This was what broken ribs felt like. Every inhale sent knives through his chest. It wasn't his only injury but it prevented him from examining the rest of his body as every reach and twist was agonising. When it was over, he had dragged himself from the floor to his cot and not moved since. His extremities were cold and pain throbbed through his ankles. There was something wrong with his right shoulder. He had been bleeding from somewhere though thankfully that seemed to have stemmed itself, aside from the split lip which he couldn't stop chewing on; this small pain he inflicted on himself was the only thing he had to distract him from the excruciation of his chest.
Satetsu had ignored him since, sliding the shoji door closed after he had left so that the prisoner would be alone with his pain and Shikamaru was grateful for the privacy. He was glad his friends weren't coming to rescue him; he didn't want any of them to see him now.
It felt as though days had passed. He didn't know if he had slept or not, everything was hazy.
Until the guard spoke.
He hadn't heard Temari coming down the stairs, but the guard welcomed her with a sickeningly pleasant greeting. He had clearly been looking forward to this moment.
The shoji door began to slide open and Shikamaru held his breath, bracing himself for the inevitable.
"Hey, Shika, I finally found that shogi board-"
Her words dropped away when she saw blood on the floor. Her eyes followed the trail of it to where he lay broken and she took a moment to take in what she was seeing, long enough to force him to take a breath. The knives, again.
"Satetsu." She used the tone that she had used with her hostage at their first meeting. "Let me in."
The guard laughed but did as he was told, unlocking the chains and pulling them to raise the iron grate. She bent low to sweep underneath it and came to him, immediately kneeling by the edge of his cot. Her hand reached for him and paused in the air for a moment before she let her fingertips trace down the bruising across the side of his face. It was the first time he had felt the touch of her skin since his imprisonment. He had wanted her touch so badly, but not like this. Now, he didn't want to look at her; he didn't want her to see him like this.
"Who did this to you?" She spoke softly but her eyes were wet with fury.
He looked behind her to where the guard was stood just outside the cell, grinning. She didn't make him say his name, just nodded quietly.
"Satetsu," she said aloud, though her gaze never moved from Shikamaru. "Can I have a word?"
When she returned, she had brought company. Four sets of footsteps came down the stairs and Shikamaru forced his eyes to open when he heard the grate being raised. Someone grimaced, someone swore.
There was a woman with her and two men. The woman was Hakuto, the medical-nin who had tended to Temari's leg at their rendezvous. Neither of the men were Satetsu.
"What did you do to him?" Shikamaru asked her as she came to sit by his cot again.
"Don't worry about it."
"Is he dead?"
"I said don't worry about it."
The force of her words made him silence the urge to press any further, but one of the men spoke up to elaborate. He spoke the Common Tongue with a strong accent typical of someone from one of the rural desert tribes rather than someone born and raised in the Village.
"Probably not for another few hours," he said. "Crows like to eat the eyes first."
"Shigazane!" Temari scolded him. "Watch your mouth."
"What? I'm just trying to cheer him up."
Hakuto was hovering her hands over parts of Shikamaru's body now, the tingle of her chakra making him itchy as she scanned him, assessing his injuries. Temari stayed close by, her hand comfortingly stroking his hair. He didn't protest.
"This is Shigazane," she introduced the stranger. "He's Hakuto's other half."
Shigazane was a young man, dark haired like his medic partner. He held himself in a casual slouch and gave Shikamaru a little wave when he looked at him.
"And this is Baki," she gestured to the other man who was stood with his arms crossed, looking at a spot on the wall where some skin from Shikamaru's face was still embedded in the stone. "He was my sensei."
Baki was an older man, well muscled and with the half of his face that wasn't obscured by a his gutrah painted with horizontal smears of colour.
"They're going to be guarding you from now on," Temari explained.
Shigazane hugged himself. "Kinda creepy down here, isn't it?"
No one validated his concerns, focusing instead on their patient. But he was right: the cells weren't the best place for healing. Hakuto gave a frustrated little grunt.
"I can't do this under a suppression field."
"We could move him to the guardsroom?" Temari suggested.
"He'll need his painkiller first."
"Right."
Temari took a bottle of something from the bag Hakuto had brought – an opaque white liquid - and poured some of it into a cup. She put the cup to Shikamaru's lips for him to drink from but the first sip burned his mouth and he spluttered.
