a/n: this is the final installment for my contribution to shikatema month 2024!
the prompt I picked for this chapter was Skip the Meeting, but there were three others available and I tried to reference them all (bachelorette party, new home, and "men are strange"), so keep a lookout.
please enjoy!
Chapter 4: Skip the Meeting
New day, this battle you'll win
Your ship is comin'
Just stay and let it begin
Your saints will rush in
- Alexz Johnson
Shikamaru watches his breath as he exhales, adjusting in the sunlight so that he can see the cloud it makes in the cold winter air. He does it again, watches it one more time.
Then he turns away, hands in the pockets of his jacket, walking a few steps to the left and kicking a pebble so it jumps a foot or so in front of him.
It's lunchtime. A few people mill about outside the government building, some coming in, but most going out. It's crowded enough in the center of the village for no one to pay him any mind.
When she eventually walks out, she's accompanied by a younger guy Shikamaru doesn't recognize.
He watches Temari see him. Her hair is light in the sun. He's always envied that about Suna — it was dry all year and the weather extremes were too much for him, but it was almost always sunny. Even now, in the early portion of winter, the sun was still bright. The sky still beautiful.
Temari blinks. She doesn't smirk. She doesn't address him at all. Instead, she puts a hand on her partner's arm and guides him down the road.
Having completed his sole purpose in this venture outside the Sunagakure Village Offices, Shikamaru lights a cigarette and walks in the opposite direction she'd taken, taking long, slow steps down the busy street.
"Some warning would've been nice," she says twenty minutes later. She delicately places her fan against the wall and then drops her bag unceremoniously next to it, letting the open door to her apartment close behind her.
Shikamaru shrugs, back pressed against her couch. He is holding an unlit cigarette now, and looks down at it between his fingers. "I took an unexpected detour on my way back to Konoha."
He'd been outside Iwa for half a week. A detour was putting it a little nicely. But he'd wanted to see her. And he had the twelve hours to spare.
Temari pays him little attention. Her hair looks lighter than usual, though he can't articulate why that would be (what tricks the light has been playing). She walks to her sink and fills a glass of water.
"I have a meeting at one," she says, a little coy. It gives them fifteen or so minutes.
Shikamaru takes a long breath. His body aches. His ribs are bruised, but he digs into the feeling as he expands his lungs bigger than necessary. There's a contentment in it. He's been bruised for so long, it can feel like a comfort sometimes.
And then he blinks and sits up, leaving his cigarette in the ashtray she sometimes keeps on the coffee table. He starts to undo the ties on his flack jacket.
"You've stopped locking your door." It's the third time he's come to find the latch open.
Temari leans against the wall next to her bedroom, one arm crossed over her chest as the other holds her glass by its rim.
"For you."
He looks up from his work on his vest. "You leave it unlocked for me?"
Her lips purse, like she's upset he's brought it up at all. "I don't want you to have to break in."
Shikamaru smiles.
He'd ask for a key, but it's a little too far, he thinks. Right now. He has other things he'd rather work on, now.
Temari lifts her free hand and starts undoing the buttons of her shirt.
He removes his vest (just for comfort) and watches as her shirt begins to open.
"Well?" She says, nodding toward her bedroom.
"I thought you had a meeting at one?"
"How fast can you eat me out?"
Shikamaru wrings his hands, jokingly feigning a struggle to try and gauge. "Didn't realize it was hard for me to make you come?"
Temari huffs.
A little less than a year ago, she might have half-smacked him for that remark. But now she only exhales her displeasure and then, shirt only half open, starts to pull up her skirt.
"Take as long as you want," she grants, a little sarcastic and a little breathy. "The meeting is unimportant anyway."
Shikamaru smirks as he raises himself off the couch. He steps over to her and takes the glass from her hand, putting it on the table behind him before turning back to her. Her skirt is slipped up around her waist now.
He runs his hands down around her butt, her thighs, and urges her to jump up and wrap her legs around his waist.
"Good," she says, smiling into his neck as he takes them into the bedroom.
"It's just been a series of threats," she says, nonchalantly.
Shikamaru pushes the teacup a few inches to the left, watching the cooling liquid inside shape around the vibrations of the cup against the wooden table.
He boiled the water for himself. It's too late for her to have caffeine, but he has to make his way home tonight.
"Gaara believes they are homegrown, but I'm sure it's a foreign body running the campaign."
Shikamaru takes his time before answering, sipping his tea.
"If another country is in charge, does it matter if they're using locals to do it?"
Temari shrugs. She seems unaffected. And he trusts her interpretation of the situation.
If she doesn't feel unsafe, then she probably isn't.
Shikamaru can piece together a lot of politics and power dynamics through his work. But he doesn't work in intelligence. So he has no idea what these rumors and threats are or where they're coming from, despite actually being on the ground.
He's muscle; that's all. No different than a body for hire or an organized crime-enforcer, except that his employer is his government.
"And so they're wanting to hire a bodyguard?"
She laughs. "So Gaara keeps hinting at. As though everyone forgets what I used to do."
He smiles, palms his cup again. He thinks about offering himself, jokingly, but it's not like he's hireable as a foreigner anyway. Guarding her would be a joke itself regardless.
It's late now. They're discussing her work casually.
She slices an apple at the table, sitting next to him, eating a slice off the knife and putting the rest on a plate.
He watches her, watching the steadiness of her hand and the patience of her eye on her work. He hasn't had a lot of experience with this side of her (he used to see it a lot though, back when they were working together). He's happy: watching her like this, getting to observe her. They don't get to do this often.
