a massive thank you to carol and em (and apps too!)
Chapter Nine
She flips open the bifold badge holder to display the blank spot where their photos will go. She practices flipping it open, doing it a few times until it feels more natural. She hasn't used anything like this in a while. They'll take photos tonight in whatever they're going to wear, looking however they're going to look. And then, sometime in the next few days, Shikamaru will put the ID's together for the two of them. He's better with those types of things, better with his hands. He has more control.
Temari closes the badge holder and places it on the counter.
She's left the bag of things Hinoto gave them in the entryway, opening it and taking out only the badge holders, but there are some extra cameras too, and special clothing meant to hold files, and then a plethora of blueprints and schedules and general documentation of the building they're going into.
Shikamaru sighs. It's short. Neither of them have said anything, so she isn't too sure what he is annoyed about. He isn't paying her much attention and is instead concentrating on stirring around the meat he has on the stove. The sleeves of his sweater are rolled up to the elbow. She looks at his wrists as he cooks, the flex and bone of them. He has always had very beautiful lines in his form, even as they're hard and jagged and missing almost any curve that would normally be considered lovely.
Oh. Temari turns, moving her eyes away. She swallows. And then goes out of the kitchen to retrieve one of the maps Hinoto has provided. When she comes back, she goes past him to lay it out on the kitchen counter, pushing away the spices and chopped vegetables he has laid out to put the map before him.
"Here," she says, pointing to the set of rooms. "They've moved everything into these ones." She can feel Shikamaru come up behind her, close enough that she can feel his exhale on the side of her neck. She holds her breath and tenses against it. It's rare he stands so close. She stops, rigid, for one second, and then moves on. "We only want what is supposedly in here though."
"Where is it normally held?"
She points. "They've been under construction for only a week."
"Hm."
"No guarantee we'll find much."
"What are we looking for?"
Temari closes the map and steps to the side, away from him, so she can see him fully from a distance. Shikamaru has a dishtowel hung over his shoulder and she waits as he wipes his hands on it before turning the heat low and stepping back to lean against the opposite counter.
She puts a hand on her hip. "Codename: Ember."
He nods, looking back at the food.
"Dumb," she huffs, watching him. "I know."
The corner of his mouth turns up when he looks back to her, arms crossed over his chest. "Oh, are ours better? B43 and G60?"
Temari shrugs. "I'm sure they're cooler in Suna." Whenever their or Hinoto's communication makes it back, she is sure it has gone through multiple covers of names — layers upon layers of codes — where she and Shikamaru only know their first version, not the end result. Surely Ember is the last touch of this person's cover for Kiri, which somehow makes a name already that ridiculous worse.
Shikamaru smirks and nods in a way that makes it clear he is only indulging her.
She rolls her eyes, but otherwise keeps watching him.
It's not a good time to plan this run right now, both as he is cooking dinner and it's too late, after too long a day, for her to rally the proper amount of attention needed for this task. Tomorrow they're both home and can sit down and really figure out what their exact strategy will be.
Other than that though, she doesn't really have anything else to say. There is nothing else of interest to impart to him. Likewise, she knows what he did today, knows who he spoke with and how his homework is going.
She has no reason to stay in the kitchen, no reason to converse any further. But she doesn't want to leave. She doesn't want him to stop looking at her.
"How many people are here, do you think?"
Shikamaru is looking at her like maybe he knows she is fishing for a topic, trying to meaninglessly hold his attention.
"What?" He asks, going momentarily back to the look over the stovetop.
"In Kiri. How many of us?"
He shrugs. "Like us? Probably not many more." He straightens and steps back to the opposite counter again. "But people working for us… I'd assume much more than we'd ever rationally think to expect."
"Give me a number."
"Those aren't the types of cyphers I work on."
"Guess."
Shikamaru narrows his eyes, thinking about it. "Two more. If we're on the west end of the city, and Neji and Tenten are on the east, I'd think they'd have one pair north and one south." He licks his lips in thought. "I don't really know. Depending on the work, the covers… there will be people who do much, much less than either of us, but who hold better positions."
"None of us worked this." She means their current job. The information Hinoto provided her did not come from one of the couples living here. The knowledge of the material and the time and the maps and the construction — whoever gave it them wasn't an operative, an agent. Otherwise the actual break-in wouldn't have been led by her and Shikamaru, but by the person with the first-hand account.
They have people everywhere, she knows. They must.
Shikamaru is guessing on those Konoha has. Apart from her, Konoha probably won't know of any Suna agents in Kiri. Similarly, if they are ever put in contact with another couple, it will most likely be a Suna one, lest Konoha make known all their active operatives with reciprocation.
But she does wonder about the extent. The person who gave them this could be anyone: a security guard in the building, a security guard who contracts with the same company and saw some schematics, an intern, a plumber, someone who has worked for Konoha for years, or someone who took some payment only once in exchange for this information… all are possible. It could be anyone.
He shrugs again and then steps back to the stovetop. Temari, watching him, pushes herself up to sit on the counter only a few feet from the burners, settling in.
"It will be good," she muses, tilting her head, "to have extra bodies. More people." She does mean that, even if she usually prefers working alone.
