Archive of Our Own

A pair of Stone ninjas dropped them off two miles from the border. The good-natured Jounin had escorted them across damn near the whole breadth of their country, but only those actually looking to pass through would go that close to a border on the path, and they didn’t need an escort anymore anyway. Allies or no, they’d be watched until they were all the way back in Konoha.

Back to Konoha, and in both of their opinions it wasn’t soon enough. Kiba and Ino got along fine, winningly in fact, but they were far from ideal partners. Too restless, both of them wound up all the time; each found the calm of their usual partners sorely missed. Akamaru, in particular, felt the brunt of their uneven teamwork, and the dog was beyond exasperation with the two of them.

He still refused to walk at Kiba’s side, leading the way instead with his tail in the air and his back stiff. Kiba’d long stopped arguing with him about it; he couldn’t ride him right now anyway. Akamaru couldn’t take two and there was no way he’d make Ino walk by herself.

It wasn’t like it had been a bad time. They’d fulfilled their mission down to the last guideline, and Ino was certainly entertaining to travel with. Both of them were foot-sore and going on forty-eight hours of wakefulness, but any tension had been dispersed by the friendly Jounin from Stone, and on the road to home it was hard to be too upset. Ino cracked her neck twice, dragging away a few strands of hair stuck to her shoulder by sweat.

“When I get back I’m spending a good forty-five minutes in the shower getting all of this crap off.” The thought of getting clean was enough to raise a smile, and she clapped her hands together in excitement. “Gonna drop off my report and then surprise Shikamaru at home.”

Kiba laughed. “That’s a good idea, surprise him. Just in case he’s got another girl there, huh?”

She made a face of horror and homicidal intent. “He’d better not be screwing some slut while I’m away risking my life, I’ll kill them both!”

“But if you were in town filing papers, it’d be fine?” He laughed even harder. “Come on, Ino! He’s way too lazy to go chasing tail and besides-” he ducked a projectile weapon that neither of them bothered to retrieve when it went skidding through the bushes off the path. “-I don’t think he wants to die.”

Ino looked slightly mollified when he raised both hands in an ‘I’m-kidding’ gesture. She even bit her lip to hide a smile before tilting her head and quirking an eyebrow at him. “What about you? I don’t think I’ve heard you bragging about this or that girl since…” she counted back on her fingers. “-months. I mean, we’ve been on this mission for weeks, but even before that, at least since I got back from the thing with the guy and the giant bats, and that was a while ago.”

He shrugged. “Things have been hectic. Plus, I think I’ve made my way through every available girl in Konoha.” He gave her his best shit-eating grin, prepared to duck another assault. “Unless you’re offering…”

__________

The splint was finally off and if Shino had been a lesser man he would have wept for joy. Fortunately, Shino was not a lesser man; he merely paid the doctor and left as quickly as could be considered dignified. The wood and plaster pressing so tightly against his skin had damn near driven him mad, especially after Kiba was sent on a mission and then Hinata had been similarly deployed, leaving him, for all intents and purposes, completely alone.

The Aburame never wore anything tight; their skin was to be available to their bugs anywhere, and the whole time he’d worn the splint the kikaichuu had hummed beneath it, pressing at the obstruction to make sure he knew it was there. Barely a few yards from the hospital he was already shrugging his shoulder to pull his arm further into his jacket and releasing kikaichuu to run over the area and assure themselves that everything was in order.

He flexed his hand open and closed the whole way home, something he hadn’t been able to do since he splintered the bone in his forearm in Sand. Despite the miracles wrought by the healing justsus, he’d have to work his arm for a while to get it back up to par. For now, it was enough that he could unlock his apartment with his right hand again, his wrist twinging as he turned the key in the lock.

Opening his door landed him face to face with a dog the size of a small pony who seemed unusually glad to see him. Kiba had taken the liberty of raiding Shino’s pantry to feed himself and Akamaru, which meant Shino’d need to go shopping if he wanted to have anything to eat tonight other than condiments, but he was neither surprised nor upset. Kiba had been breaking into his apartment ever since the Aburame had moved in, and Shino was already well-used to his friend’s tendency to overstep the commonly accepted bounds of social interaction.

He took a few minutes to rub Akamaru behind the ears and realize that the dog needed a bath soon if he was going to be staying in Shino’s apartment. “Miss me?”

At the sound of his voice Akamaru let out a quiet ‘whuff’ of happiness and rubbed up against him exactly the way he’d seen cats do, not that he’d ever mention it to the canine or his owner. The effect with the giant dog was that Shino was almost knocked on his ass, but he bore it with the endurance of affection and took the time to let Akamaru out into the enclosure that passed for a backyard for the small apartment complex. Washing him would have to wait, because it wasn’t the sort of task that could be performed where someone would mind the mess.

Then he left his coat and sandals by the door and climbed the stairs to the single bedroom and bathroom that comprised the second floor, flexing his hand the whole way. His bed, usually a thing of taut, unwrinkled sheets with perfectly folded corners around the mattress, looked like the scene of a barroom brawl. Kiba had pulled a blanket out of the closet, and it and the sheets were piled in the chaotic, jagged lines of a nest, as though Kiba had drawn them up in defense. The corners of items that didn’t even belong in the bed like one of his razors and an empty glass poked up here and there.

He pulled the mesh shirt over his head and folded it on top of the dresser, setting his glasses nearby. He could see the steam still covering the mirror when he looked through the open bathroom door, which meant Kiba had fallen asleep barely a half hour ago. Just in his pants now, he crawled onto the bed, taking a moment to decipher a way into the nest and remove any non-sleep-worthy items he could reach (how did an orange get in there?), then sliding up against a smooth, warm body. It was late afternoon, which was a good time to sleep, if any time during the day could be considered a good time to sleep, and really, he was pretty tired. Since they’d put on the splint, the kikaichuu had woken Shino up over and over during the night with their alarmed humming against the pressure around his wrist, and especially with Kiba there, letting out a throaty purr and pulling him close, he couldn’t resist.

__________

There was a hand between his legs, hot breath panting against his ear, and something hard pressed against his ass. A slick tongue flicked against his ear, followed by the prick of fangs catching on the earlobe, just for a moment but it was enough to make him gasp, eyes snapping open quickly. At the exact same time, the hand between his legs pressed down almost too hard, and his fingers dug into the sheets as he bit his lip to keep the noise that evoked to himself.

Without a shirt he could feel every detail of Kiba’s chest sliding around behind him as he changed position so he could rub up against Shino from behind. Somewhat exasperated with being stuck as he was – Kiba had begun to move his hand with just enough pressure to render him incoherent – he reached a hand back and pushed.

The Inuzuka let him win his freedom, but when he’d turned over on his back, he found himself directly under a more than eager boyfriend. Kiba pressed down, letting his whole weight settle onto Shino, and it reminded the Aburame of one of the things he’d really missed while sleeping alone those last few weeks. He’d thought he’d never get used to that heavy body being thrown over him during the night, but he’d lately found out it was hard for him to sleep now without it.

“I missed you.”

And that voice. He’d really missed that rough voice with its ever-changing moods, talking to him all the time because Kiba really couldn’t be quiet. That wolfish grin spread across Kiba’s face as they took a moment to regard each other, and Shino could feel the corners of his mouth pulling up. The expression was unfamiliar for him, but it didn’t last long anyway. His hands were gripping Kiba one at his neck, one at his waist, hard enough to hurt, pulling him down, and his boyfriend welcomed it. Hot, slow, absolutely indecent, they kissed, saliva running down his jaw while Kiba worked his talented hands between them, making short work of the pants he was still wearing.

Ahhhhh, and that. He’d definitely missed that.

Said pants ended up around his ankles, where it took him another few minutes to kick them the rest of the way off because of what Kiba was doing where the pants had been. Kiba stopped for a moment, pulled away, and slowly licked the length of his hand, something that made Shino groan deeply beneath him. The now slick hand went back to where it had been.

Over the months they’d started to learn exactly what the other liked, and Kiba worked expertly, squeezing just the right amount, twisting his hand on the down stroke, and rubbing his thumb on the underside of the head. He’d started to reach for the sweatpants Kiba was wearing, already sporting a damp spot on the front, but he was rendered practically incoherent by the perfect assault. His fingers dug into the mess of sheets and he bit his lip to hold back the noise, but Kiba seemed to have no such worries, staring down at him with slit eyes, running his tongue over his lips, knowing how much the sight of that tortured Shino.

“That’s right, baby. I know how you like it.” He squeezed a little harder, and Shino arched, gasping. Without slacking off the pace any, Kiba started to slide down. “I know what you’d like even more.”

It took Shino’s mind a few seconds to catch up with the words, and by the time he did, he felt hot breath over the head of his cock. He bit back a gasp, and looked down just in time to see Kiba run his tongue up the length. Shino made a noise he didn’t even recognize, and was rewarded with that wide, wolfish grin. It should have been disconcerting to see fangs like that so near such a sensitive area, but instead it just seemed to push him further.

Kiba kept pumping him with his hand gently, meeting his gaze after licking him again. “That’s it, Shino. I missed you so much, and I’m gonna suck you until you can’t think straight.” Shino groaned, neck twitching and threatening to give out, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the boy. Didn’t want to. “That’s right, gonna suck you off, remind you how much you missed me.”

Shino opened his mouth, thinking vaguely of saying something about missing things other than this, but Kiba didn’t give him a chance. He wasn’t sure he’d have been able to talk anyway. The Inuzuka went down, slid that gorgeous, hot, wet mouth over him, and sucked, hard.

Shino’s head hit the pillows, his fingertips brushing Kiba’s hair, not sure if he could handle gripping his boyfriend’s head. Kiba made a series of loud, slurping sounds and moaned as he worked, and Shino’s whole body shuddered. Kiba gave head the way he did everything else, intense and chaotic and goddamn beautiful.

The sound of Shino’s panting filled the room, along with the wet sounds of Kiba’s work, and he bit his lip, still struggling with the instinct to be quiet even though he knew it got Kiba off to hear him. Of course, that didn’t last long. Kiba worked whatever wasn’t in his mouth with his hand while the other went down to play with his balls, making humming sounds and rhythmically dipping his head down and clearly enjoying himself immensely, and it was quickly too much.

“Aaaahh!” He bit his lip again to quell the noise, and tensed, feeling his orgasm ripple out, briefly gripping his whole body, tight, shivering pleasure spreading through him. It wasn’t like he hadn’t gotten himself off while Kiba had been gone, but it wasn’t anything like this…

Kiba slid his way back up, licking his lips, slow and showy, and Shino pulled him close, brushing their lips together on his way to biting his neck the way he knew Kiba loved, feeling his boyfriend’s whole body react at the pressure of teeth at his throat, and wrapping a hand around his cock and stroking him, and he was surprised to hear just a few seconds later, “Fuuuck, Shino!” as Kiba came in his hand, trembling and undulating against him, shuddering through his orgasm, followed moments later by a breathless apology. Shino leaned inquisitively into him, nosing against his temple.

He pulled back and they regarded each other, both of them panting, Kiba still propped up on his arms, and Kiba grinned and licked his cheek and apologized again. “Been thinking about this the whole freaking way home. Thought about it so goddamn much I almost told Ino all my evil plans for you. Should have figured I’d come the second you touched me.”

Shino felt one of his eyebrows twitch and slid the fingers of his clean hand over the small of Kiba’s back. “It’s not exactly like I’m offended…” He felt tension bleed out of Kiba’s muscles.

They settled together, rearranging the sheets to cover them both as Kiba went boneless, collapsing dramatically. Shino considered the mess for a moment, prompting Kiba up a few inches and wiping his stomach and hand on a corner of the top sheet, deciding that would just have to do for now as the Inuzuka settled back over him, warm and solid. He let his eyes close, and felt his injured arm being maneuvered between them. Seconds later his eyes shot open, incredulously watching Kiba licking the skin that had been pressed under the split for so long.

The skin was extra sensitive, and it felt great, and it looked great, so he watched, letting it sink in that his boyfriend was back and he wouldn’t be spending any more nights alone for a while. Kiba gently probed his arm.

“We gonna need to do physical therapy or anything for this?”

“Not much.” Shino rotated the wrist around to show how much movement he could perform. It ached, but not unpleasantly. “Just a few simple exercises. The doctor said it would be back to fighting strength in a month, perhaps a little sooner.”

His father had been… well, his father, about the whole thing. Shino had heard plenty about how inappropriate his allowing himself to receive a lasting injury was, how he was supposed to outperform his sister as a matter of course and how she had never received such an injury. All delivered in cold, clipped language while he knelt woodenly at the table in their clan hall, marinating in the disapproving gaze of his father and the palpable resentment from his sister. He was more than ready for every vestige of the incident to be behind him.

“Mmmm…” Kiba kept licking it for a minute and Shino made no move to stop him. Kiba had treated the injury like the predictable part of the job it was and had never made him feel at fault. He felt his breath catch when Kiba moved on to his palm where the bandages had pressed and wound around his hand over the soft fleshy web between the thumb and the rest of his fingers. “Guess we’ll just have to be extra careful with it,” he murmured against the skin, flicking narrowed eyes with slit pupils up at Shino when his breath caught again.

Shino pulled his other hand out from under the Inuzuka and set about running it lazily through Kiba’s hair. Evening sunlight was streaming through the blinds, spring lengthening the daylight at last, and he was feeling particularly unmotivated. Kiba finished licking every inch of skin that had been under the splint and stretched, making a rumbly happy sound that was almost a growl and almost a purr. He wiggled around until he was mostly on top of Shino, hands folded together over Shino’s stomach, chin propped on top of them.

He tilted his head in the direction he was being petted, closed one eye, and made that rumbly sound again. They stayed like that for a while, the Inuzuka uncharacteristically, but contentedly, silent before he finally asked, “You hungry?”

Shino felt the corner of his mouth twitch. “Yes, but you shouldn’t be. I noticed you helped yourself to the contents of my kitchen.”

Kiba titled his head even more and scooted back just a bit so that his chin was resting directly on Shino’s stomach, folded hands obscuring the lower part of his face. “Yeah…” He looked sheepish, but his eyes said he was still smiling, and he didn’t look particularly sorry.

His mouth twitched again. “So, I think eating here is out of the question.” He didn’t think it was worth pointing out that neither of them was particularly enthusiastic about cooking, despite his secretive efforts at improvement while the Inuzuka was out of town, when needling Kiba about his ridiculous lack of boundaries was obviously more important.

Kiba pulled his hands back under his chin. “Good! Because I totally made plans for the two of us to meet up with Ino and Shikamaru for dinner. You know… if you want to.” He was grinning just a little too forcefully, in the way that Shino was just recently beginning to realize meant that he was uncertain about something.

“Sure,” he murmured slowly, sliding his hand down to cradle the back of Kiba’s head just for a moment before he started to sit up.

Kiba bounded off the mattress. “Awesome, I’m starving!”

He smiled to himself, just for a second, and started to look for his pants. “You and Ino aren’t too sick of each other after three weeks together?”

“Nah!” Kiba rummaged around in the pile where he seemed to keep both clean and dirty clothes and pulled out a mesh shirt. “I mean, a little, but we have fun together.”

“I’m sure…” He fastened his pants and looked up to find Kiba watching him a little strangely. He almost stammered, and hastened to add, “Well… I’m sure she’s a more… uh, entertaining partner to-,”

Kiba stepped right into his personal space and he stopped talking altogether, not really sure what he’d been trying to say anyway. Kiba was sliding one of his huge hands around the back of his neck and pulling him forward and he kissed him, slowly, working his way from chaste to filthy, drawing Shino out until he was making soft sounds right into Kiba’s mouth. When he stopped, Shino realized his eyes were closed and opened them to find Kiba pressed against him from head to toe and watching him intently.

Before he had the chance to say anything else Kiba kissed him again, quickly, and murmured, “Yeah, she’s fun. But I missed my real partner the whole time.”

He wasn’t good with words, and he knew it. There was something he wanted to say, right there in his mind, in his throat, but he couldn’t think of the words, of a way to describe the feeling that welled up from deep inside his chest, so he leaned a little harder into Kiba and stroked his thumbs along the boy’s hip bones, where his hands had settled without him realizing it.

Kiba grinned at him, a real one, and turned around to pull his jacket out the pile of clothes.

__________

Shikamaru hadn’t been home when she’d arrived; Ino had broken in anyway, showered and slept and woken up starving. She figured she’d find him at work, and she did, which was a good thing because she’d made plans for the both of them to be at a restaurant and that wouldn’t exactly work without him.

Shikamaru had been on plenty of field assignments for his first few years, but his intellect had proven itself time and again on in-depth analysis, and for the last year he had spent almost all of his time working directly for the Hokage on secret projects he wasn’t allowed to tell her anything about. Which was fine with her as long as he put in most of his twenty-four-hour workdays while she was out on field assignments and tolerated her showing up and dragging him away from work on occasion.

His office was one floor down from the Hokage’s; security was tight but every one of the guards was used to seeing her going through his window and no one hassled her about it. It was empty when she got there, but just as she was contemplating checking out the break room, the doorknob turned and she quickly backed up to perch herself on the edge of his desk, leaning back in a way that she hoped showed off her figure to its fullest degree.

The door only opened a bit before it stopped, knob still fully turned, and a woman’s voice floated through the crack. “I’m just saying that you’ve been putting in really long days lately and you seem, I don’t know… overworked. I think a night out is just what the doctor ordered.”

Even if she hadn’t recognized the voice, Ino would have known immediately just from the tone that it was Shikamaru who suppressed a sigh and said, “No, thank you. I need to get back to work.”

“But you’ve been here all day… I bet you didn’t even go home last night! How about just a few drinks later tonight if you’ve still got things to do right now?”

“Tsume…” The doorknob snapped back into position, as though the hand that had been gripping it had released. The barely perceptible stress level in his voice became slightly more acute. “I don’t have any interest in going out with you. I don’t have any interest in spending time with you. If you’re finished with your work, then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

A soft sound of incredulity followed him into the office as Shikamaru pushed the door the rest of the way open and then kicked it shut behind him, shaking his head down at the cup of coffee in his hand. Ino was pleased to see the sour expression on his face smooth out into pleasant surprise when he looked up. “You’re back.”

