Fic- Coming Up Tails, Part I
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.
This is my first LJ post! (This was originally posted on FF.net).
Introduction: The following came to me over Thanksgiving when my brother proposed that the basketball player Yao Ming had been a conspiracy on part of the Chinese government. Of course, I know nothing about basketball stars, but googled him after my elder brother said that he'd heard this insanely huge Chinaman had been the product of an arranged marriage between two of China's tallest people. Some of this is true, but probably not to the degree my morbid mind pictured. I saw it as two people forced into sex to produce an all-star for China. Of course, then I picture what that must be like… and here is the product of that.
This is not a happy story, far from it. (Not that I ever write happy things). But this is different from my usual work. It is more about the emotions and actions than the dialogue and the ones I normally write. It's very dark, and though it gets better, it never gets happy. The themes are very depressing and borderline on rape and forced sexual assault, so be wary. Also, the characters have been put in this position and I have tried to make them very in character had this circumstance been true, but at the same time that is so far-fetched, that it might be hard to understand the degrees and complexities they are feeling. Tell me if anything doesn't make sense and please leave me comments and questions regarding the following. Enjoy!
Coming Up Tails
To keep the lamp alive,
With oil we fill the bowl;
'Tis water makes the willow thrive,
And grace that feeds the soul. -William Cowper
It is the first time he has ever been called to her office without a scroll, the first time he had ever been escorted by ANBU guards; they’re as silent as their footsteps falling along his loud ones on the floor.
“Shikamaru,” she says when he knocks, “come in.” No one is waiting outside, and he feels the tendrils of warning in his gut. There is nothing casual about what she wants.
“Hokage-sama,” he greets, eyes calculating and on sudden alert as he stands before her. She is meeting his gaze, but with a hesitancy that makes her less daunting than she would probably like. “How can I help you?”
Her hands smooth over the papers before her, long, delicate fingers that could kill him in an instant had she been so inclined, skirt over the paper as she finds her words. “I have a mission for you.”
He is too tired for something so big so soon. He just returned from a month’s long journey in the Mist the week before. But there is something about her today, and he is annoyed with the temptation and curiosity flirting through his brain.
“But before I say anything,” she continues, “I want you to know that this is optional. I am proposing you for this assignment, but if you would rather not partake, I understand.”
Now that was surprising. Although, as far as he knew, she had never threatened a mission’s completion under death, it was rather implied that if you refused to do something, you were either reassigned or, depending on the circumstance, destined for very early retirement. But to have it specified that the following assignment wasn’t required, well, it was enough to make him stand a bit straighter. Of course, this meant a bit, and his shoulders did slag, only less so.
He gives a short nod and she continues.
“You know the daimyo funds almost twenty percent of this village’s economy, not to mention full funding for the ninja academy and your benefit plan.”
“I am aware of his influence, yes.”
“Well,” she pauses on her words, not quite unsure -she is much too wise for that- but rather hesitant. “He has asked a favor of me.”
Shikamaru knows he won’t accept the mission. As soon as he heard it was optional, he had no plan to. And if his friends weren’t at risk, he had no reason to. But he waits anyway, his heart beating faster as she continues and he wishes he knew why.
“There is a program currently underway in Iwa to ensure that the next generation of shinobi will have the most optimal skills achievable by birth. They are pairing candidates from their own shinobi pool, often those retired from injury or those who can afford to suspend their work for a few years, and conceiving a child from that pairing. Iwa and Ame are working together in a negotiation that strengthens their alliance treaty and betters the expected greatness of their future leaders.”
His mouth went dry. “You’re arranging sexual unions to result in skilled offspring?” His voice was not his own.
She misses a beat, but then nods her head in a small jerk.
“Children are being born from a science experiment? And you want us to do this? Is that was this is? Hokage-sama, you can’t-”
“Nara,” she demands, “I know this is not an ideal situation for either of us, but the daimyo has asked that we participate in the same program for a few years, just to see how it goes. I wouldn’t ask this of you, but you know the position he is putting me in. If I refuse, we will be unable to sustain ourselves in the luxury we live in now.”
He sighs, long and slow and utterly contradictory to the racing in his brain. She is asking him to father a child. A child! He is twenty years old; hardly old enough to take care of a girlfriend, much less a baby. He would be a father, and he would be one through something that far under-minded the love and dedication that went into the creation of the child. Sex is not meant to be prompted by a genetics experiment. Children were not supposed to be consequences of that.
“The daimyo is insisting that we work with Suna, and since the Kazekage has been placed in the same position as me, we have decided to cooperate. I am asking that you participate in this first trial run. Your mate has been handpicked, everything you need throughout the program will be provided, and you will be given a stipend at the end of every month until death. Of course, once the mission is complete, you will also garner that pay.”
There is silence once more.
“I am sorry,” he says at last, and the when she returns his words with a sigh and nod showing that she had assumed as much, he can only rub his neck and wait. It wasn’t like he’d been considering the affirmative answer in the least.
And were this any other assignment he was refusing, he would offer replacements, but now the idea makes him sick.
He would never subject a comrade to this. And knowing some of them, they would volunteer for any chance to better the village.
“Right,” Tsunade says, “as I expected. But I can’t say I am not disappointed, you were a good choice.” She straightens the folders in front of her and then waves her hand. “Okay, go away, Nara.”
He shrugs as though this were merely a casual conversation.
“And don’t you dare tell anyone about this.”
He nods and makes his way to the door before turning back, “Hokage-sama?”
“What?” She snaps.
“Why was I a good choice? There are plenty more eligible, equally as fertile men my age, not to mention ones much more likely to take on the burden of serving their Kage.”
“You meant ones that aren’t as lazy?”
“In a manner of speaking…”
The smirk she had donned quickly fades. “Besides the fact that your family’s particular jutsu is very useful to the daimyo, the female that volunteered for the program has a personal connection to you. Since she is not acquainted with many other of Konoha’s male shinobi, I figured it might be easier for her.”
A personal connection? He only had met a handful of Suna-nins over the years. “You can’t mean Sabaku no Temari?”
“I do.”
“You mean Gaa- ah, the Kazekage, volunteered his own sister?”
Tsunade taps her chin, “I don’t suppose so. He is not an unkind man. But, then again, they are from Suna.”
If his breath came in any shorter, they’d have a suffocation on their hands.
“And she agreed?”
“She’ll be here in three days to meet her partner.”
“You will assign someone to…err, reproduce with her?”
Tsunade glares at him. “I asked that you do it, but since you so kindly refused, I’ll find someone else.” She stands up, “now get out of here, Shikamaru. You’re dampening my afternoon.”
“Yes, Hokage-sama.”
