#maybe it is inadvisable and stupid of him but if it really meant i might still mean something to him even a LITTLE

[nyandereneko]

Something that's stood out to me and ended up meaning a lot to me because my self esteem is nonexistent...I think part of what draws me to Hei so intensely is that he’ll keep anyone around him that he cares about regardless of whether they drag him down or not. Like, he did everything, and I mean everything for Yin when they were on the run, because she literally can’t/couldn’t do anything for herself. He fed them both, found places for them to stay, arranged all of their lodging and transportation, made sure they had suitable clothes and just the basic necessities in general to survive, and singlehandedly fought the waves and waves of enemies the Syndicate sent after them to exterminate them. I mean, her autonomy was developing, but aside from that she wouldn’t be able to help him do anything utility wise anyway, all she can do is keep watch. She can’t fight or take care of any maintenance things or even really interact with people...

And I’d have to go back and find the actual context/quote but in the manga that’s set between seasons people ask Hei multiple times why he’s carrying dead weight, why he brings “useless” people with him into battle, why he keeps them close despite the fact that they can’t do anything to help him or make things easier, they only make things more difficult because it’s just more for him to worry about/keep track of than just himself...but aside from not giving an answer, he also just doesn’t care. Like. He keeps them around because he wants to, period. Doesn’t matter how much harder it makes things for him, doesn’t matter if they’re helpful or completely useless. He cares for Yin so guess what, Yin sticks by his side no matter what. Of course, there’s also the fact that she’s the only one that can snap him out of things, so like usually if his mind is being manipulated by a power or something, hearing her say his name helps because it gets him back in working order quicker than if he tried to break through or fight the influence himself...but still. The fact that other people in universe point out that he keeps “dead weight” around because he wants to, and it doesn’t bother him, or at least not enough to do anything to change his habits, means a lot to me. Because any time I start feeling bad about myself (which is just. Perpetually lmao) and I worry I wouldn’t be helpful or useful enough, at least I can fall back on the idea that I’d be slightly above that baseline because I can take care of basic tasks and would actually insist on doing so...so that’s already some benefit in my favor lmao.

And that doesn’t even factor in that Nova is genuinely helpful in a lot of different ways, she can fight to a certain extent and she has healing powers which are, quite literally, a lifesaver...but sometimes I just gotta try to feel better about plain old lame unimpressive me in general, even though I’d never pair him with me in that way, I prefer to use Nova as my catalyst for shipping because she’s actually fun and more worthwhile than plain old me...but it’s nice to think that he might still be inclined to keep plain old me around under different circumstances, just because that’s the kind of person he is.

[spacebatisluvd]

Grief

An Entrapdak fic, featuring amnesiac Hordak and Entrapta post-show. 

I probably wouldn’t have written this if I hadn’t seen @neversidefaerie‘s post about this concept. It looks like I’m not the only one that’s been thinking about this concept, so I guess it deserves at least a drabble.

Content warning - Past abuse. Entrapdak. Hordak-centric. Grief. This is hurt/comfort, but I think the hurt might outweigh the comfort.

-

76531-SI looked up from their work when—

(the princess? Entrapta? his partner? his master? how was he to refer to her?)

—she stood suddenly. Her eyes were wet, and he straightened, looking around to see what had caused her distress so he could—

(killitdumpitouttheairlockdestroyit)

—remove it.

“I’m sorry!” she blurted. “I have to—“ She took a breath, shoulders hitching. His hands flexed, and he looked around, unsure what to do with them. “Excuse me. I have to. Leave. I’ll be back! Just—I’ll be back!”

His ears flexed and he cocked his head, but he didn’t know how to express his concern, his desire to help. Before he could make a decision, she was gone, her hair pulling her up through the vents. He was, briefly, reminded of an enemy fleeing battle, and his hearts skittered and skipped. She was his—(?????)—and his dormant battle protocols should not tag her as a target! Even in simile or metaphor. Had Big Brother ever detected such a lapse, he’d have—

Well. 76531-SI would have been sent for reconditioning (again), as was proper. No clone could turn against his maker. It was a sure sign of lunacy to even think it. He was lucky she wasn’t his Big Brother—

His hearts stopped briefly, then their beat kicked up, hammering harder. He searched the room, expecting his traitorous thoughts to be broadcast to his brothers, expecting them to appear and rebuke him for his obvious faults. But they didn’t appear, and he walked himself through his memories. Big Brother was Gone. Really and truly. Entrapta had graciously offered him a space in her kingdom, allowing him to serve her. (That’s not what she had said. She called him Lab Partner. And friend. But he could not presume the words were more than that—words. Big Brother called them all brothers, after all, and insisted they do the same. But none were foolish enough to presume that was anything other than a kindness he extended to them. Putting more weight in it than that was a sign of deficiency.)

He swallowed and took a breath, re-writing his thoughts. His new master—not a replacement for the old, of course, for who could replace the Sun? Or re-write the Stars?—was troubled. He was her servant. It was his duty to assist her.

Mental knot untangled, he cocked his head, ears twitching as he listened. She was still in the vents. He followed the echo of her passage, walking along the halls until they fell silent. She had to be close. He scented the air, grateful that there were so few Etherians on her staff. It was easier to sort her scent from the scent of oil and machinery. He followed it to her bedroom door and waited outside. 

Then he remembered—these doors were not like the doors of Big Brother’s ship. They would not open to admit welcome parties or remain shut to exclude unwelcome ones. He had to turn the knob, as Entrapta had shown him. It would be locked if he was not welcome.

He hesitated. But this was part of his purpose, wasn’t it? To assist her. She permitted him that much, even if she denied him the right to fully serve her as his conditioning intended. (She was right to do so. He was invalid, after all. A flawed clone. It was a mercy that he had been allowed to live at all.)

He tried the door and found it opened easily for him. “Princess?”

She whirled to face him. “Hordak?!”

The name—(henamedhimselfhowdarehenamehimself Worms Were Not Worthy of NAMES)—set his hearts racing, and he recoiled from it, panic causing his limbs to freeze. “Wait!” Her hair grabbed him and pulled the door closed behind him. He didn’t fight the tendrils, just allowed her to pull him close, even as he tried to settle his hearts.

(He was 76531-SI. That was his designation. He had been reconditioned after his flawed programming was discovered. Big Brother was Good. He was Merciful. He allowed 76531-SI to live, despite his flaws. The name was nothing to him. Nothing. It meant nothing.)

“I’m sorry,” she said, strands of hair brushing the tears from her cheeks, even as she patted his shoulders and his arms—as if checking him for damage. “Are you okay?”

His ears flattened and he lifted his chin. “I’m fine.” There was a soft growl in his voice, a remnant of his irritation. He had no reason to react to what was, in essence, a word. A stupid, meaningless word. “I came to see if I could assist you. You seemed...upset.”

Her hair uncoiled from him slowly, and she took a step back, forcing a smile. “Oh. You know. Just one of those things. I think there’s a biochemical explanation. I could probably find a way to interrupt the uptake of the chemicals involved or maybe heighten my sensitivity to others, but—“ She faltered, hair wilting a little. “—all my research indicates that chemical alteration is an inadvisable means of dealing with grief. In the long term, at least. So....” She trailed off, shrugging with her whole upper body—hair, arms, shoulders.

“I see.” He looked around, noting that her room was messy and disordered, much like her lab. “Is there another means? Something I could assist with?”

She tugged on a lock of hair, turning away from him and pacing. Around him, the tendrils spread out to reorder and reorganize the discarded clothing and personal items scattered about her room, though he could discern no pattern to the new arrangement. “Well...they say that time helps. And-and talking about it, too. But it’s not something I can really talk about with my friends. They don’t really understand why I’m so upset that he’s—gone.” She froze, hands tight around the lock of hair. “And it’s just. It’s complicated—“

“I am here.” She called him a friend. She could talk about it with him, couldn’t she?

“Exactly! You’re here! But you’re not you, you’re—“

She turned, and he cocked his head. Her face crumpled, and she wiped frantically at her face, as if trying to stop the tears. “Ah! And now it’s like I can’t stop crying! I don’t know why!”

He stepped closer, reaching out to run a hand through her hair. She was more receptive to that than to a touch on the hand or body. “Etherians release oxytocin and endorphins while crying, correct?”

She hesitated. “...Yes?”

“Then why are you trying to stop? Those chemicals should naturally counteract the cortisol, with no need to artificially alter your brain chemistry.”

“So, I should just...?”

“Cry.” He continued to run soothing fingers through her hair. “Do you feel any better?”

She sniffed, hugging herself. “I. I don’t know. My stomach hurts and-and I can’t breathe and—“ She looked at him again. She squeezed her eyes shut, pulling in on herself. “I just. I miss—“ She swallowed. “Him. I miss him. He was my friend. And for a long time, I thought...I thought he’d abandoned me. But he didn’t! And then, when I got back, he was, he was....” She gave him a look that cut him to his core. “Gone.” For a moment, they regarded each other in silence, only the sound her quiet sniffling audible.

“I’m sorry.” It was inadequate. He knew that.

“Yeah. Me too.”

He stepped a bit closer, something in him starting to ache. He touched the crystal at his chest, closing his eyes. Something wriggled in the corner of his mind, and the ache grew sharper. “I....”

“H—Partner?”

He looked down, fingers curling. “I think...I have known grief.”

Her eyes widened. “What? When?” She pressed closer, her hair hovering around them as if ready, at any moment, to dive into action. “You remember something? Anything?” There was hope in her eyes and face.

He hesitated. “I.” His ears flicked down, and his mouth turned downward in a scowl. He hated to disappoint her. “I remember feelings. I remember betrayal. And rage, and—“ He swallowed hard. “And an ache. Here.” He touched his chest. “I lost someone. Someone important.“

Not his Big Brother. And that was a frightening realization. Whatever he’d lost was more important than—

He shut the thought down, starting to shiver. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “But I think...I know how you feel.”

She was in front of him now, and her arms wrapped tight around his waist. His hands lifted high and he inhaled sharply, unsure what to do with them. Slowly, when she didn’t pull away, he lowered his hands to her shoulders, squeezing. More tears glimmered in her eyes. Gently, he ran his fingers through her hair. “Is the oxytocin helping?”