“Yeah…” She scooted back so that she was sitting on the outside edge of his desk and waited while he crossed the room and set the coffee mug next to her.

When he met her gaze, she ‘tsked’ at him, shaking her head, feeling a smirk curling up one side of her mouth. “You were a bit harsh with her, don’t you think?”

The beginning of a small smile morphed into a flat frown, and Shikamaru shook his head with finality. “Being indirect would have resulted in several more weeks of turning down invitations.”

Ino shrugged, not sure why she was defending a girl she was more than likely to smack if she ever ran into her outside of the building. “Still…”

He cocked his head and drew his eyebrows together in a very familiar expression. It meant that he was considering saying something that he thought might be troublesome, but that might be less trouble to say than to leave unsaid. She waited; long years of experience as his teammate and then his girlfriend had tempered her impatience, and she was learning to give him the time he needed to make these decisions. He ambled around the desk, dropping into the chair with the air of one who had climbed a great mountain to get there. She turned around and leaned forward on her elbows, at that point pretty much lying on his desk.

“I don’t have any interest in going out with any girl but you. There’s nothing to be gained by pretending that’s not the case.”

His face said he was slightly wary of how she would respond to that, which was adorable. She broke into a grin and reached out to hook two fingers in the collar of his Jounin vest, pulling him forward into a kiss. It always took a second when she kissed him without warning, that was something that she had learned in the last year. After a heartbeat he leaned into it, kissing her slowly in that same intently purposeful way he did everything else that still, after more than a year together, made her lightheaded.

When they separated, he was curled in close, one hand on her shoulder, the other twisting through the ends of her ponytail. The angle leaning across the desk was putting her at wasn’t totally comfortable, but she didn’t move, just leaned in so that their mouths were touching and whispered, “Miss me?”

That got a smile out of him, one of those little ones that made tiny, adorable creases at the corners of his eyes. Not that she would ever tell him that; if he knew she was certain he would make every effort to suppress the expression.

She smiled too while he leaned back in the chair and cocked her head. “So, do you really have more work to do or was that just a convenient excuse?”

Shikamaru slouched down a bit, like he couldn’t help it, but the gaze that flickered up at her was hungry and wide awake. “A convenient excuse. A true excuse, but still an excuse.”

“Good!” She sat up, doing her best not to push around the papers that looked totally messy, but she knew made sense to him as she got off the desk. “I invited us to dinner, and we should go now because I’m hungry and we’re probably going to be late.”

He stood again slowly, with a dismissive glance toward the now-abandoned coffee, and gamely pushed both hands into his pockets, ready to let her lead him on. “Invited us to dinner with who?”

“Kiba and Shino.” She wound an arm around his, tugging him toward the door. “I thought when we first talked about it there might be some girl to go too, but it seems like Kiba’s having a bit of a dry spell.”

Shikamaru’s eyebrow twitched. “What, you two aren’t sick of each other after three weeks in Stone?”

“Come on, Kiba and I are good friends! And I think it might be my duty as his friend to find him a woman, since he’s clearly not having any luck lately and I don’t think Shino’s really the wingman type.” She laughed to herself, not letting go as they stepped into the hallway and he pulled the door shut. “More like a silent, anti-woman jinx. You ever notice that?”

He tilted his head to look down at her. “Notice what?”

“Well, I mean it’s not like he ever says anything. That’d be the silent part. He just… Lately whenever I see them both and some woman starts getting on with Kiba he gets this icy demeanor, all stiff and stand-offish. I think it might be what’s killing Kiba’s love life.”

Shikamaru didn’t say anything, but he got that thinky face that usually meant there was something deeper going on that only he had figured out. She raised an eyebrow, leaning around to stare at him. “What?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

Ino waited, but he didn’t seem inclined to explain anything, so she shrugged. “I’m not saying he’s doing anything wrong; I know it’s just how he is. But Kiba thinks the world of him; he’d never say anything to Shino about it.”

Shikamaru hummed thoughtfully, but didn’t say anything else.

__________

Shino was glad for the chance to go out with Ino and Shikamaru, not only because Kiba had eaten everything in the house, but also because it was true that Ino was a good friend of Kiba’s and that meant that she would probably have some insight into a problem he was having. It took a while for him to get the chance; it wasn’t until everyone had finished eating and Kiba and Shikamaru went up to the bar together to get everyone new drinks that he and Ino had a moment alone.

The bar was loud and crowded to the point where the crowd acted almost as insulation, drowning them out to anyone not at the table and making him feel reasonably sure that he could talk to her in confidence. The two of them where on the inside of a semi-circle booth, and she leaned in close to ask about how his arm was healing. He held it up and flexed the hand demonstratively.

“It should be fine within a month.”

She laughed and clapped him on the shoulder in that overly heavy way some female nin did, that spoke of strength and careful restraint. “I’m glad to hear it! Not that we didn’t have fun, but I’m not sure Kiba and I… how would you phrase it? ‘Compliment’ each other, I guess, as working partners. I think Akamaru might be holding a grudge about it for a while.”

He tilted his head, his nose dipping beneath the high collar of his jacket and almost smiled. “He’ll forget about it quickly enough. Listen, Ino…”

She watched him quietly, sensing an unasked question, and he pushed down the small swell of social anxiety in his gut. Ino was Kiba’s friend, she always had been, but he knew her well enough to know that she considered him a friend as well. There was no reason to feel uncomfortable with her. His sense of social discomfort lingered stubbornly, but at least he could remind himself it wasn’t necessary.

“Kiba’s birthday is in a few days.”

“Oh! That’s right, he’s going to be eighteen!” Her expression instantly morphed into understanding. “Yeah, we talked about it while we were away, but the last week of the mission was kind of hectic… I sort of forgot.”

“I thought we could throw a party for him. A… surprise.” He knew his distaste for the word was obvious, but he also knew Kiba well enough to know how much he loved surprises.

She wiggled her eyebrows at him. “I like where your head’s at, but where would we? That box he’s living in is way too small for guests.”

“My apartment may be big enough,” he murmured, watching Kiba at the bar. “Although yours might be the best choice if Sakura isn’t still angry about the housewarming party.” Shikamaru looked irritated with everyone around him, but Kiba was the center of attention like he always was, surrounded by a crowd of laughing people. The two of them were headed back for the booth. “Let’s discuss this later.”

“Breakfast tomorrow maybe, that café on your block?”

“Nine in the morning?” He cocked his head, waiting for her to nod before he turned around to see Kiba sliding back into their booth, pressing right against his side and throwing an arm around his shoulders.

At first, after they had started being more than friends, Shino had been haunted by a vague paranoia that someone was going to infer what was between them from the way Kiba acted. He should have known better though; as long as they had been friends Kiba had been like that, leaning on him, hugging him, pulling him around and pressing up against him. Kiba was a tactile person, he liked to touch everyone and everything and he had been inside Shino’s personal space bubble for so long that after a while he had realized that the shift in their relationship hadn’t had any effect on Kiba’s already over-affectionate behavior toward him in public.

The arm around his shoulder stayed where it was, a warm, comfortable weight, and Ino and Kiba laughed about a story from their mission in Stone for a bit before she yawned and prodded Shikamaru. He nodded at her, and she yelled over the bar noise that they were going to go get some sleep. They both waved at the pair, and Shino watched Shikamaru wrap an arm around Ino’s waist as they threaded their way through the crowd and out the door. He wondered for a moment if he could get away with holding Kiba like that here. Probably not. It was a decidedly more intimate gesture than an arm around someone’s shoulders.

Kiba looked at him like he knew what he’d been thinking, then leaned in closer than he needed to ask if Shino was ready to leave. He kept his arm around Shino’s shoulders all the way back to the apartment, talking right into his ear and making him shiver and think about anything but their conversation. They checked on Akamaru and found the dog already asleep in a pile of blankets that had been put in the outdoor enclosure months ago, just for him.

It wasn’t until Shino had unlocked the door that Kiba let him go and shifted around on the stoop, grinning that too forceful grin. “It’s okay, right? I mean, if I stay over.” Shino didn’t reply, undoing the collar of his jacket as they stepped inside and a few of the top buttons. “I just assumed, and you don’t seem to-,”

Shino cut him off as soon as the door was closed, pushing him against it and kissing him hard. Kiba was game for it like he always was, groaning loudly and tugging at his jacket, pulling it the rest of the way off and tossing it behind him, followed by his shirt. Shino raised a hand, tracing a thumb over the tribal tattoos on his cheeks, regarding Kiba eyes to dark glasses just for a moment, then dropped both hands to the fastenings on Kiba’s too-tight pants. As long as he kissed him Kiba remained mute, just growling and moaning and rubbing against him. Distracting him by flicking his tongue in and out of Shino’s mouth and sliding his glasses off and tossing them on the table where he kept the keys.

The second he dropped to his knees, Kiba’s head thumped loudly back against the door and his mouth fell open and he gasped out, “Fuck, Shino.”

Shino felt fingers threading through his hair while he pressed his mouth against the bulge in Kiba’s pants and exhaled slowly, feeling the fabric warm beneath his lips. Kiba made a high keening noise and shivered violently and Shino brought a hand down to press against himself for a second, growing uncomfortable trapped in his pants. Initially he’d been unsure about this particular sex act, with vague concerns about cleanliness and potentially disappointing his partner lodged deep in the back of his mind, but he found that Kiba’s reactions caused such responses in his own body that he looked forward to it in a way he had never imagined. He exhaled again, the ridge of the zipper and of Kiba’s cock pressed against his mouth. Kiba shivered again and whined his name.

He pulled the zipper down, drew Kiba out of his pants, and licked him once, slowly, molding his tongue around the shape of the head, just to hear him, panting, “Shino, god, please…” Kiba was watching him, eyes hungry and intent, stroking his hair but not pressing. “Please, it’s been three weeks, I fucking need you.” Shino slid down, taking in as much as he could and sucking intently and Kiba’s head fell back against the door again.

Shino bobbed his head, his mouth stretched around Kiba’s cock, wide but not uncomfortable, slick and wet and hot and Kiba’s hips were barely moving in little thrusts, not pushing himself in but just matching his pace. His hands stayed where they were, cradling Shino’s head, tense but not insistent, gently sliding his fingers back and forth. He was whimpering and panting and talking because he was always talking. “Shino, ah, fuck, you are so fucking good at this, god I love your mouth, fuck, fuck…”

Fingers gently gripped in his hair and Shino groaned around what he was doing and spared a hand to palm himself through his pants again, rubbing lightly. This was what he’d discovered, much to his quiet surprise, that feeling Kiba in his mouth, his slick, hard cock sliding over his tongue, nudging back near his throat in that way that made it a bit difficult to breath and played with his gag reflex, it made him feel… strong. Powerful, charged, that all of Kiba was so focused on him and what he was doing, that he reacted so intensely to every change in pace or suction or focus.

“Fuck yes, oh god, thought about this while I was away, about your mouth and it made me hard just thinking about it, fuck, Shino…”

Shino let himself slide back, sucking hard and flicking his tongue over the head repeatedly while Kiba panted out, “Fuck yes, like that, just like that…” his voice pitched low and strained. The flex of his hips sped up a bit in answer as Shino went down again, setting a quick pace on him, his hand sliding down to cradle the back of Shino’s head, and Shino groaned again. “God, you look so good doing that, look so good with my cock in your mouth, fuuuuuck…”

Warm wetness filled his mouth, and contrary to his every instinct, Shino swallowed it while Kiba went taut against the door. Most of it, anyway, because Kiba fell to his knees a second later, practically straddling his lap they were so close, and kissed him, open-mouthed and filthy, licking himself out of Shino’s mouth and then just tongue fucking him until they were on the carpet, Kiba’s heavy weight on top of him making him want so bad he almost whimpered himself.

Kiba pushed his legs apart and squeezed him through his pants, cupping him and rubbing roughly and Shino couldn’t suppress a loud moan. The Inuzuka pulled down the zipper and wrapped his hand around Shino, slick, when had he slicked himself up? Every part of him felt tense and coiled and Kiba knew exactly how he liked it by now, rough and hard and he was pretty sure Kiba’s other hand was going to get rid of his pants entirely, but it didn’t matter because he felt his body curling up against the warm weight on top of him and sharp fangs dug into the flesh between his neck and shoulder and he shuddered and moaned and came so fast he wondered if he should be embarrassed.

Kiba tucked himself on top of him, pressing his nose right into Shino’s neck and made that rumbly happy sound, still breathless. “God, I love when you do that.”

Shino felt the corner of his mouth lift. “I think you’ve said that before.”

Kiba licked his neck and nodded enthusiastically. “Well I really, really love it.”

He could feel Kiba’s mesh shirt making indentations in his stomach. He lifted one of the hands he’d dug into the carpet moments earlier and settled it on the small of Kiba’s back. The got him another happy noise and the momentary feeling of teeth nibbling at his throat. He leaned his head back, partly to give Kiba more access, partly to glance at the stairs that would take them up to the bedroom. He was minutely self-conscious; he had absolutely not intended to do all of this in the living room. At least, not on the floor of the living room. Once he’d started touching his boyfriend it had been extremely difficult to stop.

A fang nicked his earlobe, and he shivered and felt Kiba laugh quietly. “You’re dying to get off the floor, aren’t you?”

“The bed might be more comfortable, if we are going to sleep,” he hedged diplomatically. Kiba stood, grinning, and pulled him up by his newly healed arm. It twinged uncomfortably, but a moment later Kiba was massaging his palm and wrist and it warmed pleasantly. “We should take a shower, too.”

Kiba smirked at the semen on his stomach leading down to the wet spot on the front of his pants, but Shino refused to acknowledge it beyond the rising heat in his cheeks. The Inuzuka raised an eyebrow lecherously and murmured, “Good thing we already know the shower’s big enough for two.”

__________

Shikamaru’s bed was one of his favorite places to be, always had been. He loved sleeping in, he loved taking naps, he generally loved laying around and his bed was huge and soft, with expensive sheets and a down comforter, easily the most – maybe the only – luxurious thing in his apartment. It had been the first and only thing he had splurged on when he was furnishing the place and he had expected to spend quite a bit of time there. So, it was a sensible investment.

It was one of the odd drawbacks to having gotten involved with Ino the way he had that over the last few months she had stayed over quite a bit while she was in town, and he had begun to associate his enjoyment of the bed with having her in it.

It was the contrast of having her back after three weeks of sleeping and sleeping in alone that made it so hard to ignore. Contrary to outward appearances, he had woken up before her, and had simply remained where he was. Ino slept curled up against him, and not that he would ever admit it, but having her, so verbally and physically aggressive sleeping on his chest made him feel stronger. Like she trusted him, like he could look out for her. She seemed less imposing up against him, where the force of her personality clashed with the inescapable fact that she was so much smaller than him, her narrow shoulders dwarfed against his chest.

All of that was troublesome enough to figure out on his own, and he would never dream of sharing it. Ino wasn’t the kind of girl to need constant reassurance of her own worth; it was one of his favorite things about her. When she woke, he didn’t exactly feign sleep, but he wasn’t ready to get up, so he kept his eyes closed and burrowed back into the pillows when she rolled away. She had time to get up, perform most of her morning routine, and crawl back into bed before he gave any sign of stirring.

When he did move it was to pull her closer, blinking sleepy black eyes at her when she kissed him. He smiled, a small smile that he rarely used but that always caused an answering expression of hers that he secretly treasured, and slid a hand up to cradle her jaw. He kissed back, slow and deep, licking along her tongue until she was making soft, whispery sounds and tugging up the hem of the dark tee-shirt he wore to bed.

He let her take it off, pulling them apart for a moment, then kissed her again and trailed a hand down her front. He groaned; she still wasn’t wearing a bra, just a thin strip of ribbed fabric between them and he cupped a breast, rubbing his thumb over the nipple and feeling her shiver.

She pulled out of the kiss long enough to mumble, “I have to be somewhere soon.”

He didn’t stop what he was doing, one arm still locked around her neck while the other hand massaged her chest. “Do you?” he murmured, kissing her again.

She hummed an affirmative into his mouth, but her hands belied her conviction, running down his chest to cup him through his pants. They were loose sweats with nothing underneath and he groaned again as she rubbed slowly. He nosed under her jaw, licking and sucking at her neck, and slid a hand below her tank top, pulling it up halfway. Ino tilted her head for him and rolled onto her back. One of her delicate hands traveled up to the back of his neck and clenched there for a moment as he bit her throat very gently. She let out one of those gasping noises, and he did it again.

He was mostly on top of her, and she kept stroking him through the pants, teasing him until he realized his hips were moving of their own volition, keeping time with her hand. He pulled back far enough to tug her tank top the rest of the way off, and leaned forward to lick and suck at a nipple. She let out a breathy sound and shivered, and he gently caught it between his teeth while he tracked one of his hands down her stomach and under the thin underwear she wore to bed.

Without bothering to pull them off all the way he just slid his fingers down until he could stroke her, gently, firmly. She let out another sound, louder, and let go of him to grip the sheets tightly. He sucked on her other breast and slid his fingers down a little further. God, she was already wet and so hot, ready for him after just a few minutes. He fingered her anyway, pushing two fingers in and out, slowly, feeling her shake and the wetness increase, sliding his thumb up through the folds of her to rub back and forth over her clit.

Her hands left the sheets to rest on his back, gripping tightly, while she panted, just incoherent sounds at first and then finally, as her body began to rock in time with the thrusts of his fingers, she gasped, “Shikamaru. Oh, please, I want you so bad…”

His mouth left her chest to tongue and nip at her earlobe, and he murmured quietly into her skin, “What? What do you want?”

She cried out as he hooked his fingers inside her, rubbing harder, stroking faster, pressing with his thumb while he did it. The hand on his back flexed, digging into his skin and she keened softly. “Fuck… god, I want you inside me, please… Shikamaru…”

He shuddered, pulling back far enough to remove her underwear, drawing his fingers out of her. He paused for a second just to look. She was panting, her fantastic full breasts moving with each breath, her legs spread around him, flushed, narrowed eyes watching him hungrily. They’d had sex last night after dinner, and then again in the middle of the night. When he was younger, he hadn’t thought any activity could possibly be compelling enough to repeat so many times, so quickly. But even after almost a year together, he still wanted to be touching her all the time.

