Fic- Coming Up Tails, Part II
The Second Part of the Fanfic: Coming Up Tails
Title: Coming Up Tails
Warning: Adult Themes (Rated M)
Pairing: ShikaTema
Summary: Temari makes a sacrifice to protect her people and Shikamaru won't let her do it alone. He's willing to help her, whatever it takes.
Read Part I
She comes to his door at noon as previously arranged. She looks very different than in she does in room 706. Her eyes are no less foreboding and she doesn’t seem at all happier, but she is certainly different.
Temari is wearing civilian clothing, a normal shirt and pants. He can almost forget what she is doing at his door and simply pretend a pretty girl has come to visit for his company.
But he can’t.
They head off towards the hospital where, in a procedure that takes no more than five minutes, a nurse (apparently one specialized in this area of expertise) places her hands on Temari’s stomach, emits some pink (how maternal) colored chakra, and then confirms whether or not any of his sperm took.
The nurse is nice, and she smiles at both Shikamaru and Temari, neither of which return the gesture. Her hands explore Temari’s stomach, and Shikamaru’s guts twist when he acknowledges that this woman had probably touched Temari more than he has. And he’s the one who’s supposed to get her pregnant.
The woman is old, and as she pulled away from Temari with an expression far sadder than her previous smile, it is almost believable that she felt the same way Shikamaru and Temari were.
She had probably been through the experience of trying to get pregnant.
The only thing was, as much as Shikamaru wanted this to end, he didn’t want Temari to get pregnant. He wanted to stop sleeping with her, that was a given, but he almost wished that something else would happen, some sort of miracle.
Perhaps Gaara would intervene. Or Tsunade.
But what they were asking wasn’t as surprising as he had initially thought. Campaigns like this were run all the time. This one was only done when threatened by their own bosses.
It was useless to fight the daimyo when members of the village were volunteering anyway.
He had hated Tsunade for a few days after she had proposed the mission to him, but she had offered him the assignment as a question rather than a request, and eventually she would have found someone to accept, and she wouldn’t have to fight the daimyo.
He didn’t like it, but it made sense. Twenty percent of the village’s funds came from him. Shikamaru couldn’t argue with that.
“I’ll be back again,” Temari is saying to the woman, signing a form.
The nurse only gives a solemn look, “good luck.”
As they exit the building, Temari turns right and begins walking to the restaurant district. “Are you hungry?”
Shikamaru pauses, unsure of what she’s implying even though the words are clear enough. “No.”
She looks back at him. “Okay.” He has a feeling she didn’t really want him to join her anyway. This is awkward. It has been awkward, this whole afternoon. He thinks she should visit the medic on her own now on.
He expects her to turn back and continue walking away, but she just stands there, staring at him. He hasn’t seen her face, really seen it, in years. Under any other circumstances, he is sure he would’ve been infatuated.
“I’ll see you later, Temari.” He says at last. Something dark clouds in her eyes, but her small smile betrays none of it as she turns to seek lunch.
He wonders if she is relieved that the test was negative.
Afterwards, it is easy to forget that they are so removed.
It is easy forget when he straightens his clothes and fixes his hair, when he walks out and nods to the attendant before descending down the stairwell, and when goes home still smelling of a woman he hardly touches.
He is well aware of the difference between themselves and lovers. But sometimes his cock burns for her, he ignores it, but it yearns for something it has never had, even when they pretend.
Sometimes he wants her.
And it is stupid, stupid to want her even more now when he sees all the ways he can have her and knows all the ways he can’t.
But even with all that is happening, sometimes he wants her.
“So you’ve heard?”
Shikaku nods, dark eyes like daggers at his son. “I am the jonin-leader and your father, it is only right… it will be my grandchild.”
Shikamaru sighs, leaning back further in his chair. He should have suspected as much.
“I knew when Tsunade asked me to help find a loophole in the daimyo’s request, and I knew when word came that it no longer mattered as Suna had agreed and already found a volunteer. What I didn’t know was that my son was chosen as her partner.”
“I volunteered, dad.”
Shikaku took a deep breath, huge shoulders looking delicate as he slowly let it out. “Because she’s your friend?”
“What choice did I have?”
A beat passes, but Shikaku understood the situation well enough. “It is not my job to tell your mother.”
“I have yet to tell Tomomi.”
There is silence for a few minutes before his father downs his tea. “Are you really okay with this, Shikamaru? I realize that this is for the Kazekage’s sister, and the child will only be yours by blood, not by birth or childhood, but are you ready to have it?”
He didn’t have to think about it. “No.”
“You can always pull out, you know. I assume she’s not pregnant yet, you can ask for a replacement. I know you think you’re helping her, but it might be easier with a stranger.”
“There’s no point now though, is there?”
Shikaku stands up, taking the empty cups from the table. “Another man would treat this as a mission, as it is supposed to be treated. You’re too personally involved.”
“Personally involved? Because I know her? Dad, I sleep with her every other night, how can I not know her?”
“Another man wouldn’t like her.”
“I don’t like her.”
Shikaku sighs, turning away and heading into the kitchen of his home. “Tell your mother soon. You don’t want to find out what will happen if she learns about this from someone else…. But don’t worry, she’ll probably kill you anyway.”
His father is right.
About all of it, really.
He can’t deny that the sex is awful, terrible in any sense. It is wrong and sick and dreadfully inhuman. He knows how much effort it takes to come, how difficult it is to see her face as he moves above her when she looks so immune, so indifferent. But he also knows how tight she feels, whether he lets the thought get to him or not.
He knows how warm she is inside, how encasing it felt to be sheathed inside her body. How round her rear feels as he held onto it to push himself in, or her strong legs as he adjusted one to alter the angle.
As a man he ignored these things, but as far as his cock went, it seemed more eager to be inside her every night.
She isn’t responding more, that isn’t it.
He came easier, but that had more to do with that fact that he had been taking her from behind more recently, and that allowed for him to picture someone else.
Some nights, it takes everything for him not to picture Temari.
But when he was behind her, he can move into her as though she were moving with him. He can imagine her face isn’t passive and that her eyes aren’t so hard. He can imagine her lips are open and she is moaning into her pillow. He always comes quickly when this happens, so quickly and harder than he had at first, that the sex doesn’t feel as cheap or as wrong as it had those first two weeks.
But tonight, after having spoken to his father and being made well aware of his connection to Temari, he is having trouble.
He pushes into her harder, digging his fingers into her hips. He is conscientious when he pulls her hips back to meet his ever so slightly. He hasn’t moved her an inch, but the little bit of added friction jostles fire into his groin.