She laughed brokenly and hugged him tighter, nodding. For now, he was content to assist her in this way, even if he didn’t fully understand it.

[dorms-fic-archive]

EreAni 30 Day OTP Challenge -  NOT SFW REBOOT [6/30, under the skin]

Summary: Exactly what it says on the tin, because I hadn’t seen anyone else attempt this with the pairing. [Ao3 | FFNet.]

a/n: New opener and historically-appropriate details, ft. Annie's POV just to make things interesting.

06. Fingering

Rating: NC-17

There's an weighted ache below her gut that has been stirring since yester-day afternoon. It wakes her first, come morning, insistent and pulsing, but there's nothing to show for it; still, she gears up accordingly, because a detour to the infirmary is unacceptable, and she's fought through worse fevers once divested of the body of the beast that sleeps beneath her skin.

So she won't be doing any practise with ODM gear, or horseback riding; not that she'll miss it. The mare assigned to her hasn't taken kindly to her like Krista's, and the stench of wet hay and horseshit just makes her surlier than usual. The point is, she'll fight through her pain like anything else. Tells herself as much when she brushes aside Carolina's concerns once before they leave for morning drills, then again during breakfast. She can feel Hoover's eyes on her, a constant, subtle expression of concern that she can appreciate without acknowledgement; even Braun's a little nicer. She doesn't want to ask anyone for help unless it's unavoidable.

In the heart of enemy territory, there is no one she can talk to besides the nurse, whose kindness leaves Annie feeling disgruntled and undeserving. The nurse, of course, will never really understand why, despite a cruel, calculated maturity in her eyes that sets her apart, Annie's not developing quite as fast as some of the other female trainees, stunted not only from malnutrition or the gruelling physical demands of using ODM gear, but her best-kept secret; if she lives to the full extent of her assigned term, she certainly won't be having children: the Marley already saw to that when they gave her the shot.

And yet she bleeds like any other girl. It should be an insult.

In the present, it's just another day out on the training field; the sky is unpleasantly bright, the clouds burn an impression into her eyes even when she closes them. There are some cadets like her, out training with the faux-rifles, but most of them are inside, given the heat, perhaps studying the inner workings of their manoeuvre gear with the nearest instructor, free-climbing on the cliffs offside base, or else finding other ways to avoid the approaching humidity, if they're smart. It's not yet laundry day.

Annie's only out here because she made a promise to get in some hand-to-hand practise with Jaeger — grudgingly. She could use a distraction to ease the monotony of this quotidian lifestyle. Jaeger remains an easy target on which to take out her frustrations, and his guileless nature is something that she has yet to understand, or try and question.

It's definitely not one of their more inspiring spars; she's able to block his offense without much trouble, but a few well-timed kicks are enough to reignite that heavy, throbbing pain and she shoves him back prematurely, wincing. Probably he'll think he must have gone too hard on her — never-mind the ludicrous idea of showing him mercy — but Eren isn't like most cadets, and so he calls: "Oi, you all right?"

"Fine. I didn't expect your counter, that's all." She steadies herself with unnecessary emphasis, squaring her shoulders, and digs her left heel into the dry earth.

Jaeger doesn't move. "Are you feeling all right?"

"None of your business." She raises her fists. "Come on, again."

He hasn't committed himself fully to the act; sensing that, she goes for his shin, ducking under his arm when he tries to block. The kick lands, eliciting a yelp of pain from Jaeger, but the pain and wooziness surge with that momentum, compromising her form.

She hisses, struggling quickly to right herself. There's not enough nutrition in the Academy's ordinary stew-and-bread to sustain any girl through puberty without risking the limitation of the body, much less a fully-operating Warrior. Most of the older female trainees are smart enough to choose bed-rest, or else avoid overexertion.

Jaeger's definitely noticed something is wrong, even if he doesn't know what. "You shouldn't push yourself — it's too hot for that. Want to take a break and get some water before we —?"

"The enemy isn't going to be merciful," she says through gritted teeth, but she can feel herself straining to keep in-place. "Come at me again, or we're finished for to-day."

He stares at her as though he might divine the reason for her change in attitude. So Annie decides to take the coward's way out and turns from him entirely.

It's not the first time she has shirked training. She carries herself stiffly, brow furrowing.

The main grounds and the wilderness beyond this split the difference at the edge of the field. She continues on, into the trees knowing she won't be missed — but Jaeger does not go off to the well like he suggested. Instead, he's tailing her. Now, either she could lead him to an early death, or… something else. She gets the feeling he would probably follow her anywhere, just to watch her operate. And it's not like a simple rendezvous is exactly a foreign concept to other trainees….

Or maybe her own reckless behaviour is simply rubbing off on him. She doesn't see fit to ask.

The forest only gets thicker as she progresses; when she thinks she's a good-enough distance from any onlookers she stops, uneasy, and poses the question without turning around: "Following me into the woods, Jaeger?"

"You're slacking off again," he accuses.

He really is an honest boy. "So?"

"So, I should make sure you aren't gonna — I dunno, sabotage the training equipment or somethin'."

She has to smirk at that. "It's going to look strange if you stay here with me." She turns around, pleased to see colour in his cheeks.

"Don't make it weird." As if self-conscious, he looks around the general area but there's nothing but wilderness. "Anyway, I thought we were sparring," he says. "You cut out earlier than usual, and you were holding back —"

"I don't hold back, Jaeger," Annie snaps.

"And you're a shit liar," he mutters, "I bet you weren't even in pain."

Annie's haughty smirk turns to something like a grimace. "You don't know how to leave well-enough alone, do you?"

Jaeger grunts ambivalently, watching her boots. "So, is this another lesson?"

Annie scoffs. "No. Go back to train with Arlert or something."

"Come on," he says bluntly, "you've been acting funny since we got out on the field. Are you gonna tell me what's wrong, or am I supposed to leave you here and hope you come back alive?" It's a genuine enough display of exasperation — or even worse, concern — that she forgets the pain, just for a few seconds. "You're always on about keeping my guard up — am I supposed to ignore you if you're hurt?"

Annie shuffles backward into the safety of a nearby tree and resists the urge to double over. "We can still — spar."

She'd meant it sarcastically, but Eren groans: "You can't be this stupid."

"Of course not, Jaeger." He stalks over to her with no small amount of trepidation, just gauging her expression or lack thereof. She's not sure what he's waiting for, but the idea of letting anyone this close while she's compromised is horribly inadvisable — and Eren, like the nurse and Mina Carolina, is just another Eldian who can't be expected to understand exactly what she's so afraid of —

"W-wait—" her palm splays against his chest; Jaeger hesitates. She glances at him, dazed. "What are you going to do?"

"I was gonna walk you back to the infirmary," Eren clarifies, suddenly more pragmatic than irritated. "Why?"

Annie shakes her head. "That won't — help me."

His brow furrows. "Oh — is it something embarrassing?" Annie shrugs, studying the divot of his collarbone, flinching when he tips her head up. "You, uh, can tell me, y'know."

It strikes her that Eren might've already caught on. She's nonplussed before she remembers: Ackermann. The thought only deadens whatever iota of hope she might've possessed to be left alone and, hot with shame, she snaps: "It's none of your goddam —"

He exhales sharply. "C'mon, put your arm around me; I can help you walk."

Though flushed, Annie is quick to salvage what's left of her composure: "It's not — I'm only bleeding, Jaeger."

He seems to relax, somewhat. "Oh. Then — c'mon, I can get you something for this."

"What?"

He flusters somewhat; she's definitely not as familiar — or perhaps familial — as whatever bond he shares with Ackermann. "If you're just, y'know — I can take you to the infirmary, and they'll be able to help you." Annie continues to stare at him uncomprehendingly; unwilling to relent, Eren takes her by the shoulder. "Oi. D'you have anything for this?"

"Back at the barracks — it's all right, though." She's scowling, her voice lowered to something much more furtive. "I should've told you before."

"Well, you've gotta let the instructor know. You can't be running around and bleedin'." He's caught off guard when Annie grabs his wrist. "What are you doing?"

The silence between them subsists — for five, seven, ten seconds — before she answers: "There's another way you could help me."

"Hunh?"

Adrenaline resurges. Her lips are dry when she licks them, anxious. "You could touch me."

Now Eren is the one staring incredulously at her. "Uh. How is that s'posed to stop the bleeding?"

"It won't, you idiot," she snaps, flushing terrifically, "it'll just help with the pain."

"O-oh." There's an awkward pause. "So, does… does it hurt much?"

Annie scoffs. "I've had worse."

Jaeger exhales, slow and shaky. "Well, if I…" — he strokes the inside of her leg, seemingly unable to verbalise the gesture — "you're sure it'll, uh, help?"

"You're going to get blood all over you," she mutters, as if this will dismay him.

"Yeah, I — maybe you should take those off first?" He motions to her chinos. Annie gazes at him a long, long moment, eyes brimming with relief, lingering doubt; all Eren does is offer her a nervous half-smile. "Well, I'm not a girl. So I dunno how it feels for you."

She would tell him to shut up but she's shivering under his scrutiny. She unbuckles her boots on her own, and lets him drag it all to her feet before kicking off her chinos like they've offended her personally. His hand moves over her naked thigh and she looks away.

"Oi," says Eren. "Are you really sure about…?"

"Are you?" she mutters, almost wary of him by this point.

His hands are warm on her naked flesh. A fresh swell of pain causes her to bite her lip — unexpectedly, he leans in to kiss her brow, and her hands fly up instinctively to ball in his shirt. "What should I…?"

She takes in an uneven breath. "I want you to touch me." Gingerly, she spreads her legs; there really isn't much to see besides the blood, she thinks, but Jaeger looks on in awe, or perhaps concern. The air tastes damp, and his hands are gentle — it's heady enough to frighten her.

She goes quiet again, averting her eyes. It's when he starts stroking her again that she self-corrects: "Nngh — I dunno, just…."

"D'you want me to stop?"

"No!" she snaps, exasperation tangible in her voice, melting when he parts her. "N-no, don't stop."

"O.K." He's rubbing slow little circles. Her hands ball up at her sides. "Are you sure you're all right?" He sounds afraid, but not of her.