Her thighs locked around his hips, all muscle, tugging him insistently down and he let himself be pulled, lining himself up with one hand while he leaned all the way over her, pinning her smaller frame to the bed. They kissed, fast and urgent, Shikamaru pushing his tongue into her mouth while he flexed his hips forward and buried himself inside her and oh… god, he could swear this got better every time.

He slid easily into tight, slick heat, and drew back and forth a few times slowly, enjoying the familiar ease between them while she whimpered into his mouth. He braced himself and pulled back enough for leverage and snapped his hips forward more aggressively. She gasped and arched, and he felt her breasts rubbing against his chest while he did it a few more times.

She was gripping the sheets again and he leaned back further because he loved to watch her while they were doing this and set a fast, almost brutal pace. They were both pretty primed after the night before, and her legs squeezed around him while she moaned, eyes screwing tightly shut.

Shikamaru knew her body well by now, knew the feel of her even from inside, and he worked a quick pace leaned back for a little while, building her up and listening to her cries get higher before crouching over her again, balanced on one hand while the other slid under the small of her back and pulled her up off the bed a little. Just a little, and then he drove home with purpose, thrusting hard and fast just like he knew she wanted it and she slid a hand down her stomach to play with her clit, arching further off the bed and panting so hard he almost couldn’t understand her when she said, “Shikamaru, oh god, oh fuck, yes…”

And he felt her clench around him, felt a ripple inside her while her whole body went taut, and then her fingers were threading through his hair, still pulled back in its ponytail and she was moving with him and saying, “Yes, yes, yes, yes…” and clenching tightly around his cock and everything went white for a second while his body went still and he came, feeling himself empty inside her, thrusting through it until he was spent.

They collapsed in a sweaty pile on the mattress, and for few minutes neither of them moved until he felt Ino pull the tie from his hair and start to comb her fingers through it. And that felt, just, so good, so he stayed right where he was and before he knew it, he was falling right back asleep. Oh well. He had nothing to do today; he’d informed his boss he was taking the day off when they’d left yesterday. He could sleep for a little while, and then they could eat breakfast and maybe go out to his favorite spot to play go, because she’d started playing, which he was pretty sure she did just to humor him, but she was getting pretty good. Then he could take her to the lake, because she loved swimming there and the spring weather was probably perfect for it and there was a little tea shop right nearby where they had her favorite oolong. And maybe after breakfast, before they left, they could have sex again.

All his plans died a quick death when she rolled out of bed and left him curled around a pillow. He tried to express his displeasure with a loud sigh, but she breezed right past him and into the bathroom anyway. Fifteen minutes later when she emerged freshly showered and started to get dressed, he finally opened his eyes and propped himself up on his elbows so he could see her.

“Where are you going?” He was mildly horrified to hear the barest trace of a whine in his voice.

She smiled and rolled her eyes, tugging a shirt over her head. “I told you I had somewhere to be, remember? I’m meeting Shino for breakfast.” She sat down to put on shoes and when he just kept staring, she continued, “Kiba’s birthday is coming up. I invited Hinata to come too, because she knows Kiba really well, and I’m pretty Shino doesn’t have any idea how to plan a party. He wants it to be a surprise though. So, we’re probably gonna use my and Sakura’s apartment for it so Kiba doesn’t catch on.” Her tone suggested she might have mentioned this already.

“Oh yeah… Your apartment.”

It was maybe not the point of the exchange, but if he was honest Shikamaru had, for a moment, forgotten that she had an apartment. As soon as they had started dating, she’d respected his intense discomfort with surroundings that weren’t his own, he’d happily cleared some drawer and bathroom space for her things, and he hadn’t ever spent even a single night there. He blinked at the realization, watching her strap on a pair of boots without really seeing it. Had they never stayed at her place not even once? Upon reflection, that seemed kind of crappy of him.

“You can go right back to sleep, don’t worry about it.” She stood up and ran her fingers through her hair a few times. It was down around her shoulders. He loved when she wore it like that. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”

She sauntered over to the bed, flashing a line of stomach under her shirt, and he watched it intently until she was leaning over him. He felt strands of her hair pool on his stomach, and he reached up with one hand to cradle her jaw while she kissed him. When she stood she smiled, and crinkled her nose. “You should shower too, Shadow.”

He watched her leave before collapsing back onto the mattress. He crinkled his nose as well, and muttered to himself, “Yeah, and wash the sheets.”

__________

Ino waved at the two of them and jogged away down the street. Hinata waved back and Shino nodded, hands firmly in his pockets. After she disappeared around the corner Hinata turned to him and smiled softly.

“It was nice of you to do this for Kiba. I know it will mean a lot to him that you planned this.”

Shino nodded, unsure of what to say. Finally, he settled on, “Let me walk you home.”

She hummed her agreement happily, and they started down the street together. Shino had always enjoyed the companionable silence they could share. They both understood that sometimes just sharing space with someone else was enough. And Hinata had always been respectful of his emotional and physical distance from those around him. She understood him, she understood the rigidities his clan imposed upon its members. She had her own deeply trying, painfully personal experience of those things. They walked quietly for a while before she looked at him shyly.

“Kiba seems happier these days.” She said it so softly he almost didn’t hear.

He had to hinder the urge to blush, and after a moment asked, “What makes you say that?” He hadn’t noticed a marked difference in Kiba’s behavior lately. Toward anyone else at least.

She smiled, quiet for a moment, staring fondly into the distance. “It’s hard to explain. I suppose you could say he seems less… tense. A little less chaotic. I noticed it a few months ago.”

Shino nodded slowly, wondering what it was she had picked up on. “He seems to be doing well,” he agreed diplomatically.

There was another long minute of silence while they walked, and when he glanced over, he found her staring intently at him. “You’re less tense now too.”

Shino immediately felt a clench of panic in his chest, cold and visceral. A familiar panic. He hadn’t felt it since that day all those months ago when Kiba had been dared to kiss him in Sakura and Ino’s apartment. Wind whistled past, carrying a few papers down the street, and his panic eased only a fraction when a quick incline of his head told him the area was deserted. They were surrounded by quiet apartment buildings and empty shops. It was between breakfast and lunch and no one was out and about.

“Shino…” Her tone was calming, her expression gentle, but it only frightened him more, confirming his fears.

She knew.

He read her expression and he knew instantly that she knew.

He opened his mouth to say something, to deny it or offer up any number of reasons for any changes in their behavior. His throat closed, and he couldn’t make a sound. She knew.

“Shino-,”

Only a powerful exertion of will kept him from turning away, kept him walking beside her slowly down the deserted street. He was so wrapped up in his head that he almost jumped when she laid a hand on his arm, and they came to an abrupt halt while he looked anywhere but at her. He couldn’t say anything; he couldn’t lie to her, but he couldn’t tell her what was happening, couldn’t admit it. Couldn’t bear the idea of what she might think of him.

“Shino!” She raised her voice, suddenly, and he actually did jump, just the slightest of starts. When he finally looked at her again, she was staring him down with determination. “I can see you what you’re doing.” Her voice dropped to its normal volume and then some, so that he had to lean in to hear her. “Stop. Don’t shut me out. It’s okay.”

He could barely stand to look at her, but he forced himself to. She was his teammate. His friend. He owed her that respect. Her expression melted from determination into sympathy, and her hand on his arm squeezed gently before she let him go.

“It’s okay. I know, at least, I knew before.” He furrowed his brow, and she smiled and spoke even softer. “I knew that Kiba liked you. I figured it out years ago.”

Shino felt his mouth drop open and knew that even with his glasses and his high collar he must look stupid. She nodded, her smile growing fond at the memory. “He was always looking at you, orienting himself toward you, following you. He would smell you coming when the team met and when he did he would get full of this nervous energy. Don’t you remember him tagging along while you were collecting bugs? Partnering with you all the time? Inviting you to his clan events?”

Shino tried to nod and couldn’t, mouth still open. After a few intolerable seconds he croaked out, “Years?”

Her smile faded and she looked down for a moment, clasping her hands in front of herself. “Yes, that’s why I mentioned… He kept looking at you, kept waiting for you to acknowledge him, and I think after a while he decided that you weren’t ever going to. He knows enough about the Aburame to know-,”

Shino physically leaned away, silencing her. He had stop himself from taking an actual step back. That wasn’t something he had let himself think about yet. His panic resurfaced, and she must have seen it on his face because she stepped closer and put a hand on his arm again. “Shino, stop. I’m glad, I am. I…” She looked up at him with such sincerity. “He really likes you. You know that, right?” When he didn’t move, she dropped her hand. “This is a good thing.”

He remained frozen, and their steady gaze was only interrupted by a voice calling Hinata’s name. They both turned and found Neji regarding them expressionlessly from the far corner of the sidewalk. While he approached Shino finally took a step back, separating himself and Hinata from the conspiratorial huddle they had fallen into. Curiously, Shino thought he could almost detect something territorial in the way Neji walked. Hinata quietly acknowledged Neji, and when Shino didn’t say anything, she touched his arm one last time and said, “Neji can walk me the rest of the way home, Shino.”

He looked at her, lost and desperate, knowing she was giving him a way out when she knew he couldn’t deal. He loved her so much. He didn’t want to leave it like this. He didn’t know what to say. She knew. She started down the street with Neji, who gave Shino a lingering, unreadable look, and before he could start to head back to his own place she turned and told him, “You seem happier now too, Shino.”

He watched the Hyuugas turn the corner before he could move again.

__________

When Shino walked back into his apartment, he found Akamaru freshly bathed and wiggling around the living room carpet trying to get the last of the moisture out of his fur. He sat up at the sound of the door closing and whined piteously. Despite himself and the heavy feeling of dread still in his stomach Shino felt himself crack a smile; the dog was fluffed up and looking distinctly unhappy. He crouched down to run his fingers through the fur on Akamaru’s neck, and the dog whined again.

“Don’t go looking for sympathy from me…” he murmured, relieved in a ridiculous way that the dog couldn’t answer back. “You smell good again, so now you can stay inside tonight.”

He dug his fingers in and scratched along the side of Akamaru’s neck and watched with tempered amusement as his enormous tail wagged up and down, thudding loudly against the floor. He had over time come to understand why people liked these creatures; there was something wonderfully uncomplicated about communicating with a dog. They never argued or judged you, their love was unconditional, their support boundless. Unconditional love and support hadn’t featured much in his life. They certainly weren’t common among the Aburame.

“Hey!” Shino look up to see Kiba sitting halfway up the staircase. “You really gonna talk to Akamaru when you get home before me?” His slit pupil eyes were narrowed over a wide, nearly dangerous smile that stretched across his face. “A guy could get jealous.”

Shino stood and pulled off his glasses, rolling his eyes for good measure, wondering not for the first time how much of what was going on inside his head Kiba could see on his face. “Like you really need more attention.” Akamaru sauntered over to his bed with what Shino could have sworn was a similar roll of his eyes.

“I do!” Kiba vaulted through the narrow triangle of space where the curved stairs met the first-floor ceiling while Shino unbuckled his jacket, keeping his gaze on the carpet. “I need constant attention!” Shino rolled his eyes again and hung his jacket in the closet. Kiba ruffled Akamaru before stepping over him to invade Shino’s personal space.

Shino paused to evaluate him, knowing the delay made Kiba crazy. “…yes, you do,” he concluded dryly, trusting that Kiba could detect the humor in his voice, strained though it might have been.

Kiba stepped even closer, so that Shino could feel the body heat emanating off of him. His gaze flickered between sinister and pouting. “Then pay attention to me.”

Shino raised a hand, indulgent like he always was with Kiba, and ran his fingers through wild hair, still damp because if Akamaru had had a bath then his master had definitely had one as well. Kiba closed one eye under the pressure, almost purring, but the other eye never left Shino. Concern was seeping across his face and he reached out to hook his fingers in the hem of Shino’s pants.

“What’s wrong?”

Obviously, any thought of hiding his state from his boyfriend was in vain. The memory of his conversation with Hinata rose back up, bringing panic and nausea with it, and he must be even worse at keeping his emotions off his face than he thought because Kiba’s expression of concern had solidified, and it looked like it was progressing to genuine alarm.

“Shino?”

“I… ran into Hinata while I was out.” Somehow, in the dizzying swarm of fear inside his head he remembered that he wasn’t supposed to tell Kiba he’d been at brunch, that he’d said he just had an errand to run. The surprise. Kiba liked surprises.

Kiba paused, confusion adding to his expression. “…okay?” He looked like he was trying hard to follow where this was going.

“We spoke…” Shino looked down between them at the hands still hooked into the hem of his pants. He suddenly couldn’t look Kiba in the face. “She said… she… she knows, Kiba.” He risked a glance up at Kiba, who still looked confused, then back down. “She knows about us.”

“…oh.” The hands at his hips dropped away, and Shino watched Kiba’s bare feet take a step back. He felt like he could feel the physical distance separating them widen, pushing on his chest. “Are you okay?”

“I…” Shino kept his eyes down. He still felt nauseas. Seeing Kiba now made it hard not to think about what he’d been doing such a good job of not thinking about these past few months.

The silence stretched out for long seconds until Kiba finally snapped, in a tone reminiscent of one he used when he was irritated with Akamaru, “Look at me!”

Surprised, Shino looked up instinctively, and flinched at Kiba’s too-direct gaze. Those slit eyes were narrowed, and he couldn’t tell if Kiba was angry, or upset, or why. Kiba softened his tone, and asked quietly, “Are you okay?”

“I…” He looked down again in time to see Kiba’s hands ball into fists at his side. He looked back up, not sure what Kiba was seeing on his face. “Once someone knows, more people can find out…”

Kiba bared his teeth in what was definitely aggression and Shino flinched again. “So what? Are you embarrassed by me? Are you sorry you’re with me?”

“No!” Shino almost reached for him, feeling again the ache of wanting him, of the slow build of his affection, of his attraction, hungering inside him until it had taken over his whole being. It had happened without his noticing, quiet and in the background and couched in a thick layer of denial, and it had accumulated until he could barely even function he had been so busy not noticing it.

“So, what then? Hinata wouldn’t tell anyone. Does it have to be terrible that she knows? Maybe she’s fine with it.”

“I…” There was hissing venom in Kiba’s voice, like he thought he’d already lost the argument, but he couldn’t let it go. Shino did reach out a hand, but Kiba just stared at him, and Shino didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to express the terror that twisted in his gut, that made him ashamed of his choice to ignore the world around them. “If more people find out…”

“What?” Kiba cut him off, crossing his arms, batting his hand away. His shoulders hunched forward defensively. “People like your father?”

Shino’s hold on his control snapped and he threw himself toward Kiba, so fast the Inuzuka couldn’t react, and the two of them hit the wall under the stairs, and Shino kissed him hard, desperate, and felt Kiba’s body tense against him, arms still crossed. When they separated, Kiba was still angry, mouth open no doubt to tell him off, but he didn’t get a chance to speak.

“Something could happen Kiba.” Slit-pupil eyes flashed, hard and defensive. “I don’t mean to me.” Shino pressed close, foreheads together, his eyes closed, breathing in the Inuzuka’s scent. He pressed in and tried to make Kiba feel the weight of his fear, tried to name the thing he’d felt well up inside him at Hinata’s soft words. It twisted in a stab of shame, hot and sharp in his gut. “Something could happen to you.”

Kiba uncrossed his arms slowly, and Shino felt his uncertainty in his posture. He kept his eyes closed, kept talking even though saying it aloud made the terror worse, made that shame in his gut dig harder. “Something could happen to you because of me. Because you’re with me. I don’t know what my father-,” to his horror he heard his voice break. He didn’t know what his father would do, but he knew his father wouldn’t hurt his only male heir and risk his honorable legacy.

Shino was safe from harm, because he was the legacy. Kiba was a threat to that legacy, and that was something his father wouldn’t think twice about killing to protect.

“Shino…” He kept his eyes shut and felt Kiba’s hands traveling up between them until they were cradling his face. “Look at me.” Shino wished he hadn’t said anything. “Look at me.”

He opened his eyes slowly, that unnamed terror flexing long claws inside him. When Kiba’s face came into focus he was smiling, and Shino didn’t understand. Kiba nudged their noses together, something he did once in a while and had never explained to Shino. Apparently, he didn’t think it was weird.

He did it again, and then kissed him slowly. Shino relaxed a bit, but his hands stayed where they were braced against the wall. When Kiba pulled away he licked at Shino’s mouth, and he was still smiling. A flutter of that feeling he only got with Kiba joined the storm inside him, and he tried to say something, hoping Kiba would explain why he was smiling, why he was acting like it was alright. It was not alright that something might happen to Kiba. Because of him. Because he had wanted the Inuzuka and he’d thrown caution to the wind and jumped right into it and he had been so happy that he hadn’t let himself worry about the consequences. About what his father might do. Shino had put Kiba there, in that line of fire that could cost him everything. He had put him there because he had wanted him so much he’d damned the consequences and ignored the world.

Kiba licked him again, on the cheek, and hugged him tightly and Shino felt himself hug back, instinctive. Kiba buried his face into his shoulder and Shino heard him mumble, “It’s gonna be okay. Hinata won’t tell anyone. And if someone else does find out, that will be okay too.”

Shino tried to say something back, and found the air crushed out of his lungs as Kiba squeezed him tighter. “It’ll be okay, Shino, because you won’t let anything happen to me, and I won’t let anything happen to you.” Shino felt his grin through the thin fabric on his shoulder. “So, we’re both covered.”

A heavy feeling joined the terror in his gut. Kiba made it sound like everything was settled, but nothing was fixed. He’d put the person he cared most about in the world at risk, and he hadn’t even let himself think about it until that risk had confronted him right to his face. It was unforgivable.