"What the fuck is that?" He licked his lips, trying to clear the sour taste of fermentation.
"Cactus milk, for the pain. Drink it."
He did as he was told and forced a glug down, though it burned all the way to his gut. It made him wretch, which hurt his ribs.
"Is this alcoholic?"
"Very much so, yes."
It made sense, but he didn't have to like it. It was a shame to break the Konoha shinobi rules but he reasoned there should be no prohibition against medical-grade alcohol. The prohibitions were in place to protect shinobi from the distractions of pleasure, and there was nothing pleasurable about this situation. He took another swallow, missing home; the forests were full of useful botanicals that his clan used in their pharmaceuticals, none of which tasted as horrific as this.
"You could have given me valerian root, or myrtaceae, or white willow bark, or feverfew…" he complained.
"We don't have those things," Temari stated the obvious. "We have cactus milk. So suck it up."
He did so, as much as he could stomach. The four of them watched him for a few minutes while the painkiller started to work. Shikamaru could feel his muscles start to relax and his head begin to swim.
"How do you feel?" asked Temari.
"Sick and warm."
Hakuto's question was more precise. "How's your pain?"
"Inequitable."
"He's fine."
At Temari's direction, she and Baki used the cot as a stretcher to carry him out of the cell, beyond the reach of the chakra suppression field and into the guardsroom. There wasn't a lot of space – just a few chairs, a desk, and the security monitors – but it allowed Hakuto to get started. She focused on his chest first and used medical jargon in her native language to describe his condition to her comrades. Temari translated.
"There are fractures, but they're stable and your lungs aren't perforated."
"Fucked," Shigazane simplified helpfully. "But she can unfuck you."
The combination of milk and healing chakra was already beginning to work. There was still pain, but it felt far away. Shikamaru kept chewing on his lip until Temari lightly clonked her fist against his jaw to stop him from doing so.
"Is it supposed to feel like I'm full of eels?"
"Close enough."
"What's an eel?"
Shikamaru felt increasingly strange. By the time Hakuto was finished with his chest and moved on to the rest of him, he was drunk.
"You're so beautiful, Temari." He hadn't realised he had spoken out loud until she turned her head to look at him. His own chakra was flowing now and he felt strong away from the suppression field, strong enough to sit up a little. He reached a hand out to stroke her face and she let him. He had the sudden urge to put his fingers in her mouth. "Look how beautiful you are. Look how beautiful she is."
"He's quite cute, isn't he?" observed Shigazane, amused. "You should keep him."
"He's not a stray dog," Temari protested, though there was a flush of colour across her cheeks.
Shikamaru pouted. He didn't like feeling out of control like this and he didn't like their patronising. He wanted to be good enough for her. "I am not cute. I'm deadly."
It didn't sound as impressive as he'd intended. There was gentle laughter from the group but his vision was too unfocused for him to be able to scowl at anyone in particular. It was like being under a clumsy genjutsu.
"We know you are, dearest." Temari shuffled to sit behind him and let him rest his head on her chest. That was where her boobs were. He put so much concentration into making sure he didn't touch them that he barely even noticed Hakuto working on his face, her chakra glowing between them. He mustn't think about boobs. He mustn't say the word "boobs".
"Psst! Temari," he whispered, turning to stare at her boobs. "Don't let me say anything else stupid in front of your friends."
"I don't think that's a battle I can fight, Shikamaru." She was being very patient with him in his beaten, intoxicated state. She was amazing. So soft and blonde and horrifying. When a girl kills a man for someone, it means she likes them, right? They were so perfect for each other.
And he was full of cactus courage. "When this is over, do you want to go get coffee or married or something?"
"That's it, he's a keeper."
"I think you just got engaged, Princess."
She ignored them. "When what's over? The healing or the kidnapping?"
"Just generally, you know…" he gestured vaguely around the room. "The troubles. We just need to fix all the troubles first. But then…" He blinked seductively at her. Winking was more difficult than he remembered it being.
"He's obviously off his face."
"I think you should get some sleep, Shikamaru."
"How much milk did you give him?"
Temari shook her head. "I didn't think he'd be this much of a lightweight."
Shikamaru sat bolt upright suddenly, making Hakuto jump. "I need to be sick."
"Don't be sick," Temari reasoned, "it'll hurt your ribs."
