Summary; Because your looks are all you have and he's all you have left.

Pairing; Shika x Ino

Rating: M

Dry Out.

--

"They're dead."

She turns and looks at him.

He's sitting on the ground, in the cave, watching smoke rise from the Hokage's Tower and he was doing everything she wished he wasn't. Just sitting there, listening, smoke on his skin and blood on his face.

Ino's face is smeared with makeup and ash, and tears roll from her eyes like inky paint down her ashen skin. She licks her lips and doesn't move, throwing her arms out as she muffles a hysterical giggle with her hands.

"Shopping we were going to go shopping....can you believe that? We were going to buy the fucking store and I was going to be a total bitch because I'm still so jealous of her. And she was going to give me that fucking sad smile of hers and say she doesn't have anyone to impress and then I'd go and drag Naruto over and he'd look at her with those puppydog eyes and we'd all have one fucking party." She spat, wiping her eyes as she walks around the cave.

Shikamaru is silent.

(Chouji is lying beside them.)

..He isn't moving by the way.

"I mean this doesn't happen. It's not supposed to happen. We're supposed to be better, Shikamaru." She whispers, and he still doesn't say anything. Her face contorts into a half-sneer/snarl and she spits, "You're always so damn quiet. Can't you say something just once? They're dead Shikamaru, they're all dead and we're going to die in this shithole of a cave and no one is going to find our bodies and Naruto can't come to the rescue because whaddya know, he's dead!"

"..Ino. Shut up."

Shikamaru says, but Ino will not shut up. She wants to scream and break things and she wants Shikamaru to stop being a dick and come hold her, she wants to tell him that she's never been so turned on and she's sure she's going to hell for that notion because all she wants is Shikamaru inside of her telling her to forget.

"Can't you just fucking say something? You piece of shit you annoying..--" She's half-hysterical now, sobbing and screaming into her hands and biting her lip raw and clawing her hands with her fingers, her trembling trembling fingers--"

"What Ino, say what?" He spits back, turning to stare at her as she turns and starts slapping him, screaming.

"SHE'S DEAD. HE'S DEAD. WE'RE DEAD. LOOK SHIKAMARU WE'RE DEAD. WE'RE DEAD!" And he's unbuttoning her shirt--

No we're not, no we're not, he says and she weeps hysterically, laughing as she claws at her eyes, removing the cakey mascara and the ink and letting herself sink into something thicker than her skin-base. Something darker than her darkest shade of eyeliner.

Something more sick and twisted than any diet she's ever tried and any eating disorder she ever learned.

And he's repeating the words over and over--and Ino is pushing inside of him and he's digging into her like a drug that she needs to forget and forget and forget--and..

"It's over.." She whispers breathlessly, as he traces a finger over her breasts, her scars, her smooth milky-blonde hair that glowed crimson and ash-stained in the flames. The bombs.

And he says, 'No it's not.'

And she's trembling as she collapses inside of herself.

"Don't you leave me alone, you fucking couch potato." She moans, and buries as deep into his skin as she can, as their battered and bruised bodies try to meld and mesh into something capable of forgetting.

"Don't you leave me alone."

And he says, I won't, I won't, I won't.

..And he doesn't.

--