"Yes," she stresses, all in a breathy hiss, head snapping up. "Don't worry about me, I-I'm…" Eren kisses her temple. His touch is rough and unpractised, but somehow timorous, and he keeps rubbing. He's not even hard. With one hand, Annie scrabbles feverishly at his chest for want of something better to do, while the other hand reaches down to stop him. "Th-that's enough," she mumbles, "I'm ready."

"Hunh?"

Annie widens her stance, breathing out slow. "Come here." Stifles a groan when he pushes into her without resistance.

"Does it hurt?" he mutters, wide-eyed.

"Not because of you."

"O.K." Gives her two fingers and she's shuddering, at his mercy; the idiot hasn't even rolled up his sleeves.

"Jaeger," she gasps, unable to stand it anymore and reaching out for his arm, "stop, you'll get blood on your clothes."

"Hunh?" He seems to realise what she's getting at. "I can always wash this later."

She snarls at the thought of having to explain herself to anyone else but him, and shoves him back, trailing blood. "Don't be stupid," she spits with unneeded vitriol.

It's clearly upsetting her more than him, but he shrugs out of his jacket, left only in his threadbare shirt. His right hand is still splotched up to the wrist. Annie sucks in a shaky breath when he approaches, and his fingers knead up her thighs, leaving ruddy blotches — she feels more like a cadaver about to be gutted.

She's relieved when he doesn't put his fingers in immediately. Just knocks her clit around with his thumb, which isn't terrible or anything, but won't replace the ache that turns to throbbing in her belly. "Jaeger," she almost whimpers, pathetic with need. "Put your fingers in again."

He glances down at her so earnestly she wants to mock him, moans instead when he obliges.

"Can you…?" she holds up her own hand, fingers crooked. Eren blinks, frowning slightly. "Inside me," she elaborates, going pink again.

"O-oh." His palm flattens against her and his fingers curl, drawing a gasp out of her. Eren stops. "What is it…?"

"It's… fine." A subtle strain creeps into her voice even as she's raising herself to the touch. "You can go harder than that."

He leans in, kisses her nose. She makes a surprised noise that half-catches in her throat, throbs in accordance with his touch, and he drags his fingers up inside until he's cradling her in heel of his palm. He keeps his eyes on her face; rather, the fringe of her hairline, the tip of her nose, because she's looking away, panting softly.

"Is it good?" he mutters.

"Shut up, Jaeger," Annie groans through her teeth, unable to conceal her blush. Her hair is still tied up, a little dishevelled, and she's shoved a hand up her own shirt, flushed all the way down to her throat and clavicle. She grips his jacket, afraid he'll slip away. Unexpectedly, he's drawing his fingers out to circle her again; Annie whines.

"Tell me when you're close." Her face contorts. Her fist smacks the tree at her side and he envelops that hand in his as if it will somehow negate the sting. "Relax," he says, not-so gently this time. Annie's hand twists viciously in his.

"Eren," she grits, pushing back against the heel of his palm, "I-I need — your hand, just — harder." Pressing her steadily against the tree, he starts pumping his wrist and she can hear the slick noises he's making. Annie gnaws at his shoulder through the linen and her muscles contract, which seems to alarm him, slowing down out of consideration before she clamps her legs shut, turning her face up to snap: "I said harder, goddam it."

It's almost funny the way he blenches: "Shit, you're gonna break my fingers."

Annie gives up the ghost, nips at his chin, murmuring: "I'm close, you idiot," before ducking into his shoulder again. She wraps her arms around his frame in an awkward embrace; he's not a particularly tall boy, but he's still broader than she is. Jaeger presses a kiss to the crown of her head. He starts to slow down and she barks: "Harder!" and he grunts, shoving her into the tree and her breath won't come back in time and she bites down hard on his jacket to stifle a low cry; overstimulation brings a painful undercurrent.

And Jaeger's tilting her head up, and when their eyes meet she jolts, unable to accept in full that she's been cornered, disarmed. There's alarm in his expression, yes, but something else, too, different than the ordinary enthusiasm that he shows every time they train together.

"Annie?" She tries to make a sound but all that leaves her is a ragged whine. She feels his knuckles brush impulsively over her brow to smooth back her bangs, and her eyes flutter open again. He hesitates, then kisses her cheek, chaste. "Oi, did you…?"

Annie makes a strained noise, like she's wounded. As he pulls away she grabs a fistful of his shirt before he can escape completely, resting her forehead on his shoulder, gradually becoming tense again.

"Are you all right?" he mutters.

Her shoulders lift. "It's not going to make the pain stop. Just a little easier to deal with."

"Oh," says Eren. She stares at his hand as he revokes it, the colour stark on her thighs; discontented, he makes an unsuccessful effort to wipe his hand on the tree, then leans down to hand her back her trousers. "Thanks," she says gruffly.

"Yeah," says Eren, and does not watch her redress, tongue-between-teeth. To combat the horribly awkward silence brewing between them, he adds, unprompted: "My dad, he was a doctor, so I reckoned…." His ears turn pink. "I've never heard of anyone doing that before."

Annie can feel herself flushing. "I shouldn'tve let you do that."

"You asked me. I could have said no."

"That's not — just forget it," she grumbles.

When he gathers his courage, looks her way, he's boyish again. "So," she says, uneasy on her feet. He offers his good hand. She takes it, like she's about to shake but he holds it firm.

"So," he echoes. "Infirmary?"

Annie shrugs half-heartedly, but offers no snide rejoinder.

a/n: I've covered menstruation in a past fanfic, Hindrance, and now we're apparently diving into the relatively unhygienic concept of menstrual masturbation.

There's a lot I missed in my endeavor to write about this previously. Because my nerdery knows no bounds, I grant you this concept: Self-adhesive pads weren't a thing until the 1970s, so if a woman was going to use a pads they had to wear belts, suspenders, "sanitary panties," (underpants with hooks/tabs/something else to hold the pad in place)—or else figure out some way to keep the pad stationary. In regards to menstruation, pads were either homemade or the women walked around bleeding through their clothes—hence, in some areas, like factories where there were a lot of women workers, they'd have straw laid on the floor to absorb the mess.

I'm pretty sure I'm overthinking this, yes. But hey, these trainees are all walking around in WHITE PANTS, and they already have harnesses for the ODM gear. So perhaps it's not implausible, given the co-ed nature of the training corps, that such matters would be taken into account—but I digress. If by some chance you want to read more about old menstrual tech, here's a link.

[the-formerone]

and here’s my submission for the @narutogiftexchange! I got @blackkatmagic, who requested "ShikaKiba arranged marriage!au with mutual pining and a happy ending. Maybe an emphasis on clan traits and the differences between them?". i hope i did it some justice! it’s .... much longer than i originally anticipated, but hopefully, it’s up to snuff!

brown eyes steal me Word count: 10,213 Pairing: ShikaKiba Rating: T Summary:  "You planted a -," "I planted a tree, Ino, I know, I was there." "Kousa," she says, finishing as if he never interrupted. She smiles in that pretty way of hers that means she's about to tease you within an inch of your life, crossing one leg on top of the other. "Not very original, but cute. You think that'll be what you name your firstborn?"

"You're shitting me."

Hana is hiding her laughter behind her hand, and their mother has her arms folded across her chest, one eyebrow raised as if Kiba is the one being unreasonable.

"You've got to be shitting me."

Tsume drums her clawed fingers against her hip.

"Curse one more time under my roof," she hums, "see what happens."

Kiba ducks his head, rolling his eyes as he does. Hana snickers, elbows on the dinner table. Their mother stands above them, looking ridiculous as she always does in that stupid pink apron of hers. She's twirling a ladle in one hand, brandishing it like she's just waiting for the right moment to smack Kiba over the back of the head with it.

"You are of marrying age," Hana says, cupping her chin in her hand. "It only makes sense that ma's been getting some offers for your hand."

Kiba rubs the heels of his hands against his eyes. He's not - he is not entirely sure  what he's supposed to be making of this. Arranged marriages weren't really uncommon in the shinobi world. They helped preserve bloodlines, helped enhance kekkei genkai. They were also good for economics; combining families meant combining wealth and resources.

But the Inuzuka weren't the most sought after clan when it came to those kinds of matches. Before their clan and the Hatake had split, when they had more prestige, sure, but in this day and age? Not particularly.

The Inuzuka were too brash, too 'difficult'. Which essentially meant that none of the smaller clans understood how the Inuzuka operated, and the larger clans were too well off to need a match with them.

The Inuzuka were a mid tier clan; sure, they had a seat on the clan council, but they didn't have as much sway as the Uchiha or the Hyūga. Even the Yamanaka had more sway because whichever way they voted was a sure indication of where the Akimichi and Nara would stand.

But Kiba was Tsume's second child. Kind of a runt next to Hana as far as their family was concerned, but they were born for different reasons. Hana's father had been a distant relative of the Hatake, and she had more wolf in her for that. She had been born to lead. Kiba's dad had been from a family of raccoon dogs, which clearly had seemed like a good idea until he had gone feral and his mom had to scare him off.

Kiba had been a love baby. Which was lucky, in that he didn't really get most of the responsibility for the clan foisted on him, and unlucky in the fact that since the moment he figured out what sex was, his mother had been sure to be teasingly lewd about how much she enjoyed the process of making him. Which was suitably mortifying for a thirteen year old.

"Make Hana get married," he grumbles, narrowing his eyes up at his mother. "She's the heir."

Tsume snorts at that, twirling the ladle. Kiba watches as the light glints off of it, preparing to duck or dodge as he might have to.

"I haven't picked my heir yet," she says, light as the breeze shifting through the window.

Kiba rolls his eyes. As if. The Inuzuka had been matriarchal since their inception. The only time a man led the family was in times of absolute crisis. In the Warring States period, the four year old Inuzuka Chiharu had assumed the mantle of clan head even though her older brother Tadashi was seventeen and clearly in a better position to lead them.

Then again, great-great-granny Chiharu had been a badass in her own right. Kiba may have gotten his tattoos at ten because he showed promise, but Chiharu had gotten hers at three. Which was obscene and had never happened since even though from what he's heard, Hana could have done it earlier than seven (that wolf blood at work), and their mom had gotten hers at six (Tsume had been born ridiculous).

"Besides," Tsume says, as she turns back into the kitchen and begins ladling the nikujaga into bowls, "Hana has several suitors. And you don't have any."