Shikamaru can tell that she felt it too, and for once, he sees her react. It is a clenching of her fingers around the sheets, but it is enough. He thrusts into her again, this time using his hands to pull her hips back as much as before.
It is the slightest change but it makes all the difference.
He can’t help himself now.
They started late today and have lasted longer than usual. A single light is on in the building across the way, and he can see her body in the faded light, her skin looks pale blue and gold, a combination of a lamp and the moon.
He lets out a throaty moan.
It is the first noise, the first sexual one, that has been made in the weeks they’ve been together.
A hand begins wandering from her hip to span across her back, fingers spread wide as he pumps into her a little quicker now. His hand moves up to settle between her shoulder blades, lightly pushing her down.
She collapses into the mattress.
He can feel her clench around him, her walls locking onto his cock tightly. The moan is guttural this time, and it is accompanied by her name. He wants to, he wants to so badly, but he can’t- he can’t control himself anymore.
The hand on her back moves in a flash, slipping below her hip to the small protrusion of flesh between her legs. He presses down hard and she jerks around him, hips fighting against his as she tries to pull away.
He can hear her saying his name, yelling at him. She is fighting him and he can feel it, but her pleas are lost on his ears. He is using one hand to control her hips and keep himself inside her, the other to touch her.
She is still fighting, but her will has lessened, and now her jerks are more of deep grinds that are making his head swim.
She is moving with him now, meeting his thrusts over and over and her muscles flutter around him. His body is on fire.
Temari is panting, her back arching, and seeing, no, feeling, her finally react to him is ruthless enough, but when she finally clamps down on him, her hands clawing at the sheets, this is what finally sends him over the edge.
The orgasm is nothing like it was last time, or the time before that, or any time they have been together. He is thrown off the cliff and he can’t hear or think, nor does he have any willpower to move. He can only standby as his body convulses and he spills into her again and again, and for the first time, his mess drips down her legs.
It takes only a few seconds before it comes racing back to him. Who they are, what they’re doing, what just happened.
What he did wrong.
He had collapsed atop of her when he was done riding out the waves of pleasure, and now he hastily removes himself from her heat and jumps off the bed as though it were on fire.
She is naked, body spent, and breaths heavy. He tries to regain his balance.
He feels exhausted, and if the circumstances were any different, he would probably be an inch away from sleep.
But he isn’t, and they aren’t.
He hopes the attendant didn’t hear them.
He stumbles to where his underwear was discarded earlier, slipping his legs into each end and pulling them to his hips with haste.
He has just let this get personal.
Her voice comes first. “Shikamaru.”
He is still panting.
“Why?” Her word is strained and he has a sickening feeling she is crying. She was the one who’d been so strong through all of this and now she was crying.
“Please, don’t cry.” He urges. He doesn’t know how to deal with this. His emotions are running high enough as it is.
“Leave,” she snaps, pushing herself up and facing away from him. “Get out.”
He has no other will but to comply.
Half his bed is occupied when he comes home.
In some miracle, he manages not to groan in frustration as he pulls off his shoes and collapses beside Tomomi. She never comes to his bed so soon after a mission unless she is horny, but he respects her more when she acknowledges his exhaustion and after a quick kiss, settles to just sleep against him.
He shucks his shirt to the floor and moves to lean back against his own, much harder mattress.
As Tomomi scratches lightly against his chest, head on his shoulder, he is struck with the knowledge that the skin underneath his fingernails belongs to another woman.
And he is both pleased and sickened to know that she is sporting scratches down her back.
“One more, Sir?”
Shikamaru slips another two bills onto the table as he accepts his glass. The sake is strong, as strong as whatever it is she gave him that first night.
And the rush through his throat is good, the instant heating of his gut welcome and celebrated.
It is here he can forget it all. Forget what happened the previous night, forget what may happen tomorrow, and the nights after that, forget how he must explain to his girlfriend his absence every other evening, find a way to convince his friends there is no reason he is avoiding Temari, and forget that the ending result of all of this will be a living, breathing child.
His child.
The boy (girl?) would have half his genes, half his blood. He might have his hair, or Yoshino’s eyes? Would the child have his jutsu?
Would his child grow up practicing a jutsu from his father? Would he hear stories of his father, the Shadow Master Shikamaru? Would he read the bingo book and answer questions about his own dad?
Would Temari marry someone else? Would he grow up knowing some taller, stronger, surely more handsome man was his parent?
Would everyone think that this supposed perfect man had been the one to slide his cock into Temari, the one to milk her into orgasm, the one to sire her child?
Without thinking he gulps down the last few inches of his sake. His head is swimming.
She had only come once, and it was completely accidental on either end.
Perhaps they needed a break. They could resume this in another week or so.
But, he knew, the sooner she was pregnant, she sooner it was over. Taking a break was only prolonging the inevitable. And if he pulled out of the mission now, what was the point? Their friendship was already salvaged beyond repair. It wouldn’t do any good if he didn’t see it out till the end.
He puts down more money and the man brings him one more glass. The room is starting to spin now and he supposes he shouldn’t drink this last one.
He just wants this to be over- his life was much simpler a month ago. Missions caused stress, yes. But not like this.
Shikamaru briefly wonders how much he’s getting paid. It better be one fucking good amount. Whatever it is, it’s surely far too little.
He can’t help it when his hands raise the glass and his lips open wide enough for a decent amount of sake to spill down his throat.
As clearly as if he were sober, he can remember Temari’s body last night. He remembers how she withered and jerked and what it felt like to have come for him. He wishes he could’ve seen her face when he finally got her there. After two weeks of painstakingly awkward intercourse, they had both given into pleasure.
If she only knew how good he could make it for her.
Last night had been nothing.
He could make her moan, he could force noise from her throat. He knows how to make it just right for the both of them, if only she’d let him.
Shikamaru finishes his glass.
“You have a note,” Choji comments, reaching onto the door the pull the tacked letter from the wood. “A bound one.”
Shikamaru groans, his head is pounding and he can’t think straight. The hangover will be killer come morning.
“Give it to me.”
Choji eyes the note, but then hands it over. Shikamaru pricks his fingers on his teeth before dropping the blood onto the paper. It unseals itself immediately. Choji leans closer.
“’Are you busy tomorrow night?’... Is this how Tomomi asks you out?”
Shikamaru groans and shakes his head. “It’s Temari- she’s…. we have plans.” He takes a step closer to the door. “Fuck.”
“What is it?”