He goes straight home after that, mind numb as he replays Tsunade’s request and comments in his head.
She had been serious. Serious in asking him to fuck some woman, get her pregnant, and then raise (would he even raise?) a child all for the benefit of the village? And it wasn’t just some woman either. Tsunade had been asking him to mate with Temari. Temari.
They had been friends during their childhoods, late teens even. They still were friends. He hadn’t seen her since he was sixteen, but it hardly mattered. He still liked her.
But to fuck her? To conceive with her? To conceive with any given woman was hard enough, but for it to be a friend? Isn’t that worse?
But as much as the whole idea was bothering him, the one thought that continued to unwillingly nudge its way into his conscious was the knowledge that, since he had refused to do it, someone else would.
She has already volunteered. She will be having a child, regardless of his decision. And although he surely didn’t want it to be his, he didn’t want it to be anyone else’s either.
Not that he doesn’t want Temari touched by someone else. Well, he doesn’t. But it isn’t a jealousy thing. He isn’t jealous. Far from it.
He isn’t in love with her or anything. Hell, he has a girlfriend, one who isn’t asking him to father her child. But he doesn’t want Temari, any of his friends really, to mate with a random volunteer. It is the least he can do for her, really.
But this isn’t a little consequence.
What about Tomomi? Would she accept the fact that he was going to have sleep with another woman and have her bear his child? Would his girlfriend understand it was for a mission? One that didn’t really mean life or death; would she understand?
Though that was hardly a consequence.
He would have a child. A fucking kid. His child would be birthed from a conspiracy in his own village, a scientific experiment versus being made from love in a caring and supportive household.
Good god, if his father ever found out he’d considered it, Shikaku would kill him. He couldn’t even begin to consider telling his mother.
That is- if he agreed.
Which he couldn’t. He just couldn’t. He couldn’t have a child for the bettering of Konoha and the pleasuring of the daimyo.
Even if Temari could, he couldn’t.
And why the fuck was she? If anyone, anyone, could get out of this, it would be her. But he hardly could being to imagine that Gaara had asked her in the first place. Which made him wonder why she had ever signed up for something like this: she would give her body to some Konoha male, take his seed, and grow a living child in her body for nine months.
Temari is the last person he would have figured for this.
Shikamaru pauses inside his bedroom door. His bed is dusty; the blankets wrinkled and piled on the bottom of the bed from where he kicked them off that morning. Had he said yes, in three days’ time, Temari would be in this bed. He would make love -no, he could hardly call it such- he would engage in sexual intercourse on this very mattress in hopes of creating new life. How would it work? Would they both be undressed? Would it even be in this bed? Would it be in the hospital? Hell, was it even sex at all? Did he just jerk into some petri dish and have his child conceived in a laboratory? If he said yes, would he even have to see Temari at all?
With one longer sigh, Shikamaru collapses onto the bed and groans.
He knew today would hardly be casual.
There never really was another option. As soon as Tsunade had said it was Temari, he’d had no choice. Of course he’d say yes. How could he refuse?
The next day, he goes over his assignment as Tomomi cooks dinner. She is going on a mission soon, a short one with her team, which works out for him rather well. He is still unsure how to tell her about this whole thing. Their relationship isn’t very serious, but she certainly deserves to be aware of his mission.
He should tell her tonight, tell her beforehand. She will be angry if he tells her after the fact, and this is supposedly their last date before she leaves for two weeks.
But he doesn’t know how.
How does he tell her any of this?
Apparently, the baby-making portion of this assignment is carried out the old fashioned way. He knows the routine well enough. This goes in that. He knows the feel of an orgasm. He knows what happens; he knows how semen ejaculates, how it looks and how it feels. He knows, has known for a good number of years, that that sticky substance is the foreground for pregnancy. He knows that he will come inside Temari’s uterus and the result of that will be a child.
He will have to engage in sex with Temari.
He has never planned to engage in sex. It always just happened. And even if he had been looking forward to it, he had still had some surprise after a date when the woman kissed him.
He had never gone somewhere with the clear intention of having sex.
But he would have to. Every other day until pregnant. Ino has always been worried about getting knocked up if she has unprotected sex once. He has always figured that to be true, once or twice without protection was likely to result in pregnancy, but apparently not. He and Temari would be having sex a good number of times, as had been made clear in the briefing. They would have sex every other day in room 706 in the hospital at six pm.
Twenty-four hours later, a medic will be able to tell if she was in fact pregnant, and depending on the results, they will either continue the next night or she will return to the Sand.
Shikamaru groans low in his throat, shoving the paper describing his assignment back into the folder it’d come from.
“Everything okay?”
He glances up to see Tomomi’s smiling face. “Yeah, just tired is all.”
He won’t raise the child. She or he will be raised in Suna. He has no parental claim. He could easily serve his village without acknowledging the consequences. That is how it is supposed to go. The child will not be his. It will be Temari’s. It will belong to Sunagakure.
Tomomi is in the kitchen, back hunched over, as she no doubt tries to discover what went wrong with her food. It is fruitless, he knows, she is just too stubborn to admit that she can’t cook.
But she looks damn good doing it. Her short black hair is all messy with the sweat from anxiety and heat from the oven; her cheeks are red and her narrowed eyes bright.
He doesn’t really have to tell her. It’s the same as accidentally getting a one-night stand pregnant and not having her tell you you have a kid. He knows quite a few older men whom were stationed in foreign lands during the war that have had this happen to them. He really can pretend it is exactly the same.
He doesn’t have to tell her at all.
“Fine,” Tomomi snaps after having thoroughly examined her food, “get your coat. We’re going out.”
He slips the folder into his vest. He won’t bother looking at it for a few more days.
He dreams of Temari that night. He dreams of how they used to walk through the streets side by side, bumping hips in the occasional bustle in a way that shot lightning through his veins. He was so naïve then, so young and innocent that the occasional thought of touching other parts of Temari made him blush.
He is much older now; he has touched other women in ways he had never dreamt about with her. He probably won’t touch her in those ways. It will probably be as simple as possible, as easy and as professional as they can make it.
She was always the professional kunoichi.
He dreams about training with her when she was eighteen, eating lunch on her breaks as he guided her around Konoha. He dreams about the last time he saw her, out to dinner with their friends. She was laughing and teasing, and he knows she will probably not be like that for a long time after this.
He will probably never remember her like this again. It is sad and it is nostalgic and wrong and he wishes he could only remember her when she was young.
He wakes up too early.
Shikamaru arrives at the hospital early, which is rare for him. The attendant there to meet him is visibly surprised as he glances at his ID. Apparently, someone had told him that Shikamaru was going to be very late, if he even showed at all.