__________

Kiba unlocked the door to his apartment reluctantly while Akamaru waited with impatience in the dank hallway. It took a few tries to get to the key to work; the lock was ancient, and prone to sticking. When the latch finally clicked, he shoved the door open with his shoulder while he groped inside for the light switch. His apartment was in a corner of the floor, dwarfed by the neighboring building so that it never got any sunlight. He finally found the switch and flicked the light on while the door swung open.

Akamaru sauntered in while he dropped his keys on the crappy, peeling countertop and kicked the door shut behind him. The apartment was small by any standard, without more than the bare essentials to get by, and since Kiba had started spending most of his time at Shino’s it had become even less inviting than before. If he was honest, he had never liked it, but it had been all he could afford at such a young age. Moving out was an essential rite of passage in his clan, but the Inuzuka weren’t wealthy enough to supplement the rent for their young, so the burden had been completely on him.

He sighed and undressed slowly; he was here for a shower and a change of clothes and maybe a few other supplies before he went back to Shino’s. Akamaru laid down in his designated spot between the couch and the TV where he promptly took up all the available room while Kiba threw his clothes around the apartment as he took them off and climbed into the shower. The water was freezing, but he just scrubbed himself off as quickly as he could. There was shampoo in his shower, and next to it, conditioner. He’d bought them a few months ago after having used the shower at Shino’s. There were shampoo and conditioner in Shino’s shower, and since he was already in there, he figured he’d try them.

He hadn’t thought anything of it until Shino had commented that he smelled good the next day. He’d gone shopping immediately to get some for himself. It had taken almost an hour at the store for him to pick out a brand; there were a thousand varieties and apparently they all did something different, and he hadn’t been able to remember what kind had been in Shino’s shower other than that there had been writing on the bottle. Which, it turned out, there was on all of them. The experience had been so frustrating he’d almost given up entirely, but since he’d started using them, he could swear Shino had started petting him more, and that was something he wanted to encourage. Plus, cleanliness seemed to be very important to the Aburame.

He rubbed the shampoo into his hair, wrinkling his nose at the smell. Inuzuka weren’t known for wearing anything that interfered with the body’s natural odor. He’d purchased the brand with the least pungent scent he could find, but it was still achingly apparent to his heightened senses. Even more than that, he could detect the obvious scent of Shino’s body washing away under the soap. Obvious at least to an Inuzuka; though one shower wouldn’t erase the subtle scent of an ongoing sexual relationship, so at least he could still detect it on himself if he was looking for it. They had spent the last few days getting back into their normal routine. Shino was still recovering from the bone fracture he’d suffered in Sand, and Kiba was on a break after his last mission, so they had time to themselves. Shino had seemed to calm down about what had happened with Hinata; at least, he hadn’t talked about it since then.

If he was honest, Kiba regretted bringing up Shino’s father. He was familiar with the Aburame clan only thanks to their partnership; they didn’t associate with the Inuzuka in any meaningful sense. He and Hinata had talked about it a few years ago when she’d mentioned to him her observations about the changes in his behavior concerning Shino, appalling him with how unsubtle he’d been before he’d realized that Shino was never going to pick up on his attraction no matter how obvious he was, to his relief and then later his immense frustration. Embarrassing as that conversation with Hinata had been, it had made it so much easier to have someone to talk to about his feelings. The Hyuuga and the Aburame were similar in a lot of ways. It was one of the reasons he’d been jealous of the easy friendship between his two teammates before. She’d tried to explain to him why relationships like the one he wanted, relationships between two men, were frowned upon in certain clan cultures.

It wasn’t something he fully understood, even now. In a village that subsisted on fighters, there was a clear need to replenish the population, and for clans with bloodline limits or heritable techniques, passing those on had obvious value. But given how few people seemed to identify as having same sex attraction, he couldn’t imagine it would have that great of an impact, and he liked to think his value to the village consisted of more than being breeding stock or some amalgamation of clan traits. Not to mention it seemed the elders of several of the more traditional clans considered same sex relationships unnatural and outright disgusting, constituting an affront to the clan’s honor that had nothing to do with practical or logistical concerns.

Kiba had never been taught anything like that, growing up as an Inuzuka. In fact, he was pretty sure there were few to no similarities between his childhood and Shino’s. They’d both been taught to handle a blade from an early age and how fight and use their chakra… and he was pretty sure that was it. His clan didn’t have the money or the political reach of the Aburame, but he wouldn’t trade a thing; his mother was rough and blunt and subjected him to plenty of trials in the name of toughing him up, but all she wanted for his life was for him to be happy, and pursing that happiness was enough to make her proud.

The water had started to warm up, and he stuck his head under the spray, vigorously rubbing to get the shampoo out. This wasn’t something he thought about a lot. When he did, he always started to wonder exactly why someone like Shino was with someone like him. Why Shino would take such a risk; to his own reputation, to his clan’s. He couldn’t really see what it was about him that made him worth such a potential price, which didn’t exactly make him feel great about himself. And he didn’t know what would happen if Shino’s father ever found out what was going on, but he was certain it wouldn’t be good. More certain now that he had seen Shino’s reaction to his bringing it up.

Kiba hated thinking about this because every time he did, he wound up in the same place, the same ugly dead end in his mind, wondering what would happen if push came to shove. If Shino was backed into a corner, if his hand was forced… would he throw away everything he had, cut ties with the clan he was so proud to be a member of, just to be with him? He didn’t know, but it was hard to imagine that Shino would do that, that anyone would do that, for some filthy loudmouth kid who grew up on dirt floors and stood to inherit nothing but his own skills and abilities.

Kiba knew he lacked social graces, and he knew that there were times when not just Shino, but both of his teammates were exasperated with his behavior, with the things he didn’t know he didn’t know. It didn’t usually bother him, but sometimes, once in a while, he wished things were different. He wished he was different. He wished he could think that Shino would be proud to be with him.

He rinsed out the conditioner, turned the shower off, and realized too late that there were no towels in the bathroom. They were all crumpled in the pile of clean laundry in the corner of the bedroom where he had declined to fold them the last time he’d been home. He hopped out and ran into the bedroom, grabbing the first thing he found and trying to dry off. It was freezing in the apartment; he hadn’t bothered to turn on the heater because he wasn’t staying, and the chill from spring was still unpleasant without any sun to warm the place up.

After a second, he realized he was using a clean pair of pants to towel off, but by then it was too late so he just shrugged and ran them over his hair a few times, just enough to get the majority of the moisture out. A few minutes later he was dressed and shoving a few items into a bag. Shino had told him to bring enough over for a few days. Kiba paused over a pair of sweats. If he brought his own sweatpants then he could stop wearing Shino’s. If he was honest, he really loved wearing clothes that smelled like Shino. He knew the Aburame didn’t understand the relationship he had to scents, and Shino probably enjoyed sharing his clothing less than Kiba enjoyed wearing them. After a moment he put the sweats in the bag.

When he stood, he whistled to Akamaru and watched the dog stand, stretching languorously and digging his claws into the already abused carpet. Kiba laughed. “That’s it, get it all out of your system now. I’d better not catch you doing that at Shino’s.”

He could have sworn he saw Akamaru roll his eyes, and he laughed again, holding the door open for the dog to leave first. Akamaru did so quickly; he didn’t care much for the apartment either. Out in the hall Kiba checked to make sure the door was locked, then realized Akamuru had sat down behind him and wasn’t moving. He crouched down to look him in the eye.

“Sorry, I know you worry when I get like this.” The dog panted happily while Kiba rubbed the side of his head. “You excited to get back to Shino’s?” Akamaru wuffed and bumped his forehead against Kiba’s. “Me too.”

__________

Barely a few hours had passed before Kiba was back, letting in Akamaru first and dumping a bag by the couch in the living room. Shino was already ready to go, and he gathered his keys off the counter and slipped them into one of the enormous pockets in his jacket. When Kiba stared at him blankly he said, “I hope there’s a jacket in there,” inclining his head at the bag.

Kiba blinked at him, then snapped his fingers and muttered, “Right,” and rummaged around in the bag for a moment. Shino hid a smile behind his collar. Kiba had walked all the way back without one, and of course it was freezing outside tonight. Not that Shino was inclined to protest the mesh shirt ensemble, but he had realized a while ago that if he didn’t look out for Kiba’s health, no one did.

Kiba straightened up, pulling on a particularly ugly jacket with fur on the cuffs, tragically reminiscent of the one he’d had when he was younger. Shino had been allowed a brief period of secret happiness when Kiba had grown out of the first horrid rendition, but sadly the Inuzuka had purchased another.

While Shino watched with conflicted feelings as the tempting chest, so ill-concealed under mesh, disappeared beneath a zipper, his brain notified him too late that Kiba had said something. He looked up, and felt a blush trying with all its might to rise on his cheeks. He paused a moment before he felt compelled to ask, “What?”

Kiba’s laugh said he knew exactly what Shino had been thinking about, and to his consternation the Aburame felt a slight burn as his cheeks reddened at the sound. Kiba took pity on him and didn’t mention it. “I said, why did Ino and Sakura invite us over again?”

Shino shrugged, trying to play it off and not sure if he was succeeding. “Dinner, I suppose. Ino must have mentioned you were back in town.”

Kiba gave him that feral grin and pulled him out the door, bouncing on the balls of his feet while Shino locked up. “I suppose.” Shino rolled his eyes at the poor imitation of his tone. “I am pretty awesome.”

Shino turned away from the door; Kiba was still perched on the tiny stoop, so there was almost no room between them. He let one of his hands run under the hem of the ghastly jacket, passing over the ridge of a hipbone and almost squeezing before he let go.

“Yes, you are,” he murmured, stepping off the stoop fast enough that to anyone it would have looked like they’d just brushed past each other.

Kiba was still grinning when he joined him on the sidewalk, and he kept his hands in his pockets the entire way to Sakura and Ino’s, just brushing his elbow against Shino once in a while. When they got there, it was fairly quiet, with no indication there was anything major happening at the apartment. Shino felt that nervous tension he often got when he tried to do things outside his comfort zone. He really did hate surprises, even ones that weren’t for him.

Kiba bounded up the stairs, and Shino hung back while he knocked, taking each step slowly, mentally preparing himself. Kiba only had a moment to look at him funny for lagging behind before Ino threw open the door and engulfed him in a hug. The apartment was dimly lit behind her. Kiba hugged back, and before he could say anything she ushered him down the hall. Shino had just passed over the threshold when he heard a chorus of people yell, “Surprise!” as the lights flicked on.

He watched Kiba’s back contentedly as the Inuzuka jumped a mile. By the time he got to the end of the hall Kiba was laughing and being swept away by a crowd of people. Shino felt a small smile settle on his face just before Ino swept him into a hug as well. He bore it easily; she knew him well enough to only linger for a moment. Music had started before they’d even separated, and Kiba was already jumping from person to person.

__________

Hours passed with drinking games and pounding music and Shino did his best impression of a spirit, passing through people and lingering in the back. Hinata had come to chat with him, but didn’t press him for conversation and was eventually swept back up into the crowd. Every once in a while, Kiba would pass by to drape across him and thank him for arranging everything. Every time he did so he was a little more tipsy and affectionate, but so was everyone else, so Shino didn’t think anyone noticed anything. He even let Kiba pull him into doing shots in accordance with the drinking games a few times, until he could feel the world go fuzzy at the edges and feel his muscles unclenching at least a little. A dangerous feeling under any circumstance, his upbringing and his kikkaichu warned him, but a worthy sacrifice for Kiba’s happiness.

As if to illustrate the needlessness of his fears about interpersonal space, Kiba and Narturo were hanging off each other on the other side of the room, singing along to a particularly obnoxious song about being on a boat and waving their drinks in time with the music. Sakura slid up to lean against the wall nearby with a beer in each hand and gave him a winning smile.

“Tomorrow I will help clean your apartment,” Shino immediately assured her, critically noting the pools of beer accumulating around Kiba and Naruto’s feet as the two of them gestured with their drinks in time with the lyrics.

Sakura shook her head at him playfully. “There’s no need, we knew what we were signing up for when we loaned the place to the party. And this is nothing like what happened at the housewarming party.” Her grin grew conspiratorial and she elbowed him in the upper arm. “Besides, Takei’s taking me on a trip tomorrow, so if you want to make promises you should make them to Ino, she’ll be cleaning everything up.”

Shino quirked an eyebrow at Takei, singing along with Kiba and slapping Naruto on the back, effectively spilling even more beer. He wasn’t acting much like the man who had several years on all of them and had swept Sakura off her feet with his steady maturity and fascinating life experiences. “He doesn’t seem as though he’ll be ready for a trip come morning.”

Sakura directed amused eyes at her boyfriend and shook her head. “He’ll be ready. We all need to cut loose sometimes.” As if waiting for the opportune moment, she offered him the untouched beer in her far hand.

Shino took it, masking his distaste, and in his head he could hear Kiba laughing at him for being too polite to do anything else. He took a small sip, already at the brink of his comfort with the effects of alcohol, and nodded to her. Across the room one of the women Takei had brought from his own circle of friends put her hand on Kiba’s arm and laughed loudly enough to be heard over the music for the third time that night. Not that he was watching. Takei’s class having graduated several years before their own, he wasn’t familiar with many of them, but the female friend of his seemed familiar enough with Kiba. Shino looked away. He was absolutely not going to be watching that.

Something crashed and he immediately looked back up to find Kiba just a few feet away, laughing and setting a small end table back upright. Breathlessly he leaned on Sakura and yelled over the music, “You might wanna collect your boyfriend, he just turned on the kitchen sink and started laughing and pointing at it.”

Sakura tried to look offended, but the effect was ruined because she was laughing too, and she ducked around Kiba toward the kitchen. Shino met Kiba’s gaze, but before he could say anything Kiba practically leapt on top of him, pushing himself close and bracing one hand on the wall next to Shino’s head on the pretense of tripping. Shino cocked his head, took in Kiba’s swaying posture, and reevaluated his notion of the pretense part of the tripping.

Kiba leaned further so his chin was practically resting on Shino’s shoulder, breathing right into his ear. “You know how awesome you are?” He was radiating warmth and smelled like beer and sugar. Before Shino could answer Kiba went on, borderline nuzzling Shino’s ear. “Sooooooooo awesome for setting this up!” He swayed too far in and actually did nuzzle Shino’s ear. “Because you’re the best!”

Shino hid a smile in his collar and grabbed Kiba by the upper arms, gently putting enough space between them for propriety. Kiba slumped toward him, ruining the effect and murmured just loud enough to be heard between them, “You know what I’m gonna do to you when we get home?” He grinned and the murmur turned into a stage whisper. “I’m gonna make you forget your own name-,”

He almost toppled over when the woman from earlier grabbed on to his arm in what was most definitely a pretense of tripping. “Hello, you,” she chirped, and waved a hand holding two shots at Kiba.

Shino let go of his arms and for a moment Kiba looked like he was going to protest until Naruto yelled over the music, “Shots! Kariko, what’s taking so long?”

Kiba made a face and let the woman pull him around so he was facing the other side of the room. Naruto raised a hand and yelled, “Alright, shots! To the most important – Takei get out of the sink! – the most important birthday ever… eighteen!”

Everyone with a shot cheered and threw it back and Shino took another sip of the beer he’d set down on the coffee table, to humor the mood. He was four shots in at this point and for someone who didn’t drink as a matter of habit, it was plenty. Kiba was pulled away and he watched the boy have another shot and start singing again. The woman, who had to be Kariko, stayed with him, pretending to prop him up when he swayed and laughing loud enough to be heard over the music. Not that he was watching. Intently or otherwise.

He felt Ino join him at the wall without looking and was taken aback to feel her punching his shoulder in a comradely fashion. He looked over and found her grinning in a decidedly self-congratulatory way. He raised an eyebrow and her grin widened.

“Kariko’s cute, huh?” When he didn’t answer she punched his shoulder again and turned to watch Kariko holding onto one of Kiba’s arms and pulling him toward rows of beer. “I knew he’d like her, but I can’t believe how well it worked out! You got him a party and I got him laid! Pretty good birthday, huh?”

Shino felt the air get stuck in his throat and try as he might, he couldn’t say anything, so he nodded mutely, which seemed to satisfy her, and they both went back to watching Kariko laughing and leaning on Kiba. Shino suddenly saw Ino’s handiwork and felt ill. This was what Kiba was supposed to be doing. What they were both supposed to be doing. He looked at Kariko and suddenly didn’t see his dislike for what she was doing, but rather saw a young woman… behaving normally. Meeting a boy she liked, showing her interest, as she was allowed to do.

No one was going to attack Kiba for going out with Kariko, spending the night with Kariko, moving in with Kariko… He could sleep with her without risking everything, including his life. And Shino felt sick with guilt because watching the two of them, the strongest emotion he felt was a burning, territorial possessiveness that made him want to take the girl by the throat and tell her what he would do to her if she touched Kiba again. She wasn’t doing anything wrong, he knew it, but he hated her. He wanted to throw Kiba down and make him whine and beg for it and never let him forget how Shino felt about him, how much he wanted him. He wanted to put his hands on Kiba and leave bruises with his fingers and bite marks on his neck where he never let anyone else touch him so everyone would know, everyone would know that Kiba was his.

He wanted to do the things they hadn’t yet done, that neither of them seemed ready for, he wanted to slide himself home inside Kiba and own him completely, fuck him and feel him holding on to Shino like he was the only thing in the world that mattered. He wanted it so bad he felt himself pushing off the wall before he realized what he was doing and stopped mid-step. He put the beer back down, like that’s what he’d been going for the whole time and nodded politely at Ino again.

She spotted Shikamaru over his shoulder and squeezed his arm before leaving him, mildly allaying the fear that she had been able to tell his intent. He looked down at the carpet, trying his best to mitigate his frustration and jealousy. Women liked Kiba, they had always liked Kiba, they were always going to like Kiba. He tried hard not to indulge his feelings when it came to women and Kiba; he knew how much Kiba had dated before the two of them became an item and it decidedly wasn’t his business. He was attractive and sexual and charming and charismatic and women had always taken to him. Shino understood why he had indulged in the temptation, when he thought the two of them would never become anything.

