Six Months

Story: Six Months
Pairing: Shikamaru/Kiba
Summary: Shikamaru is entirely too concerned with responsibility and respect, and Kiba is fed up with giving and not getting — he’s starting to reach a breaking point


Stupid fucking asshole.

As soon as we’re done reporting to the Hokage, I am out of there. So sick of his shit. I push past him to the door, not remotely interested in the soft warmth of his shoulder, not doing it on purpose like so many times before, not caring about the contact right now. I feel his eyes lift to mine — probably a force of habit, because every time I brush against him like that in the street, in the missions office or wherever, it usually means I want him. And if he’s in the mood, he’ll take me up on it. But this time, I feel his eyes lift and I don’t even fucking return the look. I’m out the door and hopping down the stairs into the dark and still august evening.

I take a deep breath as I reach the bottom of the staircase and shove my hands in my pockets. “Home?” I ask Akamaru redundantly as he falls into stride next to me. A few blocks from the Hokage’s office I start to feel considerably more relaxed, not conscious of anyone following me, just the small sounds of our footsteps on the street echoing off the high apartment walls, neighbourhood deserted at such a late hour. The air is heavy with humidity and the cicadas buzz so loudly it sounds like a downed power line. I roll my shoulders, stretch my neck side to side, and sigh.

I need to get over Shikamaru.

It’s been way too long and things are not changing. It’s been… god. I don’t even know. My eyebrows creep up into my hairline as I glance in the empty shop windows we pass as we walk. Maybe five months? Six? Whoa.

Six months ago, I was drinking with other chuunin and some of the jounin Shikamaru works with at the barbeque place, downing beers while he sipped fucking soda like always. Drunk and brave, I shoved him into that bathroom stall and pressed my chest against his, hand palming his cock through his pants before he had time to protest. Six months ago, my mouth was sloppy and drunk and wet and desperate all across his neck, having been forcefully stopped when I attempted to connect with his lips, as my left hand is braced against the cool metal of the stall, right hand pumping Shikamaru’s cock — awkwardly, in shallow little pumps, at the complete wrong angle and totally restricted by the pants around his thighs.

Six months ago, Shikamaru came into my sweaty palm, arms just as straight against his sides as they had been when it started, hands in shaking fists, face contorted with please as his head jerked back to hit the wall with a thud that resonated so loud in the quiet bathroom amongst all my heavy breathing and the sound of dry skin slapping skin. Six months ago, I got addicted to making Shikamaru come.

I kick at a pebble with my toe and Akamaru dashes briefly after it, sniffing it disdainfully before returning to my side. We round the corner and I can see my house. I take the back route so I can hop the fence into the backyard. My hands close over the rough wooden edges of the fence and I jump over easily, landing with a deliberate tumble and leting my body collapse to lie back on the grass, pushing my coat off my shoulders as a pillow under my head. Akamaru nudges the side of my face with a wet nose before continuing on into the house, possibly to eat, probably to sleep.

There’s always been something about him. I mean, it’s hard to articulate it — he’s Shikamaru. He’s the hidden genius of our academy year, so respected for the simple fact that he never wanted to be. The youngest of our year to make chuunin, the first to teach at the academy, Asuma’s favourite, a strategic advisor to the Hokage… Everyone in the village loved him because he was the underdog—the least expected to succeed and the least expected to bring us so many successful missions. Fuck, maybe even I like him for that. He’s not a pretentious Hyuuga or Uchiha; he never had anything to prove or anyone to impress.

But things have changed. The same things that make him more motivated these days — protecting the village, helping his friends in battle, investing in the will of fire and all that future generations shit — have made him so goddamn moral. After the first few hand jobs and one during-a-mission blowjob, I started to get frustrated at the way he never touched me or acknowledged the hard-on I’d be pressing against him as I brought him to his orgasm.

