Pairing: Shikamaru/Temari

Song: Smile Like You Mean It by The Killers

Prompts: AU, taxi, dismiss, mobile phone, beach, strawberries

Summary: She was Saturday night, and he was Sunday morning. ShikaTema, AU. Oneshot.

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the day the ice melted

by tani

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He wasn't a rich man, but he had always had something going for him in the past. A smidge of luck, or a bit of extra cash. An old friend who owed him a favour. Something that helped to keep him off the big city streets.

And of course, he used to have her.

And back then, he used to say that he was a rich man, and they'd both laugh.

Now, things were worse than before. His suit was crumpled with sweat in the city heat, the jacket unbuttoned and the white linen shirt untucked. And even though his tie was loosened around his throat it felt like a noose, drawing tighter with each breath. And he could smell the sea air and the lights on the beach, and it made him feel sick.

(because she used to live on the beach, digging her toes into the sand and showing off her glowing tan, and her perfect white teeth that she flashed when he tripped and fell. He'd go sprawling on the sand and curse and she'd click her tongue at the sand on his suit and help him back up.)

Story of their life. He'd fall down, and then what?

Now he had nowhere to go and nothing to do. Even his suitcase was still sitting in her apartment, all his posessions inside it. But he wasn't going back there again.

(and when she pulled him back to his feet, he'd tell her that she was too strong for a woman. And she'd frown and tell him that women didn't belong in the kitchen and he should grow the hell up. And then she'd drop him back in the sand.)

So now he knew, it was Hollywood and a classic fairytale romance happened all over again. Boy meets girl, girl meets boy, they fall in love, and then she screams and kicks him out of her apartment.

But this time there was no sugar-filled climactic reunion that he could look forward to. He knew that already.

(they'd come home from the beach with sand in their hair and she'd laugh when he untied his ponytail and let his black hair fall out, because she always said he looked like Dee Dee Ramone on a bad hair day. But never that he should get it cut.)

And maybe he didn't dare to hope that she was wrong when she said he was useless.

Three weeks ago, Shikamaru had lived the happy-go-lucky life of a screenwriter in Hollywood. It was a tough, demanding job for a lazy, undemanding bum. He kept a copy of the script for 500 Days Of Summer in his bag and hung out at the beaches, saying he was going to make his big break someday soon. And maybe he meant it, and maybe he just liked getting invited to parties.

He was the epitome of somebody who had been in L.A. for a few seasons of the year. He was skinny as a pole and had a slight tan, and was growing a mass of grungy black hair that he always kept tied at the crown of his head.

He didn't live anywhere in particular, sometimes a friend's place, sometimes a dingy hotel near a bar that he liked to frequent -- anywhere close to the beach. When he woke up at ten in the morning, he loved to step outside and smell the salt and let the breeze run its' fingers through his hair.

He knew his craft well. He'd studied scriptwriting for years now, mapped out epics in his style, dabbled in dark dramas, tried a smatter of la commedia. He challenged people's minds with words and ideas. He led them on in an endless perceptive game, like a scriptless Pied Piper.

And above all, he failed to get a single one of his stories bought by a production company.

It was because they had no imagination. After almost a year in Hollywood, life got less enchanting and more formulated. The problem was, everything he created didn't fit with their little formulas. It didn't go into a box, to be filed away after a couple of months of promo and a bit of merchandise.

And they hated that.

But that was the way it was, and he couldn't change it. He told everybody all the great geniuses were misunderstood. Einstein failed his IQ test. Mozart died young. And unsigned or not, she had always believed in him.

At least, that was until she didn't any more.

(she said he was goddamn lazy and she struggled into her clothes and she was out of the door before he could call out to her, and tell her he was trying again, he never stopped wanting to apologize for something he couldn't change.)

How had it happened so fast? He thought he could count the seconds between tonight and the day that the ice had melted between them.

