Peanut Butter and Bubble Gum
Velutlunas
Author's notes: Written for TheNinjaKitty. Picked this up on the fly so I apologize if it feels rough. I adore this pairing, but I wasn't sure how you felt about smut so I left it clean... sort of. I hope you enjoy it, and I will eventually get this beta-ed to get rid of all the things I probably, most undoubtedly, missed.
Shikamaru had this strange habit of trying to keep his toes warm by shoving them under Chouji's thigh. He would sprawl across the couch, arms akimbo and wiggle those long boned feet until he had secured a position. He'd sigh then, a long drawn out gust of breath that made Chouji cough to hide a blush before Shikamaru went boneless in only the way he could.
"Comfy?" Chouji asked quietly, face lost somewhere between a smile and confusion as he shifted to get comfortable with the knobby protrusions under his leg. It never ceased to boggle him how the slender boy could own an entire couch while Chouji himself was crammed against the armrest. Not that he truly minded, but still, physics had to get involved somewhere.
Shikamaru's mouth turned up in a feline gesture of contentment and Chouji knew right then that no matter how often this happened, he would deal with the awkwardness, just to see that turn of lip. "Yes."
"I would hope so." Ino said loudly- Chouji was almost convinced she didn't come in any other volume.
"I-I'm fine, really." Chouji stammered, torn between the strange urge to stay and act as a foot warmer to his best friend and stand quickly out of politeness to offer the skinny blonde something to eat. Chouji always wanted to feed her. Ino sometimes felt like some strange alien creature or hothouse flower that had somehow wandered into his tomato garden. He didn't want to uproot her, but she drew attention to the normalcy around her.
"See, he's fine." Shikamaru echoed, moving to flop an arm across his eyes after shooting her what would be a glare if he could work up the energy.
Ino leveled a look that if Shikamaru had been paying attention, Chouji was sure would curl his hair... or possibly peel his skin from his bones. "You are so rude. Look at him! He's squished against this eentsy teeny tiny little bit of the couch while your lazy butt is sprawled and doing nothing but spreading." Ino walked- Chouji knew that she had two forward motions: stomping and sashaying- to where Shikamaru was pooling peacefully into the cushions of the couch and took stock of the situation.
"Ow."
Chouji had never been able to quite figure out how taking stock of a situation transferred into physical violence, but Ino had a talent.
"You didn't need to do-"
"It's his apartment," Ino also had a talent for talking right over people. "You should be more respectful."
"I seem to be on the floor." Shikamaru replied from where he had fallen when Ino shoved him, shoulders turned at an angle Chouji was positive he would never manage but the lazy Jounin had kept his toes in the warmth under Chouji's thigh.
"She pushed you." Chouji clarified, leaning forward slightly to offer a hand.
"I rearranged the furniture." Ino said tartly, flopping onto the middle cushion of the couch and leaning against Chouji's shoulder. He could smell the soft floral scent of her hair and the tickling softness of her skin where she pressed against him. "Chouji is my pillow."
"I-"
"Whatever. The floor suits me fine as long as my toes are warm." Shikamaru replied, folding his hands behind his head and wriggling to a more comfortable position so that he was almost a straight line.
"Are you guys hungry?" Chouji asked, raspy baritone pushing syllables against the silky blonde hair he seemed to be eating.
"I could eat." Shikamaru replied, eyes slipping closed.
"I'm on a diet." Ino countered.
"Oh. Um." Chouji wet his lips and looked around his apartment quickly, trying to remember what he had within arm's reach.
"If you move, I think I may be forced to kill you." Ino muttered, burrowing bonily against him.
"He's not your personal furnace or pillow." Shikamaru drawled.
"Says the boy with his toes all toasty."
"My feet are cold."
"I'm cold."
"Then you should eat more. You're too skinny."
"Am not! I need to lose another four grams."
"You should just cut your hair."
Ino made a noise that Chouji had only heard duplicated by dying rabbits.
He pushed up, wriggling awkwardly over the edge of the couch to flop onto the floor uncertainly. "I'll just get- some yanno- something. Right." Chouji straightened and pulled his t-shirt back across his shoulders and down over his waistband and squared his shoulders. "Food. Food good." He nodded, reddish brown hair flopping into his face and did a quick about face to slip into the kitchen. He may have been large, but he was still a ninja and completely capable of a stealthy retreat.
Chouji loved his apartment, it smelled like home: cinnamon, chocolate, and the darker earthier smell of Korean barbecue. He'd set it up slowly over the years, buying knickknacks and kitchen shtick and thus it was the only part that really felt like home. He ducked around the corner, the interplay of Ino's brassier tones twining around the drawling baritone. He grinned slightly, leaning heavily against his refrigerator and nodded. This was obviously time for hot chocolate.
His cabinets were well worn, not the scary pristine emptiness of Ino's kitchen and a far cry from the oddly tick tock precision of labeled cans in Shikamaru's. There was a chaotic orderliness that he craved and as he moved to the stove ingredients seemed to fall as needed from their spaces.
