AN: Chapter title: Lucky.
It felt like they hadn't stopped running.
For so long now, it had become endless.
If felt like they could never stop running.
Even now, even at their latest hotel room, Shizune expected to have to rush from the building well before dawn. No matter how exhausted she was, how much it was becoming a greater and greater struggle to keep moving. Tsunade would wake her before dawn and they would rush out, would flee from this town just like they had the last.
She still didn't even know what had sparked this sudden bout of speed from Tsunade and she didn't know when it would end.
All she could do, like always, was weather this latest storm and hoped it ended soon.
"Tsuande…Did you need to threaten him like that?" The woman in question was laying on the bed across from her, a bottle in her hand. It was her third of the hour from the stash at her side. Shizune had no idea where they had come from. All she knew was that Tsunade had nearly been desperate for them.
She had resorted to violence far sooner than usual at the threat of being cut off. She had left the bar with the counter split in half and the owner shaking like a leaf on the floor, half begging her to leave and half in shock. There was no doubt that bounty hunters, enforcers, whatever the owner could manage, would be at their latest hotel by morning. If they weren't already searching the building floor by floor, going room by room to find them.
"He got off lucky…" Tsunade brought the bottle up to her lip, her face contorting into a scowl. "Trying to cut me off…Bastard. I even paid for it all right there." She took another deep drink of the bottle, the scowl on her face lessening. "I guess my good luck doesn't extend to bars. Now that would be more like my rotten luck."
That was another issue: Her latest hot streak.
Tsunade had won every game she bothered to play for far too long.
The more she won, the more she drank. The more she drank, the more she played. And the more she won, the more she drank.
It had become a vicious and self-sustaining cycle.
"Didn't he know who I was? He should feel honored I went to his dump of a bar." He didn't. Their latest disguise had Shizune blonde and Tsunade with dark red hair, brown eyes for Shizune and violet eyes for her master. "I'm a living legend…" Another deep drag of the bottle and Tsunade's scowl returned. "As much good as it does."
Shizune wished she could speak to her master about the spite in her words, the scorn directed at no one but the blonde herself.
But she couldn't.
Not now. Not when she was drunk.
Not when she was anxious.
Not when their annual visit to Tanzaku Quarters loamed.
Not now.
'After. I'll talk to her, help her, after.' Even in her own thoughts, such a promise sounded hollow.
She had promised the same for years now and had never fulfilled it.
She had never spoken to Tsunade about why they returned to Tanzaku Quarters every year. She never spoke to Tsunade about how unhealthy it was to ceaselessly punish herself like this, to reignite her grief with every visit.
If she was a better apprentice, a better student, she would've discovered a way to speak out against such an awful tradition. She would have spoken against all of these habits of her master. She would have talked about stopping the gambling, the drinking, the running.
If she was a better friend she would've stopped this before it had begun.
'After.' She turned away from Tsunade as she brought the bottle up to her painted lips again. She chose to lay down on the cold bed instead of speaking. The empty bottle fell to the ground with a thud and she heard the clatter as Tsunade grabbed another. It would be her fourth of the night.
It was a miracle she was still upright, that she hadn't simply passed out. No one should be able to take in that much alcohol without consequence.
Of course, Tsunade seemed to possess such an ability. No matter how much she drank, how often the rest of her drinking partners would find themselves passed out on the bar, she could simply keep going.
"Shizune!" As if her thoughts had summoned her, Shizune felt Tsunade in her bed. There was an arm throw over her shoulder after she had jumped upright. "You looked so unhappy today!" She leaned in. Her breath reeked of alcohol, made the woman almost gag at how close she was. "Don't you like it when I win?"
Tsunade's hold was just shy of crushing. Even as drunk as she was, as much as she had been drinking day and night with this current run of luck, she could control her strength. Even if it was still tight, still too much. Shizune could endure her hold for a while, hope that her drunken master would leave her alone, go back to her drinking, before she left bruises again.
Bruises that her master would silently heal in the morning with so many whispered apologies.
"Somebody has to…" She wasn't speaking to her. Tsunade was speaking to herself. She tightened her hold on her. "…Why? What does it mean?" Her nails bit into her shoulder even through her nightshirt. "What's going to happen to me now?"
Shizune didn't speak. Didn't answer the question.
Tsunade didn't want answers.
She didn't want anything but these drunken ramblings.
But her master's dark eyes were still focused on her.
Demanded…something from her.
She couldn't start to think on what it could be, what her master could want from her. Especially when she was like this, when she was in such a state.
"What do you think?" Tsunade brough the bottle back up to her lips but she didn't take another drink. Her arm moved from around her shoulders to an 'affectionate' headlock. "What's next for me and my life of blight."
"'Blight'? Tsunade-sama, I know you're…troubled but-URK" The hold tightened.
"I know what I said." Tsunade's face made her pale. There was rage, fury, wrath, and hatred. So much hatred. It hurt to see her master like this, that she could feel such a way about herself. "Blight. That's all I can ever look forward to." She at least released her, only kept her arm wrapped around her. "Everything good in my life gets ruined. Or they leave. Get killed. And I'm left to keep going. Me. The unluckiest woman in the world."
The hatred remained. The self-hatred that fueled so much of her self-destruction.
"What am I going to lose next?"
This introspection, the heavy drinking, it was only a symptom of the cause:
The winning streak.
She had been hot for the first time in years. Year after year of losing a small fortune, of running from debtors and bounty hunters, of conning another lender into giving her the money she needed to play just to lose it all again. It had been a vicious, if predictable cycle.
Until now.
Now she was lucky.
And now everything was near golden. For weeks things had been going her way.
No more losing games left and right.
No more bounty hunters trying to collect the fortune on her head.
No more loan sharks looking to loan money to the Slug Princess.
Not even any new debt to take on. With the way she had been winning, she had been able to pay off a handful of the small ones and even half of her biggest.
"Why can't I be happy?" Tears didn't fall from her eyes but grief replaced the hatred. "What did I do wrong? What can I do to fix it?"
"Tsunade…" She didn't know if she would accept an embrace, if she needed to simply talk about this. Her master carried such an emotional burden, held the pain of her losses so close to her heart with an iron grip. "If you need…" She couldn't go on. As much as she wanted to…
'After.' It was such a hollow promise. She couldn't stand to look at Tsunade's grief-stricken face.
The woman scowled at nothing, at everything, before she drew the bottle up to her lips, closed her eyes, and tipped her head back.
Shizune could hear the alcohol spilling down her throat, not a drop wasted.
The empty bottle fell to the floor with a clatter but Tsunade didn't move. The scowl was gone, replaced by an almost wistful expression on her face, her eyes half open and focused on the past. On happier times.
"Why can't I ever be the one to die?"
She hated that part of her had once asked the same.
Why did her uncle need to be the one to bleed out on that forsaken battlefield? Why couldn't Tsunade be the one to perish that day?
"Don't say such things Tsunade." All she could do was wrap her master in her arms. She wished her teacher would cry, would let out all this grief she felt, but it was impossible.
She had shed all her tears years ago. All that was left for her was the bottle.
AN: 1/4 for this update.