They had met at a party. She was taller than him, which was annoying, but her smile was so quick and so free that it drew him to her. She smelled faintly of salt and Imperial Leather, and she did her thick blonde hair up in four ponytails, because she said that two just wasn't enough.

And there was vodka and cherry in the bottle, and that night the glasses were all half full instead of half empty, just because they sat together and told him her name was Temari and at the end of the night she let him write his number on her neck.

And Shikamaru crashed there that night amongst the ruins of the party, on the sofa that they had lounged on and talked, and he could imagine that the cushion he was lying on still had her scent.

And after two days, she called him.

At seven o'clock on a Tuesday morning.

"Hello...?" her voice crackled down the line, sounding slightly nervous. "Is that Shikamaru?"

"Temari?" Half of him was thrilled that she'd finally called, and the other was still asleep. "...What are you doing awake this early?"

"Surfing, you idiot. The waves down here are beautiful, come and see!"

And despite himself, he smiled and lifted himself up onto one elbow, and asked, "Well, where are you?"

He hoped it wasn't just his imagination, but she sounded excited when she replied. "Down near the jetty outside the Hotel Envee."

"Gotcha," he nodded, pulling his shoes on with one hand. "I'll be there in ten minutes, okay?"

And she hung up on him.

Shikamaru cursed and dropped the phone on the floor, running out into the early morning sunlight.

When he'd moved in with her, it wasn't a big decision. He walked the two miles between Chouji's apartment (where the party had been) and her little beach house on his own, carrying a suitcase and a pair of shoes in a plastic bag. She wasn't home when he arrived, so he put his stuff down on the porch and sat down.

When she came back from work an hour later, she found him sleeping with his head leaning on the battered suitcase, and she smiled through her exhaustion and nudged him with her leg.

"Hey, silly, I told you where the key was."

He just yawned and looked up at her lazily with his deep brown eyes. "I forgot where it was."

Temari reached up onto the ledge above the door and dangled the key in front of his sleepy eyes. "I bet you just couldn't reach it, shorty."

And he protested and reached out for the key, and she laughed and held it out of his reach, and then he leaned forward and they were so close together that he could hear her breath, and their noses were inches apart.

And then her cat slunk past and knocked a pot plant off her whitewashed railing, and it smashed to the ground outside and her beautiful blue eyes stared over his shoulder instead of into his eyes, and she took a step back instead of a step forward, and Shikamaru felt her slip away from him again.

(dammit.)

And she helped him carry his stuff inside, except that there was only the suitcase, and they played tug-o-war with that until she won (he let her win) and she took it inside and he followed and she dumped it on her sofa and asked,

"Is that really everything you own?"

He grinned and thumbed at the suitcase. It contained a few shirts and his laptop, but mostly it was filled up with his notebook collection.

"Yeah, that's the whole lot."

Even his writer friends agreed that he was the least organized person they'd ever known. There were flaky, creative types, there were eccentrics, there were nobodies, and then there was Shikamaru. Temari came home to find her table covered in Post-it notes for the third day in a row, and sighed.

"They're meant to make you more organized, not less," she complained, sweeping them aside to make room for the milk and bread.

"They were organized," he protested, collecting up the ones he'd spilled on the floor. "You disorganized them."

"You're becoming a recluse at my place, and Chouji's getting mad at me for that," she said playfully, poking him on the forehead. "It's Friday night, we need to go out."

"What?"

So she dressed up in a piece of black silk that showed her long, tanned swimsuit legs and put on strappy heels, but they made her look uncomfortable. On the way to Chouji's, he told her she was walking like a penguin and she laughed and kicked off her shoes and wriggled her toes into the warm golden sand. The sun was setting over the water and it was so beautiful.

"It's wonderful! Come and see it with me," she laughed, reaching out to the sinking globe and starting to run down to the waves, the sand flicking up behind her feet.

