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the-formerone · 6 years

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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.

#narutogiftexchange #naruto #ao3 #fic #shikakiba #inuzuka kiba #nara shikamaru

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