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Shikamaru had his head resting on his desk in his study, eyes closed and quietly convincing himself that he wasn’t having a nap, he was just taking a break.
There was a scattering of papers and scrolls across his desk, and he had been working on them for most of the morning already. It was clan stuff; boring, tedious, and a task he had been foisting off on Temari for the last few months. (She was better at paperwork, he argued, and more efficient. And he had the ring and marriage certificate to prove she was very much a Nara and therefore fully capable of handling the work.)
(Temari said he was a lazy, useless bastard.)
Shikamaru let out a short sigh at the sound of another peal of laughter from the direction of Shikadai’s room. Shikadai and Inojin had been endlessly noisy the entire day, from waking up far too early, to watching the TV on apparent full blast, to laughing and talking and playing obnoxiously loud games.
Shikamaru hadn’t had a moment of quiet since waking up.
It was making him tired, and he wanted to go back to sleep.
He opened his eyes, blinking a half-unravelled scroll into focus, and considered it for a moment. He was about to reach for it and actually get some work done when there was another yell from the direction of Shikadai’s room.
Shikamaru closed his eyes again, willing the kids to quiet down.
The nattering and giggling carried on for a seeming eternity before Shikamaru heard Shikadai’s bedroom door close.
“Inojin and I are going out,” Shikadai hollered casually, stomping through the house. Shikamaru wondered vaguely how he could be so quiet when he wanted. Shikadai generally sounded like a herd of elephants, but could be soundless as a cat when the mood struck him.
Troublesome, he thought absently, wincing at the force with which Shikadai slammed the front door.
The house was silent.
Completely silent.
Shikamaru spent a minute revelling in the quiet, at the sheer nothingness that surrounded him, and told himself he could finally work in peace. He didn’t make a move to do so, though. He remained listening to the nothingness.
The quiet was strange. It made the house feel lonely, and Shikamaru hadn’t realized how much he had become accustomed to the sound of his son going about his business, or Temari keeping up a conversation with herself since Shikamaru was dozing and not contributing. There was always some sort of background hum to life.
The silence had a different feel to it. Not unsettling, but eerily out of the ordinary.
He pushed the thought aside in favour of a nap, telling himself he could finish his work later.
He ended up sleeping the rest of the day away, startling awake at the sound of Temari returning home.
“I’m home,” she yelled casually, and Shikamaru rubbed the tiredness from his eyes and stretched leisurely, listening to the various cracking sounds that his joints made. That couldn’t be healthy, but he wasn’t going to dwell on it.
He found Temari in the kitchen, unpacking a small bag of groceries.
Shikamaru stared at the bag. It was just a few things – some nice fresh vegetables, a small bag of rice, the fish that Shikamaru liked. And, of course, various treats for herself since Temari had a sweet tooth and was a firm believer in self-gratification.
That’s what their shopping trips were going to look like one day, Shikamaru realized. Smaller bags, smaller portions. Just him and her, no Shikadai involved. No extras stocked up in the cupboard because Inojin and Chocho were always in and out and visiting without notice.
It would be quiet. Very quiet, without the chatter of kids.
Shikamaru went outside to sit on the edge of the porch and think.
Temari joined him a few minutes later, sitting down beside him and shuffling up into his personal space. They studied the forest for a while, in silence, and that lack of noise made Shikamaru’s mind tick back into gear, and reconsider his earlier musings.
He scratched thoughtfully at his chin. “You ever think of the future?”
“How far into the future?” Temari asked. “Because I’ve planned dinner, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“No, I meant,” Shikamaru hesitated. He put his arm around her shoulders. “When Shikadai moves out. When it’s back to just you and me.”
Temari sent him a calculating, sideways look, before answering slowly, “Are you worried you’ll get sick of me?”
“I’m worried it’ll be lonely,” he admitted. “Think about it. It’s so quiet without him. But we know he’s coming home. When he moves out, then the quiet will stay. It’s . . . strange, to consider.”
“He’s not moving out for years,” Temari remarked.
“He’s been talking about getting a place with Inojin and Chocho. Once they are all Chuunin and have a bit more money. That might happen sooner than we expect.”
“It might,” Temari agreed, scanning the trees. “But he’ll still come home.”
They fell into contemplative silence, before Temari added lightly, “But think of all the pros to having the house to ourselves again.”
“Like what?” Shikamaru asked.
“We can have sex anywhere we want,” Temari said, eying him.
“We do that anyway.”
“Yeah, but we won’t have to worry about scarring Shikadai for life.”
“We’ve never worried about that before,” Shikamaru grinned.
Temari laughed, leaning her head down onto his shoulder. “No, I guess we didn’t.”
Shikamaru moved his fingers idly up and down Temari’s arm, cheek nestled against her hair. There was a soft feeling in his stomach at the thought of a house without his son. Something stuck between interest at Shikadai growing up and showing the world who he was, and a melancholy sense of loss.
“I can turn his bedroom into a shogi room,” Shikamaru mused.
Temari snorted. “No, we’re using it to store weapons.”
“But we already have somewhere to store weapons.”
“And we already have a shogi room,” she shot back. She huffed her bangs out of her eyes, and added on, “I want another fan. There’s no room to store it safely. And we’ve got kunai stuffed into random drawers. It’d be nice to keep them all in one place.”