In normal circumstances, Shikamaru would smirk at this man’s stuttering and anxiety, but he is no mood now.
He is led to the top floor of this hospital. He has only been up here once, and that was because Ino had to visit Sakura. Her office is at the end of this hall. He wonders if she knows what will be going on behind door 706. Probably not. Sakura was no good at keeping thoughts to herself, and he was pretty sure she would’ve had a lot of thoughts about this.
His attendant leads him to the foreboded room. The man is dressed in brown slacks, and Shikamaru suddenly worries that his own clothing choice is wrong. He is wearing his standard uniform. Would civilian clothes have been easier?
“Here you are,” the attendant says, opening the door with a key from the chain attached to his hip. “I’ll be right outside. If you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask.”
“Right.” He is nervous as fuck and he shoves his hands in his pockets to ward off any twitching fingers.
“Candidate H4,” he remembers, it wasn’t done by name. He wonders then, had his partner not been Temari, would he even have known her name? “Will arrive shortly.”
“Yes,” Shikamaru replies as he enters the room. The door shuts behind him.
It is almost six. He has a few minutes at most.
The room was made for this program, it appears. There is a bathroom adjoined, but apart from that, the only furniture is a dresser, a television, and a bed. A large bed. One far larger than his own. He wonders if others have engaged in the same thing he is about to on this bed. He trusts that it has been cleaned, though the thought still irks him.
But it is really the last thing on his mind.
The sheets are white -no surprise there- and the mattress is soft. He opens the dresser to find extra blankets and pillows, as well as drawers filled with every type of lubricant imaginable. There’s a number of sex toys as well, some he has seen before and others he can’t even begin to recognize. There are a few outfits to match, and a handful of porn tapes, which explains the TV.
“Will we be needing that?”
He hadn’t even realized the door was open.
She looks much younger than he’d pictured. She looks the same as she had three years before, in any sense. Perhaps she has lost some weight, or maybe gained some, he isn’t sure, but something about her body looks slightly different. Perhaps her chest was larger?
“Shikamaru,” she said, shutting the door behind her.
It was something that he’d realized a few days before, but suddenly the feeling came crashing down hard and swift upon his shoulders. Standing not three feet away from him was the mother of his future child.
“Temari.” Her name comes from his lips in a single pant.
This was wrong. But all other words were lost to him, and he could only watch her as she swallowed and met his gaze.
“How are you?”
She is as nervous as he is, but he can see the determination ingrained into her features, and he isn’t sure if he could keep up with her. But he could at least try.
His shrug is syncopated, almost unseen.
She shifts her weight around a bit, eyes scanning the room before settling on him once more. She licks her lips and he is sure her throat is as dry as his. A few beats pass before she reaches into her obi and pulls out a handful of small bottles. He takes one from her and downs it in moments. The burn is tight and his eyes water, after another bottle, he has found that this is just enough to take the edge off, though barely.
“Shall we,” she says, cheeks as red as his. Three empty bottles are in her hands. She was smarter than him. He should have thought of that.
She gestures to the bed and his chest burns. “Right…. Uh, how should I…?” He comes over to her, breath hitting her neck and he can feel her stiffen, breathe, and then attempt to relax. This feels all wrong and sick as his lips touch her neck, his fingers wandering into her obi to tug her closer. But if not him, then someone else. If he weren’t touching her, someone else would be.
Her skin is hot beneath him. His breath wets her neck and her inhalations become quick. He can feel her breasts pressing against his front and the beating of her pulse as his lips push harder into her neck. He can feel the arousal, odd and surprising, but certainly needed and wanted, beginning in his gut. It is certainly not uncomfortable. If they try this, if it is done this way, perhaps it will be okay. If they pretend this is normal, then maybe it could be. He could certainly try to keep up the appearance.
It would be easier. And he can feel his own arousal, pretending as such.
So he is surprised when she places a hand on his chest and pushes away. He sees her eyes and every warm feeling in his gut disappears in seconds. If she had only continued to pretend. But she can’t do it. Her features are cold and hardened and disgusted.
He feels sickened.
“I can do it,” she says, pulling out the ties of her obi and letting it fall to the floor. He stand back to allow her more room, heart beating audibly.
She pulls apart her robe, revealing a white bra and black panties. She could be sexy, he doesn’t doubt that. She always had been sexy. But the way she undresses before him is mechanical, as though she were having a checkup. She is stiff and uncomfortable, and what little erection he has left quickly dies out.
She catches him watching and shoots him a look. With a gulp, Shikamaru begins unzipping his vest and shedding it onto the floor. There are no hangers in the dresser.
When they are both only in their underwear, he looks back at her. The alcohol has certainly helped. At least he can speak now. But he wishes she had more of it.
“How do you want-”
“Lie down.” The instruction is harsh, but he complies. If she wants to makes this all the more awkward, she can. Before he knows it, her bra and underwear are off and she is straddling him.
He tries not the glance at her body, but with her breasts dangling above his face she is making it hard. But even with her own naked groin pressed against his barely clothed one, he is having trouble getting hard. He wills his cock to just shoot up, and it begins to as she grinds herself against him. But just as he can see the blush and torment on her face as her own body betrays her by growing wet, he feels in the wrong to have his dick so eager. He knows it must be, and he knows that any man with a curvy woman posed on top of him would get aroused, but he feels like a sick, perverted boy nonetheless.
Before he is fully erect, she pushes down his briefs and positions herself over him.
The sex is awkward and not right. She rocks herself against him in a pattern that resembles textbook sex rather than the kind that one’s body subconsciously moves towards.
Only breaths come from her, not deep or whimpered ones, no groans or moans, but tame ones, and when she tells him with a voice as even as if they were merely having tea that he should hurry up, it is all he can do to keep his cock hard. He is so close to losing it, and every time he looks at her face he comes a bit closer.
Shikamaru’s eyes wander towards the ceiling. The panels of the wood look old and worn, a breeze is threatening the window and light is waning on the floor and across the bed.
There is a man standing right outside and Shikamaru wonders if the attendant can hear the bedsprings.
Besides the throbbing of his racing heart, the squeaking of the springs is all Shikamaru can hear.
He is so far away from coming, he hardly registers the feeling of her heat encasing his cock. It is taking too long and he wishes it would be over. He has never expected it would be like this, sex with Temari… sex in general. It shouldn’t be like this. And the quicker this ends, the better.
The muscles folded beneath the skin of his stomach are twisting. They are alive and hard as she rests her hands on his lower abs to increase the depth of her movement. He appreciates the effort, but he is too distracted to assure her.
