27A/N: I have a vault. Maybe everyone does. It's a place I keep stories I'll never publish, for one reason or another, and I think there's probably about fifty fics in it now. This is one of those fics; something I wrote nearly a year ago, revised during the summer, but I never published for a variety of reasons. The main one was a lack of interest and resounding "zuh?" from betas. But I ran across it again, and fell in love with it, so I'm gonna go ahead and share. Sorry if it's confusing; it made perfect sense to me when I wrote it. :)
Thanks for reading!
Shikamaru sat across the low table from Kurenai, watching her through the dim light. She barely moved, lifeless eyes lowered to the plate in front of her, but he could tell by the way small muscles twitched in her forearms that she was fiddling with something in her lap. His view was obscured by the edge of the table.
It was late; her son had been asleep on his futon for three hours, his dark hair matted with sweat, one fat thumb stuffed between his lips. Ino and Chouji had left an hour ago. They needed to be up early for work, they said. Shikamaru did, too, and yet...here he still sat. He was summoning Temari's wrath this way, that was for sure. She'd be waiting for him. Well, okay, no she wouldn't. Temari never waited, but she had an idea in her head of when he should be home, and she was always aware of when he had actually come home, and she'd make him pay dearly for the discrepancy. Possibly painfully. Certainly in a cold bed.
Temari was an irritating, vexing woman. She made his life hell, complete with fire and brimstone, and yet when he thought of his marriage to her he couldn't help but feel like he'd dodged some kind of bullet. Like he'd narrowly missed having a cool, detached, utterly uninteresting journey through life alone, or possibly with someone just as uninteresting and detached. She was fire, all right, but she was the only fire he had. And when he imagined life without her, all warmth left his body, an icy chip of dispair slipping down into his stomach. He didn't need her to live. He simply needed her to feel like he was living. Not that he'd ever tell her that, of course. She was arrogant enough as it was.
Kurenai's arms went still, then she looked up at him. Or, rather, her eyes trained on his, but he got no sense that she was seeing him. And Shikamaru couldn't shake the feeling that this was the real Kurenai, now. The real Kurenai was not the woman that smiled at people's jokes and went to work and complained about the pay and played with her son and made Shikamaru dango on his birthday. This was the real one, the one whose eyes held no spark, whose spirit did not exist here in Konoha with her son and her friends.
The dead one.
She spoke, her voice without tone or passion. "Thank you for coming."
He nodded once, unsure of what else to say. Of course he had come, just like he and Ino and Chouji had done every year for the last five years. It was tradition.
She dropped her eyes and began to fiddle with the item in her lap again.
He should go, but he was still here. His intuition told him to stay, even though there was no logical reason for it. Even though there was nothing left to say, because they'd run out of memories to share, anecdotes to tell, long before Ino and Chouji had made their escape. His gut told him that something was coming, that he should wait, and his brain told him that the reason he was staying was in Kurenai's hands right now.
So he cleared his throat, and when Kurenai looked up, he quirked an eyebrow at her. He didn't want to push her, didn't want to put too much pressure on her because he didn't think that she could handle much. But he needed to know what she wanted from him, so that he could give it to her and go home. The minutes ticked by like drops of his blood.
She watched him for a long moment, dispassionately. But then, sighing, she finally withdrew her hands from under the table, revealing a pack of cigarettes. Shikamaru knew them well: it was the same brand Asuma had always smoked, and, consequently, the same brand he had smoked. Had detested.
He was momentarily taken aback. The pack was open, and he could see the cigarettes move around inside, which meant a couple were missing. He'd never seen Kurenai smoke before.
But she shook her head, smiling with just her lips. "I tried it. It's...not the same."
Not the same...as when Asuma used to smoke them.
There was something in her eyes now: expectation. The first emotion he'd detected all evening long. And when she held the pack out to him, he only hesitated a second before taking it.
"Do you still have it?" she asked.
He reached into his vest pocket and drew out Asuma's silver lighter. It was a little banged up; Shikamaru always kept it with him, and between Asuma and him it had seen its share of combat. But it worked fine. Shikamaru used it to light campfires.
Holding the lighter with the third and fourth fingers of his right hand, he tapped out a cigarette, then held it between his teeth. And when he flicked the lighter, a matching spark appeared in Kurenai's eyes.
He lit the cigarette, pulling deep, but it took him a second to convince himself to take the first drag. He hadn't had a cigarette in almost five years, and he wasn't looking forward to the dizzy, hacking, choking shit. But he finally closed his lips around it and inhaled. His head swam, his mouth tasted like crap, but at least he didn't cough. He hadn't completely lost the skill.
Temari was going to be pissed. He would smell like smoke when he got home, and she'd probably make him strip and rinse off right in the yard. He couldn't blame her, though. He felt the same way.
Kurenai seemed to be observing him, watching with clinical detachment. "Do you like it?"
He laughed, exhaling the smoke in one breath. "Not particularly."
She nodded, as if she'd expected as much. "He did."