When he was done being sick, he felt better. The room was still spinning circles around him but he felt in safe company and his body was reasonably functioning, the pain minimal. He couldn't taste blood any more, only vomit. That was an improvement. His limbs felt looser than normal and his skin was hot.
"Am I on fire?" he thought he probably knew the correct answer, but it was very important to be sure.
"No, Shikamaru, you're not on fire."
"Oh. That's good."
By the time he was sobering up, he was back in his cell. The ghost of a memory of her lying in his cot with him drifted around his mind but he had been so exhausted. By the time he awoke with his mind back under his own control, he was alone. Perhaps the way his blankets smelled of her was just his imagination.
Hakuto had done great work but his body wasn't completely as good as new – he was still a little achy and discoloured in places. There was still healing that only he himself would be able to do. Being back under the suppression field wasn't helpful in that regard but the change of guard was invaluable. Shigazane and Baki kept the shoji screen open so that they could speak through the grate, both Shikamaru and the young guard being thankful for the company and conversation that served as a distraction from the otherwise unsettling atmosphere of the hold. There were still bloodstains on the stone.
Shigazane was chattering on about what Shikamaru had swiftly realised was one of his favourite subjects: Hakuto.
"She's so cool. I can't wait to put a baby in her. That's what keeps me fighting."
The two guards had brought a couple of chairs through the guardsroom to sit in the corridor outside of Shikamaru's cell. They each had a cup of coffee and it went some way to cover up the metallic smell of his assault that still lingered in the room.
"I suppose you'll need to wait until you're both ready to retire from active duty to start a family?" Shikamaru asked.
"We don't have rules like that," Baki told him, more morose than the other guard. "Rasa needs a consistent supply of baby blood to oil the cogs of his war machine."
"Even his own babies?"
"Especially his own babies," the older guard told him. He sounded bitter and it piqued Shikamaru's curiosity. He wondered what Asuma would have done if any of the Ino-Shika-Cho parents had been like the Kazekage.
"Do you have a family, Baki?" he probed.
Baki slapped a large hand onto Shigazane's shoulder. "These guys are my kids."
"You lost two of them because of me," Shikamaru reminded him. He was referring to the two ANBU who hadn't survived the infiltration of the Nara compound. He couldn't remember what Temari had said their names were. He had taken one of their lives himself and didn't even remember their name. How disrespectful of him.
"Not because of you. If the Kazekage had found an agreement in the first place, she wouldn't have needed to go."
The sensei was logical and spoke with conviction. Shikamaru liked him. There was a brief silence in which the guards sipped their coffees and the prisoner formulated his next question.
"What do your citizens think of him?"
The guards shared a look before answering. He walked a dangerous line and they knew it. Thankfully, Shikamaru was pretty sure that if he did push it too far, he'd be punished by being left alone and not with a beating.
It was Baki who spoke. "It used to be that they thought whatever Rasa wanted them to think. But Windfolk aren't stupid. He likes to think he controls how much they know, but there are always whispers."
"What about the rest of the family?"
Shigazane flashed Shikamaru a little smile, seeing through his question. He wasn't asking about the rest of the family; he was only interested in Temari and was trying to play it cool.
"She's not always an easy person to like. But she's an easy person to respect," Shigazane explained. "Temari gets shit done."
"We don't support Lady Temari because of the gold in her blood. We support her because we believe in her." Baki had used her title and it sent a shiver up Shikamaru's spine.
Shigazane elaborated. "Kankurou is a good guy and highly skilled but he'd be the first to admit he doesn't have the head to lead. Gaara is arguably the strongest of the three but he's young and the people don't trust him. But Temari? I'd follow her anywhere."
"Seconded," Baki nodded.
But Shikamaru wasn't satisfied. "You support her but you're still loyal to the Kazekage."
Baki raised his chin a little before responding. Shikamaru met his gaze firmly and read that his implication had reached it's target: he was acknowledging the friction between Temari and her father and questioning Baki's allegiance.
"I'm loyal to Rasa first and foremost, but I helped raise those kids. I do stand by the family as a whole. Being loyal to Rasa doesn't mean I have to agree with everything he does."
Everything he does… Shikamaru wondered if Baki even knew what had gone on behind closed doors. Maybe Temari only ever told her medic and her mother's star.
"You don't agree with him, but you don't do anything about it," Shikamaru challenged Temari's sensei, not being able to hide the snarl behind his words. "Tell me how you can be loyal to Rasa and the rest of the family at the same time. It's one or the other."
