A/N: I love tumblr but I know it can be a bother to keep track of fic you like. Also, I am convinced that fandom needs more femslash (which fandom? all the fandoms). So I'm crossposting.
Like in my kakasaku oneshot collection we were screaming colour (only a possibility), I'll be tagging chapters individually, for ease of browsing. Let me know if there's something I'm not tagging that you'd like tagged, and I'll do my best to deliver.
I do solemnly swear that I am, in fact, mouseymightymarvellous and not a dastardly impersonator.
32. I think you are beautiful and I would like to kiss you. I can think up some clever lines, if you'd prefer. But I wanted to say that, first. (None of those lines seemed to be about you or me.)
rating: k+
genre: romance/angst
pairings: inosaku, background shikachō (if you want to wear your shipping goggles)
POV: Ino
warnings: pining, dumb blondes being dumb about emotions
other notes: Softer world prompt for anonymous, Ino's thoughts move sideways and make you think that she's dancing
word count: 1,325
Sakura has been staring at her like she's a particularly unusual viral strain out of the dampest, most isolated corner of Ame. Ino burns where that stare flays the skin from her bones.
If Sakura doesn't spit out whatever is bothering her soon, Ino is going to strong-arm Shikamaru into trussing Sakura up in shadows so that Ino can pull it out from behind green eyes. She can't take it anymore, the staring.
It's giving her hope for what will never be.
.
.
.
Ino has always loved being the centre of attention: bold and beautiful.
She smiles, bats her lashes, tosses her hair.
Chōji stands at her shoulder, arms crossed over a barrel chest.
Shikamaru lurks in corners: waiting, watchful.
(Some teams are front line brawlers. Some teams weave webs in the dark. Ask Ino what Team 10 does and she'll laugh, a full throated golden thing. (You won't even feel it when she slips behind your eyes.))
Ino has always loved being the centre of attention, especially when it could pull Sakura's attention away from boys who have never understood that Sakura is made of flower petals, of sediment, of teeth.
(Sakura is softness and unyielding strength and enough simmering rage to tear your heart out. Sakura is Ino's; Ino found her first.)
.
.
.
Ino doesn't remember meeting Shikamaru and Chōji. They just are.
Ino has blonde hair, has ten fingers, has blue eyes, has Shikamaru and Chōji at her sides.
Ino is Ino because she is also a piece of Ino-Shika-Chō.
Swathed in a delicate kimono with thorns and roses crawling up from the hem, Ino watches the group of civilian girls giggling behind fans, their interested gaze resting heavy on Shikamaru hiding his face in his hands at Chōji's attempts to win a stuffed animal from a carnival game. The girls are watching her back, too, their eyes darting between the amused twist of Ino's mouth and Shikamaru's blush and Chōji's glee when he pops all of the balloons.
"Who are they?" the boldest of the group sidles up to ask. She doesn't bother pointing out who she means, trusting that Ino knows.
Ino bares her teeth in a mockery of a sugar-sweet smile. "Mine."
The girl flinches back, and her group of friends are hasty in their retreat to another part of the festival.
Ino dismisses them, returns her attention softly back to Chōji with his arm swung around a reluctantly-pleased Shikamaru. A stuffed deer is clutched to his chest. Ino joins them.
.
.
.
"Hey, Ino," Sakura calls softly, swinging her feet through the window to join Ino on the ledge.
Ino doesn't startle; she knew Sakura was coming.
Konoha stretches out before them, lights shimmering between trees, safe and whole and theirs.
"Hey," Ino sighs, closing her eyes and letting her head drop back against the wall.
"I thought the boys would have to drag you home. I wasn't expecting to find you hiding out," Sakura prods.
Ino can feel the worry seeping off of her, and sighs again. She doesn't want to explain why she had to escape the party raging inside Kiba's apartment.
