Oh wow! Yes, Believe it! This is a Tsunade and Shikamaru pairing, and before you p'ss off hear me out for just a moment ;)
I am not in any way shape or form implying that I think these two will ever be cannon, or indeed that they 'should' be cannon, (I am not that deluded).
But for whatever reason,I starting thinking about the two as a 'pair' one day, and upon searching the archives and finding nothing for them (so if anyone knows anything dear god hook me up) I basically decided that everything should be given at least one chance and felt like writing.
So, here goes nothing :D
(Some manga spoilers) (yes, it has actual references to cannon)
There were times Tsunade wished Naruto really would get on with things and become a shinobi great enough to be Hokage, because it'd sure lighten her workload and she didn't get half sick of the job sometimes.
This was one of those days, when she felt a lot more like dragging herself down to the nearest casino and attempting the mental equivalent of running repeatedly into a wall rather than sit behind a desk and run the Hidden Village of the Leaf. Luckily she wasn't completely alone in doing it (meaning she had people who would stop her at the gates), because without any help she would've probably gone insane years ago.
"Coffee, Tsunade-sama," a dry tone informed her, and the routine clink of a cup on the table warded off treacherous thoughts of skiving out of work. However on this occasion not everything was perfectly in order, because this voice was not the one it was supposed to be.
"No Shizune today?" She inquired without looking up, having been half-heartedly attempting to file a stack of month-old mission reports for the past half-hour.
"She's teaching," was the reply offered as the creak of a chair let her know her he'd sat down as well; and as such was probably intending to stay until his point was made, whatever it was this time.
In spite of initially resenting the criticism and defiance of a fifteen-year old upstart Chuunin who was bone bastard idle one minute (in fact, most minutes) and biting at the bit the next, Tsunade had almost come to rely on the judgement and advice of Nara Shikamaru. With that irritatingly smart mind of his he could spot holes in strategy that no one else could, her plans included, and on more than one occasion his wry little comments had saved the Village's time, money and people. Something to be grateful for even if his attitude wasn't.
Then again, considering he was normally of the former of those characteristics than the latter, he could usually be found no more than a couple of miles beyond the Village boundaries, if in fact he'd even left Konoha at all. This meant he was frequently around to pass judgement on things, and loathed as she was to admit it, it was useful having such a brilliant mind around so much of the time.
Because it was somewhat habitual for Konoha superstars to spend minimal amounts of time actually in Konoha, as many of their 'best' demonstrated both in the past and present, a slow-moving smart-mouth was actually considered quite a resource in the eyes of the Village.
"Yes, Shikamaru?" she sighed as she dragged the cup in front of her, not bothering to taste it yet because she knew it would probably be made exactly how she wanted it anyway, "what have you got to say for yourself this time?"
She heard him letting go of a breath, but he didn't manage to follow it up with any words for quite a while, creating a pause that made her curious enough to spare a look his way.
Many people expected Shikamaru to exactly resemble his father when he became an adult, but still somewhere in his twenties (she couldn't remember exactly where) he still had that look that was so distinctly him it was hard to attribute it entirely to any one member of the Nara clan.
And because she herself still appeared exactly the same (still reluctant to let herself age as the loan sharks never did lay off), it was always a slightly odd experience to observe how much a person's face could change in just under a decade when she turned her mind to it.
"Shikamaru?" she questioned again, finding the look he was regarding her with somewhat annoying and discomforting.
"Do you mind if I smoke?" he suddenly asked, drawing a pack out of a pocket and flicking a cigarette out with a self-satisfied air.
"Always," she retorted sharply, "it is a filthy habit, you former Sensei aside, and it's been more than long enough for you to…" He cut her off with an amused chuckle as he placed the single cigarette behind his ear and returned the pack to his pocket.
"I've been hooked for years, Tsunade-sama," he remarked honestly, "and it is far too troublesome to quit now." She made a slight movement to roll her eyes as he settled himself back in the chair, and was quickly reminded that he was not in fact here to keep her company and did indeed have something to say before he got the hell out of her office.
Just as she opened her mouth to reassert the question he cut her off again, "it's funny, really, how ironic some situations in life end up," he started in an unhurried drawl; obviously not intending to trip over his words (not that he usually did) and so rather likely to be stubbornly resistant to being ushered along.