Temari glances up, catching his eye. She smiles and puts down her knife, extending a slice to him. He mirrors her expression as she feeds him one. Her hand rubs at his chin as he chews and swallows. And then they're just sitting there, smiling at each other.
He needs to leave soon.
His shoulders hurt. His ribs ache. It's getting a little harder to get up and walk home.
Her smile (when it's like that — genuine and uninhibited; real) is the brightest thing he's ever seen. He can't explain how it works, or how to articulate it, but when she's grinning like that (when they're in bed or at a table like this)... he's always forced to mirror it in some way. To smile back. To be happy. Unencumbered, in a way neither of them usually are.
They don't talk like this, usually — certainly not about anything of import. Really, they don't talk about this kind of thing (or talk much at all). But it's winter and he's tired and she's smiling.
It's warm in her apartment.
"I've been thinking about leaving my job."
Temari swallows. She stops smiling.
Her hand, extended a bit between them on the table, pulls back.
"I'd have more time," he says. "More freedom." It's for a lot of reasons, really.
There is no reason for it to feel so dry in his throat; so hard to get out. As though he is broaching something in saying it. There are a lot of reasons.
"I've been in ANBU since I was fifteen."
He doesn't say "there'd be more freedom for us" or anything like that, but she seems to hear it clear enough. Even if he'd only meant a part of that. Not that that matters. Not that it does.
Doesn't it?
Shikamaru takes a long breath.
"What else would you want to do?" She asks, suddenly sounding distant even though she's right in front of him.
What's happening?
She looks down as she finishes slicing the apple. And then moves the plate over the table to him.
"I don't know." He answers honestly.
Temari stands, going to wash her hands. "I wanted to work more in diplomacy than violence," she says, sounding cooler in their separation. "To work toward some end." She turns off the faucet and dries her hands on her dress. "But would you be satisfied doing anything else?"
Shikamaru exhales. He's been asking himself the same question for longer than he'd admit.
"Or," she continues, coming back to the table, "more importantly, would you be satisfied knowing others are doing your job?"
She leans closer and pushes the plate closer to him. And then she straightens and walks away.
He's not quite sure what she means, but also doesn't want to parse it out with her, so he shrugs, giving a noncommittal answer and taking a wedge of apple. If she wanted to push him, she would have. But she doesn't.
He doesn't stay long. She brushes her teeth before she kisses him goodbye, and he tastes the mint the rest of the night.
He tells Ino he's not available for drinks when she asks if he wants to join them.
He has no interest in going out, but was interested to hear that Temari will be in town.
So Shikamaru goes first to the pharmacy and buys more condoms (he's running low). When home, he makes his bed. He sweeps. He showers. He does the basic steps he usually does when someone (she) is coming.
And he waits.
And then hours later he makes dinner and makes himself a drink and waits.
He reads, for a bit. Waits.
But she doesn't come.
Not then.
Not later, like he'd expected.
Usually, regardless, she warns him when she is coming. Not all the time, but when she has notice.
She hadn't said anything though.
Perhaps Ino's information had been wrong. Or perhaps Temari really had no warning.
Both plausible, if unlikely.
Shikamaru stretches out on the couch.
He thinks back to the last time he'd seen her. He'd been in Suna only six days ago.
They had sex on and off for a few hours. She'd blown him really slowly throughout and asked him to come on her back. Her lips had still been swollen when he'd left. They'd discussed her work and he'd voiced his contemplation of leaving his job — which he hadn't yet told anyone else. And then she'd gone to bed and he'd left.
It wasn't anything new or different.
Not really.
Maybe a little bit more than before.
More as in more. Longer sex; more substance. He'd stayed for a cup of tea before he'd left. He'd made it in her kitchen instead of asking her to. She'd cut him an apple.
But none of those things were grossly other. They always talked in passing. Once he came over when she was drunk and she talked the whole time he was fucking her about things completely unrelated to the sex. They usually met for briefer periods, but he had spent the night twice before, so the length wasn't the difference. And she spent longer times at his place.
Sure, when they were first sleeping together — when they first started — it was different. They saw one another only in passing. They never spent more than two hours together at a maximum. They didn't write.
And then, slowly, as these things do, it became something else.
Shikamaru remembers those first few weeks after they ran into each other at that resort — he remembers thinking about her and revisiting what she'd said, how she'd felt; what she'd sounded like. He remembers how badly he'd wanted to see her and do it all over again.
And then, as though he'd been holding out a flashing signal and not just ruminating on it daily, she'd shown up at his apartment only a few weeks later, hair already down and underwear already off.
And it had kept happening. Kept happening until he didn't have to wait or wonder or consider — because it was going to keep happening.
Or so he'd thought.
Shikamaru stops. He blinks up at the ceiling. And then flexes his hands open and closed, trying to release the stress of it.
There is no reason she wouldn't have come.
And any number of reasons why she didn't.
There is no use in thinking about it now; no use in seeking a picture without all of the pieces before him.
He's getting bogged down in nothing of any meaning.
After another minute, and a long, paced exhale, Shikamaru gets off the couch.
No use thinking about it.
His jaw aches. His fingers are jumpy. Waiting for sleep lasts longer than the sleep itself.
Temari answers the door to her hotel room already dressed despite the predawn hour.
"Oh," she steps aside, allowing him in, "I didn't expect you so early."
He walks past her, waiting for the door to close before he takes off his mask. "I expected you last night."
It's not quite an agreement either had vocalized, but there is surely a contract generated by mutual performance; consideration offered and accepted by both parties. Payment in expectancy and reliance.
