a/n: as was previously decided on tumblr this week, this fic is officially renamed some version of: "The Nara Dilemma: Patriotism or Pussy" so just an fyi!
THREE
He is going to work overtime Saturday night with the heightened security of her family's arrival.
Everyone is operating with more gusto; more purpose than he's witnessed since he first came five months ago. Now, he can see how, when it was just the princess, everything in the palace really had been basically dormant. And when her brother or father had come, it was always in secret; but now, with the entire family and their entourage officially arriving for the summer, activity has increased thirtyfold.
The princess laments the change in season and the increase of personnel, but she is excited to be with her family. He can tell. She spoke of her brothers more frequently the closer it came to their arrival, and when he passes her with one of them (with Tsubusa and a guard for the prince that Shikamaru only knows from the prince's visit) Thursday morning near the kitchen, she is smiling more than he's ever seen so early in the day.
As Shikamaru comes closer, the prince waves.
"No way," he says, despite the fact that they'd never interacted apart from Shikamaru following him through the gardens one day last winter. "You're still here?! I thought she would've scared you off months ago."
The princess elbows her brother in the ribs and Shikamaru, much to his own chagrin, laughs lightly.
"Not for lack of trying," he says, nodding in parting as he attempts to move past them down the hall.
"Apparently not hard enough," she calls out, and that makes him smile, though he doesn't turn back.
She's happy. He can tell.
It's too busy for his tastes though. At her request, he has taken the nightshift the day of their arrival, so he spends his afternoon home, when not napping, doing the bare minimum to help his mother as she cleans the house.
On Tsubusa's instruction, he opens her door when he gets there. As the other man walks off, Shikamaru enters her bedroom to see her and three of the maids who help her standing throughout the room. The balcony door is open, the sky still quite light despite the evening hours.
"Oh," she greets, "good." She looks at the women, "I'm all set here. Thank you."
Shikamaru holds open the door, stepping out of the way for them to leave.
Once it is firmly shut behind them, the princess turns away from him. She's dressed, but her dress isn't fully closed. It's a long dress, light purple, sleeveless, and high on her neck. Good for summer. Good for the night. Good for the celebration.
"Will you button me up?"
Shikamaru doesn't move. There are buttons going from the bottom of her torso up to the base of her skull. They're closed until her upper back, but above that, the dress hangs open, exposing her shoulder blades and the top bumps of her spine.
"Are you ordering me to?"
The princess turns her head in consideration, but keeps her eyes lowered, not quite looking at him behind her.
"Should I?"
Shikamaru steps forward. The buttons are small and covered in the same silk of her dress. To get them through their respective openings, he has to dig the flesh of his thumb and pointer into them until it hurts. Her skin is warm as he brushes against it, darker than his own when they're so juxtaposed like this.
It takes longer than it should, all the way until his knuckles are brushing her hair with the final button at the top of her neck.
He steps back and can see her shoulders, slightly, lower, as though she too had been holding her breath.
"Is there anything else, your highness?"
It's a moment before she turns around. When she does, her gaze is hesitant, as though she's been caught off-guard.
"No," she says, stepping further back. She looks down and away from him, smoothing out her dress by her thighs, and then moves to her mirror to consider her lipstick.
Shikamaru watches her. He feels as though he should've brushed his hair more recently than this morning. His hand almost moves to touch the tie in his hair, just to assure it is there, to fix his collar or fuss with his buttons just as she is doing, but he resists the urge. He is not meant to look any different than he usually does. He is not meant to do anything different than he usually does. And yet, he is. Yet, he is nervous. Anxious. Unsure, like he too has been invited tonight.
The princess turns back to him.
"Shall we, then?"
Hm.
He doesn't respond, but opens the door for her to step through. Her strides are long. She is taller in her heels than usual, almost to his eye-line, and she meets his gaze as they pass.
Hm.
They're all here: the royal clan. Her youngest brother has been here for a few days, her other brother since last night, but her father has only just arrived. The security isn't only upped for their attendance — as it always would have been — but given the current wars Suna and their territories are raging in the East, extra precautions were also taken.