I remember that night about, one month into our “arrangement,” the stifling warmth under his blanket, how little air I had and how I couldn’t see shit. I kept my hand wrapped around the base of his dick like an anchor so I wouldn’t lose it in all that darkness — so I wouldn’t lose the one thing I was down there to find. I remember the feel of short curly hairs against the base of my nose, the excitement of being able to pull his pants down enough to feel skin — Shikamaru’s skin — and how fucking hard it made me. I remember sliding my free hand along the slight hollow of his abdomen, up along hard ridges of abdominal muscles, and across to the jutting sharpness of his hipbone before I settled there and grabbed on for dear life, like holding a handle as I rode out my first experience going down on a guy.

I also remember how I took advantage of that moment right after he came, when his body was buzzing or on fire or floating or whatever it felt like for him — I wouldn’t know, it's not as if Shikamaru would tell me. I slid up the side of his clothed chest under the blanket to look him in the face. Propping on my side on an elbow, trying my best to ignore the surprising bitter taste of what I had just swallowed, I asked him if he could help me out with something. I asked it nicely, in a discreet whisper — and fuck, okay, maybe my voice cracked a little out of nervousness or the cock that had just been down my throat or whatever — and I didn’t think it was particularly outrageous to ask, seeing as I had just gone down on him and he had to feel how hard I was against the side of his waist.

But Shikamaru looked me in the eye, all traces of pleasure gone except a faint pink in his cheeks, and told me “I’m responsible for this team. I’m responsible for the future generation and I’m responsible for Konoha. Don’t ask me to shirk that responsibility Kiba.”

Responsibility. What the fuck is that? Shikamaru never used to give a shit about responsibility — it would have been “troublesome.” And sure, yeah, we’re all responsible to the village and our teammates and whatever. But what the fuck does that have to do with doing something that makes you feel good? And why does Shikamaru make it sound like I’ve already compromised that responsibility by doing what I do to him?

Asshole.

Dew from the grass makes my bare arms slippery, already slick with once-dried dirt and sweat. I can feel pin pricks of dried grass through my shirt and the heady smell of humid air and damp earth fills my senses, and I think about a shower. But I feel too tired to get up from my spot here in the yard. I don’t even know right now.

Maybe what makes me feel like such complete shit isn’t that Shikamaru refuses to touch me, but that I’ve let him refuse to touch me for six-fucking-months. I’m so addicted to the face he makes when he comes, the way he sometimes lets his hand stray to grip my hair when I bob over him, or fist in the lapels of my jacket as he hunches into me and my hand works furiously in his lap. I love the thrill of sucking him off at the academy in empty classrooms, the shriek of metal scraping across the wood floor as the desk slips with the force of his bodyweight leaning on it as I kneel between his legs. I love the rare mission I find myself on with him, when I give him a significant glance and wait for him in the forest, pushing him up against the rough bark of a pine tree or down to lie on the twigs and mosses. Shikamaru looks so fucking gorgeous outside, I don’t even understand why — it’s just the way his hair fans out across the forest floor, the way sunlight falls through shifting leaves to fall dappled across his face, the way his little breathy gasps or less-frequent moans carry away with the wind rustling the pine leaves, the way he scrabbles at the ground, dislodging chunks of moss and getting dirt in his fingernails that I know I will spend the next day glancing at and remembering how it got there.

And I don’t really understand how, but I’ve grown addicted to what I do to him, the way his cock slaps up against his stomach, stiff and dark, when I pull his pants down to his thighs. I love every vein and the ridge of the head, the way it feels against my tongue — smooth like fucking velvet but hard and unyielding against the back of my throat. I think about it when I’m on my own, when I wait for him to leave and then I wrap the same hand that was anchored at the base of his cock around the base of my own, or when I’m lying on sweaty sheets in my room at night.

Part of me thinks I have something good going on. I went out on such a fucking limb that night in the bathroom stall, and of all the reactions I could have gotten — punching, weapons, maybe worst of all being called names or being hated — Shikamaru was into it. He never stopped me, and now sometimes he’ll even come to me when he wants it, showing up on the corner of my street just as I’m returning from the training grounds, meeting my eyes with an intense and silent proposition. It is hot to think that I get to make him feel good — Konoha’s underdog, Konoha’s hope for the future: Shikamaru.

