Sour Punch [InoShikaChou, Implied NaruShika, ShiShika, TemaShika; R]
Title: Sour Punch
Author: the-lady-lamb
Genre: Naruto
Sub-genre: Romance/Angst/Fluff osht
Summary: Shikamaru is annoyed by Ino's awesome. Future canon!verse because you guys seemed to like it.
Rated: R for nekkid.
Author's Notes: I thought this, along with my icon post, would be a good "I'm home :3" present for you guys - my hiatus ended a few days ago and since then I have been busy, busy! With this and other things. Mostly RP. orz. This is from the same universe as Nowhere, although the contents are a lot different. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. If you have any questions pertaining to what certain members of the Naruto universe are up to by this time, you can ask me for drabbles about them. I'd be glad to oblige. :3
For judo_creature. I don't know why. D:
Sour Punch
Ino’s an odd one. Shikamaru becomes more and more convinced of this fact with every day that passes, and even more certain that Shiho is probably weirder for agreeing to share him until he realizes that the probability that she’s getting exactly what Temari’s getting for allowing what he and Chouji so loosely refer to as a "relationship" is relatively high. He isn’t gay, that’s not what he’s saying- You know what? Don’t even bother to try to understand it. Shikamaru honestly doesn’t have the time or energy to explain it to you. He hasn’t mentioned the word “troublesome” in a while now - life is too troublesome to allow it, what with the four (occasionally five) people he’s sleeping with and the baby boy he’s helping raise. Thank the Heavens he isn’t married or his life might actually resemble a pile of vomit.
He knows he’s not the only one who takes stress medication - hell, he doesn’t even understand how Neji plans to live past twenty, the cocktail of medication he’s on at all hours of the day, but he understands the theory behind it. He might as well have been the one to coin that theory, and he knows Neji and he have come to an honest and mutual understanding about most of everything: as a ninja, female friends are irritating, male friends usually don’t understand the meaning of personal boundaries, and Naruto - while debatably being the Hokage they will both die for if ever the slightest need arises (he’s a good friend, it’s true) - is often incredibly agitating simply because he’s Naruto. Of course, Shikamaru thinks that Tenten is considerably less odd than Ino, but that’s beside the point.
The point is, this whole mindreader-psychic bit is getting really annoying really quickly.
“I don’t see what’s so bad about it,” she says, having followed everything from start to finish again, seeming to trace his moving neurons with her silk blue eyes about as easily as somebody watches a spider climb a waterspout. She plucks one of the wetter apricots from the basket on Chouji’s left side and bites through half of it. “I mean, the more I read you, the more I know how right I always am about everything.” She gives Chouji a chastising look, and he shuts his mouth like he just said something, but of course he didn’t. He thought it.
“It’s a huge invasion of privacy.” At least she can’t focus to in-depth on more than one person at a time. “And it makes you look…” He chooses a better word than ‘stupid’ when she turns that dangerous face on him. “Conflicted. Like you’re harping at yourself night and day instead of at the two of us.”
“You’re just jealous.” Shikamaru wrinkles his nose, but knows that she must be right; realizes she hasn’t been reading Chouji anymore than she already would without her body-switching-jutsu-gone-Cleo-the-Psychic talents. It had been hard to even believe in them at first, and now here he is with three girlfriends, one (sometimes two) boyfriend(s), a kid, and Ino controlling his whole damn life all the time.
…okay, so maybe he is jealous, but only because he can’t properly get back at her because she’ll know every detail of his plan before he does. Shikamaru isn’t a naturally vengeful person, but hell if he hates being constrained to thinking bad thoughts just because it’s the only way to get back at her.
“Oh, go back to sleep, why don’t you?” she says, going haughty. “If all you’re going to do is gripe about how you can’t stand being shown up, I’d rather go back to looking through your masturbation fantasies, again. It's a lot easier to do when you're unconscious.”
Shikamaru tries to quell his mortification. Ino ignores him.