She's worked solely with him alone for so long, she practically forgets what it is like to work with others.
"Will it?" He reaches for the pan and then throws in the vegetables she'd pushed away earlier. The sizzle is loud for a moment after he adds them and then quiets down for him to say: we don't know them.
"I didn't know you." She means on their first mission, way back.
Shikamaru stirs stuff around the pan. "That was different from this. Easier." As a job, strategically. If she remembers correctly though, he'd actually done the run, but he'd sat around watching a movie while she'd done absolutely everything else. He looks over at her. "And we'd been together two weeks by then."
Temari shrugs and then leans back against the cabinet, skull tilted against the door. "I thought you liked him."
"I knew who he was. There's a difference."
She huffs. "Right."
Shikamaru looks down at her knees, placed beside his hip at the counter, and then goes back to cooking.
She has nothing more to say, but she sits, not offering to help, until he is done.
The other two are already there when they pull into the parking lot. There aren't any cars around, and as it's an old, mostly abandoned series of roads a few hours north from the city; there haven't been any cars around in a long time. Not even any streetlights.
Upon their approach, Neji and Tenten step out of their car. They're both mostly unrecognizable upon first glance, Tenten with short red hair and freckles, and Neji with equally short light brown hair and a mustache.
Temari and Shikamaru are the same as the other two: hardly recognizable. They may be identified by someone who knows them intimately, but even then, it would take some time and intensive observation. They'll be on camera, which is why they're so heavily made up.
The office will know that there was a break-in, will know documents were stolen. Although, with the construction, one of the (many, many) benefits is that most cameras will be largely avoided, but their faces will still be seen directly on two of them and partially in a dozen others. Security footage, especially in a place like this, is notoriously shitty. But still, even if grainy and not in color, the tape will be scrutinized, compared with others, and catalogued for future reference.
"Hi you two. How are you?" Tenten asks as soon as Shikamaru has pulled over and they've gotten out.
"Fine," Shikamaru answers, walking over to hand Tenten the coat she'll wear. She takes off her personal one for the specific one Hinoto had given.
"Good," Neji answers, as though that's some sort of confirmation he needed.
Tenten meets Temari's eyes and smiles.
Time, then.
She has the map in her hands and she opens it over the hood of Neji and Tenten's car. Neji holds the flashlight as Temari walks them through the plan. The assumption is that anything of the specific value they're seeking will be held in a small office that usually is occupied by one of the filers, but has been repurposed as storage during the construction.
"And getting out?" Tenten asks.
Temari points out one of the back exits, only forty yards from the tree line.
"There are six on staff this late. A clerk at the front desk, the night-sergeant, and four other guards on the premises: two on rotation, two on the cameras. All six armed."
"Pretty straightforward."
Temari exhales and glances at Tenten. "It should be."
They get back in their respective cars. Tenten's right, it is straightforward. That makes it a thrill, always. Especially when Temari hasn't done much. Especially because it's not nearly as planned as it would be if she were back home, if she were still just in the academy, if she were still solely on the Kiri desk. It would all be different. But here, this… it's more dangerous, but also easier in many ways. It's less time, less money, and in some ways, less risk. Straightforward in its execution, dangerous in its lack of preparation.
They're driving in silence. Shikamaru never likes to talk before things, he never likes to go over details or confirm something they've already discussed. Some people she's worked with repeat every detail over and over, create a mass schema of contingency plans, and work out the nerves of anticipation with conversation. Shikamaru doesn't. He never likes to talk much about anything as it is, and less in these situations. When they were in Curtain, he didn't speak the entire trip in or out.
So she's not expecting it — is surprised to the point of worry, if only momentarily — when he looks over at her and smiles.
"I'm glad we get to stay in a hotel."
Temari turns away from him, frowning, and focuses her eyes out the window. It's amazing how empty most of the island is once they leave the city.
She has no idea what he means, but she knows, after sitting with it a second, that he is joking. He is flirting, maybe. Vaguely. She rolls her eyes.
"Yes, god forbid we spend an extra two hours driving home."
They turn a corner.
"We've been in that house for so long." Shikamaru says, once he's changed gears and settled back into a steady pace. "This winter has been so long."
"You never seem to leave the house voluntarily, so I'm not too sure what you're on about." Plus, it's only January. Winter is hardly over.
Shikamaru laughs. She isn't looking at him, but she finds herself smiling at the sound, chest warm with the satisfaction of its retrieval.
"There are other people outside, usually. People to speak with and places to be." As though that is a sufficient response.
"Imagine being Neji," she finds herself saying, likewise not really knowing what she means. "He leaves for months and months and probably sleeps in caves and trucks and tents." It's probably why he always looks to be in such a bad mood.
"And Tenten gets to spend her time however she wants. Sounds like a good deal."
Temari turns to look at him, twisting so her shoulders and back are pressed against the door, head tipped to the window to make her words more taunting with her chin raised. "Oh, I'm sorry." She feels the words come out slowly, feels them form on her tongue. "Would you like me to leave you alone more? So you can fiddle away silently in your office for the rest of your life?"
Shikamaru doesn't turn to look at her, but he smirks knowing she is watching him. "Like I said, 'not a bad deal.'"
