WARNINGS: Threesome, implied sex both het and yaoi, and Chouji's insufferable cuteness.

DISCLAIMER: Don't own, don't care. Blarg.

SPOILERS: Stuff and crap.

A/N: I love Chouji, who is living proof that you don't have to be a skinny bishie to be loved, and that sometimes fat boys do win. I will now proceed to infect you with Chouji-love. I know I should be working on Self-Reliance (current status: 1/3 the way done; pieces are posted on my LJ), but I felt the need to write a team ten threesome, partially because I love this pairing to absolute pieces, and half because Asuka Kureru, Queen of threesomes, initiated a guilt trip in me, and if she happens upon this, perhaps it will serve as apology. Probably not, seeing as it isn't team seven, but one can hope.

Written at 1:00 a.m.. Which explains a lot.

Ino was always the one to act first, loudly and impulsively, so it wasn't any great surprise that she was the one who started It. It, she would proudly say later, long legs draped over Chouji's stomach as she braided Shikamaru's hair, was all her father's fault for being a dick. It was his fault for starting The Fight (the boys had never asked what The Fight had even been about-knowing the Yamanakas, it was probably over something so minute and frivolous as their opinions on a certain bouquet. Clashed opinions often were followed by bloodshed in that home of ninja florists), which had been the last straw utterly for Ino.

Ino had moved out after The Fight with her father. She'd appeared one day when Chouji was cooking dinner, her pretty faced flushed with gloriously self-righteous anger, her makeup bag and a duffle full of clothes tucked under one arm. She'd started crying, then, clinging to Chouji's apron-masked chest and wailing about the unfairness of her stupidly stubborn father, and why couldn't everyone be a little more like Chouji?

So Ino had moved in with him-entirely without his permission, actually: she'd taken the guest bedroom of his small house with its big kitchen, situating her things and tacking a sign reading INO'S ROOM on the door.

Chouji hadn't minded. Chouji was Chouji. Chouji was always stable, always responsible, always smiling, always cheerful and plump, always ready and perfectly willing to fill any empty mouth that happened to wander into his kitchen unguarded-always very, very there. He was a rare kind of stability for a boy who lived two hundred moves from his goal and a girl who really couldn't put her finger on why stability was such a good thing in the first place. Ino still liked to party and revel, going out after missions and drinking cheap beer with boys she didn't even really like, and Chouji didn't deny her that. He always was there in the morning, though, a cup of lemon-water and several aspirins in hand for the hangover that was just as constant as he was. More often than not, he was the shoulder that got cried on when yet another boy treated her like a sexual trashcan-dumping whatever he wanted into her and then leaving on his merry way. This went on for several months, quiet and unobtrusive, a schedule that neither of them particularly liked, but Ino was stubborn and Chouji didn't like to press.

He would make breakfast, Ino would read the paper, and Shikamaru would appear at nine o'clock or later, to share the meal and make comments on the cloud-weather for the day. Got some time around noon, Chouji? The cumuli should be rolling in thick around then, and we still haven't found a cloud that looks like the Third yet. Shikamaru was another constant, though a somewhat jagged one. He was constant in his inconsistency, patient and lazy and somewhat afraid to let the status quo go because in games of chance, there is no such thing as taking back moves (and life, Shikamaru had learned early on, is the game of chance).

That's probably why Temari kicked him out. Not everyone was as patient as Chouji-some people wanted this or that out of relationships, and Shikamaru wasn't the sort who meshed easily with a constantly subtracting arrangement. He gave what he would when he would, at the very time he saw fit and no sooner. He was one for plans, although his idea of a plan was a loose and voluminous concept that was fairly hard to pin down-Shikamaru had planned to marry Temari someday, have children with her, start a family that would have uncomfortable and somewhat regrettable connections to the Hidden Village of Sand. It was just as well, he'd muttered as he moved in with Chouji, taking the couch simply because the guest room still blared Ino's Room at anyone who passed. Having Gaara for a brother-in-law would have been troublesome, anyway.

Ino hadn't complained about the new addition at the dinner table-just her, Chouji, and Chouji's cat, Kenta (named such because he wanted a son named Kenta someday) had become a little stale. Ino and Shikamaru would play chess while Chouji cooked. Shikamaru and Chouji would escape onto the rooftop to watch clouds while Ino fumed and searched for them. Chouji and Ino would bicker lightly about Ino's Boyfriend of the Week, tossing in feeble pleas for Ino just to find a man who understood her while the girl laughed at his mothering attention. It was like a circle that way, whether or not they realized it or wanted it to form into that particular shape-straight lines were easier; even triangles were more manageable.