He supposed that was a good thing. If you're going to spend so much money on a habit, you should at least derive enjoyment from it.
Her eyes were still on him as he took the second drag, assimilated it, exhaled it. And he knew what she wanted, even if she wasn't brash enough to come and get it. So he stood up, stretched his legs, and walked around the table, sitting beside her. No response from her eyes, but a hard line appeared in her jaw, and she moved over to make room, rotating her body so that she faced him, their knees almost touching. Her fingers twisted together in her lap.
He inhaled again, and, damn it...this time he did like it. He hated the taste, he hated the smoke, but it was impossible to hate the buzz. Then he breathed out, and Kurenai closed her eyes, her shoulders and chest rising as she breathed it in. A slight tremor ran through her body.
He held the cigarette between his fingers for a moment, letting the thin trail of smoke rise between them, watching her face. She kept her eyes tightly shut, her eyebrows furrowed so that he would have assumed that she was crying, except that there were no tears. Yet. She seemed caught up in memories, helped along by the smell of Asuma's smoke. Crying was inevitable.
He brought the cigarette back up and took another drag, and this time he let it dangle from his lips, dropping his hand. He exhaled; Kurenai inhaled deeply, and now he could see tears forming at the corners of her eyes, clinging there. She chewed on her bottom lip.
Another drag, another shared breath, and one of those tears let go, rolling down her cheek, her jaw, dropping onto the material of her skirt and becoming a small, dark splotch.
They smoked the cigarette together that way, each breath bringing them a little closer together, a little more in sync, Kurenai inhaling almost the moment he began to exhale, as if she couldn't stand to miss any of it. As if every waft and curl of smoke was precious. Tears fell in earnest, and Kurenai never opened her eyes. He tried to draw it out, to make the cigarette last as long as possible for her, because there wasn't going to be a second. But it wasn't long before he had to put it out in what was left of Kurenai's lemonade. He closed his own eyes, rode out the last buzz, and when he opened them again, she was watching him.
There was a little more life in her eyes, now, and she gave him a sad smile. "Thank you."
There was nothing to thank him for. Not really. If he'd done his job Asuma would have been here smoking his own damn cigarette.
She stared at him for a long moment, curiosity in her features, as if she might say something else. Or ask another question. But the curiosity flickered, faded, and left nothing behind except that lifeless distance from before.
"I guess you should get home," she said.
Yes, he certainly should. Although at this point it might be safer to stay away.
They stood, and Kurenai walked him to the door. He turned to her, inclined his head, glanced at her face, and it was there again. The curiosity, almost desperation, like she was struggling with herself. He sighed.
"I can't help you if you don't tell me what you want."
"What I want..." Her shoulders slumped, defeated, and tears welled up in her eyes again. "It's not fair to ask of you."
He waited, knowing that she'd explain herself in time.
"It's just...the smell isn't the only thing I miss."
Oh. Then he understood.
And she was right. It wasn't fair to ask, if only because, by asking, she'd tied his hands. And not because of some misplaced loyalty to Asuma. Asuma wasn't the one he was worried about. But Kurenai couldn't possibly comprehend the danger that awaited him should he fail at this duty.
He stepped forward, gathered her into his arms. She looked surprised at first, but surprise melted into longing as she tilted her face to him, heavy lids already falling over dark eyes. He kissed her simply, unsure of how to go about this with a strange woman, and for a split-second they were both completely still, cool lips pressed together. But then Kurenai took over, perhaps sensing that Shikamaru wasn't in his element, or perhaps giving in to her loneliness and need. Soon she was kissing him fervently, fingers clutching at his back, coaxing his mouth open with her tongue, and when he finally submitted, allowing her to taste him, she gave a shuddered gasp. He couldn't taste her at all, because of the cigarette, but he could feel her, teeth and tongue and unabated anguish. And he could feel her breaking.
She sobbed against him, into his lips, and he put a hand to her face to verify that tears were pouring down. He didn't wipe them away, aware that sometimes the feeling of your own, unstaunched grief was the best catharsis. But he let her linger in his mouth as long as she needed, wracking sobs dissolving into weeping, and then wet breathing, and then, finally, into consolation. She shivered, breaking away, and put her head on his shoulder. He rubbed her back awkwardly.
Eventually she looked up, humiliation all over her face. "I'm so sorry."
He shrugged. "I'm sorry it's me."
"Maybe..." She paused. "I don't want to encourage you to be dishonest, but maybe it's best if you don't tell Temari."
He couldn't help but laugh at that. "I won't have to."
She nodded, and in her eyes was a mix of emotions. Guilt, sadness, embarassment, fear...she looked so alive.
"I'm sorry," she said again. "She'll be angry at you."
That...was an understatement. Temari was going to string him up and beat him to death with the blunt edge of her fan.
Kurenai was no longer crying, but her face was still streaked with her tears. But now it would be okay; she didn't need them anymore. So he took her face between two hands, and used his thumbs to brush them away. Then he gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile.
"Yeah, she will. But not as angry as she would have been if I hadn't kissed you."
The End