“Jesus. Just the smallest bit of pressure and your ego gets all inflamed. And don’t try to tell me I’m wrong, because I’m not. You’re all bent out of shape because I’m back to being Team Leader, like I should be. Isn’t he?” she says, authoritatively, turning to Chouji for affirmation. The Akimichi nods, giving Shikamaru a knowing look.
“You seem like you’re worried about losing your usefulness to us,” he says in his gentle, understanding way - it feels condescending, even though Shikamaru knows that it isn’t intended that way at all. “Like you’re worried this new…development with Ino is going to invalidate your genius, somehow.”
Shikamaru shakes his head, closing his eyes and massaging his temples. “…you two are so-”
“Troublesome?” Ino’s giving him a look, her chin resting on her hand. “That’s original.
“I don’t think you realize how stupid you’re being right now.”
She climbs on top of him before he can think to move away and he sighs and sinks back into the bed. He’s getting a migraine, and he knows Chouji can tell because of the worried expression he’s wearing on his fat face.
“Jeez, Shika, stop thinking so much. You’re going to hurt yourself…”
“He’s already hurting himself,” Ino says knowledgeably, seating her very naked self on Shikamaru’s equally naked hips. “That’s what he does with his brain in his off time.”
“That sucks…” Chouji scrutinizes Shikamaru’s unpleasant expression. “Why would you do something like that?”
“For the same reason you wouldn’t let your goddess-type girlfriend into your head without putting up a monster fight every single time.” Ino crosses her arms across her chest and raises an eyebrow, her golden hoop earrings glinting. "You've got a thing for pain."
Shikamaru sees Chouji eye her cleavage, mouth watering, and snorts crassly. Ino looks at him, face flat, before shifting her hips back far enough to make him groan with something just short of the wrong kind of frustration. He hears Chouji echo him somewhat breathlessly and calls him a voyeur before he can stop himself.
“If you would stop being so stubborn,” Ino says, irritably, “you would realize what a good thing this is for you. Seriously. You might be a genius, but all that means is that you’re good at getting good ideas at the right moments. That doesn’t mean you aren’t still a completely,” rolls her petite little hips in just the right way, “useless,” just the right way and he swears aloud, “lazy ass, just like you always have been. You have good ideas, but you hate having to act on them. That’s your least favorite part of being smart.”
“You’ve always been lazy, Shikamaru,” Chouji adds, his hand weaving into his friend’s hair habitually. “But ever since Asuma died you’ve been so stuck on…taking his place. On being useful.” He becomes strangely quiet and then he says it. “…even though it’s Ino and I…”
“Who got left behind.”
Shikamaru opens his eyes and Ino is glaring at him.
“It’s always you. You. You got to be the genius. You got to be Asuma’s favorite. You got to be the only one to pass the stupid Chuunin exams and Chouji and I stood behind you and watched you get stronger and stronger without us.”
“Asuma loved all of us equally.” Shikamaru feels like he’s choking.
“Oh, that is not what I’m talking about and you know it! Jesus, Shikamaru, for all your masculinity, you play dumb well enough to make every teenage girl within a six-hundred-mile radius jealous.” She looks almost ready to slap him. “Don’t you get it? This means that we can be together with you again.”
“We’re already together.”
She snarls, twists her small, sharp hands into the very tips of his pelvis. “If you don’t want to act on your ideas, we can, because I’ll know about them. You won’t have to keep everything to yourself anymore just because you’re worried we won’t get it. We’ll be a team, again.”
“You don’t have to go on alone anymore, man,” Chouji says, softly.
Shikamaru sighs and Chouji reaches over to retrieve Ino’s unfinished apricot off the edge of the bed, moving the fruit basket while he’s at it. (Ino’s brought one every single time they get together like this ever since Chouji was in the hospital after the Chuunin exams.) He bites off half of what’s left and offers the other half to Shikamaru, who makes a face but eats it from his hands.
He sighs.
“You two are so troublesome.”
Ino glows. “I knew you’d say that.”