“Will it help if you touch me?” She asks. His hands grasp her hips, and he knows what she is asking. She doesn’t want him to touch her where he wants to. He wants to bury his hand between her legs, rub circles on that tight nub of nerves right above where they meet.
He wants to make her flinch and scream and writhe around him. The thought makes his balls tighten.
But this is only a silent room with an attendant outside and two very tortured people trying to force the impossible.
She isn’t asking him to touch her.
She doesn’t want to make it feel right. She wants him to get it over with. So instead of making it better for the both of them, his hands wander to her breasts like she asked.
They are firm in his hand, heavy and full and so help him if it doesn’t wave a line of heat back down to his cock. His hips jump and she nods approval. But nothing more happens and it takes her leaning back and rolling his balls in her palms before anything pushes him off the edge.
He always knew orgasms were great, and he had always figured there was no such thing as a bad one, only less degrees of wonderful. But this is bad, and he feels disgusting once it’s over, hissing through clenched teeth.
Temari climbs off him when he finishes, throwing her legs off the bed and grabbing her robe from the floor. She makes her way to the bathroom before turning around and shooting him a glance.
Her hair is perfectly arrayed, her cheeks a little too red, but no one would ever assume she’d just had sex.
If it could even be called that.
He didn’t know any definition of sex that would cover what had just happened here.
He hears the sound of running water and is instantly jealous that she has the shower. His cock is covered in her and he wishes he could wash it off.
The pane of the window rattles in the against and wind. It’s a good night for rain.
He knows why she is doing this. He is not stupid.
He has known for days, and when he asked her before they parted ways the day before, she had only confirmed it with far less words.
Gaara had never asked her to do this. Fuck, he’d probably fought it. As in Konoha, there were many kunoichi that were willing to do it, most even already had children with husbands whom happened to be shinobi.
Shikamaru himself was the product of such a birth. It was stupid for the daimyo to be requesting that it be done through a program rather than a common marriage.
But there were some who would accept it, it had happened before. And Temari had done it simply so those who would didn’t have to. She’d volunteered herself to protect her village; she’d done it so someone else wouldn’t have to.
He’d done it for the same reasons, though his were slightly skewed. He’d done it so she wouldn’t have to do it with someone else. He was protecting her, because if he didn’t, no one would.
There is a note waiting on his doorstep the next day. The test was negative.
He crumples the paper and throws it into the street.
He is late today, and the attendant is flustered once more. Shikamaru wonders if he could hear them have sex two days before. He wonders what this man knows of the mission and what he thinks about it.
Temari is wearing her robe again, but her obi is already gone and she is not wearing underwear. She did not bring along any alcohol this time.
He wishes she had.
“Evening,” he says, upset his voice betrayed his nerves.
“Evening.”
He wonders if she feels like a common whore, saying one or two words before spreading her legs. He wonders if she is, in some sense.
They don’t say anything more as she parts her clothing, but keeps it on, and lies out on the mattress.
He watches her body as she moves above him. Her thighs have a few scars, but good medic-nins probably healed most of her lacerations. He knows the scars on his skin are far and few between simply because of Ino’s growing precision in her field.
He owes that girl a lot.
She saw him the other day walking down the street. She had asked him to lunch and when he refused, yelled for a bit before bringing up Temari. Of course she’d seen the girl around town, it was silly of him to assume that Temari was holing up in a hotel or something.
But he isn’t sure how to react when Ino mentions her.
If only Ino knew where they were now.
“Are you okay?” she asks. She’s always gentle with him, but the hesitation in her touch reminds him that this isn’t real. This isn’t Temari. And he has no doubt that if this arrangement was at all natural, she’d be far from gentle.
The thought carries him away for a moment, and his hips start matching hers. He feels the change in her as she lets him take over.
He’s always gone slowly, setting the pace he is most comfortable with. One that doesn’t allow for the slapping of skin and the bouncing of bodies. He likes slow, hard rocking of hips. If she wanted, he would move differently. He is adaptable, but she hasn’t shown any inclination either way. He briefly wonders what positions and rhythms she likes.
But the thought of her in bed with him, really in bed, is disturbing after he comes to his senses. But this newfound rhythm is working and he can feel his balls begin to tighten. He switched to Tomomi; to the last time they had great sex.
They were playing shogi; she had pushed aside the board and straddled his hips, quite like Temari was doing now. Only Tomomi had kissed him, she had teased his lips with hers, his jaw with her tongue. Temari didn’t tease. But at least she acknowledged that he was also suffering through this, which was good enough for now.
When he finishes and she pulls off him to take the shower first, he rubs his eyes. If he weren’t feeling like such shit, he would probably enjoy seeing her leggy form enter the bathroom.
“Hey Temari,” he calls -using the honorific feels wrong these days- “can I ask you something?”
She pokes her head out the door. She hates when he talks afterwards, and he knows it, but it is the only time he has an excuse to. They have to talk, at some point. They are having a child together. But it isn’t like he can show up to her hotel room.
“How long does it usually take for someone to get pregnant?”
He can see her stiffen at the word, which is something she surely shouldn’t be doing.
“We both took the test, Shikamaru,” she counters, going back into the bathroom. “We’re both very fertile, so it shouldn’t be long.”
It’d been over a week already.
They’d had sex five times. And everyday, nothing. Sakura had gotten pregnant the first time she had sex (or so Ino said, neither Sakura nor Kakashi were keen on talking about such matters) and Ino herself had lectured him for hours when he started having sex. Apparently, she didn’t find the custom sexual-education he’d had from their old sensei to be adequate enough.
And yet, Temari’s egg remained unfertilized, or whatever the fuck was supposed to happen.
“Right,” he says, sitting up and tugging his briefs back into place.
Temari sighs loud enough for him to hear. She turns on the shower and then lets the water run as she comes back into the room. She has a towel wrapped around her body, but it has been getting dark early as they fall deeper into winter and neither had thought to turn on the light. She is only a silhouette as she joins him on the edge of the bed.
She thinks it over before placing a hand on his bicep. He flinches at the touch and she moves away.
“It’ll be over soon.”
He grunts. “Don’t console me, Tem. If either of us need pity, it’s you.”
She runs a hand through her loose hair, “mm. I had a choice, Shikamaru.” She curls her fingers over her knee. “I chose this.”
Shikamaru swallows, not wanting to argue, though he knows a fight is really what he needs. “I did too.”
She bites her lip. He wonders why she can’t stop fidgeting. “I know.” She says before standing up again and going to her shower, but she stops before the door. “You can come with me tomorrow, to the medic, I mean.”
He was left alone in a shabby room wondering how the most intimate moment with the mother of his future child had occurred with hardly any words passed between them.