In the beginning, it'd been two old friends and The Girl, an intruder between them that they'd treated with wary mistrust-twelve-year-old Ino had been bossy, rude, and loud, domineering over the two boys who were either too sweet-tempered to complain or didn't even give a damn. Ino had matured some-in body as well as mind; her white-blonde hair fell to the perfect, pale curve of the nape of her neck, all dainty hands, slender hips, and softly rounded breasts-and her teammates had appreciated the change. She was quieter now, still fiery and bossy, but chiefly regarded as an equal member of One of Us instead of just the lump of femininity that had been necessary in rounding out their team of three.

Three-man team. One girl, two boys. Threes were strong, unbreakable. Ino had thought that-that nothing could change the status of Us, that nothing could make her want to change that, that they would always be happy under the wings of Chouji's stability as they licked the wounds the world had given them, waiting until they healed enough to move onto bigger and better things.

After several goes of this-a boyfriend who left her for someone prettier, smarter, less forcibly demure and simpering (never knowing that the real Ino she hid was something snappy and fiery, silver-tongued and sharp), or a girlfriend who kicked him out for someone faster, motivated, less ass-on-the-ground and head-in-the-clouds (never knowing that the real Shikamaru was slicker than sweat-hot skin and witty as anything, bright enough for two geniuses and incurably taciturn)-they both knew that there probably weren't bigger or better things. Chouji knew, of course, and that was what really made it come together.

The dimensions changed the first time Ino saw them kiss. What were they, then-sixteen? Seventeen? Either way, they were disillusioned and older than they should have been, wearied of the rest of the world and its complications. Shikamaru had come back from his job as an academy teacher drained and dog-tired, plopping on the couch with a moan that had stirred a worried Akimichi from the kitchen. He'd sighed at Shikamaru's open expression of kill-me-now, leaning over and kissing his oldest and closest friend as if that was the most natural reaction in the world. It had been brief and chaste, a dry brush of Chouji's soft lips against Shikamaru's thin, firm ones, but she'd seen it, and something large and painful, lonely and ostensibly green-eyed had blossomed in her chest because of it.

Ino, raging and not at all sure why, had stomped to the room she'd claimed, slamming the door behind her to loudly and clearly advertise yes, I did see you. Chouji had felt guilty-if she thought that she meant so little to him and Shika, she definitely had the wrong end of the stick-but Shikamaru had wisely advised that they leave her alone; she'd come to talk to them about it in her own time.

She had. She'd missed dinner-hating herself for that, because Chouji had long since broken her of her eating problems and slight anorexia seeing as he refused to house someone who wasn't healthy-and had slept poorly because of it. Nightmares had visited due to her own guilt-because, even if Shika and Cho were an It, she still couldn't bring herself to hate them-and she'd done the only thing proven to assuage even the most terrifying of nightmares. A little after midnight, Ino had crept on bare feet into Chouji's room, pausing at the foot of the bed because she'd known her friend was awake and waiting for her.

Ino stood there like a little girl, bouncing nervously on the balls of her feet, her fingers twined together, and dressed in nothing but her underwear and a sports bra. She found herself somewhat uncaring: Chouji, being Chouji, was not looking at her state of semi-undress, but at her face, his almond-dark eyes worried as he took in her expression. He then sat up in bed-only in his boxers himself, not caring about his rotund stomach or being overweight any more than she cared about her soft curves and girlish breasts-and lifted up a corner of the covers, inviting Ino in if she wanted to cling.

Like some kind of teddy bear, the stability and there-ness of Akimichi Chouji leant him the same characteristics of a ward against nightmares. Ino had come to him before because of bad dreams, and he had yet to turn her (or Shikamaru, for that matter, who regularly revisited the near loss of Chouji's life to the Sound Four when he traversed the dream plane) away. If his hefty body and soothing chakra made him a useful token, Chouji was more than happy to take up the mantle of Team Ten's Teddy Bear.

Ino had cried for a bit after that, her cheek pressed against his bare stomach, sniveling and hiccupping as if she were still eight and fighting with Sakura, the one girl she'd ever accepted as a friend. Chouji simply stroked back her silvery hair and allowed her to cry, knowing that this was his job as her teammate, her friend, and whatever that third, intangible and unnamable thing was. It was kind of like boyfriend, but it tasted a little different. Lover was too strong and spicy, and devotee made it sound laughably one-sided. Once they made up a word that correctly described the strange, breakable relationship between Ino and himself, he would invent some vastly sweet and highly caloric desert to celebrate. Ino would squeal and shove the desert away (sneaking licks with her fingertips when she thought the boys weren't looking, because it would be undoubtedly divine), and Shikamaru would mutter about how troublesome it was that Chouji felt he needed apt descriptors in the first place.