Chouji massages his scalp. “We love you, too.”
Author: the-lady-lamb
Genre: Naruto
Sub-genre: Romance/Angst/Fluff osht
Summary: Shikamaru is annoyed by Ino's awesome. Future canon!verse because you guys seemed to like it.
Rated: R for nekkid.
Author's Notes: I thought this, along with my icon post, would be a good "I'm home :3" present for you guys - my hiatus ended a few days ago and since then I have been busy, busy! With this and other things. Mostly RP. orz. This is from the same universe as Nowhere, although the contents are a lot different. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. If you have any questions pertaining to what certain members of the Naruto universe are up to by this time, you can ask me for drabbles about them. I'd be glad to oblige. :3
For judo_creature. I don't know why. D:
Sour Punch
Ino’s an odd one. Shikamaru becomes more and more convinced of this fact with every day that passes, and even more certain that Shiho is probably weirder for agreeing to share him until he realizes that the probability that she’s getting exactly what Temari’s getting for allowing what he and Chouji so loosely refer to as a "relationship" is relatively high. He isn’t gay, that’s not what he’s saying- You know what? Don’t even bother to try to understand it. Shikamaru honestly doesn’t have the time or energy to explain it to you. He hasn’t mentioned the word “troublesome” in a while now - life is too troublesome to allow it, what with the four (occasionally five) people he’s sleeping with and the baby boy he’s helping raise. Thank the Heavens he isn’t married or his life might actually resemble a pile of vomit.
He knows he’s not the only one who takes stress medication - hell, he doesn’t even understand how Neji plans to live past twenty, the cocktail of medication he’s on at all hours of the day, but he understands the theory behind it. He might as well have been the one to coin that theory, and he knows Neji and he have come to an honest and mutual understanding about most of everything: as a ninja, female friends are irritating, male friends usually don’t understand the meaning of personal boundaries, and Naruto - while debatably being the Hokage they will both die for if ever the slightest need arises (he’s a good friend, it’s true) - is often incredibly agitating simply because he’s Naruto. Of course, Shikamaru thinks that Tenten is considerably less odd than Ino, but that’s beside the point.
The point is, this whole mindreader-psychic bit is getting really annoying really quickly.
“I don’t see what’s so bad about it,” she says, having followed everything from start to finish again, seeming to trace his moving neurons with her silk blue eyes about as easily as somebody watches a spider climb a waterspout. She plucks one of the wetter apricots from the basket on Chouji’s left side and bites through half of it. “I mean, the more I read you, the more I know how right I always am about everything.” She gives Chouji a chastising look, and he shuts his mouth like he just said something, but of course he didn’t. He thought it.
“It’s a huge invasion of privacy.” At least she can’t focus to in-depth on more than one person at a time. “And it makes you look…” He chooses a better word than ‘stupid’ when she turns that dangerous face on him. “Conflicted. Like you’re harping at yourself night and day instead of at the two of us.”
“You’re just jealous.” Shikamaru wrinkles his nose, but knows that she must be right; realizes she hasn’t been reading Chouji anymore than she already would without her body-switching-jutsu-gone-Cleo-the-Psychic talents. It had been hard to even believe in them at first, and now here he is with three girlfriends, one (sometimes two) boyfriend(s), a kid, and Ino controlling his whole damn life all the time.
…okay, so maybe he is jealous, but only because he can’t properly get back at her because she’ll know every detail of his plan before he does. Shikamaru isn’t a naturally vengeful person, but hell if he hates being constrained to thinking bad thoughts just because it’s the only way to get back at her.
“Oh, go back to sleep, why don’t you?” she says, going haughty. “If all you’re going to do is gripe about how you can’t stand being shown up, I’d rather go back to looking through your masturbation fantasies, again. It's a lot easier to do when you're unconscious.”
Shikamaru tries to quell his mortification. Ino ignores him.