Not thinking about all the things he didn’t want to think about was failing pretty badly though, because he heard Kariko laugh again and found his hands clenching into fists inside the sleeves of his jacket. And then the familiar presence was back and he looked up to find Kiba right in front of him, smiling and slurring slightly, “I don’t think I should have any more shots…”

They looked at each other, Shino full of guilt for his thoughts, and Kiba’s face crinkled and he said, “Wha’s wrong, you?”

Shino shook his head because he was not going to let feelings, not matter how difficult they were to deal with, affect tonight. He smoothed his face out, grateful for the glasses, but it was too late because Kiba was pulling him by the hand through the crowd and down the hallway that led to the bedrooms and pushing him through a doorway.

And the door shut, dimming the sound of music and party conversation, and suddenly it turned out that Shino thought he had control over those feelings, but those feelings might possibly have control over him because he pulled his collar open and dragged Kiba to him, fingers on the back of his neck hard enough to bruise. And he kissed him hard and Kiba made a muffled sound and tried to pull away and Shino abruptly let go because Kiba had never done that before, not once.

But Kiba pushed into him immediately after and his hands went down to grip his hipbones below the hem of Kiba’s mesh shirt and held him hard enough to make him whimper and Kiba wrapped both arms around his neck so he could hang off him and whispered against his mouth, “What is it, lover, what’s wrong?”

“You’re mine,” Shino whispered back, giving voice to the feeling, gripping Kiba’s hips even harder, shivering because Kiba rarely called him that but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t like it. “No one knows… but you’re mine,” one of his hands slid up to grip the side of Kiba’s neck, thumb under his jaw forcing Kiba’s head to tilt back, “No one else…”

Kiba’s eyes fluttered and he purred quietly and let Shino force his head back, baring his throat, submission unmistakable. Shino leaned in and bit right under the jaw, at the part of the Inuzuka that he guarded with an unwavering aggression from absolutely everyone else, and Kiba let out a noise that was way too loud, even with the door closed and music playing and Shino could swear he felt Kiba get instantly hard against his thigh.

And the heady pleasure of knowing how desperate Kiba was for him was almost enough to make him forget where they were, but they were at a party and this wasn’t a safe place and Kiba was grinding against him and now he was getting hard and they had to stop before they went too far…

He didn’t want to stop, he wanted to mark Kiba in the worst way and Kiba was whispering in his ear, “Yours, I’ve always been yours, I want you Shino, want you now…”

Someone thumped against the wall in the hallway and Shino felt a thrill of electricity that was much more like fear than excitement. He pushed at Kiba, holding him by the upper arms like he had earlier, separating them with some difficulty. Kiba was swaying and he didn’t look concerned anymore, he looked determined and happy. Cunning and knowing and right on the verge of giggling. He leaned in and Shino inhaled sharply when he spoke because he could hear the arousal in his voice, even over the pounding music.

“I’m yours, Shino, all of me is yours…”

Shino’s grip weakened, and Kiba wormed his way closer, seeping body heat into the space between them and making Shino warm and tense in the best way. He kept his hands on the Inuzuka’s upper arms, difficult as that was with Kiba swaying to and fro as he was. “You know what I’ve been thinking about?” he purred.

Thrown for a loop, Shino almost let go. Instead he lost his train of thought thinking how very fetching Kiba looked when he bit his lip and dropped his chin so he could look up at him. “What-,” he swallowed forcefully, his mouth had gone dry. “What have you been thinking about?”

Kiba smiled and swayed into him. “You know where we are?”

Shino felt an eyebrow raise, finally an expression he was familiar with. “…Ino and Sakura’s apartment?” He couldn’t see where Kiba was going with this.

The Inuzuka nosed at him, just barely touching him over the distance Shino was maintaining. His smile was growing wider and less cunning, more… genuinely disarming. “Yeah.” Shino raised his eyebrow a bit more, hoping he could get an explanation without having to use more words.

“We’re at Sakura and Ino’s apartment… where just a few months ago Hinata dared you to kiss me.” Understanding dawned and Shino let a smile of his own start, not a real one yet, but an expression that changed his face, nonetheless. “And then you ran away.”

His eyebrows furrowed, just slightly. “I didn’t run-,”

“You ran away,” Kiba had lifted one of his hands to tsk tsk at him. “Ran away and I had to chase you and I thought maybe, maybe you’ll kiss me and maybe you won’t kill me and maybe I could just be happy with that because I didn’t need much from you, all I wanted was something, anything…”

Shino forgot that he needed to keep them apart; he let go of Kiba’s arms and Kiba mushed into him, burrowing against him and he let himself just hold him. He could hear the sad undercurrent in Kiba’s voice, that note that told him Kiba still remembered feeling like Shino would never want him, still remembered feeling desperate and hopeless. He pet his hands over Kiba’s back, mesh rough under his palms. Kiba ‘mmmmmm’ed and rubbed his face against Shino’s neck, fingers between them pulling at the collar of his jacket and undoing a few more of the buttons.

“You know how I figure it?” He didn’t look up, but Shino knew he could feel him shaking his head in answer. “Figure you still owe me a kiss.”

Now he felt himself crack a small, sardonic smile and he craned his neck to look down. Kiba stayed hunched against him, face buried in his neck. “We kissed that day…” The unspoken weight of everything that had transpired between them sat behind his words.

“Sure,” Kiba burrowed in closer, “at your apartment. But I kissed you. You were dared to kiss me. Here. For… thirty seconds, I believe. And you still haven’t owned up to that dare.”

Shino felt affection well up inside him, and he wanted to lose himself in the feeling. The song changed on the stereo outside the room, something slower. Outside the room, where everyone they knew was just a few feet away. He tiled his head down, resting his cheek in soft, spiky hair and smelling that barely-there scent of the shampoo Kiba had suddenly started using. “I’m not sure this is the best… time.”

The gentle swaying against his front grew suddenly more pointed, and Shino found himself walked back half a foot until he was pressed against a bookshelf and Kiba was looking him right in the eyes, biting his lip again and crooning against him, “It’s my birthday, Shino, and I know what I want, I want that kiss you owe meeeeeeeee…”

Somehow it didn’t sound like whining, it sounded soft and nice and god, Shino was going to have to do something about how Kiba could just hijack his mind like that without saying more than a few words…

It wasn’t a good idea to go along with this. He let one of his hands slide up, weaving his fingers into Kiba’s hair. It really did seem softer these days. Must be the shampoo. He wanted to go along with this. He knew Kiba and Ino and a lot of their comrades got frustrated with him sometimes, with his lack of spontaneity, his rigidity. It didn’t usually bother him, but sometimes there were times when he knew going along would make Kiba smile and he wished things could be different. He wished he could be different. Kiba deserved it.

“Thirty seconds, that was the dare?” His voice was so soft he could barely hear himself.

Kiba nodded, purring, fingers sliding over the edge of Shino’s pulled down collar, brushing against his skin. Shino ran his thumb over Kiba’s cheek bone, over the slight ridge of the edge of the tribal marking, let his eyes fall to half closed, studying the Inuzuka’s handsome face, poised and expectant. He leaned forward, guiding Kiba to him with the hand behind his head and kissed him, gently, slowly. Kiba melted against him, his hands between them halfway cradling Shino’s throat.

Shino tilted his head and swiped his tongue at Kiba’s mouth, tentative, wanting to take it slow. Kiba tasted like beer when he opened his mouth, licking back. The purring felt like humming while they kissed, vibrating into Shino’s mouth, soothing and arousing at the same time. He licked against Kiba again, goading him, luring his tongue, letting him chase back into Shino, slick and hot and now slowly thrusting into his mouth, making him think of other things, his thoughts spiraling out at the ideas of all the things they hadn’t even done yet, things neither of them seemed ready for but things that were really starting to occupy his thoughts.

He must have been incredibly distracted, because it wasn’t the talking or the music getting louder that clued him in at all, it was the sound of Ino dropping her glass of wine on the carpet, where the stem immediately snapped and sent red wine in every direction.

__________

His brain notified him way too late that it actually had heard her coming. It had heard her coming because she’d been talking, she’d gotten all the way to, “…swear I’m not letting Takei leave without at least straightening the kitchen, I don’t care-,” before her voice stopped and a moment later the wine glass snapped and a moment after that his sluggish brain warned him it had heard someone coming.

He was pretty sure Kiba hadn’t heard a thing, because he felt Shino go rigid against him in a decidedly unhappy manner, but he didn’t look at the door, he just stopped kissing him and looked at his face, trying to sus out what was wrong. Shino was already looking at the door, where Ino was standing, mouth hanging open, Shikamaru over her shoulder with an unreadable look on his face. Shino stared at them and didn’t even have the presence of mind to put some distance between himself and Kiba. He was too busy having what felt like a genuine heart attack. Kikkaichu stormed beneath his skin and he briefly wondered if he would be able to keep control of them.

Kiba cocked his head and followed his gaze slowly, somewhat bleary-eyed, and broke into a huge smile when he saw Ino.

“Ino!” He swayed away from Shino. “We weren’t doing,” almost lost his balance, “weren’t doing anything in here, sorry about that, just looking for the…” he almost fell over again and seemed to lose his train of thought. He blinked at her, like he’d just seen her for the first time. “What are you doing in here?”

Ino stayed exactly as she was, like maybe she couldn’t close her mouth or move at all and Shikamaru didn’t seem like he was going to be much help in the conversation department. Shino saw him grab her from behind, ostensibly to guide her away, but before anyone moved or said anything else the slightly parted door flew the rest of the way open as Naruto barged in, multiple shot glasses in each hand, a party hat wildly askew on his head.

“Kariko said we need to do more shots, but she doesn’t know where Kiba-,” he stopped and stared at Kiba and yelled loud enough that everyone flinched, “Aha!” He gestured back through the door, losing one of the shot glasses, which fell down to join the wine glass on the carpet. “Shots! Kariko said-,” he suddenly noticed there were other people in the room and his brow furrowed, “What are you all doing in here?”

Kiba looked around with wide eyes, making Shino wonder how much more obvious he could be, and he would have moved or said something to try to mitigate the situation, but he couldn’t seem to get any of his muscles working properly. After an interminably long pause Kiba pointed with both hands at the bathroom connected to the bedroom they were in.

Naruto nodded, like it all made sense, and pointed with both of his hands back through the door, losing a second shot glass in the process. “Shots! Quick, I think Sakura is about to rescue Takei, it’s our last chance to see what we can get him to do!” He started toward the door, but turned around to lean in conspiratorially, “He’s already wearing the socks on his hands!”

Kiba made to follow him out, then grabbed Shino, which made Shino jump about a mile because something really important had just happened and he was starting to think Kiba was too drunk and distracted to have noticed and did he really not see Ino until after they had separated and did he really not know that she and Shikamaru had seen them because that was a big deal?

Kiba’s hand pulled, insistent, at his arm, drawing his attention back, “You coming?” He looked exasperated, like he had no idea what Shino was doing. Shino shook his head, still unable to speak, and managed to move at least a little, using one hand to give Kiba a gentle push toward the door. He breezed past Ino and Shikamaru, both of whom still had really weird looks on their faces. Some ninjas they were.

They watched him leave, then turned back to Shino in unison. He realized he was still pushed back against the bookshelf and he tried to move off of it, but it seemed that wasn’t happening yet, so he tried to say something, and that didn’t work either. This was why you couldn’t just be impulsive and spontaneous, this right here! He planned everything in life to avoid things that were exactly like what was happening! What in the world had possessed him to relearn this painful lesson with so much on the line?

He looked straight at them, keeping his best poker face on, feeling like a trapped animal and wondering when his traitorous faculties would return. Ino finally blinked and raised an eyebrow, her shocked expression melting into incredulity and mild amusement.

“Well,” she said, and he flinched, but she didn’t notice, “I guess you got him a party and you’re getting him laid. Now I feel bad that I didn’t get him anything!”

And Shino was certain that his dismay must have shown on his face because Shikamaru immediately closed the door to the bedroom again. The sound of it closing, the muffling of the music, Shino’s body appeared to take it like some kind of cue, because he found he could move again, even though the panic still seemed to be paralyzing his voice. He stumbled away from the bookshelf, doing up his collar, casting around for explanations, something he could say that would undo it. Ino was smiling good-naturedly at him now and it was obvious that nothing could undo it.

“Man, no wonder he’s been so coy when I’ve asked him about dating! And the party you wanted for him, you hate surprises, but this is special, huh?”

“Ino,” he finally got a word out, but it was so soft she didn’t hear him.

“Wait, so how long has this been going on? I mean he’s always been all over you, but no one thought you’d ever…” she spread her arms to indicate his entire personage, “You know. Has it been weeks? Months?! What’s with all the damn secrecy?”

She was stepping into his space and her tone wasn’t accusing, it was amused and familiar like she thought she was joking around with him, but she touched him on the shoulder, and he flung himself away from her. She threw her arms up like he was being weird and behind her Shino saw Shikamaru place a hand on her shoulder, silencing her next question.

“Hey…” Her tone softened, a strange impression from her, “Hey, Shino, it’s okay.” Her mouth tugged in a smile, like she was going for a joke to lighten the mood, “I mean, if you guys wanna keep it a secret I don’t know if making out in other people’s-,”

“Please…” Shino finally got his voice back, dragging the words up through his throat. He hunched into his coat as far as he could. He could hear panic and pleading bleeding into his voice. “Please don’t…”

“We won’t say anything.” Shikamaru’s voice was comforting in its finality.

Shino was silent for a long moment, trying to draw up his composure. “Thank you.” His voice was still strained, still betrayed his emotions. What a shameful position to be in, begging them to forget what they saw. He hated himself for this completely foreseeable mistake. Why did he go along with it?

“Shino…”

He flinched again. Ino’s voice was quiet, but it pierced through him. Shikamaru wrapped his arms around her shoulders from behind, laying a kiss on top of her head and silencing her again, and met Shino’s gaze with a steady expression. “We won’t say anything.”

Shino nodded, wishing he could make a break for the door, but he wasn’t sure he could handle the boisterous crowd at the moment. Before he had the chance to try to brave through it, Shikamaru was already guiding Ino away, back out the door, closing it behind them to leave him alone in the bedroom with his panic and his fear.

__________

Ino didn’t have an opportunity to ask Shikamaru anything about what happened in the bedroom, an incident he clearly had a better handle on than she did, until the night was winding down. Her buzz had been well and truly ruined by Shino’s outsized reaction to what she had intended to be a joking tone to show him it was all fine. She still wasn’t sure exactly what had gone wrong in her attempt to get him to calm down; she got that he was an intensely private person and being caught doing anything lascivious was probably traumatizing for him, but no one had given him a hard time and he’d still reacted like they were denigrating him.

Shino emerged from the bedroom not long after they had, composed and looking his usual disconnected self and hovered for a bit before settling firmly on the couch for the rest of the evening. Ino did her best not to let her gaze linger on him, despite her ongoing curiosity, doing shots as the party demanded but no longer feeling the fun, ‘take me away’ alcohol sensation. It was late, and people thankfully started to trickle out until the party whittled down to the predictable Naruto and Kiba, passed out in a heap on the couch, Kiba’s head having landed squarely in Shino’s lap.

The Aburame continued to avoid her gaze until she and Shikamaru retreated into her room, stepping over party favors in the living room to be greeted by the very large red wine stain on her carpet. She pursed her lips, finally picking up the broken glass pieces and the two lost shot glasses and carrying them to the kitchen counter and the trashcan. Should have just drunk beer like everyone else; why had she tried to break out the red at a damn party?

When she returned to the bedroom and shut the door she found Shikamaru sitting in the half-light that was the barely rising sun coming through her window, clearly waiting for her to try to work out her thoughts with him. With all the immediate drama dissipated over the course of a few hours she wasn’t sure now where to start. Exhaustion pulled at her, but the lure of an unfinished conversation kept her up. The obvious pain and fear on Shino’s face kept her up.

She sank next to him on the duvet and he scooted back so he could lie down on the massive pile of pillows at the head of her bed. Instead of landing where she usually would on his chest, Ino crossed her legs and looked down at the swooping lily leaves that decorated her duvet cover. She realized with a start that she hadn’t slept under that duvet cover since she’d returned from Stone. “What, uh… what happened tonight?”

Shikamaru didn’t do much to display his interest, extremely irritating when the situation at hand obviously called for more intense reactions. He at least did her the courtesy of not pretending that he didn’t know exactly what she was talking about.

“Clearly the Inuzuka and Aburame are pursuing a relationship of a romantic nature.”

Ino uncrossed her legs to gently kick him in the side, her tone dropping down to a near-caustic register. “Clearly.” She crossed her legs again and glanced at her door, beyond which everyone, surely even Shino, had fallen asleep. “I more mean… the reaction? Of Shino? I wasn’t trying to upset him… I was actually trying to calm him down.”

“I know. I think he knew that too.”

“Well it didn’t seem to… um, help? Kiba, I think he may have actually been too drunk to realize we saw them kissing, but Shino definitely did, and he seemed…”

Shikamaru raised one shoulder in a reclining shrug. “Kiba may have been too drunk to realize,” he allowed, “but he probably wouldn’t have cared much. If it was up to him, I’m sure there would have been no secrecy.”

The implication toward Shino felt inherently wrong, and Ino felt her mouth set in a hard line. “Come on, you can’t mean that Shino is ashamed of him, he wouldn’t-”

“He wouldn’t, but it isn’t what Shino thinks that matters. The Aburame are one of the oldest, and most traditional clans in the community. They take that tradition very seriously…”

“Traditional…? Wait, you mean like the huge blow out some of them had when Kakashi went public with Iruka a while back?”

“Like that, but more complicated. Kakashi’s clan is gone. And with his value as an asset to the village, there was little they could do to force his hand.” Shikamaru’s expression darkened, “Shino and Kiba have no such position protecting them. And as the heir-apparent, Shino’s father will have very specific designs on his romantic life.”

Ino rolled her eyes. “I know the Aburame are more traditional, but come on, he can’t make Shino love someone.”

“It’s not about love, it’s about a match that brings prestige to his clan, and will produce heirs for the next generation of leadership.”

