Collide:
Shikamaru did not rush. If he was late, it was deliberate. He never overslept unless whatever was required of him that day was a trifle and wouldn't have affected the overall outcome of the week one way or another. He wondered again why he was rushing now.
It wasn't the first time he had self-inflicted the early morning upon himself, but it was the first time he thought about his actions in this situation, which, in turn, shocked him, because he ALWAYS thought about his actions, and everyone else's in most situations.
This circular ruminating, this introspection he was just beginning to notice, was the exact thing that kept him from delving any further into his psyche, for, at that moment, he slammed into a very sturdy, but rather pliable wall, toppling said "wall" down and collapsing directly on top of the offender.
Any deep conversations he was about to have with himself left immediately upon seeing the object of his..objective. In a cliché moment she snarled up at him, narrowing her teal eyes, recognition of her offender rendering her face soft and pliant.
Shikamaru stared down at Temari, barely supporting himself on his arms, while she made no move to push him up.
"You seem to have been in a rush. Anything important I should know about?"
"And you seem to wake up and be off earlier and earlier each time you visit. I have a job to do you know."
"Part of your job is taking me to breakfast on my last day here?"
"Not exactly, but, I.." Shikamaru trailed off, that little blip of something at the back of his mind. He became aware of his surroundings then, thankful that it was early enough that the streets were deserted. She shifted beneath him and his awareness returned to her. He pushed up on his arms, rolling back onto his heels and extended his arm to his prone colleague. "…I still want to treat you to breakfast…"
She reached out, grasped his wrist, and allowed him to pull her forward. There, in the street, dust on her back, sitting on their haunches, the morning light making her face glow more than usual, Shikamaru realized her humanity. Realized it was more than the job that drove him to be up early, more than duty that brought him back to serve her every time she was around. It was way too early for this train of thought so he reined it back in.
"I want sweet. And coffee. Beautiful, lovely, coffee..Oh, but you don't have much of that around here do you?"
Temari looked a somewhat disgusted with the remembrance that Konoha's coffee was not much compared to Suna's offerings. Shikamaru knew well, he had been studying up on Suna for some time now. Konoha went about making coffee much in the same way they went about making tea, something that was far more familiar to their local culture. Coffee in Konoha was weak, watery, a tad on the bitter side without the earthy notes of flavor that Suna coffee possessed. He'd been to Suna and had the pleasure of being introduced to Sunan coffee by Temari.
It had been a sudden trip, half way through the joint Chunin exams. Something had gone very wrong in the desert and Shikamaru had been dispatched on a team with Kakashi as the captain. For three days he'd worried, he shouldn't have, but he'd worried just the same, spending the time formulating a plan based on the limited information they had been sent. When they had arrived at the outpost, there were Temari and Kankuro, standing upon a pile of enemies, a little worse for wear, but satisfied smirks upon their faces regardless. The mission turned out to be a way to smoke out the rest of the dissenters in Suna and had worked swimmingly as far as Shikamaru could tell. He hadn't been surprised to find that Temari had developed the plan after her realization that Gaara was not going to concede to any of their requests for his safety.
"What a drag." Shikamaru rubbed his hand on the back of his neck, attempting to seem put out, but more than happy to see Temari safe.
"Should I add whiney to your list of nicknames, cry-baby?"
Shikamaru shrugged. He was a little too tired to care at the moment. "Want us to help clean this up?" he asked Temari.
Kankuro looked at Temari who answered, "Not really, Suna will take care of their people, even if they are problem people. I'll show you to your quarters, Sleepy Kitty."
"Fine by me." Shikamaru pouted, Cry-baby was one thing but why would she call him kitty at all? One would think Kankuro would have been given that moniker long ago.
Temari led the team through the gates of Suna and around the winding streets. The beauty of a moonlit Suna wasn't standard, but it was breathtaking, barren but grand. The teammates broke off one by one as they ran into the other Konoha Jounins that they knew. Shikamaru knew he wouldn't be seeing Choji or Ino, conflict of interests and all that. He knew they survived the second half of the exams, but didn't know what the final call would be on their status upgrades.
"Here you go" Temari had led him to an unassuming building that looked more like a house than a barracks.
