few cracked ribs. As it happened, something in the Nara's voice caused Neji's eyes to slip open.

His breath snagged in his throat.

Despite raindrops and shadows obscuring the stern lines of Shikamaru's face, no amount of darkness or light could manipulate or hide what stood in his eyes. Neji was met with a concentrated stare so conflicted and alien to Shikamaru's jaded orbs that the look gutted the Hyūga completely.

"Shikamaru…"

"Let it go," was the husky murmur against his mouth.

The unwanted sound of those words stung less than the look in Shikamaru's eyes.

Neji felt his breath shaking out a response.

"Don't ask m—" he cut off in a tight gasp as Shikamaru's fingers began to move, stroking that spot that had his back arching from the burst of pleasure that flashed through him. "Fuck...stop..."

"Let it go," Shikamaru echoed, uttering the words in a chant against his lips with every rub of his fingers. "Let it out."

"Ngh...no...no..." Neji panted, but his body responded, pulled in by those unseen strings Shikamaru seemed to have attached to his every nerve-ending.

Then fingers were curling around them both, stroking in perfect rhythm with the touch further south, dragging Neji's resistance even further out of reach. He was panting, shaking, straining as he fought to hold on…but he could feel himself climbing, levitating with the pressure, the pleasure, the pulsing need to just...

"Let it go…" Shikamaru whispered.

Neji gasped, his body rippling in a parade of shivers before he arched sharply, muscles drawing rigid beneath glistening, ivory skin. A wordless and breathless cry tore from his lips as he came apart, scattered into a senseless abandon where the rapture held him shaking even as he soared…

Free…free…

Sadness washed through him even as he sailed on the release.

He instinctively sought Shikamaru's mouth when he felt the Chūnin shudder above him, pulling them into a kiss as breath-shattering as the pleasure flooding between them. They rode it out in tandem, moving even when the waves pulled back.

More…again…

Neji swept his shaking hands down Shikamaru's skin, gripping the Nara's firm backside with a growl, grinding up as Shikamaru ground down. Both of them rolling and rocking hard enough to grind each other into dust with their desire.

The sharp crack of the headboard went unheeded.

The creak of the bed drowned out by the rustle of sheets and shaking breaths.

They moved this way until they felt it again...the waves building back up.

The fever was raging in their system and they passed it back and forth with every shared pant, tangled up in the taste of each other. Contaminated by whatever the hell this thing was they couldn't pull or push away from.

"Shikamaru…"

"I know…"

Neji felt Shikamaru's hand slide beneath his shoulder, skimming across until those fingers found his blind spot. The reaction was as instant as a chemical one. It fired off a thrill that dragged a quiet, throaty moan from him.

Shikamaru's mouth settled above his. "You're close…"

"So…are you…" Neji panted back, dragging one hand up to Shikamaru's nape, squeezing gently even as their hips rolled hard, stomachs creating a channel of sticky, grinding heat for their rigid shafts.

More…more…

They were swapping breath when it hit them, just seconds apart.

Shikamaru fell first this time, riding it out in an erotic undulation that Neji met seamlessly, both lost to the feeling, cast out together into suffusing bliss.

A cocoon of musk and warmth and balmy air settled around them…

The raw dance of their bodies slowed into a gentle rock…and then a soft sweep of hands over shaking limbs, kneading each other in silence as their breaths shattered out.

The wind wailed outside, shrill and aggressive…

Their hands roamed each other soothingly…

Rain mirrored tears across their glistening skin…

And their mouths continued to meet long after their bodies stilled against the sheets.

Outside, the storm rolled on…

---