"-DIDN'T FUCK KIBA!"
Chouji spluttered, going red and glancing back to the war zone in his living room, wondering how Ino and Shikamaru had gotten on this subject again. He already knew Shikamaru's reply; it was an old argument after all and he just shook his head and started the burner, the pot clanging heavily against the stovetop.
"You just wish you had." He mouthed along, eerily accurate to the slow smirking baritone that was blurred by the kitchen and his concentration at the task at hand.
He snorted, mimicking the quiet girlish indignation as he pulled down the sugar. "Well, you do too." He mimed, flipping his hair off his shoulder with the wooden spoon, imagining exactly the cant of hip and the surly way Ino would cross her legs.
"Am I the only one-!?" He yelled over his shoulder as the sugar and the chocolate powder mixed, smelling rich and Caramel.
"YES!" And it was truly the only thing the two in the living room could agree on.
Chouji chuckled, pushing the mixture around the bottom of the pan slowly. "Thought so." He told himself, already hearing the pair continue as if he hadn't said anything. It really was just like being with family. Except Chouji was pretty sure family didn't steal kisses from the cook when no one was looking.
The first time Ino kissed him, Chouji had gone beet red and jumped into the lake. Because it was convenient and that's what people did when surprised. He was sure of it.
He'd always sort of known with half awareness that he was just a dick in a glass jar. Break in case of emergency. He'd watched her grow taller, blonder, and leggier. If that was possible, and only done what the pudgy kid could always do. Wait and be her friend. She'd tasted like bubble gum, almost sickeningly sweet.
He took pride in knowing that it hadn't been a dare, it hadn't been anything she'd been put up to. She'd just kissed him. He'd been her pillow while she cried (over Kiba) and just held on to her bony shoulder and pet her hair. It's what friends did. However, when she'd looked up at him, sniffles subsiding but those blue eyes so wide and wet looking he hadn't known what to do. He'd looked around, like trying to find what she had really been looking at only to come back to those slippery eyes and feel the heat surge that only came when something IMPORTANT was about to happen.
She'd said something, but he'd lost track of what it was in the smell of her perfume and how close she was leaning to him. She'd looked at him like he was something other than third best Chouji and his skin had gone tight. So of course, when the kiss came, glancing and clumsy, he'd burned with the blush and scrambled away as quickly as he could. Ino made him feel huge and awkward. Chouji knew she was tough, but feeling that soft jaw under his palm he'd worried.
Shikamaru, however, tasted like peanut butter. Chouji had never been able to figure that out. Or why Shikamaru had kissed him in the first place. They'd been playing Shougi and then they'd been kissing.
Sometimes Chouji thinks it might have been because for the first time in seven years, he'd been winning.
He could have let himself believe that if it wasn't for the fact that it happened again. And Shikamaru still tasted like peanut butter.
Shikamaru had this way of making Chouji think that it was possibly his fault that his mouth was on the thin black haired boy's lips. Chouji was almost convinced that it had been his idea the second time, except for the hand in his hair pulling him forward.
Chouji was pretty sure he wasn't supposed to have made out with his teammates. He was sure it was like a law or something among ninjas.
Thou shalt not kiss thy teammates.
Except it kept happening; so obviously he was wrong. Chouji was wrong a lot.
Next came the cream, and Chouji loved this part of hot chocolate. Because it seemed like the cocoa and the sugar would never mix. Heat couldn't do anything more than make the cocoa cling to each granule, making it look like thick sand, but when the cream hit, everything just fell into place. He stirred slowly, watching the mixture fold and go thick and smooth. It wasn't much longer, just some milk, heat, and three mugs. He added the marshmallows to his and Ino's, knowing that Shikamaru didn't take any with his- like he took no cream with his coffee. The mugs were all different; Ino's lavender and smooth, Shikamaru's green and chipping, and his the one his teammates had gotten him two years ago with it's fading teddy bear on the front proclaiming that squishy was best.
He didn't really notice how quiet the living room had gotten until he walked straight into it, three mugs steaming. He blinked for a moment, trying to understand the sight in front of him. Ino had Shikamaru pulled to a half sitting position from what Chouji could tell, and their mouths were occupied. Really- really- occupied.
Chouji blinked before looking around to find a place for his mugs. "Peanut butter and Bubble Gum?" He asked. "That's just gross."
Ino had the decency to gasp. Shikamaru just flopped back to the floor he'd been apparently dragged from. And Chouji shrugged, picking up his mug and wandered to the couch.
"No marshmallow's right?" Shikamaru asked, mouth red and slick while Ino pulled at her short skirt and settled into the couch against the armrest, wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand.
"Of course not." Chouji replied, and took a sip: cocoa, sugar, and cream. Some things just worked best in threes.
Back to team ten
Back to the main page