Her brow furrowed as she ruminated on that. It was general knowledge that the Aburame were aloof and reclusive, and yes, they’d been at the vanguard of the extremely nasty backlash to Kakashi and Iruka’s relationship, backlash that had been widespread enough that their cohort had heard all of the sordid details despite being too young to be involved in any meaningful way. Still, something that old-fashioned was a little hard to wrap her head around. Arranged marriages were definitely a thing of the past. “How do you know all this?”

His eyes darted to the side, heavy with irritation. “Working directly for the Hokage has put in me the middle of quite a bit more clan politics than I was expecting. Some of the clans, the Inuzuka, for example, are more modern. They mostly just want their children to be happy. Some of them, the Hyuuga for instance, have the lives of all the children of the clan leaders very carefully planned out.”

Ino thought of Neji and Hinata, their rigid and reserved affects and nodded absently, “I guess that explains some things. It’s not like they ever talk about it.” She bit her lip, casting a worried eye in the direction of the living room. “Kiba’s a bit… rough around the edges, but he’s smart, he’s talented, he’s accomplished. He’s the son the Inuzuka matriarch. He could be considered a good match in more ways than one?” Her worry made the statement into a question.

Shikamaru sighed, letting one of his hands settle on her knee. “The Inuzuka don’t inherit by bloodline, so he’s not the heir to a title of some kind. And even if Shino's father would consider an Inuzuka, he would never accept a relationship with a man.”

Ino rolled her eyes again. “I know the Aburame clan leadership is passed down through bloodline, but Shino has a sister. His father will have grandchildren to choose from even if Shino never has any kids.”

“It’s not just a practical bloodline concern. His father would be shamed by it, he would consider the whole clan shamed by it.”

She let out a sigh of her own and uncrossed her legs, scooting closer until she was snuggled at his side. She felt his arm settle around her at her waist. She wanted to say a lot of things, tapping her fingers on his chest while she tried to work out exactly what. “I know some of the older generation doesn’t… uh, love, the idea of same-sex relationships. But… Shino’s his own person. Surely his father wouldn’t…” Discomfort with the whole arrangement rose in her stomach. “His father can’t make him…” The repeated words sounded hollow.

He pulled her close. “His father is the patriarch of the Aburame clan. He can make a lot of things happen.”

She ruminated on that, and her jaw set. “Then they’ll need to know they have support from their friends.”

“Ino…”

She pushed herself up on one elbow so she could see him. “What?”

“I told Shino we wouldn’t say anything to them about it.”

“I know, he doesn’t need us pushing him to talk while he’s mid-freak out.”

Shikamaru shook his head. “I meant that we wouldn’t try to talk to him about this at all.”

“Why?”

“It’s obvious he doesn’t want to talk about it.”

“Because he’s worried about how his father will react and Kiba’s safety. Wouldn’t he feel better getting more direct assurance-,”

“I’m certain he’s struggling quite a bit with the situation, in more ways than one. It would be better to simply let it lie.”

“No.”

“Ino…”

“He needs to know he has our support. He needs to know they’re not alone. He needs to know that whatever garbage the Aburame have put in his head, there’s nothing wrong with what they’re doing.” Shikamaru closed his eyes, and she narrowed hers. “Pretending we don’t know about it treats their relationship like it’s a dirty little secret. They don’t have anything to be ashamed of. If it’s too dangerous to be publicly together, that’s one thing, but they don’t need to hide what they have from their friends.”

He let out a deep sigh and didn’t open his eyes. “Even if I agreed with all of that, how do you plan to engage with Shino without upsetting him?”

That question posed more of a problem than the moral aspects of the situation, which felt very clear. “Maybe it would be better to talk to Kiba first?”

She felt a slight vibration in his chest where he suppressed what was definitely a sardonic laugh. “The one of them who doesn’t know we know about them?”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t complicated.” She chewed on her lip. “Just need to give them a bit of time so Shino can tell him what happened, then we’ll talk to him directly.”

Shikamaru gave another deep, beleaguered sigh, but declined to argue, which was as good as agreeing for him.

__________

It took Shino a long time, much longer than he wanted, to collect himself, to put his high collar back in place and his expressionless mask along with it, schooling his features into a carefully controlled serenity. This was a process he was very practiced at, but given that his own impulsiveness was the cause of this self-inflicted wound, it was more difficult than usual.

To his immense gratitude, Ino did not approach him again. He was allowed to linger through the crowd, and when the party wound down, he was able to garner a seat on the couch and an affect that didn’t invite conversation beyond Hinata quietly saying goodbye when she went home. It became apparent as guests left one by one and the sky started to change color in anticipation of the dawn that Kiba was not going to be in any condition to walk anywhere. He and Naruto sang rousing drinking songs with Takei until he was at last successfully ushered by a visibly tipsy Sakura into their bedroom.

This was followed by Kiba hurling himself onto the couch, wallowing and flailing and somehow still strikingly graceful, twisting until he was lying flat, looking at Shino upside down. He murmured out a greeting and Shino, still always at his beck and call, tugged on his shirt collar until he wormed forward and managed to get his head in Shino’s lap.

Naruto yelled out, “Hey, no fair!” a statement that was completely lost on Shino, and followed Kiba onto the couch, tumbling onto him in a graceless heap and almost immediately starting to snore.

With Naruto unconscious, and the apartment owners in their rooms, they were safely alone to the extent that they could be, and Shino let his fingers thread through Kiba’s hair, petting him in the way he had learned made the Inuzuka go boneless. Kiba predictably relaxed, somehow drunkenly swaying even while supine and under a heavy load of snoring ninja. One of his eyes opened just a bit, peering up at his boyfriend.

“You wen’ away…”

Shino frowned and inclined his head. “I was here the whole time.”

Kiba swayed in disagreement. “You wen’ away… got upset… no’ sure why…”

The panic grip had relaxed into a deep, destructive sadness over the course of the last few hours, and Shino didn’t have it in him to revive it. He stroked Kiba’s head, knowing he was drunk and looking for affection and didn’t remember what had transpired. “I’m right here. I won’t go anywhere.”

Kiba turned as much as he could with Naruto’s weight pinning him to the couch, snuggling himself into Shino’s hip. “’s good. I miss you when… when you go ‘way…”

The Inuzuka put in a few hours of sleep. Even if Shino hadn’t lost all semblance of alcohol fuzz, he certainly wouldn’t have been able to sleep, so he kept petting his boyfriend and tracing the shape of his cheekbones and thinking about the idiotic risk they’d taken. While it was stupid to keep beating himself up over being impulsive, he imagined he’d be angry at himself over the incident for years after, nonetheless. Mere days after Hinata had terrified him by letting on that she knew, he had been careless and reckless and he had been careless and reckless with Kiba’s safety.

He knew what the smart play here was. They’d been together, they’d had this time, he’d been… happy. But they’d taken too many risks, and the potential for this choice they’d made to blow up and ruin their lives had grown too extreme. It was time to cut it off. Kiba would be hurt, their partnership on missions would likely not survive, but he could have the Hokage change their team around and no matter how angry or hurt Kiba was, he would be angry and hurt and alive.

He rubbed dark hair between his fingers, then tugged gently, watching Kiba briefly scrunch his eyes and then relax. He felt a dead weight in his stomach. This was the thing he’d been trying to avoid, subconsciously trying to circumvent the problem this choice presented… that after finally having it, he wouldn’t be able to give it up. The shame he felt at having put Kiba’s safety on the line to have this thing, this thing that he wanted, had dogged him constantly, drifting from the back to the forefront of his mind. He needed to be smart here. He needed to act with honor and integrity. What he wanted, what he still, constantly, longed for, wasn’t more important than Kiba’s safety, than Kiba’s future. Nothing was more important than that.

He waited while the room lightened, hand alternating between settling on Kiba’s neck and stroking through his hair, to tell him what had to happen. He didn’t remember that Ino and Shikamaru had seen them together. He’d have to hear that story first. He would be worried when he heard it, worried that Shino was doubting whether they should stay together; he would be heartbroken when he realized Shino had already made up his mind.

As it turned out, he did manage to fall asleep, and probably caught about an hour himself by the time the feeling of Kiba shifting around shook him out of it. He blinked awake and stared down at a very irritable-looking Inuzuka, trying and failing to stretch himself between the immovable objects that were Shino and Naruto’s still-unconscious form. He growled and glared down at Naruto, then up at Shino and huffed out, “Help.”

Shino stood, slowly, and pulled Kiba after him, rescuing him from his sleeping partner and leaving Naruto to curl himself around one of the couch cushions. Kiba swayed on his feet and Shino thought for a moment he might still be drunk but, remarkably, when he rubbed his eyes and looked over his gaze was clear. He’d always had a pretty tough constitution, but this was ridiculous. After the housewarming party he’d been pretty miserable, but maybe that was the tequila’s fault.

“You’re not hungover?” he asked quietly, mindful of the occupants of the rest of the apartment.

He shook his head, swayed again and leaned on Shino’s shoulder, surveying the damage. “We partied pretty hard last night.”

Shino leaned toward him, smiling a small smile despite his mood. “Indeed.”

He got a sly smile back and a sudden, startling kiss on the cheek, Kiba pressing swiftly against him and murmuring into his skin a barely audible, “Thank you.” He looked again at the living room around them and cocked his head, side-eyeing his boyfriend. “You’re gonna want us to clean up a bit before we go, aren’t you?”

He pointedly directed a frown in Kiba’s direction. “More than a bit.”

As it turned out, with the two of them working together they had the place straightened up pretty quickly. Shino spared a thought for the carpet in Ino’s room, but figured it was better to let the occupants sleep and deal with it in their own time. They had wiped everything down, mopped the kitchen floor, done a few sinks of dishes and filled a few trash bags and then Kiba was pressed against his back, pawing relentlessly and demanding breakfast and he honestly didn’t know how the Inuzuka wasn’t at least a little hungover, but it would have to remain one of those mysteries he would never unravel about his partner.

As they left the apartment, he felt the weight of his decision settle on him with the sunlight, but before he could try to figure out how and when he would explain himself Kiba interrupted his thoughts with a loud, “Fuck!” completely ignoring the scandalized looks of the passersby on the sidewalk. Shino raised an eyebrow while he exasperatedly ran a hand through his hair. “Today is the day I’m turning eighteen, I was supposed to be at my clan first thing in the morning!” He cast an anxious glance at the noonday sun, then at Shino, who was already making shooing motions with one hand.

“Go ahead, come by when you’re done.”

Kiba flashed him a grateful smile and sprinted in the direction of Shino’s apartment, no doubt to break Akamaru out for whatever eighteenth year ritual of the Inuzuka clan that he was hideously late for. Shino stood on the sidewalk watching his retreating back, too tired and heartsick to try to match his pace.

__________

It was dark outside before Kiba returned, which was awful. His plans to announce their breakup and then get started on pretending he didn’t ache with yearning and sadness every time he looked at the boy for the rest of his life had been brought to a screeching halt, so Shino had gone slowly to his apartment, alone, where he knocked out a long nap, showered and then cleaned every inch of the place in a methodical haze. It seemed patently unfair that he should have to spend hours in awful purgatory, imagining all the ways Kiba would react and feeling guilty for ending it on top of feeling guilty for starting it, before he was allowed to get to the ugly process of pretending he wasn’t heartbroken and miserable.

His day was also flavored with a paranoia that Ino would drop by to try to apologize or explain that it was actually fine because she didn’t know what his life was like, what his clan was like. He knew she meant well and he was genuinely grateful for her friendship, but he never wanted to discuss his relationship with Kiba ever again now that it was over, and listening to someone explain that things were okay when he knew it to be a complete and utter falsehood felt like too much to bear. With things frustratingly stacking on each other in a creaking pile that threatened to crush him into the ground, adding on a conversation with someone whose life had been allowed to grow as they wished would be one too many.

Night mercifully fell without the trouble of guests and he tried to get back into a routine, the ways he had spent his days before he and Kiba had launched into this reckless relationship. But that just compounded his misery as he realized that even before they had started dating, he hadn’t had a routine that didn’t involve his friend because Kiba had always been such a big part of his life. The realization left him feeling bereft and he sat on the living room carpet, mid-dusting, staring at the wall until he realized what he was doing and made himself get up to do something, anything.

He went grocery shopping and didn’t realize until he was stepping through his front door that he’d bought what he usually bought, outfitting his fridge and pantry for two people and an enormous dog on autopilot. He stared at the bags as the door swung shut behind him, insolently still and overly full on his counter and actually debated going back to the store. Kiba ate more than he did, and on top of shopping to have food on hand for Akamaru, there was no way he could finish what he purchased on his own… resentfully, he finally moved into the kitchen to begin putting things away. He could freeze what wouldn’t keep. He could throw out what went bad. It would be fine.

It was as he crumpled the final bag in hand that he heard footsteps and a haphazard knock at his door. He distantly remembered that he hadn’t locked it upon his return from the grocery store and called out that it was open, not looking at Kiba while he entered, stooped over his trashcan instead to crush the bag down on the rest of the garbage.

“You know it’s not safe having your door unlocked like this!”

Shino took his hand off the trash and studied how it gently expanded without the pressure of him pushing it down. “You told me you don’t often bother to lock your apartment door.” He was actually horrified; had he really been so deep in his own projected misery that he hadn’t locked his door?

The deadbolt flipped with a sharp, final sound. “My place is in an apartment building; your door opens out onto the street!”

Shino sighed; there was no point in letting himself get sidetracked when he could just get straight to the point before Kiba settled in. He could already hear him hanging up his jacket. Let him take out all of his anger and then leave immediately… it would be easier that way. He wished he hadn’t left his jacket hung in the door-side closet, his glasses perched on the table. It was cowardly, but it helped to have something to hide behind.

He clenched his eyes shut for a moment, then opened them and turned around, “Kiba, I need to-,” and felt the words grind to a halt in his throat.

Kiba was standing in the middle of the living room, one hand behind his head, looking sheepish and apologetic and also like he’d been attacked by a pack of wild dogs. Fresh bruises peaked out from under the tan of his skin, promising dark discoloration in the morning and claw and bite marks sliced across his shoulder, his bicep, his forearm, around the side of his waist. He’d obviously showered and had someone bandage him up, butterfly clasps holding most of the claw marks together, although the bandage on his forearm was large and opaque and could have been covering the puncture wounds of a full bitemark.

Shino felt the breath leave him, momentarily dizzy, then launched out of the kitchen at his boyfriend, who flinched when Shino reached for him but stopped, unsure of where it was safe to touch him. “What happened?!” His mind, involved as it had been in his self-deprecation and pity, suddenly realized Akamaru wasn’t with him and he felt the near edge of panic in his chest. “Where’s Akamaru?!”

Kiba had both hands up, “Calm down!” and that was so obviously a stupid and inappropriate thing to say that Shino immediately snatched him into a hug, narrowing his eyes at the gasp of pain that elicited. Calm down, what a jackass.

He could feel Kiba shaking in what was definitely a chuckle and since he didn’t think the situation was funny at all he squeezed him harder and heard another gasp of pain before he let go, holding him by the shoulders and running his eyes over every part of him.

Kiba was still chuckling, putting a hand over the side that had an extremely large bruise spreading over it, opposite the curving claw marks and Shino kind of wanted to punch him. “What happened?!”

Kiba shooed him off and walked the few steps to the couch and he followed, suspiciously watching the way the Inuzuka sat, looking for evidence of further injuries. Kiba ran a hand through his hair and regarded him ruefully. “I knew you wouldn’t be too happy.”

“Where’s Akamaru?”

He made a face. “It’s part of it, I’m not allowed to rely on him, during or after.”

Shino took a deep breath, trying and failing to center himself as he sat down. “What. Happened?”

He ducked his head down, cowed at least by Shino’s tone. “Just the usual ritual. I was going to tell you about it so you wouldn’t be surprised, but then you planned me a party,” he glanced up, appealingly grateful, “and I just, I forgot. I forgot I even had to be there, mom was mad.”

His full-body apologetic affect was effective, radiating contrition until Shino felt himself starting to relax against his will. He glared, refusing to acknowledge so with his outward appearance at least. Kiba ducked his head back down, settling a hand on the large bandage on his forearm.

“It’s not as bad as it looks, all the damage is superficial, mostly. It’s our tradition, when you reach your majority, you have to fight the clan leader’s partner. Bare hands, no weapons, no jutsu.”

Shino blinked, feeling his eyebrows pull together. “You fought your mother’s… dog?”

Kiba grinned, looking a little proud. “Yeah, Kuromaru, she’s a bruiser. She’s got a good 80 pounds on Akamaru and I swear about twice as many teeth!” He rubbed his hand over the bandage. “I held my own.” He glanced sideways at Shino, who realized suddenly that the Inuzuka’s notable lack of constant touch was nerves. He was worried that he’d upset Shino. “I’m sorry I didn’t warn you, I really was going to, I swear!”

He felt something ache inside him and reached out, running his fingers down Kiba’s less injured arm and settling in his hand. Kiba smiled, gripping him, and scooted closer. He’d clearly showered after the fight, but he still had that earthy, nature smell of the Inuzuka camp and Shino shivered and cursed himself. This wasn’t going in the right direction at all. Kiba was inching into his space and he was right on the verge of sinking into him, touching him like he always seemed to want to and then making him dinner and listening to every detail of this foreign coming-of-age ritual. He looked down at their hands. It wasn’t fair to Kiba to indulge himself when he knew what he was going to do.

“Kiba, I need to-,”

“Oh!” Kiba cut him off, launching himself off the couch and heading toward the door. “Sorry, I have something else too!” He rummaged through the pocket of his jacket, extracting something small and thin, wrapped in cloth. He jumped back on the couch, package in hand.

Shino nodded hesitantly at it. “A gift for your birthday?”

Kiba chewed his lip nervously. “Not really. It’s not for me.”

Shino quirked an eyebrow at him. “You know you’re not supposed to get other people gifts on your birthday.”

Kiba eyes flicked around the room. “It’s not, uh, from me, either.”