It is not their usual season spent summering in Konohagakure. The king will only be here for a few days, maybe less, and then will be in and out for the next few months. Her brothers, similarly, won't be here nearly the extent she is.
He doesn't know their schedules or their plans. He doesn't know what she is doing. No one has told him.
If she knows, she hasn't said anything.
She is encircled as soon as they enter — before she enters, even. She has been in these walls for months, living comfortably and, almost, casually in comparison to this. But tonight, as soon as she enters, she changes, easily resuming the part of honored guest. People come before her, kiss her hand or simply bow as they search for her attention; they smile when she does, a few — apparently close friends he has never seen nor heard anything about — put a hand on her arm.
It's so new to see: her world — one he's never known separately, yet never seen exist in this way — put before him. He's been beside her for half a year, always in these very walls, but he has never seen her like this.
She pushes no one away. She laughs and jokes and appears delighted in the conversation, though he supposes otherwise.
He's always thought it: she knows the answers to more than half the questions she asks.
These people love her. Adore her. Adoration. Whole and complete and ingenuous.
But it's not real though, is it? Unsuspecting. Fabricated. False. An adoration perceived on what she has cultivated, on her name — not any love for her. Right? Is that right?
Shikamaru blinks. Is it? Who is he to know? Does he, really, know her? Are the long hours spent stalking behind her akin to knowing her? Is that (being her guard) of the same ilk to really knowing? Demonstrative or, perhaps, cumulative of the conclusion? Of knowing? In the end, does he really know anything about her?
He stands back and watches and waits for her to turn. He keeps expecting her to. He keeps waiting for her to. As though the draw of his eye (which is never anywhere else) will somehow be stronger tonight.
But she doesn't turn. She apparently pays him no mind.
So he watches her talk to others. And he thinks about his hand on her neck. And his hand, earlier tonight, on the warmth of her back.
She's so good at this. She's surprisingly patient (he would never have ever described her as such when it was just the two of them) and diplomatic. She plays politics as though her words hold weight. He's not impressed — she's wasted here — but seeing her tonight, with others of her standing and of her own court, his conclusions are confirmed.
She'd be less stifled, he believes, if she'd stayed in Suna. Why did she come to Konoha so early? There was nothing for her here until now. Not really. She didn't belong in Konoha. She never had. Even as a princess, her powers were only put to use now that the rest of her party had joined her. So why run away to be here almost six months prior to any one else?
She's so good at this, it makes him feel ill. But he can't stop watching her.
Anyone else.
Anyone.
If she were just—
He stops. He shouldn't think that way. He can't think that way. He has to stop.
Shikamaru is a few feet from the wall. There are more guards here than she could need. His presence is unnecessary. Music swells. Laughter and exclamations fill the room. People dance. She dances with anyone who asks.
He's been to parties like this before, but only a few times. And all of those prior occasions were for work. For different work. For other kinds of work than what he is doing in this moment.
He didn't like it then and he doesn't like it now.
Anyone else.
"If you were—" she stops it too. She cuts herself off, too. She's had some to drink, but not nearly enough for the way she is standing before him. She is facing him, but to the side, not directly. She cannot have a conversation with him here. She cannot have this conversation with him anywhere.
Anyone else.
If she were.
If you were.
"If we were somewhere else," she says instead (though they should not be anywhere else), and she is looking past him as she says it, "it would be you and I."
He's not as hurt as he may have been. He doesn't even fully know what she is putting words to — what he cannot seem to finish a sentence to — but he agrees with it.
"I don't dance." He answers, knowing it isn't a satisfactory reply. He is looking past her too, keeping an eye on her surroundings.
"Neither do I."
"Not from what I've seen."
"You've seen?"
He blinks, moving his head lower, closer to her. "I always see."
The princess steps in. Her sternum raises with her breath.
There is music and conversation and laughter and yet all of it seems to dim for her, slows so that he can hear her when she speaks low, when she speaks only to him.
