Inbred

Oh my ZOMG! This chapter's title sucks! I've never been any good with them anyway so it will probably change after I think of something better.


Chapter 55
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“Show me your earrings now, Hinata-chan.”

It was the first thing he said to her after stepping through the door and joining her on the sofa where she had been waiting for him. When he and Sasuke left this morning, Neji and Hinata had still been asleep. At least, Naruto had to convince his friend that they were still in bed and that Neji wasn’t purposely trying to avoid him.

Hinata blushed slightly and pulled back her hair, exposing two, finely cut, pink diamonds; one in each lobe and Naruto gaped at the tiny gems made even more pronounced by the pink stone in the necklace he’d bought for her.

“You look so beautiful,” he said, with an adoring expression on his face and reached out to cup one ear and admire it closely.

The girl’s cheeks became redder under his appraisal and she stammered, “tha- ank you, Naruto-kun.”

“Doesn’t Hinata look pretty?” he asked of Sasuke just as the irritable young man passed behind them. He stopped, and the girl turned to face him and lift her hair again at her boyfriend’s instruction.

His only response was a guttural grunt.

Naruto frowned and turned around on the couch so that he was kneeling on the cushions and resting his elbows upon the back of it. “Hey, just because you’re not talking to Neji doesn’t mean you have to be rude to Hinata,” the blond snapped.

Sasuke sighed, and counted to ten in his mind. Naruto was beginning to work his very last nerve. “She looks nice, alright! Are you happy now?” and he hoped that would be the end of it but it was obvious he was not being sincere and that only enraged the brash teen.

“I can’t believe I have to put up with this shit again,” he muttered and whipped around to slouch in the sofa, pouting and crossing his arms over his chest.

“What the hell are you talking about now, dumbass?” the Uchiha asked, disregarding the presence of a young lady in the room.

Naruto whipped around again so he could affix a stony glare upon his friend. “You’re the dumbass! And everyone says that you’re smarter than me? Ha! What a joke,” he scoffed rather nastily and when Sasuke became perplexed, he smirked because it only proved his point. “When I got here, you and Neji weren’t on speaking terms right?” and when his friend agreed with a slow nod, Naruto continued. “And when you came to me, asking for advice, what did I tell you to do?”

He thought back to that day when they were sitting at the table and he’d confided in his friend his desire to repair the relationship with Neji that had become damaged over a misconception and three little words gone unspoken.

“You told me to have an intervention…to talk it out,” he recalled suddenly feeling like a child being reprimanded by an adult.

“That’s right!” and the boy grinned. He was enjoying being the sagacious one for a change. “Now, Neji’s not talking to you for one reason or another,” and he waved an animated hand not even wanting to guess what the Hyuuga’s problem was this time. “But instead of trying to find out why, you shut him out too. If you don’t learn from your past mistakes you’re only going to repeat them, Sasuke.”

The other boy lowered his head, a little ashamed that he’d allowed himself to stoop to Neji’s level and for having to be admonished by Naruto.

“Talk to him Sasuke. You’re only putting more strain on each other by ignoring him as well, try to be the bigger man.”

But why did he have to be the bigger man? Why couldn’t Neji be the one to come down off of his high horse and grovel on his knees for just once in his supercilious life?

Hinata adjusted her position on the couch to mirror Naruto’s and she looked up at the taller man from behind the sofa to make supplication on her cousin’s behalf. “Please forgive him, Uchiha-sama. Neji-niichan didn’t mean to do it.”

The muscles in his jaw clenched as he ground his teeth together. Apparently, Hinata knew the reason behind her cousin’s cold attitude but he knew it would be a waste of effort asking her to disclose it because he believed Neji would have told her not to tell anyone else.

They both looked at him with round, pleading eyes and the combined efforts of Naruto’s stray-dog look and Hinata’s cherub-like innocence were enough to crack his iron-clad resolve and he agreed to be the one to try to reconcile their dispute for the second time. The young boy cheered and the young girl thanked him and when Sasuke headed up the stairs he was so deep in thought about what he wanted to say that he didn’t even realize that he’d been followed. Naruto overtook him with Hinata close behind and when they stopped in front of the room she shared with her cousin he whispered something in her ear and she nodded in understanding before knocking on the door and asking to be let in.