But I think I’m wearing thin. I can’t help feeling like I’m being used.

I pull myself up to sit, bending my knees and wrapping my arms around them, hands loosely clasped as I look up to the sky. It was overcast most of the day but now I notice the clouds have mostly disappeared and the moon is just beginning to emerge from behind a cloud.

I guess I just feel like I hit a breaking point today.

The mission only lasted a week, and during that week there was little time for doing anything else. Shikamaru has treated me no differently these past six months, and it helps me to do the same — although to be honest I don’t know how else I could treat him, I’m not into making doe-eyes at each other or flirting or some shit like that. We met up twice during this last mission — once at the inn we were staying at, as we were sharing a room and when I slid the door closed behind me that night I found him lying on his bed, hands linked behind his head and fly undone as he gazed at the ceiling — and the second time in the cool, dry desert night, blankets hot and stifling over my body when I slid under his bedroll and yanked down his pants.

But it wasn’t those things that pissed me off. That seemed normal — or whatever this shit between us would be called. It was the conversation our team had on our last stretch before home, as the sun set behind us and we flew through the branches towards Konoha. Shino and I had been having a (good-natured) argument about Sakura and Lee’s relationship, which was by now as well-known among Konoha’s shinobi as it was among its citizens thanks to Lee’s massive gift bouquets and baskets of sweets. I had asked if anyone thought the two of them were boning and Shino — after making it known how much disdain he had for “such a term” — was explaining how Lee was so concerned with being a “nice guy” that he was probably respecting Sakura’s boundaries.

But I figured Lee’s nice-guy schtik would be overcome by Sakura’s hard-ass side — judging by the way she lets her body do the talking (or more like her fists) when she’s pissed off, I’d guess she’s the same about anything else — including sex. I won’t deny that my own situation with Shikamaru was lingering in my mind when I added “And this whole shit about respecting boundaries — it shouldn’t just be about Lee catering to her likes and dislikes. She should also care about what he likes and dislikes.”

Hinata was quiet but her chakra was consistent behind me, and I was about to add something else like “isn’t that was a relationship is?” when Shikamaru spoke up, silent up until now, jumping from branches just ahead of us. He didn’t turn around but I focused hard on the back of his flak jacket as he said, in a measured voice, “Sakura has a lot of respect in this village. Maybe being seen as being involved with someone in that way would be too damaging — it’s not worth it.”

“Maybe every fucking adult in this village is doing it, why do we have to pretend we aren’t? What is so fucking respectful about denying yourself what you want?” I snapped back, embarrassment and anger prickling hot across the back of my neck as I took his words entirely personally.

Shikamaru let out a loud sigh before pushing more chakra into his feet and pulling ahead of us. Shino and Hinata were silent the rest of the way back to the village and none of us spoke until we were in the Hokage’s office making our report.

I can’t help but feel like that was Shikamaru’s way of reminding me that he’s not going to change for me. That Konoha is more important. Responsibility. Respect. It made me feel insulted too — like he was implying that it’s not a big deal for me because I don’t want or have respect. That’s not what this is fucking about. We’re adults now, we’re shinobi, we know other people are doing it and we know it feels good. Why does touching have to mean we lose the respect of the village?

I push myself up to standing, frustrated but as if the anger has washed through me and out into the night, mostly just feeling defeated and fed up. As I rub the back of my neck with my hand and look up at the moon now shining brightly down on me, I suddenly sense a chakra presence behind me.

Thinking maybe it’s my mom or my sister, I stay looking up at the moon for a second more before deciding I should just go to sleep and stop thinking so hard. But as I turn around to face the house, I see someone else entirely standing in the shadow beside the porch.

Shikamaru.

