Chapter Text
She talked more, smiled less.
Shikamaru welcomed any kind of change—was grateful to have earned some of her trust, even when her words often cut deep enough to scar.
She recounted how she found herself astray on this road. How Sasuke had stolen bits and pieces of her person until she was left in shambles.
Shikamaru listened. He listened because he heard the tremor of pain in her voice and saw fear in her eyes—understood in the corners of his heart that were not fractured by her admittance that what she needed from him was assurance, that she was cautioning him that she wouldn’t endure this kind of pain again.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, once she was done talking, and her eyes glimmered but did not leak. “Not like that. Never like that.”
“I’m not sure you understand,” she whispered. “You don’t understand that I’ve given up. It’s too much to feel that way, Shikamaru.”
Ha. And what did she know of what he felt? The pain of loving something you knew would hurt you, the knowledge that you were too late, and now hope was lost.
He leaned back in his seat. They were curled on the long couch, inhabiting opposing corners in hopes of creating some distance. Her, to shield whatever dignity she had left. Him, in hopes of resisting temptation.
“It’s too much to feel this way too,” he found himself saying.
Their eyes locked, hers brimming, his … Shikamaru couldn’t conceive what his showed, but Sakura seemed ensnared in whatever she’d found lurking there.
“What do you feel?” she asked with a hitching breath.
He did not dare look away from the green of her eyes. Let her see, he thought, let her see what lurks. “I’m burning,” he confessed, and it echoed in his own voice, the way it rasped like it was on fire. “I burn. For you.”
She bit her lip.
Did it make her want to run?
She shifted, rising on her knees, and Shikamaru was sure he would see her gone forever. She would turn, run for the door, escape the deep waters of his feelings that he knew would drown her.
Sakura loomed closer.
Shikamaru stopped breathing.
“Why?” she choked, coming closer still to where he had frozen, afraid to make a single move lest he frighten her away.
Because I love you.
“Because … because I …” The words sank down to melt in his stomach like acid. Hadn’t he torn himself open for her already? Could he offer more when she was offering so little?
What did she need him to do? Splay himself open? Make himself bleed? Brandish every thought and feeling for her so that she could use them to cut him if she so desired?
“Because you what?” Her fingers grasped on his shoulders, steadying her as she leaned on him. “You have to tell me.”
He closed his eyes, breathing wobbly against desire and frustration. “I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m naked, and you’re wrapped in a thousand layers, Sakura.” He gritted out. “How much more of myself do I need to lay bare to get you to trust me?”
Her breath washed hotly over his face, and oh, it burned, it burned so much.
“More than him,” she said, and that burned even worse. “He gave me pieces of himself and still left. Still deceived me. He burned my heart out.”
He reached for her then, because he had reached his end. He cradled her face between his hands, opening his eyes to see the utter pain glowing in hers like embers in the night. “Let me fix you,” he begged. “Let me show you that to burn for the one you love is not to be reduced to ashes.”
Her eyes overflowed. “I’m so sorry.”
He had made her cry. He braced against stabbing pain and drew her closer, forehead to forehead. “Please don’t cry.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
“I don’t want to make you cry,” he pleaded and lost a small battle with himself as his lips sought the droplets cutting tracks down her face, kissing them away.
“It’s not you,” she sniffed. “It’s me. Gods, I’m a mess.”
“My mess,” he declared. “Be my mess. Let me take care of you.”
She nodded, imperceptibly at first, but then more fervently as she gave in, leaning against him, pushing closer to find his lips.
He squeezed his eyes shut when his chest was nearly overwhelmed. It had been weeks and weeks and weeks of precariously swaying on the edge of a cliff.
The titillating but often maddening game of “will we, won’t we” had driven him to his wits’ end. And now he was tasting her, the way he had been imagining since he’d seen her kiss the mouth of her whisky bottle at that bar many weeks ago.
Afraid she might stop, panic, or worse, push him away, he held her still, taking her in increments, keeping himself on the tightest leash to take exactly as much as she was offering and not an inch more.
“You have to let me in,” he said gently between kisses, tilting his head this way and that. “How many years have you known me?”
“Fourteen,” she whispered.
“Fourteen years. Have I ever hurt anyone?” He leaned back to look at her again.
Her cheeks were flushed, dewy lips parted at the seams, pink with his kiss. He traced them with his thumb, breathless, tasting peach on his tongue now.
She tasted like peaches and whisky and despair and he never wanted to taste anything else again.
“No,” she said shakily.
“No,” he confirmed. “I fight different battles Sakura, and not with anger. Certainly not with indifference. I don’t burn the ones I once cared about, even when I no longer care for them.”
She nodded again, closing her eyes and breathing brokenly against him. “You’ll have your work cut out for you.”
He laughed, pained and hopeful at once. “I know.”
“You won’t like me very much at the end,” she cautioned as more tears rolled down her face.
“Bullshit,” he said, catching her gaze again. “I’m here now, still laying myself bare even when you could walk away any second, Sakura. I already placed my heart in your hand ... you could hurt me more than I could ever hurt you.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.” She touched their lips together ever so softly, a ghostly whisper more than a kiss.
“Then don’t.” He curled a hand in her short pink hair, guiding her closer for a proper kiss.
A shuddering breath passed through her nose, her fingers curling firmly over his shoulders as she returned each swipe of his tongue, tentatively at first but then more boldly.
Peaches and whisky and despair, but also desire in the way she sucked his tongue into her mouth, and hope in the way she caressed his face with gentle palms.
His laborious breaths made her draw away as he got caught up in his own feelings, and he realised his hands had curled over her thighs to squeeze restlessly.
She offered him a small smile, a shy one as he looked at her, undoubtedly like a man drunk in love. “This is all I can give of myself for now.”
Well, he was already reduced. A man on his knees in all senses but the literal—praying, begging, worshiping, he wasn’t sure anymore. “I’ll take anything you offer,” he said, chewing his own lip to channel the severity of just how much he meant that, even when it could damn him. “Anything at all. And if this is all you have for me, I’ll settle for it.”
“My kiss?” she said, emotional.
“Yes,” he agreed, strong arms encircling her middle more securely, pleading conviction into her skin. His palm landed on her collarbones, pressing hotly. “And hopefully a flutter here, because I hold many for you under my ribs.”
She smiled then, her first real smile, wobbly and sincere and so grateful, and it was beautiful, so beautiful he couldn’t look away.
“Wow,” she said with awe, voice wet.
He smiled in return, shy now but for the very real burn still residing in his chest that lent a severity to his gaze and left her breathless. “Sounds like a deal, yeah?”
“Yeah,” she said, closing her eyes and resting their forehead together again. “It does.”
“Good,” he exhaled slowly, allowing her warmth to fully sink under his skin, to pull him under. “Very good, I can now just … breathe you … mhm, without fear.”
“Fear of what?” The words fluttered on his cheek.
“Getting drunk.” He pressed the gentlest kisses to her cheek in return. “On you. Only to find you gone when I’m sober.”
“I’m here,” she said after a beat of silence, undoubtedly having arrived at a decision. “Drink me in.”
Heat pulsed through him, but he willed it under control. “I’ll drown in you and drown you in me, Sakura.”
It was a promise, one he intended to fulfill and meant every word of.
He had vowed to invade her the way she invaded him, but it was no longer enough. He wished to be consumed, wished to consume her.
“Breathe,” he told her when he realised she’d stopped. “It won’t hurt.”
“Promise?”
He found her lips in a lingering kiss. “I swear it.”