"The best way I can be loyal to the kids is by staying alive to be there for them. The best way I can keep myself alive is by not challenging Rasa," Baki explained. His voice was firm, obviously believing what he was saying. "More importantly, any challenges from someone close to the Kazekage would be seen as betrayal and make the whole family appear weak and untrustworthy. I need the elders and the citizens to support her. I can't touch him without fucking over her future, too."
There was a certain tone that Shikamaru's father had used when telling him riddles, when passing on important information without saying the words themselves. Baki was using that tone with him now.
"So you see, it's very difficult for anyone from the inside to make any real changes. Do you hear what I'm saying, Nara?"
"Yeah," Shikamaru told his guard. If change was going to happen, it needed to be instigated by someone from the outside. It needed to be him. "I get it."
His next visitor wasn't Temari. He was in the habit of listening for her footsteps approaching around the time he estimated might be the evening but today, the footsteps that approached were not hers. A man's voice grunted to the guards and a broad, masculine figure approached his cell. For a horrible moment, Shikamaru thought Rasa had finally come for him, until their eyes met.
No, not Rasa. Kankurou.
His face was bare of the kabuki paint that he had worn before and, without it, he looked a lot like his father. Perhaps that was why he wore it.
"Where's Temari?" Shikamaru asked him.
The Prince furrowed his brow. "Why do you care?"
But he did care. And more, he was suspecting more and more that she cared about him too. If she was missing their routine, she would have a good reason. Something big must be keeping her from him.
Kankurou slid a bowl of plain bread and chickpeas through the grate but it sat, ignored, on the floor of the cell.
"Can't you at least tell me if she's okay?"
The Prince was about to leave, not bothering to stick around and chat like his sister would have done. Shikamaru was stood by the grate now, his hands on the iron, watching the man's back as he left. He called out to him just before he slipped out of sight and Kankurou paused.
"She's dealing with a bird."
He said no more and carried on his way out of the hold. Shikamaru listened to his footsteps grow quieter and quieter as he left. He knew exactly which bird would have monopolised Temari's attentions.
Tsunade had made a decision.
His thoughts were nebulous by the time she finally arrived. It could have been the next morning, the next day, two days later… he hadn't been able to sleep and had lost all concept of time. He had been concerned she might have sent Kankurou to attend him again, or another substitute, but he recognised the sound of her footsteps and her voice greeting the guards. By the time she reached his cell, he was stood up from the cot to meet her.
"There was a bird?" he asked.
He tried to read her expression but she gave little away, standing square opposite him with the iron grate between them.
"There was a bird."
If her plan had worked, then Tsunade would have agreed to trade prisoner for prisoner, Gaara for Shikamaru, and soon he'd be back in the Leaf and Temari would have her brother home. If Tsunade refused, however… he had no doubt that Temari wouldn't give up on trying to have Gaara returned to her alive, which could only have meant bloodshed between their Nations. But for Shikamaru, the threat of further political troubles was overshadowed by the immediate danger that this would land him in: if Tsunade wasn't willing to negotiate, then the Sand no longer needed to leave him unharmed. He wouldn't just be destroyed, he knew that. Temari had protected him as best she could up to now, but her defence had been based on his value to the Sand.
"And?" he pressed.
"And," her voice faltered a little in what might have been emotion. "Konoha have agreed to my terms."
Shikamaru exhaled long and loud, his very bones tingling with relief. He had the sudden urge to hug her, proud of her having fought for what she wanted and won, but the iron grate still stood between them so he instead found himself falling into a crouch and putting his head in his hands.
"They're going to release Gaara," she clarified, her words through a tentative smile now.
He rose to his feet again and paced his cell, his body still buzzing. "It worked?"
"It worked!"
It was all going to be okay. This was the outcome he had hoped for and the possibility of him surviving this was now a probability. He was going to live; he was going home. He was going home…
His eyes met hers and she was looking at him strangely. Was she troubled by the same complication as he was? Of course, he wanted to be free. But even that want was complicated: leaving the Sand meant leaving Temari and that was a difficulty he could never have anticipated. He had only known her for a short time but already couldn't imagine spending his future without her company. How could he possibly go back to the life that he had been living up until now? How could he possibly go back to being the person he had been before he knew her? Their time was running out.