He's not sure what he's here for.
An answer? Severance of some sort? An apology?
It's nothing, right? She didn't show up. Except, it's everything, really. Meaningful, as much as he tries to take away the meaning from it.
He had meant more freedom as more freedom for us. He hadn't said it, but she hadn't put incorrect implications on his omission.
It was what he'd meant, in a way. In a way, he thinks.
Temari watches him, meets his eyes and licks her lips.
"I was busy."
Shikamaru rubs a hand over his face.
Bullshit.
"Okay."
He'd hoped there was another explanation, really. He'd expected there was one (even if in his gut he'd felt otherwise).
It had been an issue — what he'd said last time.
"Okay," he repeats to himself, annoyed.
Angry — angrier, maybe, than he should be for what, on paper, this is.
He looks away from her and straightens his vest, the material tight against his chest. He reaches for his mask.
"They're sending me out in a few hours."
When he looks back at her, her mouth is hard, her chest rising.
"You're leaving?"
As though she didn't know.
As though there was anywhere he'd gone or anything he'd done in the past few months that she didn't know about.
What was she expecting?
More freedom for us, he'd almost said.
His mouth is dry. His head hurts.
"Shikamaru," she says, intentioned, urging, stepping forward and reaching out for his jaw, "wait. Let me just—" she kisses him, lightly, then deeper, trying to open it into something he doesn't want to open right now.
There is a ringing in his ears.
"I have to go," he says, and she falls a few inches as she comes off her toes, releasing her hands from his face.
Shikamaru puts his mask back on. He doesn't look at her as he does it.
"Stay safe." Her tone is even, but he knows her enough to recognize she's working for the temperament. "I'll see you next time."
It doesn't sound as much of a promise as it might have a few days ago.
Shikamaru narrows his eyes at the bathroom counter.
In the corner of his gaze, he can see his reflection.
He looks ridiculous: all dark and broody, arms crossed over his chest; his mouth set. But the caricature of it isn't enough to pull him out of the mood.
Temari keeps a toothbrush in his holder. She brushes her teeth after, often, before going back to work. Or she uses it if it's too late and she spends the night.
He's tempted to throw it away right now.
There's a possibility, apparently (though he supposes there was always a possibility) that she didn't come back.
But it was one half-argument.
Not even an argument.
More like a weird interaction that left nothing but a sour taste in his mouth.
She used to fight with him all the time.
For years, she'd called him an asshole every other sentence.
But none of that ever felt like this.
He can't define it or really explain it (not more than he already has), but it feels worse. Much worse.
The air is crisp and hurts to breathe in too deeply.
It's edging toward midnight. There are two other men at the all-night ramen stand closest to the government building, so Shikamaru faces away toward the empty alley to lift his mask up and bring a cigarette to his mouth. Easier to smoke here instead of on the walk back. He puts his to-go bag down, cupping one hand around the flame of his lighter, protecting against the Suna wind.
"I hate the way cigarettes smell," she says from behind him. He had heard the approach only a split-second before she'd spoken. Good on her. "But you never look sexier than when you're smoking them."
He takes a long inhale, pulling the fire into the grounds, letting it catch. And then he exhales, dropping his hand and trying to see the smoke in front of him in the dim light from the ramen stand.
"What do you want, Temari?"
It's been two weeks since he last saw her. She hasn't written. He didn't tell her he was coming (it didn't seem like she wanted to know).
She moves to stand in front of him. She's wearing a heavy coat, but has only buttoned the top of it. Her hair is down, behind her ears. She should be at home in bed.
"You don't know?" She asks, low and coy.
He inhales.
"Spell it out."
Temari rolls her eyes, but takes a step closer, almost pressed up against him. She's not touching him, but he can feel the pressure of her body against his nonetheless, the ache stark in the advance of the actual.
"I want you to fuck me," she says.
Shikamaru looks away. He takes another drag, turning his head so the smoke avoids her eyes.
"Right here?"
She huffs.
But she's still smirking; despite his bored tone, her eyes are still bright. She comes onto her toes, angles her mouth to trail outside his ear.
"I want you to fuck me," she repeats, low and pointed, breathy without sounding timorous or unsure. "To fill me up. To hold me down and thrust so deeply inside of me I can't breathe. You're the only one who can do it, Shikamaru."
He swallows.
She's always known what she wants and how to get it.
Shikamaru tilts his head to the side, away from her.
It's different now.
Even if she's pretending as though it isn't.
"I'll be working through the night," he says. He wonders how she found him, if she'd been waiting for him to be alone, or when she'd come out. He's only free for a brief break. "We're in a meeting."
When his pulse skyrockets like that, when it throbs against his ribs faster than he can control, it hurts his chest more in the below freezing air temperatures than in the summer. It hurts more, doesn't it?
"Skip it," she whispers, lifting closer. He can feel her exhale on his neck.
"Temari."
"Well fuck," she relents with a huff, falling back.
But she doesn't make it all the way. He grabs her before she can come off the balls of her feet (before her heels touch the ground), his hands around her face, in her hair, his mouth opening against her, catching her exhale of surprise. His almost-new cigarette falls by his shoe. He steps on it as he follows to hold her upright in her shifting weight.
Her mouth is hot and wet and he reaches into her unbuttoned coat, his hand circling around her ribs, pulling her closer.
"Wait for me," he says against her, working hard to get his mouth free enough.
"Door is always unlocked for you," she promises, licking into his mouth. "Be fast."
