Disclaimer: Legally useless, I'm aware, but I still do not own the Naruto characters or series and am not making any profit from this bit of fanwork.
A Well Formulated Argument
Premise
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Win me she'd said. Foolish to challenge a genius, even a lazy one. They had a way of surprising you. Not that she was ever prepared for it. Since their first match all those years ago, back when they were kids—thinking they were fighting for honor and all those other intangible ideals—when he beat her. Won the match, and turned around and handed it to her. I had never met a boy like that. In Suna they were all about survival. Pure, base instinct. And here was this loser, who forfeited and got a promotion for it. Unthinkable.
But then again, their relationship always had that quality to it.
Back when they really were just friends. Forced to spend time together, two tactical minds, planning another round of chuunin exams; double-checking and rechecking for good measure it would never turn out like theirs. You got to learn a lot of things about a guy debating the relative merits of different tests over ramen take-out and cold coffee in the early morning hours because, damnit, their Kage's wanted the whole thing ready a week ago.
Sitting next to each other watching the matches in the final round, rooting for opposing genin— staying loyal to their villages—but still feeling like they were on the same side. Strange, even for allies. Alliances change, it's a fact of our world, she'd been taught. She may've been tutored by the finest of Suna's politicians and historians about the pitfalls of friendships with allies, but being friends with Shikamaru felt normal. More durable than some of her ties within her own family. Since that first chuunin exam—it seemed like everything came back to those months in Konoha—when he'd fought with that orange-clad loudmouth, Gaara was slowly getting better. In his own hesitant, faltering way he was becoming more of a little brother than he'd ever been before. For all this progress he'd made, twelve years of fear and wariness was hard to forget—no matter how much she wanted to.
But her friendship—playful, bantering, antagonizing—with Shikamaru was unlike anything she'd ever experienced. Not even her friendship with Baki's wife, who had become like a mother to her, compared to it. She'd tease him, maybe not as cruelly as her brothers, but he'd shrug it all off with an indecipherable smirk and go back to cloud watching, or avoiding Hokage's assistants. That's what was so fascinating; his reactions were only predictable for their unflappable quality. Kankuro would bluster and give as good as he got. Gaara's catch-all reaction was that unnerving stare followed by a quiet declaration; it used to be a glare of intent with the quietest, most promising death threat. Now, it was generally a threat of more paperwork or a month-long assignment to the graveyard patrol shift. But Shikamaru's reactions always felt…odd for lack of a better way to describe it. Not quite disingenuous, but not quite truthful.
It infuriated her.
Men had always been a known quantity. The only girl, woman, on her missions—some bullshit about distribution of resources—it often fell to her to flirt her way to information. Poor saps. Civilians only thought of a pretty face, a flash of leg or shoulder and they were putty. Shinobi were generally more difficult, but the promise that she understood what they wanted—just a night, just a way to take pleasure, no strings attached—made them putty all the same. Some of her fellow kunoichi actually delivered on these promises. The Black Widows Club. They even had regular meetings to rehash their latest conquests. She had never been one for the subtle shift of pillow-talk to shop-talk. It was more her style to dangle the promise, tantalizing, and then approach the subject bluntly. Preferably with kunai to the joints of carpus, and then to that fleshy space between the radius and ulna in each arm, pinning them to a wall. Bloodier than taking the marks to bed, but so much more satisfying from her perspective. Konoha may have the monopoly on happy-go-lucky jounin headcases, but you didn't get into those ranks in Suna without being a little sadistic. It was simple really: she'd promise men sex, they'd do just about anything to get her to deliver. But Shikamaru was anything but a simple guy.
Oh sure, he was generally straightforward, but she always thought that had more to do with his laziness than anything else. He could never be bothered to be anything but. Unless, of course, he decided it was worth his time. How exactly he decided this escaped her for longest time. Until, just like how he maneuvered her to be perfectly placedin front of that hole during their first match became painfully obvious, she realized just how straightforward of a guy Nara Shikamaru could be. If it meant fulfilling his duty, it was well worth his time. Duty to his friends, duty to his kage, duty to his family, they all got fairly equal treatment. She didn't understand at first that he really was that honorable of a shinobi. It really must do something to your training if you grew up in a politically stable and economically successful Hidden Village.
The more time they spent together—whether forced by their orders, or completely voluntary—the more she realized she rather liked that straightforwardness. It wasn't as brutally honest as the standard Suna nin mindset, but he was only a shinobi of the Leaf. He should be granted some handicaps.
If she were honest with herself, she would wonder why it mattered that he fit in with her comrades. That the quiet sarcasm, spoken around the ever-present cigarette in his mouth, made not only her, but stone-faced Baki crack a grin. Why should she care that her unyielding tutor might begrudgingly respect Shikamaru? It wasn't as if they had spent all that much time together in Suna. Hell, they hadn't spent all that much time together, period. She was Suna's Ambassador to Konohagakure and he might as well have been her lackey. It wasn't as if she actually needed a guide after the fourth weeklong mission—not that either of them acknowledged that guide meant guard, in any case. Allies or not, a foreign shinobi was still looked upon suspiciously. Not to mention foreign shinobi that had lead an invasion of their village in the not-so-distant past.
The fact that she didn't want to answer why it mattered spoke volumes.
The fact that it always came back to Shikamaru was something she chose to ignore.
Until one morning, unwelcome on the heels of an all-nighter to finalize the proper wording for an agreement of jointly run Konoha-Suna operations, Shikamaru kissed her as he deposited a mug of fresh coffee. Her mind, caught somewhere between, 'What the fuck?' and ignoring that tightening of her chest, couldn't make her mouth cooperate and she was embarrassed to remember the strangled noise that hadn't quite managed to get past her throat.
Shikamaru had shrugged and replied, annoyingly accurate, to her non-verbal question, "I wanted to."
As he settled back down into his own chair, unflappably organizing the papers in front of them as if what had happened was completely routine, she made up her mind. No one could ever claim she knew how to take the high road. Retaliation was dangerous in their world; it spoke of personal reasons when the missions were supposed to be all business. But hell if he hadn't just made this personal. She pushed her chair back and slowly stood up, and the jerk hadn't even batted an eyelash. Some highly-skilled shinobi he was; where was his self-preservation?
"Hey, loser," she'd said, forcing his attention away from that damnable paperwork. As she turned his face upwards, she grabbed his face and kissed him hard. She wasn't a wilting flower and tentative men annoyed her more than anything.
"You have to win me, first."
That was her line in the sand. She had begun to pack up, a smirk firmly on her lips. Your move. She glanced back as she reached the door of the library to find his dark eyes watching her, just like they had during that first match. When his mouth tugged up slightly at the corners she knew this was going to be fun.
"Like I said, as subtle as a rhino." Her barked laughter had startled a passing secretary.
Win me she'd said. Foolish to challenge a genius. And the thing that now hurt the worst was that he had.
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A/N: With all the crappy, academic writing I'm doing in RL, I thought I'd actually post this. This isn't the end, I promise! But more chapters will come after the end of classes, because I have nothing but papers means no finals this year. Woot :D In the vaguest of senses, this is inspired by Jane Austen's Persuasion, so if you're familiar with that story you've got a general sense of what I'm aiming for.
(Edit 10/18/11: Just changed a few em dashes that were bugging me. Still working on the next chapters.)