Kiba does not really need to be reminded that he isn't dating anyone. And that he hasn't since that fiasco with Naruto when they were fifteen. It hadn't worked out even in the slightest. Which was fine. It was fun while it lasted, and Kiba had learned a lot about how sex with another guy could work (theoretically; they hadn't actually ever made it all that far) but they were too alike for each other's tastes and being friends seemed better than dating someone who was essentially themselves.

"Hana's dating a snake," Kiba returns. "That doesn't exactly a suitor make. And Akimichi Maruten, which is okay, I guess. At least he isn't in his thirties."

Hana turns to him, smiling in that pretty way she does before she opens up a summon's mouth and shoves its medicine inside.

"Be nice," she chides, looking terribly like their mother.

At least Tsume had the grace to sound mean when she looked mean. Hana's face was too kind and it made her all the more frightening.

"Oh, and Iruka-sensei," he adds, trying not to stick his tongue out. Knowing his academy teacher had a thing for his sister was just as weird as knowing Mitarashi was barking up that tree, too. "I'm not sure how well dolphins and dogs mix. And all that's without considering Shushin no Shisui gets tongue tied when you walk in the room."

Hana reaches out and Kiba ducks back, but not in enough time to escape her fingers pinching down on his cheek.

"I'm pretty sure I taught you manners when we were kids," she says, but the pinch is as light as the smile on her face.

She's not upset with him. Kiba can tell she's more embarrassed than anything else. It was common for Inuzuka clan heads to take more than one partner depending on where their blood was; those with more wolf in them like Hana typically stuck with one, while those with more dog like their mother would have several.

It's clear Hana hadn't thought she was that hot on the market until it was pointed out.

"You did," Kiba says, handling the pinch with more grace than he would have when he was twelve, "but when mom came back, she taught me the opposite."

Tsume slams down the tray of bowls on the dining table with enough force to crack it. Thankfully, the Inuzuka dining table had seen Tsume's wrath for longer than Kiba had his teeth. He's actually pretty sure he teethed on one of the table legs now that he thinks about it.

"Do you want to be a brat or do you want to eat?" she asks.

Hana lets go of his cheek and starts doling out rice for the three family members, and Tsume unloads the tray, setting a bowl of soup in front of each of them.

"How did anyone know I was even - ," He has to take a breath, fighting down the urge to roll his eyes as he says it, "Of 'marriageable' age?"

Tsume starts eating first, picking up her bowl of beef and potato stew and attacking it like it's her first meal of the day.

"All the brats in your year are of age," she says around a mouthful of thinly sliced beef. She says it like Kiba's an idiot who can't keep track of time. Which is only half true. "It came up at the last clan council meeting."

Kiba nods slowly, eyes tracking to Hana who pointedly doesn't look at him. Tsume may not have named her heir, but she did take both of them to council meetings on occasion. Never the both of them at the same time, though. He had thought Hana seemed a little too perky towards the end of last week; she had come home smelling like she knew a secret. That was typical enough for a shinobi; Kiba was used to that smell. But if he had known it had something to do with him, he would've been twelve times more irritating about it as he had been.

"So what, all my year mates are getting married off?" he asks, lifting his bowl of rice so he can start eating.

"Looks that way," is all Tsume says.

Kiba valiantly doesn't roll his eyes and he starts eating. He can guess who's going to be married which way. Hinata and Neji had been a sure bet ever since they were kids, even though nobody liked the idea at the time. They were genetically cousins and siblings, which made Kiba feel uncomfortable down to his bones and also Neji was a piece of shit when they were younger. But the kids from that match would be absurdly strong.

Sakura had gotten pretty terrifying lately, and her being so cozy with the Godaime made her prime real estate for any of the noble clans that wanted an in. Kiba wasn't sure of who had kids young enough to marry her; Sakura was one confidence boost away from being the top bitch of the Twelve and he doubted she would suffer anyone over five years older or younger than her. That knocked out the Shimura and the Sarutobi for sure.

He'd think the Uchiha were a safe bet; there were plenty of guys in that clan that were still single. Sasuke would be inadvisable considering his mountain sized crush on Naruto. Yeah, those two had pretty much been born a package deal. It was probably only a matter of time before Kushina as the Uzumaki clan head made an offer to the Uchiha.

Ino, Chouji, and Shikamaru couldn't be with each other for the sake of preserving the Ino-Shika-Chou dynamic, which meant any of them were up for grabs. Ino and Shino would probably be a decent pair, all things considered. Though she wasn't the biggest fan of bugs, she spent a lot of time working her family's flower shop, which meant she understood the symbiosis between plants and insects.

Tenten would be a reasonable match for Chouji if she hadn't declared herself queen of the lesbians after she lost that fight to Temari when they were twelve.

Which really only left Shikamaru. Which didn't need to make Kiba's heart hiccup inside of him, but did anyway, which was fine.

"Well who's left?" he asks, probably punching too much bravado into his voice. "There aren't enough girls to go around."

Hana shoots him a glare for that, but Tsume just keeps eating.

"Surrogacy -,"

"Exists, I know," Kiba says, cutting his sister off before she can lecture him. "I got the talk at the academy, you don't have to remind me."

And he very sincerely didn't want to be reminded of that awful video and lecture he had to sit through about the dark ages of sexism and how kunoichi only very recently had the same rights and privileges as male shinobi and that the population of kunoichi had been decimated during the Second and Third Wars to destroy the morale of the villages that employed them and war crimes and statistics and stress and wasn't it so wonderful that Orochimaru had developed his innovative in vitro fertilization processes because now anyone could have a baby with anyone and kunoichi didn't have to leave their careers and thus weaken the village by being out of commission for two years blah, blah, blah, he got it, okay?

The Inuzuka had never had a problem producing women who could handle the stress of shinobi life. That was every other clan's problem.

"Is your real question who's asked if you're on the market?" Tsume asks while she portions out herself a second bowl of soup.

Kiba shrugs.

"Am I allowed to know?"

He's aware that clan council conversations can be top secret, the inside ears only type of thing and he doesn't want to get his mother in trouble by asking her to talk. Then again, he knows the story of how one time, she got court martialed during the Third War by someone stupid enough to think she'd commit treason by trading secrets with the enemy.

The Uchiha had their ridiculous Curse of Hatred that made them only give a shit about their family, but the Inuzuka had the curse of caring-too-goddamn-much-about-everything-and-everyone-we-say-is-ours, which was a long way of saying you couldn't accuse a loyal dog of doing bad without getting bitten back.

"It's your future, pipsqueak," Tsume drawls. "Ask away."

Kiba narrows his eyes, suddenly suspicious that this is some kind of test. He knows that Hana and his mother aren't opposed to scheming together against him. He hadn't liked taking baths as a kid (Tsume's brand of tough love followed into washing hair, and Kiba got a lot of shampoo in his eyes as a kid because of it) and the two of them had ganged up on him to get him into the tub more times than he can count.

But this is his future. His future saddled with another person. He doesn't think they'd play lightly with that. He's well aware that the Inuzuka deal with divorce well (divorce but never separation; Hana's father still lived on the compound even though the marriage hadn't worked out. He and Tsume were still good friends. But Kiba's father? Kiba's father was gone, and nothing could bring him back without putting the clan in further danger) but he also knows that they wouldn't want that for him if they could help it.

So they've already picked someone they think will stick with him. Out of stubbornness or a desire to please their own clan has yet to be seen. They also probably already chose somebody who wasn't promised to someone else, like Naruto and Sasuke were (essentially) promised to one another.

Hana had a couple of men in her dating pool which meant that having future Inuzuka brats running around wasn't Tsume's primary objective. That only left resources and economics as a reason, that and clan politics.

He tries to think of who could possibly want anything the Inuzuka have to offer enough to want Kiba’s hand instead of Hana’s. He’s the secondborn and the runt, but he isn’t useless. But if they were after him, it only meant that the people pursuing Hana were too serious to allow other suitors into that shit show of a matchmaking contest.

Hinata would have told him if it were her or Neji, or even Hanabi. He doubts Shino. Their parents were all on the same genin team, so there’s little by way of secrets between the three of them. Ino loves gossip too much to keep her mouth shut about the kind that involves her; her little spy ring in the village itself was almost intricate and reliable enough to match Jiraiya’s same network across the elemental nations. Shikamaru would probably end up marrying a clanless kunoichi like his father had before him.

Sakura came from a civilian family, so she’d probably be handling her match herself. And that probably meant she was either aiming for a lower level family or for one of the noble clans and not a mid-tier one like the Aburame or the Inuzuka. Chouji didn’t like men as far as Kiba knew. Lee had that thing with the incumbent Kazekage.

When he exhausts everyone in his year and can’t think of anyone out of it, Kiba shrugs his shoulders and asks. He’s bracing himself for disappointment, but he’s sure his family wouldn’t screw him over on purpose. If it came down to it, he knows his mom would want him to have a love match if at all possible. It was Hana who needed to have healthy heirs regardless of if they had two moms or a mom and two dads or whatever.

“Who is it?” he asks.

Ino grins at him, mouth wrapped around the sstraw of her smoothie. The look on her face is positively shit-eating, and she sucks down her fruit-and-protein-and-honey-kale concoction du jour, her arms folded neatly on the counter. She boxes Shikamaru in even though they're in public, even though the gesture is innocuous enough.

She's positively glowing.

"Shut up," Shikamaru groans, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Ino drinks more of her smoothie, as if to prove that he's the one that's talking too much, and she's just sitting there being quiet and loving and supportive, like a good friend should be.

Settled on the kitchen table in the Nara estate are tools. Gardening tools. Because Shikamaru has to secure territory in the Nara forests for his fiancé. There are pruning sheers, shovels, buckets, and Shikamaru is up to his elbows in fresh dirt.

There was plenty of space in the forest for several more generations of Nara to claim a little space. The pieces of land parceled out were smaller now, much smaller than they were in the Warring States Era, but they were still big enough that Shikamaru had to get his hands dirty to make his nice.

To his father's standards, to his mother's, and to his betrothed's.

"You," Ino drawls, plucking her straw from her mouth and twirling it in her plastic cup, "are taking this way more seriously than you said you were going to."

Shikamaru can feel the dirt that he's smeared across his nose. He tries to rub at it, and is immediately aware he's only made it worse.