But Sakura was looking up at Naruto like he was the sun, Naruto curving down, softly, around her, a quiet smile on his lips that Ino has never seen anyone else pull out of him. And Ino knows exactly what those two deserve after all that they've done and everything that they've lost, she just couldn't bear to stick around and see them finally wise up and grasp what's standing right in front of them.
"You didn't have to come out here and check on me, Sakura. I'm a big girl. Go back to Naruto." Ino wonders if Sakura can hear the bitterness that she does her best to keep tucked under her tongue.
"I wasn't going to leave you out here alone, Ino," Sakura says, hurt.
And oh, fuck, Ino never wants to be the one to put that crack in Sakura's voice. Not ever. Not the same one that Sasuke carved into her with every dismissal. Not the same one that Naruto accidentally widened with every entreaty that Sakura stay back, stay safe.
"I don't mean—" Ino tries. "That's not— It was just too much, okay? I just needed a minute to breathe."
"Oh." Sakura's shoulders drop out of their protective hunch. "I— Do you want me to go?"
Ino grabs her wrist before she can move. "No." She stifles a flinch at how much she's given away with that desperate move. "No. Stay. Please."
Sakura nods, and settles against Ino's side. She doesn't pull her wrist away from where Ino's fingers are still wrapped around the fragile bones.
The pulse fluttering under her touch fills Ino with desperate, aimless wanting. Sakura will stay here, with her, thinking that Ino just needs a friend to share silence and grief with. And Ino will let her, because she is a selfish, selfish creature who holds onto the things that she thinks are hers too tight.
If Ino were a good friend, an honest friend, she'd let Sakura go back inside where it is warm and full of friends, where Sakura's own personal sun is shining.
But Ino is many things, including a spy and a killer. Holding onto Sakura with greedy fingers isn't the most terrible thing she's done. Just, perhaps, the most selfish.
The moonlight paints Sakura softly, and Ino loses herself in the beat of Sakura's pulse and the thrum of conversation echoing out to greet them and the warmth pressed against her side.
Of course, because Ino has stolen the moment, it doesn't last.
Sakura's gaze burns the side of her face. Ino wonders what she sees: the shape of bones, the pattern of muscle, the nigh-invisible scar left by a kunai Ino only just managed to dodge.
Sakura's gaze burns, and Ino finally take it anymore, she turns her head to glare at green eyes straight on, demand what does Sakura want from her because Ino is going to be nothing but ash if she doesn't stop.
Sakura's green eyes are so bright in the moonlight that Ino's scathing question catches in her throat.
She can't look away as Sakura worries her lip. She wants to reach up and stop Sakura from abusing herself so. She wants to reach up and take that lip for her own.
"Ino," Sakura whispers.
Ino can't open her mouth, because if she does, all of the selfish things she wants are going to spill out of her.
"Ino," Sakura continues, wrecked. "I— Fuck. This is going to end so badly if I've read this wrong." She shakes her head, straightens her spine. "Look, I'm— If you say no, we'll never talk about this again, okay? But just."
Sakura reaches up, and brushes her thumb along Ino's cheekbone.
Ino is helpless to do anything other than let her eyes flutter shut.
"Ino, you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, and I want very much to kiss you."
Ino's heart convulses or turns over or some other violent, lovely thing. Her eyes wrench open to take in the nervous hope spilled across Sakura's face.
Ino has heard so many useless pick up lines from girls and boys who thought that her smirk was an invitation, and some of them she's even brought home with her. But nothing has ever cracked her soul open like this stilted declaration from her best friend.
Ino pauses. "I thought you were in love with Naruto?"
Sakura startles, shocked. And then she starts to shake, mouth twitching and shoulders heaving and full-bodied laughter echoing out into the moonlight. "Naruto?" Sakura chuckles. "Wrong blonde best friend, Ino."
Ino is a selfish creature.
She hooks her fingers behind Sakura's jaw, and pulls her in.
Sakura taste like flower petals. She likes to press biting kisses down Ino's throat.
Ino falls, and Sakura is right there to catch her.
FIN