“Not again,” Shikamaru leans against the wood, banging his head over and over in time with the throbs. “I thought it would work this time.”
“What would… are you okay?”
Shikamaru shakes his head, falling to the floor of his porch.
He can’t do this. He can’t. He can’t. He can’t have his child be some genetic experiment performed to please his daimyo. And he can’t have his child born out of unnatural, uncomfortable sex. Children were born out of love, and if he had to mate with Temari, so be it, but it would be done right.
He wouldn’t come home and see the same note on his door again, as it was every other day.
“Where are you going?” Choji demands, left dumbfounded on the porch as Shikamaru heads off to the gates of the Nara estate.
“I have business to take care of.”
“Business? You’re drunk, Shikamaru.“
But the man is already out of earshot; headed down the street to a place he hasn’t been in years.
“He never was a fun drunk,” a voice says as Choji steps back onto the ground.
Shikaku shifts the groceries he is holding to his other hand, looking back towards his own house only a few over. “But I suppose this type of business is better suited with a little drink.”
“What do you mean?”
Shikaku sighs, “nothing. Now come home with me, Yoshino saw you pass and told me to come find you before I go inside. She’s cooking duck for dinner. Are you hungry?”
The banging on her door is probably much too loud for this sort of hotel as no more than three guests stick their heads out before she finally opens her door. She is staying in the same place she used to, back when they were proctoring the Chunin Exams.
He is surprised. She was so different then, he saw her as such a different person, that it was confusing to imagine her in the same place. He wonders if this mission hadn’t been assigned to them, if they had reunited strictly as friends, would he still see her in the same light he had at fifteen?
“Oh,” she says when she opens the door. “It’s you.”
She isn’t glad to see him, that is obvious enough, even in his state, but for some reason, she steps aside and lets him in. In all reality, she can probably smell the alcohol on him and is aware that he will cause a scene if she doesn’t grant him access to her suite.
“Can I help you?” She asks, crossing her arms over her chest. She is wearing pajamas, and he can’t help but find them erroneously sexy.
“We need to talk about what happened.” He manages, though his words are paced. He is not as intoxicated as he appears, and while his movements are far from controlled, they are neither slow nor deficient.
“Now? Couldn’t this wait until you were, you know, perhaps more aware?”
“No.” He pulls off his vest and slings it over a chair by the door. They are still standing in the entryway. “We need to talk about this baby.”
“Shikamaru,” her voice is a warning, her patience is thinning but he is taking no heed.
“We’re doing this wrong.” He continues, unabashed. He is stepping closer. “This, you and I. You’re not pregnant because we’re doing this wrong.”
“Shikamaru,” she repeats, tone exasperated, “you know how these things work.”
“Yes,” he pulls the tie from his hair and rubs his fingers into his scalp. “And we’re not doing it right.”
She is about to reply, but then thinks better of it. Her hands move to her hips.
“What we have isn’t sex, Temari. You have no idea how it could be, how good I could make you feel.” Her cheeks turn red and her fists clench. He is toying with her anger and he is aware enough to know he doesn’t have long before she either kicks, or knocks, him out. “That is what will get you pregnant, not this. Not us pretending.”
His breathing is heavy and she is staring at him with an unreadable expression.
“People get pregnant all the time from doing less than what we do, Shikamaru,” she counters at last. “We’re doing fine.”
“No we’re not.”
She sighs and rolls her eyes, clearly done with the conversation. She gestures towards a small kitchen, “can I offer you some tea or- ”
His hands are on her hips, his body pressed to hers as close as they were that first night. His lips are on her neck, barely as he whispers over and over. “Temari, please.”
A beat passes.
And then her hands are in his hair and her lips are so tight against his it is a miracle either of them can get enough breath in.
It takes a moment, but then he realizes that the taste on her lips is whiskey.
That is why this is happening.
He doesn’t care.
Her lips are warm and firm and it is miraculous that he went all this time without feeling them. Surely, every man deserved to kiss these lips at least once. His life suddenly feels quite under-lived.
She is moving her mouth, nipping his lip between hers and he is just lost.
It is too hot. Her mouth and her skin, soft and fiery beneath his hands, against him. Oxygen doesn’t run to his head and he is so dizzy he can’t register that what is going on is wrong in every which way.
But she is kissing him and none of it matters.
She fits against his body just as he’d thought, curving herself into every inch of empty space, meeting every need he can’t voice, but somewhere deep in his mind he is sure she is liking it too.
He opens his mouth and she gasps. Her tongue is light, hot and flaring and they are stumbling further into the suite. She has her fingers around his neck now, scratching at the base of his hairline.
Shikamaru doesn’t know where to touch her; he doesn’t know where she wants him. And it is awkward and new and brilliant. It is nothing like room 706, nothing wrong or sick, and he can’t even concentrate enough to remember anything other than this.
“Condom?” He hears her ask.
It takes a gross amount of pure will to move his lips from hers. “Do we need one?”
Her breath is so heavy and her heart is thumping against his chest so loudly. He opens his eyes to see her attempt to concentrate. As if she suddenly remembers who they are and why she is here in the first place, she nods. “Right.” And then they are kissing again and she is pushing him to a bedroom.
He feels his throat choke and he sees she is trying to force her hands into his turtleneck and it just isn’t working. He moves away by some grace of god and pulls his shirt off so fast he tears the sleeve. His hands are furious on his buckle next and when he is touching her again, there is skin against skin and his chest is straining against her.
“Shikamaru,” she groans as his lips touch her jaw, hands roaming and grabbing at her body without pause.
His arousal is throbbing against his zipper.
“I’ve wanted this,” he hears himself say, “for- this for years.” He doesn’t know where the words came from and he doesn’t care.
He just wants her.
“We shouldn’t,” she is saying. But her pants are falling lower the more he pushes his own hands down her hips and over her rear and the he is cupping her and her hesitance is gone and her legs collapse and they are then only a tangle of limbs on a bed.
She is touching him everywhere and before he knows it his pants are gone and she is stroking him.
“We shouldn’t.” She tries again.
But then he is pushing into her there, just there and nothing else matters. She is Temari and he is Shikamaru and they are on fire.
He wakes up too early. His head is pounding and he is face feels swollen. He can see her above him, lips red as he grogs into wake. There is a light on in the room and pain splinters through his head. The hangover is killer, but she is also wearing a mans nightshirt, and he can only focus on one thing at a time.
She is sitting beside him, legs crossed and flaxen hair pooling over her shoulders, messy and knotted. If he could, he would lie here and make love to her for the rest of the day, but the clock beside the bed reads four am and it is time for him to leave.