She isn't even quite sure what they're talking about. She isn't sure what she intends or why she is even saying it, but she keeps speaking. She keeps the words coming. "If I weren't around, whose legs would you watch walking up the stairs?"
"It's not just your legs I'm looking at," he says without missing a beat, eyes still on the road. "And in my defense, they're very steep stairs."
Temari huffs, taps a finger to her chin. "Hmm, maybe there is something to be said for having a house to myself for eight months out of the year while you live in a cave…."
It comes naturally, even though they've never spoken like this. Even though it's all only a joke. But she feels it in the twitch of her fingers, in the heat of her neck.
Shikamaru doesn't seem to be thinking much on things either in how quickly he responds, though he is always aware of what he is doing, always aware of what she wants.
"With no one around," he says, eyes still on the road, "you'd have no reason to wear such tight skirts."
She scoffs lightly. She wants to protest, to object that her recent change in fashion was, if anything, a societal trend, not a personal one. She's really just keeping up with the moment. But she doesn't, because, even if he is right (which he's not), she knows he is really only making fun of her.
"You're right," she knows this game, knows what, if this were another man, maybe, she would want this to lead to. "If I were alone, I'd just walk around naked every day."
"Think of the heating bill."
She inhales before she says it, as though baiting herself to stop, though she can see the light in his eye, visible even in this dark and with his gaze on the road, and she feels it all the way in her gut.
"I'd think of ways to warm myself up."
Shikamaru tilts his head and swallows (she traces the bob of it in his neck), but he still doesn't look at her.
He stops smirking. "Fair." He says, after a moment, and then he doesn't say anything else.
They're off the main road again and once more have no streetlights whatsoever. Shikamaru turns on the brights. Behind them, driving close, is the other car.
Temari stays sitting against the door so that she is facing him.
She shouldn't have said anything. She should have remembered who they were and who he was to her. She should remember what he said in bed a few weeks ago.
She wonders what Neji and Tenten are talking about. What do they talk about in general? Do they often work with others? Or is this their first time being with anyone beside the other, beside themselves, in a long time? Much longer than either Temari or Shikamaru has gone? What do they discuss in bed at night?
Then she finds herself wondering how much Shikamaru has thought on them. She imagines them — the only other two she knows — often. Does he think about their marriage like she does?
It's only a few minutes before they're pulling to a stop twenty feet from the perimeter of the security cameras outside the office building, in the tree line, hidden right off the road. They'd be easily visible in the daytime, but right now, they should be fine.
Temari flips down the visor and looks at her reflection in the mirror. She adjusts the silicon changing the shape of her nose, just a tad, and then smooths everything once over. She looks good. She looks sufficiently different. Then she adjusts her coat, sweeps the low bangs on her face back behind her ears, and checks the two weapons she is carrying.
When she is done, she looks up to see Shikamaru finishing his own check in the mirror.
"Good?" She asks. And he looks over, gives her a curt nod, and then opens his door.
They leave the keys in their car and walk over to the one idling behind them, the black car with the government plates, where the other two are waiting.
Pretty straightforward may even be an understatement. When they display the badges at the front desk, the ones Shikamaru made earlier in the week, the man sitting there nods as though he has long expected this surprise inspection.
If any main office were under construction, there would have been full vetting and constant observation of each move, each minor shift in security or protocol. But here, for outlets like this, there is very little put into the process. The government will send people from the city to check in on the development of the construction, and the safety protections for the stored information, only every now and then. There is nothing critical or urgent happening here. No life-threatening intelligence stored here, it seems. Just some old records. Nothing archived or dead, but minor, older things; things that they don't need on-hand, but also that they don't want to have to search a dingy basement to get.
They're not even given a guide as they're sent down the halls of the building. The clerk simply asks if they know the way and then waves them on, going back to whatever he was doing when they entered.
Temari leads and the other three follow behind her.
It's a smaller office. One building, one story, a little over two dozen rooms separated by two main hallways and then a handful of little turns. It's not far to their destination. All the lights are still on even though it is already late at night and, apart from the single guard waiting at the entrance and the man at the desk, they haven't seen anyone else. Scratchy carpeted floors and artificial lighting round out the picture of a mediocre government satellite office.
Without looking directly at them, Temari notes that the locations of the security cameras are consistent with the blueprints.
Within a minute they come up to the rooms under construction, but they move past there, further, until they're outside an office space crammed with boxes upon boxes, seemingly in complete disarray, piled on top of one another and stuffed into a small room. The door isn't even closed. Temari glances over and Tenten shrugs. Apparently this is the level of security they should expect. Maybe they could just walk out with everything all together? Maybe there is no need for any other plan?
They enter here, seamlessly, and behind them, Neji leaves the door open only an inch. They've never worked together before, but they've all been trained for the same ends. Without speaking, Tenten and Temari take off their long coats, and then Tenten and Neji head first to look at some of the computers piled in one corner while Temari and Shikamaru reach for the boxes, each taking one.
Temari's first box is already open. She shifts through, pulls some files apart, running her fingers over the top and reading whatever markings are there. She pulls out one file completely and flips through it. No, nothing. This box isn't good.
She moves it down to the floor and reaches for the next one, pulling off the top and searching through there.