“What.” I say, more like a fed-up statement — or a warning perhaps — than a question. If he asks me to suck him off right now I just might say no, I’m too frustrated. But just as I lift my leg to start walking towards him and my back door, I see a familiar dark line dart out from him towards me and it’s in that second that I notice his hands are formed into those seals and I realize I’m immobilized.

…the fuck?

He walks towards me (and I, in mimic, walk towards him), emerging from the shade and into the light of the moon, casting a cold blue-white hue across his unreadable face. He’s still wearing his clothes from the mission — I recognize the blood-encrusted bandage around his left shin from yesterday and the graze along his right forearm, sleeves of his dark shirt rolled up.

“What the hell is it,” I say warningly, a part of me panicking that he’s bound me here so that he can keep me in one place while telling me something significant — perhaps something like “stay the hell away from me, fag” — and another part of me is angry at having my own teammate’s jutsu turned on me.

As I’m not struggling, he releases the seals and the jutsu holds easily. He lifts his right hand to place a finger across his lips, my own doing the same of its own accord. The sudden feel of my own calloused finger on my lips feels foreign, like it belongs to someone else. I roll my eyes and huff out a breath of exasperation. Okay, so no talking. What the hell am I supposed to do then?

He starts to walk sideways and I follow. It’s a strange sensation, almost like I am outside my own body, except for my senses. He leads us into the alcove beside the porch, along the back wall of the house where there are only two windows, up at the second floor. It’s completely shaded from the moonlight and we stand facing each other, about three feet apart. I study his face in confusion but he isn’t giving anything away — Shikamaru never does — as I feel my back come to rest against the rough wood of the fence behind me.

We stare at each other for a few moments. I am trying to send my thoughts through my eyes — I’m sick of your respect-and-responsibility bullshit, I’m sick of always feeling like the gay one, I want you to touch me but you won’t because you are too high-and-fucking-mighty — and I can only assume that with that genius brain of his he must be picking some of it up. Hell, he must know exactly how I’ve been feeling these six months, how could he not? But he just doesn’t give a shit. That realization sets a new anger burning in the pit of my stomach — a sort of anger-embarassment that makes me avert my eyes and glare at the wall to my right.

A moment or two passes in silence, nothing but cicadas buzzing and humid air settling around us. Then I hear fabric move before I notice my right hand rising up to my face. My mouth opens and I continue to stare with determination at the wall, anger for this asshole in front of me still burning in my stomach, as my mouth parts and I find my tongue taking a long, wet swipe up my palm. What? My hand stays hovering out in front of my now-closed mouth and I snap my eyes back to Shikamaru’s face. He’s staring at me hard, and I see how that look has changed from a minute ago, no longer that unreadable, bored, you-are-not-worth-it expression, but instead a look I recognize well — the look that he gives me before leading me deliberately into an empty classroom or bathroom stall. That look of hunger.

And as that look burns into me, my left hand suddenly appears at my waist and... I can’t fucking believe this.

It’s undoing my pants.

Button.

After.

Button.

And then it’s reaching inside, no hesitation, and I can feel myself looking in confusion and hopelessness at Shikamaru as my left hand pulls my soft cock out into the warm night air before letting go to return to my side. My eyes dart to my right hand, still glistening with my own spit and hovering in front of my mouth, before I suddenly realize — oh! — and that’s what it’s for, and I swear I’m hard in about two seconds because I look back up to meet Shikamaru’s eyes and he holds my gaze as he slowly brings our hands down to wrap a tight thumb and forefinger around the base of our now-exposed cocks.

Oh fuck. Oh fuck.

A million things are going through my mind right now — I’ve never seen him touch himself before, I never thought he’d bother “wasting time” on jacking off, but it’s so hot, the side of his mouth tilted up ever-so-slightly in a smile, forearm muscle flexed as he drags his hand slowly up and down his length. Suddenly I’m curious what his preferences are when he touches himself — does he do it fast or slow? Does he touch himself in other places? Does he make little noises? And I’m also acutely aware that he’s never seen my cock before, and part of our whole arrangement seems to be the very denial that I even have one, and yet here he is pulling it out and making me touch it. And he’s so hard and he looks so fucking turned on — some part of him is loving this.