"I like it when you watch me," she says, looking down, eyes trained near his hip lest she be mistaken for speaking with him (though there is nothing else one would mistake it for). "I want you to watch me."
Shikamaru swallows.
She's a fire. She burns everything she touches.
"It's my job."
He watches her chest move with her breath, hears it shake out of her throat. "Keep doing it then."
She's so coy. She's so serious. She's so determined to get her point across, to put words into something neither can articulate and yet both have known for so long, that she steps even closer.
Shikamaru lifts his eyes, tracing over her lowered lids, the gold of her lashes, the slope of her cheekbone.
"You're too close for me to do it well."
Slowly, carefully, moving up each part of him with purposeful deliberation, she meets his gaze. His heart is pounding. She's so close, he could simply move down, simply lean in, if she let him.
"If I move away, I can't tell you what I want."
He's dizzy with it.
"You already did."
"No. I haven't."
With a huff, he breaks, and looks around them, looks behind her, moves his gaze among the crowd, but no one seems to be paying them much attention.
How could they not? Do they not feel this too? The air here is hot. It's heavy. It's hard to breathe. It's harder to stand straight.
Do they not feel this too?
"You can't watch me from the other side of my bedroom door," she says, low, pulling his gaze back down to her, "but I wish you could. I wish you would."
He swallows again. His throat aches.
"I want you to stand inside," she continues. "To keep watching me. All night."
Her eyes are dark again, dark like they were in his room
her shoulder blades pressed into the wood
"I want you to watch me take my dress off. To watch me." Her voice, just at the end, falters, her lips close, hesitant, but not unsure. "I want you to watch me when I imagine it's you. When I pretend it's you. When you're standing just outside and I pretend it's your fingers inside me."
A fire.
When he exhales, his whole body moves.
They're wholly surrounded. Her voice is so low, it's practically drowned out.
The princess takes a step closer, so close, he can feel her exhale against him.
He'd do it here. Turn her around and push her back two yards to the wall, press her into it, kiss her until she's as dizzy as he is, get a hand up her dress, give her what she imagines from him.
He'd do it. He can do it. He wants it.
"If we were," she begins again, moving even closer, whispering even lower. And he can't wait to hear what she is going to say, desperate for the rest of her sentence, for the rest of what she wants…. And then there is the noise of skin on skin, a loud shout, a gasp and the music stops and he has grabbed her by the shoulders and moved her behind him before he's figured out what happened.
He wasn't watching.
He was watching her. Only her. Nothing but her.
He wasn't watching enough.
He missed how the scuffle began — anyone in his position (especially someone like him) should have known in advance before blows were dealt. Except, next to her, he hadn't paid attention. For one moment, he knew nothing except her.
The skirmish came from the center of the room.
It was the king.
And a woman. A woman, currently being shuffled quickly from the room by men of the king's personal guard.
A woman. He'd seen her from behind beforehand, speaking with the king during the previous dance. And then something had happened and he had struck her. A slap across her face. Shikamaru knew the noise clear enough to understand something had happened during this dance — whether the woman said something, did something, or struck him first, Shikamaru doesn't know, he'd been too distracted — but it had ended with the king striking her.
"Good," the king says loudly, clear in the murmurs and aftermath as the party waits with bated breath. "Throw her out."
Shikamaru steps back, forcing the princess back with him. His hand plays near his belt, near his weapon, but he doesn't draw anything, opting instead to watch.
The dancers had moved aside while the woman was taken out. Now the crowd itself must part, which moves slower, shuffling around to make an open path.
A woman. The woman.
His hand jumps.
Kurenai.
He hadn't seen her. He hadn't known she was going to be here. He doesn't know where they're taking her.
But before he can do anything to figure it out, she has been dragged from the room, a small door in the corner closes behind her, and, after a tentative moment, the band starts up again as though to move the party on, as though nothing has happened.