The patch he chose wasn't anything special, not by Nara standards. It wasn't near the especially potent medicinal herbs, or near the flower gardens. It was within hearing distance from the arm of the Naka River that flowed through Nara territory, and a short walk away from a shallow point where you could skip stones from one end to the other.

It was a nice grazing spot for the braver does, the ones that had taken a shine to Shikamaru since he was first allowed to venture into the forest alone when he was ten.

"You planted a -,"

"I planted a tree, Ino, I know, I was there."

She was the one who helped him pick out exactly what he'd wanted in the first place. Where else would the Nara go for a betrothal plant than to the Yamanaka? She'd walked him through how to take care of the tree when it flowered, and what to do if the deer got brave enough to nibble on it even though it was supposed to repel them.

"Kousa," she says, finishing as if he never interrupted. She smiles in that pretty way of hers that means she's about to tease you within an inch of your life, crossing one leg on top of the other. "Not very original. But cute. You think that'll be what you name your firstborn?"

Shikamaru groans as loudly as he can, trying to drown her out. He oughta know better. Nothing can annoy Ino into silence. He and Chouji would know. They'd tried.

"Nara Kousa," she continues, teasing the name out around the straw of her smoothie. "I like it."

She crosses her legs under the table and Shikamaru lays his forehead down on it. It's cool, and his face is still hot from doing yard work all morning.

"Besides, they can always pick a 'Shika' name for themselves if they're named clan head."

Shikamaru tries to kick her under the table. Ino moves her legs, expertly dodging and managing to kick him in the process. Shikamaru groans again, wonders what he did to deserve a best friend like Ino.

He had spent all day in the heat gardening. Marking his territory. Staking a claim and making it nice. His parents weren't allowed to follow him into the forest, but Shikamaru could feel Yoshino's eyes on the back of his neck, browbeating him into taking this seriously.

Not to mention the claims of other Nara men and women that had made proposals. There were several little plots like Shikamaru's, decorated with flowers and plants brought in from outside of the forest, wind chimes, and empty lanterns for decoration. Those knick-knacks were for the more human side of things; the side that wanted to impress, please the eye.

But the fact that Shikamaru had to mark his territory had been weird from the moment he undid his zipper to the moment he pulled it back up. Weird, but not out of place. Not foreign. The Nara may not wear their bond with the deer on their bodies, but that bond ran deep in their blood, and it left Shikamaru little room for discomfort.

Besides. He was going to marry -

His ears turn red. Ino must see it because she gives a haughty laugh like one of those villainess women from dated kunoichi movies.

"You haven't even proposed yet!" she crows.

Shikamaru is well aware that he hasn't proposed yet. His father was doing that for him. Well, he was drafting the contract. His dad had given him a wry grin when he came back from that clan council meeting.

"Technically, he isn't your fiancé."

A technicality, sure, but one Shikamaru was hung up on.

Inuzuka Tsume had apparently accepted Shikaku's proposal of his son's hand with very little fanfare. That much was unlike the woman, and the match was unlike those her clan had made in the past. The Inuzuka under all clan heads had been eager to mix dog bloodlines. A match with a deer clan was unprecedented.

"I think they'll get along," his father had supposedly said to Tsume.

'Get along'. Of course Shikamaru and Kiba got along. They were half the troublemakers of their year when they were in the academy together. They did well on missions. They hung out off duty.

"But you have the biggest crush on him," Ino needles, tapping his shin with her foot.

Shikamaru peeks up at her. He can't kick her off the property. One, because his mother loves Ino and won't let him. Two, because she helped him get the dogwood and all the supplies into the Nara compound in the first place, and it'd be rude to kick her out now. Three, because she used the blender to make a smoothie, and Shikamaru didn't want to clean it himself.

He settles for an insult.

"You're why I don't like women."

That only makes her lift an eyebrow and lean forward.

"The Yamanaka have been providing the Nara and Akimichi sakaki branches since the beginning of time," she says, flicking his forehead like she usually does to Sakura, "You don't need to like women. You but you do need me."

She leans back in her chair when she feels she's suitably chastised him. Shikamaru rubs the red spot on his forehead. She used her ring finger, which was the softest on her hand. It was when she used her middle finger that she meant business.

"So," she says, cocking her head to the side. "When will you go off to do your groomly labors?"

He resists the urge to tell her that 'groomly' isn't even a word. She'll catch it for the deflection it is, and then she'll ream him to hell and back for being nervous about going into the Inuzuka compound to do manual labor for a month.

"I start tomorrow."

Ino's eyebrows lift to her hairline.

"Tomorrow?" she splutters. "It can't be tomorrow!"

Shikamaru shrugs. A manic Ino is better than a smug one. He'll take it.

"When I finish carving a space for us on Nara land, then I go to him and prove that I can maintain it."

Ino flaps her hands, nearly knocking over her smoothie in her rush to stand up.

"C'mon, shit for brains!" she shouts. "You need a pedicure! And your hair needs deep conditioning, and dear god, your under-eye bags - ,"

A manic Ino is better than a smug one. He repeats that to himself as he lets his childhood friend drag him up by the elbow and through the Nara compound. There are about a dozen uncles and aunties perfectly willing to help Ino buff Shikamaru into something presentable for his Inuzuka fiancé.

If his nosy cousins already weren't aware of the fact that Shikamaru was leaving for his groom labors, they certainly were now.

They make Kiba dress up, which isn't the worst thing they've ever done. He was Hana's dress up doll for a good portion of their childhood, so he's pretty sure he can survive this.

He isn't even in his Inuzuka finest, or his wedding furs. He just looks - well, nicer than he usually does. Hana poked her head into his bathroom earlier and told him to put some gel in his hair. Make a good first impression. It sounded like bullshit, because he had known Shikamaru since they were academy brats together. There were no good first impressions he had to make.

Until he's standing just inside the front gates of the Inuzuka compound and he realizes that Shikamaru's parents are there as well. Which would be all well and good if Shikamaru weren't standing between them, holding a buck about two or three times his size on his shoulders like it's nothing.

Kiba's nose catches blood, and Akamaru beside him opens his mouth to taste it on the little breeze. He's sure all the dogs on the compound can smell the fresh kill, and all the humans on the compound are dreaming of venison. And as the Nara approach, Kiba can feel his pupils dilate. Can feel his blood rush up in his veins, the hairs on his arms standing up.

There's a smear of blood on Shikamaru's forehead, either from wiping the sweat off of it when he finished the kill, or smeared as an apology and offering to the life of the buck he killed. There's a hunting knife bouncing at his hip that Kiba can tell is the weapon he used to kill the limp animal on his shoulders. And behind the three Nara, there is a trail of that fresh blood, probably leading all the way back to the compound.

And Shikamaru is shirtless. There is also that.

The writhing shadows of his clan sigil are painted in thick green and black swaths on his chest with brushstroke and fingertip, and Kiba can smell the earth and ink that went into the broad design under the smell of the blood still leaking from the buck, trailing in a red wave down Shikamaru's back.

A man. A half naked man. Brought him a fresh kill. And left a trail of blood back to his home, his den so that Kiba could find him again. Could walk right into that land of plenty and shack up, if he wanted.

It was an invitation. A show of prosperity and prowess. And it makes Kiba's throat dry.

He may be a little lightheaded.

The three Nara walk forward. Kiba settles a hand into Akamaru's white fur to steady himself. His knees feel weak. The smell of fresh blood and ink and the medicinal herbs that made up the sigil on Shikamaru's chest is so very different than what Kiba is used to smelling on the other shinobi. It's nice. Really, really nice.

He probably should've listened to Hana when she tried to warn him.

"Deer are really sensitive to smell," she had said, arms folded across her chest. "They're big on pheromones."

'Big' on pheromones. More like the understatement of the year. Of Kiba's lifetime. Of the millennium.

Shikamaru stops ahead of his parents, who flank him. He stops, gets down on one knee in front of Tsume and carefully removes the deer from his shoulders, muscles hardly straining with the effort.

He lays the carcass at her feet, then lifts his head and bares his neck to her. It makes Kiba's stomach drop, this easy show of deference to his mother. Shikamaru wasn't marrying into the Inuzuka, Kiba was the one marrying out of it. But here Shikamaru is, doing that.

Tsume reaches out and rubs the flat of her palm against the side of Shikamaru's neck. It makes something in Kiba rear up on its hind legs, ready to spit. That kill is his. That man is his. Clan head or not, his mother shouldn't be marking him.

He only realizes his grip on Akamaru's gone too tight when his partner turns his head and nips at his wrist. Kiba bites down on his yelp and snatches his hand away from Akamaru's scruff.

"Sorry, buddy," he says.

Akamaru whuffs lightly at him, then turns and looks back to where Tsume marks Kiba's fiancé.

Fiancé. God, that was weird. Kiba has a fiancé.

Hana snickers at him from behind her hand, but she doesn't reach out to touch Shikamaru. Kiba counts it as a blessing. He'd probably snap at her if she did.

"Pulling out all the stops for your first introduction, aren't you, Shikamaru-kun?" Tsume asks.

Kuromaru, the grumpy old man, sniffs at the other side of Shikamaru's throat, and Kiba has to work to stifle the snarl that wants to fight its way out of him. He loves Kuromaru, he really does, but he likes that old dog's teeth that close to Shikamaru's fragile skin as much as he likes his own mother's hand there.

Shikamaru looks up at Tsume, the long line of his pale throat exposed to her tenderness or her wrath. Kiba wants to barrel roll into him and cover him bodily, keep all of his soft parts away from tooth and claw and harm.

But Shikamaru only smiles, dark brown eyes flicking from Tsume to Kiba. And for the moment that their eyes meet, Kiba can feel the air get sucked out of him.

Throat still bared, blood on his forehead, sweat beading between his collarbones from the summer heat. Kiba wants to bite him.

"I'd like to impress you," Shikamaru says, turning his gaze back to Tsume, "if you'll allow it, haha-ue."

There's a little quirk to his mouth, more attitude than blind deference, and Kiba wonders how Shikamaru knows how to play the Inuzuka.

The overly polite form of address makes Tsume bark out a laugh. She reaches out with both her hands and drags Shikamaru to his feet by his shoulders. She gives him a solid pat on the shoulder, and Shikamaru doesn't even wobble under the weight of her blow.