For the moment he was Cho, and that was good enough. Chouji hadn't minded.

It wasn't long after Ino had attached to his side that Shikamaru had come in-ten, fifteen minutes at best; he was always late, always distracted-and he'd stood at the end of the bed as Ino had, clad in his boxers with his long hair rumpled over his shoulders, his expression dark, pinched, and trying very hard to be serious. A smirk wanted to tug at his lips, because for the first time, he hadn't seen this move coming. It was a surprise victory for whatever unnamed deity ran his life, he decided.

"The troublesome woman took my pillow," Shikamaru said stiffly, sounding like nothing more than a sulky child. He paused, chewed on his words, and stubbornly added: "I'm not going to be left out."

"Never said you had to be, Shika," said Chouji fairly, gesturing with his free hand. "I've got another arm, you know, and plenty of stomach to go around. Do you mind, Ino?"

Ino had paused, thought about it, rewound that kiss in her head, and realized that to leave Shikamaru out would be nothing short of criminal. She shook her head firmly, reaching up lazily and drawing the other boy into the tangle of pale limbs by his reed-thin wrist. He'd curled up then on his other side, a light dusting of blush on his cheeks-why do you two have to be so damn troublesome?-and he'd put his cheek onto the plush cushion of Chouji's belly. They clung like children to a large stuffed bear, and the bigger boy just grinned to the dark, thankful that he was so Always.

They were a team, the three of them, together in all the ways that really mattered. The Third had known what he was doing when he placed them together, even if it was a simple act of laziness and copycatting of the previous generation. It was anyone's guess what their fathers would make of it-The Fight would be pale in comparison to this, Ino thought as she leaned across Chouji and dropped a shy kiss on Shikamaru's surprised mouth. For tonight, it was bashful and chaste-little-kid kisses, embarrassed giggles, and slightly sweaty hands-but there'd be passion and skin later, when the thought of this extension of teamwork wasn't so novel and new.

It was a little odd when it all came together, so suddenly and without snags. Ino hadn't thought that she'd end up this way-in the arms of two men who were far from being the prince(s) charming she'd always assumed she'd settle down with, but careful observation kept her from complaining.

Shikamaru had a habit of perpetually frowning, an odd foil to Chouji's constant smiles. Chouji's orangey-blond hair rasped like dry grass; Shikamaru's thick dark hair was unexpectedly soft and spilt down just past his thin shoulders when he let it down for her to French-braid. Chouji was chubby-always had been, always would be; nothing except those horrific red pepper pills could change that-but he made the most perfect pillow, and Shikamaru's thin arms made for a fine protective shawl against her own destructive nature.

The little things were attractive. Ino couldn't get past the fact that instead of feeling let down, empty, dirty, stupid, or simply just not good enough, she felt good. Nestled between them like a favorite bear the boys shared, Shikamaru's slender fingers tangled in her hair and Chouji's soft palm cupping her thigh, she felt loved. Even when Chouji forgot she didn't like raisins in her curry (and who, really, thought that raisins in curry were a good idea?) or when Shikamaru was in one of his spacey funks (missions, clouds, and two hundred steps ahead of everyone else), she felt loved.

It wasn't just about her. That would have been selfishness, sex because she was a beautiful woman who could afford to have two less-than-handsome boys dote on her. It wasn't that, though-there were times when it was just her and Shika, braiding his thick hair and sharing teasing kisses while he scowled and pretended not to enjoy it, or just her and Chouji, taste-testing his latest meal and maybe something more, and she knew very well that it was sometimes just Shikamaru and Chouji, sprawled out, sweaty and relaxing in an afterglow that she'd missed. But that was alright, because it was about It, Them, this fragile and fantastic thing that'd crept in on them, checkmating Shikamaru with a blind slap he hadn't seen coming, grounding Ino's rampages with chains made of gentle fingers she didn't want to fight free of, and making Chouji break out in slow, satisfied grins whenever he felt arms-sometimes two, sometimes four-creep around his round waist.

The sign on the guest bedroom door was eventually taken down, only to be replaced on Chouji's door with the INO crossed out. It was replaced with a firm and resounding OUR ROOM. Shikamaru had proclaimed it troublesome. Chouji had grinned. And it wasn't long, really, before they got used to sleeping piled into a single king-sized bed (or, as Ino had joked as she pulled her boys into her arms, a bed sized for the entire royal court), snuggled up with Chouji in the middle because, honestly, he made the best teddy.

And Chouji hadn't minded.