He stays against her longer than he intends to.
The hot breath in the freezing air keeps him there, making out on the street on a Tuesday night in December.
But. God.
It's just her. It's always been just her.
There's a note under his door when he gets back from an assignment abroad.
Came through, it says. Missed you.
Not signed. Nothing else is written.
That hasn't happened in a while. Usually they can plan her schedule the time before.
Maybe she hadn't known. Or maybe she just didn't say.
He didn't know, had he, he would've told her he'd be out of town.
Shikamaru drops his bag, closing the door.
He's tired.
He picks up the note and looks over it a few times. Then he tosses it on the counter and goes to take a shower.
More freedom for us, she hadn't wanted to hear.
It's hard to do anything at the bachelorette party except watch.
He can't really talk (the music is too loud) and he can't really think (the music affects that too) and unless he is planning on sliding some singles into the thong of the man onstage, he can't do much by way of participation.
"A drag." He says, or tries to say, to Choji, leaning close as though to whisper in his ear, but it comes out as more of a shout.
"What?"
"It's." Shikamaru sighs, waving a hand to gesture to the scene around them. "This isn't us."
"No," Choji's lips almost brush Shikamaru's ear in how close he has to get. "But she is us."
Shikamaru would roll his eyes if it were said by anyone else, but instead he just straightens up and turns, pressing his back against the bar to eye Ino and the others by the front of the stage.
She's laughing and beautiful and glowing (and pretty drunk), and he really can't disagree with Choji, so he bites down his complaints.
She's getting married in a few weeks.
He's happy solely in the sense that she's happy — and, of course, in that he trusts her to figure out her own future. But.
The large room is heavily air-conditioned, but is still hot nonetheless. The heat off people (and alcohol) comes in waves. His hands are cold and yet there's a sweat at his temples.
He probably should be drinking more.
Sakura has a long night planned though, and this is only the midway point.
As though reading his mind, the bartender comes back. He's potentially the best looking man Shikamaru has ever seen.
While their drinks are refilled, the tender and Choji speak, but Shikamaru cannot hear them. But then the man points to the left and Choji picks up their drinks, slides off the stool, and beckons Shikamaru to follow. He leads them to one of the back rooms. The curtain is closed and a sign marking the room as private hangs on a chain across it, but Choji pushes past the curtain.
Silently, Shikamaru follows.
He's been to more strip clubs than he'd like to acknowledge (though only ever for work… surprising, and upsetting, how much it comes up for work), so he's well-used to these backrooms where the music is slightly quieter.
"This is better," he says, taking a seat. He's past the point of hoping everything is cleaned to code.
Choji shrugs. "You looked like you had something you wanted to discuss."
Shikamaru frowns. Nothing, he thinks. "Did I?"
Choji sighs. "Well," sits down on the seat caddy cornered, "I'm here if you need." He laughs, loudly, and grins. "It's not like we're busy at the moment."
Shikamaru smiles at his friend. He takes a long drink. The music thumps (enough, even here, that he feels the vibration in the floor).
"Okay." He leans his elbows onto his knees. "I have been thinking about leaving my job."
Choji seems genuinely surprised.
"Leaving ANBU?"
"Yeah. Maybe. Taking a step back." Shikamaru rubs a hand to the back of his neck. "I haven't made any decision. It's just…. I've been thinking about it."
"Why?"
Shikamaru shrugs. "I think I want something else."
"What?"
He shakes his head to indicate he doesn't know and reaches for the glass he'd left on the table between them, taking another sip.
"Wow." Choji exhales. "I kind of thought you'd do it forever."
"Yeah, well. I still might."
"It's hard." Choji swallows. "Hard for us. Your friends don't know what you do or where you are half the time. And for your family." Choji looks down and then back up, purposefully catching Shikamaru's eye. "Hard for relationships."
Shikamaru makes a noncommittal noise. He reaches for his drink again.
"Plus," his friend continues, "you've always been smarter than all of them anyway."
Shikamaru chuckles and takes another sip.
"I'm not sure where else I'd want to be. I just know that what I am doing right now isn't it."
Choji puts his hand on Shikamaru's knee, patting comfortably.
He wants more, that's all.
He wants more.
She's always been the most confusing of all.
He always thinks he knows her right up until he doesn't.
"Unlike you," Choji squeezes his knee, "not to know."
Yeah. It is.
The music continues. Choji talks about Ino's groom-to-be. Shikamaru listens and responds, but mostly thinks about other things. He looks for answers he doesn't have.
They stay for an hour longer than Sakura had scheduled (the girls' fault, not theirs) and it throws the whole night off-plan.
He looks for openings. Tries to think through careers that might interest him.
When he'd first begun considering it, he'd ignored positions where they wouldn't be able to date.
But that didn't matter now.
And so he has to work to bring back considerations he'd already written off and is forced to reevaluate his entire approach.
He's thought about it (he'd thought about that then), but clearly hadn't given it enough thought.
If he were to leave, where would he want to go?
For years, he would sit on missions and wish he were somewhere else (home, in bed, mostly). He hasn't thought that in a long time. Now he thinks of other things when he ruminates on his time and interests. When he wishes he were somewhere else, it's not his bed that he imagines.
He knows it's time to leave. It's not the type of work one should do half-heartedly.
And. And.
It was ridiculous to consider her in a plan when she was already specifying what she wanted.
Sex, she'd always said. Sex.
Or she had said, once, even though he thinks she's lying. Even though she's always known it was more than that. Even though she knows it is more.
He groans.