The problem is, they don't know what they're looking for. They know the codename of the mole. It's not someone at a very high level. It's likely some mid-level diplomat who's probably no longer even active. Some Konoha foreign service officer, she thinks: a person who was giving minor information, snippets of overheard conversation, to Kiri. She doesn't know — she really has no idea — she's just been told Ember. Someone else, some other informant, has been following the lead, finding out, maybe over years, where the information on Ember would be. And then someone else provided the information to allow them to break-in. And now they're here, putting both aspects of the operation together. Even if it's old and the mole is no longer even around, Konoha wants to know what they can about him or her.
So she and Shikamaru each have their cameras and are photographing anything that looks the least bit useful or relevant.
The second box doesn't seem to have anything either.
They only have fifteen minutes.
In the third box though, she sees, for only a second, meeting schedules. Meeting a source. No codename. Maybe it's something? She takes her microfilm camera and photographs it. She spends more time on that box, photographing as much as she can. And the next box. She doesn't like anything in the fifth and puts that one away quickly.
Shikamaru is in another corner, doing the same thing to the boxes there. It's not their job to find the right information, just to find any potentially relevant information. Maybe they don't want to know who Ember is, maybe they simply want to know what Ember has done? Or some other information Kiri has on Ember? She has no idea.
She's on her twentieth box when there is a beep from Neji's watch. They all stop. Fourteen minutes on the dot.
Reaching for her coat and spreading it open on the ground, Temari starts grabbing the documents and files she has put aside and slipping them into the pockets inside her coat. The ones that look possibly helpful, she has photographed, the ones that look consistently relevant (especially when there are multiple documents surfacing from one box), she takes with her, stuffing them deeply into the pockets.
Neji comes over to her pile and begins helping her fit as much as she can. The pockets of the coats are designed to fit an 8 x 11 paper almost exactly, so it's not easy to fit them in, and each packet takes some jiggling. Tenten and Shikamaru are putting the stuff he has chosen into her coat.
After sixty seconds, there is another beep from Neji. Time to go.
The fifteen-minute timer is based off no particular limit, as much as whoever offered the research gave fifteen minutes as the optimal time before their presence becomes less and less safe.
Temari looks up at the beep. The other two seem to be done. She exhales. Okay. Good.
She stands, slipping on the coat, that, with so much paper, is noticeably heavier and bulkier than when she first entered. She steels her core, her shoulders, and follows the rest of them to the front of the room. She and Tenten will now go back out the front door while the men go out the back as a distraction. They could all walk out, probably, but a regular inspection requires more steps and more hours, and it's safest to get out as quickly as possible, to be on camera for the shortest amount of time. Plus, they'll realize the paper was stolen eventually anyway. No need to hide it.
Neji closes the door behind them quietly.
They all exit down the same way they came, but pause at the corner, shoulder to shoulder along the wall. They'll separate here, the women, with their long coats and underestimated gender, will go back out the entrance. The men, out one of the back ways; longer, with fewer cameras, and closer to where Shikamaru parked the car.
"Half an hour," Tenten whispers, confirming. Half an hour to get settled.
Temari swallows. She is stiff under the coat, and her heart is pounding. She is moments from getting out of here. She doesn't like this part — being so openly present in a government building, even a low security one, where she is one touch away from getting caught. She breathes, slowly, shoulders pressed against the wall, and then moves forward to turn the corner, ready to begin the final step, but she is stopped by Shikamaru, his arm coming out strong to push her back against the wall, forearm against her sternum.
He isn't looking at her, but past her, just shy of fully looking around the corner. He must have heard something.
They all stop. No one else seems to have heard anything, but after a moment with breaths held, she can make out the faint footsteps of someone down the next hall. They're quiet and not staccato. Likely someone with rubber soles on the carpet. A guard, maybe. They're not supposed to roam though.
She holds still. Waits. The footsteps get quiet — are already so quiet — and it is unclear when they actually disappear. They're over their window, in totality, by almost two minutes.
Shikamaru drops his arm from in front of her, and taking that as sign enough, Temari and Tenten step past the other two and begin quickly and loudly making their way back to the front, breath coming in fast. They don't turn back to see how the others made it.
Temari is in front, looking frazzled and scared when they come to the front desk. They haven't seen any guards or anyone else in the vicinity on their way. The guard who was here earlier is gone.
The clerk is standing the moment he sees them.
"We left the room," she says quickly, voice breathy, unsure, nervous, "and when we came back, the door was locked." Temari brushes her hair out of her face. "The others, they didn't answer our knocks! I don't know—"
The clerk immediately takes hold of the phone and directs someone, likely the guards, to check out the construction zone.
"Where were you?" He asks. "Which room?"
"Thirteen, maybe fourteen," Tenten supplies, blinking, palms flat on the high counter. "The one closest the east side!"
The man repeats this into the telephone. He's young. It's a shitty shift to get. He's probably new. No older than twenty.
"Everyone," he says into the phone, and then he replaces it in the holder, eyes wide. He points to them, "uh," he reaches at his hip, like he has to check his holster to ensure his weapon is there. "Wait here." He licks his lips, looks quickly around, as though unsure what he is looking for. "It'll be okay. Just, uh…" he starts to walk out. "Stay here."