Shikamaru surveys the crowd. It's hesitant, but the guests on the floor, one by one, take up their positions again and begin dancing once more. The conversation blossoms, loud at first, as though trying too hard, but it quickly goes down to its usual level.
What a mistake. A rookie mistake. What was he thinking.
"Disgusting," someone near him says. "She's honored to be invited and then refuses a dance with her king?"
"Ungrateful."
From the corner of his eye, he sees an older couple in conversion, drinks in hand, a few feet to his right.
"His majesty really is too kind," one of them says. "He shouldn't be so trusting."
Shikamaru takes a long breath and, not seeing anything more, turns around to face the princess.
She's right behind him, standing tall, chin raised.
"We should go," she says as soon as he has turned, tone clipped.
Shikamaru bites his tongue.
He follows her through the great hall. She's moving quickly. Faster than is safe, but he doesn't try to slow her. He stays as close as he can as she weaves in and out of people, ignoring everyone who says hello or tries for her attention. Her lilac dress waves behind her.
And then they're out of the room and the air is instantly cooler, but, without break, she continues her pace down the halls, strides long. She moves with no hesitation, putting as much space between herself and the party as she can without running from it.
She walks in silence, and once they get past the shuffle of everything else, there is no noise except her heels on the great stone echoing around them. The halls get darker, the lighting more sparse off the main walkways.
He follows. He, too, doesn't talk.
His mouth is dry. He follows her and says nothing because he is scared of what he would do right now if he could leave her; he follows because he must, if this is to work, if he is to do his job.
A job at which he has already almost failed at.
He'd forgotten, almost, for just a second, who she was. Who he was. And why he was there.
If he could ever forget, he would have, in that moment.
Except he couldn't. He can't.
She stops before turning the final corner to her bedroom. It's so abrupt, his shoes scuff when he stops himself in turn. He doesn't know what she is thinking. She faces the wall, but paces, forward and away, reaching out a hand to the wall, and then pulling it back, lips pressed together tightly.
She doesn't look at him when she speaks, one hand curled into a fist at her side.
"He wasn't always like that."
Shikamaru says nothing. He holds his shoulders straight and keeps his expression impartial.
He is her guard.
The princess shakes her head at the wall. "It's the rumors of an upcoming attack. Of a mole; a traitor. He wasn't— he wasn't always like that." She turns again, moving to the other wall and then back. "Or maybe he was. And I just don't remember. I was just too young to understand."
If she is asking something of him, he doesn't answer. He stays quiet.
He is her guard.
She waits, and then when he keeps silent, she snaps her head to him, eyes narrowed.
Still, he says nothing.
He is, after all, only her guard.
And she grows annoyed. Angry.
She turns away again, going around the corner and continuing at her quick pace all the way to her bedroom. She's so fast. He has to try to keep up, even if he doesn't want to, even if he'd rather be anywhere else than by her side at this moment.
She flings open the heavy door with more strength than he knew she had, so hard that it hits the wall with a bang. And without pause she is striding into her room, pulling out the pins in her hair violently; working to undo the ties.
Shikamaru steps in, closing her door softly behind himself.
"Okay." She says, turning to face him, hair undone, cheeks red, and lips tight. "Tell me."
If he weren't her guard, he would leave.
"Tell you what, your highness?"
She huffs. "Tell me! Debate me! About Suna. About the war. About the occupa—"
"No."
His chest hurts. He hates her. He needs to be anywhere else than right here. Doesn't she know that? Doesn't she see that?
"Tell me. Tell me! What do you think? You're so quiet all the time, but I see you. I know. You're always thinking. Tell me. I want to hear it."
He says nothing.
He knows what she's asking for. What she wants to hear from him. What she wants him to tell her.
Fuck her. Fuck her. Fuck her.
Who does she think she is? It's hypocrisy of the worst kind.
She wasn't too young. She's always known it. She's always known it and she has done nothing.
She thinks she knows what he would say, if he could, but she has no idea.
Fuck.
"I asked you a question."
His hands, around her throat.
"Your father has a strong position. Statistically, he has no reason to be worried."