She says as much, “you should probably leave before it gets light.”
He nods and sits up slowly, clenching his fists into the blankets before relaxing and stretching out his fingers. “We probably shouldn’t do this again, not while…” it goes against everything he wants to say -to do- but it is what he needs to say.
“Not while we are on this mission? Or not while you have a girlfriend?”
He can’t help the smirk. “That does complicate things.”
But she only shrugs. “No more so than they already are.”
He pushes himself out of bed. His shirt is by the door, but the rest is all piled on the bottom of the bed. He blushes when he sees it, and hopes she doesn’t see the stain of redness on his face when he slips everything back on.
“Shikamaru,” she says as he buckles his slacks. He glances over and she pauses, eyes falling to her curled up legs as she hesitates. “I don’t think I’d mind… you know, if it worked this time.”
He doesn’t know what to say, how to react. But she is right. If they had conceived a child last night, he wouldn’t mind.
He has put on his shirt now, and as she sits there brushing the pads of her fingers along her calf absently, he slips his hair back into place and untwists his sleeves, wondering all the while how she can be so calm about all of this.
And wondering why on earth he isn’t.
“Take the back stairwell,” she tells him a few moments later. He nods. They never know who is watching.
“I’ll see you tonight,” he says lightly. Her shoulders jostle as if she is holding in a laugh, but her face is as passive as ever. He remembers exactly how her body was burning against his only a few hours before, but now the memory is withering and open and he feels removed from her once more.
The morning is waiting for him when he exits her building.
“How’s it going?” Shikamaru asks.
The attendant shrugs. “Same old.”
“Do you do anything besides stand outside a room while I have sex?”
“It’s better than your job.”
Shikamaru snorts, “I suppose that’s true.”
They continue up the rest of the way in silence. Room 706 looks particularly scary today. He’d rather stay in the hall.
“Do you do this for many people?”
“If you’re asking me to discuss confidential inform-”
“No,” Shikamaru clarifies, “I’m just wondering if perhaps you’ve done this before, worked, you know, with other couples?”
The man takes a deep breath and nods. “Yes.”
He wonders how many other people have been in their position. He’d thought that he and Temari were the first, for Konoha and Suna at least. “Does it always go this way?”
“You mean in length? Some can take one or two visits, others take weeks.”
“What about afterwards?”
“I don’t work with that,” the attendant says, “but the child is raised to be a shinobi, I know that much.”
“Yeah,” Shikamaru responds. He knew that much too.
The attendant unlocks the door, “she’s waiting for you.”
“Well?” She says, arms crossed in front of her as she paces before him. “Say something.”
“What do you want me to say?” He is at a loss.
“Anything!” She snaps, eyes dark with a warning. “Just say something.”
But what is there to say?
He crumples the paper in his hand, careful enough to not damage it, but certainly with the intent to inflict harm.
“I don’t think I’m ready for this.”
She’d gone to Sakura this afternoon, manipulating the girl’s friendship with Temari’s youngest brother to her will. She didn’t have a doctor’s appointment until the next day, so Sakura had helped her out.
“You knew perfectly well what we were doing, you knew it had to result in this.”
He’d known he was going to be a father. He’d known they were going to have a child. It wasn’t a surprise.
But to know that right now his sperm had created a child, to know that right at this very instant his son or daughter was growing- “if it were anyone else’s I would tell you to get rid of it.”
How he wishes she would.
She clenches her fists, “but it’s yours.”
He takes a deep breath. He’d been waiting for this moment for almost a month and now he has no idea how to proceed.
She sighs and moves to sit beside him. “Why did you sign up for this?”
“For the same reasons you did.”
“No,” her hands run down her legs and come achingly close to this knee. “I did it because it was my duty. I am a master of the wind, a royal sister to the Kazekage and the daughter of two past ones. I was born into protecting Sunagakure, and as long as that is still my duty, I will continue to serve the village at its will. Gaara gave his life a while ago when the Akatsuki attacked. He put himself between the village and those who would do it harm. Even if I’m only giving up a few years of my life, and my sacrifice is incomparable to his, it is the least I can do to serve my people. You are just from a middle-class clan with a fair amount of missions under your belt and a respected name in the bingo book, please tell me how we are the same?”
“You’ve certainly thought this out, haven’t you?”
“I don’t make rash decisions.”
“Right.” He rubs his eyes and looks out at the fading light from the window. “I mean, you did this to protect your people, I did this to protect you. You were my friend. How could I refuse when the end result would only be you pregnant with a stranger’s kid?”
He doesn’t see her reaction to this, and he is certainly trying not to look, but the words hit hard enough. “Bastard.”
He’d figured as much.
Temari swallows. “I don’t need your protection. You’re just making things harder.”
“So my father says.”
“Smart man.” She stands up again, unable to sit still. “Do you always do things like this, for friends?”
He was not a stupid man, and after last night, it was easy for him to discern that it was more than the need to protect an old friend and ally; he’d wanted to protect the one he loved. But it hardly mattered.
“What do we do now?” He asks, ignoring her question.
“We’ve completed our mission.”
“Are you going home?”
“I suppose so.”
He looks back at her. “We could get married.”
She stops pacing.
“It’s probably what they want.”
“It’s not like that, Shikamaru. You don’t have to feel obligated, you’re not supposed to.” She is clearly shocked.
He could argue, but she’d probably shoot him down. He wouldn’t mind marrying her, he had become rather keen on the idea in the last few seconds since posed, but he isn’t going to stand by it.
They descend into silence and he doesn’t really mind this time.
He has known this was coming, he knew the test would eventually be positive and Temari would head back to the Sand. He knew all of this, but that doesn’t mean he likes it.
Eventually she sits beside him once more, fingers racing along his leg as they both sort some things out.
“Stay,” he says after a good ten minutes, “stay with me, tonight.”
“We shouldn’t be doing this now.”
“How long?”
“Years, maybe.”
“Temari,” he takes a breath, “I know what I signed up for, but it’s my child too.”
She nods softly, nails still scratching at his knee. “I know.”
The window is covering the both of them in the last traces of daylight as they sit upon the worn, ugly bed. He can feel her breathing, heavy and slow, so different than it had been not twenty-four hours before. He isn’t sure which way he prefers it.
He can feel the faint counterpoint rhythm of her heartbeat too, loud and betraying of her calm demeanor. It’s nothing at all, but it’s hers and it’s his and it's enough, enough for tomorrow at least.
I'm posting this in LJ, btw, because I want to do a commentary on this and I like the formatting here for that more than on FF. Anyways, tell me what you guys think!