And then he takes off, running down the hall they'd just come from.
Temari looks over and lifts her shoulders.
Easy.
Tenten shakes her head.
And then, just as smoothly, they turn around and walk out the front doors, holding dozens of files between them, and slip into the waiting car they'd come out of just over twenty minutes earlier.
"It's been a long time," Tenten says, as she puts the car in park, "since I've done anything like that." She reaches down for the lever and then reclines the driver's seat, leaning back until she is almost lying down, but not so far that she can't see out the front window.
Temari looks over, her elbow resting on the small lip of the door against the window, chin in her hand.
"I used to break into places all the time," Tenten smiles, as though fondly reminiscing. "You know, wear black, rappel, the whole thing."
Temari hadn't. Twice or three times maybe, but not enough to consider it any sort of staple assignment. She hadn't been trained much in that. It's easy to imagine a teenage Tenten though, dressed all in black, scaling the side of a building.
"This isn't quite the same, is it?"
Tenten lips fall, slightly. "No, not at all."
They'd taken off their disguises as they drove, putting them away in bags and wiping off as much makeup as possible with the wipes Tenten carried.
"Do you miss it?"
"Yes." The answer is so quick, Temari is surprised by it.
Tenten sighs and blinks up at the ceiling of the car, as though thinking about it some more now that she's already answered.
"I was never suave. Or tactful when with others. Before this, I liked getting my hands dirty. Not my mind."
Temari looks away. A part of her wants to ask more. Ask why Tenten took the job, though she knows, if offered it, there isn't really an option. Not because you cannot say no — there is no punishment or demotion in saying No — but because it is a privilege, a compliment of the highest order, to say yes.
So even if Tenten's real excitement didn't lie in espionage, she is sure Tenten wanted this job. Wants it for the same reasons Temari does. It is important. Anyone can dress up and crawl through ceiling vents. This is an honor. A bigger sacrifice than others are asked to perform.
Still though, she isn't sure why Tenten would be asked to do something like if she wasn't in training for it. Temari had prepared for something like this for years. Shikamaru, even if he preferred sitting in an office, breaking long strings of numbers into meaningful content, had been long trained for this specific job. It's the department they'd been in. Temari doesn't know much about Konoha or how it works, but there is no question — even if Tenten is more partial to using other skills and other means, that she has, in the end, volunteered for this. And she has been here, doing it, for years.
"It can be hard," Temari says finally, unsure how much she wants to offer. Unsure how much she can. Right now, Tenten knows much more about the toll of this life than Temari. "Playing housewife."
Tenten laughs in agreement, but doesn't say anything more on it.
There is a pause then. A long, slow few minutes before either of them speaks again.
"The men should be here soon." Temari says, eventually, just to say something.
"We've known Hinoto a long time."
It comes out of nowhere and Temari, who is now leaning her head against the cold window, straightens and looks over.
"She was your handler?"
She remembers when they met at Tenten's warehouse and Hinoto was sitting there, having tea. Sitting like she'd been there a long time, sitting there like she'd known them.
"No." Tenten says. "Years ago, before she was a handler, before we were here, she and Neji had done a job together. It was a team, so they weren't close. They weren't friends. Didn't even speak, as far as I know. And then a few years ago, one morning, we saw her in the city."
Temari takes a deep breath. When it comes down to it, she knows nothing about Hinoto. Hinoto knows her entire daily itinerary, for the most part, but Temari doesn't even know where she lives or who she speaks with or how long she has been here or if she runs others besides her and Shikamaru.
"Only time I've ever met her. But you know what it's like." Tenten glances over. "Some things transcend others."
Temari doesn't care. She doesn't want to talk about Hinoto. She doesn't know anything because she isn't supposed to. It's protocol. For safety reasons. For both of them. Temari doesn't lay back against the window again though, a move that would categorically shut down the conversation, but instead turns to look out ahead of them at the dark and empty parking lot.
"I wanted to tell you," Tenten continues, "because the next time I saw her was just over two months ago."
The heat is blasting in the car and Temari feels it drying out her skin.
"She went out of protocol to ask us to follow your mark. To watch you."
Temari has wondered what Tenten is intending, but she isn't expecting that. Keeping her eyes straight ahead, she thinks back to the bar, to the car ride, to walking down the cement with loud steps knowing Shikamaru was listening to her. She remembers sitting back, cold, bloody, being knocked side to side as he sped around sharp corners. She remembers the absent sound of the gunshot before realizing she'd been hit.
"You were there?"
She turns again to look at Tenten, to watch her answer.
"Not officially." Tenten takes a long breath, eyes still on the ceiling. "Not as far as Konoha is concerned." She sighs. Temari thinks of Hinoto. She thinks of how angry Shikamaru is, still. "I just wanted to let you know," Tenten says. "But yes, we saw it happen."
It was before they'd met. She tries to imagine the cars, the schematics of the blocks. They must have been close, but she hadn't seen anyone. It's not a good sign, on her end. Yet she can practically imagine them in the car. She can imagine it from their viewpoint, as though from another angle, a third party — the actions, the illustration, of the moment she and Shikamaru had botched their first assignment in Kiri.