"You can stay in the guest room, though why we call it that I don't know, if we have guests of honor, they stay at the nice inns in town, similar to how you all treat us in Konoha."
Shikamaru realized she had brought him to her house. The house she shared with her brothers. It wasn't small by any means, but it wasn't grandiose either. It piqued Shikamaru's interest, and that was not an easy thing to do. He could tell it was built to keep sand and the heat out, stucco walls, tiled floor, exposed beams and all that. "Show me the way and I'll settle in." He saw a shogi table in the living area, it looked well used. She led him up the stairs to the second floor. "On the right the first door is Kankuro's room, don't go in there mostly because his puppets are a tad creepy and everywhere. The second door at the end is the bathroom, it's large, the tub is fantastic, but there's a shower too if you'd rather.." Shikamaru began heading toward the bathroom but Temari stopped him with a hand to his arm. "..I'd rather show you your room first, get your pack off your back and all that." Shikamaru shrugged, she seemed persistent. "On the left, the first door is my room. I have brothers so it's not an odd thing if you come into it." Shikamaru wondered how she seemed to know his thoughts about perhaps needing to bother her during his stay. "The room on the end here is the guest room, come on" She pulled on his arm and he allowed himself to be led, not sure if it was because he was tired, or if he liked her hand there.
It was a nice room, spacious, not a lot of places for enemies to hide. The bed looked perfect. Shikamaru walked over to it, and, in an odd fit of silliness, he fell face first into the mattress and laid there, stiff like a board. "mamfalkmv amamsd" Temari seemed to interpret Shikamaru's mumblings and sat on the bed beside him. Then she lay on her back and asked, "So, Sleepy-Kitty, what do you think?" Shikamaru rolled over onto his side and looked at her. "It's fine, but why do you keep calling me sleepy-kitty? It doesn't make sense." Temari laughed, sat up, and shoved his duffle bag at him. "Just go freshen up, okay."
"Whatever. Anything I need to know about the bathroom before I go?"
"Watch out for scorpions and tarantulas. It's the desert, our bugs are disgusting."
No surprise showed on Shikamaru's face, but his eye twitched at the smile Temari gave. Hoisting the bag on his shoulders he made his way back down the hall toward the bathroom. "Thanks, Tem….ari." He'd almost given her a nick name. Laziness aside, he had just wanted to call her Tem….hmmm.
The mirror in the bathroom presented an unexpected sight, and the source of Sleepy-Kitty. Somehow, during the high speed run into Suna Shikamaru's hair had become somewhat undone and all over the place leaving some disturbing kitty ear shaped clumps of hair. To top it off, dirt had been smeared on his face in a pattern resembling whiskers and a cute kitty nose. And he did look sleepy. He hoped remedying the cause would obliterate the name, but he highly doubted it. It seemed Temari liked to name things (him) and would probably just add it to her collection.
A hot, steamy shower hit the spot and Shikamaru could feel his muscles unclench and relax under the spray of water. The clumps of hair and smudges of dirt were rubbed and scrubbed until his skin felt new again. After it all, the three day sprint caught up with Shikamaru. He dried his hair, not bothering to put it up, pulled on his shorts, and walked back down his hall to the guest room.
Temari was still there, sitting on the edge of his bed. "No more sleepy-kitty… Though it seems the sleepy part is still there. I checked the bed for scorpions, you're good." Shikamaru walked to the bed and planted face down on it again. "mhjahf mamadh". "Come again?" Temari asked.
Tilting his head, Shikamaru replied, "Thanks Tem." That felt right, like she should have been called Tem all the time. She cocked her head and smiled at him. There was nothing behind that smile, it just was.
"'night Cry-baby." She patted his butt as she got up to leave. "See you in the a.m." and out the door she went.
Shikamaru was too tired to think about any of what transpired and the bed was far too comfortable. Sleep claimed him before his thoughts did, and he stayed in blessed ignorance.
The morning came bright and sudden, Temari yelling at him to get up. "If you want breakfast, you need to be up." She jammed a toe into his hip. Shikamaru rolled over and squinted, "I don't care, I want to sleep, breakfast is troub…." His stomach growled very loudly. As a ninja and a teenager, he seemed to burn through food faster than Choji sometimes. "I have fry bread and coffee, come up" Temari nudged him again.