Calming down, he stood opposite her again, closer than before, and looked at her through the grate as her chest rose and fell with steady breath, her gaze taking him in from head to toe. She was close enough that he could have reached out and touched her if it weren't for the several inches of iron and several decades of political unrest that stood between them.
After an eternity, she broke the silence.
"When was the last time you bathed?"
She had Shigazane escort them to the pools. They were in a different part of the tower to the hold and to let him bathe meant to break him out of his cell. It was against the rules, they all knew it, but Temari was pragmatic in her rebellion. He had joked about using the opportunity to escape and she had voiced the obvious to ensure everyone was on the same page.
"Even if you killed us both, you wouldn't make it out of the tower," both men with her knew that it was the truth. "Or out of the Village. Or across the desert."
As they walked, the effects of the suppression field ebbed away and chakra flowed through him again, filling him with strength. As he followed her, a part of him missed the rope that had kept him close to her on the way to the Land of Wind.
They walked through tight, windowless hallways, the guard scouting ahead and Temari making no sound as she moved. They passed no one else and when they finally reached a large doorway at the end of a short, broad hallway, Temari addressed Shigazane.
"We won't be disturbed," she told the guard. The way she commanded him made something flutter in the pit of Shikamaru's stomach. "Do you understand?"
A knowing smile sparkled on his face as he took his place as sentinel. "Crystal clear, Lady Temari," he confirmed.
The pools were different to those in Konoha. In the Leaf Village, the bathhouses were expansive with many of them open to the outdoor air and all of them hot; the waters themselves heated and bubbling and the air around them thick with steam. They were used not just to get clean but to heat tired muscles and sooth aching bodies.
But the pools she had brought him to were in an enclosed room, two smaller round pools and a single larger one which was fed by a steady stream of water falling from the low ceiling at the far end. The light was low with several steady light sources in between the dark corners which reflected off the water to throw rippling patterns across the stone ceiling. The noise of running water echoed between the walls, and the air was cool, refreshing. He remembered how she had washed her hair in the river as they had traveled together and how she hadn't flinched at the cold natural water, and it made sense now. The people here bathed in cool water.
"I don't suppose bathing suits are provided," he jibed. One wall held some clean towels and robes and there were a pair of stone ledges displaying some tubs and bottles of products but the pool room was otherwise quite bare.
Temari called him a prude but agreed to turn her back as he began to undress, pulling the linen of his top over his head and discarding it onto the darkly tiled floor under his bare feet. There was old sweat and dirt encrusted into his skin and he would admit that it was a relief to have the opportunity to get clean again, although he had the suspicion that wasn't the only reason she had brought him here.
"I need to shave," he said, running a hand over his chin which had gradually evolved over the course of his kidnapping from stubble into a short beard.
He noted the side of her face curling into a smile. "Keep it. I like it." She used the same commanding tone she had used with the guard. "Plus, it's probably pushing it a little to give you any kind of blade."
He let his hair down and placed the tie that she had given him around his wrist so he wouldn't lose it. "You're already pushing it, Temari. Sneaking me around like this, breaking the rules to help an enemy…"
"I don't think you're my enemy, Shikamaru," she sighed. She still had her back to him and now crossed her arms over her chest. With this privacy, he dropped his pants around his ankles and stepped out of them, so that he was stood naked on the tiles by the pools. "We want the same thing. Our enemies are the shinobi and citizens and nobility - from all of our Nations - who want to uphold the system of exploiting our kids in empty conflict for the sake of pride and greed. You and I are on the same side; the side that knows we all deserve better."
Shikamaru swallowed, naked aside from her hair tie around his wrist, staring at her back.
"You'd make a better Kazekage than your father," he told her.
She snorted a laugh. "My left tit would make a better Kazekage than my father. Now, are you done yet or do you need help undressing yourself too?"
If he had known help was an option he might have taken it, but resisted telling her so.
At his answer, she turned to take him by the hand, pointedly maintaining eye contact instead of looking at his body. She lead him towards the back of the room, grabbing something from the ledge as they passed, and finally dropped his hand to pull a lever on the wall. His attention was stolen by the sudden noisy appearance of a new waterfall: a stream falling from the ceiling into a square of tile surrounded by a gutter system on the floor. She tossed to him the item that she had taken from the ledge. It was soap, smelling earthy and botanical.