“Jesus. Just the smallest bit of pressure and your ego gets all inflamed. And don’t try to tell me I’m wrong, because I’m not. You’re all bent out of shape because I’m back to being Team Leader, like I should be. Isn’t he?” she says, authoritatively, turning to Chouji for affirmation. The Akimichi nods, giving Shikamaru a knowing look.
“You seem like you’re worried about losing your usefulness to us,” he says in his gentle, understanding way - it feels condescending, even though Shikamaru knows that it isn’t intended that way at all. “Like you’re worried this new…development with Ino is going to invalidate your genius, somehow.”
Shikamaru shakes his head, closing his eyes and massaging his temples. “…you two are so-”
“Troublesome?” Ino’s giving him a look, her chin resting on her hand. “That’s original.
“I don’t think you realize how stupid you’re being right now.”
She climbs on top of him before he can think to move away and he sighs and sinks back into the bed. He’s getting a migraine, and he knows Chouji can tell because of the worried expression he’s wearing on his fat face.
“Jeez, Shika, stop thinking so much. You’re going to hurt yourself…”
“He’s already hurting himself,” Ino says knowledgeably, seating her very naked self on Shikamaru’s equally naked hips. “That’s what he does with his brain in his off time.”
“That sucks…” Chouji scrutinizes Shikamaru’s unpleasant expression. “Why would you do something like that?”
“For the same reason you wouldn’t let your goddess-type girlfriend into your head without putting up a monster fight every single time.” Ino crosses her arms across her chest and raises an eyebrow, her golden hoop earrings glinting. "You've got a thing for pain."
Shikamaru sees Chouji eye her cleavage, mouth watering, and snorts crassly. Ino looks at him, face flat, before shifting her hips back far enough to make him groan with something just short of the wrong kind of frustration. He hears Chouji echo him somewhat breathlessly and calls him a voyeur before he can stop himself.
“If you would stop being so stubborn,” Ino says, irritably, “you would realize what a good thing this is for you. Seriously. You might be a genius, but all that means is that you’re good at getting good ideas at the right moments. That doesn’t mean you aren’t still a completely,” rolls her petite little hips in just the right way, “useless,” just the right way and he swears aloud, “lazy ass, just like you always have been. You have good ideas, but you hate having to act on them. That’s your least favorite part of being smart.”
“You’ve always been lazy, Shikamaru,” Chouji adds, his hand weaving into his friend’s hair habitually. “But ever since Asuma died you’ve been so stuck on…taking his place. On being useful.” He becomes strangely quiet and then he says it. “…even though it’s Ino and I…”
“Who got left behind.”
Shikamaru opens his eyes and Ino is glaring at him.
“It’s always you. You. You got to be the genius. You got to be Asuma’s favorite. You got to be the only one to pass the stupid Chuunin exams and Chouji and I stood behind you and watched you get stronger and stronger without us.”
“Asuma loved all of us equally.” Shikamaru feels like he’s choking.
“Oh, that is not what I’m talking about and you know it! Jesus, Shikamaru, for all your masculinity, you play dumb well enough to make every teenage girl within a six-hundred-mile radius jealous.” She looks almost ready to slap him. “Don’t you get it? This means that we can be together with you again.”
“We’re already together.”
She snarls, twists her small, sharp hands into the very tips of his pelvis. “If you don’t want to act on your ideas, we can, because I’ll know about them. You won’t have to keep everything to yourself anymore just because you’re worried we won’t get it. We’ll be a team, again.”
“You don’t have to go on alone anymore, man,” Chouji says, softly.
Shikamaru sighs and Chouji reaches over to retrieve Ino’s unfinished apricot off the edge of the bed, moving the fruit basket while he’s at it. (Ino’s brought one every single time they get together like this ever since Chouji was in the hospital after the Chuunin exams.) He bites off half of what’s left and offers the other half to Shikamaru, who makes a face but eats it from his hands.
He sighs.
“You two are so troublesome.”
Ino glows. “I knew you’d say that.”
Chouji massages his scalp. “We love you, too.”