"Any protein? Bread is not enough to get me out of bed and coffee is less than desirable." Shikamaru yawned and rolled back into the sheets. A hand started to tug at the sheets and pull him out of bed at the same time.
"You don't have any work today, you don't have to head back to Konoha for a week, and I have coffee that will change your mind. Suna coffee. Coffee the way it's supposed to be. Now, get up and come down for breakfast, my brothers are here too and Kankuro has made his famous thick sliced bacon to go with the bread." She continued to pull Shikamaru out of the bed.
"Quit it Tem. I'm getting up. Troublesome woman." He tried to scowl at her but she smiled a huge smile and pulled him to standing. She looked him up and down, "Nice" she added. "Here's a robe, let's go". Shikamaru allowed himself to be robed by Temari, allowed himself to be dragged to the dining room, allowed himself to be sat in a chair and served a huge breakfast, all the while wondering why he was allowing this and wondering more why this didn't bother him in the least.
"Mornin'" Kankuro, sans makeup and black clothes, nodded at Shikamaru. Gaara simply nodded. "Don't mind them, they aren't morning people. Though Gaara doesn't actually sleep so…"
Eggs, fry bread, beans, roasted chilies, Kankuro's famous bacon, and a pot of thick, black liquid were laid out on the table. His stomach won out over his laziness. His mother's training and nagging also raised its head and he asked before he dished, "Can I dish up a plate." Kankuro, Temari, and Gaara, to a lesser extent, all stared at him. "Get a load of Mr. Manners, where'd you find this one Sis?
"Oh as if, you know where we got him, and it's rather fine to be asked before he reaches out and puts his hands all over the food unlike some brother I know.."
The sibling banter continued while Shikamaru dished up his plate. Gaara watched between his brother and sister and smiled a small smile. The memory of Gaara killing those ninja at the chunin exams flashed across Shikamaru's mind. He shuddered and wiped it away.
Bacon, eggs, bread, and even chilies made their way onto Shikamaru's plate. While he was pouring himself a glass of water, Temari grabbed the mug at his place setting and poured the thick, fragrant liquid into it. "I suppose this is the 'miracle' Sunan coffee you were telling me about?" He took the cup from her. "I didn't say miracle, I said 'coffee the way it should be'."
Skeptical, Shikamaru inhaled the steam from the mug. It was strong, heady, fragrant with spices they often forwent in Konoha. Temari grabbed his arm and lowered the mug to the table. "Mustn't forget the sugar" she winked while stirring two sugar cubes into the coffee.
Honestly, it looked great. The color was dark, like his eyes, there was a cream colored foam around the edges of the mug. A moment of transcendence occurred upon drinking the spiced coffee. Six eyes stared expectantly at him when he glanced over the rim of his mug. A blush crept up his face. "It's good."
"Just good? I was waiting for some big revelation? It's coffee like coffee's supposed to be."
"Fine" Shikamaru felt comfortable, here in this setting, with these people who were enemies just a few years ago. The silliness rose up again. "I am riding upon a cloud of wisdom. My life has heretofore been changed upon the sweet assault of this fragrant liquid upon my lips." He winked at Temari. She blushed.
It had been a prophecy Shikamaru had not realized he made. His life had been changed by that morning with that coffee. For here, in the early morning, light shining on Temari's face, he invited her to his house. "I have Sunan coffee at my house, and we can pick up donuts on the way. Sweet plus coffee, and I get to have breakfast with you."
"You have Sunan coffee? That's fantastic! Where do you get the spices and fresh beans?"
"You know that brother of yours? Kankuro has, surprisingly, been very helpful. I found myself missing Sunan coffee whenever I left Suna and I found myself thinking about it periodically. It progressed until I was missing it every day. So, I wrote him awhile back asking about it, he sent me coffee, spices, and a grinder. I figured out a brewing mechanism and have been enjoying it here in Konoha for about 3 weeks. Now, are you joining me?"
"You missed our coffee that much? I mean, I miss it that much, but… Okay, I'll have breakfast at your place." Temari smiled at him as Shikamaru stood.
"Excellent", He reached out his hand and lifted her to her feet. He didn't let go and neither did she, so they walked, hand in hand, to get donuts and drink coffee.