"We're gonna have fun this month, kid," Tsume says. "But I'm not the one you need to impress."

She gives her eyebrows a suggestive wiggle, but Kiba can't really notice it around the little branches he now sees in Shikamaru's ponytail. Tiny little twigs. Almost like antlers.

Wow. Wow, he's going to die at twenty.

Shikamaru's positioned himself so firmly on the line between predator and prey that it leaves Kiba's head swimming. It's a very good confusion. And it is one that Kiba will have to (get to, get to, get to) deal with for a month.

"And," his mother adds, smirking as she does, "I'm not sure it'll be that hard."

When he carves up the buck he hunted, it's about as gory as he expected it to be, and he regrets the waste of blood that he had to leave to make a trail from the Inuzuka to the Nara compounds. He does it before he changes out of his hunting clothes, while his clan's sigil is still stark on his chest.

The Inuzuka were only about thirty strong, and Shikamaru was careful with his portioning, and managed to feed them all with it. The Nara deer were much bigger than average, had been bred that way. And the buck Shikamaru took down for his 'groomly duties' had been big as hell.

He feels eyes on him as he does it, thirty pairs of eyes to be exact. But he keeps his own eyes downcast. He tends his cookfire, starts it with wood gathered from the Inuzuka compound and his own persistence. Cooking the buck over an Inuzuka fed flame was a good way to show the combining of their families, each nurturing the other though their eventual union.

His eventual union. With Kiba.

While most of the Inuzuka are reasonably wary of him at first, the children (who are much easier to please) ram into his legs demanding seconds. They rub their little cheeks on his knees and so do their ninken partners. They climb him like a jungle gym, drag him down to their level so they can wipe their little hands on his cheek or on his neck, or press their cheeks to his.

Maybe they mark him as 'friend' as 'clan' as 'pack' too soon. They're children, after all, and they may not be too sure of what they're doing. The adults are more wary, but they trust the instincts of the little ones. People still so close to wildness without being lost to it are good judges of character.

"At least," Hana says, jostling his arm with her elbow. "That's what they say."

Hana and the other adults are more conservative with their scent marking, even though it took Shikamaru about twenty minutes to get the seal of approval from every Inuzuka child on the compound. The adults prefer to wait for him to settle into his month of labor before they give him their approval.

He gets it from Hana in the clinic. She's eager to pick his brains, to figure out all he knows about the Nara medicinal sciences. Hana favored homeopathic medicine even over chakra, and she was a dedicated student. She wanted information, and she soaked up all Shikamaru had to offer in the short time he spent among the Inuzuka.

One day after he helps her make her first fever burning poultice, she drags him in for a hug that ends with her rubbing her cheek firmly against his. The Haimaru brothers quirk up their ears as soon as she does it, and by the time Hana lets him go, Shikamaru is drowning under the weight of three full grown wolf dogs and the sound of Hana's deep belly laugh.

He gets it from a couple of uncles while he helps maintain the kennels. From aunties when he thatches a roof or two. Does more housework than he really expected himself to do. On more than one occasion, he gets it from Tsume when he makes meals for her, Hana, and Kiba, especially when he makes sure he's the last one to start eating, even after Kiba's begun. There's a pecking order, and he knows his place on it.

The little ones are as free with their affection as their seniors are once they notice that they aren't the only ones that like Shikamaru. They take to ambushing him when he's napping between the jobs the uncles and aunties give him. They'll dive bomb his stomach, tug on his hair. The Inuzuka kids rough house way more than the Nara kids do, and they're always prone to raucous laughter when he attaches their shadows to stop them before they can knock his guts out of place for the umpteenth time.

Kiba doesn't touch him. But he watches.

Shikamaru stays a month. Does yard work. Brushes dog fur. Holds open the mouths of two of Kakashi's ninken (who take more after their summoner than they lead on) while Hana shoves a fistful of Nara-Inuzuka collaboration engineered medicine down their throats. He's pretty sure he gains a few more toned muscles in his back from having to hold up anywhere from two to nine children at a time.

He sleeps in the main house, in a room away from Tsume, and Hana, and Kiba. The dogs come to visit him. To Shikamaru, it seems like the dogs like his company better than the people do. He isn't always a fan of their play fighting, but whenever he's asleep, Kuromaru and the Haimaru brothers sniff him out like he's a beacon of peace and quiet. Which, to be fair, he probably is.

Hana lets him in the room when Kuromaru's mate Nōtō starts her labor pains, and he's there when Hana ties off the umbilical cords of the pups after Nōtō licks the membrane off all six of them. While Nōtō is preoccupied with cleaning her puppies, Hana cuts their cords expertly and leaves Shikamaru with the clean up.

He tries not to touch the puppies if he can help it, not wanting to mark them while their mother is still so sensitive. He does his best until Hana puts a towel and a puppy in his hands, and tells him to rub her down.

Shikamaru stares down at the pup. Not a runt, but not the largest one either. A pretty little one, sweet. He's careful when he uses the towel on her face to clean her up, and her little yips begin and melt into the noise the rest of her siblings make.

He feels a pair of inhuman eyes on him and he looks up to see Nōtō staring at him. She's intelligent the way all Inuzuka ninken are intelligent, with sharp eyes and sharper teeth. It's no wonder she's Kuromaru's mate. She looks about a size and a half larger than him, and roughly as mean.

With slow, careful hands, he places the pup down at her side where the others are jostling for her milk. Nōtō sniffs at his hand as he takes it back, and Hana plops another puppy in his lap before he can get worried about their mother ripping his hand off.

The first puppy seeks him out a lot after that. Even at two weeks, ninken bred dogs are smart, capable trackers. The puppy is awkward on her feet, wobbly and chubby and sweet looking. She yowls loud as anything when she legs lost in the kennel and can't find him, and Shikamaru thinks it's better to scoop her up and scratch her behind the ears than to let her just scream herself hoarse.

He names her Taikō in his head, and when Hana catches him calling her that, she laughs. 'Light pink' after her mother's 'deep pink', though neither of them are anywhere even close to the color. Nobody seems surprised that she follows him around. Even Kuromaru and Nōtō don't seem willing to stop her.

"Her chakra pathways are too small," Hana explains during a check up of Taikō and her five siblings. "It happens. She won't be an active duty ninken, but she's not really a pet either. She'll stay on the compound and she'll help her siblings and the other dogs train."

Or she'll bother Shikamaru until the cows come home. She seems pretty keen on that, judging by the way she's always gnawing on his ankles when he's still for more than a minute at a time.

It's kind of like having a tiny useless assistant. Shikamaru likes it more than he lets on. He's gonna be sad to have to leave her behind when he does go. But now, he just likes her company. She's puppy eager, that's for sure, but she naps on his belly and the Inuzuka kids are much less likely to throw themselves on him when Taikō is sleeping there, too.

The month goes by. He's touched by every ninken, dog, and person on the Inuzuka compound except for Kiba and Akamaru. He tries not to take it as an affront. He knows he's doing the right things. He's proved himself a capable hunter, provider, and even healer several times over. He can take care of Kiba, and whatever children they have. He knows he's doing everything right.

And if Kiba wants to do things the Nara way, he could take another husband, or another wife if Shikamaru didn't do is job well enough. The thought doesn't even think to sting. Shikamaru had several aunties with more than one husband; polyandry doesn't make him puff up. But Kiba... He doubts Kiba would feel the same way.

The Inuzuka were an all or nothing kind of people.

Shikamaru doesn't press. He knows better than to corner any animal into any situation. He does his labors, and he waits. And on the evening of the thirty-first day, when he's packed up all of his things, and Taikō, the Haimaru brothers, and Kuromaru are all asleep on his bedroll with him, he doesn't bat an eye open when another nose sticks itself into his doorway.

He keeps his breathing steady when Akamaru settles his chin on Shikamaru's shoulder. And once Akamaru is asleep, he reaches up a hand, and gives the dog a little scratch behind the ears.

He sleeps swaddled in dog fur.

He repeats the words over and over again to himself in his head. He has to make sure he won't forget them. The Inuzuka weren't big on speeches. They trusted actions more than words, but the Nara were intellectuals. Kiba had to say something good.

He was getting married today. And if he fucked this up, he was pretty sure he was going to run back to the Inuzuka compound and hide in his room until he was in his sixties.

Shikamaru had played the game well. Had played it right. Kiba hadn't spoken to him, so Shikamaru hadn't sought him out. Instead, he fixed leaksand delivered pups. And played with the kids and helped the aunties with the laundry and the uncles with the cooking.

He had slaughtered an entire buck on day one. Kiba hadn't been sure that he'd be able to breathe past his nosebleed. Then Taikō started following Shikamaru around and Kiba knew he was gone.

It takes him so little time to tell his mother he'll accept Shikamaru's hand, it's kind of embarrassing.

Tsume looked at her son like he was an idiot, and drummed her fingers on her arm.

"I already accepted his proposal for you," she said, lifting an eyebrow. "How do you think an arranged marriage works?"

His silence was all his mom really needs. He turned beet red when she started laughing, tried not to choke when she slammed her hand down on his back in congratulations.

"That's my boy!" she bellowed, giving him a cheerful shake. "Enthusiasm! That's good for every marriage!"

She dragged him in for a hug with her elbow around his throat and Kiba followed, allowing her knuckles to dig into the top of his skull because it kept her from seeing how red he'd gone in the face.

And now he's here. After walking the old blood path Shikamaru had made with that buck all the way to the Nara compound, Akamaru at his side, wearing a formal kimono and the pelts his father had worn when he was marrying his mother. He feels kind of lightheaded even though it's autumn already, and the cool air does its best to steady him.

Akamaru buoys him, leaning against his side to keep him on his feet. Kiba is pretty sure he's going to die. The Inuzuka are moving as a pack, more than half of them accompanying Kiba on his procession. It's a little excessive in his opinion, the Inuzuka showing out in their furs, their faces painted with more red paint to accompany their solitary tattoos to celebrate the occasion. It serves to make the civilians more skittish, but the shinobi that have a closer proximity to the clans give them a respectful berth.