"What do you mean?" However that didn't mean she couldn't try drag it out of him quickly: it was always worth a try.
"Temari from the Sand Village finally confessed to me last week," he went on, rather to Tsunade's confusion: why Nara Shikamaru should choose to suddenly narrate the detail of his love life to the Hokage was very much beyond any stretch of logic she could make.
However, before she had a chance to point this out and shoo him away with some lukewarm congratulations and chatter about strengthening the bond between villages he was off again, "I had to apologize to her."
She actually looked up at this addition: although she didn't really give a damn about the personal lives of her subordinates, even she was aware that there was a bond between the man opposite her and the Kazkage's sister that seemed to extend past companionship... had seemed, apparently. Because an apology would imply they weren't to be hearing the sound of wedding bells in the near future.
Shikamaru had won this round, as she was ever so slightly interested. As such, she managed to convey the next obvious question (why) with no more than a quick look bolted up from her work, and he didn't need anything more than that.
"It isn't right to lead a woman on," he began the explanation as slowly as he ended the statement inviting it, "and if I didn't love her back then it really was the only decent option."
A slight feeling of discomfort talking about this sort of thing slowly began to creep up on the Hokage – as a woman she felt she should defend her sex and the torment they suffer at the hands of his kind, but then as a diplomat she ought stress the importance of inter-village relations... and as a sceptic she was probably obliged to throw ridicule on idealistic notions like love and 'doing the decent thing by someone' (of which dying was not amongst, as she could add from personal experience).
But as Tsunade, she looked back at her mission reports and took a sip of her coffee while coolly remarking, "Is that so?"
Shikamaru grunted somewhat affirmatively, and leant back further in the chair with one of his 'troublesome' sighs, unfortunately he didn't appear to be done yet. But yet again he didn't speak, and simply waited for his presence to bug her enough to engage him.
"And?" she pried tersely, shuffling past a week or two of tedious C-class missions onto something a little more enlightening.
"And being a woman, and Temari, she obviously wanted to know why I wasn't in love with her," he responded flatly, "so I had to tell her it's because I am in love with someone else." This comment once again stole a fraction of the Hokage's attention away, even if it was just wondering whether he really was in love with someone else or that was simply a lie to preserve the Sand girl's feelings… although, if it was the former - who?
"Fascinating," she said wryly, briefly wishing that he had a little more Naruto Uzumaki in him and would get to his damn point just a bit quicker, "then who would she or he be?" If she'd been looking she would've noticed one of Shikamaru's thin eyebrows creasing up his forehead at her including 'he' in the question, but he still kept his temperament cool as always in answering her.
"She is more local than the wind country." He said as Tsunade rolled her eyes and accidentally assigned an A-class mission to a group of rookie Genin.
'More local than the Hidden Village of the Sand' could mean any female in Kohona and/or the surrounding areas, and he was quite obviously wasting her time.
Grumbling under her breath, she slapped down her papers on the desk and finally snapped a sharp, "Shikamaru, I am getting sick of this…" until he suddenly spoke over her.
"She is more local to this office."
For the first time in a while she was caught almost completely short by him; while slowly rising to the top of her mind was the disconcerting realization of what he just might have implied. Snapping her eyes straight up she found herself face to face with an unusually intense look, something far from the lazy way he gazed out of windows and up at the sky, and all of a sudden her throat started going dry.
"You can't…" she said in disbelief, but the stony look on Shikamaru's face didn't flicker for even a second as it dropped on her like a weight, he really was being deadly serious.
She quickly attempted to twist those words of his to mean something different, because surely... there was no chance he could really, "Me?" the word slipped carelessly out of her mouth and the moment she'd said it the horrible speculation suddenly seemed even more concrete.
"You, Tsunade-sama." He replied calmly, his expression lapsing back into something entirely more casual, as if he were commenting on something trivial like the weather.
In contrast her mind began whirling into motion, scoring through each and every memorable or even unmemorable encounter/conversation she'd had with Shikamaru Nara, however, despite at least two full (and awkward) minutes she couldn't recall a single thing that could've foreshadowed something like this.
So not long after the initial shock of having someone a third of Tsunade's age coolly announcing that he was in love with her wore down, she realized that she had suddenly been landed with a rather difficult situation; and one that looked likely to grow unless she dealt with it as soon as humanely possible.