Temari says nothing. She has never blamed Hinoto when it comes down to it. Shikamaru doesn't blame Hinoto either, not really, she thinks. But they've never really spoken about it. Still, she's always imagined he thinks that Hinoto should have stopped it, should have refused the job and taken care of her agents. Shikamaru doesn't think Hinoto gave them a bad job purposefully, she supposes, but that Hinoto should have stopped the bad job from coming. She was the one in charge of them. It is her orders, until they were told otherwise, that they follow.
This doesn't change much. Or maybe it does. It doesn't seem like Neji and Tenten were there to help them as much as to ensure the job went through. Or not. It's not clear. Maybe Tenten doesn't know either. She isn't sure whether it matters, in the end. It's done with. The job was completed. Her scar is nothing more than that: a scar. It's not a big deal.
There is a sound and Tenten sits up, adjusting her seat. In the side mirror, Temari can see headlights. The car pulls up parallel with them.
"What took you so long?" Tenten asks as she gets out, any conversation they may have continued promptly cut off.
It's freezing outside and Temari has to brace herself, steel her inhales, as she closes the passenger door of the car.
"There was a guard in the parking lot," Neji says, walking around to the trunk of his car and taking out a new license plate. "The call came in on the radio before we could pass him." Neji squats down to change the government plate to another one.
Shikamaru is still in the driver's seat, not getting out.
Temari, standing outside the other car, looks over at Tenten.
"How bad?"
Neji stands, slips a screwdriver into his coat pocket, the government plate in his gloved hand. "Guard 's fine. He hit the pavement pretty hard, so I wasn't sure, but they were close enough behind that we could hear them call it in."
As he's talking, Shikamaru finally comes out of the car. There is a cut on his lip from where he must have gotten hit.
"You?" Neji asks, not stopping as he goes to put the plate in the backseat and then take the two coats Tenten and Temari had worn out of the office and tossed back there.
"No problems," Temari answers. She looks over the length of both cars to try to catch Shikamaru's eyes, but he isn't looking at her. "No one noticed us leave."
Neji delivers the coats to the backseat of the other car.
There is a pause after he shuts the car door. There may be more to say, but it's late and it's best to discuss anything else that may bear discussion at another point.
"Let's get out of here." Tenten says, after a beat. "If you're all set?"
Shikamaru looks at Temari now, raising his chin, as though to check.
She nods. Swallows. It's been just shy of two minutes out of the car, maybe, and her cheeks, her temples, are already numb in the cold. She walks around the front of the first car to the second.
"Well," Tenten says as she passes. "That was fun."
It was. Kind of.
"Good to see you two," Temari says as she comes around the passenger side. She is only half-surprised to find she really means it. She pauses at the door. Shikamaru glances past her, assumingly at Neji, and makes a face she can't understand, and then the moment passes and, behind her, two car doors close.
"Temari," Shikamaru says, refocusing on her, elbows resting on the roof of the car. "Will you drive?"
They're only a few minutes away when Shikamaru groans as he shifts his position in the seat.
She glances over, then back to the street, and then back to him. Temari reaches a hand out, trying to tilt him forward so she can get an eye on it, but he bats her hand away. She grips the steering wheel, holding it steady as she keeps her attention mostly on him and not on the road.
She knows immediately what has happened. She can see it in the way he holds himself: hesitant, careful in his shoulders.
"How bad is it?"
"Just a cut."
She reaches out again, and he doesn't stop her this time, but she goes for his chin instead and turns his head to her, looking at the cut on the side of his mouth. He is still in disguise and some of the blood from his cut lip is on the facial hair he is wearing.
It's only a second, and then Shikamaru pulls his face back from her hold. "Guy threw himself at me and I fell against the hood ornament of a car."
Temari swallows and puts both hands back on the wheel. "Did you leave any blood?"
"Neji took the ornament."
"Fuck." Okay, she thinks. No big deal. Probably not a problem at all. More painful than detrimental.
He isn't bleeding much. Not through the coat, as far as she can see. It's likely nothing to worry about. They have a basic first aid kit in the car, and they're only another half hour from the drop point at the hotel.
"Did you find much?" She asks instead, after a moment.
He shifts back again, clenching his jaw. "Not on the outset," he mutters, not seeming to pay much attention. And then, dramatically, he sighs and leans back against the seat, tilting his head against the rest. "Do you ever wonder what they are?" He asks, softly, as though mostly to himself.
She isn't sure what he is asking on. Who, or what, is they? The people in the office? The documents? Neji and Tenten?
She doesn't look at him though, or ask more, satisfied in just watching him out of the corner of her eye, dark in the late night light.
"Or what we're doing?" He asks.
Temari frowns, gaze glued ahead of her. He doesn't know what he is saying. Neither does she. And if she does, she doesn't like it. Soft, she thinks, the word already forming itself, silently, on her tongue. She won't say anything. And maybe it's no matter, because he says nothing more either.
She hasn't even turned to lock the door behind her before Shikamaru is dropping their suitcase on the floor and stripping down. He leaves his coat by the suitcase and then, as he walks, pulls his sweater over his head on his way to the bathroom at the other end of their small hotel room.
