Prompt 168: Weak: They'd stop if they could. But they can't. Kabuto/Shizune.
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Merry belated Christmas.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
The light falls weak across the room; the crowds jostle back and forth, shouting and laughing, drinking and falling over drunk.
She sighs and flexes small fingers on slender hands, staring down at her callused hands as she sits at the table, unnoticed in drab, dull brown. She smiles weakly as others party around her, and bows her head. Shizune briefly wonders if she is sitting in another world from all those around her, existing close enough for her to see them, but too far away to interact.
"Drink?" She starts and glances upward, the tip of her nose nearly colliding with a clear glass, a dark, thick liquid contained, almost seeming to glow like a dark fire. Then she looks up at the bearer of the glass, because that voice is familiar.
"What are you doing?" she hisses quietly as Kabuto sits down in the chair next to hers at the small table. "I expected to be alone tonight."
"Well, you're not," Kabuto smiles glibly from under his cloak hood. "Make the most of it."
Shizune sighs and looks away, covering her mouth with her hand. She can't say she wasn't at least partially expecting this. "How did you—"
"You're not that hard for me to track." Shizune glances back out of one annoyed brown eye and sees him smirking in such a way that irritates her in peace and slightly intimidates her in war.
Her eyes rest on the glass sitting in front of her, identical to the one Kabuto raises to his lips. "I paid good money for that," Kabuto comments unnecessarily (though there is a necessity, at least to him; Kabuto, for all his seemingly unnecessary small talk and cool taunts, never says anything without purpose). "And considering my age, it wasn't easy to get my hands on it."
"We have an agreement. No alcohol."
"It's New Year's Eve, Shizune. Lighten up."
Shizune's eyes narrow. "I have work to do tomorrow. I can't be getting drunk."
Kabuto laughs quietly. "I've got something that can take the burn right out of your system."
"Yeah?"
"Certainly." Kabuto leans back in his chair and stares straight at her, his eyes completely opaque. Shizune can not restrain a slight flinch. "All you have to do is die."
Shizune's reaction is immediate. "I hate you," she mutters.
He shakes his head, the ever-present smile shifting to become small and knowing. "No, you don't."
Shizune sighs, and raises the palm of her hand to her forehead, before throwing caution to the winds and taking a long draught out of the narrow glass. The liquid scorches her throat going down.
The world moves around them, and they do nothing.
The year is ending, and many are making their New Year's resolutions. Others are reflecting on the past events, of mistakes made, duties upheld and vows broken.
"Breaking vows," Kabuto murmurs between two short sips of whatever it is he found at the bar, "is something I'm very good at."
Shizune shoots a sharp glance at him, wincing when someone runs into her chair and she's pushed up against the table hard. She knows what he's talking about.
"What time is it?" Shizune asks suddenly.
Kabuto frowns and peers up the wall, adjusting his glasses to see the clock more clearly. "About 11:45," he mutters.
"Do you have any resolutions to make?"
He shakes his head. "No."
Shizune bites her lip, taking another sip out of the glass. "Then answer me a question."
Kabuto spreads his hands. He seems relatively calm, or at least less unhinged than usual; Shizune was counting on that. "Anything."
Her brown eyes grow dark as she lowers her head, but her eyes never leave him. "Why?" A deceptively mild tone carries tense undertones; tenseness makes common appearances with them.
Kabuto apparently doesn't understand. He leans back in his chair, quiet and seemingly unbothered. "Do I need a reason to go find you?"
Shizune laughs quietly, lowering her head and pinching the skin between her eyes. "You've done a lot more than just "go find me" before, don't you think?" Her laugh turns sharp and bitter, and she is satisfied to see more than a hint of color rise in her companion's face.
Kabuto seems to be having a hard time formulating a retort to that; in fact, he's having a hard time saying anything at all. He's just staring, he sounds like he's choking, and this is the most off-guard Shizune has ever seen him. Not to mention the most stunned.
Shizune laughs a little louder. "You know, Kabuto, if you keep pulling such a stunned look on your face, I might actually believe your 'innocent' act one of these days."
Kabuto looks up at her, a slightly incredulous and decidedly unappreciative look in his eyes as he readjusts his glasses again. It's a bit of a defense mechanism with him.
Shizune lowers her voice, narrowing her eyes. "And you know full well what I meant by that," she says quietly.