And that was with a certain amount of tact… because disgustingly odd as it sounded she'd have to try not to 'break his heart', as ill-befitting a phrase as it was for him.
"Are you… quite sure?" she decided to begin with an innocent-sounding question, said like she might simply be asking if he was sure he wanted fishcakes instead of squid and not that unmentionable reality.
"I am certain, Tsunade-sama," he replied without a hitch, and she became sharply aware that somewhere in the years he'd been dropping in and out of her office he'd started calling her by her name and not her title, and obviously being a fool she hadn't picked him up on it, "I am not a kid, and I know myself well enough."
Damn, she thought to herself briefly, down at the first hurdle.
The latest comment also brought to the forefront that really he wasn't a child anymore, nor a teenager or even a 'youth' (or youthful for that matter). He was an occasionally ill-tempered man in his mid-twenties who was somewhat fond of playing Shogi and Go and staring up at the clouds.
And if it had to be remarked upon he wasn't completely unattractive either. Not that that meant she thought anything of him. She could simply understand if or why people might've seen him that way if they happened to be looking. Not that she did.
...This whole incident was becoming distinctly troublesome in her opinion.
"Well…you see," she picked up her argument again and quickly brushed it off; "I am much too old for you." That one she hoped would set things straight, seeing as she was about two generations above him: old enough to be his grandmother for Kami's sake
In response to this Shikamaru merely swept his eyes up and down the chakra-managed body of the woman sat opposite to him and smugly said, "You look fine to me."
Which of course was miles away from the point she'd been trying to make, so rather infuriating… and also obnoxious.
"It's only skin deep," she replied patronisingly, "I could show you my real age and…"
"And it would make no difference," he interrupted dryly, "because it doesn't bother me." She resisted the urge to snap back at him of course it would bother him because things like that always bother people in one way or another, but she hesitated at his annoyingly honest expression and he was the one to get the next word in.
"I also do know what your 'real' appearance is by the way, and you aren't comfortable with people seeing it you should probably get those pictures off of Konohamaru," he remarked uninterestedly, and the Hokage cursed herself for ever letting Naruto's prodigy get out of that prank alive (he still needed to grow up).
Though she was quickly reminded herself that the person opposite her was still causing problems worse than Uzumaki Naruto or any of his followers, and he seemed to be sticking to his guns in an unusual show of resilience.
"Shikamaru, I'm turning sixty in a few years," she forced herself to lie much less than she usually did, "and the village is full of girls your own…"
"Exactly my point," he interrupted, "girls. Tsunade-sama, I have had it up to here with girls." And he sounded so genuinely jaded that for a second she almost had pity for him.
After all, it was painfully easy to imagine most aspects of modern 'dating' (as the Village had progressed since betrothals) seeming absolutely appalling to the unenthusiastic and troubled Shikamaru.
"I… I am not the answer," she stuttered slightly, and unfortunately as he had recently decided he was going to have one of his fits of 'determined' he was yammering away into the free space in no time.
"It would appear that you are, Tsunade-sama," He put in quickly, and she felt small pang of something in between annoyance and flattery; half-starting to hear him out as when he went on to explain exactly why he'd decided that he wanted her of all people.
"First of all being older just means you are more mature than the 'girls my age'," he started assuredly, "so you have already had your fill of identity, weight, hair, mid-life and any other crises you care to chose from. In addition you are also the smartest, strongest and most beautiful woman in the fire country," a surge of chakra ensured that Tsunade was not blushing, but it had been many years since she'd been complimented so... sweetly.
She'd heard it all before, and she sure as hell wasn't a stranger to being confessed to, but he being him sort of made it sound like it was fact and not just nice words, especially when she was getting on in years.
"You also don't let your job dominate your life like almost every other ninja in this village or the next, and have lived and travelled long enough to be able to talk about things apart from work," Shikamaru added as Tsunade recalled a number of assorted conversations about absolutely nothing, or gambling or loan collectors, or even how you go about impersonating a circus performer for four months to avoid the former, and she began to wonder just how long he'd been thinking this way.
"You don't play a bad game of shogi," he smirked at the tiny reaction he saw in her face, and pushed the bill a bit further by saying, "and you aren't a bad loser either." The tiny flicker broke briefly into a scowl, as he forced the Hokage to remember the one time he'd persuaded the her to play a game with him: she'd lost of course, but not as badly as most. Although she had just shrugged and remarked that she never won anything anyway, walking away appearing none the better or worse for it, actually she furious that the'lazy brat' had got the better of her.