Continue Reading Part II
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.
This is my first LJ post! (This was originally posted on FF.net).
Introduction: The following came to me over Thanksgiving when my brother proposed that the basketball player Yao Ming had been a conspiracy on part of the Chinese government. Of course, I know nothing about basketball stars, but googled him after my elder brother said that he'd heard this insanely huge Chinaman had been the product of an arranged marriage between two of China's tallest people. Some of this is true, but probably not to the degree my morbid mind pictured. I saw it as two people forced into sex to produce an all-star for China. Of course, then I picture what that must be like… and here is the product of that.
This is not a happy story, far from it. (Not that I ever write happy things). But this is different from my usual work. It is more about the emotions and actions than the dialogue and the ones I normally write. It's very dark, and though it gets better, it never gets happy. The themes are very depressing and borderline on rape and forced sexual assault, so be wary. Also, the characters have been put in this position and I have tried to make them very in character had this circumstance been true, but at the same time that is so far-fetched, that it might be hard to understand the degrees and complexities they are feeling. Tell me if anything doesn't make sense and please leave me comments and questions regarding the following. Enjoy!
Coming Up Tails
To keep the lamp alive,
With oil we fill the bowl;
'Tis water makes the willow thrive,
And grace that feeds the soul. -William Cowper
It is the first time he has ever been called to her office without a scroll, the first time he had ever been escorted by ANBU guards; they’re as silent as their footsteps falling along his loud ones on the floor.
“Shikamaru,” she says when he knocks, “come in.” No one is waiting outside, and he feels the tendrils of warning in his gut. There is nothing casual about what she wants.
“Hokage-sama,” he greets, eyes calculating and on sudden alert as he stands before her. She is meeting his gaze, but with a hesitancy that makes her less daunting than she would probably like. “How can I help you?”
Her hands smooth over the papers before her, long, delicate fingers that could kill him in an instant had she been so inclined, skirt over the paper as she finds her words. “I have a mission for you.”
He is too tired for something so big so soon. He just returned from a month’s long journey in the Mist the week before. But there is something about her today, and he is annoyed with the temptation and curiosity flirting through his brain.
“But before I say anything,” she continues, “I want you to know that this is optional. I am proposing you for this assignment, but if you would rather not partake, I understand.”
Now that was surprising. Although, as far as he knew, she had never threatened a mission’s completion under death, it was rather implied that if you refused to do something, you were either reassigned or, depending on the circumstance, destined for very early retirement. But to have it specified that the following assignment wasn’t required, well, it was enough to make him stand a bit straighter. Of course, this meant a bit, and his shoulders did slag, only less so.
He gives a short nod and she continues.
“You know the daimyo funds almost twenty percent of this village’s economy, not to mention full funding for the ninja academy and your benefit plan.”
“I am aware of his influence, yes.”
“Well,” she pauses on her words, not quite unsure -she is much too wise for that- but rather hesitant. “He has asked a favor of me.”
Shikamaru knows he won’t accept the mission. As soon as he heard it was optional, he had no plan to. And if his friends weren’t at risk, he had no reason to. But he waits anyway, his heart beating faster as she continues and he wishes he knew why.
“There is a program currently underway in Iwa to ensure that the next generation of shinobi will have the most optimal skills achievable by birth. They are pairing candidates from their own shinobi pool, often those retired from injury or those who can afford to suspend their work for a few years, and conceiving a child from that pairing. Iwa and Ame are working together in a negotiation that strengthens their alliance treaty and betters the expected greatness of their future leaders.”
His mouth went dry. “You’re arranging sexual unions to result in skilled offspring?” His voice was not his own.
She misses a beat, but then nods her head in a small jerk.
“Children are being born from a science experiment? And you want us to do this? Is that was this is? Hokage-sama, you can’t-”
“Nara,” she demands, “I know this is not an ideal situation for either of us, but the daimyo has asked that we participate in the same program for a few years, just to see how it goes. I wouldn’t ask this of you, but you know the position he is putting me in. If I refuse, we will be unable to sustain ourselves in the luxury we live in now.”
He sighs, long and slow and utterly contradictory to the racing in his brain. She is asking him to father a child. A child! He is twenty years old; hardly old enough to take care of a girlfriend, much less a baby. He would be a father, and he would be one through something that far under-minded the love and dedication that went into the creation of the child. Sex is not meant to be prompted by a genetics experiment. Children were not supposed to be consequences of that.
“The daimyo is insisting that we work with Suna, and since the Kazekage has been placed in the same position as me, we have decided to cooperate. I am asking that you participate in this first trial run. Your mate has been handpicked, everything you need throughout the program will be provided, and you will be given a stipend at the end of every month until death. Of course, once the mission is complete, you will also garner that pay.”
There is silence once more.
“I am sorry,” he says at last, and the when she returns his words with a sigh and nod showing that she had assumed as much, he can only rub his neck and wait. It wasn’t like he’d been considering the affirmative answer in the least.
And were this any other assignment he was refusing, he would offer replacements, but now the idea makes him sick.
He would never subject a comrade to this. And knowing some of them, they would volunteer for any chance to better the village.
“Right,” Tsunade says, “as I expected. But I can’t say I am not disappointed, you were a good choice.” She straightens the folders in front of her and then waves her hand. “Okay, go away, Nara.”
He shrugs as though this were merely a casual conversation.
“And don’t you dare tell anyone about this.”
He nods and makes his way to the door before turning back, “Hokage-sama?”
“What?” She snaps.
“Why was I a good choice? There are plenty more eligible, equally as fertile men my age, not to mention ones much more likely to take on the burden of serving their Kage.”
“You meant ones that aren’t as lazy?”
“In a manner of speaking…”
The smirk she had donned quickly fades. “Besides the fact that your family’s particular jutsu is very useful to the daimyo, the female that volunteered for the program has a personal connection to you. Since she is not acquainted with many other of Konoha’s male shinobi, I figured it might be easier for her.”
A personal connection? He only had met a handful of Suna-nins over the years. “You can’t mean Sabaku no Temari?”
“I do.”
“You mean Gaa- ah, the Kazekage, volunteered his own sister?”
Tsunade taps her chin, “I don’t suppose so. He is not an unkind man. But, then again, they are from Suna.”
If his breath came in any shorter, they’d have a suffocation on their hands.
“And she agreed?”
“She’ll be here in three days to meet her partner.”
“You will assign someone to…err, reproduce with her?”
Tsunade glares at him. “I asked that you do it, but since you so kindly refused, I’ll find someone else.” She stands up, “now get out of here, Shikamaru. You’re dampening my afternoon.”
“Yes, Hokage-sama.”