Title: Coming Up Tails
Warning: Adult Themes (Rated M)
Pairing: ShikaTema
Summary: Temari makes a sacrifice to protect her people and Shikamaru won't let her do it alone. He's willing to help her, whatever it takes.
Read Part I
She comes to his door at noon as previously arranged. She looks very different than in she does in room 706. Her eyes are no less foreboding and she doesn’t seem at all happier, but she is certainly different.
Temari is wearing civilian clothing, a normal shirt and pants. He can almost forget what she is doing at his door and simply pretend a pretty girl has come to visit for his company.
But he can’t.
They head off towards the hospital where, in a procedure that takes no more than five minutes, a nurse (apparently one specialized in this area of expertise) places her hands on Temari’s stomach, emits some pink (how maternal) colored chakra, and then confirms whether or not any of his sperm took.
The nurse is nice, and she smiles at both Shikamaru and Temari, neither of which return the gesture. Her hands explore Temari’s stomach, and Shikamaru’s guts twist when he acknowledges that this woman had probably touched Temari more than he has. And he’s the one who’s supposed to get her pregnant.
The woman is old, and as she pulled away from Temari with an expression far sadder than her previous smile, it is almost believable that she felt the same way Shikamaru and Temari were.
She had probably been through the experience of trying to get pregnant.
The only thing was, as much as Shikamaru wanted this to end, he didn’t want Temari to get pregnant. He wanted to stop sleeping with her, that was a given, but he almost wished that something else would happen, some sort of miracle.
Perhaps Gaara would intervene. Or Tsunade.
But what they were asking wasn’t as surprising as he had initially thought. Campaigns like this were run all the time. This one was only done when threatened by their own bosses.
It was useless to fight the daimyo when members of the village were volunteering anyway.
He had hated Tsunade for a few days after she had proposed the mission to him, but she had offered him the assignment as a question rather than a request, and eventually she would have found someone to accept, and she wouldn’t have to fight the daimyo.
He didn’t like it, but it made sense. Twenty percent of the village’s funds came from him. Shikamaru couldn’t argue with that.
“I’ll be back again,” Temari is saying to the woman, signing a form.
The nurse only gives a solemn look, “good luck.”
As they exit the building, Temari turns right and begins walking to the restaurant district. “Are you hungry?”
Shikamaru pauses, unsure of what she’s implying even though the words are clear enough. “No.”
She looks back at him. “Okay.” He has a feeling she didn’t really want him to join her anyway. This is awkward. It has been awkward, this whole afternoon. He thinks she should visit the medic on her own now on.
He expects her to turn back and continue walking away, but she just stands there, staring at him. He hasn’t seen her face, really seen it, in years. Under any other circumstances, he is sure he would’ve been infatuated.
“I’ll see you later, Temari.” He says at last. Something dark clouds in her eyes, but her small smile betrays none of it as she turns to seek lunch.
He wonders if she is relieved that the test was negative.
Afterwards, it is easy to forget that they are so removed.
It is easy forget when he straightens his clothes and fixes his hair, when he walks out and nods to the attendant before descending down the stairwell, and when goes home still smelling of a woman he hardly touches.
He is well aware of the difference between themselves and lovers. But sometimes his cock burns for her, he ignores it, but it yearns for something it has never had, even when they pretend.
Sometimes he wants her.
And it is stupid, stupid to want her even more now when he sees all the ways he can have her and knows all the ways he can’t.
But even with all that is happening, sometimes he wants her.
“So you’ve heard?”
Shikaku nods, dark eyes like daggers at his son. “I am the jonin-leader and your father, it is only right… it will be my grandchild.”
Shikamaru sighs, leaning back further in his chair. He should have suspected as much.
“I knew when Tsunade asked me to help find a loophole in the daimyo’s request, and I knew when word came that it no longer mattered as Suna had agreed and already found a volunteer. What I didn’t know was that my son was chosen as her partner.”
“I volunteered, dad.”
Shikaku took a deep breath, huge shoulders looking delicate as he slowly let it out. “Because she’s your friend?”
“What choice did I have?”
A beat passes, but Shikaku understood the situation well enough. “It is not my job to tell your mother.”
“I have yet to tell Tomomi.”
There is silence for a few minutes before his father downs his tea. “Are you really okay with this, Shikamaru? I realize that this is for the Kazekage’s sister, and the child will only be yours by blood, not by birth or childhood, but are you ready to have it?”
He didn’t have to think about it. “No.”
“You can always pull out, you know. I assume she’s not pregnant yet, you can ask for a replacement. I know you think you’re helping her, but it might be easier with a stranger.”
“There’s no point now though, is there?”
Shikaku stands up, taking the empty cups from the table. “Another man would treat this as a mission, as it is supposed to be treated. You’re too personally involved.”
“Personally involved? Because I know her? Dad, I sleep with her every other night, how can I not know her?”
“Another man wouldn’t like her.”
“I don’t like her.”
Shikaku sighs, turning away and heading into the kitchen of his home. “Tell your mother soon. You don’t want to find out what will happen if she learns about this from someone else…. But don’t worry, she’ll probably kill you anyway.”
His father is right.
About all of it, really.
He can’t deny that the sex is awful, terrible in any sense. It is wrong and sick and dreadfully inhuman. He knows how much effort it takes to come, how difficult it is to see her face as he moves above her when she looks so immune, so indifferent. But he also knows how tight she feels, whether he lets the thought get to him or not.
He knows how warm she is inside, how encasing it felt to be sheathed inside her body. How round her rear feels as he held onto it to push himself in, or her strong legs as he adjusted one to alter the angle.
As a man he ignored these things, but as far as his cock went, it seemed more eager to be inside her every night.
She isn’t responding more, that isn’t it.
He came easier, but that had more to do with that fact that he had been taking her from behind more recently, and that allowed for him to picture someone else.
Some nights, it takes everything for him not to picture Temari.
But when he was behind her, he can move into her as though she were moving with him. He can imagine her face isn’t passive and that her eyes aren’t so hard. He can imagine her lips are open and she is moaning into her pillow. He always comes quickly when this happens, so quickly and harder than he had at first, that the sex doesn’t feel as cheap or as wrong as it had those first two weeks.
But tonight, after having spoken to his father and being made well aware of his connection to Temari, he is having trouble.
He pushes into her harder, digging his fingers into her hips. He is conscientious when he pulls her hips back to meet his ever so slightly. He hasn’t moved her an inch, but the little bit of added friction jostles fire into his groin.