He chased after her, stripping off his shirt and tossing it to the sand as he followed her into the waves, sinking into the water up to his waist. Her blonde hair was coming undone and she was laughing with delight as the waves slapped against her black silk dress, soaking her. He reached out for her arms and she grabbed him by the shoulders and spun them around in the water, and he laughed, because it was crazy,

(but he loved it.)

They got to Chouji's place soaking wet and in hysterics, and Shikamaru's best friend looked worried about them both, because they looked like they'd been in trouble.

"Uh, are you two okay?" he asked when he opened the door for them. Shikamaru shook his head, breathless from laughter and running all the way there trying to catch up with this beautiful crazy girl,

(but he really loved it.)

"Sorry, Chouji, we're such a mess," he managed to gasp, leaning on the doorway.

"But it was so much fun!" Temari exclaimed, and Shikamaru gave her an odd look,

and then they both started laughing all over again.

And much later that night, they sat outside together, and Shikamaru silently ruminated on the fact that he was living in her house but not in her bed, and Temari thought about less obvious things, and sipped at her strawberry martini.

And in between the silences, they asked each other little questions to supplement the tales they'd already told each other about home and pets and brothers and mothers and high school and life before Los Angeles. But it didn't do any good, because he kept thinking of all the reasons he hadn't kissed her yet,

and it all boiled down to how absolutely beautiful she was to him.

and maybe it all boiled down to fear of rejection, but heck, he was just a screenwriter. And it would hurt, but one day, he might be able to use the pain again. To feel again and risk his feelings.

So when she said, very uncharacteristically, "I think I want to go home," he shook his head.

"We should stay, the band's still playing inside."

And that was when she looked into his eyes like she had before the cat had interrupted him, only she was on his level now, and he stood up.

"Okay, if you want to go --" he started abruptly, feeling guilty for contradicting her. He was living in her house, anyway, he should be more considerate.

"No, I want..." she trailed off, and there was that look again, and finally he found the courage inside of him to

lean down and put his hands on the arms of her chair

and kiss her swiftly, crushing his lips urgently against hers.

Temari's chair rocked backwards and she flung an arm out to steady herself on the table, knocking her glass off the smooth surface and it went flying, spilling the ice cubes inside all over the sand.

Shikamaru slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her up against him, out of the chair.

"Thought you'd never ask," Temari grinned, and she kissed him again, her soft lips pressing into his with a taste sweeter than the strawberry martini.

And on the sand, the ice melted.

Now once again, she had dismissed him -- he was vanished from her life just as surely as her house had disappeared when the taxi he'd called pulled around the bend, and he'd put the palm of his hand against the window and leaned his forehead on the cool glass and just wished.

(and I wish I wish I wish you weren't going)

And now once again he was standing on an empty street corner, in this crumpled suit with the tie like a noose, and he didn't even have the guts to go back to Chouji's. He didn't want to try and explain himself to his best friend, he didn't even think he could explain. There was nothing he could have done to make her stay.

He could have been a different guy, sure, and then maybe she wouldn't have yelled at him, gotten sick of him, kicked him out of her little house that smelt like sweet incense and dishwashing liquid and the salty breeze that blew in from the sea.

And he remembered how much he liked living on the beach.

(and I wish I wish I wish you weren't gone)

And in his pocket, his phone buzzed, and he pulled it out of his clothes and answered it with bated breath.

"Hello?"

"Shikamaru?"

It was her voice, trembling with emotion like he didn't think it could have before tonight. And his breath was sucked from his lungs and dissipiated into the dark sky and he answered, "Yeah?"

"Please come home. I... changed my mind about what I said."

And Shikamaru hung up on her,

and started to run after the taxi, shouting that the driver had to hold on because he wanted to go back, because she needed him and she had just nearly said so.

Because even if she was Saturday night and he was Sunday morning, and she was a hard worker and he was a lazy slacker, she understood him, and she had just nearly said so.

And when he got back to her place, he got out of the taxi and wrapped his arms around her and kissed her again,

and they both realized it had all been said already.

(And they lived happily ever after.)

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the end