The blond beckoned Sasuke closer and he smirked as he approached them with a shake of his head. Those two made quite a team. He went over by where Naruto was standing which was a little ways off from Hinata so that when the door finally opened, Hinata was the only person Neji saw.

“What is it, Hinata?” he asked in a low, somewhat depressed tone of voice and although Sasuke couldn’t see him from where he was he could tell he’d been crying.

“Umm…” she wasn’t as accomplished at deceit as the other two were and she found it hard to fabricate a reason for why she was even here in the first place but before the elder Hyuuga could become suspicious, Naruto reached out and grabbed the door and Neji jumped backwards in surprise, but he gasped, looking very much like a deer in headlights, when Sasuke stepped into the room.

“Hmph! I see you’ve even got my cousin conspiring against me,” he muttered solemnly after Naruto shut the door behind them, trapping him inside the room with the Uchiha and he wrapped his arms around his midriff protectively.

Sasuke’s face became a dark scowl and all prior thoughts of settling this diplomatically fled from his mind at Neji’s callous words. “Is this one of your ‘Hinata likes Naruto better than me’ episodes?” he roared. “Is that what this is all about, Hyuuga?”

Neji cut his purple eyes at the other man then turned to show him his back. “That’s got nothing to do with it.”

“Then what’s wrong, Neji? Tell me!” and when he reached out one hand to grab his shoulder the other boy shied away from his touch. Sasuke sighed in exasperation when Neji remained tight-lipped and, taking Naruto’s council into consideration, he gathered every ounce of patience he possessed and shelved his irritation into the furthest corner of his mind. “Neji, every, single moment I have left with you is extremely precious to me. You said we’d stay together until you went back to classes again, but I don’t want to spend our last few weeks apart like this.” He saw the other man shudder and the hold he had around his waist tightened, his fingers digging into his flesh through the thick material of his peach, cotton shirt. Sasuke heard him make a noise like a light sniffle and when he said nothing after that he continued. “Whatever it is I did this time, or failed to do, or say, then I’m very sorry about it and I promise not to-“

“It’s not you, Sasuke,” he interrupted on a rasped squeak and the other man had to ask him to repeat himself and he took a step closer so he could hear him more clearly. “I said it’s not you,” and Neji turned to face him then and the raven-haired man felt his heart ache at the despair painted on that elegant face. “It’s me…I did something really stupid.”

Sasuke frowned and took him by the shoulders and Neji didn’t shrug him off this time as he led him to the bed and made him sit. “What did you do, Neji?” he asked after sitting as well, so they were face to face.

He worried his lower lip with his teeth and crinkled his thin brows, unsure if he wanted to break his silence but he didn’t want to put his lover through the same ordeal for a second time over something so trivial so he took a deep breath and traced a floral pattern on the bedsheets as he spoke. “Remember yesterday, when I took Hinata to get her ears pierced?”

Sasuke nodded slowly, but Neji was engrossed with the ikebana print that he hadn’t seen the gesture. “Yes, I remember,” he said after clearing his throat to dispel the dread that had lodged there.

“Well, I thought she looked really cute and the guy who did the piercings thought so too. She liked the compliments and…I dunno…I guess I felt a little daring because she looked like she enjoyed them so much, but I couldn’t get my ears pierced for obvious reasons,” he said with a roll of his eyes and they stopped their rotation on the man just a few inches away from him and Neji bit his lip again before removing his arms from his stomach and slowly lifting the hem of his shirt. “So I did this instead.”

Sauske looked down to see what he was referring to and his eyes widened significantly and his breath hitched in his throat when he saw the tiny, silver stud protruding from his abdomen and a sparkling, pink diamond, much like the one Hinata was wearing, nestled within his navel, and attached to it was a thin, and very light, belly chain that hugged his waist rather loosely.

“It’s hideous, right?”

He knew Neji wanted him to agree, even if he didn’t mean it but Sasuke was practically drooling and he wasn’t even sure how long he’d been staring at it now with his lips slightly agape. “Umm…it’s…” Tell him it’s ugly, tell him it’s inappropriate, tell him you’re not into things like this…

“It’s hot.”

Nice going genius!

“See, I knew you were going to like it,” Neji wailed and his shoulders drooped with heavy despondency.

“I’m sorry, Neji but it’s just so sexy,” and he reached out one hand to touch him but Neji hissed and scooted away.

“You can’t touch it yet,” he warned. “The man in the store said I have to let it heal for a few days.”