"Sure," she says quickly, and he feels her fury; feels her urge for him to finish his comment. "Tell me what you think though. You're always thinking, I can hear you thinking. All the time. Tell me."
He looks at her, eyes hard.
"Tell me, Shikamaru."
He tenses.
The princess has never said his name before. She's never called him that.
"No."
Her chin is raised. She knows the challenge in what she asks. She's always sought this. She's never done anything but play with him.
"Why won't you?" She demands, stepping closer. She looks like she might touch him. Push him. Like she might actually try to physically hurt him. Good, he thinks. Do it. "Why won't you just get angry? Just— get something!"
He bites his tongue, hard, drawing blood, working harder than ever before to not rise to her. He's never hated someone so much. She's the worst of them all.
With deliberate effort, Shikamaru looks away. It's harder, meeting her eyes. It hurts him. He has to try to bring his gaze to the floor, to move off of her, to back down from what she is fighting him for. He'd hurt her, right now, if he could.
He inhales, long, trying to calm down.
"If that's all you need from me, your highness, I'll—"
"Stop."
He's stepping back, reaching for the door, but halts upon her command.
She, too, stops.
For so long.
His blood rushes past his ears. The air is thick. She is taut, hands flexing by her sides.
And then, after so long, he was unsure whether she'd even continue it, she moves, walking over to the shelf and pulling down the board, then bending down and placing it on the floor where they usually sit by the currently-unlit fireplace.
He watches her, silent.
"Play with me."
Shikamaru doesn't move.
Neither does she. She stays standing after leaving the shogi board on the ground, despite her demand.
"One article of clothing per piece."
She's not arousing him. She doesn't mean it as sex. She's fighting him. She means it as a punch, as a hit. It's not the way she was speaking before, at the party in lowered whispers filled with a different kind of heat. It's pure fury.
Or, maybe, it was always the same thing. Maybe, for her (like, maybe, for him), they were interchangeable.
"Show me again how you get undressed."
"No."
She swallows and, looking at her now, he can see it in her throat.
"I'm ordering you."
He doesn't move. Her chin is held high again, but she's lost some of her confidence. She's not joking. He tastes her anger on his tongue. Is this how it is for her too? Every day, does the air for her — the air around him — taste of nothing but anger?
Slowly, he moves his gaze down, over her, all the way to the bottom of her dress brushing the floor.
"Are you?" He poses as he lifts his eyes back to her face. "Ordering me?"
She stops. Deflates. Exhaling, she seems instantly more resigned.
"No," she says, and it's much softer than anything else she'd said tonight. "But I want to."
He tries to swallow, tries to alleviate the ache in his throat. His eyes, as they can never stop doing these days, dip to her neck.
He knows he'll regret it before he says it. "Why are you playing with it?"
"I'm not playing."
"You are."
"You know why." She says, and it takes his breath. "You know." Her tone is pushing, imploring, eyes moist, dancing over his face, desperate for recognition. Or affirmation. Desperate for agreement. Agreement of the desire she has known for so long. Desire. Desire he has held as long as she has. "Maybe this whole time," she continues. "Since we were children." She steps forward, hand reaching out. "You know. Don't tell me you don't know."
His chest aches. His knees are weak.
"Temari."
She stops mid-movement.
He, too, has never heard her name in his voice, in his mouth. He's never produced the syllables aloud before, in her presence. In anyone's presence. Not even to himself. He's never called her anything but a title he doesn't believe in. Not out loud. Not once in his whole life.
They stay there for a long moment.
Her eyes are wide. Her chest heaves.
He knows he is the same, but he can only watch it in her, watch her wait and work to make sense of something else.
It's only a minute he waits for an answer even he doesn't have, but nothing more comes, and there is no need to stay. He's gone too far already.
Silently, her name hanging in the air, Shikamaru turns and walks out of the room, opening and closing the door behind himself.
He can't get air into his lungs. He can't think. He needs to get away from her. He needs to get out of here.