More and more confusing. Shino waited, certain an explanation was coming, and was rewarded with a fairly baffling silence. Kiba, with all his relentless words, was fondling the cloth around the package and chewing on his bottom lip and looking like he was trying to figure out how to tell him that he’d lied and the injuries were actually fatal. The silence stretched on while Shino wondered if he should say something or just wait, until he finally leaned in to lay his palm on Kiba’s fidgeting hands and Kiba stilled and then darted in to kiss him, a hard and fast press of his lips that was over before Shino really realized it was happening.

“I haven’t been, um, back. To the camp. In a while.” Kiba looked down at the package in his lap. “I was going to talk to you about this too. I haven’t been back since we started… I forgot to talk to you about it because I forgot about the ceremony and we’re not supposed to spend time at the camp while we’re in our first year out, so I don’t go there much…” His fingers tapped absently on the package. “I saw my mom first, she was supposed to get me ready for the ritual.”

He glanced up now and then; his expression pleading. He was asking forgiveness for something, although Shino couldn’t speculate about what.

“You know I have a good sense of smell.”

When he didn’t continue, Shino prompted, “Yes?”

“I have a really good sense of smell.” He rubbed the tip of his tongue along the end of one very pointy canine. “My, uh, whole clan does.”

Shino nodded, still very much adrift in this conversation. “I know.”

“When you have a really good sense of smell, a good enough sense of smell, you can smell a lot about what’s going on with a person. If they’re sick. If they’re afraid. If they’ve, uh, had bacon for breakfast. If… if they’re interested in someone.” When Shino gave no indication of gleaning some revelation from this statement, he sighed. “My mom knows we’re having sex.”

Oh.

“She could smell it on me.”

Well.

“It was the second thing she said to me: ‘You know I’m going to kill you for being so fucking late, right? And when did you start sleeping with the Aburame?’”

In retrospect, it was almost comical how much of their carefully constructed secrecy had fallen apart in just a few days.

He started to open his mouth and Kiba launched off the couch, the wrapped package laying in the dent he left behind. “I didn’t mean to spring this on you, I really was going to warn you! I forgot to warn you and then I was late and then she noticed it right away and then I realized that I actually didn’t warn you at all-,” there was a good deal of hand waving accompanying what Shino thought was headed in the direction of another, not a little bit frantic, apology.

He started to say something and Kiba darted by him, snatching the package off the cushion. It wound up hugged tightly to his chest. “It really was an accident, not warning you that is, please don’t freak out! My mom won’t tell anyone, she understands it’s not, um, something you want everyone to know, and she’s the only one who was that close to me other than Kuromaru.”

This time Shino got out a whole syllable before he was cut off, in this case by having what was in Kiba’s hands shoved into his own. “She gave me this. It’s for you… from her.” Now it was Shino’s turn to stare down at the tiny package. Manners hijacked his brain; when someone gave you a gift you opened it. Wordlessly, he unfolded the cloth surrounding it and found inside a crossed pair of kunai, exquisitely crafted blades far superior to anything in his own collection, each bearing one of the two fangs the Inuzuka bore on their cheeks, the sacred markings of their clan.

He ran the pad of his thumb over one, feeling dull ridges and glossy ceramic between lethally sharp blade edges. They were beautiful. He wondered if he would ever be able to bring himself to use them, to batter their craftsmanship against an enemy.

“Mom knew… that I liked you. Before. She said if I’ve decided to be with you then that makes you clan.” The anxious note in Kiba’s voice, it was starting to take over, though it was clear he was struggling hard to keep it down. “They’re a symbol.” He pointed at the kunai, where Shino was still staring down. “That you’re… family.”

Shino didn’t move except to run his thumb over the fang imprinted in the metal again. The kunai stared back at him, irrevocably real, a tangible result of what Kiba’s mother had known immediately. Immediately. There had never been any hiding what they had, not for Kiba. The people he loved would always have known. He thought about his father, about the yawning terror of the idea that he couldn’t hide himself from the man the way Kiba couldn’t hide from his mother, couldn’t keep his innermost thoughts protected, keep himself whole, if only partly expressed. There had never been safety with Shino’s family, not from his father, his mother, his sister. He had never been secure in himself, he had always known that improvement was his ultimate goal because he was, in essence, an avatar for the clan name, not a person. And if he failed, if he brought home this boy he loved, faced his father’s disgust with courage and integrity instead of lies and conformity, he wouldn’t find home or family there.

“Shino?”

Kiba’s voice was soft and shaking. He raised the kunai out of his lap and set them on the coffee table that sat in front of the couch while he stood. They were a gift, and they were beautiful; he wanted them safely out of the way.

“Shino, please… don’t-,”

He stopped talking when Shino touched him, hand sliding around the back of his neck and pulling him into a gentle kiss. A muffled inquisitive noise escaped between them as Kiba hesitantly let his hands settle around him, leaning minutely into the kiss. Shino coaxed his mouth open, licking at the seam, sighing as Kiba let him in even as the Inuzuka’s body remained tense.

When they parted Kiba managed to squeeze out a breathy, “Wha-?” and just hearing his voice made Shino feel like he had been stretched to the very breaking point, every part of him taut and rigid, right on the verge of snapping.

He would have to admit that his typically iron-clad grip on his self-control had been a bit frayed by recent events. He ached inside and that ache pulled toward Kiba, pushed toward him until he had the boy shoved against the wall between the kitchen and the stairs. Shino ground their mouths together again, more insistent, tongue-fucking him until he was clinging to Shino’s sides and undulating against him. He let their lips part and tracked down to Kiba’s throat and Kiba was gripping his hair and murmuring, “Seriously, what? I thought you were gonna…” Shino pulled back to look him in the eyes, and he looked guilty again, “I mean, I am sorry, I really didn’t mean to…”

He was pliant now, the tension bleeding out of his muscles, holding him loosely, tentatively. They stayed there, foreheads leaned together while Kiba indulged his constant need to touch, running his hands up and down Shino’s back. He sighed, eyes closed, worry still creasing his features, and opened his mouth, inevitably to apologize again and Shino shook his head, shaking Kiba’s in the process as well.

“It’s okay.” His words were soft and certain.

Kiba winced, eyes still closed. “How can it be okay?”

It seemed impossible that the emotional whiplash of the last twenty-four hours could leave him anything but exhausted and wrung out, but instead he felt settled. “We’ll work it out.”

Kiba finally cracked an eye open, vulnerable and hopeful and distractingly beautiful. “You like the kunai?”

Shino allowed himself to lean back to look over his shoulder at them, visible in the rumpled fabric of their wrapping on the table. “I like them a lot.”

Wandering fingers slipped into the belt loops on his pants, pulling. Kiba bit his lip, one pointy canine catching against his skin. “I’m glad.”

Shino kissed him softly again, luring him into calm with a gentle slide of his mouth and slow strokes of his tongue. It was his fault Kiba had come here full of fear. He’d had to do his clan ritual wondering how badly Shino would take the news of what his mother knew. Shino had let his fear run him and Kiba had borne the brunt of it. Kiba was relaxing, pulling at the hem of his shirt until he leaned back so it could be pulled the rest of the way off. A smile was working its way across his face as Shino leaned back in, pushing at the hem of Kiba’s shirt to run his hands around his sides, palming up over firm muscle and down to the hint of the beginning of the curve that led toward his ass.

Kiba nosed at him, brushing their lips together, breathy and so quiet he was almost inaudible. “It’s okay?”

He sighed and almost smiled himself. “It’s okay.”

He felt himself pushed and let Kiba put him where he wanted him, at partial arm’s length, while slit-pupil eyes raked wolfishly over him and a whine that made heat twist in his abdomen issued from the Inuzuka’s throat. “I want you.”

He was still and breathy and quiet, but the statement didn’t have any less impact. Shino swallowed and took in the state of the boy in front of him, languid and enticing, hopeful and lingeringly tentative, before he glanced around them for a moment, deciding that he really didn’t want to make sex on the living room floor into a regular thing.

“Come on,” he reached out and Kiba more than eagerly took his hand, and let himself be led upstairs, crowding up behind Shino right before they reached the bed and biting and tonguing at his earlobe while his hands ran down his stomach and into his pants. They were only partially undone, but Kiba played with what he could reach, fondling the head of his cock, and Shino was leaning back and groaning, caught but not unhappy about it, even though they were so close to the bed and somehow still on the verge of having sex somewhere else.

One hand tracked up to rub and squeeze a nipple while the other pushed at the zipper on his pants until it could stroke him properly. “Wished you could have been there today…” Kiba nuzzled into his ear and growled, both hands solidifying their grips, “I turned eighteen, I did the ritual, I’m pretty sure I’m a man and all that now.”

Shino felt a laugh bubble up that was ultimately lost in another groan as Kiba didn’t stop what he was doing, slow, sure strokes of his hand disappearing down into his unzipped pants. “Is that so?”

“And I know what I want to do.” Shino’s head turned toward him, and he was treated to an open, sloppy kiss, followed by a sharp bite to his bottom lip. Kiba’s hips canted against him from behind, nestling the obvious hard-on into him. “I want you to fuck me.” Shino felt his mouth go dry.

Somehow, they hadn’t actually discussed it yet. It had been easy to do what they were doing, what they both clearly wanted to do, and neither of them had brought up the obvious sex act. Both of Kiba’s hands pushed into his pants and brought his cock out, stroking it and Kiba rocked his hips against him from behind again, leaning over his shoulder to watch what his hands were doing.

“I want this,” the stroking was borderline painful without more than the most cursory lubrication, but Shino would have been worried he’d already have come if it had felt any better, “this gorgeous cock of yours, I want it inside me,” he rocked his hips against Shino again, “want you inside me, fucking me until you come in me-,”

The tenuous hold on his control and his stretched-taut emotions snapped and Shino wrenched out of his grip, turning around to yank Kiba’s mesh shirt off and pull at the fastening of his pants, strained over an obvious bulge. With his pants only partly down, the hem stopped right at the top of his thighs, Shino pushed him toward the bed, then down onto the mattress. Kiba fell back with an indecent noise of anticipation, sliding himself the rest of the way onto the mattress, writhing the rest of the way out of his pants, showing off his body to the fullest possible extent. Muscles rippled under tan skin between bruises and cuts, dark hair fell over his forehead, his legs spread, inviting, while he let his own hand fall to his cock, pulling at the shaft. He made that whining sound again, stroking himself, watching Shino stepping out of his pants.

Pants off, train of thought officially gone, Shino watched him touch himself, watched the dark head of his cock disappear into his curled fingers and then reappear, wanting to go down on him and listen to him fall apart. “Want you,” Kiba’s voice brought him back to the moment, “Shino…”

Joining him on the bed only took him a moment, but he was still grabbed and held onto with desperation. He settled himself between Kiba’s legs, knees planted, thighs pushing Kiba’s legs up, spread around him, biting back a moan when their cocks pushed together, unable to stop himself from flexing his hips into it, rutting against the Inuzuka and feeling hands travel down to hold on to his ass. He stilled his movement and sat back on his knees, letting his hands trace over the dark, red lines cutting around Kiba’s side, dissecting a bruise that would clearly be a good six inches in diameter once it had completely risen.

Kiba hissed and Shino’s eyes darted up, concerned he’d hurt him, but it was worry, not pain, that marked his face. “They’re not that bad. I’m sorry I didn't-,”

Shino shook his head, settling his hand over Kiba’s mouth for a moment, long enough to feel the Inuzuka bite him. Instead of snatching his hand back he turned it and ran it along Kiba’s jaw, thumb stroking his bottom lip. “It’s okay.”

Kiba nodded, and the concern left his face as his eyes tracked down Shino’s body to where he knelt between Kiba’s legs. He licked his lips. “Lube?”

The bedside table was within reaching distance, thankfully, so Shino only had to lean to get the bottle. It was mostly full; they’d used it for mutual masturbation a few times, but it hadn’t yet become a regular part of their sex life. He snapped it open and poured some on his fingers. The first time he’d opened it he had already been annoyed by the prospect of getting sticky, but he’d been pleasantly surprised to find that while the lube was soft and slippery as expected, it massaged into his skin without leaving any residue.

As long as it was coming into play, it seemed prudent to use it everywhere. Shino took Kiba’s cock up with slippery fingers, spreading it around on him, manhandling the weight of him intently. Kiba shifted under him, “You’re, oh fuck yeah, you’re supposed to put it on your, ah… on yourself.”

Shino sent him a chiding expression, running the pad of his thumb over the head and then down along the vein at the underside while Kiba started to pant in earnest. “There are steps before that, you know.”

“No?” Kiba licked his lips, ever-distracting. “How do you know?”

Shino took the opportunity of pulling over a pillow to not meet Kiba’s gaze. They had never talked about it, but he’d done some painstakingly thorough research into the topic, because of course he had. Finding things out by doing them might have been the Inuzuka’s approach to life, but Shino intended to have all the information he might need well in advance of any practical application. He nudged at Kiba, “Lift your hips,” and the Inuzuka complied, head cocked firmly to one side.

“What, did you buy a gay sex instructional manual?”

Shino installed the pillow under his hips, canting Kiba’s body up toward him. He mulled answering while he reached for the lube again.

“You did, didn’t you?” He could feel the wide grin without even looking. “When did you get it? Can I see it? Where did you find a gay sex instructional manual?”

Shino sighed and finally looked up at him, composure mostly in place. He had felt ridiculous enough tracking the thing down; they didn’t teach anything about sex between two men in the sexual education course they’d all been given, but it didn’t make him feel any less stupid for needing to locate a book on sex when everyone who was having sex already seemed to know everything they were supposed to do. He was a little surprised Kiba didn’t already know everything about this sex act, with how worldly he seemed about the subject.

“Yes, you can see it.” He had almost thrown it out once he’d read it, plagued by a fear that it would somehow be discovered in his apartment, even though he almost never had guests that weren’t his boyfriend. “I’ll explain.” He snapped the lube shut and dropped his hand down. “When we’re done.”

He brushed over Kiba’s balls, causing a shiver to run throughout his body, and settled his slick fingers lower, noting with pleasure that the book’s advice on a pillow behind the lower back did indeed make accessing his entrance easier. He circled his fingers, spreading the lube and glancing up as Kiba spread his legs even further and he murmured, “Whoa.”

He kept circling his fingers. “Okay?”

“Yeah,” Kiba winked, and wiggled his butt, “I’m not gonna break, Shino.”

Ignoring the obvious attempt to rush him, he applied pressure slowly, increasing it bit by bit as his fingers circled until the tip of his index finger breached the entrance. He heard Kiba inhale sharply, and removed it, “I’m fine, Shino,” and immediately pushed it back in, a little farther than before.

Kiba finally stopped complaining about the pace and let him go ahead, repeatedly increasing until his whole finger was inside, pulling his concentration between making sure this was done right and the unbelievable promise of the wet heat gripping his finger. Kiba was tight, so tight he was worried about even a second finger; Shino watched his face carefully for signs of pain.

Of course, he wasn’t exactly helping, shifting around and providing a running commentary as Shino started to finger him in earnest, “Oh wow, that feels weird, that feels really weird…”

“Okay?”

“Yeah, keep going, oh man, that feels weird.”

Not exactly the reaction he was going for, but the book had said it would probably take two fingers to reach what he wanted. He went to add more lube, pouring it directly on his fingers without removing his hand all the way and began to work a second one in. Kiba’s reaction to that was decidedly different, biting his lip and making wordless noises that could have been appreciation or pain. Shino eased back, though he kept his fingers moving in and out; the book had said maintaining movement was key to preparation.

“Okay?”

“Yeah…” Kiba swallowed wetly, watching Shino with eyes half open. “It feels… I can feel myself stretching around you. It hurts,” Shino felt his mouth set in a line, pulling back more, “but it feels good too.” He kept up little thrusts while Kiba shifted under him, looking uncertain, but not in pain. “Mmmm, yeah, still feels weird, weird and good… keep going.”

Assent granted, he returned to his task, working his fingers in until they were both fully seated, thrusting them in and out, a little faster, and crooking them just slightly while they were in, looking for…

Kiba gave out a strangled cry and his whole body tensed. His eyes were wide now. “What…” he was panting again, “what was that?”

Shino had paused, waiting for his muscles to relax, and began moving his fingers again as they did. “That’s your prostate. It should feel-,”

But there was really no point in trying to explain after that, because he’d found what he was looking for and he was stroking it gently with small, come-hither motions and Kiba was panting and pushing down on his fingers and his partially flagging erection had come back in full force, precum seeping from the tip and leaving a wet trail along his abdomen and the sight was enough to make Shino ache with need.

“Oh god, oh fuck, baby, that feels really good, fuck yes…” Shino was switching from rhythmic come-hithers to thrusting and back again, absolutely mesmerized at watching Kiba twist and moan, his whole body laid out and convulsing, desperate because of him. “Fuck Shino, I want you, I want you to fuck me.”

His aching hard on readily agreed. “I should get you up to a third finger before-,”

“God, I’m not gonna make it through another finger, I need you.” He fixed pleading eyes on Shino. “I don’t wanna come before you’ve been in me… please, lover.”

Well that was fairly impossible to say no to. It took him a few seconds to find the lube, groping around with one hand while he finger-fucked Kiba and watched him mewl and pant. Now that they were doing it, he couldn’t believe it had taken them this long to get to this.

Lube finally located, he looked down and removed his fingers, coating them again and slicking up his own cock, pausing briefly to bite his lip and hold his breath because if he came in his hand at that moment he was never going to forgive himself. One, two, three strokes and the lube was dispersed and he right on the edge and god, he needed to calm down.

He stroked his hands down Kiba’s thighs, up his sides. He brushed over the butterfly stitches and the bruises, but Kiba didn’t seem to notice. He was panting quietly, fingers lightly dug into the bedspread, vulnerable and open and full of trust. Shino finally lined himself up, head of his cock nudging into Kiba’s entrance, and looked up, one final need to check. “Okay?”

Kiba nodded. “Yes, god yes.”

“Try to relax.”

Shino pushed his hips forward and felt Kiba’s body resisting even as it opened around him and it was just… so… A whimper that sounded more like pain than pleasure brought him back down to earth, and with a monumental effort of will he stopped. He leaned forward enough to brace one hand on the bedspread at Kiba’s side and bring their faces closer together. The Inuzuka’s eyes were clenched shut, his breathing labored. Shino pet along his side.