Shikamaru can tell that she felt it too, and for once, he sees her react. It is a clenching of her fingers around the sheets, but it is enough. He thrusts into her again, this time using his hands to pull her hips back as much as before.
It is the slightest change but it makes all the difference.
He can’t help himself now.
They started late today and have lasted longer than usual. A single light is on in the building across the way, and he can see her body in the faded light, her skin looks pale blue and gold, a combination of a lamp and the moon.
He lets out a throaty moan.
It is the first noise, the first sexual one, that has been made in the weeks they’ve been together.
A hand begins wandering from her hip to span across her back, fingers spread wide as he pumps into her a little quicker now. His hand moves up to settle between her shoulder blades, lightly pushing her down.
She collapses into the mattress.
He can feel her clench around him, her walls locking onto his cock tightly. The moan is guttural this time, and it is accompanied by her name. He wants to, he wants to so badly, but he can’t- he can’t control himself anymore.
The hand on her back moves in a flash, slipping below her hip to the small protrusion of flesh between her legs. He presses down hard and she jerks around him, hips fighting against his as she tries to pull away.
He can hear her saying his name, yelling at him. She is fighting him and he can feel it, but her pleas are lost on his ears. He is using one hand to control her hips and keep himself inside her, the other to touch her.
She is still fighting, but her will has lessened, and now her jerks are more of deep grinds that are making his head swim.
She is moving with him now, meeting his thrusts over and over and her muscles flutter around him. His body is on fire.
Temari is panting, her back arching, and seeing, no, feeling, her finally react to him is ruthless enough, but when she finally clamps down on him, her hands clawing at the sheets, this is what finally sends him over the edge.
The orgasm is nothing like it was last time, or the time before that, or any time they have been together. He is thrown off the cliff and he can’t hear or think, nor does he have any willpower to move. He can only standby as his body convulses and he spills into her again and again, and for the first time, his mess drips down her legs.
It takes only a few seconds before it comes racing back to him. Who they are, what they’re doing, what just happened.
What he did wrong.
He had collapsed atop of her when he was done riding out the waves of pleasure, and now he hastily removes himself from her heat and jumps off the bed as though it were on fire.
She is naked, body spent, and breaths heavy. He tries to regain his balance.
He feels exhausted, and if the circumstances were any different, he would probably be an inch away from sleep.
But he isn’t, and they aren’t.
He hopes the attendant didn’t hear them.
He stumbles to where his underwear was discarded earlier, slipping his legs into each end and pulling them to his hips with haste.
He has just let this get personal.
Her voice comes first. “Shikamaru.”
He is still panting.
“Why?” Her word is strained and he has a sickening feeling she is crying. She was the one who’d been so strong through all of this and now she was crying.
“Please, don’t cry.” He urges. He doesn’t know how to deal with this. His emotions are running high enough as it is.
“Leave,” she snaps, pushing herself up and facing away from him. “Get out.”
He has no other will but to comply.
Half his bed is occupied when he comes home.
In some miracle, he manages not to groan in frustration as he pulls off his shoes and collapses beside Tomomi. She never comes to his bed so soon after a mission unless she is horny, but he respects her more when she acknowledges his exhaustion and after a quick kiss, settles to just sleep against him.
He shucks his shirt to the floor and moves to lean back against his own, much harder mattress.
As Tomomi scratches lightly against his chest, head on his shoulder, he is struck with the knowledge that the skin underneath his fingernails belongs to another woman.
And he is both pleased and sickened to know that she is sporting scratches down her back.
“One more, Sir?”
Shikamaru slips another two bills onto the table as he accepts his glass. The sake is strong, as strong as whatever it is she gave him that first night.
And the rush through his throat is good, the instant heating of his gut welcome and celebrated.
It is here he can forget it all. Forget what happened the previous night, forget what may happen tomorrow, and the nights after that, forget how he must explain to his girlfriend his absence every other evening, find a way to convince his friends there is no reason he is avoiding Temari, and forget that the ending result of all of this will be a living, breathing child.
His child.
The boy (girl?) would have half his genes, half his blood. He might have his hair, or Yoshino’s eyes? Would the child have his jutsu?
Would his child grow up practicing a jutsu from his father? Would he hear stories of his father, the Shadow Master Shikamaru? Would he read the bingo book and answer questions about his own dad?
Would Temari marry someone else? Would he grow up knowing some taller, stronger, surely more handsome man was his parent?
Would everyone think that this supposed perfect man had been the one to slide his cock into Temari, the one to milk her into orgasm, the one to sire her child?
Without thinking he gulps down the last few inches of his sake. His head is swimming.
She had only come once, and it was completely accidental on either end.
Perhaps they needed a break. They could resume this in another week or so.
But, he knew, the sooner she was pregnant, she sooner it was over. Taking a break was only prolonging the inevitable. And if he pulled out of the mission now, what was the point? Their friendship was already salvaged beyond repair. It wouldn’t do any good if he didn’t see it out till the end.
He puts down more money and the man brings him one more glass. The room is starting to spin now and he supposes he shouldn’t drink this last one.
He just wants this to be over- his life was much simpler a month ago. Missions caused stress, yes. But not like this.
Shikamaru briefly wonders how much he’s getting paid. It better be one fucking good amount. Whatever it is, it’s surely far too little.
He can’t help it when his hands raise the glass and his lips open wide enough for a decent amount of sake to spill down his throat.
As clearly as if he were sober, he can remember Temari’s body last night. He remembers how she withered and jerked and what it felt like to have come for him. He wishes he could’ve seen her face when he finally got her there. After two weeks of painstakingly awkward intercourse, they had both given into pleasure.
If she only knew how good he could make it for her.
Last night had been nothing.
He could make her moan, he could force noise from her throat. He knows how to make it just right for the both of them, if only she’d let him.
Shikamaru finishes his glass.
“You have a note,” Choji comments, reaching onto the door the pull the tacked letter from the wood. “A bound one.”
Shikamaru groans, his head is pounding and he can’t think straight. The hangover will be killer come morning.
“Give it to me.”
Choji eyes the note, but then hands it over. Shikamaru pricks his fingers on his teeth before dropping the blood onto the paper. It unseals itself immediately. Choji leans closer.
“’Are you busy tomorrow night?’... Is this how Tomomi asks you out?”
Shikamaru groans and shakes his head. “It’s Temari- she’s…. we have plans.” He takes a step closer to the door. “Fuck.”
“What is it?”
“Not again,” Shikamaru leans against the wood, banging his head over and over in time with the throbs. “I thought it would work this time.”