He goes straight home after that, mind numb as he replays Tsunade’s request and comments in his head.
She had been serious. Serious in asking him to fuck some woman, get her pregnant, and then raise (would he even raise?) a child all for the benefit of the village? And it wasn’t just some woman either. Tsunade had been asking him to mate with Temari. Temari.
They had been friends during their childhoods, late teens even. They still were friends. He hadn’t seen her since he was sixteen, but it hardly mattered. He still liked her.
But to fuck her? To conceive with her? To conceive with any given woman was hard enough, but for it to be a friend? Isn’t that worse?
But as much as the whole idea was bothering him, the one thought that continued to unwillingly nudge its way into his conscious was the knowledge that, since he had refused to do it, someone else would.
She has already volunteered. She will be having a child, regardless of his decision. And although he surely didn’t want it to be his, he didn’t want it to be anyone else’s either.
Not that he doesn’t want Temari touched by someone else. Well, he doesn’t. But it isn’t a jealousy thing. He isn’t jealous. Far from it.
He isn’t in love with her or anything. Hell, he has a girlfriend, one who isn’t asking him to father her child. But he doesn’t want Temari, any of his friends really, to mate with a random volunteer. It is the least he can do for her, really.
But this isn’t a little consequence.
What about Tomomi? Would she accept the fact that he was going to have sleep with another woman and have her bear his child? Would his girlfriend understand it was for a mission? One that didn’t really mean life or death; would she understand?
Though that was hardly a consequence.
He would have a child. A fucking kid. His child would be birthed from a conspiracy in his own village, a scientific experiment versus being made from love in a caring and supportive household.
Good god, if his father ever found out he’d considered it, Shikaku would kill him. He couldn’t even begin to consider telling his mother.
That is- if he agreed.
Which he couldn’t. He just couldn’t. He couldn’t have a child for the bettering of Konoha and the pleasuring of the daimyo.
Even if Temari could, he couldn’t.
And why the fuck was she? If anyone, anyone, could get out of this, it would be her. But he hardly could being to imagine that Gaara had asked her in the first place. Which made him wonder why she had ever signed up for something like this: she would give her body to some Konoha male, take his seed, and grow a living child in her body for nine months.
Temari is the last person he would have figured for this.
Shikamaru pauses inside his bedroom door. His bed is dusty; the blankets wrinkled and piled on the bottom of the bed from where he kicked them off that morning. Had he said yes, in three days’ time, Temari would be in this bed. He would make love -no, he could hardly call it such- he would engage in sexual intercourse on this very mattress in hopes of creating new life. How would it work? Would they both be undressed? Would it even be in this bed? Would it be in the hospital? Hell, was it even sex at all? Did he just jerk into some petri dish and have his child conceived in a laboratory? If he said yes, would he even have to see Temari at all?
With one longer sigh, Shikamaru collapses onto the bed and groans.
He knew today would hardly be casual.
There never really was another option. As soon as Tsunade had said it was Temari, he’d had no choice. Of course he’d say yes. How could he refuse?
The next day, he goes over his assignment as Tomomi cooks dinner. She is going on a mission soon, a short one with her team, which works out for him rather well. He is still unsure how to tell her about this whole thing. Their relationship isn’t very serious, but she certainly deserves to be aware of his mission.
He should tell her tonight, tell her beforehand. She will be angry if he tells her after the fact, and this is supposedly their last date before she leaves for two weeks.
But he doesn’t know how.
How does he tell her any of this?
Apparently, the baby-making portion of this assignment is carried out the old fashioned way. He knows the routine well enough. This goes in that. He knows the feel of an orgasm. He knows what happens; he knows how semen ejaculates, how it looks and how it feels. He knows, has known for a good number of years, that that sticky substance is the foreground for pregnancy. He knows that he will come inside Temari’s uterus and the result of that will be a child.
He will have to engage in sex with Temari.
He has never planned to engage in sex. It always just happened. And even if he had been looking forward to it, he had still had some surprise after a date when the woman kissed him.
He had never gone somewhere with the clear intention of having sex.
But he would have to. Every other day until pregnant. Ino has always been worried about getting knocked up if she has unprotected sex once. He has always figured that to be true, once or twice without protection was likely to result in pregnancy, but apparently not. He and Temari would be having sex a good number of times, as had been made clear in the briefing. They would have sex every other day in room 706 in the hospital at six pm.
Twenty-four hours later, a medic will be able to tell if she was in fact pregnant, and depending on the results, they will either continue the next night or she will return to the Sand.
Shikamaru groans low in his throat, shoving the paper describing his assignment back into the folder it’d come from.
“Everything okay?”
He glances up to see Tomomi’s smiling face. “Yeah, just tired is all.”
He won’t raise the child. She or he will be raised in Suna. He has no parental claim. He could easily serve his village without acknowledging the consequences. That is how it is supposed to go. The child will not be his. It will be Temari’s. It will belong to Sunagakure.
Tomomi is in the kitchen, back hunched over, as she no doubt tries to discover what went wrong with her food. It is fruitless, he knows, she is just too stubborn to admit that she can’t cook.
But she looks damn good doing it. Her short black hair is all messy with the sweat from anxiety and heat from the oven; her cheeks are red and her narrowed eyes bright.
He doesn’t really have to tell her. It’s the same as accidentally getting a one-night stand pregnant and not having her tell you you have a kid. He knows quite a few older men whom were stationed in foreign lands during the war that have had this happen to them. He really can pretend it is exactly the same.
He doesn’t have to tell her at all.
“Fine,” Tomomi snaps after having thoroughly examined her food, “get your coat. We’re going out.”
He slips the folder into his vest. He won’t bother looking at it for a few more days.
He dreams of Temari that night. He dreams of how they used to walk through the streets side by side, bumping hips in the occasional bustle in a way that shot lightning through his veins. He was so naïve then, so young and innocent that the occasional thought of touching other parts of Temari made him blush.
He is much older now; he has touched other women in ways he had never dreamt about with her. He probably won’t touch her in those ways. It will probably be as simple as possible, as easy and as professional as they can make it.
She was always the professional kunoichi.
He dreams about training with her when she was eighteen, eating lunch on her breaks as he guided her around Konoha. He dreams about the last time he saw her, out to dinner with their friends. She was laughing and teasing, and he knows she will probably not be like that for a long time after this.
He will probably never remember her like this again. It is sad and it is nostalgic and wrong and he wishes he could only remember her when she was young.
He wakes up too early.
Shikamaru arrives at the hospital early, which is rare for him. The attendant there to meet him is visibly surprised as he glances at his ID. Apparently, someone had told him that Shikamaru was going to be very late, if he even showed at all.