Kabuto drains his glass and gives the television mounted on the wall, showing an image of the New Year's celebrations in Konohagakure, a vaguely hostile look, before shooting an equally suspicious glance at some of the less-than-sober patrons of the establishment. "My," he whispers, softly, vindictively, "don't they seem cheerful?" He curls his lip at the sight of some of the men and women who are screaming. "I've half a mind to give them something real to scream about—and they wouldn't be laughing then, would they?"
In the interest of keeping the peace and keeping Kabuto from inciting a riot (or trying to, anyway), Shizune glowers and snaps her fingers in front of his face. "Kabuto," she hisses. "Are you even listening?" The split personality that Shizune strongly suspects he has is manifesting itself again. Slipping from far left to far right on the emotional spectrum, yet somehow inexplicably managing to keep his temper under check and everyone else guessing, because somehow whenever Kabuto is on the far left, everyone else seems to think he's on the far right. It's something that both fascinates Shizune and quite frankly scares the hell out of her, always.
Because madness isn't something she likes exposing herself to, even when she knows it's being done deliberately. But somehow…
Kabuto waits a few more moments before answering, clearly trying to give himself time to form a coherent response. He seems almost reluctant somehow, like a card player who somehow knows that he's about to give away valuable information, information that could cost him the game.
Then he begins to smile, gently, like someone remembering a good memory and not a bad, and Shizune knows that he isn't faking, because no one, not even Kabuto, can feign the look in his eyes that's accompanying the smile (This is what Shizune, and Shizune alone, sees that no one else sees; the ever-widening cracks in the cool, impersonal, vindictive mask that proves that Kabuto is human after all, with a beating heart and blood that runs both hot and cold).
"Shizune?" He props his chin on his fist, and peers at her out of one black eye shaded by the coal gray cloak hood. "Have you ever heard of the moth, and the flame?"
She nods, understanding. The moth, heeds the call of fire no matter the danger, even knowing that it may well—and often does—cost them their life. It is reckless, life-endangering, but the insect will always be drawn by the siren song of the flame.
"It is foolish, heedless," he murmurs, to himself, clearly unaware that he's been speaking out loud and that Shizune can hear him, and Kabuto keeps smiling musingly, staring off into space. "But somehow… Something just keeps pulling me back. The die's been cast, and all I've got any will left to do is just ride this one out, and hope I don't get fried in the process."
As usual, Shizune both hasn't got a clue what he's talking about, and understands completely. The attraction, the draw to danger that is sweet and pale, something shameful and wonderful. It is something she contemplates and turns over in her mind in cold and empty places, in the dark depths of winter and the torrid heat of summer and night, in long and hollow nights and short and fleeting nights, whenever she is alone, whether truly or not.
"Ah," he sighs softly. So he did know she was listening after all. "I see… You understand, don't you?" As Shizune turns to look away, trying to pay attention to what is going on on the television, a hand catches her cheek.
Shinobi, by nature, have deft hands. But those hands are trained to be adroit in wielding weapons of war, not offering comfort to those who are close. He's trying, though.
Shizune feels her skin burn where he touches it. "When a truth that hardly anyone else knows falls into your hands all of a sudden—" He's smiling, tipping his head so Shizune can see his eyes, and he's giving her that strangely gentle, strange because Shizune's so used to seeing a look of murder and total bloodlust on Kabuto's face, not this (it's strange, bizarre, even frightening, but Shizune knows that he's as close to being human now as he ever will be, and she'll take what she can get) "—, please. Don't look away."
He lowers his hand from her face, and reaches for her hand. "Were you… Were you being serious about needing to work tomorrow?"
Shizune shakes her head, a slow, sheepish smile curling over her thin mouth. "No. You know I don't normally like alcohol."
"I can probably get a hotel room." It is as much a question as a statement.
She nods and smiles, somehow feeling bitter. "I'd…like that."
They turn their attention to the show going on on the television.
"Do you ever think we're just being weak?" Shizune doesn't like how her voice sounds when she asks that.
Kabuto's hand tenses over hers; his answer, meant to give comfort, gives her no comfort at all. "I try not to think about that."
Since this isn't really written in the "New Years spirit", I'm going to go ahead and publish it now. I've got another New Years oneshot in the works; it's more in the spirit of the New Year, or at least it should be.