The cool of the water felt strange as he was so used to taking hot showers at home, but his skin soon adjusted to the concept. He ducked his head under the waterfall and dirt clouded the water that fell from him, gathering around his feet before draining away down the gutters. He used the soap she had given him and began working it into his hair, across his face, under his arms, between his legs. He could feel her watching him but didn't very much mind, until he noticed that she, too, was undressing. In his peripheral vision, he saw her remove her mesh armour and her kunai pack, disarming herself.
She stepped forward to join him under the falling water and only when she put her hand on his forearm did he let himself look at her. Her skin was scarred and weathered and beaten all across that golden desert complexion and he wanted to explore and adore every inch of it. The lines of her were smooth down her body, a woman's flesh overlaying a shinobi's muscle, and sharp across her face with her thick, honey-blonde hair beginning to grow wet under the shower spray and soft, pink lips that curled at one corner. And all of her centred around those big, viridian eyes; dangerous and beautiful, arrogant and childlike. Those eyes had been all he could see of her under her ANBU gutrah when they first met and now he knew that brutal, passionate gaze would be etched into his soul for years to come.
He wanted to reach a hand out to trace along the clean angle of her jaw, but the urge was interrupted by her slipping her fingers down his arm into his hand and gripping around the soap he was holding.
"May I?" she asked.
He nodded. But instead of using it to clean herself, she rubbed some suds between her hands and put them to his chest. She smoothed her slippery hands over the sparse, dark hair that grew there and over the broadness of his shoulders, the plump of his biceps and the lines of his torso. One of her hands palmed the point of his hip and followed the muscle around to the small of his back to pull him close to her.
"You said shinobi from the Land of Fire had no fire in their bellies," she said, her eyes flicking down to where the fire in his belly was pressing against her groin.
"And you said I wouldn't be tortured while I was here."
Her smile became wicked. She knew of Konoha's shinobi prohibitions; she knew that he had sworn against this. She was making it increasingly difficult to be faithful to his vows, and her expression gave away that she was getting off on his inner conflict.
Shikamaru stepped backwards, making a little space between them and took the soap from her. Her skin was already clean, holding none of the grime that his had done, but it gave him an excuse to touch her, to care for her. He let his hands become slippery with the soap and found her gaze long enough for her to give him a subtle nod. His hand lifted towards her chest at first but faltered and instead went to her collar bone before slipping down her sternum, between her breasts, around her waist. He dropped to his knees.
The scar he had given her, fresh and silver and spanning the breadth of her thigh, was right in front of him and it hurt him to know that he had wounded her so prominently. He put his lips to it. Temari gasped but the noises she made her drowned out by the screaming in Shikamaru's head telling him to let his hands roam the length of her legs and up onto the softness of her belly, his fingertips gripping at her flesh.
He worshiped her on his knees until she brought him back to his feet by placing two fingers under his chin. When he was standing again, he was braver than before. He pushed his hands against the slippery warmth of her breasts and sank his head down to let his mouth rest against her neck. Her skin was wet under his lips, his lungs were full of the smell of her.
Following her lead, they migrated away from the shower and towards one of the smaller pools. He used the time it took for her to guide him there to catch his breath and relax a little, trying to flow with the situation and not let overwhelm take him.
In the water, he dunked his head under the surface, trying to keep his head clear. He went to the far edge of the pool and rested on the seating ledge that was submerged there. Temari held the distance between them until he reached a hand out towards her, beckoning her to him.
Her naked body flowed with the water as she strode towards him, the surface of the pool just reaching her ribs. As she reached him, he shuffled a little uncomfortably but held her gaze as she rested her knees on the ledge on either side of him. The skin of her thighs settled in his lap and he again became unable to control his hands, placing each on one of her legs and squeezing at the meat of her under the water. Her face was close to his, looking down at him, and her hand brushed feather-soft against the side of his face, caressing the facial hair that she liked and running her thumb over his bottom lip.
"Are you going to use your shadows on me?" She spoke quietly, almost drowned out by the sound of running water. "Now that you're free of the bindings."
Using his jutsu was not the first thing he wanted to do with his hands. But she had asked very nicely. It was a strange request: she had seen him use his shadows before, had seen him kill with them. He had no intention of hurting her but she still wanted the danger of him. The Princess and the prisoner, not to be disturbed.
"Only if you want me to."