It has never made sense to him: how he both understands her wholly and also fails to understand her at all. He trusts her implicitly and yet believes nothing she says. It was ridiculous for him to ever think he could win against her in the first place.
—No. Not win. It's not a prize. There wasn't a game.
It's just their lives.
This is his life. And he wants something else. Even if he doesn't know (or can't form the words around) what that is.
It's rare he is home on a weekend, even partially, which is the only reason he ends up going.
Well. He was told she'd be there. So he goes for that (if he's honest, it's mostly for that).
It's just a dinner party. Cocktail attire. He comes for less than an hour.
"I'm working later tonight," he says as she stands alone at one of the tall tables.
They very rarely speak in public — and if they do, never in a way that would hint at anything more — but he cares less now.
Temari doesn't look at him after his initial approach and he stands at her back, behind her.
Her heels almost bring her to his height. She is wearing a bracelet he hasn't seen before. He's tempted to finger it.
She downs her drink in two large gulps and then puts it down on the table a little too forcibly.
"When do you get back?"
"You'll be gone."
Temari exhales, shoulders tight, but tone easy. "That's not convenient."
Shikamaru looks away, half a smile on his face.
"No," he answers. "It's not."
He has a glass of water, untouched, and Temari picks it up from the table in one move and then turns to him too fast, as though surprised, bumping against his chest and spilling the cold liquid down his shirt.
Shikamaru moves back, breathing through his nose as he rolls his eyes, but he can't stop smiling the entire walk to the bathroom, letting her apologies fade behind him.
The restaurant has two bathrooms (lucky) and both are empty.
He picks the one on the left and surveys the damage in the mirror. He's wearing a white shirt beneath his jacket and it's soaking. The towel he tries to dab his chest with does nothing but stop the dripping.
"Was that necessary?" He asks when she comes in.
Temari smirks and shrugs, locking the door behind her. "Easier than other things." She moves to the toilet, pulling her dress up and her underwear down, sitting to pee.
Shikamaru sighs. He's a little thrilled though. His clothes are meaningless. The shock of the cold water and the dampness now on his chest don't matter.
Temari finishes and flushes the toilet. He moves aside from the sink, leaning against the counter as she washes her hands.
"You could've just asked," he says, watching her, the corner of his mouth still up.
Temari looks over at him. "I like this better."
And then she turns off the faucet and moves to stand in front of him, palms pressed flatly to his chest, pressing the wet fabric into his skin, hot, like that, with the heat of her hands.
Her eyes are bright, humored, a little aroused, and he leans forward to kiss her, but she moves away, falling to her knees.
"You like this better?" He asks, watching her start to make work of his belt.
He's not stopping her though. And she only whispers the yes but then his pants and underwear are a few inches down and she's cradling his cock in her hand, licking at the sides, urging him to get harder.
He grabs the edge of the counter, fingers curled around the ceramic top as he watches her, as he feels her mouth against him, her fingers holding his erection delicately, allowing her tongue to sweep over the head.
It's quick — he likes it more when she takes her time; enjoys him like she has all the time in the world. But she goes quickly now, sucking him down like she knows he likes best without all the build-up. And it takes only minutes.
"Fuck," he says hoarsely, the emphasis of it caught in his throat. "I'm going to come."
Temari pulls off and tilts her head back to see him and he reaches down, holds a hand to her cheek.
"On my face," she says plainly, as simple and straightforward as though she were greeting a neighbor. "I want to watch." He inhales; shudders. His balls feel tight.
Shikamaru cradles her head, rubs his thumb over her ear. There is no sense to that.
"Temari, we're—"
She tilts her head to kiss his open palm. "I'll clean up."
He doesn't protest anymore. He continues holding her, but doesn't push or pull any specific way, letting her blow him like she knows how. And then when he's close, she pulls back and he grabs quickly at his dick, jerking himself off the final few seconds until his spilling himself onto her face, catching on her cheek and mouth and a small line in her hair.
There is a minute, afterward, where neither of them move; the only sound in the bathroom their breathing and the dull noises from the dinner party outside.
His throat hurts from the effort to stay quiet. Her chest is rising; there is a light sheen of sweat on her skin, her lips red, the lines of his semen beginning to drip down her face.
After a second, Shikamaru hands her a towel.
Temari takes it, wiping down.
And then she lets him pull her up and reach between her legs.
"We don't have time," she says, but she's kissing him anyway, hiking her dress anyway, letting him turn them around and lift her onto the counter anyway.
"Your hair," he says, hoarse. "Sorry."
But she shakes her head, unbothered.
They don't have time.
But she lets him kiss her for another few seconds; lets him slip his fingers inside her to feel how wet she is. Finds the time to pull her tongue out of his mouth for long enough to tell him he should shave.
She leaves the bathroom first. And then a few minutes later, he follows. He doesn't look to see her again; he doesn't go back to the party at all, turning the opposite way and exiting out the back. He's working tonight.
Ino bends down to pick something up. It's Saturday morning and they're moving the last of the boxes and furniture out.
"What's this?" She asks, holding up a tampon. It must have rolled under the cabinet she'd just moved. "You have a girlfriend I don't know about?"
Shikamaru is walking past her, holding a box.
Hm. He hadn't known it was there.
He shrugs. "No."
Ino blinks, holding it closer, as though that would provide further clarification. "You just randomly have tampons?"
Shikamaru ignores her, continuing past her skewed-accusation. The box is heavy and he wants to put it in the cart.
The entirety of the move is last minute.
Another apartment opened up a little further outside of town at the same time his lease was up for renewal.