Wordlessly, taking off her coat and folding it to hang over the back of the chair by the door, Temari takes her bag and follows him, picking up his clothes as he sheds them and depositing them on the bed.
It smells musty in here. She bends down, balancing her hand at the foot of the bed as she slips off her shoes. He turns on the light in the bathroom. It's not a florescent as she'd been hoping, not as bright as bathroom lights usually are. If need be though, she has a small flashlight in her bag.
In the light coming out of the bathroom, the only one on in the hotel room, she watches as he reaches for the hem of his turtleneck, his back to her, and pulls it off, slowly. It gets caught on his ponytail, so he pulls that out too. His skin, she sees as the shirt raises, is so white, whiter than it was when they met. And then, as the shirt is finally over his head, she sees the wound. It's large and red and swollen, taking up a wide circle between his shoulder blades, with a smaller, dark puncture wound right in the middle. It looks less than two inches from his spinal cord, which may have withstood the stab of the ornament, or may have been much, much worse.
Shikamaru turns on a second bathroom light once his shirt is all the way off and tossed onto the lid of the toilet seat. There must be a bulb above the door on a different switch that she can't see. It's brighter now, the wound redder. He turns in the mirror to try to see it over his shoulder, brushing his hair over onto one side for a more unobstructed view.
"It's bleeding a lot less than I thought it would." He says, strained as he cranes his neck.
It isn't bleeding much now, and most of what is around it is dried blood. But it looks deeper than she'd expected, deeper than she wants it to be.
Temari comes into the bathroom and directs him to turn back to face the mirror so she can step in behind and take a closer look. It is much deeper than she wants, but it really isn't bleeding much, and, as she'd thought, it will be more painful than the actual extent of harm it will do to his body, if those two things are comparable. She rolls up the sleeves of her own sweater and leans in, fingers careful as she brings them up to his skin. It's been a long time since she has seen him shirtless, and even longer, if ever, since she has touched a part of his skin that is not regularly visible.
Shikamaru inhales when her fingers touch the outside of the wound, on the swell of the bruise around it. His skin is hot from the rush of blood, hot, as though feverish, against her fingertips. Gently, knowing he'll brace against it, knowing it's minor in the scheme of things (minor in comparison to the last time one of them was shirtless and bloody in a bathroom with the other), she uses both hands to pull the skin wider to try to see how deep it is.
He inhales sharply, hands tight on the sink, but he doesn't protest. It doesn't give her much more of an idea, and almost as soon as she irritates the area, he starts bleeding again.
Temari steps back and sighs, reaching out to swipe at the long drip of blood with her thumb. He's too tall for her to get at it comfortably.
"Sit down," she instructs, and then goes to grab the first aid kit. When she comes back, he has positioned himself on top of the closed toilet seat, his discarded shirt now over his knees, and he has pulled his hair back up in a tie.
She opens the kit on the counter and hands him a general painkiller, which he takes dry as she washes her hands. Temari bends to wipe away the blood, again, which has now dripped, slowly, down his entire back. Then she carefully cleans out the cut, blotting at the wound with the cotton balls and the mini bottle of peroxide they carry, as Shikamaru hunches over, giving her better access.
"Hows your face?" She asks, mostly to make conversation, and she watches his shoulders, his ribs, the way his pale skin curves and dips as it covers his bones, as he exhales.
"Bit my tongue."
"Hm." With another cotton ball, she dabs on mercurochrome for good measure, which stains his skin uglier, and then reaches for the tube of antibiotic cream. He doesn't need stitches or anything, but she'd like some better bandages than they have. Something like a butterfly or Steri to hold it closed.
He's silent for another minute, letting her carefully spread the ointment over the area, beginning on the outside, and then moving in. Then, once her fingers are touching the wound itself, he reaches out one arm to press his hand against the wall. He's not gripping anything, but pressing, though she figures it is achieving the same purpose.
"Temari," he says, low, like he is gritting it out, even though he isn't making any other noise or doing anything else to show he is pain.
She blinks and looks up, looks at the back of his head and the rim of his ear. She looks further, to his hand, the clear shove of it, the energy in his knuckles, as he presses into the plaster. And then, she gently prods her pointer, covered with antibacterial ointment, into his wound.
"I'm glad I'm here with you," he continues, gruff and strained, pain between the syllables.
He's only saying it as a distraction, she knows. Like he said things to her last time.
She's never actually seen him in any real physical pain, but he is remarkably quiet for what she is doing to him. His shoulder is all muscle, his skin smooth, almost without blemish in totality, not another scar or even a freckle.
Still, even though it's a distraction, even as the smell of the chemicals on her hand and the scent of the shitty hotel bathroom overwhelm her, she finds her breath coming in quicker. Her hands are still against him, her finger inside him. She's warm, down in her gut, in her lungs, like tendrils wrapping underneath her ribcage, doing nothing but making her want.
Absently, an image comes to her: of months ago, in their bedroom, when she wanted to put her finger into a hole in his body and press to elicit his pain, to feel his warm blood under her nail. That's nothing like what she is feeling now.