“What would… are you okay?”
Shikamaru shakes his head, falling to the floor of his porch.
He can’t do this. He can’t. He can’t. He can’t have his child be some genetic experiment performed to please his daimyo. And he can’t have his child born out of unnatural, uncomfortable sex. Children were born out of love, and if he had to mate with Temari, so be it, but it would be done right.
He wouldn’t come home and see the same note on his door again, as it was every other day.
“Where are you going?” Choji demands, left dumbfounded on the porch as Shikamaru heads off to the gates of the Nara estate.
“I have business to take care of.”
“Business? You’re drunk, Shikamaru.“
But the man is already out of earshot; headed down the street to a place he hasn’t been in years.
“He never was a fun drunk,” a voice says as Choji steps back onto the ground.
Shikaku shifts the groceries he is holding to his other hand, looking back towards his own house only a few over. “But I suppose this type of business is better suited with a little drink.”
“What do you mean?”
Shikaku sighs, “nothing. Now come home with me, Yoshino saw you pass and told me to come find you before I go inside. She’s cooking duck for dinner. Are you hungry?”
The banging on her door is probably much too loud for this sort of hotel as no more than three guests stick their heads out before she finally opens her door. She is staying in the same place she used to, back when they were proctoring the Chunin Exams.
He is surprised. She was so different then, he saw her as such a different person, that it was confusing to imagine her in the same place. He wonders if this mission hadn’t been assigned to them, if they had reunited strictly as friends, would he still see her in the same light he had at fifteen?
“Oh,” she says when she opens the door. “It’s you.”
She isn’t glad to see him, that is obvious enough, even in his state, but for some reason, she steps aside and lets him in. In all reality, she can probably smell the alcohol on him and is aware that he will cause a scene if she doesn’t grant him access to her suite.
“Can I help you?” She asks, crossing her arms over her chest. She is wearing pajamas, and he can’t help but find them erroneously sexy.
“We need to talk about what happened.” He manages, though his words are paced. He is not as intoxicated as he appears, and while his movements are far from controlled, they are neither slow nor deficient.
“Now? Couldn’t this wait until you were, you know, perhaps more aware?”
“No.” He pulls off his vest and slings it over a chair by the door. They are still standing in the entryway. “We need to talk about this baby.”
“Shikamaru,” her voice is a warning, her patience is thinning but he is taking no heed.
“We’re doing this wrong.” He continues, unabashed. He is stepping closer. “This, you and I. You’re not pregnant because we’re doing this wrong.”
“Shikamaru,” she repeats, tone exasperated, “you know how these things work.”
“Yes,” he pulls the tie from his hair and rubs his fingers into his scalp. “And we’re not doing it right.”
She is about to reply, but then thinks better of it. Her hands move to her hips.
“What we have isn’t sex, Temari. You have no idea how it could be, how good I could make you feel.” Her cheeks turn red and her fists clench. He is toying with her anger and he is aware enough to know he doesn’t have long before she either kicks, or knocks, him out. “That is what will get you pregnant, not this. Not us pretending.”
His breathing is heavy and she is staring at him with an unreadable expression.
“People get pregnant all the time from doing less than what we do, Shikamaru,” she counters at last. “We’re doing fine.”
“No we’re not.”
She sighs and rolls her eyes, clearly done with the conversation. She gestures towards a small kitchen, “can I offer you some tea or- ”
His hands are on her hips, his body pressed to hers as close as they were that first night. His lips are on her neck, barely as he whispers over and over. “Temari, please.”
A beat passes.
And then her hands are in his hair and her lips are so tight against his it is a miracle either of them can get enough breath in.
It takes a moment, but then he realizes that the taste on her lips is whiskey.
That is why this is happening.
He doesn’t care.
Her lips are warm and firm and it is miraculous that he went all this time without feeling them. Surely, every man deserved to kiss these lips at least once. His life suddenly feels quite under-lived.
She is moving her mouth, nipping his lip between hers and he is just lost.
It is too hot. Her mouth and her skin, soft and fiery beneath his hands, against him. Oxygen doesn’t run to his head and he is so dizzy he can’t register that what is going on is wrong in every which way.
But she is kissing him and none of it matters.
She fits against his body just as he’d thought, curving herself into every inch of empty space, meeting every need he can’t voice, but somewhere deep in his mind he is sure she is liking it too.
He opens his mouth and she gasps. Her tongue is light, hot and flaring and they are stumbling further into the suite. She has her fingers around his neck now, scratching at the base of his hairline.
Shikamaru doesn’t know where to touch her; he doesn’t know where she wants him. And it is awkward and new and brilliant. It is nothing like room 706, nothing wrong or sick, and he can’t even concentrate enough to remember anything other than this.
“Condom?” He hears her ask.
It takes a gross amount of pure will to move his lips from hers. “Do we need one?”
Her breath is so heavy and her heart is thumping against his chest so loudly. He opens his eyes to see her attempt to concentrate. As if she suddenly remembers who they are and why she is here in the first place, she nods. “Right.” And then they are kissing again and she is pushing him to a bedroom.
He feels his throat choke and he sees she is trying to force her hands into his turtleneck and it just isn’t working. He moves away by some grace of god and pulls his shirt off so fast he tears the sleeve. His hands are furious on his buckle next and when he is touching her again, there is skin against skin and his chest is straining against her.
“Shikamaru,” she groans as his lips touch her jaw, hands roaming and grabbing at her body without pause.
His arousal is throbbing against his zipper.
“I’ve wanted this,” he hears himself say, “for- this for years.” He doesn’t know where the words came from and he doesn’t care.
He just wants her.
“We shouldn’t,” she is saying. But her pants are falling lower the more he pushes his own hands down her hips and over her rear and the he is cupping her and her hesitance is gone and her legs collapse and they are then only a tangle of limbs on a bed.
She is touching him everywhere and before he knows it his pants are gone and she is stroking him.
“We shouldn’t.” She tries again.
But then he is pushing into her there, just there and nothing else matters. She is Temari and he is Shikamaru and they are on fire.
He wakes up too early. His head is pounding and he is face feels swollen. He can see her above him, lips red as he grogs into wake. There is a light on in the room and pain splinters through his head. The hangover is killer, but she is also wearing a mans nightshirt, and he can only focus on one thing at a time.
She is sitting beside him, legs crossed and flaxen hair pooling over her shoulders, messy and knotted. If he could, he would lie here and make love to her for the rest of the day, but the clock beside the bed reads four am and it is time for him to leave.
She says as much, “you should probably leave before it gets light.”