If his friends hadn't known about it, he would've stayed in his old place, if only for convenience.
But Ino heard about the new apartment through some tenuous connection he doesn't care enough to parse out (or remember, or pay attention to when she is telling him about it), and it's nicer, quieter, and cheaper than his current place.
He'd hoped, with her wedding next weekend, she'd mostly forget about it, but she wakes him up Friday morning to go sign the paperwork, and then she and Choji are there with moving boxes by the afternoon.
"Women don't leave tampons places, Shikamaru!" Ino continues, following him out. "Not unless they're, like, there."
Shikamaru drops the box in the cart with a huff before turning to Ino.
"No one is here, Ino." He says, gesturing vaguely around them.
He doesn't have a woman.
Even if he'd thought he kind of did, the feeling ended up not being mutual. He had been sleeping with someone, but that too was petering out.
Do you see a woman here? He wants to ask. For a moment, without any other thoughts or considerations or admissions, he wants to grab Ino's shoulders and shake her and ask do you see her? Why not? Why isn't she here?
But the urge leaves as quickly as it came. And it makes no sense anyway. There is nothing for him to question. He knows why.
He wants something that she doesn't. That's all there is to it.
She wants sex, he wants more.
"God," Ino intones, with a purposeful and dramatic eye-roll as Shikamaru walks past her back into his old apartment, "men are so strange."
He used to think about her a lot.
More than he'd ever admit.
Things he didn't allow or recognize or do anything but bury until she came back into his life again.
When they were in ANBU together, he'd keep tabs on her. He knew where she was assigned (as much as he could know); knew where she was in the ranks. On those missions they shared, his eyes always followed her (her shoulders). He paid attention to the way she'd speak to others and then the way she'd look at him.
It had always happened, even before they slept together.
But it was worse after.
He never admitted it.
He was so young and so dumb and so hubristic.
He heard once that she was seeing someone and then couldn't take his eyes off the guy the next time Shikamaru saw him, wondering about him and about her reactions and their relationship and their sex. And wondering why she was with him and thinking (knowing, in a way) that she liked Shikamaru more, even if all the evidence weighed toward the opposite.
She came over that one night and they had sex, but there was a lot of other history (and future) to it. He just never recognized it (or observed it or opened it) for the truth of it.
But whatever. It's nothing. He had never seen her often — in fact, after she left ANBU, he went two whole years without seeing her at all. It's nothing. He's been seeing her a lot recently, but in another few months, that'll probably be it and it'll be back to how it was before.
It's nothing.
That's really all there is to it.
He purposefully hadn't told Temari he'd moved, but she finds him in his new home anyway.
He's not surprised she could find him; he's just kind of surprised she did.
He holds the door open for her and she walks past him.
In the few times that he has seen her over the last two months (ever since he first broached the issue), she's looked different. Tired, maybe. She's not as excited as she used to be. For him, or the sex, maybe, he doesn't know. She used to smile more, he means. That's all.
She still digs at him.
Still smirks. Still comes for him.
She still walks in and goes to his new kitchen, walking through it and opening cabinets, trying to make herself a drink.
He watches in silence. Watches the intensity of her eyes and the rise and fall of her chest.
And then, without speaking, she takes a sip of her crafted drink and then sets it down, opening the nape of her dress and reaching for his pants, pushing them open and down until she can get a hand on him.
He's annoyed at himself, mostly.
Her too.
But mostly himself.
She's gone the next day, but he is in Suna by the end of the week, sitting at the edge of a cliff at sunset. It's unseasonably warm, and so he'd gone to watch the sky. She'd found him there. He never knew how she knew when he was in town.
"You could check your email, you know."
Shikamaru glances over at her. Her knees are pulled to her chest, her arms crossed atop her legs.
"It's easier to send you things. Faster than postage and cheaper than a bird."
"What're you trying to send me?"
"Naked pictures."
He chuckles. He's so tired. "You trust naked pictures of you to be sent over this system? To be intercepted by anyone a little smarter than you?"
Temari laughs at that.
"Should I trust physical photos of me to be safe at your place?! I didn't even know you'd moved. I'd have no idea where they were stored or what would happen if someone broke in or if some friend or future girl went through your shit and saw them."
Future girl? Fuck off.
He sighs, long. He's so tired, of this. He doesn't really know what they're talking about. It's not email. She's trying to get at something else, but he doesn't understand the end question she's seeking.
"It's your body, Temari," he says, slow. "I love it no matter the medium in which you present it to me."
She laughs again.
And then she scoots closer, coming to throw a leg over his and straddle him, rubbing down on his groin, trying to get at his pants as she pushes her underwear aside.
It's the very end of January, but it's not too cold out right now. And the more she presses against him, the warmer it gets.
More freedom for us, he hadn't said.
Fuck all of it, he wants to say.
"I know it's convoluted," he says instead. "But I'm willing to try."
Temari inhales. Then holds her breath.
She steps away from the counter.
"I don't." She says finally, not facing him. "Fuck." She turns back, eyes hard. "Can't we just keep doing this? That was the deal, wasn't it?"
He feels the fight in his fingertips.
"There was never any deal."
He hates this. It feels bitter and dark and like he's trying to grab onto something as it's falling out of his hands. It's why he chose a career that left little in the way of emotional vulnerability. It's why he never should've gotten involved with someone so obstinate and difficult in the first place.