He has no idea what he is saying or the way it is sounding to her. She knows, because otherwise, he wouldn't say it. He doesn't intend this. He's simply making conversation, simply comforting her during this task. Or maybe reassuring her, as though she is a child, and is jealous of these other people from Konoha who will, in so many ways, always be closer to him than she is.
As though now, in having met Tenten, who has never been anything but kind (much kinder, much more easy going, much nicer than Temari), Temari feels threatened, feels jealous. Or maybe he imagines that she finds Neji, who hardly speaks and gets to live on his own for so many months and can sit on a couch and enjoy an easy tumbler of whiskey and reminisce about his homeland, a more desired companion by Shikamaru in this unnatural situation. Maybe he is trying to quell her from that line of thought, even though she hasn't thought it much in the first place. Not really. Only in passing.
But most likely he is just speaking to speak, saying something out of the ordinary to distract himself from the stabbing pain in his back.
Temari swallows. When she exhales, it is shaky, and she hates that, in the silent bathroom, he can hear it.
Slowly, Temari pulls her hands, one in his wound, the other braced against his shoulder, away from him.
"When we first met," Shikamaru continues, as if in response to her nervousness, his palm still pressed flat to the drywall. "I," he tenses his shoulders as the finger inside his body pulls out, and she watches his clavicles raise and then fall. "I was so scared. And you were —
"I know," she finds herself saying, though she isn't sure what it is she knows. "I know."
This comment takes Temari out from whatever she was otherwise thinking. His shoulders look wide now, they look strong and reliable this close up. But the image of him, that picture, when they first met…. That pulls something different. He'd looked so young, fragile, in his nice clothes and his downcast eyes.
That seems like it was so long ago. They've come so far since then.
Temari reaches back into the kit and pulls out an adhesive to try to pull the wound, even just a bit, closed.
His skin is still hot. And it burns her fingers. It burns her chest. Her heart is beating faster as she finds the gauze and places it over the plaster, taping it down in a square against his back.
Shikamaru says nothing more until she is done and has finished taping down the bandage. And then, even as she puts down the roll of medical tape, even though he surely knows what is going on, surely knows she is done fixing him up, he doesn't move, holding still before her.
She is glad she can't see his face. Glad, maybe, that he can't see hers.
Her mouth is dry. Even her teeth ache. She feels it everywhere. She is almost shaking when she does eventually lift her hand, standing fully up now, tall behind him, and brings her fingers up near the back of his neck.
She touches him there, right below his hair line, the tips of her fingers much softer, much less sure than when they were inside the bloody hole of his wound. Shikamaru doesn't move. She sees the tense in his shoulders, the holding of his breath; but he stays where he is, letting her touch him. And then, with nothing more than a brush, not even quite a touch, she moves them down a few inches to the top knobs of his spine, running two fingers over the bones, not far from the edge of the gauze.
"Turn around," she breathes, only a whisper that would normally have gone unheard had the room not been so tensely waiting on a noise, waiting on a decision.
Temari pulls away, but her hand hovers, still lifted, in the air.
Carefully, shoulders moving heavily with each long breath, Shikamaru turns, knees coming around so that, if she steps closer, she'll be between them; his chest, his tummy; his bellybutton all visible as he faces her, sitting down before her, shoulders hunched and head tilted to look into her eyes.
He's done a poor job of tying his hair back and long strands fall around his face.
"I've been waiting," he says, when their eyes meet, "for you to stop thinking of me as the enemy."
Temari reaches out to touch the corner of his mouth, right where it is cut, just slightly, from the punch that supposedly wielded him backward into the car. Her fingers still have some ointment on them, but it isn't enough to justify feeling the wound.
He doesn't react, but she is sure it stings.
It has been so long since anyone has touched her in any real way. And, she thinks, watching him, feeling the heat of him, she has been wanting to touch him for so long. And he is looking at her with his dark eyes like, maybe, he wants her to touch him too.
But it's probably the pain. And a trick of the light. How could it be anything else?
Temari pulls back, looks up. She flexes her hand by her side.
"You're my husband," she says, but she doesn't say anything else. She doesn't think anything else. They're not friends. They're not lovers. They're allies, and even then.…
Shikamaru puts his shirt back on, groaning when he lifts his arms.
Temari watches, observing his slowness, the furrow of pain in his brow, as he puts on his clothes. A waste, probably, unless he plans to wear it to bed, but she doesn't mention this.
When he is done, when he is all covered and well again, Temari sighs and leans back against the wall. Whatever she was doing, whatever she was thinking — it's stupid. She is usually in control, especially when it comes to things like desire (if this is even what that was). And she has no idea what this is or what she wants.
"Would you like a drink, before bed?" She asks. Normally she'd avoid any kind of mini-bar. Usually they wouldn't even have one in this type of low-budget hotel. But there it is, and she thinks some sort of liquor might make it easier for him to sleep. May make it easier for her too.
Shikamaru glances up at her. His eyes, if they'd looked different earlier, don't look any different than usual now. He's tired. So is she. She is so, so tired. Tired of so much, for so long.
"Okay," Temari says, answering her own question. And then she pushes off the wall and pads, barefoot, over to the small fridge.
a/n: thank you all so much for reading! I hope you're enjoying it!