“How long do I have to wait before I can?” he asked, his fingers already itching to run themselves all the way around the chain and back.

“Never!” Neji yelled and yanked the shirt over the stomach jewelry, effectively snapping Sasuke out of his bewitchment and his head sprang up to glare at the other boy who met it with an intensity that rivaled his own.

“Why the hell not?” Sasuke demanded to know.

“Because I’m not supposed to be doing things like this, Sasuke,” he explained, trying to argue his point. “The nail-polish, the anklet, the collar, the rings, if my Uncle ever found out about any of them he’d kill me!”

But Neji didn’t know the half of it. His uncle already wanted him dead and Sasuke felt that guilt again for not warning him about Hiashi’s intentions and also for being the one that kept encouraging him to do things that the Hyuuga head had forbidden, but just as quickly as it had come, it had passed, and Sasuke was resolute that he emancipate Neji from the binds his uncle imposed upon him and, if only for a little while, let him experience the freedom of choice.

“Neji, listen to me,” he said in a firm voice, grabbing his shoulders again and forcing him to make eye-contact. “Your uncle’s not omniscient. He doesn’t know that you’ve pierced your navel, he doesn’t know about our rings, he doesn’t know that you wear sexy panties, hell he doesn’t even know what you’ve got on at this very minute. He doesn’t know and he won’t find out unless you tell him.”

His violet eyes contained so much doubt that he was unable to maintain their gaze but Sasuke gave him a slight shake and inched closer, raising his hands to cup Neji’s face and keep it locked in front of his. He hated how this man’s dictatorship over his family could make Neji, a person who was not afraid to stand up for himself, cower at just the mere mention of his name and as Sasuke scanned his face he could see the fear along with his anxieties that Hiashi was looking through some all-seeing telescope and watching their exchange even now.

“You’re free to do whatever you want Neji, free to wear whatever you want, free to just be yourself. Please be yourself Neji…the real Neji, the Neji I never got to see before we met, the Neji you used to tell me about that played ‘dress-up’ with Hinata and Hanabi when you were children. I want you to be that Neji for me,” and he leaned closer until their noses touched and he caressed those soft, pale cheeks with the pads of his thumbs before making one last request, “I’d really like to get to know her before she leaves for good.”

His words birthed something inside the Hyuuga, for that was the only way he could describe it. It was more like a revival, if anything, and his face turned an adorable shade of pink as a warm sensation enveloped his body and causing his heart to quicken. “Is that what you really want, Sasuke-kun?” The voice came out as a low, uncertain whisper but it was hard to miss the effeminate over-tones and he smiled down at his lover and wrapped his arms around Neji’s neck.

“Nothing would make me happier, Neji-chan.”

She smiled then and Sasuke couldn’t remember ever seeing the old Neji look so breathtaking. The look of pure adoration he had upon his face made her cheeks turn redder and she lifted her shirt again, revealing the navel ring as a means to distract him…and it worked.

“It’s cute isn’t it,” Neji said with a giggle.

“Aoh!” he agreed with a nod and slipped one hand down and between their bodies to cup Hyuuga’s crotch. “Maybe we should pierce here next,” he suggested with a sly grin and Neji laughed then tapped his nose playfully with one lean finger.

“Why don’t you pierce yours first.”

Sasuke’s balls tightened at the thought and Neji’s lilting laughter filled the room when she saw him grimace. “I don’t think so.”

“That’s what I though.”

“So, everything’s back to normal…more or less.”

“More or less,” Neji agreed with a nod and climbed into her lover’s lap, straddling his hips with long, white legs.

“No more bitchy attitude?”

“No more bitchy attitude,” she promised and dropped a soft kiss on his jaw in affirmation.

“And no more slamming doors and locking me out?”

“Uh uhn,” she murmured, her mouth already occupied with nuzzling his neck and sucking the soft flesh there.

Sasuke moaned softly and cupped Neji’s ass to pull her closer. “And you’ll be sleeping with me again, right?”

She leaned back at an arm’s length to gaze at him through lust-filled eyes. “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she agreed on a husky breath before pulling herself closer to stake claim upon his lips with her own.