He is ten steps down the hall when the door flies open behind him.
"It's you, isn't it?" She accuses, breathless, before he has even stopped moving.
He snaps his body toward her, turning too quickly, stepping too quickly, so that he almost falls.
She's shaking, like she's only just realized something.
He stops. He can't stand. His heart is going miles a minute. He debates rushing her — he debates reassuring her.
Yes, yes he knows! He knows! She's not playing — it was never a game, he knows! She shouldn't think anything else — he will go back, he will answer her question! He'll debate her and he'll take off his clothes because that's what they both want because he knows! He knows she isn't playing! He knows what she said before — that this could've been it! That they could've been it. It's not just desire. It's more. It could be so much more. He knows exactly why — it was never a game! He knows!
He'll tell her. He'll say it over and over again to anyone who'll listen! Just to stop her. Just to stop. Stop this!
This could've been it! They could've been it!
Except it's not. They're not.
And he didn't say it earlier. He didn't answer her questions and engage in her push and now they're here, felling each other with a completely different sort of accusation between them.
He should say something. Something. Anything, to stop her.
He should do anything to stop her.
Deny it?
Deny deny deny deny!
No. If she thinks— if she really thinks that he—
He could be killed for just this accusation; killed for an accusation like this. They don't have trials for accusations like this.
It doesn't even have to come from her. It doesn't even have to be corroborated. Anyone else in these many hallways — the palace is crawling with people! If any of them heard what she just said— she's condemning him! Damning him! Just standing there, eyes wide, like she is seeing something monstrous.
He doesn't respond. He can't.
Nothing prepared him for this.
Nothing prepared him for her.
Shikamaru turns as sharply as he first had, back down the hall, walking away, leaving her standing here on her own.
She has no idea what she's talking about. No idea!
She's a fire. She just destroys.
He's too terrified to go to sleep.
He can't move.
Leaving is wrong — but he can't sleep.
He's unable to breathe properly. Surely, he'll go to sleep and awake to soldiers. She has gone to her father. They're debating their approach, safe in their knowledge that he lies in his room within the palace, debating the merit of her meritless accusation.
He knows his duty is to stay, but lying in his bed feels shockingly akin to signing his own death certificate.
He left her there, standing in that hallway, half-cocked, pointing her finger. She might as well have tied the noose herself.
Every shadow is a new trepidation. He's left her there, standing in that hallway, without a guard, three hours before Mijin's shift was to begin.
He would've sent Mijin, but no one was in the quarters when he came down, everyone had been assigned somewhere for the night.
Shikamaru doesn't sleep.
She has no idea what she is talking about.
Then, to his disbelief, morning comes, and the only noise in his room is the delivery of a clean uniform.
In silence, he dresses, walks past the coffee left for the morning shift, and walks down the long halls he knows well by now, to take his position by her closed door as he does every day.
Mijin is still not there. If he is relieving someone, he doesn't see them.
It feels like he hasn't taken a breath all night.
It's only a moment that he is standing there before her door opens and, promptly, she steps out, followed by one of her usual women.
"I'm going to town today with Gaara," she announces.
Her hair is back, one of her usual dresses on; she is looking no different than she does every day. She approaches him, speaks to him, no differently than she had the week before, as though there is nothing new to consider at all. As though, maybe, he'd imagined the previous night entirely.
He follows her as they meet with the prince and his own guards and then, standing the appropriate yards behind her, eyes trained right over her shoulders as they have been for months, he follows her and watches her and does his best to protect her, just as he was hired to do.
She treats him no differently and, for the first time in hours, it feels like he is able to breathe again.
He was right.
It was a momentary and grossly incorrect assumption on her part — born from a highly insecure, exposed, and perilous confrontation.
All speculation.
He was right. He was right: she has no idea what she is talking about.
Except.
Except, he thinks, watching her back as he walks behind her.
Except, she does.
a/n: thank you as always to my fantastic friends and betas, appy, carol, em, and evie, for looking at this and working through it with me.
thank you for reading!