"You just walked into my apartment," he finds himself saying, "and said you'd hate yourself and then threw my whole world off kilter." Which he doesn't mean to say. He doesn't want to say. It has nothing to do with this. Nothing — nothing. That was so long ago. They'd been casual for a year (nothing that happened before was related, he wants to say — he wishes he was saying). This is different. But he keeps saying the opposite. Keeps speaking.
He didn't mean to say it all went back.
That it started then.
That it started years before that even and it had always just been this thing to this end.
Temari's breath picks up. She steps further away.
"Right," she says, indignant, "my fault. All this time, huh?" She swallows. Her lips purse. "So what? What then? I guess when you're fucking me — when you're moaning and feeling good — it's just me ruining your life?"
"That's not what I meant," Shikamaru says. He splays his hands on the counter. He wants to stretch his fingers so wide, the skin tears. He wants to feel something other than this.
"Grow up," she sounds resolute, finished, turning away again. "It's just sex."
Shikamaru takes a long breath. "Can we talk about this seriously?"
Temari rubs a hand over her face and then turns back, facing him square on.
"It was one thing," he continues, slower this time, working hard to keep his voice low. "And now it's something else."
"What more do you want?" She snaps. "I take assignments specifically to see you. I don't see anyone else. I— I leave my door unlocked for you to come in."
"That's not enough," his throat is dry. His tongue feels rough in his mouth, like the words themselves have burned him. "Leaving your door unlocked is not enough."
She opens her mouth, then closes it again.
It was one thing. It was good (pretty great, she'd said once). And now it was more. Or maybe it always had been more and he was only now trying to say that openly.
"You'll find someone else that will give you that." She says finally.
He would laugh at the ridiculousness of the comment if he weren't so hurt by it.
"I don't want to be with someone else."
"You'll have good sex again, Shikamaru."
"I don't want to have good sex with someone else." He straightens, shaking his head. "What is so hard about that?"
Temari doesn't respond, watching him, gaze unreadable.
"Just say you're out."
She swallows. "What?"
"I'm telling you I want more." He licks his lips. Takes a breath. "Tell me you don't. Tell me you're not in for this and walk away. But we can't just keep doing this."
Temari inhales.
It's her apartment, but she leaves without answering.
Shikamaru likes to think broadly. He looks to the big picture, always.
And even though he recognizes that not everyone thinks in the same way — not everyone considers and ruminates in the same manner; on the contrary, most people, he's noticed, get hung up on smaller points — he struggles to understand how people don't. It's difficult to understand how others get so into the minutiae or stuck on some specific piece instead of looking at the whole board.
Everything in this life affects everything else. Different possibilities and end results arise at every juncture with every different decision.
He has always spent his time considering all possible ends.
Nothing changes without her.
Just different ends to consider. Different decisions and expectations made in each choice.
He isn't sure why that is — or why everything, suddenly, every choice (everything from which shirt to wear all the way to which career to pick) feels affected by her absence (especially when it had never really been affected by her presence), but it does.
He feels it.
And he thinks about it.
And he works to understand these broad ends and means and answers.
Even though he tries not to.
Mostly.
But it's nothing, to an extent. He relives conversations (though mostly he relives the sex) and tries to figure out where in his perception he was wrong (everywhere? anywhere? was he wrong about anything?). But it's nothing.
He refits his new apartment and listens to Ino's adventures from her honeymoon and puts in his notice and signs more paperwork than he had upon entry.
And he has more freedom, finally.
She told him once that his shadows scared her — that it was scary that he could be inside her without her knowing. Terror, she'd said.
It had affected him so much, he had hesitated when using them at work.
His team, at the time, countered him later and insisted that it didn't matter to them — it was the way of his family's ninjutsu and that they trusted the battlefield decisions he made when he manipulated them.
So he used it on others, but he never brought it up again with her.
He wondered, a lot, why she was affected by it in a way they weren't. Wondered why she was so scared of his control of her. There were many other jutsus that put her at other's will (other's mercy)… but she never spoke of those like she spoke of his. Like she was scared, more, because it came from him.
It's been a few weeks. Not long. The Lunar New Year comes and he walks through the large festival with his friends.
He's gone much longer without seeing her (it hasn't been long at all), but it feels like ages. He imagines, in another end, with different choices, she would've been here.
Special, for a holiday.
She asked him to fuck her in the ass for his birthday (and a few times since then). He smiles at the memory of it, quiet as his friends grab his arm and pull him along. He thinks that's a good sign — that he can reflect on it without being angry. A pull at his gut, yeah, but.
He wonders what she would've wanted for this holiday.
He's expecting to see her when he walks in, so it's no surprise when the doors open and she is sitting at the far end of the table, a pen in her hand. He watches her eyes catch him, widen for a second, and then settle kindly as she smiles softly for only him to see.
Shikamaru follows the others from his delegation, taking a seat next to Naruto. It ends up placing her out of his eyeline, but he thinks that's probably for the best.
It's been a little while, but not that long. Almost two months. He knows himself enough to know that, given the chance, he'd still watch her at the peril of his work. So he settles into this chair and patiently responds to Naruto's whispered comments in his ear.
It's a few hours. And then, as with all of these kinds of bigger diplomatic events, there is a gathering afterward.
It's out on the patio in the courtyard of the Kazekage's building, scheduled so that it'll last an hour or so and let the visitors see the sunset before they separate to get dinner in their various groups.
There is a long line to get a drink, so he waits, meets a few people, keeps her in the corner of his eye, and shakes more hands than he'd like. And then eventually the bar is empty and so he makes his way over and orders and waits for her to follow.