In normal circumstances, Shikamaru would smirk at this man’s stuttering and anxiety, but he is no mood now.
He is led to the top floor of this hospital. He has only been up here once, and that was because Ino had to visit Sakura. Her office is at the end of this hall. He wonders if she knows what will be going on behind door 706. Probably not. Sakura was no good at keeping thoughts to herself, and he was pretty sure she would’ve had a lot of thoughts about this.
His attendant leads him to the foreboded room. The man is dressed in brown slacks, and Shikamaru suddenly worries that his own clothing choice is wrong. He is wearing his standard uniform. Would civilian clothes have been easier?
“Here you are,” the attendant says, opening the door with a key from the chain attached to his hip. “I’ll be right outside. If you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask.”
“Right.” He is nervous as fuck and he shoves his hands in his pockets to ward off any twitching fingers.
“Candidate H4,” he remembers, it wasn’t done by name. He wonders then, had his partner not been Temari, would he even have known her name? “Will arrive shortly.”
“Yes,” Shikamaru replies as he enters the room. The door shuts behind him.
It is almost six. He has a few minutes at most.
The room was made for this program, it appears. There is a bathroom adjoined, but apart from that, the only furniture is a dresser, a television, and a bed. A large bed. One far larger than his own. He wonders if others have engaged in the same thing he is about to on this bed. He trusts that it has been cleaned, though the thought still irks him.
But it is really the last thing on his mind.
The sheets are white -no surprise there- and the mattress is soft. He opens the dresser to find extra blankets and pillows, as well as drawers filled with every type of lubricant imaginable. There’s a number of sex toys as well, some he has seen before and others he can’t even begin to recognize. There are a few outfits to match, and a handful of porn tapes, which explains the TV.
“Will we be needing that?”
He hadn’t even realized the door was open.
She looks much younger than he’d pictured. She looks the same as she had three years before, in any sense. Perhaps she has lost some weight, or maybe gained some, he isn’t sure, but something about her body looks slightly different. Perhaps her chest was larger?
“Shikamaru,” she said, shutting the door behind her.
It was something that he’d realized a few days before, but suddenly the feeling came crashing down hard and swift upon his shoulders. Standing not three feet away from him was the mother of his future child.
“Temari.” Her name comes from his lips in a single pant.
This was wrong. But all other words were lost to him, and he could only watch her as she swallowed and met his gaze.
“How are you?”
She is as nervous as he is, but he can see the determination ingrained into her features, and he isn’t sure if he could keep up with her. But he could at least try.
His shrug is syncopated, almost unseen.
She shifts her weight around a bit, eyes scanning the room before settling on him once more. She licks her lips and he is sure her throat is as dry as his. A few beats pass before she reaches into her obi and pulls out a handful of small bottles. He takes one from her and downs it in moments. The burn is tight and his eyes water, after another bottle, he has found that this is just enough to take the edge off, though barely.
“Shall we,” she says, cheeks as red as his. Three empty bottles are in her hands. She was smarter than him. He should have thought of that.
She gestures to the bed and his chest burns. “Right…. Uh, how should I…?” He comes over to her, breath hitting her neck and he can feel her stiffen, breathe, and then attempt to relax. This feels all wrong and sick as his lips touch her neck, his fingers wandering into her obi to tug her closer. But if not him, then someone else. If he weren’t touching her, someone else would be.
Her skin is hot beneath him. His breath wets her neck and her inhalations become quick. He can feel her breasts pressing against his front and the beating of her pulse as his lips push harder into her neck. He can feel the arousal, odd and surprising, but certainly needed and wanted, beginning in his gut. It is certainly not uncomfortable. If they try this, if it is done this way, perhaps it will be okay. If they pretend this is normal, then maybe it could be. He could certainly try to keep up the appearance.
It would be easier. And he can feel his own arousal, pretending as such.
So he is surprised when she places a hand on his chest and pushes away. He sees her eyes and every warm feeling in his gut disappears in seconds. If she had only continued to pretend. But she can’t do it. Her features are cold and hardened and disgusted.
He feels sickened.
“I can do it,” she says, pulling out the ties of her obi and letting it fall to the floor. He stand back to allow her more room, heart beating audibly.
She pulls apart her robe, revealing a white bra and black panties. She could be sexy, he doesn’t doubt that. She always had been sexy. But the way she undresses before him is mechanical, as though she were having a checkup. She is stiff and uncomfortable, and what little erection he has left quickly dies out.
She catches him watching and shoots him a look. With a gulp, Shikamaru begins unzipping his vest and shedding it onto the floor. There are no hangers in the dresser.
When they are both only in their underwear, he looks back at her. The alcohol has certainly helped. At least he can speak now. But he wishes she had more of it.
“How do you want-”
“Lie down.” The instruction is harsh, but he complies. If she wants to makes this all the more awkward, she can. Before he knows it, her bra and underwear are off and she is straddling him.
He tries not the glance at her body, but with her breasts dangling above his face she is making it hard. But even with her own naked groin pressed against his barely clothed one, he is having trouble getting hard. He wills his cock to just shoot up, and it begins to as she grinds herself against him. But just as he can see the blush and torment on her face as her own body betrays her by growing wet, he feels in the wrong to have his dick so eager. He knows it must be, and he knows that any man with a curvy woman posed on top of him would get aroused, but he feels like a sick, perverted boy nonetheless.
Before he is fully erect, she pushes down his briefs and positions herself over him.
The sex is awkward and not right. She rocks herself against him in a pattern that resembles textbook sex rather than the kind that one’s body subconsciously moves towards.
Only breaths come from her, not deep or whimpered ones, no groans or moans, but tame ones, and when she tells him with a voice as even as if they were merely having tea that he should hurry up, it is all he can do to keep his cock hard. He is so close to losing it, and every time he looks at her face he comes a bit closer.
Shikamaru’s eyes wander towards the ceiling. The panels of the wood look old and worn, a breeze is threatening the window and light is waning on the floor and across the bed.
There is a man standing right outside and Shikamaru wonders if the attendant can hear the bedsprings.
Besides the throbbing of his racing heart, the squeaking of the springs is all Shikamaru can hear.
He is so far away from coming, he hardly registers the feeling of her heat encasing his cock. It is taking too long and he wishes it would be over. He has never expected it would be like this, sex with Temari… sex in general. It shouldn’t be like this. And the quicker this ends, the better.
The muscles folded beneath the skin of his stomach are twisting. They are alive and hard as she rests her hands on his lower abs to increase the depth of her movement. He appreciates the effort, but he is too distracted to assure her.
