Izumo's Problem

VI.

Kotetsu took forever in the bathroom, and Izumo just couldn’t believe it. Kotetsu, the same guy that could get off on thinking about humping boobs, was in there jerking off thinking about some guy jacking or blowing him. Weird! And unfair almost—god, just a day ago he would have died to know that. He’d have topped for Tetsu—but no, it wouldn’t have worked. Kotetsu considered him a brother. Well that’s right—we are like blood. And you can’t get rid of a brother like you can a lover. Not that I want to get rid of my lover! But god, if I had to pick, I’d go insane, insane. No—no, I’m not going there!

A loud moan came from the bathroom, and Izumo blushed hoping no one came to the gate before Tetsu finished. A few other equally embarrassing sounds could be heard, and Izumo winced. God, that’s a bit much for a workday wack-off! God, what the hell is he thinking letting himself get so loud? And a part of him couldn’t help but think that Kurohyou would never embarrass him this way.

And thinking of his lover, Izumo’s mind went back to what he had been trying to forget since he’d heard it—Ibiki whipping Kurohyou. Ibiki wouldn’t, would he? Yeah, he would. But my black panther can handle it! But why is being my boyfriend so wrong, Ibiki? If sex is good for ANBU nins, wouldn’t love be even better? He needs love, Ibiki! For god’s sake, why do you think he was harassing people in bathrooms?

People—god, did he do that to others? Did he sleep with others? Did others make his face go from that dead, still, lifeless, heartless look to glowing? How many people had he looked at like that? How many had he covered with hickeys?

But then Izumo remembered that moment, that moment when he felt like he was his lover, like he was able to experience his memories, his feelings, that bleak loneliness, the cold, the emptiness, the death. No, even if there had been others, none of them had warmed him or lit a spark inside.

Ibiki must have seen that difference, seen the good effect of his night with me! God, he wouldn’t be trying to get his ANBU nins laid if he didn’t think it would make them saner, calmer, more energized. So why is he mad? I don’t get it!!! What the hell had Ibiki said in his office again? Wait, he had definitely said something about gays without a partner! Ergo, there must be gay guys in ANBU with a partner! And so, why not one more??

What had Ibiki said this morning? Something like, “ANBU operatives aren’t boyfriends. They don’t stand around without masks, eating and talking about their lover’s food preferences.” But if ANBU nins have partners, i.e. partners giving them regular sex, why can’t they have boyfriends? What’s the difference between a sexual partner and a boyfriend?

Boyfriend sounds a bit more casual, temporary, as versus a partner. Is that it? You can have a serious, long-term relationship--something important and fundamental, like being married, but not something where there might be drama, cheating, breakups, betrayal? But how do you get a partner if you don’t first have a boyfriend? Do only the guys in long-term relationship before they get into ANBU get to have a love life, not just meaningless fucking in the dark?

What was the point of Ibiki saying that? Hurry up and commit or dump him? Hurry up and commit and get him too as well, or I’ll break you up? Oh, god, I’m ready to commit. Couldn’t you see I loved him, Ibiki? Don’t you see everything?

Maybe you were telling Kurohyou to see that? Maybe it’s not that you don’t want us together, but you want us to hurry up and not string it out and make it so we can’t even focus on work because we are worried if the other one loves us and wants us for real?

And standing around learning the favorite foods of their lovers—hmm, could that be some Ibiki double-talk mind-fuck thing too? Like, you’re a seme, so don’t get all domestic? Or don’t go chatting all your lover’s friends up? Or at least do it with your mask on? Or what the hell are you doing bring the friend into this? No, Ibiki knows, you get involved with Izumo, you have to be involved with Kotetsu to some degree. Oh god, it just doesn’t make sense! And a whipping? What? There must be something I don’t know! I’m going crazy! I want my Kurohyou! God, an eight-hour shift is too long!

Izumo heard the bathroom door open and turned around to look at Kotetsu. He looked pasty and white, like he’d been in there vomiting, not masturbating. Oh, god, maybe he had?

“What the hell happened? You look terrible, all white! Were you sick in there or just jacking off?” demanded Izumo.

Kotetsu’s face went red, then white, and he stumbled.

“Dammit, should I get a medic? Where’s that thermos of tea?” Izumo found it and poured Kotetsu a cup of tea, ready to pour it down his friend’s lips if need be.

“Ah, thanks, Zumo,” whispered Kotetsu, who had dropped into his chair. He drained the cup and held it out for more. After emptying that second cup as well, his color looked a little more normal. Izumo studied him carefully.

“Why is the back of your hair all messed up? Did you pass out and hit your head, Tetsu?”

Kotetsu looked at him like Izumo had said something to difficult to follow and slowly put his had up to feel the back of his head as if he wasn’t sure if he’d been hit or not. Izumo pushed his hand away and felt the skull of his oldest friend carefully. Nothing. Had he been attacked by some sort of genjutsu? Poisen? And the minute that thought popped into Izumo’s head, he focused, becoming the experience chuunin-level shinobi he was. There—that chakra signature of a small bird—that was wrong! The roof, heated all day by the sun, now was too hot—no small bird should be there.

