Between Friends

Between Friends by Hestia

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Background to Chapter 1: Konaha needs all her ninjas, and it’s time for Kotetsu and Izumo to tackle some A-rank and S-rank missions. It’s a time of big change for the former desk-working, gate-patrolling, stay-at-home shinobis, and they’ve moved in together for the first time. But Izumo is having trouble with living with Kotetsu’s frequent nudity though he knows his friend only sleeps with women. But Kotetsu’s got some secrets that he doesn’t want to keep from Izumo any more . . .

Disclaimer: I don’t own anything Naruto or any of the characters in this fiction, and this is just your basic fanfiction.

Overall Warning: Work in Progress (so chapters may shift or have minor changes), "Het" (jutsu), Yaoi, Language, Slave (game/role play only), BDSM (sorry, only mildly), Exhibitionism, “Solo” Male Masturbation (jutsu stuff), Voyeurism, Lime, Lemon, Anal, Dominance/submission, Oral, Mild Violence, Minor Manga Spoilers (319, 320, 321). See each chapter headnote for specifics if you have any preference or no-nos--I'll warn you before lemons. Now that Manga 322 is out, the story is AU since Manga 321 and 322 have no time break between them, so no time for Chapters 5-10 to take place.

Technical Note: I haven't figured out how to transfer italics here without also causing other formatting problems. I'm currently using single quotes, `xxx' instead of the more normal italics to indicate exact thoughts said in each
character's mind.

Thanks so much to my reviewers!!! This is my first yaoi, my second fanfic, my first lemon, so I'm learning the "ropes" and glad for all the encouragement and helpful suggestions.

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Between Friends

Chapter Note: Minor Manga Spoilers up to 319. No lemons in this chapter, just some background, minor profanity, and mention of straight sexual situations (yaoi fans, be patient).

Chapter 1: The Mission

Hagane Kotetsu stood at the end of flat roof a distance away from Team Asuma’s leader and his favored former student Shikamaru. The two of them were both staring intensely at the little apartment balcony across the way—Yuuhi Kurenai’s balcony. It wasn’t the sort of place team leaders typically chose to start a mission from, but Kotetsu didn’t care as he watched Asuma and Shikamaru, waiting for them to signal it was time to go.

`Dammit, Asuma, your red-eyed hottie is going to be there when you get back. Get your mind off your crotch, and let’s get going. You had a whole night to fuck, it’s time to fight,' Kotetsu raged in his thoughts while keeping his mouth closed. Only when he was alone with Izumo would he let out whatever was on his mind, as foul and dirty as it was. To everyone else, he was just Kotetsu, the reliable, silent, obedient, helpful assistant who scared or interested no one. He was the one with the forms, the pile of reports, watching the door, guarding this room, proctoring that exam, handling that paperwork—and thank fucking god he would be free of all that for today.

Kotetsu couldn’t help but reach his hand back to touch the scabbard of one of the two long swords slung across his back. Ok, so two swords weren’t really necessary, but hell, if he was going out against Akatsuki, the most dangerous and wanted criminal missing-nins in all of the five countries, he was going out in style, armed with everything. Well, he’d left a few things behind since it would be too humiliating to have Shikamaru criticizing his equipment.

Kotetsu couldn’t help but glare a little at the genius resting on one knee beside Asuma. `God, that punk, I proctored his damn chuunin exam—his only chuunin exam.' It was annoying to think that Izumo and he had taken the exam three times before passing while Shikamaru--who had graduated from the academy with scores just barely above dead last--had managed to pass his first time, scowling and whining most of the way. At least now that Shikamaru was older, he didn’t seem to yawn, roll his eyes, or make those I-am-so-fucking-put-out faces so much. `And he is a fucking genius, you have got to admit it,' Kotetsu told himself.

Abruptly, Kotetsu snapped his head around looking for Izumo—thinking about Shikamaru pissed him off and made him feel the need to see his best friend. Of course Izumo stood back a respectful twelve feet or so, patiently waiting with hands relaxed at his sides. Kotetsu grinned at his friend who always had his back, though, dammit, Izumo also drove him crazy. Why didn’t he feel he could stand with Asuma and Shikamaru? Yes, they were more powerful and smarter shinobi, but Izumo was an important part of this team too. He snapped his head back as Asuma finally growled out in a soft voice, “Let’s roll . . . Someone’s got to do it.”