She'd cut her hair, long enough to still tuck behind her ears, but short enough to expose most of her neck when down. It looks good. Soft. He wonders how it would feel between his fingers.
"So you finally did it?" She asks, half a smile as she orders a drink (a second one for her).
Shikamaru exhales, mirroring her expression. "No more black ops for me."
He'd wondered, in the weeks between resigning and actually being unemployed, how the process had been for her all those years ago. Did she turn in her uniform? Her mask? Did she still own it? Her bruises? Her sleep patterns?
"No," Temari agrees, leaning her side against the bar to face him. "Just governmental advising?"
He licks his lips. "Thought about going the non-profit route, but Naruto trapped me."
She laughs. It's golden. "As though Naruto could ever tell you what to do."
A breeze pushes past and she raises her shoulders in reaction to it.
It's still cool at night, despite the pressing in of the warm weather.
"Would you like my jacket?"
She shakes her head. A bang falls in her face and she pushes it back. "Thank you. I'll be fine."
He hadn't contacted her since the winter. He hadn't told her he'd finally left. Or that he'd taken this job. He didn't think he needed to.
Temari's drink comes and she sips it through the small straw.
"What did you think?" She asks after she swallows.
Shikamaru leans closer, just a bit. Just to hear her better. "Of?"
There is heat coming off her.
"The meeting."
He huffs, but it's half a laugh.
They used to skip meetings.
"I disagreed with your entire proposition,"
Temari grins. Brighter than anything else. And then she leans closer to him too. "Knew I could count on you to keep me consistent."
I love you, he imagines having said, I'm sorry I didn't tell you that before.
Me too, she'd say, a little sad. But she wouldn't clarify which part she's answering to. He knows her answer, anyway.
It's the way of things.
He's learned this, in his years of broad thinking.
As it is (and, of course, it is), this is just how things go on.
It's unfortunate (it sucks) that they won't do it again. It's a horrible decision and an even worse conclusion.
It's unfortunate, but it's just the way of it.
It's just the way it unfolded.
He wasn't wrong: it would've been worse to keep pretending he was wanting something she wasn't. To keep pretending he was satisfied.
It's a Tuesday night in late April when Shikamaru first hears the knocking.
He's at his desk reading over a report, passing the time idly before bed, when he hears it.
It's less of a knock, more of a tap.
He gets up with a long sigh and walks over to the window. If he were on the second story (or maybe was a sixteen year old girl), he'd have assumed it was his friends throwing pebbles at the glass pane.
And he's surprised to find that it is, kind of. Vaguely.
The messenger hawk waits at the sill after dropping the letter, expecting the reply.
Shikamaru takes his time opening it, trying to take long breaths and calm his heartbeat. It's statistically unlikely that she'd have written, but he finds his hands shaking as he unseals the envelope anyway.
Yes.
He blinks.
What are you wearing?
Shikamaru takes the letter back to his table.
His pulse picks up.
He shouldn't be responding to this. He shouldn't be engaging or entertaining it at all.
It was never just sex. He didn't want more sex (in the tangible meaning, in the essence of the word… obviously (obviously) he really, really wanted more of it in the activity).
He didn't want more of this.
But she knows that.
Right?
He puts the paper down.
And then walks away, walking into his kitchen and pausing at the sink to tap his hand against the counter.
And then he walks back to the table.
And to the counter.
And between them a few more times. Pacing. Deliberating.
Okay.
He finds paper in a stack on one of his shelves.
Clothes.
Engaging with her (interested, obviously), but purposefully obtuse.
He sends it off.
Not quite the full hour. She took some time to look over it.
Where is she right now?
Under them?
His paper is already ready.
More clothes. It's cold here.
Is she in her living room? At her counter?
Forty minutes this time. Shorter.
Hot in Suna.
He shouldn't be doing his.
Yeah?
She's spending an exorbitant amount of money having these single sentences sent back and forth, paying for one hawk to wait for his response.
What is she wearing?
Come here. I could warm you up.
Shikamaru stops.
It's almost midnight now. Less than half a conversation over hours back and forth across dozens of miles.
His neck aches.
He hasn't moved from his seat at the table in ages. He's thinking about everything and nothing all at once.
Yeah? He writes, inking the words in slowly, inhaling as he does so. He's so tired. Her hair looked so soft. Tell me how. Give me details.
He shouldn't have sent that. He shouldn't have sent any of it.
(he's half-hard just thinking about it)
He's made all the wrong choices tonight.
The response comes on time, as though she had the answer written down before the hawk had even landed on her sill.
No details.
And then, before he can start writing (or even figure out what he might mean to say), there is an additional tap at his window. The first hawk is gone. He hadn't even noticed it fly away.
This one has a package.
He opens the letter first.
Just come here.
He holds his breath as he opens the package and then tips it over the table, letting the item inside fall with a small clang in front of him.
He swallows.
It's a key.
a/n: The perfect fanart exists for the (sole) happy moment of this chapter, drawn by weirdcreepies on tumblr
Thank you all for reading this story and for sticking through the entirety of it (specifically my tumblr followers who watched this happen from conception to messy writing to this eventual publishing). Your support means a lot and I cannot thank you enough.
And finally my end thank you (and deepest bow of appreciation) to weirdcreepies. Thank you for workshopping this, editing it, inspiring scenes in it, and for emailing me every day throughout and pushing my motivation to write more!
Also, she is finally (FINALLY) posting her art (see above) and is privately sending her explicit art (which honestly is almost all of what this story is based on) if you dm her, so go write her! I promise it is worthwhile!
thank you again!