Kiba leads the procession. His mother is at his left, his sister to his right, and Akamaru right at his side. The Haimaru brothers follow Hana, and Kurmomaru stays in step with their mother, Taikō laying on her father's head. He follows the smell of old blood, picks it out underneath the newer smells of other people using the footpath. The extra paint on his chin makes his markings longer, and there is a slim triangle on his forehead that just touches the bridge of his nose.

The Inuzuka dress in white to further highlight the red they wear on their faces, only flashes of other colors in the pelts they wear on their sleeves and the grey hakama they wear. The raccoon dog pelt on Kiba's shoulders weighs heavy, but the dog pelt beneath him is a little more mooring.

He doesn't really start to panic until he gets to the Nara compound. Shikamaru's family is there to welcome him, invites all twenty of the present Inuzuka across the threshold.

Shikamaru is nowhere to be seen. Kiba opens his mouth discreetly, tries to taste the air to find his mate (tries to keep his brain from absolutely just stalling at that realization right there), but Yoshino's knowing smile keeps him from asking about it.

"Kiba-kun," Yoshino says, dressed resplendently in green and gold. "Welcome."

She sweeps forward, and Shikaku keeps step with her. There are little branches in their hair, small, almost twigs, hidden among more ornamental combs. Kiba sees them.

Yoshino lets her hands rest lightly on Kiba's shoulders and gives his nose a gentle buss with her own. The touch is gentle, and Kiba can smell her softness and the tightly corded power that rests in her hands. Clanless kunoichi or not, Nara Yoshino wasn't the housewife she presented herself as. She smelled like honing oil and night shadow. Like power.

It's at home, mingled in the tenderness of her touch, and Kiba relaxes minutely under her hand. He had been worried that he wouldn't fit in with the Nara. That despite their standing as a shinobi clan, they'd be prey, skittish and keyed up in the face of a dog like him.

He couldn't have been more wrong. The same way Shikamaru walked that thin line, his mother dances, and his father glides. He smiles at his incumbent mother-in-law, and feels as though he's going to fit in just fine.

Shikaku steps in cleanly as Yoshino steps to the side, and busses his nose against Kiba as well. Shikamaru's father is all oak trees and hiddenness, and as soon as he's in Kiba's space, he's giving him a firm squeeze on the shoulder.

"Yoshino will show you the way," he says.

Kiba nods. Akamaru flicks his ears as Yoshino tenderly takes Kiba's arm and leads him for the first time, away from the bulk of his pack. Shikaku stays with Tsume, and it's an odd sort of trade. Clan head for second-born son. It's a show of trust if Kiba's ever seen one.

He doesn't look back.

Yoshino doesn't lead him into the main house. She bypasses it entirely, walks forward still until she reaches a visibly new dwelling. It's a nice house, one level, which is all Kiba can imagine himself or Shikamaru needing for now. It's settled on a nice piece of land, with lush green grass all around it, and two small saplings recently planted in the upturned earth by the porch.

Yoshino pats Kiba's arm and leads him up the front steps.

"This will be yours," she explains as she slides off her sandals once they're inside. "An older pair lived in this one until they moved in with their son and his husband. I hope that's alright."

It's more than alright. The scents of the older couple are sunk deep into the bones of the house, and Kiba likes it. This place may not be his, not yet at least, but it was lived in. Comfortable. There were creaky floorboards, little places where children had practiced throwing things they shouldn't have. Dents, cracks.

It was clear that attempts had been made to clear out the specific smell of the other couple, and for the most part, they'd worked. All Kiba could smell was the general Nara scent of moving shadow and wet clay. And Shikamaru.

Akamaru steps forward after politely shaking his paws at the door, and trots into the house. The furniture inside is mostly new, but some things are hand-me-downs. There's a stack of quilts sitting near the kotatsu that look old enough to tell Tsume what to do.

"It's perfect, haha-ue," he says, words careful even though his smile.

Yoshino laughs lightly at him and gives Kiba's arm another squeeze.

"That's not necessary," she says, waving a hand. "Though it's nice to get a little respect around here between Shikamaru and his bum father."

And that is definitely the kind of talk Kiba is used to.

"You just call me 'mom'," Yoshino insists, "or 'kaa-san' if I'm upset with you. 'Haha-ue' is for weddings and funerals, or when you're kissing ass."

Kiba chuckles, then reaches out. He busses his nose against her cheek, and his boldness is rewarded. Yoshino leans in, a doe with her new dog-toothed fawn.

"Haha-ue it is then," he replies.

Yoshino gives him a little pinch, still smiling.

"I already like you better than my boy," she says. "But now I've got to go make sure Shikaku isn't ruining my wedding."

She untangles herself from him, and Akamaru trots back over. He rubs his head against her hip and she drops a hand to scratch underneath his chin. His tail wags and his tongue lolls out of his mouth.

"Your wedding?" Kiba asks.

Yoshino lifts an eyebrow at him.

"You know what they say about the clan head," she drawls. "The clan neck is the one who really runs the operation."

It startles a laugh out of Kiba, one that Yoshino only smirks through. It's the exact kind of thing he really should expect a Nara woman to say, especially one that managed to give birth to and raise Shikamaru.

"Stay here," Yoshino instructs, carefully sliding her sandals back on. "We'll be back for you when the priestess is ready."

Kiba nods, and with that, Yoshino is gone. He scuffs his foot against the polished wood floors, and ambles through his new house. In the living room, there are bookshelves laden with knick-knacks and pictures in frames. One of them is of Team Ten in their genin days. Another is just of Shikamaru and Chouji napping, a third with Ino braiding Shikamaru's hair while he sleeps.

There's a window near the bookshelf, and he steps into its light so he can read some of the titles better. A fair amount of theory and philosophy, military strategy and the like, but they're dwarfed, utterly dwarfed by dime thriller novels, the kind Kurenai-sensei makes them read when they're doing research for a genjutsu.

He runs his thumb over the spines of a few familiar ones. It's funny. He never would've pegged Shikamaru as the type to -

Akamaru's warning snarl is all he gets before he's stuck like that, a finger on a book, standing in the light. He should've known better. Should've known better than to make a shadow where there were Nara.

He grinds his teeth, tries to figure out who in Shikamaru's family would want to hurt him and why, wonders what would happen if Akamaru tackled his assailant, when he sees him through the window.

Shikamaru is there, mimicking his position, hand outstretched. He slowly brings his hand back to his side and Kiba copies him. Shikamaru walks forward and Kiba does. He settles Kiba's hand against the latch, then has Kiba press open the windows.

The light is soft on his face. Warm. Kiba narrows his eyes at his fiancé. Shikamaru makes the both of them rub the backs of their necks.

"This is the really, really lame part," he says. "Fair warning."

Kiba bares his teeth.

"Can I have my arm back?"

Shikamaru sighs, breaks the jutsu.

"You can have your whole body back," he says. "I just have to get your attention. You have to come to me. Of your own free will."

Kiba narrows his eyes.

"I've already come."

Shikamaru shakes his head.

"You've come to the compound. You came to the house I prepared for us. But it's different," he explains. "You need to come to me."

A failsafe, in all likelihood, against unhappy unions. A last chance to turn tail and run. A bride or groom could make up any story they wanted about the Nara that used their shadow to get their attention, and the Nara would release them from the contract.

It was so wildly different than what Kiba had expected.

He puts his hand down on the windowsill, and flings himself bodily out of his new house.

Akamaru barks up a storm, tries to push himself out of the window himself. Kiba waves a hand at him, and he hears his partner calm down while he approaches Shikamaru.

"How close do I have to come?" he asks, toe to toe with his fiancé.

Shikamaru's cheeks go a little pink. He scratches his jawline, and jerks his head back.

"Further."

With that, he's running. And if Kiba knows how to do anything, it's chase.

It sets him on fire, the way Shikamaru flickers just out of sight, a little flash step away to put some space between them, then bolts. He watches him push off the ground like it's in slow motion, watches him take the first step, lift his arms to help him, watches him go.

Kiba's running before he can think about it.

His blood thunders in his ears, all thoughts of nerves and cold feet flying out of the window. Shikamaru leads him on a merry chase through his home turf, ducking and leaping over and under low-high branches, downright barrel rolling where he will, damn near ruining his own wedding kimono.

He fakes Kiba out against a tree, and Kiba's claws leave grooves in the wood where he launches himself off of it. Was it does that ran away from bucks before mating? Trying to tire them out to see if they were worth the rut? Or was it does that led bucks away from prying eyes, into privacy?

Kiba doesn't remember. He hadn't done a good enough amount of reading before all of this happened, even though Hana had given him books. He's always preferred to learn by doing.

The forest is awash with little light and more sound. The deeper they go, the quieter it gets, until Kiba can only hear the other deer in the forest, and Shikamaru running ahead of him. There's a little sound, a water sound like a river far from its source, and Kiba's breath in his chest. He's burning with his pelts on his shoulders, with the tightness of his hakama and the white haori underneath it.

Shikamaru turns over his shoulder and winks at him, and Kiba's about two minutes away from losing it.

The further they get into the forest, the stranger the world around him gets. These are trees the Shodaime didn't grow, ones that sunlight has never seen, that no one outside of the Nara can tend to. It all smells wetter, thicker, darker, cloying as the shadow that the Nara employ in their ninjutsu.

And then he smells oak and honing oil and he's distracted. Confused about why he smells his father and mother-in-law even though he's pretty sure he's several kilometers away from them.

Then, the couple whose house he moved into, and other uncles and aunties, and Kiba has to remind himself how his mother taught him to breathe through the distractions. He shakes his head, focuses, breathes deep into his belly. Then he keeps up the chase.

Shikamaru must step over a border of some kind, because he takes a step and then falters. It's all the opening that Kiba needs. He throws himself into Shikamaru, takes him down from behind, rolls them until he's straddling his fiancé, the both of them breathing heavy.

Then, Kiba sneezes. In his fiancé's face.

"Oh my god."

Shikamaru wipes the spray Kiba has managed to get on his cheek with the back of his hand, but makes no move to push Kiba off.

"I'm so - ,"

"Don't worry about it," Shikamaru says, managing to shrug even though Kiba has him pinned.

Kiba leans back, wants part way to pull himself off, but finds he doesn't really want to. Can't quite make himself. This is the most he's touched Shikamaru in their brief courting period. Closest he's come to scent marking him.

