Parking Lot
Pairing: Natsuki/Shizuru
Rating: T
Warnings: Lesbians, suggestion of violence, lots of bad language. If these offend, please click the blue arrow.
Length: ~1500 words
Summary: Companion piece to Paved Paradise. Shizuru is sick and tired of being yanked around by Natsuki.

A thunderous banging rattled her door. Shizuru jolted at the noise. "Just a moment, someone at the door," she told Haruka.

Haruka apparently could hear the racket from her end of the phone because she warned Shizuru to be safe and check her peephole first. Shizuru complied and gasped at the sight of Natsuki's distorted face—rounded enough from the peephole that she couldn't really tell her expression except for the almighty blush there. "Ara. It's Natsuki." She reached for the deadbolt and said, "I have to go," before unceremoniously hanging up on Haruka.

As soon as the door opened, Natsuki bellowed, "What the fuck? What the flying fuck? Suzushiro?" Shizuru flinched when Natsuki threw a folded newspaper at her head. It took her a moment to regain her composure.

"I had no idea you read the Society pages," Shizuru quipped, turning away from the door to return to her tea. Unfortunately, it had been steeping since before her parents called her. Despite that, Shizuru poured herself a cup and sat at the table—blinked when she remembered Haruka's name for her, bubuzuke indeed, how clever—trying not to feel naked because she was in her pajamas.

"Don't joke, you bitch!"

It hurt. Shizuru knew in that moment her face actually registered the surprise and pain. For the first time in her dealings with Natsuki, she dropped into a defensive stance. "I don't see how it's any of your business." Her voice was deadly calm.

Natsuki had the nerve to gape at her. "None of my business? Like hell!"

"Ara, now I get it," Shizuru snapped. "I'm a pet, is that it? You wish to control my love life—" Words failed her, and she broke right into what had been upsetting her for weeks—"when you've decided to be with that woman, Akiho? That's rather presumptuous of you."

"How do you know about that?" Inconceivably, there was real alarm in Natsuki's voice, not defensiveness...or an innocent explanation, which was what Shizuru was really hoping for.

"I saw you at Lady's Luck."

"Why the fuck were you hanging around there? That's a dangerous part of town, Shizuru! Not to mention the fucking bar is full of the mob!"

"You're rather cleverly avoiding the topic."

Natsuki fisted her hair. She'd shorn it short just after getting out of jail, and she'd kept it in an awful shaggy cut since then. Her eyes were blood-shot, her face lined with worry. She had tobacco stains on her fingers now. Her entire body vibrated with a kind of latent energy or anxiety. She'd never hurt Shizuru more than in the last few years of their relationship. But she was still the most beautiful, wanted woman on the planet. Now Natsuki sent a look of blind pleading to her; it broke Shizuru's heart. "I—Shizuru, don't go there, I meant it. Go somewhere else, okay? Just stay out of that bar."

"Natsuki." Shizuru managed anger, somehow.

"Hell, it's complicated Shizuru."

Of all the words to use. All Shizuru really wanted anymore was the truth. "Complicated? You fuck men; I cheer you on. You fuck women; I cheer you on. I pretend everyday that you don't keep breaking my heart because—" She heard her own voice break, especially at the sight of Natsuki's expression falling.—"Because I'm supposed to be your best friend."

"Please, just a few more weeks." Natsuki was pleading with her, and Shizuru knew she had to be strong.

It was, in fact, her weariness that won. "I can't do this anymore."

"Shizuru—!"

"I can't. If I can't be your lover, I can't be your friend, and it's very clear that you will never feel the same way that I do. It's time for me to be selfish and unfair. I don't want to see you again."

Natsuki reached for her, beseeching. Shizuru had to brace herself to turn away. "Shizuru!"

"Get out."

"Oh, god, please, don't do this, Shizuru." By her tone of voice, Shizuru could tell Natsuki had fallen into tears. She didn't have the strength to look. Instead, she swallowed past the lump in her throat and said, "It isn't easy, is it?"

She heard Natsuki stop, heard her gasp and turn away. And then the door slammed, and Natsuki's footsteps thundered down the hallway. It was finally then that Shizuru slid to the floor and wailed in pain.

She cried for a long time, terrified that Natsuki had obeyed her.

Bubuzuke indeed.

Shizuru pressed her head into her hands and heaved a wet sigh. She took a shot of bourbon, grabbed her phone and dialed. Two weeks. Two weeks and she was doing this. She didn't even make it an entire month!

"Kuga here. Leave a message."

