I've been itching to post this one, so I'm releasing this earlier than scheduled because I like to crush hearts.
Alright guys, this is the first true angst that I've uploaded for Shikatema.
This is going to get heavy, really fast.
I apologize for possible inaccurate portrayals of addiction; I have never been addicted to any substance so I do not know the particular effects. I also likened Shikamaru's addiction more towards harder drugs, I presume.
The formatting is key to this piece - I apologize if it turns you off at first. (It's kind of supposed to.)
Let me know what you think.
- muse
.::[::]::.
[shikatema, trying to get shika to quit smoking]
He could feel her eyes on him, but he ignored her. Again.
He ignored the way she glared daggers into his back, especially when he turned around and leaned in to get his lighter going.
Her voice was cold, curt.
"I thought you had quit."
He ignored her.
She didn't take lightly to that. "That's not good for your health."
He got the flame going.
His hand reached into his pocket, pulling out the package slowly. Her hand caught his.
"I'm serious, Nara."
"Can you lay off," he grumbled, trying to shake her off him. Seriously, she was so damn troublesome, and even though he thought he had allowed generous amounts of finality to his tone, she didn't take the hint, because she snatched the package out of his hands.
"No, I can't." Her eyes are dark, the usual teal dulled down to a grey. He looked at her frame, one that he often desired, but this time it was different. Her stance was aggressive and for once, he felt like matching it. She held the package away, her lip curved into a frown.
He groaned. It was already too long from his last drag, his stomach prickling and that stupid feeling beginning to snake the way up his esophagus. He held his hand out – patiently, in hopes of her responding – but she glared at the palm, glared at his arm, glared at him, as she held the package away with a bit of a sneer. "Stop this."
He drew a breath through his nose. It was beginning to gnaw at him, eating away at him. He felt familiar feelings beginning to claw its way into his brain; the anxiety, the nervousness, the guilt and strange agitatedness that he desperately wanted to quash. He focused to keep his voice from trembling, as he deadpanned, "This really isn't your business, Temari."
He doesn't bother registering the hurt that flashes in her eyes, nor the voice in his head that was telling him that she was right and hell, at least she cared, because Chouji said nothing when he'd pull up a smoke, though he'd exchange concerned looks with Ino. Concern – like he was a child who still needed looking after.
Who was he kidding? He still needed looking after. He couldn't save anyone, he couldn't stop his father from dying nor Asuma, he couldn't possibly shoulder the responsibilities of his clan whilst he could barely stop his mother from yelling at him. Except she, too, was in shock – he'd see her sit after dinners in silence, with no third voice chiming into their tense conversation.
He was helpless.
He was useless.
He really needed this smoke.
But the bitch was holding it an arms-length away. "I'm making it my business," she said, her tone somewhat snide yet, if he had cared to listen, concerned.
But he didn't listen.
"You don't have to." He held out his hand again.
She laughed humourlessly as, this time, she batted it away.
"You're not getting this."
"Are you a kid?"
"Are you?" she shot back testily before pocketing the cigarettes. His eyes followed them before they dragged back to her. She was angry, furious, heavy lines creased into her forehead as she drew herself up to full height. "You're going about this the wrong way, Shikamaru."
"Trying to use my first name to get to me?"
"Listen to yourself!" Her voice made him wince but the fire and the claws and the anxiety was tearing at him. If she would just lay off, if she would just give him one, maybe, maybe he could calm the storm that was his heart and maybe they could discuss this like rational beings. But his body ached for more nicotine, more poison to soothe his demons away.
Yet her pocket bulged with the weight of his cigarettes.
"You're getting hooked for the wrong reasons," she murmured, her voice soft but it still felt like daggers in his ears. Her hand touched his shoulder and he nearly recoiled – he fought every instinct that screamed at him to jump back and attack, the antsy unease that had grown from a faint feeling to one that was threatening to overwhelm him. Her hand ran down his arm, leaving shivers and chills. "I think we should talk."
But he didn't want to.