“Why do you need another fan?” Shikamaru asked. “After Shikadai moves out, won’t you be thinking about retiring?”
She shrugged. “Probably not. Why would I?”
Shikamaru stopped himself just in time from mentioning that she was, after all, getting older. He cleared his throat, rapidly changing thoughts. “So we can spend more time together.”
“You’re working as the Hokage’s assistant,” Temari pointed out, with a raised eyebrow. “Unless you retire as well, we won’t see any more of each other than we do right now.”
“Fair enough,” he conceded. “But still . . . without Shikadai around you might get bored.”
“So I’ll go visit my brothers more often,” Temari stated casually.
Shikamaru let out a sigh. “But then I don’t have anyone at home with me.”
“Aw, poor baby,” Temari dug an elbow into his side, and Shikamaru shifted at the feeling, but didn’t move away. “What will you do with all that time to nap and relax and do absolutely nothing?”
“It won’t be the same when you’re not here nagging me about those things,” Shikamaru replied.
“Then retire, and we can travel together.”
“That sounds like a lot of work and effort,” Shikamaru hedged.
“So what do you want to do?” Temari tossed her head, bangs flying. “Because every time I see you, you are sitting on your lazy ass – just like you are right now.”
Shikamaru sighed.
“You don’t want to spend every day doing this, surely?” Temari asked, arching an eyebrow.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s boring,” she elbowed him in the ribs again, and Shikamaru winced at the pain. “Don’t you want some excitement? Something interesting happening?”
“I’ve had enough excitement for a lifetime,” Shikamaru replied. “And it’s not boring. It’s peaceful.”
“Boring, you old man,” Temari scoffed. She scrambled to her feet. “Get a hobby, you dork. Not shogi.”
“We worked hard for peace; let me enjoy it,” Shikamaru leant his weight back on his hands. After a moment, he added, “We could do the things we used to do before we had Shikadai.”
“That was mostly just groping each other,” Temari replied, nudging him with a foot before turning to go back into the kitchen.
“We could do that again,” Shikamaru murmured. He remained where he was, watching the forest, listening to it. It was so quiet, so muted. Gently rustling leaves, the occasional distant crack of a twig underfoot a deer, some birds chirping.
Nothing like life had been – no feet stomping through the house, no yelling, no incessant chattering and no beeping from those infernal games Shikadai liked so much.
Shikamaru sighed, closing his eyes and concentrating on nothing but the feel of the air.
Life would be like this. Finally. He had been waiting for this – for the peace that came not only from an empty house but also from the greater dangers of the world being nullified. This had been a far-off dream, now in reach.
“Tem,” he called out, knowing she would hear him. “We could be like those old married couples who walk together around the clan grounds every day, and have breakfast together on the front porch and watch other people.”
“Boring!”
“Calm doesn’t mean boring,” Shikamaru grumbled. He heard her mutter something under her breath, but didn’t think the argument was worth asking what she said. So he sat in silence again, imagining days strung together with the same calmness, the same lack of excitement.
It sounded comfortable and pleasing. Shikamaru felt a soft, glowing sense of completeness in his chest at the notion.
All the fighting, all the struggles, to lead to this, to being able to simply be. No expectation, no ambition. Like the trees that made up the forest he called home, he would merely be and let life pass by as he watched it, wizened and weathered.
It wasn’t the cloud drifting freedom he used to dream of but, he mused, looking over his shoulder in the direction Temari was, dreams changed. His had, too.
The dream of peace and quiet was still there, but instead of endless skies and aimless ramblings and empty thoughts, it now held whispered conversation with Temari and Shogi games and the pleasure of watching his village thrive with new growth.
That was the next step.
That’s what he wanted to live to see.
The sound of footsteps on the porch made him turn his head to the side, to see Shikadai and Inojin side by side, both looking at Shikadai’s handheld game and chattering with their heads close together. Their conversation was interspersed with giggles and triumphant declarations, with indignant squeals when the game did not go to plan, and cheerful celebration when it did. They drowned out all the sounds of the forest and all Shikamaru’s thoughts of a soft retirement.
“Hey, boys,” he greeted warmly.
“Hey, Dad,” Shikadai threw a greeting out dismissively, and Inojin chirped a quick ‘hi’.
“Let me try,” Inojin suddenly said, making a grab for the game.
Shikadai deftly yanked it out of his friend’s reach, rebuking, “No, I can do it!”
“You’re messing it up!”
“I can do it!”
“You clearly can’t!”
Shikamaru raised an eyebrow as they continued to fight over the controls, and the game’s sounds became more intense as disaster brewed in whatever they were doing. He felt Temari’s presence in the doorway behind him, knew that she would be watching the boys with that special, soft, affectionate smile that was so difficult to coax from her.
He glanced at her, to get a glimpse of that smile to commit to memory and treasure with the other few times she had allowed it, then looked to the boys. Shikadai had successfully kicked Inojin off the porch onto the grass, and was now running madly around the house with the game aloft, loudly announcing his success in the game.
Yes, peace and solitude were wonderful dreams.
But for now . . . Shikamaru was content with what he had.