"I've been calling out your screw-ups for years," he continued, "and you still look surprised and a little bit pissed off every time I do it."
"That's probably enough now, Shikamaru," She finally intervened, as nice as it was being complimented she had a feeling that any continuation would be more annoying than flattering. However in a sudden rush he carried on to finish the speech.
"See what I am fed up of is damn troublesome girls who say one thing and mean another, Tsunade-sama: who nag me to take them out to dinner and don't eat anything, who are constantly trying to better me just because they are paranoid they aren't, and who think that checking someone out and cheating are exactly the same thing," he looked right at her again with that same straightforward, honest expression and for just a second felt another pinch of sympathy for him.
"You are very obviously better than me in most ways, but you don't feel a need to prove it all the time," he lamented more than he serenaded (though in a novel way it suited him), "and if you recall me mentioning irony you are the only woman I've known, bar my mother, who I haven't been gossiped about furiously with, so does it make for great irony."
After considering 'good irony' the worst reason she'd ever been given for being loved by someone, Tsunade wondered if there wouldn't be some gossip about them by the morning. After all the Hokage's office was hardly deserted and the doors weren't exactly thick either. Anyone walking by could hear any of the conversation and draw all the wrong (even if they were accurate) conclusions.
"Look," she sighed, "Shikamaru, I…" she hadn't really wanted to resort to this, but he was leaving her no option really.
"Also don't think that telling me you don't feel the same way back is going to work," he said over her, "because I am fully aware of that, and am telling you this while aknowledging it completely," she blinked slowly and brought a hand up to rub heavily across her forehead, when had Shikamaru Nara become so troublesome?
"Be realistic," she said bitterly, while wondering how long this would make things awkward, "things would never work, even if…" she trailed off upon spotting the first few words of a scroll with Shizune's handwriting on it she hadn't noticed before, half-tucked under some papers she'd been shuffling about earlier that morning. Quickly shoving them aside and tilitng her head to finish the missage she realized that when Shikamaru had said she was 'teaching', what he meant was 'leading a Jounin-trainee mission to the high-conflict areas of the Lightning country'… a week long mission.
It was then that some rather ominous other mission details she'd read somewhere during the morning came back to haunt her, things mentioning 'leisure and finance supervision to a high-ranking Kunoichi', 'facilitating and highlighting points of interest subject to approval' and 'hot beverage concoction' all started sounding just a little bit fishy, and this was especially because a certain clan's name had appeared on the requesting list as well.
"Shikamaru," she asked quickly, "do you have any missions at the…"
"Right now I'm a little drained from my last A-class to the Wind country," he answered in a relaxed tone, "so I thought I'd take on a few easy, localised ones to kick back for a while and earn some easy money," that much was typical Shikamaru, but Tsunade would bet anything that wasn't the end of it.
And for once she managed to pick the right end of the bet, in spite of there being no one around to make it with, "For example," he continued, "this week I'm standing in for the Hokage's assistant while she's on a teaching trip, I help her out all the time, you see, so I thought I might as well get paid for it as well while I'm convincing her to fall in love with me." Tsunade swallowed a breath, nearly choked on it and felt completely played for the first time since Jirayia died.
"How... long have you been planning this?" she inquired numbly, a worrying feeling premeditating his answer.
"From the beginning." He replied in that smug and dryly triumphant way of his, and although she vaguely recognized the look that he wore, it took her a few moments for her to make the proper connection.
It was that smirk of unmistakable victory.
"You... think you've already won, don't you,?" she said hollowly, and at last Shikamaru Nara stretched his arms out and stood up from his seat, clicking his neck a few times for good measure as he took a few placid steps towards the door.
"Yes, Tsunade," he answered cheerily, "I do."
As Shikamaru Nara left the Hokage's office to finalise his mission and pick up the 'Tsunade survival kit' from Haruno Sakura (her words), the stunned woman behind the desk let all pretences of work slip and allowed her head to fall slowly into her arms.
Ta-da! Cracky, yes, but what else do you do when the craving hits:P
Reviews would be much apreciated, and if the reaction is less than three buckets of barf I might even attempt another section (i.e. events from the actual week).
I'm just broadening your horizions... right?