“Will it help if you touch me?” She asks. His hands grasp her hips, and he knows what she is asking. She doesn’t want him to touch her where he wants to. He wants to bury his hand between her legs, rub circles on that tight nub of nerves right above where they meet.
He wants to make her flinch and scream and writhe around him. The thought makes his balls tighten.
But this is only a silent room with an attendant outside and two very tortured people trying to force the impossible.
She isn’t asking him to touch her.
She doesn’t want to make it feel right. She wants him to get it over with. So instead of making it better for the both of them, his hands wander to her breasts like she asked.
They are firm in his hand, heavy and full and so help him if it doesn’t wave a line of heat back down to his cock. His hips jump and she nods approval. But nothing more happens and it takes her leaning back and rolling his balls in her palms before anything pushes him off the edge.
He always knew orgasms were great, and he had always figured there was no such thing as a bad one, only less degrees of wonderful. But this is bad, and he feels disgusting once it’s over, hissing through clenched teeth.
Temari climbs off him when he finishes, throwing her legs off the bed and grabbing her robe from the floor. She makes her way to the bathroom before turning around and shooting him a glance.
Her hair is perfectly arrayed, her cheeks a little too red, but no one would ever assume she’d just had sex.
If it could even be called that.
He didn’t know any definition of sex that would cover what had just happened here.
He hears the sound of running water and is instantly jealous that she has the shower. His cock is covered in her and he wishes he could wash it off.
The pane of the window rattles in the against and wind. It’s a good night for rain.
He knows why she is doing this. He is not stupid.
He has known for days, and when he asked her before they parted ways the day before, she had only confirmed it with far less words.
Gaara had never asked her to do this. Fuck, he’d probably fought it. As in Konoha, there were many kunoichi that were willing to do it, most even already had children with husbands whom happened to be shinobi.
Shikamaru himself was the product of such a birth. It was stupid for the daimyo to be requesting that it be done through a program rather than a common marriage.
But there were some who would accept it, it had happened before. And Temari had done it simply so those who would didn’t have to. She’d volunteered herself to protect her village; she’d done it so someone else wouldn’t have to.
He’d done it for the same reasons, though his were slightly skewed. He’d done it so she wouldn’t have to do it with someone else. He was protecting her, because if he didn’t, no one would.
There is a note waiting on his doorstep the next day. The test was negative.
He crumples the paper and throws it into the street.
He is late today, and the attendant is flustered once more. Shikamaru wonders if he could hear them have sex two days before. He wonders what this man knows of the mission and what he thinks about it.
Temari is wearing her robe again, but her obi is already gone and she is not wearing underwear. She did not bring along any alcohol this time.
He wishes she had.
“Evening,” he says, upset his voice betrayed his nerves.
“Evening.”
He wonders if she feels like a common whore, saying one or two words before spreading her legs. He wonders if she is, in some sense.
They don’t say anything more as she parts her clothing, but keeps it on, and lies out on the mattress.
He watches her body as she moves above him. Her thighs have a few scars, but good medic-nins probably healed most of her lacerations. He knows the scars on his skin are far and few between simply because of Ino’s growing precision in her field.
He owes that girl a lot.
She saw him the other day walking down the street. She had asked him to lunch and when he refused, yelled for a bit before bringing up Temari. Of course she’d seen the girl around town, it was silly of him to assume that Temari was holing up in a hotel or something.
But he isn’t sure how to react when Ino mentions her.
If only Ino knew where they were now.
“Are you okay?” she asks. She’s always gentle with him, but the hesitation in her touch reminds him that this isn’t real. This isn’t Temari. And he has no doubt that if this arrangement was at all natural, she’d be far from gentle.
The thought carries him away for a moment, and his hips start matching hers. He feels the change in her as she lets him take over.
He’s always gone slowly, setting the pace he is most comfortable with. One that doesn’t allow for the slapping of skin and the bouncing of bodies. He likes slow, hard rocking of hips. If she wanted, he would move differently. He is adaptable, but she hasn’t shown any inclination either way. He briefly wonders what positions and rhythms she likes.
But the thought of her in bed with him, really in bed, is disturbing after he comes to his senses. But this newfound rhythm is working and he can feel his balls begin to tighten. He switched to Tomomi; to the last time they had great sex.
They were playing shogi; she had pushed aside the board and straddled his hips, quite like Temari was doing now. Only Tomomi had kissed him, she had teased his lips with hers, his jaw with her tongue. Temari didn’t tease. But at least she acknowledged that he was also suffering through this, which was good enough for now.
When he finishes and she pulls off him to take the shower first, he rubs his eyes. If he weren’t feeling like such shit, he would probably enjoy seeing her leggy form enter the bathroom.
“Hey Temari,” he calls -using the honorific feels wrong these days- “can I ask you something?”
She pokes her head out the door. She hates when he talks afterwards, and he knows it, but it is the only time he has an excuse to. They have to talk, at some point. They are having a child together. But it isn’t like he can show up to her hotel room.
“How long does it usually take for someone to get pregnant?”
He can see her stiffen at the word, which is something she surely shouldn’t be doing.
“We both took the test, Shikamaru,” she counters, going back into the bathroom. “We’re both very fertile, so it shouldn’t be long.”
It’d been over a week already.
They’d had sex five times. And everyday, nothing. Sakura had gotten pregnant the first time she had sex (or so Ino said, neither Sakura nor Kakashi were keen on talking about such matters) and Ino herself had lectured him for hours when he started having sex. Apparently, she didn’t find the custom sexual-education he’d had from their old sensei to be adequate enough.
And yet, Temari’s egg remained unfertilized, or whatever the fuck was supposed to happen.
“Right,” he says, sitting up and tugging his briefs back into place.
Temari sighs loud enough for him to hear. She turns on the shower and then lets the water run as she comes back into the room. She has a towel wrapped around her body, but it has been getting dark early as they fall deeper into winter and neither had thought to turn on the light. She is only a silhouette as she joins him on the edge of the bed.
She thinks it over before placing a hand on his bicep. He flinches at the touch and she moves away.
“It’ll be over soon.”
He grunts. “Don’t console me, Tem. If either of us need pity, it’s you.”
She runs a hand through her loose hair, “mm. I had a choice, Shikamaru.” She curls her fingers over her knee. “I chose this.”
Shikamaru swallows, not wanting to argue, though he knows a fight is really what he needs. “I did too.”
She bites her lip. He wonders why she can’t stop fidgeting. “I know.” She says before standing up again and going to her shower, but she stops before the door. “You can come with me tomorrow, to the medic, I mean.”
He was left alone in a shabby room wondering how the most intimate moment with the mother of his future child had occurred with hardly any words passed between them.
Continue Reading Part II