It occurs to Kiba in that moment, that Shikamaru's parents have marked him. And in front of the Inuzuka no less. And he marked Yoshino back. He marked Shikamaru's mom before he marked Shikamaru.

He's gonna die.

"I didn't peg you for allergic," Shikamaru continues. "Though it may be because this place might be a lot for a sensitive nose."

Kiba wrinkles his brows and opens his mouth to ask what in the world Shikamaru is talking about when the stink of the plot around him gets caught in his throat.

This is Shikamaru's territory. He had only barely noticed it, was too busy tackling Shikamaru over the unseen border and into Shikamaru's own slot of land. Shikamaru led him here, let Kiba be the one to drag them both over the invisible line into the place that Shikamaru had carved out for himself.

And above them, there's a dogwood tree.

Above them, being relative. It's only a sapling, but Kiba recognizes the smell, the slim branches of the young tree.

"Dogwood?" he asks, trying to keep at least some bravado over the way he's suddenly feeling choked up. God, what the hell. "That's not very original."

Shikamaru shrugs again. Kiba tries not to dig his claws into his fiancé's shoulders.

"Ino said the same thing," Shikamaru replies. "But originality isn't the point."

Shikamaru's hands rise, settle on Kiba's hips. He doesn't try to flip them. Instead, he lifts his chin, bares the skin of his throat just a little bit more, and there's a snarl in Kiba's throat that comes out before he can stop it.

"They mean durability," he continues. "Reliability. Resilience and strength."

"Sturdy foundation for a marriage," Kiba grits out, trying to focus anywhere but the way Shikamaru's thumbs rub slow circles against his hipbones.

"That's what I thought," Shikamaru says, voice low and even. "Know what else they mean?"

"What?"

"You give someone a kousa flower when you aren't sure if they like you or not."

Kiba's eyes clear in a heartbeat. Shikamaru is staring up at him, throat still bared, his brown eyes cool and even as the ground beneath him.

"You don't think I - ?"

Shikamaru shrugs, gives Kiba's hips a squeeze.

"Not while I was doing my work on the compound," he explains. "I guessed when you sent Akamaru. I was pretty sure. But - ,"

But the nature of the ritual the Nara employed. The chase, and the way out before it ever happened. It hadn't really taken that long for their parents to settle on the match. And a month wasn't very long to perform wedding labors, was it?

But Kiba never would have guessed that Shikamaru had ever been unsure.

"That's why you - ,"

Planted the tree. Told him he needed to come further than obligation dictated. Would it have been enough for anyone else, if Kiba had just stood toe to toe with Shikamaru back in the Nara compound? Did he really need Kiba to chase him all the way into the forest, to drag them both into Shikamaru's territory?

Or was that Shikamaru's way of being sure?

"I choose you."

The flowery words he had prepared for the wedding ceremony leave his head as soon as he thinks to conjure them. Kiba does what he does best; he follows his instinct.

He draws the flat of his palm over Shikamaru's bare throat, draws a clawed thumb down the column just to see Shikamaru's adam's apple jump. Shikamaru looks up at him, still as a caught animal.

"I choose you," Kiba repeats, and he leans down, busses his nose against Shikamaru's, scents him the Nara way.

"I choose you," he says, dipping his hand around Shikamaru's throat and giving it a squeeze, dipping his head down forward to breathe him in.

Shikamaru shudders, presses up on his elbows and Kiba allows it, allows it because it presses the two of them closer together. Kiba noses at where Shikamaru's heartbeat thrums in his throat, wants to put a claiming bite over the vein.

"Great," Shikamaru breathes. "Wanna get married?"

Kiba chuckles and rears back, presses his forehead against Shikamaru's. He smears the red triangle on his forehead against his fiancé's even as Shikamaru reaches up, tugging the furs off of Kiba's shoulders and shoving his haori down, baring his arms and chest to the cold air of the deep forest.

The rut comes after the chase, and Kiba bites Shikamaru's throat, stakes the claim he's been craving, and Shikamaru arches underneath him, digs his fingers into his side as the bite draws a bead of blood.

"Let's get hitched," he rumbles into his husband's throat.

Shikamaru shudders out a laugh. And when he hitches his hips up and rolls them, buries his face at the front of Kiba's throat and bites down just like an Inuzuka should, Kiba's vision whites out.

They don't leave the forest 'til nightfall.

[bewareofchris]

It doesn't necessarily have to be happy, but I'd like to see exactly how Ezio and Sofia and Leonardo figured out how they did their relationship?

R | Ezio/Sofia but mostly Leonardo | R for crude language and sexual themes

a/n: so I couldn’t fit 10-ish years of slow development into one comment fic.  And Ezio doesn’t even show up in this.  But hopefully it’s a representative sample of how the process went.  

“Ezio is going to ask you to marry him.”  Leonardo found her in the library of the old house.  The Mansion, as she liked to think of it.  They had been summoned through their association with the families, always just after Christmas, always at the mansion.  It was the second day of seven, when everyone was still in good spirits and the many children were still getting along.  (The adults, they got along as well as always.)  

Sofia tucked a scrap of paper into the book so she’d remember her place after she closed it and set it aside.  Leonardo had brought her a drink (something clear, like water or vodka) and one for himself.  He sat in the arm chair closest to hers and crossed his legs at the knee while he waited for some reaction.  Sofia had developed a particular love for making Leonardo wait (because he always got distracted in the middle of his impatience, and left muttering about how he should carry a notebook with him everywhere and never did).  She sipped her drink (it was vodka, before noon).  “I had some idea he might.”

“I designed your engagement ring,” Leonardo said.  “It’s very beautiful.  If you turn him down, ask if you can keep the ring regardless.  It was custom made for you.”

“Diamonds?”

“Nothing so obvious,” Leonardo assured her.  

“It seems underhanded to tell me about it before he has his chance,” she said.  She sipped the vodka because alcohol made sparring with Leonardo more interesting.  It took the edge off how infuriating he could be simply by breathing.  It wasn’t even anything he intended to do, but it exuded from his every pore, the unstoppable force of his intelligence and creativity.  And it was very fucking annoying.  

“I was trying to engineer a threesome but my options are fairly limited.  Federico and Cristina along with Edward and his lesbian wives are more limbs than I care to have to keep track of, Desmond is a prude and even if he weren’t, Lucy wouldn’t share him.  I probably convince Kadar to let me give him a blowjob but his wife would cut my throat if I did.  Altair would fuck me–”

“But you’d need medical attention afterward?”

“–but Malik won’t let me near him.  That too.  It has to be inadvisable to have rough sex with a dick that big.”  He was smiling over the idea of it though.  

“Malik won’t let you?” she repeated.  “Threesomes aren’t on his sex list?”

“Ah, threesomes are on his sex list.  It’s specifically me that’s been barred from joining.  He said, it wouldn’t be any fun for him because neither Altair nor I would remember he was even there.  He’s not wrong; most of my sexual feelings toward Altair are somewhat violent.”  Leonardo shrugged that off and took a drink out of his glass.  (There was no telling if it was vodka or water in his.)  “That leaves me with the man I’ve been fucking and his possible future wife.  Since he’s decided that once he’s married we cannot fuck anymore, I felt it would be somewhat difficult to convince him to remove his clothes and put his dick in my mouth if he’s carrying around the engagement ring.”

“He’s a romantic at heart,” she agreed.  She set the glass on the table with the book and shifted how she was sitting to really get a solid look at Leonardo.  He was nonthreatening to most.  Many people mistook his thinness as a sign of weakness.  His freckles and his genial smile were marks of a timid man and more than one person had assumed that meant he was easily overpowered.  “I thought you told him that I was the best choice for a wife because I’d let you keep fucking him.”

Leonardo shrugged.  “The Auditore brothers have preconceived notions of how life should work.  I, the affair, cannot convince him it wouldn’t be a violation of his future wedding vows to keep having sex.”

“Federico fucks his cousin,” Sofia countered.

“With his wife’s consent.”  That must have been the important part.  Cristina allowed it and therefore it was acceptable.  

“Do you actually want a threesome or did you just want me to tell Ezio that I don’t mind if you blow him?”  

“I would accept either,” didn’t name a preference.  It was followed up almost immediately with, “you don’t have to, you know.  He loves you.  He’d give me up and I can’t say that it wouldn’t be fair.  I don’t love him the way you do, I’d miss the opportunity to make use of his body but everything else about him that I find attractive would remain the same.  You don’t have to allow this if it makes you unhappy.”

Sofia leaned forward to lay her hand over Leonardo’s, to make sure he was really looking at her, and she said, “you think too highly of yourself,” was very gently put.  “In general, men think too highly of sex.  He uses you to scratch an itch that needs scratching.  Whose to say I don’t have someone that does the same for me?”

Leonardo laughed and put a hand over top hers.  He leaned forward so they were very confidential.  “You shouldn’t tell him about Malik.  Ezio is precious and simple and your intellectual infidelity will confuse him.”

“It wouldn’t matter to him at all,” Sofia countered, “because he was raised in a world where the only infidelity that matters is the one that involves dicks.  This is what I mean, men think too highly of sex.”

They were very pleased with themselves, all pink in the face and grasping one another’s hands.  Leonardo said, “You shouldn’t tell Malik either.”

Sofia laughed, “I’m not stupid.  What would I say to him, Malik I’ve been in love with you since we met?  Malik, sometimes I wake up in the morning and all I want is to call you to debate literary devices and fourteenth century morals?”

“How is that attractive to you?” Leonardo whispered.

“You got me drunk,” she said.  “That’s morally reprehensible.”

Leonardo laughed all low and bubbling, making his cheeks flush red under the freckles.  He nodded his head, “I’m drunk too,” was meant to even the playing field.  “Maybe we should be more sober before we make agreements about sharing Ezio’s body.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “if we get him drunk and have our way with him, he’ll feel bad.”

Leonardo agreed.  “I hate this family reunion.  This house makes my skin crawl.  Maybe you should tell him we can’t fuck just so they’ll stop inviting me.”

“Boo hoo,” Sofia said, “I’m going to be marrying into this obligation.  If I’m stuck, you’re stuck with me.”  She tipped her head and kissed his pretty flushed cheek.

“Fine,” he sighed, “if you insist.”