Shizuru swallowed again. Her voice came out sticky and thick. "I can't stand it. Come back; I'll deal with my feelings, but I can't live without you. I'm a doormat, I know, just please... Please call me."

She took another shot of bourbon and sighed as it burned a path to her belly. Someone knocked heavily on her door. Surely not Haruka at this time; especially not Haruka since she and Yukino were probably unpacking their things in their new apartment. Shizuru glanced into the peephole and nearly fainted at the sight of Natsuki there.

She threw open the door, uncertain how she was going to physically act now, but all thoughts of that flew out the window. Her eyes fastened on Natsuki's bruised cheekbone, the sling around her arm, bandages on her hand. "What happened?" she gasped, dragging Natsuki inside.

Natsuki's brow wrinkled, and she sniffed. "Are you drinking whiskey? It's nine in the morning."

"Natsuki!" Shizuru shook her gently. "What. Happened?"

"That." Natsuki lifted her bandaged hand to point at the front page of the unopened newspaper on Shizuru's coffee table.

CRIME BOSS IKUMI JIIRO TO BE TRIED ON MULTIPLE CHARGES

"I don't understand," Shizuru whispered weakly.

"Fuck," Natsuki said. She sank onto the couch, and Shizuru watched her entire body relax in one exhausted sigh. "I love you."

Shizuru's mouth opened, then closed. "Come again?"

"I love you, Fujino Shizuru."

Clearly Natsuki was drugged out of her mind. "I wish I could believe you," Shizuru said sadly. She was unprepared for Natsuki's head to snap up in anger.

"I've been fucking undercover, okay? It's been three years of that. For the record, I never had sex with Ikumi Akiho—I was never even interested. I love you, okay, and it my fucking luck to realize it a year into a fucking undercover operation. I shouldn't have been even seeing you! Since, you know, they might decide to use you if they realized something was wrong. I can't believe you went to Lady's Luck, by the way! That was fucking stupid, going to a yakuza bar!"

Shizuru sat down on her coffee table, white in the face. "Explain to me how you're here and safe if you ratted out the mob."

"I didn't rat them out. I wore a wire sometimes, told them about a drug deal other times. The police raided and killed a few of the little 'uns, and one of was a cop so they pinned him as the undercover. The police fucking shot me to boot! Anyway, the old bastard called me in to talk to me, and he still fucking trusts me. Maybe 'cause I chopped off my own fucking finger because I fucked up on a drug deal earlier, I dunno. My file isn't even in the police database anymore."

"Oh, my god." Shizuru looked again at Natsuki's bandages and felt like she was going to vomit.

Natsuki shook her head. "It's better than still being there. I'm retired, and I got a damn good bonus with a monthly check until I die. I'm set for life. I could support you, if you needed it." Natsuki paused. "Your parents didn't disown you, did they?"

"No." Shizuru swallowed. "You're sure you're safe?"

"At this point, absolutely. I didn't have to testify at a trial or anything. My name's okay."

"Why would you ever do such a thing?"

"Because I was stupid. They said, 'You don't have a family, yadda yadda fucking yadda. You won't get promoted ever because you're a woman with a chip on your shoulder yadda fucking yadda. This is a good deal for you yadda fucking yadda unless you want to write parking tickets for the rest of your life.' And fuck me if I even considered you at all being family. Because I'm a fucking moron. Do you have any idea how awful it was to have to wait two fucking years to tell you I love you? And all the while you're dating off and on. And then, right when I see the light at the end of the tunnel, I find out you've given me up and started to fuck Suzushiro of all people?"

Shizuru had forgotten about that completely. She couldn't believe she'd not thought to correct that mistake in Natsuki's knowledge. "We never did, Natsuki. I kissed her to prove a point, and the media blew it out of proportion."

"A point?"

"That she's gay and in love with Kikukawa-han."

"Oh. Do you, I mean..."

"I still love you desperately, Natsuki."

Natsuki sank bank into the couch with another soul-weary sigh. All the tension in her leaked out. Then she burst into tears. Shizuru scrambled to her and drew her body into her own. Natsuki seemed so small suddenly, barely a weight in Shizuru's lap. She quieted after a few minutes, then drew Shizuru's mouth to hers.

It felt very much like their first kiss.

Natsuki smacked her lips. "You were drinking whiskey."

-end-

Note: Bubuzuke is a traditional Kyoto dish of green tea poured over rice (like milk over cereal). It has a separate connotation as well. If asked if someone would like bubuzuke, it suggests that person has overstayed their welcome.