Izumo drew on his chakra and transported to the roof of the guardhouse. Well, fuck! That explained everything!

Sitting on the roof cross-legged was that horny redheaded Raccoon-masked ANBU nin!

“Well, back into work mode now, are you, little leopard?” teased the annoying evesdropper.

“Still playing voyeur on the job? Or is molesting now an ANBU service?” snapped back Izumo.

“Molesting? I was merely lending a helping hand. How was I to know he blacks out a bit when he comes?”

Izumo was able to keep his face blank at that although the eye under his hair twitched—he’d never been able to get rid of that tell-tale tick completely, which was one reason he liked to cover that eye with his long bangs.

“How indeed?” he said blandly. “Maybe you should ask Ibiki-san for some lessons?” Tetsu blacked out from this asshole jerking him off? Fuck, he must not have eating any breakfast or lunch!

“Cart coming,” said the masked nin, turning his head to look, showing Izumo that long ponytail of orangey-red hair hanging down almost to his waist. Damn, that thing was so tempting—you just want to grab it and jerk the bastard down with it and beat the shit out of him! Or twist it around his throat and choke him! And that’s probably exactly why he has it—like a red cape before a bull, any ninja in a fight would eventually go for it.

“Such a fierce look you have, little leopard! Worried there’s danger under those cabbages?”

Izumo forced himself to just leap of the roof gracefully and return to his seat next to Kotetsu calmly. Kotetsu had gotten out his dinner and was eating. His face was now bright red, not that sick white it had been. Izumo poured himself a cup of tea and drank it, carefully not looking over at his friend. The cabbage cart was sign of the start of the dinner-time traffic, and the next three hours they were busy enough not to have to talk. But that last hour of their shift, from 7 to 8 p.m. was another slow, dull one. The two friends didn’t talk out loud, but by an exchange of glances, they lamented over not sensing the spying shinobi earlier and agreed he or another ANBU might still be around.

With smirks, blushes, frowns, scowls, grins, raised and wiggled eyebrows, and a few hand gestures, they hashed over Kotetsu’s first hand job from a man and speculated about the possibilities of that redheaded Raccoon sucking off Tetsu. Izumo warned Tetsu that the cost of that just might be his virgin ass. When Kotetsu only scowled for a little while after that and didn’t make a single face indicating disgust or nausea, Izumo felt a little bit a fear for their friendship. Because scowl all he wanted, it was clear his friend was going to find out not only about oral, but anal sex soon. Kotetsu’s curiosity and the fact he’d always found redheads unbearably hot would make his protests seem exactly what they were—token and knee-jerk. He was doomed to be that Raccoon’s bitch at least once. And once that happened, it just might mess up their friendship. Because while Tetsu might really enjoy being jerked off or blown by a guy, well, being fucked wasn’t exactly compatible with they way he saw himself. You could sort of explain the others away—hey, in an ideal world a woman could do just as good a job. But a hard cock in the ass is as gay as you get. If Tetsu really, really hated that, would he still be able to be his gay friend in the same old way?

Kotetsu punched Izumo hard on the arm, shaking him out of his state of anxiety. And then there was that smile, that look, and Izumo grinned back. No, it wouldn’t matter; their friendship was too strong. It would just be a little blip, and then things would be back to normal, except that when Kotetsu went off with another woman, Izumo would go running to his black panther or home alone to dream of him. It would all work out, it would.

The last bit of the shift flew by, and Kotetsu and Izumo turned over the gate to their relief, shouldered their light packs, and began walking back to their apartment building.

In a room in another part of town without windows or doors, Ibiki and Kurohyou were sitting at a table. The annoyingly loud clock had recently finished indicating it was 8 p.m., and the fidgeting and anxiety level of Kurohyou had increased in a way that Ibiki found reassuring. He’d been worried about his ninja wearing the panther mask for some time.

Hell, Ibiki had always worried about him. He’d been one of those damn ROOT kids of Danzou’s, who had all either died or been deeply scarred in so many ways, that they were unable to function in normal society. Fuck, they didn’t even function well working with non-ANBU ninja. And the panther—well, if he hadn’t been presumed dead—or left for dead on foreign soil at age eleven—he’d be like those other ROOT ANBU that just made Ibiki’s job harder. He’d been enslaved and abused, and when he’d finally come back to Konoha at age thirteen after having slaughtered his captors, he’d not forgotten that it was ROOT that had let him down. For the longest time, however, that hadn’t been known. When Ibiki had taken over ANBU, he’d done his own observing and investigating into which of the ANBU ninjas were answering to Danzou. And he found the panther wasn’t although he still had that cold, dead nature ROOT demanded.