He nods and sits up slowly, clenching his fists into the blankets before relaxing and stretching out his fingers. “We probably shouldn’t do this again, not while…” it goes against everything he wants to say -to do- but it is what he needs to say.
“Not while we are on this mission? Or not while you have a girlfriend?”
He can’t help the smirk. “That does complicate things.”
But she only shrugs. “No more so than they already are.”
He pushes himself out of bed. His shirt is by the door, but the rest is all piled on the bottom of the bed. He blushes when he sees it, and hopes she doesn’t see the stain of redness on his face when he slips everything back on.
“Shikamaru,” she says as he buckles his slacks. He glances over and she pauses, eyes falling to her curled up legs as she hesitates. “I don’t think I’d mind… you know, if it worked this time.”
He doesn’t know what to say, how to react. But she is right. If they had conceived a child last night, he wouldn’t mind.
He has put on his shirt now, and as she sits there brushing the pads of her fingers along her calf absently, he slips his hair back into place and untwists his sleeves, wondering all the while how she can be so calm about all of this.
And wondering why on earth he isn’t.
“Take the back stairwell,” she tells him a few moments later. He nods. They never know who is watching.
“I’ll see you tonight,” he says lightly. Her shoulders jostle as if she is holding in a laugh, but her face is as passive as ever. He remembers exactly how her body was burning against his only a few hours before, but now the memory is withering and open and he feels removed from her once more.
The morning is waiting for him when he exits her building.
“How’s it going?” Shikamaru asks.
The attendant shrugs. “Same old.”
“Do you do anything besides stand outside a room while I have sex?”
“It’s better than your job.”
Shikamaru snorts, “I suppose that’s true.”
They continue up the rest of the way in silence. Room 706 looks particularly scary today. He’d rather stay in the hall.
“Do you do this for many people?”
“If you’re asking me to discuss confidential inform-”
“No,” Shikamaru clarifies, “I’m just wondering if perhaps you’ve done this before, worked, you know, with other couples?”
The man takes a deep breath and nods. “Yes.”
He wonders how many other people have been in their position. He’d thought that he and Temari were the first, for Konoha and Suna at least. “Does it always go this way?”
“You mean in length? Some can take one or two visits, others take weeks.”
“What about afterwards?”
“I don’t work with that,” the attendant says, “but the child is raised to be a shinobi, I know that much.”
“Yeah,” Shikamaru responds. He knew that much too.
The attendant unlocks the door, “she’s waiting for you.”
“Well?” She says, arms crossed in front of her as she paces before him. “Say something.”
“What do you want me to say?” He is at a loss.
“Anything!” She snaps, eyes dark with a warning. “Just say something.”
But what is there to say?
He crumples the paper in his hand, careful enough to not damage it, but certainly with the intent to inflict harm.
“I don’t think I’m ready for this.”
She’d gone to Sakura this afternoon, manipulating the girl’s friendship with Temari’s youngest brother to her will. She didn’t have a doctor’s appointment until the next day, so Sakura had helped her out.
“You knew perfectly well what we were doing, you knew it had to result in this.”
He’d known he was going to be a father. He’d known they were going to have a child. It wasn’t a surprise.
But to know that right now his sperm had created a child, to know that right at this very instant his son or daughter was growing- “if it were anyone else’s I would tell you to get rid of it.”
How he wishes she would.
She clenches her fists, “but it’s yours.”
He takes a deep breath. He’d been waiting for this moment for almost a month and now he has no idea how to proceed.
She sighs and moves to sit beside him. “Why did you sign up for this?”
“For the same reasons you did.”
“No,” her hands run down her legs and come achingly close to this knee. “I did it because it was my duty. I am a master of the wind, a royal sister to the Kazekage and the daughter of two past ones. I was born into protecting Sunagakure, and as long as that is still my duty, I will continue to serve the village at its will. Gaara gave his life a while ago when the Akatsuki attacked. He put himself between the village and those who would do it harm. Even if I’m only giving up a few years of my life, and my sacrifice is incomparable to his, it is the least I can do to serve my people. You are just from a middle-class clan with a fair amount of missions under your belt and a respected name in the bingo book, please tell me how we are the same?”
“You’ve certainly thought this out, haven’t you?”
“I don’t make rash decisions.”
“Right.” He rubs his eyes and looks out at the fading light from the window. “I mean, you did this to protect your people, I did this to protect you. You were my friend. How could I refuse when the end result would only be you pregnant with a stranger’s kid?”
He doesn’t see her reaction to this, and he is certainly trying not to look, but the words hit hard enough. “Bastard.”
He’d figured as much.
Temari swallows. “I don’t need your protection. You’re just making things harder.”
“So my father says.”
“Smart man.” She stands up again, unable to sit still. “Do you always do things like this, for friends?”
He was not a stupid man, and after last night, it was easy for him to discern that it was more than the need to protect an old friend and ally; he’d wanted to protect the one he loved. But it hardly mattered.
“What do we do now?” He asks, ignoring her question.
“We’ve completed our mission.”
“Are you going home?”
“I suppose so.”
He looks back at her. “We could get married.”
She stops pacing.
“It’s probably what they want.”
“It’s not like that, Shikamaru. You don’t have to feel obligated, you’re not supposed to.” She is clearly shocked.
He could argue, but she’d probably shoot him down. He wouldn’t mind marrying her, he had become rather keen on the idea in the last few seconds since posed, but he isn’t going to stand by it.
They descend into silence and he doesn’t really mind this time.
He has known this was coming, he knew the test would eventually be positive and Temari would head back to the Sand. He knew all of this, but that doesn’t mean he likes it.
Eventually she sits beside him once more, fingers racing along his leg as they both sort some things out.
“Stay,” he says after a good ten minutes, “stay with me, tonight.”
“We shouldn’t be doing this now.”
“How long?”
“Years, maybe.”
“Temari,” he takes a breath, “I know what I signed up for, but it’s my child too.”
She nods softly, nails still scratching at his knee. “I know.”
The window is covering the both of them in the last traces of daylight as they sit upon the worn, ugly bed. He can feel her breathing, heavy and slow, so different than it had been not twenty-four hours before. He isn’t sure which way he prefers it.
He can feel the faint counterpoint rhythm of her heartbeat too, loud and betraying of her calm demeanor. It’s nothing at all, but it’s hers and it’s his and it's enough, enough for tomorrow at least.
I'm posting this in LJ, btw, because I want to do a commentary on this and I like the formatting here for that more than on FF. Anyways, tell me what you guys think!