He didn't want to talk. He didn't want to tell her how he wanted to cry, wail like a baby about losing his father, his mentor, being responsible for lives he couldn't even count on one hand. For the losses and the stress of leadership that had left him scarred, that kept him up at night and would feel like ants were crawling on his body. He didn't want to accept these feelings when he could wash it all away with a drag of a cigarette. He didn't want to talk it out like he needed therapy because he didn't, he just needed one. One. One and maybe when his mind was calm and no longer scratching hollowly on tattered walls, like the grating of nails against chalkboards, would he be able to talk.
But he would cry. He would cry and sob and scream over how it was so unfair for him, unfair for a seventeen year old to shoulder so much responsibility even though he signed up for it, and just because he was a genius didn't mean he could handle all of this. He didn't want Temari, of all fucking people, Temari, to be the one soothing him and telling him it's okay. He wanted his father. He wanted his father who had promised him that he'd pick up the pieces, except his father wasn't there and was dead. Who was going to pick up the pieces now? Who? Not his mother, who almost seemed lethargic which made no fucking sense because she was crazy. Not Temari, who had already seen him cry once and who felt pity for him – which wasn't what he wanted, he didn't want pity.
He wanted a cigarette.
He was ready to take it by force from her – his mind had already devised methods to get them from her. But the more he went without it the more his anxiety grabbed each idea, dragging it down into the pits of nothingness. He wanted to rip them from her, he wanted to kiss her and make her gasp so she'd lower her guard and he'd take them from her. He didn't even know what he wanted anymore – just the nicotine. But she held her stance, her hand still on his arm, his arm which felt ice cold and numb save for the soft pulses of her skin – contact he had longed for but now he loathed, because it wasn't the same.
Her eyes softened – fucking softened – as she lifted her hand. "You don't need them."
"You don't understand," he tried, his voice cracking. He didn't even realize there were tears, rolling down his cheeks. He didn't even know why he was crying, perhaps it was the anxiety, the trauma. Maybe it was his father's last words echoing through his mind, a record on repeat as he felt nothing the first time he heard them, though Ino had teared beside him. Maybe it was the looping vision of Asuma, his face battered and blood oozing from his mouth, the light fading from his eyes as he felt the same nothingness. Perhaps it was the helplessness he wasn't allowed to feel during the war as he watched comrades he was in charge of fall, one by one, and he could do nothing but surge forward, ignoring the cries and throes of pain as he pushed forward.
Shinobi are tools.
He was a tool.
"Just. Give me. A damn. Cigarette."
The package hit him upside the head, Temari's eyes dancing with rage and frustration as she whipped the package at him. It fell into a sad heap onto the ground, label facing up, as the blonde glared.
"Fine. Fine. Have a damn cigarette. Push me away, you dick. You asshole. I'm trying to help you." He doesn't see her own frustrated tears through his own, her yelling hollow in his head as he bent down. She probably kicked him – he didn't really know – instead he emptily reached for the package that was by their feet. "You always do this. You wait until your daddy comes to cheer you the fuck up. Grow up. He's not here anymore!" Her voice had risen to a yell, her voice pushing to cracking as her hands curled into a fist. He wanted her to stop. His head was pounding and he felt like he was being burned alive, the scratching in his brain distinctively louder and achingly painful as he turned the package over. He needed the nicotine. His body craved the nicotine. The demons clawed at him, climbing up his legs, his chest, his arms, his neck, pushing onto his adam's apple as they reached, scratched, grasped for the release of the drug.
Her voice came through foggy, as if she were shouting from the top of a water tank, muffled by her own frustration.
"I'm trying to help you, but you clearly have no interest."
...
He didn't know how long he remained there, fingers fumbling with the package. But by the time he had regained some form of his senses, she was gone.
Finally.
He could have a smoke.
He shook the package and one, thin rod shimmied to the opening. He pulled it out, turning it slowly in his hand.
He tried to light it. He really did.
But he couldn't stop the tears from his eyes, nor the sobs that broke past his lips as the cigarette fell limply onto the ground.