Kotetsu felt a flash of pure joy and stopped thinking about anything else but the mission. This was what he wanted to do since he was a little boy, this was being a ninja!

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Izumo stood back from his new team. It was a sign of how bad things were for Konoha that he and Kotetsu were leaving the village. Sure, they’d had missions before, but never had they been tough or dangerous, let alone a top-priority one. Izumo was usually the one classifying missions, preparing recommendations for the teams the Hokage would assign, waving good-bye as he stood on gate-patrol, and accepting and filing reports from returning teams. He didn’t know why Kotetsu had stayed by his side if he was so bored with doing those things. He certainly had made his enthusiasm for such a dangerous mission clear enough last night—loudly and colorfully--as they had packed in their new apartment.

Their apartment—a little flare of panic went through Izumo. What the heck was he doing living with Kotetsu? They already spent almost every moment in public together and plenty of time chilling out in private. There were times when a guy needed to be alone. They didn’t need to be around each other 24/7, 365 days a year.

Izumo frowned as he noticed Kotetsu’s hands once again checking his the hang of his swords, as if he was worried they were suddenly gone. `He’s so impatient,' Izumo thought, `because he can’t understand Asuma’s need for time to shut away his love for Kurenai.' Kotetsu never seemed to understand women and love. For him, it was women and sex. `I don’t even think he ever thinks about feeling anything but their bodies—he can’t. He wouldn’t keep setting me up with his ex-lovers or even offering to share his current ones. He’s so insensitive that for him, six feet and one flimsy bush is enough privacy from your best friend to start making the beast with two backs.' Izumo put that image out his mind and focused intensely on watching Asuma and Shikamaru’s backs.

`God, he’d laugh his ass off, that I don’t even want to saying fucking in my mind. But seriously, that’s what he does with them. Why does he always pick women that think remembering to use a condom is the height of romance? He’s got slut radar. He also talks about women in the dirtiest ways and to them. He doesn’t shut up with the dirty talk; it’s like he wants me to hear every nasty thing he’s saying, every gasp, lick, slap, slurp he does. I don’t think he can even get it up if he’s not got someone listening or, better yet, looking at him do it. He knows I’ll beat on him every time he embarrasses me like that, and he doesn’t give a damn how many times I shove his face in the dirt. Thank god he seems to be able to go a long time between feeling the urge to act on all that stupid sex talk--it’s only like once every other week or so that he goes on dates alone or leaves me alone at the bar and takes off with a woman, unless we leave Konoha. He’s a freaking sex fiend those few times we leave town on low-rank missions, which is so weird since I’ve never even seen any of his women in his Konoha apartments. Well, duh, if he can do it in an alley or on a bench where anyone might see the show, why bother to take someone all the way back to his bed—oh shit!'

Unbidden, an image rose in Izumo’s mind of himself standing in the doorway of Kotetsu’s bedroom in their new apartment, watching his friend making love on his messy bed to a faceless woman, her legs wrapped around Kotetsu’s waist. Sure Kotetsu never had any woman at his past places when Izumo was there or dropped by, but he loved to bring them back to their room or campsite on the minor, lame, tame missions that took them out of town. ` “Oh, he won’t wake up,” he tell the female fool as he convinced her that she wanted to strip down and let him maul her in a room with another guy--as if I could ever sleep through that kind of noise or talk! He’d make it seem kinky and offer to wake up me as if every horny girl’s idea of a good time was a threesome with two guys!' Izumo’s eyes shifted over to his friend’s back, and he bit his lip. `Shit, Kotetsu hasn’t shut the door to his room once since we’ve moved into the new place together.'

Kotetsu’s head suddenly spun around, and their eyes met and that grin spread over his friend’s face beneath the bandage that Kotetsu wore across his nose and cheeks every day. A feeling of guilt speared Izumo: `He’s bloody happy and thinks this is the most fun we’ll ever have, the best times of our lives. Yeah, it’s thrilling we’re going to be on serious and dangerous missions, and we will finally be doing the kind of things we talked about as little kids at the academy. But just because we wanted to risk our lives being heroes and live together as kids, that doesn’t mean we should.'