“Kiba?”

“I’m okay.” One eye cracked open, then shut again. “You’re just, ah… bigger than a few fingers… keep going, just… go slow.”

He pushed forward again, sliding in another inch, then another. He could feel himself starting to shake with the effort. Kiba’s body was squeezing around him, tight and molten hot and fraying his mind with pleasure. He braced his other arm beside Kiba, trying to steady his tremoring limbs and felt his hips minutely pull out and push in on instinct. He was all the way in before he knew it, flush against Kiba’s body, clenching his jaw and he knew that this would be easier to get used to once he moved but he was watching Kiba’s face, waiting for him to open his eyes, leaning down to get close.

One, then both eyes opened finally, Kiba panting softly. “It hurts…” his hands lifted from the bedspread and settled on Shino’s sides, fingertips digging into his skin. “Oh god, but it feels…” he nosed at Shino and the Aburame felt his whole body shudder, “fuck, I can feel all of you…”

He shifted and thrust his hips, gently, a small movement, and felt Kiba convulse beneath him. Kiba’s hands moved down, pressing into his lower back and pulling him, he thrust again, “Oh god, Shino…” and again, pulling out a little more each time, until he was finally fucking Kiba in long, sure strokes, pulling almost all the way out and burying himself completely to the hilt and Kiba was whining into his neck and pulling on the small of his back and his hands were wandering until they cupped Shino’s ass and he leaned back, bracing himself on his extended arms, pushing in with more confidence now because everything that looked like pain was gone and Kiba was writhing and whining and taking him in like it was the best thing he’d ever experienced.

“Shino,” Kiba’s voice pitched up, a desperate, higher tone he’d never heard, “Shino, fuck yes,” and Shino dug his fingers into the bedspread on either side of his boyfriend. This breathy whine, this desperate, higher pitch, this was what Kiba sounded like when he was getting fucked, this was what he sounded like when he submitted entirely, everything he was, “God yes, I can feel all of you, fuuuuuuck…”

A stray bit of a data from that book he was never more grateful he’d searched for rose up in his mind and Shino leaned back a bit more and hooked his arms under Kiba’s knees and then leaned in, bending the Inuzuka almost in half, opening him up even more and snapping his hips in a brutal rhythm. Kiba threw his head back, his whole body tensing at the new angle, and cried out and it was every filthy thought Shino had ever had about this and not acknowledged that he’d had about his rolled into one.

“Fuck yes, I can feel all of you, all of your fucking huge cock, fucking me like I always wanted you to…”

Shino strangled a growl in his throat; despite his own subconscious obsession as of late with this act, it was so much more intimate than he’d ever realized, so much more territorial, “fuck, that feels so fucking good, I want you,” so much more possessive than he’d even imagined, “I want you to come in me, I want to feel you coming inside me,” and somehow, despite the edge coming at him, Kiba came first, spurting along his own chest, arching and crying and so fucking beautiful and so absolutely his, he felt it deep down, slamming himself into Kiba’s body, so willing and receptive and spread out just for him and he released his hold on Kiba’s legs so he could lean between them to dig his teeth into Kiba’s throat the way the Inuzuka had made repeatedly clear he wanted and he squeezed his jaw against Kiba’s skin and snapped his hips and came so hard he thought he was maybe going to die, his orgasm pulsing through him again and again until his body had finally gone slack, cradled against his boyfriend with arms wrapped around him and his face still pressed into the Inuzuka’s neck.

He stayed that way for some time, admitting only to himself that he might have passed out for a moment or two, Kiba stroking the back of his neck and letting him stay until his softening cock slipped out on its own, making Kiba hiss and he tiredly pushed himself up on his elbows to look at his boyfriend.

“Okay?” he searched the Inuzuka’s face and tracked a wide smile. Kiba pushed up into a light kiss, still taking his full weight between his legs, but not complaining. He tucked both arms back around the Inuzuka, effectively cradling him, and pushing his face back down into his neck, somehow, even after everything they had just done, causing a full body shiver.

“That,” Kiba’s voice was still breathless, but much softer now, “was amazing.” Shino wasn’t sure he was ready for more speech yet, but he hummed his agreement into Kiba’s skin and heard his boyfriend laugh. “Still with me, lover?” He hummed again, trying to go totally boneless, wondering if he could sink all the way into the radiating warmth beneath him.

__________

Shino had been working on learning to cook while Kiba had been in Stone. He wasn’t aiming for anything gourmet, but the ability to produce decent food that could feed oneself seemed to have been lacking from his skillset, so he had asked the only friend he felt comfortable asking.

It hadn’t occurred to him until afterward that the request might seem sexist, and more than a bit patronizing, but Hinata had been her usual lovely self about it and had never made him feel bad for his assumption. Which had turned out to be correct; she was a perfectly good cook. Not in any way that was determined by her gender, he knew, except for by that practical aptitude he had come to suspect was universal among women; self-sufficiency in every area of life. Hinata could competently feed herself, and she had imparted the skill to him with her typical patience and meticulous sweetness, forgiving of his blunders, encouraging of his successes.

Thankfully, Kiba was an extremely receptive audience to even the bare modicum of culinary capability. He had picked up steaks and vegetables, whatever looked fresh, as he’d been instructed by the Hyuuga, and had seared off the steaks and lightly sautéed the vegetables. Hinata swore by fresh herbs in her vegetables; he suspected that aspect of dinner was less appreciated by the Inuzuka than the meat that was being lovingly devoured, but at least personally he could appreciate the difference.

He smelled of sex, enough that it was clear even to his senses, a thought which now made him want to laugh, but when they had finally been able to move from their recumbent position he had been subjected to a relentless onslaught of very fetching, very whiny hunger, and had pushed Kiba into the bathroom and headed down to the kitchen, having determined that a shower for himself could wait until after they had been fed.

Now, he sat at the small table Kiba had actually picked out for him during a very chaotic trip to the furniture store after he’d been told off for his apparently criminal lack of furnishings, eating at a dignified pace while his boyfriend finished off everything in sight between long sentences.

“So then they put you in the ring, after taking all your weapons, and I could tell mom was still really mad at me for being late because she almost skipped the whole speech, you know, maturing into adulthood, carrying on the clan legacy, representing the village to our allies, showing up our enemies, but she still did it, she just did it really quickly, maybe skipped some parts,” he paused to consume more meat and Shino nodded, attention clear on his face, despite his gaze lingering on the neglected vegetables.

The Inuzuka wasn’t a dog, after all, he would need to feed himself like a human. The vegetables got a cursory poke from his utensils while Kiba continued, feigning obliviousness to the notation on his eating habits.

“I swear, Kuromaru beefed up for the fight, I think mom really wound her up, maybe because I’m sort of representing the matriarch. You’re supposed to wrestle the dog into submission, or at least, close enough, usually the clan leader’s partner defers after a good showing. Kuromaru made me actually wrestle her into submission, which took forever, and by the time I was done we were both bloody and sweaty and I thought for a minute she might have actually torn clear through my arm, but she just got between the ligaments, nothing more,” Shino’s eyes fixed on the largest bandage, around his forearm, and he flexed his hand self-consciously. He must have still felt pretty guilty, because he actually ate a few vegetables while the Aburame stared him down.

“Akamaru was pretty riled up, he didn’t understand why he couldn’t fight with me, and once he smelled my blood, they had to physically restrain him.” Without making a conscious choice to allow it, a smile lifted Shino’s mouth, his affection for the dog taking him by surprise. The canine was viciously loyal, steady where his master was chaotic, but just as loving and demonstrative. He felt a fierce empathy with Akarmaru’s relentless determination to defend his master. “I finally led her up the side of the ring, she got on her hind legs to put her paws on the wall and I caught her on the throat and flipped her.” Pride marked every one of his features. “She tried to get her footing back, but I got her in a full submission, put my whole body weight into her neck and she stopped, she knew I had her.”

He inclined his head, letting the smile stay where it was. “You’re a very skillful fighter.”

Kiba preened. “You think so?” When he nodded he was answered with a sharp grin. “I wish you could have been there.”

“I do too.” If Kiba’s mother was simply going to know at the first moment that they were together, he might as well have joined him as Kiba’s boyfriend. Then again, thinking back to his mental state earlier that day, he wouldn’t have been much help. Unbelievable. Had it really been the same day, leaving the party feeling certain that their relationship needed to end?

As if he’d read his mind, Kiba leaned back in his chair and fixed him with a direct gaze. “By the way, I don’t think I actually thanked you for throwing me a party.”

He quietly stifled a small laugh. “You did, actually, several times.”

Kiba rolled his eyes. “Well, I didn’t thank you sober.” He leaned on the table, planting his elbows on either side of the mostly cleaned plate. “Thank you.” His tone was achingly sincere, “I know you don’t love things like that, but I really liked it.”

“That’s why I did it.” He hesitated, then added, “I don’t hate things like that, as long as you are having a good time.”

He was rewarded with a sunny smile, and then his plate was snatched off the table. “Dishes,” was the only explanation he got as Kiba whisked by him around the counter into the kitchen.

He followed, extracting himself from behind the table, “You don’t have to do, mph-,” and Kiba kissed him, so unexpectedly that he actually emitted a small sound of surprise, and stopped at the counter dividing the kitchen from the tiny space that counted as the living room.

“You made dinner, I do the dishes.”

The tone brokered no argument, like this was some kind of universal rule it was silly Shino didn’t already know, so he watched with no small amount of contentedness as Kiba ran the water and doused a sponge liberally with soap. The first time the Inuzuka had ‘done the dishes’ at his place they’d needed to have a talk immediately afterward about what ‘clean’ actually meant. While he didn’t think for one moment think he’d convinced Kiba that his position was, in fact, the correct one, the Inuzuka had never since failed to adhere to the Aburame’s purportedly ‘unreasonable’ standards.

Dishes passed through the sink and onto the drying rack and he thought back to the party. “So, you had fun at Sakura and Ino’s?”

“Yes!” He barked out a laugh. “I’m pretty sure Naruto and I got Takei to put socks on his hands,” he paused, thoughtfully running the sponge over a saucepan, “although now I can’t remember why that was funny…”

He leaned on the countertop, letting his gaze trace over the tanned skin and burgeoning injuries. Kiba needed to be patched up again before he could go to sleep. “Do you remember us doing anything in particular last night?”

He was treated to a flirty glance of slit-pupil eyes over one shoulder. “I think I remember someone paying up what they owed in the form of a long-overdue dare.”

Incredibly, the memory of Ino and Shikamaru walking in on them didn’t rouse even a flicker of panic. It seemed once he had made a decision, if that decision was the right one, he no longer had to contend with himself about it. “I did…” Kiba finished the dishes and turned around to lean on the sink, drying his hands with the kitchen towel Shino kept hanging from the oven door.

He tongued a single canine and laughed nervously, shaking his head. “I can’t believe Ino and Shikamaru almost caught us.”

Shino let the knowledge that Kiba well and truly didn’t remember settle. “Actually, they did catch us.”

Kiba laughed, more certainly this time. “Come on. We were kissing, then we weren’t, then they opened the… door…”

His voice trailed off and his brow furrowed as Shino shook his head, marveling somewhat at how, in a bizarre reversal of the expected, he was totally calm relaying this tale and it was Kiba that was looking stricken. He got over the novelty pretty quickly when Kiba dropped the towel, frozen in place. “They saw us?” Fear had washed over his handsome features. “Shino…”

He glided around the counter to reach him, feeling acutely, again, the burden his fear had placed on his boyfriend. “Kiba-,”

Fingers dug hard into his biceps, Kiba’s head leaned forward, eyes clenched shut. “Shino, I’m sorry.”

“Kiba-,”

“I know that keeping what we are a secret is important to you, I swear I’m not trying to ruin that.” The grasp on him was starting to really hurt.

“Kiba-,”

“Please, don’t-,” he silenced the Inuzuka by pressing their foreheads together. It didn’t matter how close he had come to please and don’t, it didn’t matter that he was already torturing himself wondering what he would have said if Kiba hadn’t shoved that gift, that symbol of acceptance and family from his mother into Shino’s hands. He was so grateful that he had. He was so grateful for the relentless attention, the way Kiba was able to fearlessly cling to what he wanted, he was so grateful that what he wanted was, in the end, Shino.

Kiba pushed forward, nuzzling into him, but he remained tense. “Okay, what is this? Seriously.” Shino pulled back to look at him and felt his whole body go rigid. “I’m not upset, I’m happy!” Those insistent fingers gripped him, hard. “I just, I don’t understand. Ino and Shikamaru, they saw us, my mother knows, I was so afraid…” Shino pulled him into a tight hug, squeezing him around the ribcage. It was the height of unfairness that Kiba had been afraid because of him. And of course, now he was struggling with the words to explain what he’d realized. He wasn’t good with words, he knew that.

Tiredly, he finally pulled Kiba out of the kitchen and pushed him to sit on the couch, fetching the first aid kit he kept by his kunai on the bookshelf. The Inuzuka waited while he opened it, sat next to him and began running disinfectant-soaked cotton over the claw marks on his arm, clearly struggling with not speaking.

“I didn’t… I wasn’t exactly happy when they walked in on us.” Kiba bit his lip, but didn’t say anything. Blood welled up from the thickest parts of the scratches, and Shino wiped it away, reaching for the butterfly stitches. The very edges of the claw marks had already started to knit together. “I didn’t know what to think about it at first.”

With the marks on his arm taken care of, Shino nudged him to raise the arm so he could access the red slashes that curved around the side of his rib cage. Kiba leaned his elbow on the back of the couch and watched him, bottom lip still worried between his teeth. The marks on his rib cage were more shallow and required barely half the number of closures as the ones on his arm. Thankfully, the bandage over the most serious wound, on his forearm, was still taped in place, even after everything they’d done. To his immense relief, Kiba let him work without interruption while he tried to say what he needed to say.

“We went back to the party. I could tell you didn’t realize what happened.” The Inuzuka nodded as he finished with his side. “I thought we would have to talk about it the next day.” He took Kiba’s face in one hand, reaching up to swipe disinfectant over the two short cuts running from his hairline close to his eyebrow. They were deep, but Kiba didn’t flinch.

“I thought it was too unsafe for us to stay together.” He peeled and carefully laid one butterfly stitch across both cuts, paying extra attention to pressing the skin together. “I meant what I said about wanting to protect you.” He avoided Kiba’s gaze as he laid a second butterfly stitch down, placing it with one hand, holding the skin together with the other. “I didn’t want to be alone. I didn’t want to leave you. I was angry with myself for putting you in danger, and for thinking about hurting you by leaving.”

The decision to stay, to fight for what he wanted, had been so easy, had left him feeling so calm. Trying to articulate his thoughts, irritatingly, was deeply unsettling, making him feel vulnerable and worried that he was saying it wrong and giving Kiba cause to be angry with him. He certainly had plenty to feel guilty about for the way he’d acted, and Kiba would be well within his rights to be angry. He held the skin around the cuts together and reached for another closure and stared for a few seconds at the Inuzuka kunai, sitting right where he’d left them on the table, next to the first aid kit.

“I never…” The sentiment twisted in throat; he had learned young that introspection and emotional honestly were things to be disdained. One especially did not engage in such gauche activities as dwelling on childhood unhappiness. That a childhood was unhappy was a given, not something to be embarrassingly lamented and certainly never to be discussed. “I never thought that happiness was something I was… something I had any right to expect. Something I was allowed to pursue.” He steeled himself and turned back, but he couldn’t look Kiba in the eyes yet, focused on the cuts on his forehead, laying down another closure. It needed one more, it looked like.

“I’m sorry, for putting my fears on you. When you told me your mother knew, what she said… that she gave you something for me.” The Inuzuka was quivering under his fingers and he wasn’t sure if it was anger or sadness or something more dire. “She wants you to be happy. You can be happy and still have a home.” The last of the butterfly stitches laid, he dropped his hands into his lap and looked down at them. “I never thought that home was somewhere you could be… happy. But I think it can be.” He forced himself to meet his boyfriend’s gaze. “And I’m happy with you.”

A wide, soft smile spread over Kiba’s face and he leaned in, pressing his lips almost demurely to Shino’s, and they stayed that was for long seconds, tightly against each other, the Inuzuka still shaking. When Kiba pulled back Shino realized his eyes had closed, and he opened them to find the smile still in place and his boyfriend looking, incredibly, at a loss for words. Their hands met in his lap, fingers interlacing, gentle and strangely sweet.

Kiba stroked the back of his hand slowly with a thumb and finally said, his voice thick with emotion, “I’m happy too.”

The quiet admission was enough to get his heart racing, and Shino decided it was time to stop predicting how this day would go because he had been wrong so many times. He squeezed his boyfriend’s hands and heard himself murmur, “Good,” and leaned in to kiss him again, a similarly demure press of the lips. Exhaustion radiated from both of them; it had been a lot for one day.

When they separated, he stood and pulled Kiba up and shooed him upstairs. He still needed a shower, but there was no reason the Inuzuka should be anything but unconscious. The bed was still rumpled, the duvet cover darkened from bodily fluids in one spot, but laundry could definitely wait, and Kiba slid between the sheets with no compunction for the mess and was out cold almost immediately. Shino caught himself letting whole minutes pass by, staring at his sleeping profile, and shook his head, shuffling into the bathroom, shedding his clothing into the hamper.

As he turned the shower on and waited for the water to heat up, he reflected that they would have to talk to Ino and Shikamaru at some point, probably soon. They would have to talk to Hinata. They would have to discuss the limitations of their relationship, because it was as unsafe as it had always been for them to be together openly, but they had to trust some of their friends. He stepped into the shower and let the steam envelope him. They would have to talk about Kiba’s mother. She would probably want to meet him again. They had met once, a few years ago, right before his genin team had entered a tournament, but she would certainly want to meet him as Kiba’s boyfriend.

He reached for the shampoo and let a small smile settle on his face. She would want to meet him as Kiba’s boyfriend.