Under Ibiki, the panther had started to thaw, even make very weak friendships. When Shino had been putting out that red catbowl so often, he’d started to look merely cold, not dead. But when he’d reassigned the Tiger mask, Shino had returned the bowl. Ibiki hadn’t been able to tell Shino that the “Tigar-san” he evidently gotten so close to had chosen to leave ANBU. Well, Aburame would find out that soon, at the end of the top-secret mission to which Tsunade had assigned the former wearer of the Tigar mask. But Shino finding that out didn’t mean that he would be asking for another red cat bowl! No, Neji was the only one that would be in Shino’s bedroom now.

Sexual frustration, however, was not an excuse for insubordination. He’d allowed his shinobi their “secret” visits and encounters with Shino after he’d returned the bowl, but sexually molesting someone in a public bathroom was unacceptable--although doing it when off duty and out of uniform was a mitigating factor. He overlook that because not only had panther been off-duty, he’d brought in Izumo, who had been, at that moment, a potentially important addition to the ANBU staff.

But letting someone see both your face and that you were ANBU without clearance from Ibiki was completely unacceptable, and the real reason the panther had been suspended and punished today. There was no excuse--he had known that Kotetsu and Ibiki were at the door. And spanking his new lover and having him beg to be fucked was a big “fuck you” to Kotetsu that not surprisingly made him just transport into the bedroom. Ibiki had come for damage control. What the panther should have done after being “caught” in mid-fuck by Kotetsu was simply dress himself in his pants only and conceal the fact that he was ANBU. It didn’t matter that Kotetsu would most likely learn that Izumo’s new man was ANBU, and in fact, Ibiki might have given permission for Kotetsu to know that. But breaking a rule like that right in front of him made it necessary Ibiki administer punishment.

ANBU operatives--when off duty and out of uniform--could have as many boyfriends as they liked and take cooking lessons galore because out of an ANBU uniform, a shinobi technically wasn’t ANBU. But the Panther nin had been on duty. In the minute between when Izumo demanded to speak with him about being assaulted by an ANBU nin and when the little chuunin had been shown into his office, the Panther had had the sense to own up and been told to get back in uniform and await orders. The orders, given before Izumo had even gotten out of the building, had been to follow the chuunin, apologize, and make sure no one bothered him until Ibiki arrived the next morning. Fucking him silly hadn’t been on the list, but how he carried out the orders had been left to his discretion.

The clock chimed quarter after 8, and Ibiki smiled internally. This was the real punishment, and they both knew it. The whipping had been severe, but when it was over, his back was healed because damaging the physical abilities of a top operative was foolish. And like Ibiki, the panther had suffered enough torture in his life that a whipping that he had knowingly earned by his own behavior was but a small stretch of pain to be forgotten almost immediately. But knowing his lover was off duty, worried for him thanks to his comrades’ comments, and vulnerable to those same comrades’ teasing and harassment—not to mention no doubt spending time with the best friend the panther was so jealous of, he’d pulled that damn spanking stunt—ah, yes, this was torture!

“Please, Ibiki.”

Well, fuck, this was wonderful! Not only was that face usually hidden behind a panther mask full of emotions, but that mouth that never said a word unneeded was actually begging.

“He’s loosened your tongue, I see,” he said. “I might encourage this little romance if it would mean hearing that voice more often.”

Ibiki watched and waited. The face across from him was so easy to read that it was clear the head of ANBU would need to change the type of missions he assigned the panther for at least a while. He could almost hear the words being considered and rejected in his subordinate’s mind.

“Sir, please.”

Good enough, thought Ibiki. “When we return to my office, you are off-duty until 10 a.m. Report into me personally,” said Ibiki standing up. And then he actually gasped, a fact which shocked him almost as much as the shock that had made him gasp. Panther had smiled, something Ibiki had never seen before. And as smiles went, it was breathtaking, and that wasn’t a word Ibiki used lightly.

He’s sexy when he smiles, thought Ibiki, and that too was a little shocking, no a lot shocking. When had he last thought someone was sexy? No, “thought” was the wrong word because Ibiki knew what other people thought was sexy, he could recognize and acknowledge that. But it had been a long, long time since he’d felt someone was sexy. For just a quarter of a second, he’d wanted that smiling body. Dear god, now was not the time for his long dead libido to wake up!

“Take my arm,” snapped Ibiki, truly annoyed now for the first time. He teleported them back to his office, released that offending arm, and there was a little puff of smoke as the panther vanished. Ibiki paced in the empty office for while before making up his mind. He would approach the ninjas he’d been considering for red cat bowls today, not waiting for circumstances that would make the request seem less outrageous. If he, Ibiki Moreno, was starting to feel other people looked sexy, the state of sexual tension for his group of lonely ANBU seme’s must be unbearable, unendurable.

Squaring his shoulders, Ibiki nodded. Yes, it was time to deal with this problem now—now, before it turned into Ibiki’s problem.