Izumo was started to feel ill, and not about being about to set out on a mission against such major criminals as Uchiha Itachi, the famous family-slaughtering psychopath. He was upsetting himself thinking about Kotetsu’s open bedroom door. Sure, there was a pile of boxes against the door that the spiky-haired nin hadn’t unpacked, but it was still a bad sign of how much of Kotetsu’s life he was going to have to share. And the parading around—Izumo knew his friend felt he didn’t have to hide anything from him, but he’d never noticed before how much Kotetsu liked to walk around in the buff. On missions or the times they’d planned to spend a night together drinking or talking, he had always had something to sleep in. Every time he had crashed at Izumo’s old apartment, he’d never completely stripped down. Not that Izumo was seeing anything new—for god’s sake, he’d probably peed more times next to Kotetsu than he had alone, and they swam together and soaked in hot springs naked before. And when Izumo stopped by Kotetsu’s old place, sometimes he’d been unclothed, but never for long. He’d always thrown on a towel or pulled on some underwear or shorts.

And even if he knew Izumo was only pretending to sleep on those weird nights away from Konoha when Kotetsu would get up from their hotel room and go out alone in the night and bring a woman back, he seemed to trust his friend not to look or to watch or to ever talk about the show he would put on. It always amazed Izumo that Kotetsu could find a drunk or horny and sex-deprived woman when every decent person was sleeping. If Izumo’s eyes were open and the light was on, Kotetsu wouldn’t come in the room—no, he’d use the hallway, the bathroom, the balcony, the wall, or ground outside their room, but not the room. Even if he’d brought his lover into the room, for all his noise and dirty talk, he’d usually keep it under ten minutes or in rarer cases, under twenty minutes, and he always cleaned and covered himself afterwards. And he always took the beatings Izumo would give him without a word of complaint. Somehow, after every one of those horrible humiliating nights that Izumo would pretend to sleep through Kotetsu’s “score,” it always ended up in fight that had him leaving Kotetsu with a black eye and some assorted bruises to match the hickey on his neck or chest or his butt that he would “try” to cover.

But in the new apartment, he didn’t seem to be making even the lamest, fakest “try” to cover anything. And somehow it was different just coming out of the bathroom and seeing Kotetsu naked save for his face bandage making a cup of tea like he was at work, like he was getting ready to take a cup of tea to the Fifth. For one thing, it was embarrassingly hard not to stare. Izumo had long known that he was sexually attracted to both men and women. He just didn't want to be caught treating his friend like a potential lover and risk losing him since he was clearly into women. `God, on Tuesday morning, he ran around starkers for ten minutes trying to find his watch and swearing in that foul-mouthed way he does. Not that his running around and cursing is anything new—he has always run around in the morning way too much. It's just normally when I've seen him do that, he's not naked, butt naked. Butt naked with a fucking great butt,' he thought before he could check himself.

Izumo closed his eyes and shook his head to hide behind his hair. He hated when he let himself think dirty, wrong things. Not that he though being gay was wrong, but a nice gay guy just wouldn’t think that way about a straight man or about any of his friends. Ok, so most gay guys Izumo knew wouldn’t qualify as nice. `And I’m not really even gay, at least not yet.' If you’re a virgin, it’s sort of easier to just think of yourself as presexual, even asexual. `I’m keeping my options open. I’m picky. When the right guy or girl comes around, I’ll know.'

“Let’s roll,” ordered Asuma, and Izumo focused on his team leader with relief. He locked up all his tangled thoughts and feelings and let the feeling of calm control flood him with certainty. He would be given a task for the team, and he would do it perfectly. When it was work time, he and Kotetsu would do what they had to do, together perfectly, like magic, never any words, never any problems, just perfect teammates, perfect assistants, perfectly in time with each other getting the task done perfectly. No thinking, no weird feelings, no nudity, no foul talking or thinking, just working, just teammates, perfect teammates.

And this time, there would be no downtime, none of those confusing nights away with no paperwork left, nothing to be cleaned or filed, nothing to be planned, no mission task, nothing to focus on but Kotetsu and the way Kotetsu talked and acted when it was playtime. No time to even think on anything, but finding Akatsuki before Akatsuki could find and kill them. `It’s showtime now, ok, focus, run your checklists . . . God, I love my job,' flashed in Izumo’s mind--a last distracted thought before he immersed himself in his role on the mission.