Shikamaru let his hands trace up her thighs, across her hips and into the curve of her waist before bringing them together above the water in front of him. He focused his chakra, feeling powerful now that he was relieved from the assault of the chakra suppression field. He formed his hand signs slowly, waiting for her to change her mind, waiting for her to tell him to stop, but she didn't.
The first of his shadows snaked up the leg that he had injured and her eyes widened as she felt it around her. Her lips parted at the feeling and she looked down to watch as he let the tip of it trace the scar that he had given her. He sent a second shadow across her waist and up between her breasts. He pushed it up her neck and watched her crane her head back as it licked up her jaw. A third; up her back. A fourth; squeezing around her breasts. She drank in the heat of his chakra, his prowess pulsing between them.
"Don't tell me you've been thinking about this since the Land of Rivers?" His words were playful but genuine. In the days since they had fought together against rival shinobi, she hadn't seen or mentioned his jutsu, but her reaction to it now spoke of the hunger she must have been hiding.
"Shikamaru," she leaned in close to him to breathe the words into his ear. "I think about nothing else."
Shikamaru swore. Up until now, whenever he had thought of what it meant to love a woman (which had not been very often) all he could picture was how Yoshino had grieved for Shikaku and how Mirai was born without ever having met Asuma. Despite how his father and sensei had spoken of the women in their lives completing them, when Shikamaru thought of love, all he felt was grief. Now, that pain was still there: it was the pain of knowing this couldn't possibly last forever, that if he held her body against his like this for the next eighty years, it could never be enough. He grieved for all the years he had wasted not belonging to her. But there wasn't only pain: there was also pleasure and vulnerability and hope and power and madness. They were not a prisoner and a Princess, or a son of Fire and daughter of the Wind. They were not even shinobi. They were a lonely, frightened Temari and a lonely, frightened Shikamaru trying to learn from each other what it was supposed to feel like to be alive.
"Can you feel it?" She was breathing heavily now. "What your shadows touch – can you feel it?"
He had felt bones crack under the grip of his shadows, felt the heat of blood against them, felt the vibration of chakra drain away at the point of death. Now, he could feel the softness of her skin, the tiny differences in pressure as she clenched and quivered beneath them.
"Yes."
She opened her mouth and he ran the tip of a shadow over her lips and onto her tongue. The warmth of her mouth against his jutsu was dirty and delicious. She played her tongue against it lightly and he struggled to breathe. He retracted it a little, the feeling becoming overwhelming.
"What a waste," she told him, reaching to run her fingers down his chest, down his abs. "To have skills like yours that no one is allowed to make use of."
She was referencing the prohibitions, he knew. They had never felt like very much of a sacrifice until now. He had always prioritised his job and anything else was just a pointless complication, but now he understood that being a good shinobi was not the most important thing to him. Now, nothing seemed important except her. Nothing was more important than her breath on his neck and her heat on his thighs. He was going to break his vows.
"I'm sure there would be plenty of captors who would take what they wanted from a prisoner in a situation like this," he told her, "regardless of any vows they might have made."
Temari's expression dropped at his insinuation - the insinuation that she might have done anything to him against his will. She took a breath before telling him to let her go and he obeyed her instantly, letting his shadows recoil. She dismounted from his lap and strode away from him through the pool, heaving herself out of the water and on to the tiles. He wanted to follow her, to fix it, but the spell was broken. He was cold in the water again, watching her walk naked across the tiles to pick a robe from the side. Her wet body glimmered in the low light, all of her scars illuminated. All of her scars, so many of them centred over her bottom and her thighs. Some of the bruises there were new.
"I told you, Nara," her voice was steel as she covered herself. "I'm not like my father."
Something akin to rage filled his body. She hadn't been out on any missions - someone had given her those bruises at home and she had wanted him to see, to understand. He remembered how frightened she had been of her father when they had first arrived together in Suna; of course she wouldn't have wanted to see anything of her father in herself.
For too long, he had been the one who had been worrying over the threat of war that hung between their nations when really, it was the shinobi world that should have been scared of the hurricane that had already begun turning inside him. Shikamaru decided in that moment that as Temari had found a way to be vulnerable for him, he would find a way to be ferocious for her.
Author's Note:
You guys do not want to know how many different versions of the pool scene I drafted before picking this one.
In Chapter 7, it will be time to exchange hostages! I'm sure everything will go according to plan and nothing will go wrong.
See you then! x