After a few slow pumps, Shikamaru guides our hands up to smooth our palms over the top, and I don’t know about him but when I do it, my palm smears a drop of precum around the head and a groan rumbles deep in my chest. Daaaamn. He wraps our hands around the length of our cocks, thumb long against the underside, and strokes at that angle, the rough pad of my thumb rubbing up and over the ridge of my head and feeling so good.

As he slowly picks up the pace, moving our hands around once in a while, I find myself locked into his face, as much as I want to watch what he’s doing with our hands. The hottest part really is the way he’s staring at me with so much hunger, so much confidence. I don’t know what this means about everything he’s said and everything he’s refused to do… but Shikamaru is here making me feel good this time, and regardless of the circumstances it makes me feel like a million bucks. Six fucking months in the making.

My left hand twitches and I can feel it slide up under the hem of my shirt to move across my stomach, fine hairs under my bellybutton soft under my palm before my hand runs up higher, slipping over my right nipple before gripping hard at my right shoulder. The fabric of my shit is pushed up to my armpits under my arm and so is Shikamaru’s, the smooth expanse of his stomach bared, something I’ve seen only fleeting glances of. I stare unabashedly at the exposed skin as he runs our fingers back and forth across collarbones and back to grip our shoulders. I love the slight definitions of his abs and how narrow his waist is, the protrusions of his hipbones and the lines of muscle descending from them to where his other hand is speeding up and down over his cock.

Shikamaru moans softly, but in a really guttural, masculine way that goes straight to my cock. Our hands are speeding up and the other hand under my shirt grips the flesh of my shoulder with a sudden increased force, and I can feel my own breathing speed up as I realize Shikamaru must be close.

He keeps our eyes locked as he walks closer to me, and in his jutsu I’m doing the same towards him, bringing us within a few inches of each other. I can smell him — his arousal, his sweat, the faint coppery hint of dried blood on his body. I imagine I can feel the air displaced around his cock as his hand works it, and the proximity of our lengths makes me lightheaded. Just one inch more and we'd be…

“Unh”

And my eyes fly up from our cocks to see that I missed the warning signs and Shikamaru is suddenly coming, eyes burning into mine as his eyebrows draw together and his mouth hangs slightly open. I feel him come, warm drops on my stomach and landing mostly across my hand and knuckles. I’m so-fucking-close and he seems to realize this enough to continue the motions of our hands, and now there’s a sticky-warm wetness slipping between my fingers and slicking my cock and it’s just way too hot, to know that it’s from Shikamaru — to know that he’s doing this to me — and I’m there, choking out a “Fuck!” and trying so hard to keep my eyes on Shikamaru without letting them close as it washes violently over me.

We stand there for a moment, breathing heavy and hands hanging at our sides, and I feel the warmth of his breath across my face and neck and the drops on my stomach trailing down and soaking into the hem of my pants. I try to search his expression with equal parts curiosity and gratefulness.

“Hm.” Shikamaru hums, stepping backwards and dropping his head as he casually does up his pants and just as casually releases the jutsu. I stumble back a step, overcome with the bizarre sensation of once again controlling my own body. “Maybe,” he adds.

And I’m frowning and trying to meet his eyes as I absentmindedly tuck myself back into my pants and hastily do them up. But he’s turning his back and he’s up and over the fence before I have time to think.

“What the fu-“

“Maybe,” he repeats from the other side of the fence, voice low in the still night but loud enough to carry as he stops for a moment, facing away from me, “maybe it’s worth it.”

He’s gone before I can say anything more. I lean heavily back against the fence, eyes lifted to the night sky in confusion. But I feel a grin spreading across my face as I clumsily wipe my hand off on the wooden fence behind me. Maybe he didn’t touch me with his own hands. But everything about that felt different and new.

Six fucking months, and maybe it has been worth it. Maybe there’s a lot more to look forward to.