Sasuke shivered when eager fingers threaded their way through his hair and tickled his scalp, sending tingles along his spine and he squeezed the ample cheeks in his palms then rocked his hips against her, prodding his already hardening erection into her pelvis. Neji arched her back and tossed back her head and it was Sasuke’s turn to accost her neck. His tongue licked a path from the hard collarbone and left a wet trail as it slid along the smooth column, towards that sensitive spot by her ear. “Oooh, Sasuke,” she gasped and tilted her head slightly to give him better access.

His hands gave her rump a final squeeze before burrowing under the shirt to touch her heated flesh but his fingers hooked into the chain and it tugged against the raw piece of flesh where the piercing was buried and Neji yelped.

“Neji, I’m so sorry,” he apologized and released her immediately and she lifted the shirt to check to see if it had fallen out.

It was still there.

“It’s okay, Sasuke,” she smiled and lightly pecked his lips to allay his fears when she saw the concerned look on his face.

“Baka!” Sasuke chuckled and flicked his knuckles against the girl’s forehead as if testing to see if her head was hollow and Neji whined and brought one hand up to gingerly rub where it smarted. “I can’t believe you almost ruined our relationship over a piercing.”

“I know,” she admitted with a penitent sigh. “It really wasn’t my intention to hurt you again. I just wanted to avoid you until it healed and I took it out, that way you’d never find out about it but I was just so disappointed with myself that I gave into the temptation and I took it out on you and I’m really sorry, Sasuke. Please forgive me.”

How could he not forgive her when she said it like that, but Sasuke had forgiven her the very second she’d shown him the navel ring. “It’s okay, Neji. I forgive you,” he said out loud, knowing how much she liked to hear verbal confirmations. “Just don’t let it happen again.”

“I promise. Cross my heart,” she giggled rather cutely and lifted her right hand as a Scout’s honor and drew a small cross over her chest.

“Hn. Come on,” and he tapped her hips with his hands, indicating for her to get off, which she did rather reluctantly.

“Isn’t this the part where we have make-up sex?” she pouted and he chuckled to himself. It seemed old Neji and new Neji shared one thing in common.

“Yeah but I’m afraid I’ll have to postpone it until after I get something to eat,” and he got off the bed then pulled Neji to her own.

“If you were hungry Sasuke, all you had to do was say so,” she purred in a provocative voice and coyly slipped her arms around his neck.

“I’m hungry for food, Neji but I’ll keep that in mind for dessert,” he winked and dragged her arms from off his shoulders then put them securely by her sides. The truth was, Sasuke hadn’t eaten a thing all day. He’d been too upset over the Hyuuga’s tantrum to even sip water and he found it just as difficult to concentrate on his studies at school, but he didn’t tell her that, he didn’t want to make her feel any more remorseful since she hadn’t meant to do it intentionally.

“What do you want me to make for you?” she asked, like the doting wife and took one of his hands to hold it in hers, not ready to break physical contact yet and needing to feel his warmth.

“Nothing. I’m hungry now! I’m ordering take-out,” and he opened the door to find Naruto with his ear pressed against the aperture. He snapped to attention, looking very much like the kid who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar and rubbed his hand behind the back of his head.

“Hey man…I think you have termites,” he muttered his lame excuse.

“Were you eavesdropping on us?” his friend smirked and walked around the blond with his lover in tow and they passed Hinata who was standing against the far side of the wall, not wanting to have anything to do with her boyfriend’s disrespectful behavior.

“I’m glad Neji-niichan and Uchiha-sama are talking again,” she beamed when she saw them holding hands.

“Me too,” her cousin volleyed back with an equally wide smile.

“Now we’re just like one big happy family,” Naruto hooted and grabbed Hinata’s hand before dashing over to the other couple and embracing everyone in a tight group hug. “Feel the love,” he sighed into Neji’s hair and the older Hyuuga laughed and threw one arm around the hyperactive teen’s waist. Sasuke didn’t share his mirth however, and he made a face while sputtering for Naruto to get off of him, trying to spit strands of sandy locks from out of his mouth. Hinata was crushed amidst the three, tall bodies but she was much too elated to care, because after being cast out from among her clan and spending years as a nameless waif, she had finally regained a family.

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I think this one is kind of short…yes I do think so, but I like it, it’s cute. Finally Neji embraces her feminine side. Well it was always there to begin with but now she’s allowed it free reign. Has Sasuke created a monster? We’ll just have to wait and see. ;)

Yay! It’s done. Must get sleep.